https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/11136654-up-close-and-personal-with-dr-steve-lloyd.mp3 In the episode: In this week's podcast episode, we talk with Dr. Stephen Lloyd, Chief Medical Officer at Cedar Recovery and advising doctor for the Hulu miniseries, Dopesick. As an internal medicine physician and addict in recovery since 2004, Dr. Lloyd has a deep understanding of addiction giving him a unique approach to patient care that includes quality treatment and compassionate care.  Episode Highlights: Behind the scenes of the series Dopesick. His work with Cedar Recovery and as a panel membe ..read more

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/10774319-pain-management-it-s-roll-in-addiction-with-josh-hollie.mp3 In the episode: We talk to Josh and Hollie, authors of Bang Head Here about the self-destructive behaviors that result from emotional pain. Much of how people are conditioned to deal with pain mirrors the way their caretakers dealt with pain. When a loved one acts out destructively it is easy for the caretaker to place blame on their loved one, instead of reflecting on how their own pain management skills have been passed onto those they love. In order to help those struggling at home surviv ..read more

Everyone warned me against getting involved in new relationships in early sobriety. Unfortunately, I don’t always listen so well. From the start of my recovery, I felt like I could do just about anything, including handling a new relationship. After all, I had a clear head and a focus. I was working hard on my recovery, and I wanted to have a healthy relationship eventually. In early recovery though, I wasn’t even interested in a relationship. I knew that I had more work to do. So when I met Matt (seriously not his real name), I thought, “No big deal. It’s a date, not a relationship. I can h ..read more

Finding yourself in sobriety is something you should work on every day. Knowing yourself can help you avoid stress and possible relapse. When I was in the deepest part of my alcohol addiction, I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror. I hated who I saw and the person I had become. It wasn’t just that I had become tired or that my skin was starting to show the effects of alcohol abuse. It was more about the fact that I had drifted so far away from this “Amazon Warrior” I had always strived to be. I could no longer look in the mirror and say, “Jeanna, you can make a difference.” In ..read more

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make the people we care about happy. In fact, we all do it in one way or another and from time to time. We make decisions to do things, whether we want to or not so that the people we love feel joy. Unfortunately, people-pleasing and addiction go hand in hand. Either we people-please so much that we neglect our own self-care, or we feel so guilty about our addiction that we let people-pleasing get out of hand. According to scienceofpeople.com, a people-pleaser “will often go out of their way to please someone, even if it means taking their own valuable ..read more

Regardless of where you are in your recovery journey, you have probably heard people talking about the benefits of meditation for alcohol recovery. Those benefits are real. Meditation in recovery not only helps you get past the urge to drink, but it also helps with everyday life stresses. Unfortunately, many people avoid meditation believing that it’s just woo-woo having little or no basis in scientific proof. While it does relate to spirituality, alternative medicine, and mysticism, meditation has also been researched and shown to have many health benefits for people who practice it regular ..read more

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/10612053-tribe-sober-is-changing-lives.mp3 In this Episode: In this episode of Back Porch Chats, we talk to Janet Gourand who struggled with alcohol for many years. She tells how she finally got sober in 2015 when she found her “people.” She used her 25 years of experience in training and development to design and facilitate workshops to help people quit drinking. Her membership program, Tribe Sober, provides workshops, coaching, and connection. Her work has helped hundreds of people go on to live alcohol-free lives. She believes that “getting sober is just t ..read more

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/10374975-living-behind-the-mask-of-mental-illness-with-charlene-madden.mp3 In this Episode: Charlene Madden joins this episode of Back Porch Chats to share her story of childhood sexual violence, domestic abuse, mental illness, and suicide ideation in an open and authentic discussion to help remove some of the stigmas that surround those topics. Charlene is a mother of 3 children, wife, daughter, and reiki practitioner. She is the creator of the Ignite Your Life BC Women’s Workshop, speaker, author, and women’s empowerment coach. Charlene has spent most of he ..read more

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/10304098-masculine-anger-with-stephan-and-vince.mp3 In this episode: Stephan Neff is an anesthetist, bestselling author, speaker and show host, and alcoholic in recovery. Stephan knows the challenges of trauma, depression, anxiety, and PTSD firsthand. As a man trying to drown his sorrows, he found out the hard way that the critters can swim. But the past does not equal the future. In this episode, Stephan and Vince dive deep into masculine ideas of anger and shame, where it originates as well as how they have dealt with it in the past. Today Stephan is an exp ..read more

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1502164/10192830-sailing-sober-with-paul-trammell.mp3 In this Episode: In this episode of Back Porch Chats, we talk to the author of seven books, Paul Trammell about living sober as a solo sailor. Paul talks about how his decision to stop drinking alcohol led to living a nomadic life on the sea and the completion of his book Alcoholics Not Anonymous, A Modern Way to Quit Drinking. His book focuses on how he designed his own method of sobriety without the help of AA. Paul is the author of several other books including, The Joy of Living Clean and Sober, Becoming a Sai ..read more