Chasing Heroine: Addiction Recovery and Sobriety

**TRIGGER WARNING **todays episode references child abuse, please take care while listening. Today is part two of Jeannine's interview with Matthew Hahn. Matt was a career criminal whose meth addiction and history of residential burglaries earned him three strikes by the age of 18. At 25, Matt was fresh off of parole, and back in his addiction. Returning to his old methods to support his lifes...

This is encore presentation of a episode that was first released in November, 2023. All new episodes will return April 2nd, 2026. **TRIGGER WARNING **todays episode references child abuse, please take care while listening. Today Jeannine interviews Matthew Hahn. Matt was a career criminal whose meth addiction and history of residential burglaries earned him three strikes by the age of 18. At 25, M...

This is an encore presentation of an episode originally released May, 2024. After today, I will be taking a short break and returning on April 2nd with all new episodes. All Patreon memberships will be paused until we return as well. Thank you! Hey y'all! This is the ONE jail story I have yet to tell anywhere . Literally one of the craziest events of my entire life, and probably the wildest fo...

This week, we sit down with Bishop Snow an emerging hip hop artist whose story moves from police documentation to performance stages. Raised between Oceanside and Long Beach, Bishop grew up surrounded by instability, gang culture, and early exposure to drugs. By 16, he was already documented by the gang suppression unit, immersed in a lifestyle that felt inevitable in his neighborhood. The streets...

Kimmy’s story doesn’t begin with rebellion. It begins with survival. Raised in a home where instability was the norm and addiction sat at the dinner table, Kimmy was introduced to meth at just ten years old when her own mother injected her. What followed was a childhood shaped by substance use, escalating mental health struggles, and self-harm that started in elementary school and grew alongside t...

This week’s episode follows Rio, a woman whose story moves from chaos to clarity with raw honesty and hard-won hope. Rio began using meth in high school, a path that quickly pulled her out of her parents’ home and into the control of an older woman who groomed her and introduced her to a traumatic, dangerous lifestyle. After graduating from an alternative school, Rio became a young mom, but addict...

Born and raised in South Oceanside, California, Ian G grew up in the shadow of early loss. After his father passed away, Ian made a vow to himself he would never touch narcotics. Life, however, had other plans. After dropping out of high school, that promise slowly unraveled, giving way to years of heavy drinking and drug use marked by multiple DUIs, arrests, and mounting consequences. In October...

In this episode, we sit down with Skinny Vinny, comedian, content creator, and podcaster whose journey from idolizing the Jackass crew as a kid to eventually working alongside them is anything but linear. Vinny’s story begins on a skateboard, smoking weed and chasing adrenaline, before escalating into a painkiller addiction and eventually heroin. His use cost him nearly everything, including housi...

Today is a little different! I’m sharing a recording from a twelve-step meeting where I gave the lead a few years ago. It’s a simple, honest breakdown of the Twelve Steps and the process of actually working them, not as a rulebook or a rigid formula, but as a deeply personal experience. I’ve always felt that the steps are essentially free, personalized therapy. They ask us to look at our patterns,...

Today, I am joined by my best friends of over thirty years, Keri, Scott “Gumpy” and Barbara. They are not in recovery - which is actually why I wanted them on the show and what hopefully makes this conversation meaningful and different for you guys, too. I wanted to hear from the people who loved me through addiction without ever experiencing it themselves, and to explore what it is like on the ot...

This episode is a real-time holiday check in with me and my husband as we talk about what sobriety looks like during one of the most emotionally charged seasons of the year. We reflect on past holidays when substances were part of how we coped, numbed, or survived, and how different things look now with intention, communication, and boundaries. We also pause to acknowledge a milestone. My husband...

Y'all, my guest today, Toni Becker is absolutely incredible. Toni lives in South Africa and is a content creator with twelve years sober. Toni was plagued by disordered eating years before her addictions to meth and alcohol began. Years of partying led to homelessness, meth psychosis and severe illness and kidney failure. In sobriety, Toni was still struggling with disordered eating. Treatment in...

