Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

Indee Fields was four years old the first time she watched her mother hide from witches that weren't there. Her mom was smoking crack. By ten, Indee was the one running the household — bathing and feeding her younger siblings, breaking up the violence between her mother and stepfather, and calling the police when she was told to, only to be blamed for it the next morning. The rule was simple: you don't tell anyone what happens in this house.

This is a raw conversation about what it actually does to a child to grow up as the parent in their own...

Sydney Steele was prescribed Ritalin at five years old, just as she was finishing preschool. From there came Concerta, Vyvanse, and Adderall — a stimulant cycle that ran nearly nonstop through her childhood, alongside psychiatric diagnoses she now believes were largely a reaction to the medication itself.

She made it through Syracuse as an illustration major with a real gift and a growing art business — while binge drinking and discovering she loved pills. Then she tried ketamine. A friend had warned her she'd never be able to handle it. He was right. She describes it as the drug she...

Come spend a day with me in downtown West Palm Beach — back in my old neighborhood, walking past my high school, grabbing an almond croissant at Lucky's, and introducing the newest member of the family: Lilo, my 13-week-old golden retriever puppy (named after my daughter's favorite, Lilo & Stitch).

I've also got some news I'm genuinely emotional about. I've officially partnered with Caron Treatment Centers — one of the rehabs I went to, and the place that helped me truly understand the disease of addiction and change my life. Caron didn't just work with me; they worked with my whol...

By June of 2017, Billy Rich had nothing left in his own eyes. A decade into opioid addiction, isolated in a blacked-out bedroom in Rhode Island, cut off from his family, grieving his father, buried under legal fear and a mental state he describes as beyond anything he'd known — he had decided he was done. He didn't see a recovery option. He didn't think there was a way out.

He survived that night. Something he can only describe as divine intervention pulled him back at the last possible second, and for the first time he heard a different th...

⚠️ This episode is presented for educational and prevention purposes only. In 2018, Brendan Vaughan was arrested for making terroristic threats against his high school. We sat down with him — and previously with the detective who arrested him — not to sensationalize what happened, but to understand the early warning signs that might help someone intervene before a young person reaches that point. If this helps prevent even one tragedy, it will have done its job.

Brendan grew up an only child in Orange County, New York, raised by two alcoholic parents in a home where, by his own account, he never...

Brittany Logan grew up an only child split between two households — her mother's world of structure and discipline, and her alcoholic father's world of no rules and chaos. By 15 she was drinking before class and never wanted to stop. She got kicked out of art school, was arrested five times in a single month, and moved from blues to Oxys to heroin — a drug she says she first heard glamorized inside her own rehab.

For eight years she ran on methadone and weekend heroin. Her final year spiraled into crack addiction and selling her body full-time through the...

Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers

My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above

📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103

Recovery starts with taking the first s...

Matt Von Boecklin grew up outside Seattle, raised by a single mother after his father suffered a mental break when Matt was a toddler and had to be cared for in a home. A socially anxious kid always reaching for the edge of the cool crowd, Matt found early that alcohol quieted that feeling — and years later, a motorcycle accident introduced him to opiates and opened a door he says was impossible to un-see.

What followed was a global, restless run — tramadol by the pocketful in Mexico, a rock-bottom withdrawal alone in Nairobi crying on a shower floo...

If you caught Brenda Zane's episode a few months ago — the mother who shared the harrowing story of her son's addiction and near-death — this is that son. Enzo is here to tell it from the inside.

Enzo grew up in Seattle with two loving, supportive parents and a natural entrepreneurial streak, running little candy schemes and haircut businesses as a kid. But a fascination with the "forbidden" turned into weed by middle school, then cocaine and Xanax, then the pills that got too expensive — and finally, in 2017, fentanyl, right as it was flooding the streets and long before...

Nick Thornton grew up outside Portland, Maine, raised by his grandparents after his mother's addiction pulled her out of his life. He was warned early that with both parents struggling, he could never drink — a warning he took as a challenge. By 14 he was drinking and smoking weed daily, and from the very first time, he always went harder than everyone around him.

What followed was a decade-plus run through Oxy and blues, cocaine, a move to California, a marriage, a business, and a drinking problem he was certain he'd beaten — right up until he replaced it with...

From the outside Gregg looked like he had it handled — a family, a career, a wife he'd known since middle school. Underneath it he was doing cocaine every single day, and had been for years. He'll tell you he never fit the picture of what people imagine an addict looks like. He wasn't running around wired; cocaine actually quieted the chaos in his head, turned down the noise, and let him not feel. And once he started, he couldn't stop.

For about two and a half to three years he used daily, isolating, trying to solve the pr...

