Soberly Speaking
Stories from everyday people sharing their darkest moments that led to sobriety. Shedding light on our struggles to help those still finding their way out.
Living on the Streets & Sleeping on Trains: Wayne’s Story
Wayne lost everything to drugs, his home, his family, and almost his mind. Growing up as one of four boys, he prided himself on being the last man standing when it came to drink. But once drugs entered his life, everything changed.
He spiralled into psychosis for days, ran through national parks convinced people were after him, spent time in multiple rehabs, and lived on the streets with no support, no one to talk to, and invisible to all who crossed his path on their commute.
Wayne shares a...
Grieving an Abusive Parent – Trailer
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Jessie grew up with a mother she calls a psycho. Her mum’s life was ruled by drugs and alcohol, and those same substances eventually claimed her. Jessie thought she would feel relief when her mum died, but instead she was hit with crushing guilt.
Her grief does not stop there. Her sister, who endured the worst of their mother’s abuse, has now followed in the same destructive footsteps. Jessie also grieves for her niece and nephew, growing up robbed of the mother they deserv...
Silencing Food Noise and Sugar Addiction with Vanessa Kredler
Today I’m joined by Vanessa Kredler, a Sydney-based Counsellor and Psychotherapist who specialises in helping adults recover from food and sugar addiction, disordered eating, trauma, and other addictive behaviours.
Vanessa combines her own lived experience with clinical expertise to guide people towards lasting recovery.
In this conversation, Vanessa answers all your burning questions about food addiction, including:
What actually creates food addiction
Why so many people switch to sugar after going sober
How to stop the relentless food noise
How to fi..."I Was a Functioning Alcoholic Mother" – Trailer
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For Stevie, putting down the drink has actually been the easy part of sobriety. It is facing the parenting guilt that cuts the deepest. The memories of being absent, snapping at her kids, and wishing time with them away just so she could get back to drinking still haunt her. She carries the weight of those years, constantly wondering what her children will remember most.
Stevie became a mum young, with three little ones depending on her before she had even turned 24. She felt completely...
Trafficking, Death & Fugitive Life: Braiden Tonks
Braiden Tonks grew up in his father’s shadow, carrying a reputation for violence and anger. He leaned into that image to start selling party drugs in his hometown in Tasmania. After trying ice at an after-party, he quickly escalated to smuggling it across the Tasmania to Melbourne border. On one return trip, he was caught with $40k in cash on his body and spent weeks on the run until a SWAT team raided his bedroom while he slept.
But one night, while trying heroin with a stranger, Braiden faced a moment that would haunt him forever whe...
Hypnosis, Past Lives & Subconscious Beliefs with Rachel Crethar
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Today’s episode is a little different, and deeply personal for me. Not in a traumatic way, but because Rachel is both my friend and my hypnotherapist. What you’ll hear feels more like an intimate chat between two friends than a formal interview. We dive into my own session around sugar addiction, explore how subconscious beliefs are formed, how new neurological pathways can be created, and even touch on past lives.
I recorded this back in May and kept putting off rele...
How an App Helped Adriana Finally Quit Drinking
Adriana’s life has been shaped by alcohol since before she was born. Growing up with an alcoholic father who abused her mother, she always knew something was wrong, but it wasn’t until she confronted her parents that she discovered the full truth about her family.
Her own drinking went unchecked for years, hidden behind constant travel and a busy life. She had always told herself, “Next Monday, I’ll start.” But one Sunday in her mid-thirties, Adriana downloaded an app to help, and that moment changed everything.
Trigger warning: This episode di...
Tayla's Fiancé Died Before Their Wedding (Part 1)
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On the exact one-year anniversary of her fiancé Kris’s death, Taylor sat with me to share her story.
Just twelve months earlier, she had said her goodnights, told Kris she loved him, and gone to sleep beside him. Hours later, she was on the floor trying desperately to bring him back. Kris had died of an overdose.
