Recovery in the Middle Ages - Two Middle-Aged Suburban Dads Talk About Recovering From Addiction to Drugs & Alcohol.
Mike and Nat are two middle-aged suburban dads wrestling with addiction and recovery while trying to juggle home life, work, and staying sober. Listen as they discuss current topics in the recovery community including 12 Step, alternative addiction recovery and the newest medical research . Listen to the guys talk about their daily struggle to maintain their recovery and anonymity in the world of soccer moms and PTA meetings. If the neighbors only knew...
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Episodes
Friday Nov 05, 2021
Friday Nov 05, 2021
RMA-Episode 61 Show Notes:
This week on RMA: Addiction. Is it a disease of the brain, or is it something better thought of as a maladaptive learned behavior? Unbroken Brain by Maia Szalavits offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy. By illustrating what addiction is, and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery- and why there is no “addictive personality” or single treatment that works for all.
Combining Maia Szalavitz’s personal story with a distillation of more than 25 years of science and research, Unbroken Brain provides a paradigm-shifting approach to thinking about addiction.
Plus, the week in review and the usual hijinks on a maladaptive, disordered, slightly congested episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
LINKS:
Unbroken Brain is available here---->https://amzn.to/3o427ns
Use this link and help out RMA~!
Unbroken Brain on Audible:
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
Shatterproof and The Hartford Release Largest and Most Expansive Addiction Stigma Survey Ever Fielded
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
Weird Wishbone UFO Filmed in Chicago
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
RMA-Episode 60-Show Notes:
This week on RMA we welcome our first in-studio guest, Joseph Naus, the author of the wildly successful addiction and recovery memoirs, Straight Pepper Diet and The Palsgraf Revelation. Joseph was kind enough to give us some time to talk about his books and his recovery, and he also accompanied Nat on his Recovery in the News scat singing!
We recorded two episodes a little while ago where we reviewed Joseph’s books and gave our impressions, so if you want some background on that make sure to give episodes 42 and 43 a listen.
Some of you who joined us more recently might be wondering, “but who is this Joseph Naus person?” In his own words, “On Tuesday, I was a respected civil trial lawyer making six-figures. On Wednesday, I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed charged with attempted murder … and then it got worse.”
Joseph W. Naus was born in 1971. He graduated from Pepperdine Law and passed the Bar in 1997. As related in his harrowing yet hopeful memoir, Straight Pepper Diet, Joseph was raised by his mom, a heroin addict turned shut-in depressive, amidst crime and poverty. At age 32, Joseph’s American Dream life became a nightmare when his addictions to sex, alcohol and cigarettes collided and exploded.
Despite the odds, Joseph is alive and well. He lives in Highland Park in Los Angeles with his wife, Theresa, and their cat, Bogey, and released his follow-up memoir The Palsgraf Revelation on February 15, 2020.
Join us as we have a conversation with Joseph and find out how he managed to bounce off a dark, low bottom to now enjoy a full life in the light of recovery.
Plus, the week in review and the usual hijinks on live, in-studio, storeroom-filled episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
LINKS:
Joseph Naus:
www.josephwnaus.com
Straight Pepper Diet is available here----> https://amzn.to/3nAZPw4 Use this link and help out RMA~!
Palsgraf Revelation buy here and help the show~! https://amzn.to/3bo7po1
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
Non-Alcoholic Beverages Sales Up During Pandemic
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
Dogman or Bigfoot?
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Friday Oct 22, 2021
RMA-Episode 59 Show Notes:
This week on RMA-The Last Stop: When a good kid goes down the wrong path, parents are left feeling hopeless. What do they do when their kid starts doing drugs and drinking and getting into trouble with the law? I’ll tell you what they shouldn’t do. Don’t have a transport company pull them out of bed in the middle of the night and send them to a place like the Elan School.
The Elan School, located in the deep woods of Maine was presented to their parents as a last stop resort for out-of-control behaviour. It used a mixture of harsh discipline, emotional, and physical abuse, to deconstruct the students’ psyches and “cure” them of their behavioral issues.