Pete Kuc was living a life that looked like the movies. A young real estate hotshot in northeast Florida, he was making a fortune, flying on private jets to the Bahamas, entertaining high-end clients on the waterfront, and running on Adderall and alcohol to keep the whole machine going. He describes it as his own Wolf of Wall Street era — money, parties, and the feeling that as long as he was performing, nothing else mattered.

Underneath it was a man who had built his entire sense of worth on being the athlete, then the businessman, then the pr...

Colton's addiction began long before adulthood. By 17, he was injecting drugs. Before turning 20, he was cooking meth, living in violent drug houses, escaping juvenile detention, and eventually serving time in prison. He shares stories of psychosis, crime, near-death experiences, and the devastating reality of meth addiction.Today, nearly two years sober, Colton has transformed his life. He helps others in recovery, hosts the Broken Chain Podcast, and is working toward opening a recovery home so others can find the hope he once thought was impossible. His journey is proof that no one is beyond redemption.If you or someone...

Damon Watson did everything right. Harvard-Westlake prep school. Princeton, where he was a national debate champion. Harvard Law School. A career as an intellectual property litigator at Latham & Watkins, one of the biggest law firms in Los Angeles. On paper, his life was the American dream.

Then five people close to him died in six years — his mom, his dad, his grandmother and more. His marriage fell apart. And the man who had been so terrified of becoming his alcoholic mother that he was the designated driver all through college took his first drink at 30, right after gr...

Haley Ragsdale grew up outside Nashville in the wealthy town of Franklin, a scared kid with crippling anxiety, insomnia, and a phobia of vomiting so severe it ruled her entire childhood. When her parents' divorce detonated — a five-year court battle that pulled her out of class for abuse checks and had her father legally removed from the home — the chaos swallowed the whole family.

She found her escape at 15. A prescription for Xanax that a nurse practitioner had given her years earlier had been sitting untouched in her door. The night she finally tried it, she describes it a...

Clint Pitre was raised by his grandparents in Deltona, Florida, a Jehovah's Witness household where he always felt like something was off. By middle school he was smoking weed and drinking at the skate park. At 15 he took his first Oxycodone at a house party and knew instantly he wanted to feel that way for the rest of his life. By junior year he was so dependent that his own grandmother had to hand him a pill and tell him he was dope sick — that what he'd been taking was essentially synthetic heroin.

What followed was roughly 15 ye...

Jason Lyles was adopted at 14 days old and raised in a strict Southern Baptist home. He read the Bible cover to cover by age eight and felt called to ministry. He also found pornography at ten or eleven, and from that moment he was chasing something he couldn't name — convinced each time that the next thing would finally fix him. Marriage at 19 would fix it. Giving his life to God would fix it. But as his early sponsor told him, you never leave your addictions in the driveway.

Jason planted a church in rural Georgia, preaching to co...

Laura Tomana appeared to have it all—a successful career, a thriving social life, and a bright future. Behind closed doors, however, alcohol had taken over her life.What began as partying evolved into blackouts, drinking around the clock, and eventually becoming physically dependent on alcohol.

After losing her mother to cancer, Laura made a promise to stay sober—but grief, addiction, and despair pulled her back into relapse. She shares the heartbreaking reality of drinking more alcohol than water, detoxes, hospitalizations, suicidal thoughts, and the moment everything finally changed.Today, Laura is approaching two years sober and...

Tommy Lyons grew up between Brooklyn and Staten Island, a fearful, introverted kid with a nervous disposition who found that drugs made him feel like he could finally talk to anyone. He was smoking weed at ten, doing Xanax by thirteen, and a borderline cocaine addict by fourteen — funding it by stealing and robbing before he was even old enough to drive.

He became the MVP quarterback of his high school football team while already deep in opiate addiction. Vicodin became Percocet, Percocet became blues, and blues became heroin. He describes shooting heroin in the bathroom at hi...

Rise Above | Vlog Episode 3 A routine shoulder surgery is where my painkiller addiction began. This is what my life looks like 8.5 years sober. In this vlog I'm taking you through a real day in my life and the things that keep me grounded. We start at Tequesta Biomechanics where I train with Jessica, working on decompressing my lower back, recovering mobility in the shoulder that started it all, and undoing years of damage from poor form and old football injuries. Physical health has become a massive part of my mental health and my recovery. Then I head back to...

Mike Debany was a fast-talking sales guy living what looked like the good life in South Florida — a fiancée, a baby on the way, money in the bank. Underneath it he was already an addict, having found his way from marijuana to the pill mills of South Florida, where a doctor in a parking lot would hand out 180 Xanax and 90 Roxys to anyone who waited long enough.

