GET UNHOOKED PODCAST

Send us Fan Mail They Finally Said Yes to Rehab… Now What? You've waited months, maybe even years, to hear your addicted loved one say, "I'm ready to get help." And then, just like that, they change their mind. Why does this happen? And what can you do differently when that window of willingness finally opens? In this episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason Coombs breaks dow...

Send us Fan Mail What if the harder you try to convince your loved one to get sober, the more you're actually pushing them away from recovery? It's frustrating. They've admitted they have a problem. They've promised to change. Maybe they've even been to rehab. But somehow, they keep ending up in the same place. Here's what most families don't realize: Your loved...

Send us Fan Mail You've tried everything to help someone you love get sober. So why isn't anything working? You've paid their bills. You've covered for their mistakes. You've had the same conversations a hundred times. You've threatened consequences, made promises, and spent countless sleepless nights wondering what else you could possibly do. But here's the pain...

Send us Fan Mail How does a successful professional with a promising career end up homeless, facing felony charges, and addicted to heroin? And more importantly, how does someone come back from that? In this special episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, I'm sharing a conversation I had with my good friend Shane Ramer, host of That Sober Guy Podcast. We're going deep into my personal journ...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you love someone struggling with addiction so much that their addiction starts consuming your life too? In this episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason sits down with bestselling author, recovery coach, and host of the One Day at a Time Recovery Podcast, Arlina Allen. Arlina recently celebrated 31 years of recovery—but her story is about far more than simply g...

Send us Fan Mail What if the reason you’re exhausted from trying to help your addicted loved one isn’t because you haven’t tried hard enough… …but because you’ve been using the wrong tool for the stage they’re actually in? In this episode of Get Unhooked , Jason introduces the COMPASS Framework —a practical way to identify where your loved one is in the stages of change so you can stop guessing, r...

Send us Fan Mail You love them. You want them to get better. And you’d do almost anything to help. But what if some of the things you’re doing to help your addicted loved one are actually making recovery harder? In this episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason Coombs breaks down 10 things NOT to do when you’re trying to help someone you love recover from addiction. This isn’t about blaming famil...

Send us Fan Mail What if the key to helping your addicted loved one isn’t doing more—but learning when to stop pushing, fixing, and rescuing? In this episode, Jason answers real questions from family members navigating addiction, relapse, broken trust, financial consequences, and the constant fear of making the “wrong” move. He explains why the advice-giver often doesn’t get an honest participant—...

Send us Fan Mail Why do some stories move people—and others make their eyes glaze over? For years, Jason Coombs thought the problem was his story. Maybe it wasn’t interesting enough. Maybe he wasn’t a natural storyteller. Maybe nobody really cared what he had been through. Then he learned a lesson that completely changed the way he communicates: Write for the reader, not for the writer. In this ep...

Send us Fan Mail Getting sober is important. But what if getting sober isn’t actually the goal? In this episode, Jason Coombs shares what he believes was missing during his first several attempts at recovery—and why simply telling someone to stop drinking, stop using, stop lying, or stop destroying their life often isn’t enough to create lasting change. Because when someone is deep in addiction, s...

Send us Fan Mail How do you help someone change when they don’t believe they need to? In this episode of Brick House, Jason breaks down the connection between the Stages of Change model and the Epiphany Bridge framework — showing how recovery professionals, peer supports, and anyone trying to influence change can communicate in a way that actually lands. Jason explains why advice often creates res...

Send us Fan Mail If you love someone struggling with addiction, you've probably wrestled with this question: How do I stay loving and supportive without rescuing them, enabling them, or becoming a doormat? In Episode 70, Jason breaks down one of the most difficult parts of loving someone with a substance use disorder: learning how to hold clarity and charity at the same time. You can have emp...

Send us Fan Mail What do you do when your loved one desperately needs help—but refuses to admit there’s a problem? In this Q&A episode, Jason Coombs tackles some of the hardest questions families face: When is enough enough? Should I push them toward rehab? What if they deny they’re using? Should I keep helping financially? And how do I influence someone who doesn’t want to change? Jason expla...

