Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

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 paid to treat. Laura's addiction started young — alcohol and weed at 12, ecstasy and opioids in high school, hydrocodone giving way to the "thirties" she'd chase for years. She was, in her own words, high-functioning: seven years of college straight through while using, always getting just enough done to convince herself she wasn't really an addict because she wasn't "living under a bridge." She managed it through a cocktail of prescribed Adderall, Xanax, opioids, and alcohol — until she couldn't. She's brutally honest in this episode about the parts that are hardest to admit: being a therapist counseling people on their addictions while hiding her own, discovering kratom through her own clients, getting Suboxone delivered to her mailbox, being pulled over by the DEA on a work errand, and the day her own coworkers — many in recovery themselves — sat her down and refused to let her lie her way out one more time. One of them, a mother who'd nearly lost her own kids, told Laura she was going to lose her daughter. That was the moment the fog broke. Now four years sober, Laura is a licensed clinical social worker and clinical director doing the work honestly — using everything she survived to help others find the way out. This is a powerful story about the high-functioning addict nobody suspects, and the moment of clarity that changes everything. 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

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 care where you come from or how much promise you have. Her struggle began not with drugs or alcohol — which she didn't touch until she was 19 — but with the way she used control and food to escape what she was feeling. From there it moved into stimulants she first used to manage her eating, then alcohol, then psychedelics, until the straight-A Ivy League student was living out of her car with a few dollars to her name. She speaks with remarkable honesty about the hardest chapters: the decision, in active addiction, to let her mother raise her baby daughter; the depths she reached far from home; and the moment she finally chose treatment. Now 18 months clean and sober, Tatum has her life, her health, and her relationship with her daughter back — and she's sharing all of it so someone else knows they're not too far gone. 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

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, whether you can have a problem if you don't use every day, what's harder — getting sober or learning to live sober, how to handle grief and hard times without picking up, whether you can stay sober and still behave the way you did in active addiction, whether two people in recovery can have a healthy relationship, what to do when someone won't forgive you even after you've changed, and why so many people relapse when things are going well. Honest, practical, and straight from lived experience — no scripts, just two people sharing what actually worked for them. Karina will be back to share her full story again soon — drop a comment if you want to hear it. And if you have questions for the next Q&A, leave them in the comments and we'll bring them to the next round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 her whole life. Her story runs through a decade-plus of addiction: cocaine and Xanax as a teenager, two kids by 21, and then the drug that truly took her under — Adderall. She describes eating eight to ten pills a day, dropping to 134 pounds, and finally crossing into meth (introduced, unforgettably, by a stranger driving a street sweeper) and then heroin and speedballs. She lost everything, ended up living in her car, and survived things she says by all rights should have landed her in prison or worse. What finally broke through came on Halloween of 2021 — after a terrifying assault and a night sitting outside a detox for hours waiting to be let in. A clinician she'd never met refused to let her sign herself out, told her she was worth fighting for, and it changed everything. Alexa got sober that day. She later went to work as a peer recovery specialist for the very organization that saved her, and today she's a therapist helping others find the way out. 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 her whole life.Her story runs through a decade-plus of addiction: cocaine and Xanax as a teenager, two kids by 21, and then the drug that truly took her under — Adderall. She describes eating eight to ten pills a day, dropping to 134 pounds, and finally crossing into meth (introduced, unforgettably, by a stranger driving a street sweeper) and then heroin and speedballs. She lost everything, ended up living in her car, and survived things she says by all rights should have landed her in prison or worse.What finally broke through came on Halloween of 2021 — after a terrifying assault and a night sitting outside a detox for hours waiting to be let in. A clinician she'd never met refused to let her sign herself out, told her she was worth fighting for, and it changed everything. Alexa got sober that day. She later went to work as a peer recovery specialist for the very organization that saved her, and today she's a therapist helping others find the 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

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 Roxy on her desk like a morning coffee, through rehabs and relapses, to the streets of Kensington in Philadelphia — one of the epicenters of the opioid crisis. She's unflinchingly honest about the depths: shooting heroin and cocaine together, drug-induced psychosis, and a rock bottom in a trap house that finally broke through. Getting clean nearly killed her — her detox was so severe she went into seizures and was placed in a medically-induced coma for days. Today Cassidy is over a year sober, has her own apartment for the first time in a decade, and is rebuilding a life she thought was gone. A raw reminder that no one is too far gone. This Episode Is Sponsored By NOCDA lot of people who've done the hard work of getting sober still struggle with unwanted, intrusive thoughts that bring guilt and shame and keep coming back. For some people, that may be OCD — and in recovery it often goes unrecognized for years because it can look like anxiety or feel like part of the process. The good news is it's treatable. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, with licensed therapists who specialize in ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy through live, face-to-face virtual sessions, plus support between sessions. NOCD is covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. 👉 Book a free 15-minute call at: https://www.treatmyocd.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 imagined — about 112,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 1.1 million followers across all platforms. I just hired a five-person team handling social media, guest bookings, and content, which has finally freed me up to focus on the interviews and new opportunities. One of those opportunities was surreal: a deal with Paramount. When I started the podcast two years ago, one of my early interviews was with Dr. Nadine, Jordan Belfort's ex-wife. Paramount licensed that content, and when The Real Wolf of Wall Street came out, my phone blew up with people who spotted the clip in the documentary. Through all of it, the mission hasn't changed. It's become my job and there's real business behind it now, but I keep my 12-step recovery completely separate, and the goal of every single episode is still just to help that one person. God takes care of the rest. Plus — Lilo update. The Rise Above puppy is 19 weeks now, nearly doubled in size, fully potty trained, and crushing his training. Thank you for being part of this. Episode six is coming in a few weeks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 professor's offhand pitch about "sugar dating" pulled her into a world she didn't understand until she was deep inside it. What started as a way to feel some control over her own body turned into exploitation, coercion, and being trafficked — passed between men who told her she was owned. For years she saw it as her own doing. It wasn't. This is the story of how Kelsey came to understand what was actually done to her, how she got out, and how she rebuilt a life and an identity that finally belong to her. Today she's sober, healing, and using her voice so other survivors know it was never their fault — and that there's a way out. This is a hard, honest conversation about trauma, exploitation, and reclaiming your life. 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

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 only see in movies. He ran a nationwide retail-theft ring that took him through 38 states in 11 months, got involved in gang life, and cycled in and out of prison. It culminated the day after Christmas 2020, when — a daily user of meth, heroin, PCP, and more — he walked into a bank and robbed it, then told the FBI he had a bomb. He was facing 33 years and two strikes. Matt walks through all of it: the sexual abuse that shaped his childhood, the 14 years he went without speaking to his family, getting sober, relapsing after three and a half years, and finally finding his way back. Now 2.5 years sober, he's using everything he survived to help other people find a 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

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 binge drinker — the kind who could go weeks without a drink, then take one at a party and not stop until 6am. For years that let her tell herself she didn't really have a problem, especially when everyone around her in college and corporate life was drinking exactly the same way. Underneath it was childhood trauma she wouldn't fully face until she got sober, and a body she never felt safe in. Her story isn't one of arrests or overdoses. It's the quieter, more common one: geographic moves that never fixed anything, a new city and a new relationship that never fixed anything, and the slow realization that the problem followed her everywhere because the problem was the thing she was running from inside. After a decade of trying to moderate, she finally got sober a year and a half ago — and found that the real work, the trauma healing and the rebuilding of an identity, was only just beginning. Now 19 months sober, Allie is a recovery and healing content creator who talks openly about inner-child work, nervous-system regulation, and building a life so full you don't want to escape it. This one is for anyone who looks fine on paper and is quietly struggling underneath. 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

