The Unashamed Alcoholic

This week's Unashamed Alcoholic guests are Jason and Mikey from one of my favourite podcasts, Knockin' Doorz Down.

The KDD Podcast features celebrities and people from all walks of life who have experienced challenging times in their lives and how they were able to break through and live a purposeful life inspiring others to be their best selves. They have interviewed Charlie Sheen, Kelly Osbourne, AJ McLean and many more!

Find their podcast here

We actually did an interview exchange, so visit their site to find an interview I did with them as well!

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jason and Mikey.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Ann Dowsett Johnston. Ann is the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, named one of the top 10 books of 2013 by the Washington Post. An award-winning journalist with more than 40 years of experience, she has also been a vice-principal of McGill University. Ann is a practicing psychotherapist, a Focusing-oriented trainer and the founder of Writing Your Recovery, a memoir-writing course.

I read Drink when I was trying to get sober and I was fascinated by the connections outlined between women and alcohol.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ann.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Senator Patrick Brazeau. Senator Brazeau is and was the youngest member of the Senate of Canada. Senator Brazeau was in the headlines over the last few years for different reasons, however- legal and addiction related.

When I came across Senator Brazeau on Twitter, I noticed that he spoke proudly of his recovery and sobriety and I wanted to speak to him directly about this and his experiences over the  last few years.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Senator Brazeau.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic episode is a very special one. Anyone who has followed my story knows that NHL player Bobby Ryan played a huge role in me coming forward publicly with my alcoholism which then sparked the idea for a podcast.

Since the outset of the podcast, I've wanted to connect with Bobby- first as a guest, and later just to ensure he knew of his role in my story. Well, after months of trying, I finally reached him a few weeks ago and had a private conversation with him today.

While this isn't an interview with him as he prefers not to do that, this is a story of how my story has come full circle. And it's about how I was able to thank someone whose story meant so much to mine.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Real Housewives of Orange County star, Braunwyn Windham-Burke.

During the season 15 premiere of RHOC in fall 2020, Braunwyn revealed in a confessional that she was an alcoholic. The show then followed her journey as she openly showed the ups and downs and spoke about being part of a program of recovery.

I was so happy for Braunwyn and wanted to learn about why she decided to make her recovery so public and how she talks about it with her children.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Braunwyn.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Brendan Leonard, an adventure writer, award-winning filmmaker, speaker, and creator of Semi-Rad.com. 

Drinking landed Brendan in rehab at age 23 and since then he’s gone on to get a master’s degree, live out of a van for three years, spend weeks below the rim of the Grand Canyon, climb the Grand Teton in a day, bicycled across America, and much more. Brendan wrote "Sixty Meters to Anywhere" about his journey to sobriety and beyond.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brendan.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is...me!

I thought I'd do a short and sweet episode to celebrate reaching a huge personal milestone of 10,000 downloads of the podcast and 20 episodes so far. 

Spoiler alert: I get a bit.....emotional. More than once. Sorry!

Thanks for your support in this passion project of mine- it's a wonderful feeling to be able to speak freely and openly about a stigmatized subject you kept hidden for so long!

xo
B

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This week's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Ken Seeley.

You might know Ken from his work as an interventionist on the tv show "Intervention", but Ken himself has a wonderful story of recovery. We talk about his journey to getting sober as well as what he's discovered during his many years of sobriety.  Ken has done an incredible amount of on himself through his years of sobriety and he talks about getting back to the basics: getting comfortable and happy in your own skin before you can do anything else.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ken.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is Canadian singer-songwriter Damhnait Doyle. Damhnait was a member of Atlantic Canadian band Shaye from 2003–2009.

Damhnait wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Toronto Star in 2019 about how the music industry needs to better support musicians who don't drink. I wanted to chat with her about her decision to stop drinking, how difficult that is as a musician, and how things have changed since she wrote the article.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Damhnait.

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Today's Unashamed Alcoholic guest is former NBA player Chris Herren.

Chris has an incredible story of addiction to recovery. He was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 1999 before being traded to his hometown team, the Boston Celtics in 2000 before substance abuse short-circuited his NBA career. 

What he has done since getting sober is inspirational and nothing short of beautiful.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Chris.

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