Recoverypeople

This episode on RecoveryPeople, Brion Oaks Vice President of Health Equity at American Heart Association and Marcy Wilson, the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and Stroke Community Outreach Coordinator for Seton Family of Hospitals join Co-Hosts Kirk Zajac and Sandy Hollier discuss how to lower our risk for a heart attack and stroke.   Brion talks about the American Heart Association, the largest volunteer based health organization in the US and their empowering program Check, Change, Control for lower blood pressure. Plus, Brion discussed a really cool and FREE online service at www.heart360.org that allows you to monitor you blood pressure and weight and a whole lot more.   Marcy (mwilson@seton.org) talks about Seton’s commitment to heart health and reminds us that you are never too young to have a stroke. She talks about risk factors such as smoking and especially the combination of smoking and some birth control.   Plus, Marcy educates us on the signs and symptoms of a stroke using the acronym FAST which s

On this episode of RecoveryPeople, Rob Ruiz shares his journey from troubled Teen and pending Felony to recovery and wellness mentor. He discusses his cathartic moment in jail and his support for the decriminalization of addiction in order to save lives and taxpayers’ money.   Today, Rob is the manager of a retail store and the house manager of a sober home. He credits his healthy work and living environments and the peer support he found in each for helping him learn how to live a recovery lifestyle. The peer support theme continues as Rob tells co-hosts Jason Howell and Kirk Zajac how his recovery housemates cultivate community through running and gardening. To get a closer look, view recent pics of Rob’s garden at facebook.com/recoverypeople. And to learn more of about Rob’s tips on wellness, go to youtube.com and search for “yoga nidras” to listen to the videos that Rob uses for his guided meditation.   This episode of RecoveryPeople is a part of a special series on heart health and wellness. To learn mo

Recovery in itself is not a static process.  To be fulfilling, it must be moving, living, breathing and envelop new areas of one’s life, opening up different channels to wellness.  Grant Shipman of Yogabatics, today’s guest, is helping people do just that.  But first, hosts Kirk and Sandy and Jason explore the topic of acroyoga and physical wellness as part of our series on the 8 Dimensions and then open up discussion on the world of acroyoga with Grant. Acroyoga is a physical practice which blends elements of yoga, acrobatics, performance and healing arts.  In addition to the exercise and strength building aspects of AcroYoga the partner balancing can improve concentration and the massage elements can provide stress relief.  To check out Yogabatics, sign up for a class, and see how amazing acroyoga looks, see for yourself here. Grant Shipman is a chiropractic coach and a lover of people.  When he came upon acroyoga (“acro”), he was immediately addicted. You can find him flying people on Congress, at various

If “recovery is a journey from head to heart”, today’s guest maps out the science and philosophy of addiction recovery and of cardiovascular health and wellness. And, he is especially qualified to do so. Dr. Kerby Stewart is a former ER physician who is currently the Clinical Coordinator for Substance Abuse Programs at the Texas Department of State Health Services and who is a person in long-term recovery. Dr. Stewart is the state staff lead for the Texas Recovery Initiative (TRI), a statewide movement away from the acute care model of addiction treatment to a chronic care approach often referred to as a recovery oriented system of care (ROSC). Click here to get connected to your local ROSC initiative in Texas. From the inter workings and dysfunction of the brain (not to mention our medical system) to the risk factors driving people in recovery’s cardiovascular disease, Dr. Stewart’s interview is refreshingly honest, very informative and wonderfully thought provoking. This is one of those episodes you will li

A Heart Attack at 26 y.o. -- the consequence of addiction led to the gift of recovery. In the absence of hope, not even a near death experience curbed the thought: “If I am going out, I am going out high”. Thankfully today’s guest is now in recovery. Tune-in and find out what lead him have a change of heart and  change of mind.   Today’s episode is a part of RecoveryPeople’s Million Heart series. Please take our survey, so we know how we did?   If you are a person with a history of alcohol and/or drug abuse or a history of mental health issues, you are at higher risk of a heart attack and stroke when compared to the general population. The good news is that we can lower our risk through a heart healthy lifestyle. RecoveryPeople’s Million Heart series explores how.   The goal of the Million Hearts initiative is to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017, and we need your help to do it:   Take recovery and heart health viral across social media Be One in a Million Hearts as a part of the nationa

