For nearly 30 years, Dawn Stanley worked inside Missouri’s probation and parole system, helping people navigate addiction, mental health struggles, incarceration and re-entry. Eventually, she thought she was ready to walk away from helping people altogether.

Turns out, that wasn’t really the problem.

On this episode of Pondoff’s Anonymous, Dawn joins Chris, Kurt, and Zoë to talk about a career spent trying to help people inside systems that don’t always make helping people easy and how that experience ultimately led her to the work she does today with TMAC.

Dawn talks about her introduction to the recovery world, what families taught her about addiction, the importance of meeting people where they are, and why there is no single treatment center or recovery path that works for everyone. Sometimes the most important part of helping someone is knowing the right questions to ask and knowing how to navigate a system that can be incredibly difficult to understand from the outside.

We also get into the realities of insurance and treatment, supporting the families affected by addiction, and what it actually looks like when someone calls asking for help and has nowhere else to turn.

Dawn describes herself as relentless. After this conversation, it’s pretty easy to understand why.

Michelle Charbonnier knows addiction from both sides of the conversation.

Today, she's a clinician, recovery advocate, executive director of a recovery community center, and someone who helps individuals and families navigate treatment. But long before she was helping people find their way into recovery, Michelle was trying to find her own way out.

Michelle joins Chris, Zoë and KG to tell the story of growing up in Granite City, experimenting with drugs before she even entered high school, smoking weed every day, bartending in biker bars and eventually developing a cocaine addiction that escalated into a roughly $300-a-day crack habit.

While working toward her MBA and maintaining one version of her life on the surface, she was spending days isolated in hotel rooms and making daily trips to East St. Louis to smoke crack. Eventually, the addiction won out over school.

But quitting crack wasn't the end of Michelle's story.

Her relationship with substances continued to change—from cocaine to Adderall, marijuana and eventually alcohol—until a complete mental and emotional breakdown forced her to confront the fact that she couldn't keep living the way she was living.

Now, Michelle has turned those experiences into a career helping other people. The conversation gets into harm reduction, Narcan, marijuana, mental health, finding the right treatment instead of simply a treatment, the importance of what happens after someone leaves treatment, and why there's no single correct way to recover.

As Michelle puts it: “Judging other people's recovery doesn't serve ours well.”

It's a story about addiction, survival, purpose and what can happen when the person who once needed help becomes the person helping someone else find it.

Tiffany Foster returns to Pondoff’s Anonymous for a conversation about grief, memory, advocacy, and learning how to keep moving when life changes again.Tiffany joins Chris, Zoë and KG on what would have been her son Zack’s 18th birthday, just days before the five-year anniversary of his passing. She talks about the ways she still celebrates him, why she prefers to call the anniversary of his death his “Forever Day,” and why talking openly about Zack has become such an important part of both her grief and her work with Addiction Is Real.Now serving as vice president of Addiction Is Real, Tiffany continues to share Zack’s story with parents and caregivers in hopes of preventing another family from experiencing the same loss. As Chris points out, her willingness to keep talking about what happened has almost certainly helped other families have conversations they otherwise may never have had.But Tiffany is also navigating a new kind of loss. After 13 years with her employer, she unexpectedly lost her job just days before recording, forcing her to confront identity, routine, responsibility and what it means to start over when you already feel like you’ve endured “tragedy on top of tragedy.”And because this is still Pondoff’s Anonymous, the conversation also somehow includes horror movies, red velvet cake, Chicago sex shops, giant.....toys, gay neighborhoods, smut books, ADHD, bears, otters and whether Tiffany was once a “soft butch.”It’s funny, messy, deeply human and ultimately a conversation about continuing to live — while making sure the people we’ve lost continue to live with us.

This week on Pondoff’s Anonymous, Chris, Zoë and Kurt sit down with Kenny Dyson, a beloved member of the Underground recovery community, to hear the story that brought him there.

Kenny’s journey started with drinking at a young age and eventually grew into years of alcohol, cocaine, pills and other drugs. Along the way came loss, a struggling marriage, a career he now realizes addiction may have held back, and plenty of moments that could have ended much differently.

But after years of running, Kenny finally reached a morning when he was simply ready. After one last night out, his friend Josh arrived expecting to have to drag him out of bed. Instead, Kenny was already sitting outside waiting for him. That night became his last drink.

Now nearly 28 months sober, Kenny has found community in AA, NA and Underground—and somehow went from looking for an NA group to being asked to lead one.

It’s an honest conversation about addiction, grief, divorce, friendship, recovery and what can happen when you finally decide it’s time to change your life.

And because this is Pondoff’s Anonymous, the conversation also manages to include meth mouth, Larry Bird, Joe Burrow, Cheetos and cocaine, the St. Louis Blues, divorce court and an alarming amount of discussion about attractive men.

Kenny Dyson’s story is proof that sometimes recovery doesn’t begin with having everything figured out. Sometimes it begins with simply being ready.