This episode is about grief in its rawest form. It is about loving an addict until their final breath, and mourning two lives at once: the life you hav...
Jeremy Donovan Grew Up With the Wrong Identity
Jeremy Donovan spent his whole life believing he was Māori. Orphaned young, he was whāngai’d (fostered) into a Māori family. But a court appearance for graffiti charges revealed the truth: he is Aboriginal.
Suddenly, everything shifted. Who am I? Where do I belong? Especially when the only images of Aboriginal people in the media are negative?
This feeling of displacement led Jeremy down a dark path, using cocaine every single day, as he tried to navigate a world where he never fully felt at home.
...
Shoplifting, Domestic Violence & Gambling: Nicole’s Story
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Nicole spent 26 years in active addiction, starting with heroin at just 17 after entering a violent relationship. What began as “rough play fighting,” a red flag she recognises now, escalated until she made a desperate escape through a window while her abuser was in the shower.
To fund her habit, Nicole built a shoplifting operation so elaborate it could have been a movie plot. We’re not talking about swiping a handbag or a few groceries from Coles. She would dress up as rostered staff and pretend to work in the...
The Trans Model Addicted to Ice
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Marni’s earliest memory is knowing she wasn’t in the right body. Born male and adopted from Ethiopia, she spent her childhood feeling like a stranger to herself. At 18, Marni had bottom surgery, transitioning from a man to a woman- believing it would finally make her feel complete. But the relief she hoped for never came.
During her modelling career, it was in one of the most affluent suburbs in Australia that she was introduced to ice and quickly became addicted. Not just to substances, but to dang...
One Drink in Bali Left Ashley Permanently Blind
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It was just a cocktail in Bali, at a nightclub every millennial has been to if you've partied there: Bounty Nightclub.
But Ashley King woke up permanently blind.
What started as the trip of a lifetime for 19-year-old Ashley ended in tragedy. On her final night out with friends, she ordered what she thought was a vodka-based cocktail from a well-known bar.
It was laced with methanol, and it cost her her eyesight.
Ashley joins me today as she's trying to raise m...
Davey Lloyd: Straight off a Bender to The Bachelorette
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What happens when a party boy struggling with addiction goes on reality TV?
Davey Lloyd was on Season One of The Bachelorette with Sam Frost — and in true Davey style, he showed up straight off a bender, going on to become one of the biggest kooks in Australia.
Always feeling like he was living in his late brother’s shadow, Davey found his place in the party scene, where he finally received the love and adoration he’d been chasing his whole life.
I really...
Shelley Is Raising Her Severely Autistic Son Alone (Trailer)
This is the final part of Shelley’s story. You'll need to go back and listen to Parts 1 and 2 of "Shelley Was Brutally Attacked by a Stranger."
We pick up where we left off, back to when Shelley first met her ex. As her relationship with a narcissistic partner unravels, she’s left raising two young sons, one of whom is severely autistic.
In this episode, Shelley grapples with the decision to let her estranged mother back into her life. She’s just starting to rebuild, until one night in the emergency room changes everything. Then...
Forced to Inhale Glen 20 Spray While Pregnant: Tracey-Lee
Tracey-Lee was only four years old when a male family member abused her. Throughout her childhood, the trauma was compounded by denial: She was told a version of events that didn’t match the truth she felt in her body. This rewriting of her reality left a deep and lasting fracture in her sense of self.
By the time she reached adulthood, this broken trust in herself made her vulnerable, almost a target. She met a man on an internet forum who would become the father of her child. What followed was a devastating chapter marked by re...
Shelley Was Brutally Attacked by a Stranger (Part 1)
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I don’t say this lightly, but this is one of those stories that stays with you for days, maybe even weeks.
We begin with Shelley as a child, witnessing her older brother accidentally take his own life while they were playing. But somehow, that’s not the most traumatic part of her story.
Shelley grew up in Housing Commission while both her parents battled addiction. She was exposed to, and a victim of, domestic violence. She started running away from home — and it was during one of...
