Steppin' Out Radio

Anthony Papa is an artist, writer, freedom fighter, noted advocate against the war on drugs and co-founder of the Mothers of the New York Disappeared. Mr. Papa's stinging opinion pieces about the drug war have appeared in news sources across the country. He is a frequent public speaker and college lecturer on his art and criminal justice issues. Currently he is Manager of Media Relations for the Drug Policy Alliance. Mr. Papa is the author of 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom (2004), a memoir about his experience of being sentenced to state prison for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense under New York's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Brian Cuban is an attorney, author and mental health awareness and recovery advocate. He is the author of the best-selling book The Addicted Lawyer: Tales of The Bar, Booze Blow & Redemption. He has spoken at conferences, non-profit events, colleges and universities across the United States and in Canada. He also writes extensively on these subjects. His columns have appeared on CNN.com, FoxNews.com, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and in online and print newspapers around the world.

Nick Mirrione is a successful businessman living on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. He is a Vietnam vet, a good family man, and, by his own accounts, a pretty typical 65-year-old guy. He weighs in at 182 pounds, a weight he has more or less hovered around for the past fourteen years. But it was not always thus. At one time in his life, Nick Mirrione weighed an estimated quarter ton. Estimated, because without access to a freight scale, Nick could only guess. At Dr. R. Armour Forse's bariatric clinic, he once officially weighed in at 456 pounds. He was morbidly obese. He received an unexpected wake-up call from his ten year old daughter and he was sent on a path of weight loss and self-discovery, a path that ultimately led him to write about his experiences.

Amber Tozer is the author of Sober Stick Figure and has written for the Cartoon Network's animated sketch series MAD and Adult Swim's Moral Orel. She has a Twitter following of over 52K people! Her tweets have been featured by Ellen, Huffington Post, Playboy, and Mandatory. She co-created #nitTWITS, a Twitter-based web series that features writers and performers from SNL, Modern Family, The Office and Conan. She has appeared on Last Comic Standing, performs stand-up comedy across the U.S., and has written about sobriety for The Fix.com, After Party, and Thought Catalog. She lives in Los Angeles.

Author Ryan Holiday, in his new book, Ego Is The Enemy, gives a a philosophical exploration of difficulties we create for ourselves in life. Early in our careers, ego impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, ego can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, ego magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.

Ralph projected an image of success as an ambitious, successful businessman, and a competitive body-builder who was once "Mr. Metrofit." But, his picture-perfect life had a much darker side that no one saw. Ralph's struggle and story of addiction began early, as he self-medicated; seeking escape with steroids, alcohol, heroin, crack and anything else he could get his hands on. Once a man with expense accounts and company cars, Ralph grew familiar with living on the streets, in and out of shelters, emergency rooms, psych wars, jails, and rehabs. Slowly he was slipping through the cracks and reaching rock bottom, without a clue of what to do about it.

As a person in long-term recovery and the parent of a young person in recovery, James Wahlberg (Mark and Donnie's brother) brings a personal understanding of the issue to his 30 years of experience working in the field of substance use disorder. He has worked at every level – from operations to management – in a number of treatment centers, has experience with various models of recovery; and has spent his career building relationships with stakeholders in industries and communities directly investing in and working with substance use disorder treatment.

Dr. Huckaby has spent his career helping people in times of crisis, providing both expert care and compassion. He is passionate in his belief that addictions are treatable diseases and that addiction experts must carry this message to all patients and physicians, and lead the way with continued innovations that make real differences in patients' lives. Stacy McKinney is a commercial lines marketing executive at a large insurance agency in Dallas, TX. She is a wife, mother, motivator, owner of 7 amazing dogs and 4-time Ironman. She has been sober since May 17, 2015.

Years of clinical practice and extensive research provided the background for The Science of Shame. Dr. Fishkin earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and has been in private practice since 1970. He has authored three other books including American Dream, American Burnout: How to Cope When It All Gets to Be Too Much, Police Burnout, and Firefighter and Paramedic Burnout. An expert in clinical and forensic hypnosis, Dr. Fishkin has worked with witnesses of violent crimes in scene reconstruction as well as aided in suspect identification. Fishkin has appeared on hundreds of nationally syndicated radio and television shows.

In 2013, former U.S Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy founded The Kennedy Forum, a non-profit organization whose mission is to lead a national dialogue on transforming mental health and addiction care delivery by uniting mental health advocates, business leaders, and government agencies around a common set of principles, including full implementation of the Federal Parity Law. Launched in celebration of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's signing of the landmark Community Mental Health Act, the Forum aims to achieve health equity by advancing evidence-based practices, policies, and programming in mental health and substance use.