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Hosts Peg McDermott and Heather Hagaman discuss dual recovery as living with both substance use disorder and mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and ADHD, and emphasize that treating both together is more effective than treating one alone. 

Peg shares her experience of post-sobriety anxiety, insomnia, complex PTSD, and the difficult process of finding and safely tapering off sleep and anxiety medications under psychiatric care, alongside therapy, yoga, breathwork, and meetings. 

Heather describes chronic depression and how antidepressants helped stabilize her without getting her “high,” supporting long-term sobriety. They address stigma in recovery communities around prescribed medications, pain management after surgery, and evolving issues like medical marijuana and “California sobriety,” including examples of cannabis use leading back to drinking. 

They stress doctor-supervised, as-prescribed use, motivation to heal rather than numb, and compassionate nonjudgment, including discussion of professionally facilitated ketamine and psilocybin treatments.

00:00 Welcome and Topic

01:10 Medication in Recovery

04:30 Peg’s Anxiety and PTSD

07:43 Finding the Right Meds

09:27 Heather on Depression

12:34 Stigma and Room Debates

15:43 California Sober Talk

18:35 Meds as Healing Tools

23:55 Psychedelics and Judgment

27:48 Whole Person Recovery

31:02 Closing and Takeaways