Click here. We need your feedback.   Sobering fact: people in recovery have higher rates of heart attacks and strokes compared to the general population. More than the damage we did to our organs in active addiction, its the chain smoking, artery clogging food choices and sedentary lifestyle that causes many of us to survive chemical dependency only to die of cardiovascular disease. The good news, is that we can lower our risk by adding heart health and wellness to our path of recovery. So, tune in, turn on, and check us out because RecoveryPeople’s Million Heart series is going to help show you what we are talking about.   This episode it the kickoff of a special RecoveryPeople podcast series on heart health and wellness which is supported through a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 2014 Million Hearts grant award. SoberHood is honored to be one of four recipients of this award in the nation which is apart of a much larger Million Hearts initiative aimed at helping prevent 1

The new season of RecoveryPeople begins with diving deep into the diverse culture of recovery.  Katie Barr is a recovered alcoholic and drug addict.  She is also a member of the LGBT community.  We examine her journey through recovery, as she struggled with her sexual orientation, to coming to embrace herself and surrender to the process, now helping families that experience the same issues.  Katie is an interventionist as well, and we talk about what really goes on behind the scenes of an intervention and if it really is effective.

633,782 homeless in the United States.  Whether it’s by choice or by circumstance, we see them every day.  Have they given up on a better way of life, or is it just part of the social fabric of our era?  In this episode, we get a unique perspective from Jason Wilkins.  Jason has been on both sides of the equation - a homeless addict on the streets of various cities around the country, and a recovered addict helping the ones still out there and in the field of addiction treatment.  Jason shares his miraculous story, as well as thoughts on access to care for the homeless population, and the power around helping them.

There are new forces at work in the recovery industry, and change, although sometimes painful, is undoubtedly necessary.  RecoveryPeople sits down with Ben Levenson, CEO of Origins Recovery Center, and we talk about how the world of addiction treatment has changed in the last several decades, and where it’s headed.  We talk about some controversial ideas on how treatment is bought and paid for, plus, Ben shares a little on his journey in recovery with us.  All this and much, much more, on this episode of RecoveryPeople.

Dude, let’s go rally.  Ben Bass, Executive Director of The Recovery Alliance of El Paso, and Chairman of the Board of Texas Recovers flies in from El Paso, and we talk about the Big Texas Rally for Recovery this Saturday here in Austin, on the South steps of the Capitol, from 3-5 PM.  Also, we get into a little about the new movie The Anonymous People and erasing the stigma around people in recovery.

Spirituality: Higher Power, Creative Intelligence, Good Orderly Direction.  Whatever you want to call it, it’s undeniably a necessary part of recovery. Jaime Loera, Director of Alumni Services for Origins Recovery Center comes into the studio with Kirk to discuss spirituality, how it works and all the experiences around it.  Do we have to be totally bankrupt mentally and physically to come into spirituality?  Is it absolutely necessary to have a spiritual experience to recover?  And who the heck came up with the idea that a doorknob could be one’s Higher Power?  Sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode.

Do recovery-oriented workplaces exist? Recovery is a success plan for life, but is it a transferable skill found in the workplace and in the strategic boardroom? "Absolutely!", according to today's guest, Michael Dadashi, who's motto is "re-creating value and rethinking life". He is the founder and CEO of MHD Enterprises, the 28th fastest growing business in the nation that has been ranked number one in its class by Inc. 500 magazine. Dadashi is a person in long-term recovery whose greatest joy is providing second chances to other recovering addiction by hiring them to work at his company. Learn how this sky rocketing star in corporate America, has created a uniquickly supportive workplace for people in recovery and how living a spiritual life has propelled him to the top. All this an more... on this episode of RecoveryPeople.

How profound can we get?  Marsha Stone, CEO of Benchmark Recovery Center sits down to talk about a host of issues in recovery. Is the disease of alcoholism an internal problem, or is it all about external circumstances.  We all know we’ve said, my job causes me to drink, right?  Later on, we have a discussion about men versus women in recovery.  How different are they, and do they need specialized treatment?    All this and a whole lot more on this episode of RecoveryPeople.   Links:   Benchmark Recovery Center

Suboxone -- is it dope or is it a medically managed pathway to recovery.  Can one really call themselves a sober person,or one who has recovered, while undergoing this Medically Assisted Therapy ?  Today, we get some answers and insights with a counselor, RJ Garcia. Plus, the tables are turned when RJ questions our new co-host Kirk about some of his resentments. To learn more about RJ, check out his site at RJGCounseling.com.  Some of the resources RJ mentioned include: Dr. Kevin McCauley’s film, Pleasure Unwoven NIDA Director, Dr. Norma Volkow’s youtube videos And of course, Hazelden

