The Way Out | A Sobriety and Recovery Podcast

This week we’re examining a rarely explored and often overlooked aspect of a whole and complete recovery. Vulnerability, and our ability to embrace this in our own lives, is at the foundation of our ability to be willing to do the necessary work, take the necessary steps, in order to truly recover from our disease of addiction and/or alcoholism. To the extent we can recognize, acknowledge, and ind...

This week we’re peeling the curtain back on the act of Asking for Help. Asking for help in life and especially in Recovery can be one of the difficult tasks we perform. As difficult as it may be for us; the reality is that this simple act has the power to transform our relationships and enhance our recoveries and lives as a result. We reveal why asking for help is SO difficult; and there are concr...

This week we’re discussing a fundamental and root characteristic and phenomenon of addiction. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of addiction is the cycle that manifests itself universally in the alcoholic or addict, and is the defining experience of a undeniably hijacked brain. We discuss our own experiences around the cycle of addiction, explain each phase of the cycle, and how we broke that cyc...

This week we’re bringing you a powerhouse discussion on Family in Recovery thanks to two absolute dynamos whom have dedicated their lives to families in Recovery. Pam and Shelly are disrupting the classic paradigm of how families deal with and recover from addiction and alcoholism in a fundamental and phenomenal way. Embracing all pathways to recovery from a family perspective to achieve the ultim...

This week we bring you a special edition of The Way Out Podcast. Each one of us has hand selected one of our favorite recovery talks to share with you, in hopes you’ll enjoy them at least as much as we do. What these speakers have in common is rather instructive – they all inject a healthy dose of humor, vulnerability, honesty, and spiritual truth into their talks, and they all leave you feeling l...

This week we’re talking growth in Recovery. We get off to a bit of a rocky start this week with Louie the Recovery Dog loosing his mind over various humans and animals passing in front of the window  that catch his ire; combined with an unexpected juvenile laughing fit over the synonyms to the word “growth”; suffice it to say we all clearly have some more growing UP to do. When we do finally...

This week we’re bringing you an enlightening discussion on the idea that All Pathways to Recovery are valid, important, and worth considering and sharing amongst one another in the Recovery Community. There are an array of formal recovery methodologies that have worked for many of us whom are in active and long term recovery including 12 Step; Faith based, Peer led, cognitive behavioral, among oth...

This week we’re delving into the topic of Sponsorship in Recovery. If you’ve spent any time at all around the rooms of 12-Step recovery you no doubt have heard more than a few folks spout the virtues of sponsorship. We tell you what sponsors are, and perhaps more importantly what they are not as well as what a sponsor does and again of at least equal importance, what they do not do. Plus we share...

This week we’re undertaking, pardon the pun, the heavy topic of Grief in Recovery. Grief is often a complicated, difficult, and down right messy process we all must endure during our time here on earth. It’s as core to the human experience as experiencing love and human connection, and indeed is an unpleasant and direct consequence of our profound capacity to bond with our loved ones. We discuss h...

This week we’re breaking down a subject that quite often played a critical role in our active addiction and alcoholism, and is if supreme importance to as many as 80% of us whom have a substance use disorder. And that is the issue of Mental Health.  Those of us whom have a mental health diagnosis know all too well the perils of having to navigate the pitfalls of both alcoholism and/or addicti...

This week we’re discussing boundaries in Recovery. Emotional & Physical boundaries often were all over the place while we were in active addiction and alcoholism. An untoward side-effect of ritualistic masking and numbing emotions with substances produced the side-effect of being disconnected from the boundary warning signals our emotions are sending us. Recovery is often a process of discover...

This week we’ve got a compelling interview with Author Kristin Casey. Kristin is the Author of Rock Monster: My Life with Joe Walsh as well as an intimacy coach and a person in long term recovery from addiction and alcoholism. Make no mistake; the hook of Kristin’s book is Joe Walsh. Joe is an enigmatic character who commands a “look at me, look at me” kind of attention and Kristin does a superb j...

