Steppin' Out Radio

Dr. Stephen Loyd is a prominent Tennessee doctor who has dedicated his life to helping Tennesseans recover from addiction because he previously fought his own battle with prescription medication. In 2001, at the end of his internal medicine residency, Dr. Loyd first began abusing prescription medication. His career is now devoted to helping Tennesseans beat addiction, and he says to those who may be struggling with it, "There is life on the other side, and you don't have to keep living like that."

Dorothy is a long-time friend of the show with decades of sobriety under her belt. She comes back today to provide some tips and motivation for the recovering addict who finds himself surrounded by the ceremonial toasts traditional for New Year's Eve. She recounts how she would spend the holiday alone in her apartment, drinking herself into oblivion. Dorothy talks about how going to parties where nobody drank always helped her, and that many AA or other fellowship groups hold New Year's Eve events to accommodate those who need the extra help to continue their recovery on such a holiday. Dorothy says any city in the world will hold meetings and even U.S. Embassies will help American citizens abroad find a meeting. And what else, for those on holiday cruises, the ship's purser holds a room to be used as a meeting place.

Acclaimed actor Joe Pantolaino founded "No Kidding? Me Too!" which is dedicated to removing the stigma associated with mental illness and brain disease (BD) through education and the breaking down of societal barriers. The organization's goal is to empower those with BD to admit their illness, seek treatment, and become even greater members of society.

At age eighteen, Eric took a cruise with his family. When the ship entered international waters, he learned he could legally buy booze on his own while on-board. It ushered him into a world of alcohol and all the wonders he thought the drug could bring. First, he drank just to irk his parents on their organized family trip. But he spent the voyage carrying alcohol bottles the entire time, learning how much more comfortable in his own skin he could feel while intoxicated. Returning form the trip, he spent all his efforts on getting "of age" people to buy him alcohol until he turned 21 when could do it himself. But drinking lead Eric to hard drugs, which eventually caused him to lose friendships and relationships.

Mike recounts his first experience with alcohol, as a teenager, when a planned gathering of friends only gathers himself and one other person. He proceeds to drink all the beer intended for a much larger crowd. The booze gave him a high he never felt, feeling confident and comfortable for what he thinks is the first time. Mike now knows he started chasing the high ever since that night. In high school, he turned to drugs, which would affect him into adulthood, being unable to hold down a job due to drinking and cocaine use.

Mike's first drink came when he was 12 or 13 years old. He had no hobbies, played no school sports, and had friends who in retrospect he calls "derelicts." Mike follows his friends' lead, drinking and abusing whatever drugs they could find. It didn't take long for him to learn where to score drugs, and as a teenager with a driver license he could easily do it. By seventeen, his family forced him into a detox program for alcohol, but he secretly hid his drug use in order to avoid treatment for it. After high school, Mike could barely stay in college, barely keep a job, crashed automobiles and wound up in trouble with the law. Mike couldn't even stay clean while attempting pre-trial intervention.

In his work as well as his life, acclaimed actor and activist Lou Gossett, Jr. (@LouisGossettJr) has labored to bring people of all races together. Roots, of course was one of America's great history lessons, informing the civil rights struggle with the profound sense of the inequality that was being corrected. In 1971, he and James Garner teamed in one of the first buddy films bridging the racial divide. As two con men gaming the practice of slave-holding before Emancipation, they created a comedy which deeply underlined common humanity. His teaming with Dennis Quaid in the remarkable Enemy Mine was a two performer drama exploring racial distrust in the metaphor of creatures from two different species trapped together on a dangerous planet.

Meghan recalls how she spent her life in high school trying to impress her peers. She had her first drink at age 16, which years later when entering recovery she believed was too late in life to be considered an alcoholic. Her teenage drinking lead to a manic existence; experimenting with drugs and dangerous behavior but also trying to maintain her grades, even into college.

Harry Haroutunian, MD, is an internationally known speaker and authority on addiction-oriented topics—including drug misuse among older adults. He is widely read online and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show and Dr. Drew On Call as well as in The New York Times and Cosmopolitan. Board certified in both addiction and family medicine, Dr. Haroutunian serves as physician director of professional and residential programs at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California. He is the author of Being Sober: A Step-by-Step Guide To, Getting Through, and Living in Recovery.

Michael Dadashi is the founder and CEO of Infinite Recovery, a progressive Austin-based addiction rehabilitation center, as well as the founder and company director of a multi-million dollar electronics recycling and resale business, MHD Enterprises. He serves on the board of the national non-profit, Facing Addiction, and recently launched HeartWater, a platform designed to quench a universal thirst for authenticity and hope through powerful stories of all-inclusive recovery. Dadashi, a successful 32-year-old entrepreneur, is also a recovered heroin addict and alcoholic. He had his first drink and subsequent blackout when he was 15, which began a years-long battle with substance abuse. A natural salesman even from a young age, he was soon selling and using drugs, including marijuana, prescription pills and eventually heroin, and barely graduated from high school.