Michael Fowler joins Pondoff’s Anonymous to tell a story that starts with childhood trauma, addiction and years of keeping people at arm’s length and eventually leads him into treatment, recovery and a career helping other people find their own way out.Michael opens up about experiencing trauma at a young age and how it helped build the walls he carried into adulthood. In treatment, sharing that part of his story led another man to reveal something he had never told anyone before. That moment gave Michael his first glimpse of something bigger: maybe the parts of his life he had spent hiding could actually be used to help somebody else.He talks candidly about alcoholism, drugs, failed relationships, infidelity, run-ins with the law and the destructive belief that if he hurt people first, they couldn't hurt him. Recovery eventually forced him to do something very different—lower the walls, feel the pain when things went wrong and stop numbing every uncomfortable emotion.The conversation also explores Michael's evolving relationship with faith. After initially wanting nothing to do with the "God stuff" in recovery, his idea of a higher power gradually evolved from the people in the rooms to a personal relationship with Christ.And because this is Pondoff’s Anonymous, somehow all of that exists alongside restaurant hookup culture, cocaine, bowling, getting tased, The Sopranos, questionable golf-course stories and an alarming amount of discussion that probably shouldn't appear in an episode description.It's a conversation about what happens when the things you once tried hardest to hide become the exact things that allow you to connect with—and help—someone else.

This week, Chris, KG, and Zoë sit down with Ricky Stewart, Director of Hilljack House and former Illinois Recovery Center case manager, for an honest conversation about addiction, identity, and the long road to recovery.Ricky shares what it was like growing up as the youngest of five—and an identical twin—in a home that looked stable from the outside but was filled with chaos behind closed doors. He opens up about his introduction to heroin, thirty treatment centers, relapse after four years of sobriety, and the moments that nearly convinced him to give up.The conversation explores sober living, fatherhood, pornography addiction, mental health, shame, grace, sponsorship, and the people who kept showing up even when Ricky couldn't answer the door. It's a powerful reminder that recovery isn't about becoming perfect—it's about staying connected when everything inside you tells you to isolate.There are plenty of laughs mixed in, because that's how life works. Even in the middle of the hardest stories, hope has a way of finding its way into the room.

This week, Chris, KG, and Erin Johnston of Addiction Is Real sit down for a conversation that challenges the way we think about addiction, recovery, and mental health.

From the realities of detox and the fentanyl crisis to youth mental health, suicide prevention, Narcan, and supporting families in crisis, Erin shares what she's learned after years of working alongside people whose lives have been forever changed by substance use. But this isn't just a conversation about statistics—it's about people, compassion, and the small moments that can change the course of someone's life.

The discussion also explores grace, faith, parenting, community, grief, and why creating a space where people feel seen may be one of the most powerful forms of prevention we have. As always, there are plenty of laughs mixed in along the way, proving that even the heaviest conversations can leave you with hope.

If you've ever wondered how to better support someone who's struggling—or simply become a better human being—this episode is for you.

This week, Chris, Zoë, and KG welcome Morgan Coyner for one of the funniest—and most vulnerable—conversations of the season.

Morgan opens up about growing up with a mother battling mental illness and addiction, finding alcohol at an early age, becoming a high-achieving alcoholic through college, and eventually discovering a life she never thought was possible in recovery.

Along the way, the conversation bounces from Four Lokos, fraternity parties, and NASCAR bets to Virginia Tech, faith, forgiveness, family, and what it really means to heal from childhood trauma.

As always with Pondoff's Anonymous, the laughs come just as often as the tears. Whether they're joking about purity culture, arguing over music, or unpacking the complicated relationship between love and addiction, this episode is a reminder that recovery isn't just surviving your story—it's learning to tell it with honesty, hope, and maybe a few inappropriate jokes along the way.

Pondoff's Anonymous had the week off while Chris gallivanted around his homeland in Italy.So for this week, please enjoy this Pondoff's Anonymous Best of Season 3.Featuring conversations with Marcus "Buff" Bagwell, Michael Wellington, Kira Andersen, Ryan Canaday, and many more, this best of episode is filled with stories of recovery, triumph, success, heartache, and every other human emotion you can think of.Each of these stories are unique in their own way, but they all have one thing in common: they prove that no matter what you're dealing with, whether it be addiction, loss, mental health issues, or anything else, you don't have to do it alone. If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to us here at Pondoff's Anonymous.

Some people hit rock bottom in a single moment. For others, it's thousands of small decisions that slowly pull them further away from the life they were meant to live.

On this episode of Pondoff's Anonymous, Cole Shea shares the winding road that led from a turbulent childhood and high school football dreams to heroin addiction, prison, and eventually a decade of sobriety. Growing up surrounded by addiction, violence, and instability, Cole explains how loyalty to family often collided with the boundaries that others tried to set for him—and how those choices shaped the course of his life.

Cole opens up about surviving Type 1 diabetes while incarcerated, navigating years of active addiction alongside family members, the reality of prison life, and the moment he realized he couldn't keep outrunning the consequences of his decisions. Along the way, the conversation explores trauma, accountability, recovery, and the difference between simply surviving and genuinely learning how to live.

Whether you've lived this story yourself or loved someone who has, Cole's honesty is a testament to the idea that your past doesn't have to write the rest of your story.