Breaking the Cycle of Alcoholic Fathers: Zac Swanton
All Zac ever wanted was to be his dad’s best friend.
As a kid, he longed for the kind of closeness he saw between his friends and their own fathers, but his own reality couldn’t have been more different.
Zac was known as the outgoing, loveable party boy — traits that gave his addiction a nod of approval to continue. After eight overdoses, toxic relationships, and a moment of deep embarrassment in front of his new partner, he knew he was heading down the exact same path as his father…
In this episode...
How ‘P’ Took Hold of This Wahine Māori
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Skye tried P, also known as methamphetamine, once — out of spite, to get back at her partner who was already using. She had no idea it would cost her everything.
Skye and her partner enabled each other in their addiction. They isolated themselves and went from living in the hood, as Skye called it, to emergency housing, and eventually to living in their car, spending the little money they had from benefits solely on drugs.
Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussions of su...
Amber Luke Is Leaving Escorting Behind
Amber Luke is known as Australia’s most tattooed woman, 98% of her body is covered in ink. But that’s not why she’s sitting down with me today.
Amber is 10 months clean from meth. And she’s walking away from the longest job she’s ever held: sex work.
She’s felt lost for as long as she can remember. As a teenager, she spiraled into addiction, deep depression, and even turned to Satanism in a desperate attempt to escape her reality.
Today, in our chat, she’s doing something she’s never done befor...
Intergenerational Abuse: Manda’s Story
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Child sexual abuse has been touched on in a few of my past episodes, but in Manda’s story, it stretches across generations.
For Manda, she was sexually abused at just five years old, at the hands of someone known to the family. Years later, she would face the unimaginable: walking in on her own daughter being violated. And in a cruel twist, Manda unknowingly fell in love with a pedophile.
The trauma Manda experienced as a child shaped so much of her adult life. She fo...
Tegan De Vil: Loving Your Partner in Addiction
When I sit across from my guests, they often share the darkest chapters of their past. But for Tegan, she’s living through it right now — in real time.
Tegan and Jax are widely known for their hilarious, comedic videos that have earned them hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. So when Tegan posted a raw, emotional video — alone and visibly shaken — revealing that Jax had relapsed, my heart sank.
In our chat, Tegan opens up about the heartbreaking realities of loving someone who is struggling with addiction, while trying to protect her own well...
Chris’s Drunk Ride Into Oncoming Traffic
Drink driving is one of the biggest regrets for nearly every guest I’ve had, but for Chris, the consequences were brutal and lasting.
Blacked out and riding on the back of a dirt bike with another intoxicated friend, they slammed head-on into traffic at 90km/h. Chris’s mate went to jail. The woman in the other car, simply driving to her next destination, will carry the trauma of that night forever. And Chris? He still lives with the physical pain.
Trigger warning: we discuss themes of substance abuse and drink driving in this epis...
The Sugar Baby
Taylor started sleeping with men when she was just 16 years old. From a young age, she was hanging around older boys for drugs and what began as one man to fund her addiction quickly escalated to posting herself on a sugar baby website.
Taylor lives with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and currently has two parents in recovery. She hopes sharing her story sheds light on the glamorised version of sex work young girls are seeing on platforms like TikTok. It’s not the full picture, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Tr...
The Jehovah’s Witness
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Caitlin grew up in a strict Jehovah’s Witness household, where her voice and individuality were suppressed. As soon as she was old enough, she sought out any form of escape — anything to avoid being at home.
Caitlin shares her ongoing battle with mental illness – one that reached a breaking point when she found herself screaming at strangers in a grocery store, eventually having to be restrained and sedated.
Ironically, it wasn’t a psychiatrist or psychologist who finally helped her – it was a sleep specialist.
Trigg...
Michael Lappin: The Comeback After Relapse
I've been following Michael Lappin on social media for a while now and even reached out to him when Soberly Speaking first launched, hoping to have him on as one of my guests. Weeks passed without a reply—until I came across a video where he shared he had relapsed.
