Take It From Us with Kent Johns

Maree MacLean is an author and publisher who has helped countless people with her guides to sobriety. Her first book, The No Bullshit Guide to Getting Sober, became an Audible bestseller in 2023. Maree lost her brother Stu to alcoholism at 37 - he died in her arms at Auckland Hospital. Her own drinking started in her twenties, masked by media work and weekend partying. When she went freelance and...

For years, Georgie Hanafin thought she was just a bad person. She struggled at school, couldn't maintain friendships, overthought every conversation. At 34, she realised she had OCD and ADHD. Getting help became its own nightmare. Emergency departments dismissed her. Crisis lines let her down. The system wouldn't listen. In October 2022, desperate and burnt out, Georgie did something dra...

Ian Walker has survived two catastrophic spinal cord injuries - one in 2006 when his bicycle hit a truck, another in 2019 when a 4x4 dragged his hand-cycle 15 metres down the road.   After 13 days in a coma, nothing woke him - until broadcaster Jason Pine started talking about his favourite football team, Liverpool FC, on Radio Sport. Ian clenched his fist and slowly came back.  Instead of fixatin...

Debbs Murray endured nearly eight years of coercive control before her dad saw the knife-slashed bed where her ex-partner thought she'd been sleeping... that moment forced her to finally call the police and leave. Debbs is now the founder of Eclipse Family Violence Services , training over 6,500 frontline responders and practitioners. Her mission: teaching people that coercive control - the p...

Lisa Reid's first proper relationship breakup sent her spiralling. What started as weekend drinking turned into trying meth at a party - just to feel numb, just to forget. Within six to eight weeks, she was using daily. Within ten months, she'd lost $100,000, her dogs, her home, and nearly her life. At 3am one February morning, sitting on her bedroom floor in tears, Lisa wrote a letter f...

Growing up as a queer Korean New Zealander, Romy Lee lived between two worlds with two different sets of expectations. The identity dissonance and isolation drove her to substances as a teenager - a solution that worked until it didn't. After moving overseas thinking a geographical change would fix everything, Romy had a realisation: it wasn't the environment, it was her. That moment led...

Former All Black Steve Devine spent two years bedridden with migraines after multiple concussions ended his rugby career. Jack Newman got to 142 kilos, hadn't exercised since 2015, and in 2014 came dangerously close to ending his life - a moment he didn't talk about for nine years. Both are now Movember ambassadors, speaking openly about the hardest thing men struggle with: asking for he...

At the height of his rugby career, former Blues captain and cult star Tom Robinson walked away from the sport he loved. Behind the big tackles and big hair was a growing fear - anxiety over concussions and the long-term effects of head knocks. In this episode, Tom shares how his mind became his toughest opponent, what it took to step away, and how yoga and mindfulness helped him find peace beyond...

In November 2020, Camille Keyte was arrested for dealing methamphetamine for a senior Mongrel Mob member. She'd been addicted since 14, using daily since 17. She'd lost her house, her business, her children. She had three pages of criminal charges and had tried to take her own life multiple times. On the run for a week with a warrant out, Camille finally realised the drugs weren't w...

Jo Randerson was diagnosed with ADHD at 46, then autism this year - diagnoses that finally explained the parts of their life that never quite made sense. The theatre-maker and author talks honestly about how neurodiversity shapes both their creative work and their parenting. Jo wears a lot of hats. Their book  " Secret Art Powers " makes the case that creative thinking isn't just fo...

Sean Barnes co-founded the Christchurch chapter of WNOW (When No One's Watching) - a global movement where men gather at 6am every Wednesday for exercise, conversation, and coffee. It's simple, but that's the point. The format includes 60 pushups together to honour the 60 men globally who take their lives every hour. Sean talks about "social fitness" - how maintaining frie...

Wayne Webb was drowning in addiction and darkness when tragedy struck close to home. In his grief, his pain became visible to someone who asked if he was okay - that question changed everything. Now Wayne creates messages of hope in the sand at New Brighton Beach every day. After decades using alcohol and drugs to cope, he discovered that "busy hands mean a settled brain." What started a...