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 ever felt comfortable in his own skin. But the twist in Andrew's story is what came next: he became a corrections officer, working the dorms of Louisiana prisons — one guard to 120 inmates — while secretly getting high. He was buying pills at a known trap house, still in his prison uniform after a shift, when a SWAT team kicked in the door and put everyone on the ground. He talked his way out of that one. He was arrested again, still employed as a CO, and finally quit the job when he realized how close he was to smuggling drugs into the prison himself. From there it accelerated into full-blown heroin addiction and the needle. Andrew describes hundred-dollar-a-day Roxy habits, a string of arrests, work-release programs, and finally total collapse: homeless, living in the backseat of an old Honda Civic, robbing and breaking into houses to keep using. He overdosed in a Dollar General parking lot and woke up in the hospital having lost his hearing from oxygen deprivation. Days later he overdosed again in his parents' house, went septic, and spent two weeks in the hospital hallucinating. Then one night he walked into his mother's room and said the words he'd said a hundred times before — "I'm ready" — except this time it stuck. His brother had just gotten sober too. On March 1st, nine years ago, Andrew got clean, and he says it didn't just save his life — it brought his entire family back together. 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

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 moment he'd "arrived" the feeling he wanted to chase for the rest of his life. That chase took everything. Percocet became heroin, heroin became a needle, and a move to Philadelphia and then Florida accelerated it all. By the summer of 2014 he was homeless on the streets of Miami, sleeping in a chair in Bayfront Park, panhandling every morning just to stave off withdrawal, and calling his father for hotel money he'd spend on dope. He survived an overdose that left him in a coma for a week. He cycled through arrests, rehabs, and relapses, and by October of 2019 — heartbroken, back on the streets, and certain he was too far gone — he had all but given up. Two things pulled him back: seeing a friend he'd been homeless with return from rehab completely transformed, and a fifty-something man in a state-funded rehab who had been coming back to that same program since before Jonah was born. Jonah decided he refused to become that man. He got sober on January 10th, 2020 — a date that, unbeknownst to him at the time, was the same day he'd later mark as the anniversary of his father's death. Now 6 years sober, Jonah went from being turned down by every employer because of his felonies to building a career, starting as a driver's helper at UPS the same day he left rehab. This is a story about grief, hitting the absolute bottom, and the hope that finally broke through. #RiseAbove #HeroinRecovery #FentanylRecovery #6YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #OpioidRecovery #HomelessToHopeful #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #JonahFingerhood #OverdoseSurvivor #GriefAndRecovery #SecondChances #NeverTooFarGone #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 way he was always supposed to feel — and that was the beginning. What followed was a fast, brutal slide into opioid addiction, made worse by a string of deaths in a matter of weeks — a close friend killed crossing a road, his uncle, his old rowing coach — that piled grief on top of a young man already numbing everything he felt. He details a decade-plus odyssey through the pill mills of Florida, wilderness programs and Hazelden, sober livings full of unforgettable characters, Suboxone and Xanax, spice and kratom, and the self-corrected relapses in between. It culminates in a harrowing night during COVID — drinking beyond recognition, his memory in pieces — when police showed up at his door at four in the morning and his gun went off. No one was hurt, he was never charged, and dropping to his knees in his apartment afterward, he knew something had to give. The redemption is the best part. Chris turned the exact thing that nearly killed him into his purpose, building a career in medical and toxicology sales in the drug-testing world — his hard-won knowledge of addiction becoming, as he puts it, the first time he saw God working in his life. This is a raw, funny, wide-ranging conversation about grief, identity, and finding meaning on the other side. 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

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 his early thirties and has been in active addiction for over a decade. This is a conversation about what addiction does to the people who love an addict — the family members Michaela calls the silent sufferers. She talks with unflinching honesty about the guilt she still carries from being the one who first smoked weed with him, the slow-dawning realization that her sister's missing Percocets meant something was wrong, the chaos of the family scrambling to force him into rehab, the relapses, and the heartbreak of watching him choose the street over the family that's right down the road. Most of all, it's about her own healing: learning that she couldn't shame him or love him into recovery, that tough love and boundaries aren't the same thing, and that the only thing she can be for her brother right now is his sister — with boundaries firmly in place, and the door still open. 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

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 father, only got thicker with every scene. That armor had a cost. Mike traces his addiction back to the pills he was prescribed as a teenager and the painkillers that made him feel, for the first time, like everything was okay. Over the years tramadol became the thing that held him together — until it was pulling him apart. At his worst he was taking as many as 55 pills a day and suffered nine seizures, including one in a GameStop and one that slammed his face into a countertop, before he finally looked at his ex-wife and said the words he'd avoided for years: I need help. He got sober in 2012 — reportedly one of the first people his insurance company had ever sent to rehab for tramadol. But sobriety was only half the story. After being medically retired, the anger and grief he'd channeled into the job for three decades had nowhere to go, and a nervous breakdown forced him to finally face the PTSD he'd carried for years. This episode goes into the healing work that followed, including his experience with plant-based medicine. 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

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, only to be blamed for it the next morning. The rule was simple: you don't tell anyone what happens in this house. This is a raw conversation about what it actually does to a child to grow up as the parent in their own home — the hypervigilance, the caretaking, the way chaos starts to feel like the only thing you know how to operate in. It's also a story of breaking the cycle: how Indee got out, what she's unlearning, and the father who got sober and reminded her of her own worth. For every adult still carrying what they survived as a kid — this one's for you. #RiseAbove #AdultChildrenOfAlcoholics #ACOA #GrowingUpWithAddicts #FamilyDisease #CrackAddiction#BreakingTheCycle #ChildhoodTrauma #Parentification #GenerationalTrauma #TraumaRecovery#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #IndeeFields #HealingJourney #Codependency #SurvivorStory#DomesticViolenceAwareness #YouAreNotAlone #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 business — while binge drinking and discovering she loved pills. Then she tried ketamine. A friend had warned her she'd never be able to handle it. He was right. She describes it as the drug she'd been looking for her whole life, and within a few years her tolerance was, in her words, like a 700-pound man's. What almost nobody talks about is what ketamine does to the body. Sydney does. She describes cramps that escalated into 72 hours of pain so severe she was screaming through a heating pad, five ER visits in a single year, and a urologist warning her she was headed for surgery — all while holding a 200-pill Klonopin prescription from a psychiatrist she'd told, in plain words, that she was using every day. Her mother noticed a prescription refill Sydney never picked up. That was the thread that pulled her into treatment. Today Sydney is nearly two years sober, president of the Caron Alumni Association, and back to making the art she loves. 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. #RiseAbove #KetamineAddiction #Ketamine #AddictionRecovery #RecoveryIsPossible #WomenInRecovery#2YearsSober #SoberLife #Caron #PrescribedYoung #ADHDMedication #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#KetamineRecovery #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #SydneySteele #OverPrescribed #SoberCurious#OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Something he can only describe as divine intervention pulled him back at the last possible second, and for the first time he heard a different thought: maybe I'm still here for a reason. His mother found him, got on the phone calling every detox in a fifty-mile radius, and Billy walked into treatment the next day. What followed was the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding a person — eighteen weeks in an outpatient program when the standard was six, learning who he was without a substance for the first time since he was a teenager, walking miles to and from treatment every day because his life was in pieces. Nine years later, Billy is engaged, has a two-year-old, has built a career with more opportunity than he ever imagined, and walked into this interview with a smile he couldn't have pictured back then. 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. Something he can only describe as divine intervention pulled him back at the last possible second, and for the first time he heard a different thought: maybe I'm still here for a reason. His mother found him, got on the phone calling every detox in a fifty-mile radius, and Billy walked into treatment the next day.What followed was the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding a person — eighteen weeks in an outpatient program when the standard was six, learning who he was without a substance for the first time since he was a teenager, walking miles to and from treatment every day because his life was in pieces. Nine years later, Billy is engaged, has a two-year-old, has built a career with more opportunity than he ever imagined, and walked into this interview with a smile he couldn't have pictured back then. 