Michael's story, and this interview, really show how messy and non-linear addiction can be: time in and out of jail, broken promises, and having to start over again—sometimes more than once.
What makes this conversation even more important is who Michael is. He's this big...
Psychosis, Violence & Homelessness: Tara Bentley
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The first time Tara tried Ice, it gave her a euphoria she’d never known. Coming from a violent household — a pattern that would repeat throughout her life — she was desperate to escape her reality from a young age.
During active addiction, Tara was found jumping on a car in full-blown psychosis. She woke up in psych wards, witnessed crimes most of us couldn’t begin to imagine, and lived with an extremely dangerous drug dealer.
Tara and I have an eye-opening conversation about why she...
How One Year Without Alcohol Changed Julia Vogl’s Life
Julia Vogl never identified with having a drinking problem, but she realised alcohol was holding her back and capping her potential. It’s a story so many can relate to, knowing something isn’t good for you, not being addicted to, yet continuously crawling back to it.
Growing up confused about her sexuality and living with internalised homophobia, she would kiss girls while drunk, only to spiral into shame afterward, keeping her stuck in a cycle of self-hatred.
Taking a six-month break from drinking turned into a year, then a lifestyle. She found purpose, saved a sma...
The Mother of Two Addicted Sons
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Jo is a mother to four boys, her first two have both suffered with addiction.
Two very different personalities: one the awkward, gentle kid; the other, the popular party boy.
Only two and a half years apart, their addictions ruled the family — from smashing each other’s belongings to being maced by police in the front yard. At one point, one of the brothers even shot the other. The chaos led to countless court cases and eventually cost Jo her marriage.
This episode is a...
Fearing Sobriety More Than Death with Patrick Kennedy
Patrick’s struggle wasn’t just with alcohol and drugs, they were symptoms of a much deeper issue: his inability to sit with discomfort. For years, he convinced himself that, “Once my mental health is under control, I’ll stop drinking.” A lie I’m sure we’ve all told ourselves at some point.
In the beginning, alcohol seemed like the solution, the only way to do the things he felt he couldn’t do on his own. But as his addiction spiralled, he suddenly realised where it was inevitably leading; death.
His parents dropped him off at rehab...
The Unspoken: Giving Birth on a GHB Bender
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This is my most controversial episode to date — and it’s now live on The Unspoken, Soberly Speaking’s new membership on Patreon.
After being abused by a family member as a child, Zoe’s life was chaos from early childhood. She fell into addiction young and remained trapped in a cycle of substance abuse and extreme domestic violence. Her first son was removed by Child Protective Services which then led to her using ice daily throughout her next pregnamncy. she was being beaten frequently even whe...
Closeted, Queer and Jewish: Andrew Moses
Andrew Moses grew up as a closeted Jewish gay boy, feeling immense pressure to be academically successful, marry a Jewish woman, and have Jewish children, all while battling the belief that something was fundamentally wrong with him.
To fit in, he started using party drugs, masking his true identity and trying to convince everyone, including himself, that he was straight. Over time, his opioid use evolved into a secret crystal meth addiction. It wasn’t until a trip to Costa Rica for his birthday, where he used ayahuasca, that everything changed.
Today, Andrew helps other ga...
Introducing 'The Unspoken’
These are the stories people don’t believe until they hear them. The unimaginable lives. Told with courage, by some of the most resilient humans I’ve ever sat across from. This is The Unspoken.
Starting this Thursday, 5th June, Thursday episodes become The Unspoken — and will live on Patreon.
This isn’t about gatekeeping. It’s about survival. It’s about giving the stories people try to silence a safe place to exist, without fear, without dilution.
For $4.99 a month, you’ll get:
A weekly exclusive epis...Hooked at Just 12 Years Old
Last week, we heard from Tiana Wadsworth, and throughout her story, there was one name that kept coming up. Today, we meet him.