Then on October 18, 2010, everything changed. Driving a Jeep overloaded with cinder blocks over a bridge under construction, he rolled the vehicle. The cinder blocks came through the windshield. He was...

From the outside Nick Johnsson had it all. Born in Sweden, educated in Australia, and based in Southeast Asia, he spent a decade climbing the corporate ladder until he was the general manager of 72 hospitals and clinics across Indonesia — one of the biggest roles of its kind in the world.

And he was quietly falling apart behind the closed door of his corner office.

Every promotion made him lonelier. He was drinking to control himself, working punishing hours, and slowly losing the discipline that had defined his life. When the pressure became too much he re...

From the outside Christie Green looked like she had it all together. A successful career, a wide circle of friends, the person who sent the thank-you cards and remembered everyone's birthday. Nobody saw the high-functioning drinking underneath, or the grief, divorce and decades of quiet pain she was masking with it.

Christie lost her hair to alopecia as a child and spent years building humor and achievement into armor so no one would look too closely. She lost her mother six years ago and describes that grief as the catalyst that sent the next chapter of her...

Makenzie Raine had her first panic attack at seven. She never felt comfortable in her own skin....paralyzing anxiety, constant fear, neurodivergence nobody ever addressed. Then at 12 her parents let her have a drink hoping to take the mystery out of alcohol. That same night she snuck out, finished the bottle alone and got obliterated. She describes that first drink as coming up for air for the first time in her life.

By 18 she had moved to Los Angeles, was living in a penthouse pulling in $50,000 a month on a subscription platform, and was drinking a full...

Betty Guadagno was born into a long line of addicts — poverty, chaos, eviction notices in red envelopes, and sexual trauma she carried as a small child. By 11 she was mixing drinks behind a stranger's bar. By 15 she was smoking methamphetamine. And for the next 20 years drugs were the only thing that made her feel powerful, beautiful and safe.

By the end she was a homeless meth addict who had lost 100 pounds in three months, lost most of her teeth, and was manipulating and prostituting other women to fund her addiction. She had been through over a dozen de...

Jerry Lucey beat opioid addiction in 2018. Then in 2020 a motorcycle accident cut his body open from his heel to his chest. He was pronounced dead three times. He spent three and a half weeks in a coma and had a near-death experience he still can't fully explain.

In this follow up episode Jerry reveals what wasn't covered the first time — going septic during recovery and nearly dying again, over 100 blood transfusions in a single night, 68 surgeries, five years in a wheelchair, and the moment he woke up from his coma believing he had already died and gone so...

Matthew Polimeno was six years old when he climbed into his mother's bed and woke up next to her body. She had gotten sober through AA. Then a car accident led to an OxyContin prescription. And then she was gone.

Growing up without her Matthew watched his father hold everything together while carrying a grief nobody talked about. He went to AA meetings as a kid without understanding why. And then at 16 he had his first drink — and immediately understood exactly what his mother had been chasing.

By his worst stretch Matthew was drinking a li...

Ryan Root was a skinny kid from upstate New York who got picked up by girls at 13 and couldn't grow facial hair at 28. Doctors dismissed him. So he went to the black market for testosterone at 23 — and his life changed overnight.

He put on 32 pounds of muscle in weeks. His confidence exploded. His ambition came back. And then he discovered he had a gift for business.

What started as trying to make $200-$300 extra dollars a week turned into a full blown black market steroid operation making $100,000 a week at its peak — with chemists, shippers and...

Brittany Ellis grew up in a small town in South Georgia watching her parents drink & party. It wasn't until her oldest brother poured gasoline on a bonfire at 14 and burned his entire arm that everything changed. The doctors loaded him up with OxyContin. He brought it home. Her parents got hooked. And then Brittany did too.

What followed was 15 years of addiction that took her from pills to heroin to fentanyl to IV crack cocaine. She married the man who introduced her to Oxy while they were both in the grips of addiction. She got pregnant on...

Johnny Schrey grew up in West Boca watching his two older brothers destroy their lives with drugs. He told himself he would never be like them. By 25 he was splitting Roxy 30s with his best friend because they couldn't scrape together $10 for one pill between them. So they joined the Marine Corps..

He detoxed off opioids in boot camp. Got a DUI his first night back from engineering school. Deployed to Afghanistan twice — watching friends die, getting his vehicle hit by IEDs, and coming home to bottles of Jack Daniels waiting on the bus. He married a ba...

Rise Above | Adam Vohra's Story

Adam Vohra grew up in Connecticut ....a kid of color in a Jewish day school who always felt different. At 13 he found out why. He and his sister had been adopted. Nobody had told them. And six months later he had his first drink.