Glynis’s journey is one of the most intense and transformative we’ve ever shared. She began using drugs at a painfully young age, smoking crack by 12, moving through juvie, and growing up as a ward of the state. By 18 she was stripping to survive, drifting from Massachusetts to Texas in the hope that a new place might quiet her addiction. Instead, she spent years in Dallas working as a prostitute...

This week, we sit down with Janice, an author, advocate, and nearly 20 years sober, to unpack a story that begins in a family of dive bar owners and ends in a life built on purpose and spiritual transformation. Raised around alcoholism, Janice picked up drinking and smoking weed in middle and high school before joining the Marine Corps. When an injury derailed her military path, she was prescribed...

Jed returns to the show for one of his most honest conversations yet. After years of sharing his growth and wisdom on this podcast, he recently experienced a relapse - and he shows up with raw transparency about what happened. We talk openly about the dishonesty and poor decision-making that comes with using, the shame that follows, and the painful reality of breaking trust with the people who lov...

Gunnar grew up in what looked like the perfect family - until addiction slowly unraveled everything. After his parents fell deeper into their own substance use, his mother disappeared without a word, leaving Gunnar to navigate a childhood suddenly marked by instability and pain. By his teens, he turned to meth and heroin, beginning a long cycle of drug court, jail stays, and surviving on the stree...

In this explosive conclusion to Blue’s story, the chaos of addiction reaches terrifying new heights. What starts as a wild meth-fueled adventure spirals into a blur of residential burglaries, near-death experiences, and cross-count geographicals between California and New Mexico. Blue narrowly survives a car explosion, brushes with death, and finds herself trapped in the same criminal underworld s...

PART ONE: Krystin “Blue” grew up in New Mexico, a ballet dancer and promising student. At just 19, she smoked crack for the first time - with her mother. That moment changed everything, pulling her into a world of addiction, chaos, and survival. After an overdose and a terrifying encounter with a cartel boss, Blue was arrested for selling Oxy 80s and eventually found herself in Orange County, chas...

In part three of Keta Loren’s powerful story, everything changes. After years of addiction, trauma, and survival on the streets of Los Angeles, Keta has a profound spiritual experience that awakens something deep within her - setting her on a new path of recovery, healing, and purpose. But just as her life begins to transform, tragedy strikes, plunging her into a long season of grief. Through the...

In Part Two of Keta Loren’s powerful story, we pick up in Los Angeles - where her life spirals deeper into addiction, exploitation, and survival. After being trafficked and turning to stripping to get by, Keta becomes trapped in a relentless cycle of meth and heroin use, crime, and chaos. But when she least expects it, a mystical, life-altering experience cracks everything open - ushering in the b...

In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Melanie Gulde, the drug court officer who played a pivotal role in helping Phish frontman Trey Anastasio find sobriety back in 2006. Nearly two decades later, both Melanie and Trey are sober and have joined forces to create something extraordinary - The Divided Sky Foundation in Ludlow, Vermont. Together, they’ve built a recovery program that blends the...

In this powerful first part of Keta Loren’s story, we meet a woman whose voice was forged in the fire of unimaginable hardship. Raised in foster care after chaos with her biological parents, Keta’s adolescence was marked by instability, incarceration, and survival. By 18, she was caught in the grips of meth addiction, hustling to survive while clinging to the one constant in her life—music. From j...

Straton’s story is one of grit, chaos, and ultimate redemption. After dropping out of high school in North Carolina, he headed west to Oregon in search of opportunity, finding himself in the marijuana industry. But what started as chasing a lifestyle spiraled into a devastating heroin addiction. At his lowest, Straton chose to live in a tent on the sidewalk - steps away from the dope dealers - des...

In part two of Harold’s story, we pick up in 1998 as he enters sobriety after decades of drinking and crack addiction. His journey through early recovery is anything but simple - Harold finds himself selling crack while sober, and later endures a bizarre tragedy that changes his life forever. Along the way, he receives an incredible gift from a fellow twelve stepper that reshapes the course of his...

In this first part of a two-part conversation, we sit down with Harold, a beloved figure in the local recovery community who has been sober since 1998. Harold shares the powerful story of how decades of drinking and crack addiction derailed his promising football career and countless other athletic opportunities, and how the devastation of addiction ultimately brought him to the rooms of recovery....