The Modern Meeting

If you grew up in the '90s, Chris Farley was probably the funniest person alive to you. Tom Farley is his older brother, and he's in recovery himself. For years Tom told Chris's story while quietly avoiding his own. In this conversation he gets into both. He talks about the afternoon a sober musician made him want something he didn't have, the friend who tricked him into his fi...

For most of my life I never stuck with anything. Jobs. Relationships. Addresses. And now, thanks to recovery, I actually stick with things. And I'm not doing it alone. We've built a community. A team. People that show up for each other. This week we celebrated one year of the Modern Meeting Meeting. I get into how it started, how it almost didn't make it, and what this past Monday n...

A delayed flight, a karaoke bar in Missouri, and a $248 decision I knew I shouldn't make. What happened next at the gate was the closest I've come to that old feeling in over four years. From there I talk about five hard truths about gambling addiction and recovery. The ones people don't want to hear, the ones I keep repeating because they keep being true, and the one I save for las...

Carmela aka Carmey B — grew up in Omaha's Little Italy, in a loud, proud Italian American family whose whole world revolved around gambling. Her father owned an Italian steakhouse, hosted Sunday card games, and had a past colorful enough that two men with briefcases once showed up looking for him. He was her North Star. He was also a gambler. And for a long time, she didn't believe gambl...

From the outside, Scott Meyer had the picture-perfect life. Married his high school sweetheart, five kids, his own accounting firm, a home in the community he grew up in, and the respect of everyone around him. He was the trusted professional people came to with their money. He was also quietly destroying everything he'd built. In this episode, Scott traces a gambling addiction that started a...

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sonya — a Marine, an adventurer, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a friend, who passed away on May 27th after a nearly twenty-year battle with addiction. In her sister Tracy's words: "I choose to remember my sister, not her addiction." And then we hear a letter Sonya wrote in her own hand. Thank you to Tracy and Dan for trusting me with i...

When we left Paul Buck, the real number had just come into focus, and the obvious question was: how did he get caught? He didn't.  In Part 2, Paul picks up at the night everything came apart, and the unlikely thing that finally made him stop after seventeen years: not a confrontation, not getting found out, but a newspaper article about a complete stranger. He's honest about the hardest...

Before founding one of the world's leading gambling harm prevention consultancies, Paul Buck placed his first bet in October 1994. It was a £10 each-way on a 33-to-1 horse, chosen for no reason other than the jockey wearing his football team's blue and white. He walked up to the window thinking it was a mug's game. The horse won. And for the next 17 years, not a day went by that he...

I went back to Springfield, MA for the first time in over six years. I went for a conference, and I ended up walking through the casino for the first time since I entered recovery. In this episode I break down the top five things I noticed walking through MGM Springfield as a compulsive gambler in recovery — the dead-eyed slot machine players, the guys with a hop in their step, the craps tables pa...

Brian Dolan grew up in The Berkshires, won $500 in a March Madness pool in fourth grade, and spent the next 15 years chasing that feeling. By his freshman year of college he was dealing drugs to cover gambling debts. By his mid-20s he had $80,000 cash in a shoebox from a "hot streak," and lost it all, plus more, within months. Three treatment centers. Multiple relapses. A night he though...

I still have zero urge to gamble, but in the last few months I went from one meeting a week to four. And it's been awesome. This week I share not just what I've been learning in those rooms, but what I've been contributing — including a different way to look at ego in recovery, how to navigate the early days, and how one person's energy can completely change the course of a mee...

On December 1st, 2012, his birthday, Edgar Jones' teammate took his own life and his girlfriend's life outside the Kansas City Chiefs facility. The team played the next day. Edgar played. And then he spent years trying to outrun everything he felt, with pills and alcohol, while performing at the highest level of professional football. In this conversation Edgar talks about survivor'...

I've moved 18 times in almost 25 years. Every single time, I convinced myself the new place would fix things. New city. Fresh start. Maybe this time I wouldn't gamble. It never worked. Because I took myself with me every time. In this episode, I'm unpacking what recovery calls the "geographic cure" — and how it played out in my own life across 18 addresses. I also just mov...

