Recovery Talks: The Podcast

I Stumble Into Everything

Seasoned touring- guitarist for the stars, Ricky Byrd (Joan Jett, Roger Daltrey, Ian Hunter and more), talks with Marc Lee Shannon about recovery, recording and rocking before and after getting clean over 30 years ago. 

This Bronx-born musician tells the story of growing up a skinny, frightened kid and finding substances that would give him courage to feel the confidence that would get him up on the stage. Eventually, while on tour, the habit caused him to actually blow a hole in his lung, and near-death moment brought him clarity. 

"Total abstinence  is the the only thing for me because I had the need to not feel. After the fist hit I felt like a new man, unfortunately that new man wanted another hit!"

Listen in while Ricky talks about his new record, Clean Getaway, about getting certified as a Licensed Peer Recovery Support person, and about sharing his talents and songs during performance in treatment facilities and recovery music groups. It's a tantalizing episode about spreading the gospel of the addiction blues and the good news about how it feels to play straight and sober. 

 

This is Bigger Than Me...I Need Help!

Listen in as Marc talks with Cheryl McMillan, a skilled facilitator, narrative Enneagram teacher, and professional. A trauma survivor, Cheryl tells her own unique recovery story that includes childhood abuse and abandonment, as well as the fortuitous intervention by a 3rd-grade teacher. This ensuing pursuit of understanding eventually led her, while listening to an audiobook on a long car-ride, to discover her own deeply hidden struggle with PTSD.  Through therapy, she began to feel safe inside her own body, was able to identify the issues, and could then start to heal.  In the end, her victory included being able to understand this: that she had a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.  (Please pardon the 'audio', but this was recorded using Zoom, during COVID...sorry!)

Mom, I'm a Heroin Addict!

Performing musician Matt Vance talks to Marc about the various stages of his addiction and his recovery.  Matt discusses his early years of substance use, his subsequent abuse, and then the eventual moment that lead to treatment and recovery.  It was a poignant moment of surrender that finally enabled him to utter the words, “Mom, I’m a heroin addict”. 

Join Marc as he and Matt Vance discuss drugs, alcohol and the freedom of creating music in sobriety, that magic spark of rediscovering the ultimate stage of finding artistic freedom again in recovery.

 

 

The Issues Live In the Tissues

In this episode, Marc talks with Karin French, a former ‘corporate warrior’-turned Yoga instructor, who walks us through her journey of being powerless over alcohol to ‘sobriety-empowered’.  Karin describes in detail how she encountered enlightenment on the yoga mat, and, later, through the love of her family and friends, learned to ask for help, transform herself, and emerge as the person who she knew deep inside she could be.

 

'Stay Standing, Stay Sober, and Steady On: Prologue'

In this first episode, host Marc Lee Shannon zeroes in on the purpose of 'Recovery Talks: The Podcast'.  He shares his vision for the show, talks about the 'mission' of 'Rock and Recovery' and its historical connection to Akron, Ohio and radio station 91-3 The Summit and thesummit.fm.  Marc also drills down as to  'why' the podcast can be important to those in alcohol and drug-abuse treatment, as well as to those who deal with mental health issues, including anyone who may be in 'recovery'.