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 engage in a feverish, high-octane discussion on 'stigma' and God's role in helping a person like Angel to fight it.

"As much as I wanted to stop, my body was on auto-pilot."  

Angel's story is jaw-dropping. Raised by parents who were addicts, it took years for her to arrive at a place in her life where she could finally start to recover from, in her words, "the things the world told me that I am." She also talks at length about discovering a place where she felt at home and where "she wasn't a leper, where I belonged somewhere."

Marc and Angel also talk about her role as a peer-recovery supporter and how her faith-based approach within her role at Arc has become her life's mission: to assist others in fighting stigma and finding that same feeling of inclusion and acceptance.

Your feedback is important to us, please take our show survey here.  Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

Your feedback is important to us, please take our show survey here.  

Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

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 art of perfecting the ruse.  And then it finally all caught up to him.

It what may be the singular most unique episode of this podcast, Marc speaks honestly and directly with Kevin who, at the time of this recording, was in substance-use disorder recovery for exactly 152 days.  Kevin opened the door and let us into his world, one that slowly and perilously moved him ever closer to a place where he had no other option than to ask for help.  In his words, “I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t care if I lived.”

This is a blatantly revealing episode, a tour de force of transparency and candor.  And it’s even more revealing because this episode also has a ‘video’ companion, so subscribers can listen to and watch the interplay as Marc and Kevin discuss his emotional journey…now 152 days and counting.  

Your feedback is important to us, please take our show survey here.  

Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

Your feedback is important to us, please take our show survey here.  

Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

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, fix, and try to understand the obstacles placed in their daily lives on the edge of being an adult yet with a child's life experiences. Never really knowing how it impacts them and what the future implications might be down the road.

Enter the middle-school counselor James Shannon. In this frank episode, James talks about the myriad of issues that confront our next generation and how he helps them navigate the choppy waters of early teenage adolescence. James also reminds adults that while the problems experienced by middle-school students may not seem critical, they are of paramount importance to the student, and those problems can be life-altering events.

Marc and James also discuss some warning signs where anxiety and depression can trigger more complex situations and how family and mentors can be on the lookout for them. This practical, sometimes severe, and nuts-and-bolts discussion can impact anyone connected to a young person's challenging, rewarding, and tumultuous life.

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Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

“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 home, who never experienced a drop of alcohol, could arrive at this place. A place where simply aspiring to drink until you blackout meant successful relief.

Marc welcomes Attorney Cheryl Wear as she speaks at length about her journey. It is an experience that includes the downward spiral of substance abuse, disrupted family events, lost jobs, and finally being exiled from her husband and children. At the moment of  ‘rock bottom,’ she knew that her previous conception of an alcoholic ‘being some toothless guy who lived under a bridge’ was false, erroneous, and now completely altered. 

In this episode, Cheryl chronicles her climb out of the hole. She reflects on her re-connection to the importance of Christianity in her life. She vividly explains how her strength allowed her to finally find a new relationship with her children. And she confirms the fact that this disease called ‘alcoholism’ can sink its fangs into anyone and anybody. It’s a powerful episode and a unique story of redemption. 

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Find out more at RecoveryTalks.org

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 only 16 and later died from complications of her disease, Crissy realized early on that her world lacked healthy boundaries. Her relationships with relatives and friends were absorbed in a life that was not like her friends at school and, later, sometimes included very inappropriate attention from men with the wrong intentions. 

But strength and perseverance have a way of polishing a shining star with a kind soul, helping them to find courage, to dig deep, and to rise. After becoming a mother herself, Crissy found an alternative path, from what was her childhood to her reality. She dedicated herself to breaking the chain of trauma and committed her life to achieve through adversity.

She never gave up.  Today, she has overcome and has a family life, a working farm, and a life with a partner with whom she walks together along the path of sobriety.

Join Marc as he shares Crissy's fantastic journey from pain and despair to hope and a future. Discover how Crissy found an exhilarating strength that we may not know we possess.