Jacob grew up in England, moved to Australia, and spent 15 years losing everything to sports betting. He tried GA meetings. They helped, but only so much. What actually saved him was therapy. Nearly 100 sessions later, all with the same therapist, and he's still going strong. Now 7+ years removed from his last bet, Jacob sits down with Adam and talks about losing his mother to cancer when he...

On this episode I share a life update - Moving back to Rhode Island and very excited about it. I also recap the latest conference in Illinois where I made my first keynote and heard some amazing things from others in attendance. A last minute Red Sox game in the rain brought me closer to my higher power, and a Modern Meeting original celebrates a recovery milestone.  If you’re struggling right now...

I almost didn't record this one. Friday episodes are tough. I was ready to skip the episode entirely. And then the Monday meeting happened. The topic was: what did gambling give you — and who are you without it? What followed was one of the most powerful hours I've ever spent in a recovery room. Gail and Mandy's answers to "Without Gambling, Who Are You Becoming," sent me...

Abdullah Mahmood is back. The gambling coordinator at Maryhaven in Columbus, Ohio returns to The Modern Meeting for a conversation about what might be the most significant piece of gambling legislation in the country right now. The Save Ohio Sports Act — introduced by two Republican and two Democratic lawmakers — would effectively abolish mobile and online sports betting in the state, limit wagers...

Larry K went to his first Gamblers Anonymous meeting at 16 years old in 1973 — not because he was ready, but because his grandmother paid him $100 to go. What followed was 53 years of compulsive gambling, multiple relapses, four marriages, and a stint trading $30 million in stock market options while convincing himself it wasn't gambling. This is not a straight line recovery story. It's...

This week we're getting specific. After pleading my case on the importance of lived experience stories, I tell five stories from my gambling that I've either never mentioned on this podcast or have only glossed over. From the debt collection calls that started waking me up every morning, to the manic thoughts during a slot session, to the elaborate lie I told my parents during my final b...

Mandy S hadn't placed a bet in 917 days when she sat down for this conversation with Adam. She wasn't a sports bettor or a casino gambler. What kept her gambling for many years was scratch tickets. She hid her addiction in plain sight. She didn't need the casinos or to sneak away on her phone. All she needed was a convenience store, gas station, or grocery store. What followed were...

I was supposed to release this episode on Friday. Instead, I didn't start recording until Sunday night. Four years into recovery, the "f**k it phase" is still very much a part of my life. The procrastination, the putting things off, the feeling that nothing bad is actually going to happen...it didn't disappear when I stopped gambling. It just found new places to live. This week...

If your child has a gambling problem, where do you even start? That's the question Kim Freudenberg and Linda Uphoff couldn't answer when they needed it most. Kim's son Kurt started gambling at age 11 — on video game skins and offshore casino sites — and the family didn't find out for eight years. Linda's son developed a sports betting addiction after college, and by the ti...

Episode 100 of The Modern Meeting. This is a chronological look back at the first 99 episodes — clips that show how the conversations and perspectives have evolved over time. Different voices, different experiences, but all centered around addiction, recovery, and growth. If you’ve been listening, you’ll recognize some of these moments. If you’re new, this is a good snapshot of what this podcast i...

In Part 2, Louis Ruggiero picks up where he left off - sober from drugs and alcohol but deeper in his gambling addiction than ever. From betting $40,000 on UFC fights to losing $600,000 on a sports betting app in months, Louis reveals how compulsive gambling brought him to the brink of suicide while his fiancée was postpartum and his newborn son was in the next room. He shares the phone call on th...

Louis Ruggiero grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Private school. Three sports. By most measures, he had every advantage. At 14 — he turned $200 into $9,000 at a blackjack table in the Bahamas and lost every penny before checkout. By 21 he had a bookie, three felonies, and was stealing checks from a friend to stay in action and fund his other addictions.  This is Part 1 of a two-part con...