The Last Stop, an award-winning documentary film currently streaming on Amazon Prime, takes a deeper look into the controversial therapy methods used at this school, methods that developed from the Synanon recovery cult. Synanon spawned hundreds of copycat programs like Daytop and Phoenix House, that used confrontational therapy and other abusive tactics with no scientific basis to treat teens with substance abuse and behavioral issues.
Erin Moore joins Mike and Nat this week to share her experience as a survivor of the Phoenix House program, and to join in reviewing The Last Stop. It’s a compelling episode that strikes at the heart of the “troubled teen” movement and asks why there has been little to no oversight of these largely unregulated facilities.
Plus, the week in review and the usual hijinks on an out-of-control, questionably therapeutic, deep in the woods episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
LINKS:
The Last Stop is available here----> Use this link and help out RMA~! https://amzn.to/3GcYP9O
Erin Moore
https://fallingphoenix.com/
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
Caging the Drunkards!
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
Einstein Examined Alien Craft in Roswell in 1947
Tell Us Your Ghost Story:
Email Mike at MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Friday Oct 15, 2021
RMA-Episode 58 Show Notes:
This week on RMA, we review Dopamine Nation, the new book written by Dr. Anna Lembke, Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University and director of its dual diagnosis clinic.
This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli that our brain is ill-equipped to handle. This leads to addictive behaviors and all the problems that flow from them.
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke condenses the science and explains why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain…and what to do about it.
Plus, RMA goes to Court and battles the judge for Nat’s soul, on a fully adjudicated, plea-bargained, homeostatic episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
LINKS:
Dopamine Nation
Purchase here and help the show! https://amzn.to/3vgB7o2
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
In the quest for a liver transplant, patients are segregated by prior alcohol use
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
William Shatner Goes Where no 90 Year-Old Has Gone Before
Tell Us Your Ghost Story:
Email Mike at MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Friday Oct 08, 2021
RMA-Episode 57 Show Notes:
Did you ever think you were making progress in your recovery only to be derailed by something that you thought was helping you? That’s what happened to this week’s guests Jeff and Bianca D. Some of you may recognize Jeff’s name from the RMA Facebook group where he is one of the moderators. He also designed the latest RMA T-Shirts (available for purchase at www.middleagesrecovery.com)!
Jeff and Bianca join us this week to talk about how Bianca’s use of Kratom went from a seemingly harmless, occasional habit, to a full-blown addiction requiring a lengthy detox and recovery period. Their story is a cautionary tale about what can happen when recovery goes sideways. Tune on to hear the rest of the tale, this week on RMA.
Plus, the week in review, the Monksters Speak and so much more on a detoxified, extracted, early-bird special episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages
LINKS:
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
A Sober-Curious Movement Builds Online
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
Cold Cast Team Believes They Have Identified the Zodiac Killer
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Friday Oct 01, 2021
RMA-Episode 56 Show Notes:
This week on RMA-We continue our discussion of emotional sobriety as an essential element of recovery by taking a look at a few of Dr. Berger’s 12 Smart Things. Find out what you have in common with a Bonsai tree! Don’t let other people edit your reality, man! Also, know thyself and above all, watch your projections.
Plus, the week in review and the usual hijinks on an emotionally centered, integrated, rigorously honest episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages
LINKS:
12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action
Purchase through this link to support RMA! https://amzn.to/3CDxhrm
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment
Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services
The Week in Weird:
Demi Lovato’s Close Encounter
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Minds
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Friday Sep 24, 2021
RMA-Episode 55 Show Notes:
This week on RMA-Emotional Sobriety as an essential element of recovery. What is it? How can we achieve it? Why is it important? You’ve heard us say that the real work begins once the drinking and using ends. This week we explain what that means. The quality of our recovery is determined by how we respond to the problems or challenges in our lives. But because we don’t know how best to respond to these issues, we end up stuck and frustrated. Emotional sobriety is a state in which we experience our emotions and respect them, but we respond to them the way we would respond to other kinds of information. So, we don’t act out in a knee-jerk response to every passing emotional state.
Dr. Allen Berger wrote the book on Emotional Sobriety and this week Mike and Nat dive right in.