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. #RiseAbove #Recovery #9YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #SoberLife#MentalHealthAwareness #SuicidePrevention #YouAreNotAlone #HopeInRecovery #OpioidRecovery#SobrietyJourney #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #BillyRich #988 #SecondChances #KeepGoing #MensMentalHealth #ThereIsHope Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⚠️ 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. If this helps prevent even one tragedy, it will have done its job. Brendan grew up an only child in Orange County, New York, raised by two alcoholic parents in a home where, by his own account, he never saw human connection modeled. A severe stutter and later-diagnosed autism left him profoundly isolated. His father was physically abusive during his drinking years; his mother later drank herself to death. He speaks candidly about the things that, in hindsight, were red flags: being put on SSRIs young, an escalating obsession with true crime, the empathy problems he now takes responsibility for, and the deep resentment he felt toward peers after an injury took away sports — his one connection to others. He walks through how the planning began, the classmates who reported him (which he now says was exactly right), and the multiple points where the adults around him could have intervened. Today Brendan takes full responsibility for the fear he caused. This is a hard conversation, but an important one for any parent, educator, or young person trying to understand what these warning signs actually look like from the inside. 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. #RiseAbove #SchoolSafety #ViolencePrevention #WarningSigns #MentalHealthAwareness #SandyHookPromise#KnowTheSigns #Accountability #TraumaAndBehavior #YouthMentalHealth #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning#SchoolShootingPrevention #SeeSomethingSaySomething #Autism #Isolation #SecondChances #Rehabilitation#Parenting #Prevention Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 inside her own rehab. For eight years she ran on methadone and weekend heroin. Her final year spiraled into crack addiction and selling her body full-time through the COVID pandemic, cycling in and out of psych wards, certain she was going to die. It took a move to Florida, more relapses, and finally a total surrender — she was simply too exhausted to fight anymore — before two girls outside a 12-step clubhouse showed her that people really could be happy without drugs and alcohol. Now 5 years clean and sober, Brittany has done the work, rebuilt her family relationships, and lives a life she never believed was possible. 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 inside her own rehab.For eight years she ran on methadone and weekend heroin. Her final year spiraled into crack addiction and selling her body full-time through the COVID pandemic, cycling in and out of psych wards, certain she was going to die. It took a move to Florida, more relapses, and finally a total surrender — she was simply too exhausted to fight anymore — before two girls outside a 12-step clubhouse showed her that people really could be happy without drugs and alcohol.Now 5 years clean and sober, Brittany has done the work, rebuilt her family relationships, and lives a life she never believed was possible. This Episode Is Sponsored By NOCD A lot of people who've done the hard work of getting sober still struggle with unwanted, intrusive thoughts that bring guilt and shame and keep coming back. For some people, that may be OCD — and in recovery it often goes unrecognized for years because it can look like anxiety or feel like part of the process. The good news is it's treatable. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, with licensed therapists who specialize in ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy through live, face-to-face virtual sessions, plus support between sessions. NOCD is covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. 👉 Book a free 15-minute call at: https://www.treatmyocd.com/ #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #HeroinRecovery #CrackAddiction #5YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #SoberLife #AlcoholRecovery #Methadone #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#SurrenderToWin #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #BrittanyLogan #FromRockBottom #OverdoseAwareness #OneDayAtATime #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Brian Hughes grew up in a quintessential New England town on the water, the son of loving parents — and the great-grandson, grandson, and son of alcoholics. His mother would go on to get sober and become a doctor specializing in addiction, quietly paving a way Brian couldn't yet see. He blacked out the first time he ever drank, at 13, was found passed out in a shower with his head split open, and was back on the basketball court the next morning with no real consequences. That, he says, was the story of his life for decades: no consequences, until there were. Brian built a successful career in the beer and alcohol industry, married his valedictorian sweetheart, raised four children, and eventually sold his business for a small fortune. And then the free-fall came. An affair. Drinking around the clock. Within about a year of having a beautiful home and millions in the bank, he was homeless. His drinking escalated to 700 straight days. The bottom, when it finally came, was total: federal prison, where he spent 44 days in general population detoxing on a bare metal slab, the only English speaker in a cell block, certain at his lowest that he wanted to end his life. What turned it was nine months of treatment — long enough, he says, when 28 days never was — a therapist he still sees today, and the slow rebuilding of a man. He got out with nothing, walked to a job cleaning up the blood and cartilage in a grocery store meat department for $13.65 an hour, and felt more pride in keeping his word to himself than in any paycheck he'd ever earned. From there he found his way to helping others, becoming a recovery coach, and eventually working at Caron, one of the institutions that had once saved his own life. Now with years of hard-won sobriety, Brian is a wounded healer using his wounds to help others — and this conversation is a masterclass in how far down the disease can take a person, and how completely a life can be rebuilt. #RiseAbove #AlcoholRecovery #SoberLife #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#HighFunctioningAlcoholic #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #FromRockBottom #WoundedHealer #RecoveryCoach#PrisonToPurpose #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #BrianHughes #Caron #SecondChances #EstimableActs#NewEnglandRecovery #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 to un-see. What followed was a global, restless run — tramadol by the pocketful in Mexico, a rock-bottom withdrawal alone in Nairobi crying on a shower floor, and finally the substance almost nobody talks about honestly: kratom, and its concentrated form 7-OH, sold legally over the counter at gas stations and smoke shops. This episode is essential listening on a crisis that's exploding right now, because Matt lived it and beat it. He describes buying "feel free" bottles and the hardest-hitting extract shots every single morning just to get through work meetings, seeing double, losing his balance, hiding it from the fiancée he loved, and the shame of driving a mile and a half for a fix in the time it should've taken to grab a bagel. Here's what makes his story valuable: Matt is a chemical engineer, and he approached quitting like an engineer. He built himself a "quit kit" of non-prescription supplements to manage the brutal withdrawals, did the reading, and finally threw the last shot in the trash before a trivia night with his fiancée. Now 2 years sober, he can speak with rare clarity about how these legal products hook people who never thought of themselves as addicts — and exactly what it takes to get free. If you or someone you love is stuck on kratom or 7-OH and telling yourself it's fine because it's legal, this is the episode to hear. 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 to un-see.What followed was a global, restless run — tramadol by the pocketful in Mexico, a rock-bottom withdrawal alone in Nairobi crying on a shower floor, and finally the substance almost nobody talks about honestly: kratom, and its concentrated form 7-OH, sold legally over the counter at gas stations and smoke shops. This episode is essential listening on a crisis that's exploding right now, because Matt lived it and beat it. He describes buying "feel free" bottles and the hardest-hitting extract shots every single morning just to get through work meetings, seeing double, losing his balance, hiding it from the fiancée he loved, and the shame of driving a mile and a half for a fix in the time it should've taken to grab a bagel.Here's what makes his story valuable: Matt is a chemical engineer, and he approached quitting like an engineer. He built himself a "quit kit" of non-prescription supplements to manage the brutal withdrawals, did the reading, and finally threw the last shot in the trash before a trivia night with his fiancée. Now 2 years sober, he can speak with rare clarity about how these legal products hook people who never thought of themselves as addicts — and exactly what it takes to get free.If you or someone you love is stuck on kratom or 7-OH and telling yourself it's fine because it's legal, this is the episode to hear. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #KratomAddiction #7OH #KratomRecovery #2YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #LegalOpioid #OpioidRecovery #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #MattVonBoecklin #FeelFree #OverTheCounterAddiction #QuitKit #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" turned into weed by middle school, then cocaine and Xanax, then the pills that got too expensive — and finally, in 2017, fentanyl, right as it was flooding the streets and long before most people knew what it was. His first overdose landed him in the hospital; he walked out and used again the same day, telling no one. His second nearly ended everything. Found in a car with no pulse, foam coming from his mouth, his heart had stopped long enough that doctors placed him in a three-day medical coma to keep his organs from swelling. When they took him off the ventilator, no one knew if he'd breathe on his own, or what mental capacity he'd have if he woke. He woke up unable to recognize his own family, his hands and feet curled from lack of blood flow, and had to spend the next month learning to walk again. That was his last time using. Now 9 years sober, Enzo has rebuilt his life around the lessons that saved it — and this conversation is a rare chance to hear a survival story this extreme told with humor, gratitude, and hard-won wisdom. This one is proof of just how close the line is, and how completely a life can come back from the other side of it. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https:https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #FentanylOverdose #FentanylRecovery #9YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #OverdoseSurvivor #NarcanSavesLives #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #AddictionDoesntDiscriminate #MiracleStory #SecondChances#FentanylAwareness #LearningToWalkAgain #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 run through Oxy and blues, cocaine, a move to California, a marriage, a business, and a drinking problem he was certain he'd beaten — right up until he replaced it with something he could buy legally at the store. This episode goes deep on the drug almost nobody's talking about honestly yet: 7-OH, the concentrated kratom derivative sold at gas stations and vape shops that Nick describes as, functionally, a legal opioid. He was taking 400 to 500 milligrams a day, living on an eight-hour timer, waking up in full withdrawal in the middle of the night, and dropping three to four thousand dollars a month — all on a product sitting on a shelf next to the register. He talks candidly about the nodding off at his desk, snapping at his kids, the brutal withdrawals when Florida made 7-OH illegal, and finally getting honest with his wife and business partner — both of whom already knew. Now 9 months clean and sober, Nick is rebuilding, running his company, and speaking out about a substance he believes is quietly hooking a lot of people who don't realize what they're actually taking. If you or someone you love is using kratom or 7-OH and telling yourself it's harmless because it's legal, this is the episode to hear. #RiseAbove #7OH #KratomAddiction #7Hydroxymitragynine #9MonthsSober #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #SoberLife #LegalOpioid #OpioidRecovery #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #NickThornton #KratomRecovery #SoberDad #HotTopic #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. And once he started, he couldn't stop. For about two and a half to three years he used daily, isolating, trying to solve the problem himself without ever saying it out loud to another person. His marriage was going south, his self-worth was gone, and he'd gotten to the point where he couldn't even look at himself in the mirror to shave. Then, in the middle of a run, he had a seizure and woke up on the floor, ending up in the hospital. And even that didn't stop him — he kept using for days afterward. His actual bottom came quietly, sitting on his son's Little League bench, unable to keep his eyes open, thinking to himself what a piece of garbage he'd become. A few days later, something a podcast host said cut through: you can't start to fix the problem until you say it out loud to someone else. Gregg picked up the phone, called a friend who's now his sponsor, and for the first time felt the weight lift. That friend told him to go to treatment. He put up a fight for about thirty seconds — and then he went. Now 1 year sober, Gregg has his marriage, his kids, and himself back — and he's learned that the drugs were never really the problem. They were his broken solution to a life he didn't know how to live. This one is for the high-functioning addict who looks fine on the outside and is quietly falling apart. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #CocaineAddiction #1YearSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #SoberLife#HighFunctioningAddict #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #FatherhoodInRecovery #FromRockBottom #SoberDad#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #GreggHayim #SelfWorth #CocaineRecovery #OneDayAtATime #NewYorkRecovery #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 performing, nothing else mattered. Underneath it was a man who had built his entire sense of worth on being the athlete, then the businessman, then the provider — and had no idea who he was without the win. When the market crashed, it all came apart. A $150 million company gone in a year. Real estate leveraged to the hilt, upside down. He went from living like a billionaire to $7 in his pocket in eighteen months. In the middle of the collapse came a one-night stand, a hidden child he tried to keep secret for years, and three kids across a chaotic stretch of his life. He kept trying to fix it himself — Tony Robbins seminars, masterminds, personal development, charts and triathlon training and sheer discipline — always convinced he could pull it out without surrendering. He never could. There were DUIs he talked his way out of, one he didn't, a marijuana company he built and lost, and a moment standing at the edge of the ocean, financially buried and drowning in shame, seriously thinking about swimming out and not coming back. He finally got sober at 44. Now 7 years in, Pete is married, raising five kids including a two-year-old son, and has built a life grounded in family, faith, and the recovery he spent decades running from. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #AlcoholRecovery #7YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #SoberLife#HighFunctioningAlcoholic #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #FatherhoodInRecovery #FromRockBottom#SoberDad #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #PeteKuc #SelfWorth #FaithInRecovery #WolfOfWallStreet #SecondChances #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 others in recovery, hosts the Broken Chain Podcast, and is working toward opening a recovery home so others can find the hope he once thought was impossible. His journey is proof that no one is beyond redemption.If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, know that recovery is possible. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Then five people close to him died in six years — his mom, his dad, his grandmother and more. His marriage fell apart. And the man who had been so terrified of becoming his alcoholic mother that he was the designated driver all through college took his first drink at 30, right after graduating law school. From there it moved fast: ecstasy at the clubs, then cocaine, then crystal meth, and finally a needle in his arm. Damon lost everything. He ended up homeless on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, shooting heroin and meth, fighting for his life, cycling through LA County Jail on check-fraud charges he committed just to survive. He describes sitting there with a needle in his arm, certain he was going to die in that spot — and something in him refusing to accept it. His way out came through a former debate rival turned friend running for city council, who flew him to New York, put him on her couch, bought him a suit, and helped him get clean. He never picked up again. Now 8.5 years sober, Damon works for the New Jersey Reentry Corporation helping formerly incarcerated people and those in recovery rebuild their lives — pulling together his Ivy League book smarts and his hard-won street smarts to give other people the second chance he got. This one is proof that addiction truly does not discriminate — and that no one is too far gone to come back. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Damon: @damonesquire (Instagram) | Damon Watson (LinkedIn)🌐 New Jersey Reentry Corporation 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.Then five people close to him died in six years — his mom, his dad, his grandmother and more. His marriage fell apart. And the man who had been so terrified of becoming his alcoholic mother that he was the designated driver all through college took his first drink at 30, right after graduating law school. From there it moved fast: ecstasy at the clubs, then cocaine, then crystal meth, and finally a needle in his arm.Damon lost everything. He ended up homeless on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, shooting heroin and meth, fighting for his life, cycling through LA County Jail on check-fraud charges he committed just to survive. He describes sitting there with a needle in his arm, certain he was going to die in that spot — and something in him refusing to accept it.His way out came through a former debate rival turned friend running for city council, who flew him to New York, put him on her couch, bought him a suit, and helped him get clean. He never picked up again.Now 8.5 years sober, Damon works for the New Jersey Reentry Corporation helping formerly incarcerated people and those in recovery rebuild their lives — pulling together his Ivy League book smarts and his hard-won street smarts to give other people the second chance he got.This one is proof that addiction truly does not discriminate — and that no one is too far gone to come back.🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Damon: @damonesquire (Instagram) | Damon Watson (LinkedIn)🌐 New Jersey Reentry Corporation If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #AddictionRecovery #HeroinRecovery #8YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #MethRecovery #SoberLife#SkidRow #HarvardLaw #AddictionDoesntDiscriminate #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #Reentry#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #DamonWatson #SecondChances #FromRockBottom #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. She found her escape at 15. A prescription for Xanax that a nurse practitioner had given her years earlier had been sitting untouched in her door. The night she finally tried it, she describes it as silence for the first time in her life — the racing thoughts and panic simply switched off. From that moment nothing else mattered. She was soon mixing benzos and alcohol, doctor-shopping, and spiraling into a decade of addiction. What followed was roughly seven or eight arrests, drinking and driving everywhere she went, and a DUI where — blacked out on upwards of 20 Xanax bars — she reversed through a gated community's steel gate not once but twice, totaling her mother's car. She flattened the sentence and spent four months in a Tennessee jail, where she was jumped and beaten by a fellow inmate who had confessed to murdering her boyfriend. After about a decade of trying to get clean, Haley moved to Florida in 2021 and finally found recovery. This week she celebrates one year clean and sober — and she's learned to sit with herself, love her own company, and build a healthy relationship for the first time in her life. This one is about anxiety, self-medication, and what it takes to finally quiet the noise without a substance. