Rock Bottom, Recovery, and Closing the Loop on Convergence. This is our farewell, for now, podcast episode. (Stay tuned for Tune Tumult album updates)

The episode opens with talk about rollercoaster TikToks before Brendan shares a major personal update: after a rock-bottom moment, he entered a 12-step program, attended four meetings in the first week, and is planning to ask someone to be his sponsor. He reflects on trying 12 steps in 2013 but being blocked by God trauma, and contrasts that with previous non-religious and Buddhist-based recovery approaches that felt more passive and lacked guidance. He describes his addiction as complicated and expressed through multiple outlets (including sugar/overeating, porn, and weed), and discusses triggers, the idea of “filling a hole” versus “feeding the void,” and why he’s not currently drawn to antidepressants/SSRIs, preferring therapy and processing to address root causes.

Mark discusses medication helping him feel more even and how it affects his therapy, then shares therapy insights about feeling different from a young age, including a bowling memory tied to his father’s comment about early expectations. He also announces he emailed clients to close down his business, has a Trello board to manage transitions, and has a new job contract signed through the end of the year but can’t share details due to confidentiality. With these life changes and increasing constraints on what can be discussed publicly, they announce they’re ending the Convergence podcast, though the feed will remain up and they’ll continue private check-ins.

They talk about burnout with podcasting and a desire to move on from “performing for the internet.” Brendan shares renewed momentum to finish his addiction memoir, framed around his first marriage, and explains a planned multimedia package: integrating his own songs into the audiobook with looping underbeds and alternating lyric sections with commentary; adding QR codes in the text edition linking readers to specific audio segments; and releasing a companion two-disc album (full songs plus audiobook-section snippets). He considers using a pen name for privacy and to unify the book and album identity. They also decide to release a Convergence compilation of the short songs made for the show (using existing published versions due to lost masters), potentially followed by a brief update episode once it’s live. The episode ends with Brendan performing a longer joke/bit about a partner trying to “fix” him.