Plus, the week in review and the usual hijinks on a self-aware, fully differentiated, balanced episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages
LINKS:
12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action
Purchase through this link to support RMA! https://amzn.to/3CDxhrm
Recovery News You Can Use
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
College Students Using Marijuana More, Alcohol Less
The Week in Weird:
Prisoner Reports Odd UFO Sighting
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Minds
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Friday Sep 17, 2021
RMA-Episode 46 Show Notes:
What is a “high-functioning” alcoholic? I think there are a fair number of people out there who are able to keep drinking and using while at the same time enjoying success in a career and having a normal-appearing life. The keyword there is “appearing” because as anyone who has been there can tell you, when you are wrestling with an addiction while trying to hold together a professional career, you spend a lot of time on appearances. Eventually, like a house of cards built on quicksand, the whole thing comes tumbling down. That’s what happened to this week’s guest Grant Boyken. Grant had a successful career and a solid family life until the day came where he could no longer hide the fact that he was living another life where he was drinking all day, and quietly falling apart. But don’t worry! The story has a happy ending.
Plus, a listener asks if getting high on Delta 8 THC is a relapse, and Mike and Nat talk about their wacky weeks, so please join us as we voyage into a confessional, really long, inquisitive episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
Grant’s Website:
https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/
Recovery in the News:
The Rise of Harm Reduction in the War on Drugs
The Week in Weird:
Forgetful Ghost Hunters Accidentally ASpark Bomb Scare
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
While you’re there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.
If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Minds
Addiction Recovery Podcast
Friday Sep 10, 2021
Friday Sep 10, 2021
RMA-Episode 53 Show Notes:
This week on RMA: Tandem bicycles, tandem kayaks...tandem sponsors? Last week we looked at the darker side of sponsorship and how to avoid some of the common pitfalls that some might say are inherent in the sponsor model. This week we sound a more upbeat note and make a modest proposal: sponsorship the RMA way. How do we find a recovery mentor? What utility is there in having a recovery friend and accountability partner? We answer those questions and more, (and also go long on the week in review).
Also, this week is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mike and Nat share their memories of that terrible day and discuss the aftermath and how it affected their drinking and drug use.
Finally, Mike’s appearance on This Naked Mind is STILL drawing in a wave of new listeners. We welcome them with open arms. Hope you enjoy the podcast!
All this and more on a somewhat somber, reciprocal, high-wire walking episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
Mike’s Interview on Annie Grace
Sober Linings Playbook (Aggregated recovery and addiction news and resources).
Recovery in the News:
Michael K. Williams Dead at 54
The Week in Weird:
Alien Head Statue Found on Mars
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
Friday Sep 03, 2021
Friday Sep 03, 2021
RMA-Episode 52 Show Notes:
This week on RMA: When sponsors go bad. Anyone who has been around 12 step groups for any length of time is familiar with the idea of the “13th Step”. The act of “13th Stepping” is when a more experienced member of AA or NA pursues a romantic or other exploitative relationship with a new group member. Obviously this can be detrimental to someone’s recovery, but it can also be dangerous, and sometimes deadly. With courts using AA as an alternative to incarceration for all sorts of offences that have nothing to do with alcohol, the problem is getting worse.
Is such 13th stepping an inevitable byproduct of the 12 step model or are there safeguards that can be put into place by the involved organizations that would reduce or eliminate the potential for abuse of the sponsorship model? Mike and Nat, joined by RMA regular Erin Moore, do a deep dive into the issues of power imbalances and exploitation in 12 step groups, and consider ways to make meetings safer for people in recovery.
PLUS, Mike’s appearance on This Naked Mind has led to a wave of new listeners and we welcome them with open arms. Hope you enjoy the podcast!
All this and more on an extra inning, back to school, everyday episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.
Mike’s Interview on Annie Grace
Sober Linings Playbook (Aggregated recovery and addiction news and resources).
Recovery in the News:
Doc Gooden wanted the Len Bias Coke
The Week in Weird:
Another Pair of Mysterious Cattle Mutilation Cases Reported in Oregon
LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE
PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you’re enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.
You can reach us by email at:
MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com
Natx@middleagesrecovery.com
Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We’ll talk to anyone!
Check out the website:
Www.middleagesrecovery.com
Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!
We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It’s a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there.If you’re in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.
https://www.aa.org/
https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/
Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):
This Naked Mind
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