Speak up, RecoveryPeople. Our stories have power! So says Faces and Voices of Recovery, the nation’s leading advocacy organization for people in recovery. Today’s guest, Pat Taylor,the Executive Director of Faces and Voices of Recovery, talks about advocacy (pointing to resources from the Alliance for Justice and their advocacy project Bolder Advocacy), the America Honors Recovery awards (which was streamed and will soon be available on-demand), and the hot new film, The Anonymous People. Plus... Do you live in a sober house? Are you an alumni or house manager? Or are you recovery community stakeholder? If so, you won’t want to miss Pat explaining why the way we talk about recovery housing matters. This is the subject of an upcoming webinar series Faces and Voices of Recovery has created in collaboration with the National Alliance for Recovery Residences, Oxford House and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration All this and more on this episode of RecoveryPeople

What is “recovery”? More than a theoretical concept -- What does it look like? How do you experience it? And more importantly, how can we get some more of that?  If these are billion dollar questions, who has the answersToday’s guest believes that YOU do.  Recovery people, are the experts. And YOU should be the one’s defining “recovery”.Dr. Meenakshi Subbaraman is a research associate at the Alcohol Research Group and is the lead statistician of the What is Recovery (whatisrecovery.org) Project. She recently completed her PhD in epidemiology at UC Berkeley and will be starting a postdoc at Brown University's Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies this fall.

Barriers to recovery can be high for women. They can be high for people who are experiencing homelessness and high for people re-entering society from incarceration. Now, stack all three, and you can begin to understand that even an Olympian would have difficulty jumping that. But with the support of her peers, today’s guest did just that. Now, she is mending hearts (www.mendingheartsinc.org).And pushing recovery resources out of the offices and into the communities. RecoveryPeople looks at how a group of women injected the culture of recovery into "the hood" and turned an at-risk neighborhood into a safe, vibrant community.Plus, the disease of addiction is color blind, and so is the recovery solution. If you’ve got money, I can find you the time with service provider  but what about those who don’t. Often it is those with the least means that need the most help. They deserve a beautiful life in recovery as well, but who is stepping up to support their road to recovery? Trina Frierson is. Today’s guest is the

Dwindling addiction treatment dollars, the future of recovery, gender differences and the hope and fears of motherhood... all in this week's episode of RecoveryPeople. Today’s guest is in long term recovery and has worked in the field of addictions since 1987 as a social worker specializing in the field of addiction recovery. Beth Fisher has particular interest and expertise in recovery residences. In 1996, she founded Hope Homes Inc., a Level 3 recovery residence system for men and women based in Atlanta, GA which has expanded to residences in Charlotte, NC and Greenville, SC. In addition, she is a founding member and current president of the National Association of Recovery Residences, a rapidly evolving association whose mission is to equip residence providers with standards and advocacy tools to optimally promote safety and community for the recovering individual. Plus, She sits on the editorial board of Addiction Professional magazine, and is a frequent contributor addressing issues related to recovery r

The All American Girl in recovery gives us the inside scoop on recovery housing, relapses, jail house epiphanies and Narconon. This week on RecoveryPeople: We continue with our special series, Home is Where the Recovery Heart Is, an exploration of recovery residences, the spectrum of housing that doubles as recovery support. These recovery culture microcosms range from peer-run sober homes to clinician run residential programs. Today’s guest, Megan Lilly, knows recovery residences from the inside. She shares how she got kick out of a Level 2 recovery residence and why she now lives in an Oxford House, the most popular brand of a Level 1. Plus, Travis Co. County Jail, it does not look like a church, but it is a place where life changing epiphanies happen. And Narconon -- the Church of Scientiology’s solution to addiction. All this and more on RecoveryPeople

Oxford House, a name that stretches around the world of recovery. This week, RecoveryPeople kicks off its ongoing series, Home is Where the Recovery Heart Is,  with a peek at Oxford House, an evidenced-based practice that is internationally known. Addiction and recovery experts list housing as one of the most needed recovery resources, but without a culture of recovery, a  living environment foster the disease of addiction. Home is Where the Recovery Heart Is explores recovery residences, the spectrum of housing that doubles as recovery support. In the spectrum of recovery residences, Oxford House is a shinning example of a Level 1, the most resident empowered living environment of recovery residences' 4 levels. Oxford Houses are democratically run by peers who hold each other accountable living  together as family in recovery. Oxford House personally enriched today’s guest's life in recovery. So much so, that Jackson Longan is giving back as a Regional Outreach Manager for Oxford House, Inc. We recently talk