What followed was 15 years of DUIs, gambling debts with drug dealers, dropping out of college, four months in a Connecticut jail, and relapse after relapse. Every time he got sober it was consequence driven. Every time something good happened he went right back out.

...

Carly Schwartz had a career most journalists only dream about. Running the San Francisco Bureau of HuffPost at 26. On the leadership team of one of the biggest news organizations in the world. Blogging for a governor who became California's Governor. Expense accounts, concerts, restaurant openings and a life that looked absolutely electric from the outside.

And she was going to bed every night wishing she wouldn't wake up the next morning.

Behind the blazing career was a secret life of cocaine benders, blacking out, taking hits of nitrous oxide under her covers at noon on...

Suebelle Robbins had a life that looked like a movie. Playboy Bunny by night, first grade teacher by day. Travel escort taking groups to Hawaii and Switzerland. Corporate wife living on Gulfstream jets. Beautiful homes, European vacations and everything money could buy.

And she was miserable every single minute of it.

Every morning started with a bong. Every afternoon she switched to Scotch. She was so depressed she took sleeping pills on a sunny day in Honolulu just so she could sleep through paradise. She made three suicide attempts, he last one a full bottle...

Mike Supak was a Division 1 track athlete. He never touched a drop of alcohol in four years of high school. He was structured, dedicated, trustworthy — the model kid.

Then he discovered alcohol the summer before college and everything changed immediately.

What followed was 20 years of cocaine, heroin, DUIs, overdoses, jail, and a slow death that nobody around him could stop. He got his second and third DUIs within 48 hours of each other. He overdosed on heroin in the back of a cab, was Narcanned six times, and showed back up to his family's St. Patrick's Da...

Crystal Meliea grew up alone on 183 acres of North Carolina mountain property with a narcissist mother who left her unsupervised with music industry men in Los Angeles at 16. No protection. No parents. Just a bottle of Xanax she found in her mother's purse that made everything quiet for the first time in her life.

By 19 she was running marijuana from Mexico to Texas to North Carolina on a massive scale. She was taking 10 Xanax bars in a single night — enough to black out most grown men. She was fighting so violently that police would call ahead and as...

TJ DelVecchio was a Division 1 baseball player at Providence College who walked onto Wall Street during the dot-com boom and made his first million dollars by 28. By 30 he was broke, $300,000 in debt, unloading boxes at FedEx in the middle of the night just to keep health insurance for his kids — and quietly becoming addicted to opioids.

For years he held it all together on the outside. Wall Street lunches with pint glasses three quarters full of vodka. Parties in Miami. VIP sections. A lifestyle that looked like success and felt like a slow death. At his worst he...

Kyle Garges had everything — a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, a career in advertising sales, and a life that looked perfectly put together from the outside.

But behind closed doors she was hiding alcohol in her daughter's Stanley Cup. She was drinking through blackouts, through rehab, through aversion therapy in Seattle where they made her chug vodka until she vomited. She drank through her father's death. She drank through interventions. She drank through every promise she made to herself and everyone she loved.

Thirty years of alcoholism. Three treatment centers. And a dying father who gr...

You can buy it at a gas station. It's sold next to energy drinks and lottery tickets. And it almost destroyed Matt Dean's life.

Matt Dean had already been through the pill mill era in Florida, cold turkey detoxed off 50-60 Percocet a day, built a career in real estate, and gotten sober from alcohol — twice. Then his little brother died of an overdose. And a well-meaning smoke shop employee handed him a free sample of 7-Hydroxymitragynine.

Within weeks he was spending $100 a day — burning through his 401K and savings — chasing a high from something most p...

John Luedke had it all on paper — a scholarship to Michigan State, a successful father, a big house, and every material thing a kid could want. But underneath it all, he was drowning. His parents' affair and messy seven-year divorce left him as the emotional middleman between two broken people. He got cut from the basketball team. He lost his identity. And he spent the next decade eating, drinking, using cocaine, nitrous oxide, and anything else he could find to fill the hole.

At his heaviest, John weighed 315 pounds. By his senior year, he was paying people to...

Elisa Nicole Saunders was a Palm Beach County schoolteacher, standing in front of classrooms every day — and quietly drinking and drugging her way through 30 years of addiction. Two DUIs. A five-car pile-up. Crashing drunk into a tow truck while two people had to run for their lives. Sitting in a jail cell staring at her wrist, wondering how it got this bad.

She never wanted to get sober. A judge gave her the nudge.

Now, coming up on 15 years of sobriety, Elisa has rebuilt her life from the ground up — from losing her teaching certificate, to b...