The Mark Manderson Show

Aaron Moore built his life around hard work. He started his furniture restoration business young, spent more than two decades mastering his craft, and eventually built a large audience online around the work he was doing. Then life started putting everything into perspective. Only months after becoming a father, Aaron and his wife noticed something unusual happening with their infant son. What fol...

Darian looked like he had everything under control. He was raising three young children, working in a demanding corporate career, leading major initiatives and meetings with executives, and showing up as the dad and employee everyone depended on. What almost nobody could see was how much he was struggling. Darian describes himself as a high-functioning alcoholic who became extremely good at hiding...

Wyatt Franklin spent most of his life trying to survive. He grew up in extreme poverty, never knew his father, and lost his mother in a drinking and driving accident when he was almost four years old. Alcohol and drugs eventually became the way he escaped fear, grief, anxiety, and the feeling that he never truly belonged. What followed were decades of addiction, broken relationships, overdoses, le...

Jeff Gilbert achieved the kind of success most musicians dream about — touring the world, gold records, and a #1 single. But when the achievement finally came, he found himself asking a question he didn't expect: Why don't I feel happier? In this episode of The Mark Manderson Show, Jeff opens up about tying his identity to performance, walking away from the life he had known since he was a teenage...

Erryk Jennings spent the better part of 35 years trying to get sober. Growing up in an affluent Orange County community, everything looked good from the outside. Inside the home, however, there was addiction, chaos, fear, and experiences Erryk would carry with him for decades. He found relief in alcohol at just nine years old, beginning a long cycle of addiction, incarceration, treatment, relapse,...

Jay spent six years in the Navy and completed multiple tours, but the hardest battle of his life began when everything started falling apart. After legal trouble, being discharged from the military, heavy drinking, and an arrest, Jay was forced to confront the anger, sleeplessness, and emotions he had spent years trying to suppress. Instead of expecting his life to change overnight, he made a deci...

Gregg Champion has spent more than 30 years in recovery helping other people rebuild their lives. But when the Pacific Palisades fires destroyed his home and the recovery program he had spent years building, Gregg suddenly had to apply those same principles to his own life all over again. In this episode of The Mark Manderson Show, Gregg opens up about evacuating his clients as the fire spread, wa...

Hamish Patterson joins The Mark Manderson Show for a wild and deeply honest conversation about addiction, surfing, skateboarding, rebellion, faith, sobriety, and what happens when a life built around chaos finally stops working. Growing up in the California surf and skate scene, Hamish spent years searching for meaning while moving through counterculture, activism, drugs, alcohol, creativity, and...

Mike Radoor joins The Mark Manderson Show for a raw conversation about success, self-sabotage, identity, fatherhood, and what it really takes to change. After building multiple companies, reaching a massive business valuation, and achieving the kind of lifestyle many people chase, Mike found himself completely empty. He opens up about spending years chasing external validation through money, cars,...

Nicole joins The Mark Manderson Show for a raw and honest conversation about the hidden pain behind a life that looked perfect from the outside. As a military child, military wife, stay-at-home mom, and mother of two, Nicole built the life she always thought she wanted — the house, the family, the pool, the golf cart, and the picture-perfect routine. But behind closed doors, she began losing herse...

Army veteran Nick Gilwich joins The Mark Manderson Show for a powerful conversation about military transition, fatherhood, leadership, mental health, success, and learning how to rebuild purpose after service. After eight years in the Army and two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nick transitioned into the financial industry, where he now works with veterans, service members, and families. But leavi...

Colton Lewis returns to The Mark Manderson Show for a raw and emotional conversation about relapse, recovery, faith, and the fight to keep going when life feels impossible. After a four-year run that brought him to the darkest point of his addiction, Colton admits he was ready to give up. He opens up about needle use, losing hope, disappointing his family, and the friend who drove him back to trea...

One night changed Darren Jacobs' life forever. For the next 23 years, he tried to outrun it. After a fatal DUI in 1994, Darren carried the weight of guilt, regret, addiction, and consequences that followed him for decades. Drinking continued through arrests, jail, prison, damaged relationships, financial struggles, and repeated attempts to get sober. For years, Darren believed everything around hi...