This week we’re breaking down the oft overlooked and perhaps even more so dreaded 12-Step concept of Character Defects in recovery. In short order, you’ll get a practical definition of what Character Defects are and why we want to shed their dominance over our day to day thoughts, actions, and interactions with others. Understanding the what and how of it will lead is into what actions we can take...

We’re talking relapse and recovery. Relapse often can be a loaded term; often bandied about in discussion on recovery spurring heated debates on whether relapse is a part of recovery or if it is the antithesis of what we’re trying to achieve in recovery. Make no mistake, relapse can be and is a part of many of our journeys to long term and meaningful recovery and assinging shame or judgement on th...

I’m Charlie and this week I’m bringing you a special presentation of perhaps one of the if not the most influential talks in modern 12-Step recovery. We’re bringing you this in lieu of our regularly scheduled podcast on relapse in Recovery. We had a bit of a technical snafu causing us to push our weekly recording to Wednesday. Parenthetically that caused me to work through some character defects l...

This week we’re talking Complacency in Recovery. Complacency can be a formidable and subtle foe in maintaining meaningful and lasting recovery. It is without question quite human to experience complacency in any number of facets in our lives; and recovery is no exception. For those of us in Recovery however, complacency often can and indeed does precede relapse.  We’re going to discuss what c...

This week we’re talking right to and all about the Newcomer to recovery. It’s often said the newcomer is the most important person in a 12-Step meeting, though it doesn’t necessarily feel that way when you are first entering a program of Recovery. We give you, the newcomer, straight forward, practical actions you can implement straight away that will yield remarkable results as well as helpful ins...

This week we’ve got a fantastic discussion on tap for you with Mr. Mike Govoni. Mike has been in long term recovery from addiction and alcoholism to the tune of 14 years, works on the front line in emergency rooms on the opioid & addiction crisis, and is the founder of Breath by Breath Wellness – where mindfulness and breath are cornerstones of his approach to total wellness coaching. Mike has...

This week we’re discussing the importance of and how to inject perseverance into recovery. Without question any meaningful and lasting recovery must have some measure of perseverance as a foundational and defining characteristic. Perseverance is often the key ingredient that separates those who succeed in any endeavor, and Recovery is no exception. A cursory Google search on the word perseverance...

The Dash: http://www.nightingale.com/articles/the-dash/   These instructions are for the below prayer (Big Book, Freedom from Bondage, p. 552): ‘If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free…Even when you don’t...

This week I’ve got a down right remarkable story to share with you; a story not often heard on The Way Out Podcast airwaves. Melinda’s story is marked by a tumultuous and chaotic childhood providing the fertile soil for dysfunction and addiction to take root as she began to traverse the uncharted territory of adulthood. The sentinel moment that marked the beginning of Melinda’s Recovery is ultra-r...

We’ve got a phenomenal interview for you with Stephen Daniels, who is in long term recovery from both gambling and porn addiction. Stephen shares his 15 plus year battle with these addictions in an honest and authentic way, looking to smash the stigma and shame that’s so often attached to addiction, especially society’s awkward relationship to porn and the deafening silence and lack of conversatio...

The Problem & Solution by Fred Holmquist Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtTfUBTes8 (Part 1 of 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crP10-oqzHo (Part 2 of 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ot0QCHzXk (Part 3 of 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUsSarmLKtY (Part 4 of 5) https://youtu.be/rEO6fbfm1sg (Part 5 of 5) Staying Sober: A Guide for Relapse Prevention: https://www.amazon.com/St...

We’ve got an outstanding final episode of 2018 for you to enjoy. Jared is coming back into Recovery after a near fatal overdose and shares very candidly and openly about his struggle with alcoholism and heroin addiction. Jared’s journey dovetails splendidly with our ensuing discussion on Community in Recovery. It’s often said in all walks of life, regardless of the situation, that “it takes a vill...

This week we’ll be exploring an often treacherous dynamic in recovery – relationships. Many of us have endured unhealthy and even toxic relationships during our active addiction and alcoholism. Navigating relationships, especially in early recovery; whether you’re currently in a committed relationship or contemplating entering a relationship, can be difficult and complex at best and down right ris...