Send us Fan Mail “I should have caught it sooner.” For parents and spouses of an addicted loved one, that thought can create years of guilt, shame, hypervigilance, and sleepless nights. In this episode, Jason Coombs explains how to stop arguing with reality without giving up on the person you love. Using Byron Katie’s four questions and “the turnaround,” he walks you through a practical way to cha...

Send us Fan Mail When you love someone struggling with addiction, every buzz, missed call, and stretch of silence can feel like a possible emergency. Before long, your phone stops being a tool and becomes a leash attached to your loved one’s chaos. In this episode, Jason Coombs explores the phenomenon known as “screen apnea”—holding your breath or breathing shallowly while checking a screen—and ex...

Send us Fan Mail Your loved one relapsed. Now what? For many families, relapse immediately triggers panic, anger, lectures, threats, silent treatment, or another round of rescuing. It is not because they are bad people. It is because they are scared—and in that fear, they forget everything they have learned. In this episode, Jason Coombs shares the STORM Response, a five-step framework designed to...

Send us Fan Mail What does a spiritual awakening actually look like? For most people, it isn’t dramatic. It may be a Tuesday afternoon when you suddenly realize you haven’t checked your addicted loved one’s location in days. It may be the first time you hold a boundary without collapsing under guilt. It may be a full night of sleep after months or years of fear. In this episode, Jason Coombs break...

Send us Fan Mail What if your loved one doesn’t change right away? What if they’re still struggling, still making choices you don’t understand, and still leaving you wondering, “Am I doing enough? Am I helping? Am I enabling? Am I just stuck in the same painful loop?” In this episode of Get Unhooked , Jason closes out week six of the family recovery masterclass with a powerful reminder: your freed...

Send us Fan Mail What if the words “I’m sorry” are not enough? In this episode of Brick House, Jason Coombs walks through one of the most powerful parts of recovery: making real amends. Not the kind that asks someone else to hurry up and forgive you. Not the kind that tries to erase the past with one emotional conversation. Real amends are different. They require honesty, specificity, humility, an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Brick House Podcast , Jason Coombs shares a powerful conversation from just outside Yellowstone, beginning with a personal story about seeing wild bears with his wife during a sacred season of her cancer journey. From there, Jason leads listeners into a deeper discussion on Step 9, grief, surrender, and what it really means to make amends. So often, families...

Send us Fan Mail When you love someone struggling with addiction, even a simple conversation can feel like walking into a courtroom, a battlefield, or a trap. You want to help. You want to say the right thing. You want them to open up, be honest, and finally see what you see. But too often, the conversation turns into defensiveness, arguing, guilt, shutdown, or another exhausting ride on the addic...

Send us Fan Mail What if the biggest mistake families make in addiction recovery is focusing on the wrong mountain? In this episode, Jason shares a deeply personal reflection after celebrating his birth son’s 19th birthday—a moment that reminded him just how impossible recovery once felt. For years, addiction felt like an endless cycle of trying, failing, promising, and starting over. The distance...

Send us Fan Mail If you have an addicted loved one and you have been holding everything together for longer than you can remember, this is the episode where it starts to come apart, in the best possible way. Jason takes you inside one of the most pivotal weeks of the six-week Live Unhooked Masterclass. You will learn why cleaning the goldfish never works, what really happens in Step Four of recove...

Send us Fan Mail You're still functioning. You're answering the crisis calls, researching treatment centers, watching for signs, holding the family together. But underneath all of it, your own oxygen is getting thinner. In the opening week of the Unhooked Masterclass, Jason Coombs sits down with families who love someone with substance use disorder and names what most of them already fee...

Send us Fan Mail EPISODE 57 -DESCRIPTION  Two commercial pilots had a checklist for a cabin pressure problem. They followed every step except one. The plane crashed and everyone on board died. If you love someone with addiction, you've been making the same mistake. In Episode 57, Jason Coombs teaches the emotional raincoat: the one shift that separates families who burn out from families who...