After 13 overdoses, repeated arrests, and losing custody of her daughter, Shay Thomas reached a point where she had to decide whether she would continue disappearing into addiction—or fight for her life and her family. In this deeply personal episode of The Mark Manderson Show, Shay shares her journey from experimenting with drugs at a young age to surviving an abusive teen treatment facility, yea...

One brother made a choice that changed everything. In this powerful episode of The Mark Manderson Show, Kevin Shearer shares the deeply personal story of growing up in a family devastated by addiction, overdoses, and years of heartbreak—and how choosing grace, truth, and healthy boundaries helped break a generational cycle. As the Executive Director of Changes Treatment Center, Kevin has dedicated...

In this episode of The Mark Manderson Show, David Thomas shares the raw truth behind a decade of addiction, multiple arrests, and the long road to rebuilding his life. @Mr_DavidThomas Raised in Huntington Beach with generational wealth on one side of his family and a father consumed by meth addiction on the other, David found himself chasing success while quietly falling apart. Working as a union...

TEDx speaker and podcast host Lillian Victoria - @LillianVictoriaSpeaks opens up about surviving childhood abandonment, sexual abuse, and a devastating divorce that left her a single mom starting over from nothing. In this raw conversation, Lillian shares how she rebuilt her identity from the ground up — moving from a life driven by fear and approval to one grounded in purpose, faith, and self-wor...

Jenny Leone, co-founder of Aloha Recovery California, shares her journey from 20+ years of addiction and childhood trauma to sobriety, purpose, and helping others heal. She opens up about radical honesty, inner child work, letting go of victimhood, and finding true peace. Mark Manderson is a TEDx speaker, author of The Recovery Way, and a nationally recognized mental health and addiction expert wi...

Amy Jordan — owner and CEO of Wundabar Pilates, Wundacore, and HLNA Home — shares her incredible journey from running marketing at Marvel to building a Pilates empire, surviving a rare and aggressive cervical cancer diagnosis during COVID, and healing childhood trauma through movement. Amy opens up about intuition, resilience, motherhood, compassionate confrontation, and why she believes movement...

Malcolm King — entrepreneur, fitness influencer, streetwear founder of Dope Sick USA, and harm reduction advocate — sits down to share his unfiltered story. From playing football at Cal State Fullerton with NFL interest from the Giants, Eagles, and Redskins, to battling addiction, serving time, and rebuilding his life with purpose. Malcolm breaks down how the streets, sociology, and faith shaped h...

Blythe Rifkin — interventionist, spiritual seeker, and recovering addict — shares raw truth about addiction, surrender, and finding God through the darkest moments of life. From raising a daughter in active addiction to sitting with users all night, Blythe brings the kind of honesty that actually sets people free.

Dr. Jill Hubbard is a clinical psychologist, 25-year radio co-host on New Life Live, author of three books — and a mom who had to watch her son spiral into addiction while knowing all the clinical answers and still feeling powerless to stop it. In this deeply honest conversation, Dr. Jill opens up about the fear, shame, and self-doubt that no degree prepares you for. She shares what it was like to...

Mark reconnects with childhood friend Logan Doolan — a Newport Beach local who went from Volcom's first shop grom to producing award-winning surf films, only to lose it all to an OxyContin addiction before staging one of the most unlikely comebacks in surf culture. Logan shares the full story: growing up in Newport with a dysfunctional home life, finding a second family through The Frog House, hos...

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Austin Greenleaf — a Michigan native, baseball kid, and survivor — who opens up about growing up in chaos, descending into substance abuse, a life-changing car accident, and the long road to recovery, accountability, and authentic living. Austin shares what it really took to break the victim mindset, build a community he could trust, and start showing up f...

Matt Higgins went from overdosing in a Hollywood alley to walking that same alley in a suit, trusted with the life of a billionaire's child. In this raw and powerful episode, Matt shares his journey from a small town in Oklahoma, to the Navy's combat search and rescue, to rock bottom on the streets of Skid Row — and how a breathwork session with Jeremy Jackson, a stranger named "Eyes," and a simpl...