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Haley: @crookedcigarette (TikTok, Instagram & Facebook) If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #XanaxAddiction #WomenInRecovery #1YearSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #BenzoRecovery #AnxietyAndAddiction #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #DUIStory#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #HaleyRagsdale #SelfMedication #JailStory #CrookedCigarette #FromChaosToCalm #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 hand him a pill and tell him he was dope sick — that what he'd been taking was essentially synthetic heroin. What followed was roughly 15 years of addiction that bounced him between Florida and Montana, chasing and running at the same time. He moved to heroin when the pills ran dry, lived on the streets, stole to fund his hustle, cycled through jail, and got a gun put in his face during a robbery in Montana while high out of his mind. He was found overdosed in his car in Orlando, woke up to paramedics, and still wasn't done. His worst run came last — a year so dark he was waking up crying from nightmares he'd never had before. On July 7, 2023, with nothing but a duffel bag holding a pair of boxers and some Air Jordans, the pain finally got great enough. His grandmother passed away while he was in treatment, but not before knowing he was finally getting help. Now 3 years sober, Clint works at Compassion Behavioral Health, answering the phone at 1am for people at their lowest and getting them into treatment — the same lifeline someone once was for him. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #HeroinRecovery #OpioidRecovery #3YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #DopeSick #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #OverdoseSurvivor #RiseAbovePodcast#KevinLanning #ClintPitre #CompassionBehavioralHealth #ServiceWork #FromTheStreetsToSober #NeverGiveUp#OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. But as his early sponsor told him, you never leave your addictions in the driveway. Jason planted a church in rural Georgia, preaching to construction workers and cowboys on Tuesday nights, while secretly carrying on affairs. Eventually his double life reached a breaking point that he describes with brutal honesty: living with his girlfriend in her apartment and driving to church on Sunday mornings to preach a sermon while his wife and kids sat in the pews trying to hold the facade together. When it all came apart — the church, the marriage, his job, and the death of his mother — Jason found himself lying on his side one Wednesday afternoon with a suicide fully planned, feeling not worthless but coldly logical about it. That was his turning point. A chance training on nervous system regulation introduced him to cold water, breathwork, and meditation, and on October 19, 2020, he got sober in a way he never had before. Now 6 years sober, Jason runs Sacred Grit, coaching men through addiction using nervous system regulation, daily practice, and accountability — and teaching them how to put their feet on the floor each morning and do one thing that makes them feel loved by themselves. This one is about the addictions nobody talks about, the danger of believing the next thing will fix you, and finding a way out that finally works. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week🌐 thesacredgrit.com🎙️ The Sacred Grit Podcast 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. But as his early sponsor told him, you never leave your addictions in the driveway.Jason planted a church in rural Georgia, preaching to construction workers and cowboys on Tuesday nights, while secretly carrying on affairs. Eventually his double life reached a breaking point that he describes with brutal honesty: living with his girlfriend in her apartment and driving to church on Sunday mornings to preach a sermon while his wife and kids sat in the pews trying to hold the facade together.When it all came apart — the church, the marriage, his job, and the death of his mother — Jason found himself lying on his side one Wednesday afternoon with a suicide fully planned, feeling not worthless but coldly logical about it. That was his turning point. A chance training on nervous system regulation introduced him to cold water, breathwork, and meditation, and on October 19, 2020, he got sober in a way he never had before.Now 6 years sober, Jason runs Sacred Grit, coaching men through addiction using nervous system regulation, daily practice, and accountability — and teaching them how to put their feet on the floor each morning and do one thing that makes them feel loved by themselves.This one is about the addictions nobody talks about, the danger of believing the next thing will fix you, and finding a way out that finally works.🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week🌐 thesacredgrit.com🎙️ The Sacred Grit Podcast If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #SexAddiction #PornAddiction #6YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #SoberLife#NervousSystemRegulation #MensRecovery #FaithAndRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #JasonLyles #SacredGrit #PastorStory #Breathwork #SuicidePrevention #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 despair pulled her back into relapse. She shares the heartbreaking reality of drinking more alcohol than water, detoxes, hospitalizations, suicidal thoughts, and the moment everything finally changed.Today, Laura is approaching two years sober and uses her story to give hope to anyone struggling with addiction, grief, or mental health.If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you're not alone. Recovery is possible. Follow Laura on IG: @ltomana This Episode Is Sponsored By NOCD A lot of people who've done the hard work of getting sober still struggle with unwanted, intrusive thoughts that bring guilt and shame and keep coming back. For some people, that may be OCD — and in recovery it often goes unrecognized for years because it can look like anxiety or feel like part of the process. The good news is it's treatable. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, with licensed therapists who specialize in ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy through live, face-to-face virtual sessions, plus support between sessions. NOCD is covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. 👉 Book a free 15-minute call at NOCD.com #Sobriety #AlcoholAddiction #Recovery #RiseAbovePodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. He became the MVP quarterback of his high school football team while already deep in opiate addiction. Vicodin became Percocet, Percocet became blues, and blues became heroin. He describes shooting heroin in the bathroom at his serving job in his green dress shirt, bouncing between sober livings and couches in both New York and South Florida. He climbed the ranks running sober living homes — becoming director of operations of 14 of them in his twenties — all while admitting he had no real connection to recovery and was running on ego. Then he relapsed into one of the most vicious runs of his life. Suicidal, his front teeth knocked out, crack now in the mix, he overdosed behind the wheel of his car and woke up days later in a hospital with no memory of how he got there. Now 4 years sober, Tommy works in the recovery field helping others find what he eventually found — and says he can't even picture himself using anymore. This one is about how many "lucky breaks" it can take before the stars finally align. 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.He became the MVP quarterback of his high school football team while already deep in opiate addiction. Vicodin became Percocet, Percocet became blues, and blues became heroin. He describes shooting heroin in the bathroom at his serving job in his green dress shirt, bouncing between sober livings and couches in both New York and South Florida.He climbed the ranks running sober living homes — becoming director of operations of 14 of them in his twenties — all while admitting he had no real connection to recovery and was running on ego. Then he relapsed into one of the most vicious runs of his life. Suicidal, his front teeth knocked out, crack now in the mix, he overdosed behind the wheel of his car and woke up days later in a hospital with no memory of how he got there.Now 4 years sober, Tommy works in the recovery field helping others find what he eventually found — and says he can't even picture himself using anymore.This one is about how many "lucky breaks" it can take before the stars finally align. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #HeroinRecovery #CrackAddiction #4YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #OpioidEpidemic #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #OverdoseSurvivor #StatenIsland#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #TommyLyons #FromAthleteToAddict #ServiceWork #NeverGiveUp #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rise Above | Vlog Episode 3 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, and undoing years of damage from poor form and old football injuries. Physical health has become a massive part of my mental health and my recovery. Then I head back to the studio, give a shout out to Ben who's been helping run the socials, and walk you through exactly what goes into prepping for every single episode — including the one fatal mistake I made that erased an entire interview, and the guest who handled it like a champion because of the program she works. I also talk about today's guest Tyler, his story of recovery, and something really important to me — why I keep the podcast and my actual program of recovery completely separate. The meetings, the step work, the sponsorship, the commitments..... those come first, always. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 changed. Driving a Jeep overloaded with cinder blocks over a bridge under construction, he rolled the vehicle. The cinder blocks came through the windshield. He was airlifted to the hospital, spent roughly 18 hours in surgery, and didn't wake up for nearly six weeks. When he came to, one of his vocal cords was crushed, his legs had atrophied, and his right arm no longer worked — an arm he would have to amputate a year later. But as Mike tells it, the accident isn't the story. He woke up already on morphine, Dilaudid and Ativan — and what followed was years of full-blown opiate addiction, a vicious slide into heroin once the pill supply dried up, and the loss of his fiancée, his daughter, and nearly everything else. Now 7 years sober, Mike has rebuilt his relationship with his now 15-year-old daughter, bought a home, built a business, and lives a life centered on service — going to a meeting every day, sponsoring others, and carrying the message into detoxes and hospitals. This one is about how recovery is possible even when the odds are completely stacked against you. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #OpioidRecovery #HeroinRecovery #7YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#SoberLife #Amputee #PillMill #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #FatherhoodInRecovery#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #MikeDebany #ServiceWork #AgainstAllOdds #SoberDad #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 lonelier. He was drinking to control himself, working punishing hours, and slowly losing the discipline that had defined his life. When the pressure became too much he resigned, couldn't talk to his wife about why, filed for divorce, and separated himself from his five-year-old son. Isolated with no job, no marriage and no child, he gained 60 pounds and slid into a daily dependence on alcohol and oxycodone — which in Southeast Asia he could buy over the counter like popcorn. It took two days to get off the alcohol and two years to taper off the medication. Now 8 years sober, Nick is an author, speaker and entrepreneur who travels the world with his teenage son, volunteers for a suicide prevention agency, and wrote a book — Executive Loneliness — about the isolation at the top that nobody talks about. In this thoughtful and powerful episode Nick shares how he rebuilt his relationship with his son from across the world through Minecraft, why he believes loneliness is the root so many high achievers try to numb, and what it really takes to come back. This one is for every high achiever who looks successful on the outside and feels completely alone underneath. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Nick on LinkedIn: Nick Johnsson🌐 nickjohnsson.com📖 Executive Loneliness — available now If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/ #RiseAbove #SoberLife #8YearsSober #AlcoholRecovery #ExecutiveLoneliness #HighFunctioningAlcoholic#RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #MentalHealth #SobrietyJourney #Loneliness#FatherhoodInRecovery #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #NickJohnsson #CorporateBurnout#MensMentalHealth #SuicidePrevention #OneDayAtATime #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the outside Christie Green looked like she had it all together. A successful career, a wide circle of friends, the person who sent the thank-you cards and remembered everyone's birthday. Nobody saw the high-functioning drinking underneath, or the grief, divorce and decades of quiet pain she was masking with it. Christie lost her hair to alopecia as a child and spent years building humor and achievement into armor so no one would look too closely. She lost her mother six years ago and describes that grief as the catalyst that sent the next chapter of her life into a tailspin. She went through a divorce, multiple miscarriages, and a long stretch of self-medicating just to avoid sitting with her own feelings. Then on one bad night out she slammed a door in a stranger's face in a crowded bar, walked home, and woke up the next morning knowing she was done. She caught herself at the crossroads. This March she celebrated one year alcohol-free. In this honest and reflective episode Christie talks about high-functioning drinking, grief, learning to sit with hard emotions instead of numbing them, and the journaling and self-worth work that carried her through her first year sober. This one is for everyone who looks fine on the outside and is quietly struggling underneath. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/rise-above/?utm_source=rise%20above&utm_medium=social%20media&utm_campaign=june #RiseAbove #SoberLife #1YearSober #HighFunctioningAlcoholic #AlcoholFree #SobrietyJourney#GriefAndHealing #WomenInRecovery #Alopecia #RecoveryIsPossible #MentalHealth #SelfWorth #SoberCurious#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #ChristieGreen #GettingSober #Journaling #OneDayAtATime #OneMoreThing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Makenzie Raine had her first panic attack at seven. She never felt comfortable in her own skin....paralyzing anxiety, constant fear, neurodivergence nobody ever addressed. Then at 12 her parents let her have a drink hoping to take the mystery out of alcohol. That same night she snuck out, finished the bottle alone and got obliterated. She describes that first drink as coming up for air for the first time in her life. By 18 she had moved to Los Angeles, was living in a penthouse pulling in $50,000 a month on a subscription platform, and was drinking a full handle of vodka a day. She became a frequent flyer at the ER for withdrawals she didn't recognize, got committed to a psych ward, and was even bringing alcohol in her backpack to the outpatient program that was supposed to be keeping her sober. She walked into her first AA meeting at 18 trying to prove she wasn't like everyone there — and heard her own story come out of a stranger's mouth. Now sober at 21 with six months back, Makenzie is building a young sober community, using her platform to reach other young people, and finally feels safe in her own skin. This one is for every young person who thinks they're too young to be an alcoholic. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Makenzie on social media IG: Makenzie_raine If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #YoungAndSober #SoberAt21 #AlcoholRecovery #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#WomenInRecovery #SoberCommunity #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #AnxietyAndAddiction #YouthInRecovery#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #MakenzieRaine #FunctioningAlcoholic #WalkingBlackout #SoberLife #LGBTQSober #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Betty Guadagno was born into a long line of addicts — poverty, chaos, eviction notices in red envelopes, and sexual trauma she carried as a small child. By 11 she was mixing drinks behind a stranger's bar. By 15 she was smoking methamphetamine. And for the next 20 years drugs were the only thing that made her feel powerful, beautiful and safe. By the end she was a homeless meth addict who had lost 100 pounds in three months, lost most of her teeth, and was manipulating and prostituting other women to fund her addiction. She had been through over a dozen detoxes and rehabs. Her own cousin — who had come forward about the same family abuse — died of a heroin overdose three days before her 21st birthday. Then Betty overdosed on her bathroom floor. And had a near-death experience that changed everything. She says she met God, was told she was worthy of all the love in the universe, and was forced into a recovery she never asked for. Now 7 years sober Betty is married to a man she met in the rooms, works as a coach helping others break free, and is living a life she never thought was possible. This one is for anyone who believes they are too far gone, too broken, or too unworthy to ever come back. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Betty: @goodentvgloomy Betty Guadagno was born into a long line of addicts — poverty, chaos, eviction notices in red envelopes, and sexual trauma she carried as a small child. By 11 she was mixing drinks behind a stranger's bar. By 15 she was smoking methamphetamine. And for the next 20 years drugs were the only thing that made her feel powerful, beautiful and safe.By the end she was a homeless meth addict who had lost 100 pounds in three months, lost most of her teeth, and was manipulating and prostituting other women to fund her addiction. She had been through over a dozen detoxes and rehabs. Her own cousin — who had come forward about the same family abuse — died of a heroin overdose three days before her 21st birthday.Then Betty overdosed on her bathroom floor. And had a near-death experience that changed everything. She says she met God, was told she was worthy of all the love in the universe, and was forced into a recovery she never asked for.Now 7 years sober Betty is married to a man she met in the rooms, works as a coach helping others break free, and is living a life she never thought was possible.This one is for anyone who believes they are too far gone, too broken, or too unworthy to ever come back.