As a kid, Klayton was infatuated with the drug addicts who hung around his local train station. While other kids looked away, Klayton felt drawn in. To him, they looked like his people.
Mirroring someone close to him, Klayton tried drugs at just 12 years old,and quickly became hooked, using every single day.
What came next? homelessness, crime sprees, and one devastating choice: taking custody from his own mum without...
Jacintha Survived 15 Years of DV, Now She Heals Families
Jacintha Field spent 15 years in a violent relationship, an experience that shaped her into the healer she is today.
Her story is one so many can relate to, growing up feeling unseen and unheard, carrying deep-seated low self-worth into adulthood, and seeking escape in toxic relationships and substances. A recovering people-pleaser, she once tried to return to drinking after a period of sobriety, only to end up sick over a toilet bowl, realising this wasn’t the mother she wanted to be.
Today, she helps families heal, guiding parents and children toward deeper connection and un...
Kidnapped and Alone: Tiana Wadsworth
Raised in and out of foster care and born into a family battling addiction, Tiana Wadsworth moved through nearly 150 homes before she turned 16. By 18, she had survived more than most do in a lifetime; homelessness, daily grooming on the streets, and multiple sexual assaults by people she trusted. She was even kidnapped by a subscriber to her OnlyFans account. The trauma she’s endured is unimaginable. But it was one hospital visit that would ultimately shift the trajectory of her life.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode includes discussions of trauma, including sexual assault and substance use.
Addicted to Pleasure with Dean Beattie
For Dean, addiction has always been about seeking pleasure, whether through sex, drugs, or alcohol. But it wasn’t until he quit alcohol and drugs that he and his therapist realised that sex was his primary addiction all along.
His journey has been about breaking free from the need to constantly feel good, and today, he’s found peace in genuinely liking the person he is.
His approach is simple yet powerful: "Just get through today."
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses themes of substance abuse and sex.
Follow Dean on In...
The Young Sex Worker
At just twenty years old, Molly is the youngest guest I’ve had on the show.
She grew up in a stable home, surrounded by a loving family and parents who adored her. But everything shifted in high school; she started having sex, smoking weed daily, and taking Xanax regularly.
On her 17th birthday, Molly urgently needed money to fund her new habit. A call to the local massage parlour and she officially entered the sex industry...
For the next two years, Molly lived a life most people couldn’t even imagine.
<...
Ash Butterss Burnt Her Dream Life Down
For Ash Butterss, addiction was a constant pursuit of more: more thrill, more chaos, more ways to avoid the emptiness. It started with sugar in childhood, then alcohol at 12, and drugs by 14. She moved from one addiction to another, telling herself she didn’t have a problem as long as she had periods of sobriety.
On the outside, her life looked impressive. She owned a home in Bondi, did early-morning HIIT classes, managed a team, and kept getting promoted. It wasn't until she hit what she calls "the gift of desperation" that she became willing to get so...
Escaping Prison Through a Skylight: Kyle Quilausing
Once dubbed Hawaii’s most wanted criminal, Kyle Quilausing was a golf prodigy by age 10, competing on the PGA World Tours alongside Tiger Woods. He had a full ride to America’s most prestigious colleges.
But one split-second decision changed the course of his life.
Addiction. Crime. A high-profile prison escape.
Then, three years alone in solitary confinement. No human contact. No conversation. Just silence.
This isn’t my normal style of interview. Kyle has a story to tell the world- a raw, unfiltered account of how fast life can unravel when d...
Kate Forster on Losing a Parent to Alcoholism
You might know Kate Forster for her sharp TikTok opinions, but who was she before becoming a popular author and our favourite fashion critic?
In this episode, we revisit Kate’s childhood, growing up with a father battling severe alcoholism. She shares how his struggles led to a suicide attempt, one she witnessed firsthand, and how alcohol ultimately took his life just 11 weeks after his diagnosis.
This is a conversation about love, loss, and the lasting impact of addiction, told with the raw honesty Kate is known for.
TRIGGER WARNING: This ep...
