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

Please, Somebody Pull My Brake

Jul 30th, 2022 39m 43s

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

Radical Acceptance

Jul 18th, 2022 26m 43s

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

152 Days and Counting

Jul 11th, 2022 46m 40s

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

The Waiting, The Wearing-Through, and the Willingness

Jun 13th, 2022 32m 15s

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

Just a Dad from Akron

Jun 1st, 2022 31m 37s

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

When It’s Time For the Hard Conversation

May 17th, 2022 30m 16s

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

A Hobby Turned To a Habit

May 10th, 2022 34m 34s

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

Rise Up: A Story of An Adult Child of Alcoholics

May 2nd, 2022 40m 10s

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

Unicorns and Polka-Dots: A Song of Hope

Apr 25th, 2022 27m 9s

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

Deep-Diving on Dual-Diagnosis

Apr 18th, 2022 29m 31s

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

Never Give Up

Apr 11th, 2022 34m 22s

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

When the Shattered Pieces Come Together

Apr 4th, 2022 36m 17s

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

Hurt People Hurt People

Dec 28th, 2021 12m 38s

The ‘well of pain.’ For the person in long-term recovery, ‘pain’ is real. Sometimes unforgiving. What can begin the process towards healing? Or, maybe even better put: who?Can a frog?Marc thinks aloud in this final episode of Season 3, re

The Road to Redemption

Dec 20th, 2021 33m 38s

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

Feeding the Malnourished Brain - Rachel Pollack

Dec 15th, 2021 37m 12s

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

When The Wheels Come Off

Dec 6th, 2021 32m 45s

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

The Master Manipulators

Nov 29th, 2021 26m 59s

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

Helping-Each-Other Magic

Nov 22nd, 2021 28m 28s

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

Being OK Where You Are

Nov 16th, 2021 29m 20s

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

Too Blessed To Be Stressed

Nov 8th, 2021 31m 56s

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

Grief Brain

Nov 1st, 2021 32m 18s

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

When the Spinning Stops

Oct 25th, 2021 37m 22s

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

Navigating Without

Oct 11th, 2021 25m 8s

In this second installment of a 4-part series on 'grief,' host Marc Lee Shannon introduces us to his close friend, Terry Weaver. Terry recounts her 'magical' relationship with her husband, Jeff, and how a sudden lung cancer diagnosis sent shock