When Fiona Parrant's sister Charlene was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Fiona moved from Levin to Napier to help care for her - and for Charlene's husband, Alister, who had early onset Alzheimer's at just 60. After Charlene died, Fiona stayed in Napier to continue caring for Alister and help support his two sons. New Zealand's dementia care system is broken. Despite being our...

Nicola Colman lived with anorexia for 15 years, outwardly functioning through marriage, motherhood and immigration, while giving most of her life to the eating disorder. Her turning point came when her son asked why she never ate dinner with the family - she realised her children were learning this was normal. In 2019, her 15-year-old daughter was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Despite Nicola&ap...

Chris Reidy and Di Langdon have spent 20 years advocating for their son with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) - a journey that started with multiple diagnoses and school refusals before finally getting the umbrella diagnosis of FASD at age 15. Their son's struggles with developmental delays, sensory processing issues, and social difficulties led to isolation, bullying, and eventually se...

Linda Collins lost her 17-year-old daughter Victoria to suicide in 2014, on the first day of a new school term before she was to catch her bus. The grief changed everything - not just the unbearable pain, but how people saw her family, how relationships shifted, and how she had to learn to navigate a world that didn't know how to handle their loss. Seven months later, Linda found Victoria&apo...

Waata Heathcote spots a man in crisis at 8am in a coffee shop and has him connected to support within 15 minutes. It's just another morning for the Rangatira of Waiariki Whānau Mentoring , who leads a team that works 24/7 because "people have nowhere to go after 5 o'clock".  After working for MSD and as a police officer, Waata saw how the system was failing Māori communities fa...

Tim Mehrtens is passionate about helping people thrive - but that passion was born from his darkest moments. After experiencing severe trauma in 2012, Tim spiralled into PTSD and multiple suicide attempts, before facing the brutal reality that suppressing emotions had nearly killed him. Today, Tim directs My Everyday Wellbeing , helping people to develop daily habits that create resilience before...

Growing up between two worlds, Kayla Schwalger felt disconnected from her Samoan heritage while trying to succeed in New Zealand - a struggle many second-generation Pacific Islanders know well.  Moving to Samoa at 14 helped, but it also brought challenges including undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder in a culture where mental health often wasn't discussed. Today, this Pacific mental h...

Tui Taurua calls herself a "mental health warrior" - and after her journey, she's earned that title.  From 1977 to 2001, she spent over two decades cycling in and out of psychiatric hospitals, hearing voices that doctors called "hallucinations" and taking up to 25 medications a day that left her sedated on the couch, watching life pass her by. When Western medicine failed...

Chris Ranui-Molloy's journey from a declining Bay of Plenty logging town to founding Recovery Street is a story of transformation through the most unlikely medium - theatre.  Growing up with a 'FTW mentality' in Murupara, Chris nearly ended up in gang life before heading to drama school in Auckland where isolation, depression, and addiction left him struggling to fit into an unfamil...

Rhonda Hāpi-Smith describes her career as a female prison officer in New Zealand as "wonderful, devastating, fantastic and heartbreaking" - and those contradictions tell the whole story.  For 20 years, she walked among dangerous criminals at Rimutaka and Hawkes Bay men's prisons, loving the brotherhood, the resilience she witnessed, and the humour that got her through each day. But...

At 17, Lola Fisher is living proof that young people don't need to wait their turn to lead. What started as COVID lockdown boredom became her vision for Create Happy Media - a youth-led platform reaching 30,000+ readers after Lola discovered how negatively young people were portrayed in headlines.  This conversation reveals what it's really like being young in New Zealand today - from so...

This July, thousands of New Zealanders will go alcohol-free for Dry July - but for breast cancer survivor Lisa McDonald, the cause is deeply personal. After facing aggressive treatment including bilateral mastectomy and chemotherapy, Lisa experienced firsthand how the Dry July-funded support services like "Look Good Feel Better" made her feel "a million bucks" during her darkes...

In 2020, Grace Curtis faced an unimaginable tragedy when she discovered her father's body after he died by suicide, and had to break the devastating news to her family.  What followed was a long period of being bedridden with depression, convinced she would never feel peace again. Five years later, Grace has transformed her darkest experience into a mission of hope. She's the author of a...