📲 Follow Betty: @goodentvgloomy If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #7YearsSober #MethRecovery #HeroinRecovery #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #NearDeathExperience #SoberLife #TraumaRecovery #FaithAndRecovery #SobrietyJourney#MentalHealth #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #BettyGuadagno #FromHomelessToHealed #SpiritualAwakening #GodSavedMe #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jerry Lucey beat opioid addiction in 2018. Then in 2020 a motorcycle accident cut his body open from his heel to his chest. He was pronounced dead three times. He spent three and a half weeks in a coma and had a near-death experience he still can't fully explain. In this follow up episode Jerry reveals what wasn't covered the first time — going septic during recovery and nearly dying again, over 100 blood transfusions in a single night, 68 surgeries, five years in a wheelchair, and the moment he woke up from his coma believing he had already died and gone somewhere else entirely. He also shares the unbelievable update from just the last few months — a hip replacement, a knee replacement, breaking his own femur after forgetting his leg wasn't fully reconnected, and performing emergency self surgery at home with a razor blade rather than going back to the hospital and risking opioids again. Doctors said he wouldn't survive. Then they said he would be blind. Then they said his body would never work again. He is still here. And he is still going. Jerry Lucey beat opioid addiction in 2018. Then in 2020 a motorcycle accident cut his body open from his heel to his chest. He was pronounced dead three times. He spent three and a half weeks in a coma and had a near-death experience he still can't fully explain.In this follow up episode Jerry reveals what wasn't covered the first time — going septic during recovery and nearly dying again, over 100 blood transfusions in a single night, 68 surgeries, five years in a wheelchair, and the moment he woke up from his coma believing he had already died and gone somewhere else entirely.He also shares the unbelievable update from just the last few months — a hip replacement, a knee replacement, breaking his own femur after forgetting his leg wasn't fully reconnected, and performing emergency self surgery at home with a razor blade rather than going back to the hospital and risking opioids again.Doctors said he wouldn't survive. Then they said he would be blind. Then they said his body would never work again.He is still here. And he is still going. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #MiracleStory #OpioidRecovery #MotorcycleAccident #SurvivalStory #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #NearDeathExperience #SoberLife #MedicalMiracle #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning#JerryLucey #PronouncedDead #AgainstAllOdds #TraumaSurvivor #MentalHealth #GratitudeInRecovery #PartTwo#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew Polimeno was six years old when he climbed into his mother's bed and woke up next to her body. She had gotten sober through AA. Then a car accident led to an OxyContin prescription. And then she was gone. Growing up without her Matthew watched his father hold everything together while carrying a grief nobody talked about. He went to AA meetings as a kid without understanding why. And then at 16 he had his first drink — and immediately understood exactly what his mother had been chasing. By his worst stretch Matthew was drinking a liter and a half of vodka every single night. Shaking so badly at work he could barely function. Googling urgent cares while blackout drunk at 1pm on a Sunday. By some miracle a substance abuse hotline appeared in his search results instead. Now 16 months sober Matthew is doing the work — the steps the sponsor the hard look in the mirror — and building a life he never thought was possible. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #SoberLife #16MonthsSober #AlcoholRecovery #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#ChildOfAnAddict #OxycodoneOverdose #GriefAndAddiction #MentalHealth #SobrietyJourney #WomenInRecovery#LGBTQSober #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #MatthewPolimeno #MomInRecovery #GenerationalTrauma#FunctioningAlcoholic #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Root was a skinny kid from upstate New York who got picked up by girls at 13 and couldn't grow facial hair at 28. Doctors dismissed him. So he went to the black market for testosterone at 23 — and his life changed overnight. He put on 32 pounds of muscle in weeks. His confidence exploded. His ambition came back. And then he discovered he had a gift for business. What started as trying to make $200-$300 extra dollars a week turned into a full blown black market steroid operation making $100,000 a week at its peak — with chemists, shippers and employees compartmentalized across the entire country specifically to avoid detection. He was dropping $60,000 at Vegas tables on a single trip and living in a penthouse overlooking Manhattan. Then at 5am, 15 DEA agents kicked his door in. He did federal prison. And never drank again. Now 11 years sober Ryan has built one of the largest legitimate hormone replacement therapy companies in the country — using the same obsessive business mind that built the empire that took him down. This one is for anyone who has ever turned a dark chapter into the foundation of something extraordinary. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week 🌐 gofor.com 📲 @go_for4 (Instagram) If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #DEARaid #BlackMarketSteroids #FederalPrison #SoberLife #11YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #Testosterone #HRT #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#EntrepreneurRecovery #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #RyanRoot #GoFor #PrisonToSuccess #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brittany Ellis grew up in a small town in South Georgia watching her parents drink & party. It wasn't until her oldest brother poured gasoline on a bonfire at 14 and burned his entire arm that everything changed. The doctors loaded him up with OxyContin. He brought it home. Her parents got hooked. And then Brittany did too. What followed was 15 years of addiction that took her from pills to heroin to fentanyl to IV crack cocaine. She married the man who introduced her to Oxy while they were both in the grips of addiction. She got pregnant on a run so bad her own dealer told her she needed help. No rehab in a three state radius would take her because she was pregnant. She tapered herself down at home with her mother just to protect her unborn daughter. Then she lost custody of that daughter for three years. When her father died she drove to Savannah to steal his prescriptions from the mailbox before anyone knew he was gone. Now 5.5 years sober Brittany has her daughter back, got married and is working in the recovery field helping others find the life she almost never found herself. This one is for every mother out there who thinks she's too far gone to come back. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #SoberMom #FentanylAddiction #HeroinRecovery #5YearsSober#RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery #MomInRecovery #LostCustody #SoberLife #SobrietyJourney#MentalHealth #GriefAndAddiction #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #BrittanyEllis #SouthGeorgia#FaithAndRecovery #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Johnny Schrey grew up in West Boca watching his two older brothers destroy their lives with drugs. He told himself he would never be like them. By 25 he was splitting Roxy 30s with his best friend because they couldn't scrape together $10 for one pill between them. So they joined the Marine Corps.. He detoxed off opioids in boot camp. Got a DUI his first night back from engineering school. Deployed to Afghanistan twice — watching friends die, getting his vehicle hit by IEDs, and coming home to bottles of Jack Daniels waiting on the bus. He married a bartender, had a daughter, lost a twin son at 22 weeks, and shot heroin in a condemned apartment in Overtown with USB cords tied to his arm looking for a vein. His brother — his hero — died on his birthday. Now 7 years sober, Johnny got his ex-wife back, is raising his daughter, and has built a life beyond anything he thought possible. This one is for every veteran out there who came home and didn't know how to turn the switch back on. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #VeteranRecovery #MarineCorps #HeroinRecovery #7YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #AfghanistanVet #SoberDad #PTSDRecovery #SoberLife #MensRecovery #RiseAbovePodcast#KevinLanning #JohnnySchrey #VeteranSobriety #CombatVeteran #SobrietyJourney #FamilyInRecovery#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rise Above | Adam Vohra's Story Adam Vohra grew up in Connecticut ....a kid of color in a Jewish day school who always felt different. At 13 he found out why. He and his sister had been adopted. Nobody had told them. And six months later he had his first drink. What followed was 15 years of DUIs, gambling debts with drug dealers, dropping out of college, four months in a Connecticut jail, and relapse after relapse. Every time he got sober it was consequence driven. Every time something good happened he went right back out. Then his best friend Lauren called. And he didn't answer. She took her own life shortly after. It wasn't until a recovery coach flew him down to a tiny house in low country South Carolina and a stranger at a local meeting invited him to dinner and read him the Doctor's Opinion that something finally clicked. Now 3.5 years sober Adam has his recovery coaching certification, a nonprofit consulting practice, a podcast and a life built entirely around purpose. This one is for anyone who has tried to get sober for the wrong reasons and keeps ending up back at square one. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week 📲 Follow Adam: @adavohra (Instagram) 🎙️ Finding Purpose Podcast If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #AddictionRecovery #SoberLife #3YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AdoptionStory #DUIStory#MensRecovery #GriefAndRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth #RecoveryCoach #FindingPurpose#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #AdamVohra #ConsequenceSobriety #PurposeDrivenRecovery #SoberCommunity#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carly Schwartz had a career most journalists only dream about. Running the San Francisco Bureau of HuffPost at 26. On the leadership team of one of the biggest news organizations in the world. Blogging for a governor who became California's Governor. Expense accounts, concerts, restaurant openings and a life that looked absolutely electric from the outside. And she was going to bed every night wishing she wouldn't wake up the next morning. Behind the blazing career was a secret life of cocaine benders, blacking out, taking hits of nitrous oxide under her covers at noon on a Sunday, and a depression so severe that she dropped out of Northwestern University, checked herself into a psych ward, and eventually found herself standing on the roof of a Panama City highrise on the phone with a suicide hotline. She went to a Panamanian jungle to find herself. She found cocaine instead. Now 8 years sober, Carly has written her memoir I'll Try Anything Twice — and built a life centered on storytelling, healing and finally understanding what it means to love herself. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week 📲 Follow Carly: @carlyzita (Instagram) 🌐 carlyz.inc 📖 I'll Try Anything Twice — available now #RiseAbove #DepressionAndAddiction #SoberLife #8YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#MentalHealthAwareness #FunctioningAddict #WomenInRecovery #SuicideAwareness #CocaineAddiction#SobrietyJourney #ITryAnythingTwice #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #CarlySchwartz #Journalist#HuffPost #StorytellingHeals #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Suebelle Robbins had a life that looked like a movie. Playboy Bunny by night, first grade teacher by day. Travel escort taking groups to Hawaii and Switzerland. Corporate wife living on Gulfstream jets. Beautiful homes, European vacations and everything money could buy. And she was miserable every single minute of it. Every morning started with a bong. Every afternoon she switched to Scotch. She was so depressed she took sleeping pills on a sunny day in Honolulu just so she could sleep through paradise. She made three suicide attempts, he last one a full bottle of pills that sent her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. She lost her father to a drunk driver at 13. Her house burned to the ground at 17 — taking her dog and every childhood memory with it. She married twice. She had everything. And she wanted to die. Then a housekeeper showed up in Ralph Lauren — and invited her to a meeting. Now 39 years sober, Suebelle has written her memoir Beyond Your Wildest Dreams — and built a life so full of love, laughter and purpose that she says if she ever drank again she'd lose everything that matters. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week 📲 Connect with Suebelle: https://www.suebellepalmbeach.com/ #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #39YearsSober #AlcoholRecovery #SoberLife #RecoveryIsPossible#BeyondYourWildestDreams #SuicidalIdeation #FunctioningAlcoholic #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#GriefAndRecovery #PalmBeachSocialite #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #SuebellRobbins #MemoirMonday#SoberAndThriving #WomenWhoRecover #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Supak was a Division 1 track athlete. He never touched a drop of alcohol in four years of high school. He was structured, dedicated, trustworthy — the model kid. Then he discovered alcohol the summer before college and everything changed immediately. What followed was 20 years of cocaine, heroin, DUIs, overdoses, jail, and a slow death that nobody around him could stop. He got his second and third DUIs within 48 hours of each other. He overdosed on heroin in the back of a cab, was Narcanned six times, and showed back up to his family's St. Patrick's Day party hours later wearing a blue paper hospital suit — with no memory of any of it. He tried to die. He kept waking up instead. It wasn't until a judge set his bond at $900,000 to keep him off the streets — and a nun in Saint Augustine, Florida answered a calling from God — that Mike finally found the thing that saved his life. He spent three years with no phone, no TV, no computer, washing his clothes in a five-gallon bucket, praying the rosary three times a day. And it worked. Now seven years sober, Mike is married, reconnected with his kids, back working as a building engineer in Chicago, and more at peace than he has ever been in his life. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #HeroinRecovery #SoberLife #7YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#FaithAndRecovery #CatholicFaith #ChicagoAddiction #MensRecovery #GodSavedMyLife #SobrietyJourney#MentalHealth #JailToSober #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #MikeSupak #Unbreakable2413 #HopeReborn#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crystal Meliea grew up alone on 183 acres of North Carolina mountain property with a narcissist mother who left her unsupervised with music industry men in Los Angeles at 16. No protection. No parents. Just a bottle of Xanax she found in her mother's purse that made everything quiet for the first time in her life. By 19 she was running marijuana from Mexico to Texas to North Carolina on a massive scale. She was taking 10 Xanax bars in a single night — enough to black out most grown men. She was fighting so violently that police would call ahead and ask her to just turn herself in so they didn't have to find her. She went to jail three times in one week for physical violence alone. At 37 weeks pregnant she broke into a woman's house and stabbed her in the face with a broken beer bottle — leaving her with 40 stitches. Two weeks before her daughter was born the FBI, DEA and ATF swarmed her home. Then her daughter's father went to federal prison. She had her baby alone. And discovered opiates. What followed was years of IV drug use, meth, crack, halfway houses, relapses, a lesbian relationship that ended with a domestic battery charge, and finally — sitting on a sidewalk in Fort Lauderdale, watching buses go by, making the decision to walk in front of one. She went to detox the next day instead. And never looked back. Now 11 years sober, Crystal has two college degrees, ran a multimillion dollar insurance company, and is rebuilding her life with nothing but her daughter, her faith, and a story that should have ended on that sidewalk. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #11YearsSober #XanaxAddiction #HeroinRecovery #SoberMom #RecoveryIsPossible#AddictionRecovery #TraumaAndRecovery #SingleMomInRecovery #FaithAndRecovery #SoberLife #MentalHealth#DrugCartel #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #CrystalMeliea #SuicidalIdeation #GodSavedMyLife#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TJ DelVecchio was a Division 1 baseball player at Providence College who walked onto Wall Street during the dot-com boom and made his first million dollars by 28. By 30 he was broke, $300,000 in debt, unloading boxes at FedEx in the middle of the night just to keep health insurance for his kids — and quietly becoming addicted to opioids. For years he held it all together on the outside. Wall Street lunches with pint glasses three quarters full of vodka. Parties in Miami. VIP sections. A lifestyle that looked like success and felt like a slow death. At his worst he was taking 6 to 10 thirty milligram Roxies a day — spending $5,000 a month on pills — while his ankles swelled, his kidneys ached, and his soul quietly disappeared. Then one night on a hotel balcony in Miami, he looked up at the sky and told his late father — if I don't stop right now, I'm never going to see my kids again. He flushed the pills the next morning. No rehab. No Suboxone. Six weeks of pure hell. And he never looked back. Now six years sober, TJ is remarried, living in Sarasota, building rental properties with his wife, and finally the man he always wanted to be. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #WallStreet #OpiateAddiction #SoberLife #6YearsSober #RecoveryIsPossible #AddictionRecovery#FunctioningAddict #BaseballPlayer #FinancialRuin #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealth#FaithAndRecovery #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #TJDelVecchio #WallStreetAddiction #ColdTurkeyDetox#OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle Garges had everything — a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, a career in advertising sales, and a life that looked perfectly put together from the outside. But behind closed doors she was hiding alcohol in her daughter's Stanley Cup. She was drinking through blackouts, through rehab, through aversion therapy in Seattle where they made her chug vodka until she vomited. She drank through her father's death. She drank through interventions. She drank through every promise she made to herself and everyone she loved. Thirty years of alcoholism. Three treatment centers. And a dying father who grabbed her by the neck and looked her in the eye one last time. Coming up on two years sober, Kyle is finally free. In this raw and deeply moving episode of Rise Above, Kyle shares: Growing up with an alcoholic father and watching the same disease take over her own life Missing 18 Mondays in a row in high school — and still graduating early Drinking through Ole Miss, UGA, Charleston, and a career in ad sales Aversion therapy in Seattle — chugging vodka until she vomited while staring at herself in a mirror How one beer after ten months sober during breastfeeding flipped the switch back on instantly Her dying father grabbing her by the neck and saying "don't let this disease get you" Filling her daughter's Stanley Cup with White Claw and calling an Uber to the airport — her last drink Waking up in an ambulance at 2am in North Carolina thinking she was finally going to die What she did differently this time that made sobriety finally stick The moment her daughter looked at her and said "I trust you, Mom" This one is for every woman out there who is hiding it and thinks nobody notices. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week 📲 Follow Kyle Garges on Instagram Kyle Garges had everything — a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, a career in advertising sales, and a life that looked perfectly put together from the outside.But behind closed doors she was hiding alcohol in her daughter's Stanley Cup. She was drinking through blackouts, through rehab, through aversion therapy in Seattle where they made her chug vodka until she vomited. She drank through her father's death. She drank through interventions. She drank through every promise she made to herself and everyone she loved.Thirty years of alcoholism. Three treatment centers. And a dying father who grabbed her by the neck and looked her in the eye one last time.Coming up on two years sober, Kyle is finally free.🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week📲 Follow Kyle Garges on Instagram If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or mental health, you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to my partners at Compassion Behavioral Health. They offer individualized care and a full continuum of treatment. Call or Text: 844-443-5669 Visit: https://compassionbehavioralhealth.com/?utm_source=rise%20above%20with%20kevin%20lanning&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may #RiseAbove #WomenInRecovery #MomInRecovery #AlcoholRecovery #SoberMom #FunctioningAlcoholic #SoberLife#RecoveryIsPossible #AlcoholismAwareness #MentalHealth #SobrietyJourney #GenerationalTrauma#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #KyleGarges #TwoYearsSober #AddictionRecovery #GriefAndRecovery#WomenWhoRecover #OneMoreDay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices