Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

Welcome to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning. Join Kevin, a former Google executive in sobriety, as he shares inspiring stories of resilience. Each episode features individuals who have faced life’s toughest challenges—addiction, trauma, anxiety, and more—and emerged stronger. These conversations aren’t just about survival; they’re about thriving and finding practical solutions to rise above adversity. Kevin’s own journey through addiction and childhood trauma fuels his passion for sharing stories that uplift, educate, and inspire. Tune in and discover the strength within you.

Latest Episodes:

Cocaine, Nightclubs & the FBI | Ingrid Casares Reveals Her Wild Addiction & Recovery Story Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Ingrid Casares lived through the cocaine-fueled Miami of the 1980s, multiple trips to treatment, relapse, fame, the height of the South Beach nightclub scene — and even a federal investigation that brought the FBI to her door.

In this episode of Rise Above with Kevin Lanning, Ingrid opens up about discovering cocaine as a teenager, how quickly addiction consumed her life, running away, treatment and relapse, and eventually finding sobriety.

Her life then took an unbelievable turn. Ingrid became a major figure in Miami nightlife, co-founding the legendary nightclub Liquid while sober and building a life she once never thought possible. But success didn't make her immune to addiction. She shares how relapse returned years later — including after being prescribed Vicodin following surgery — and how one drink eventually progressed into drinking tequila every day.

Today, Ingrid is seven years sober again and shares what decades of addiction, relapse, recovery and the 12 Steps have taught her about staying sober one day at a time.

This is a story about addiction — but even more importantly, it's about second chances.

If you or someone you love is struggling, please know that recovery is possible.

Subscribe to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning for more conversations about addiction, recovery, trauma and the people who have found a way forward.

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 step.

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I Overdosed on Heroin at 20 | Beauty Queen Reveals the SHOCKING Addiction That Nearly Killed Her Sep 27, 2026

Show notes

From the outside, Victoria Treadwell was the picture of the all-American girl — raised on a 295-acre dairy farm in upstate New York, a crowned dairy princess and beauty queen, an honor-society athlete who seemed to do it all. What no one saw was the addiction underneath. Chasing acceptance and drawn to the "bad boy," she was introduced to heroin in a Walmart parking lot as a teenager, and within a year and a half it nearly killed her. In June 2016, at just 20 years old, she overdosed — waking up to CPR on a kitchen floor after being brought back with Narcan twice.

That night became the turning point. Through outpatient treatment, hard-won boundaries, and cutting ties with the people who kept her sick, Victoria rebuilt her life from the ground up. Today she's 10 years clean — a certified surgical technologist, a college graduate chasing PA school, a marathon runner, and a national pageant finalist who now uses her crown and her platform to prove that addiction doesn't discriminate. Her story is living proof that one choice can send your life in a completely different direction.

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I Was Severely Burned In A Fire At 14 | Then The Pain Meds Led Me To Fentanyl Sep 26, 2026

Show notes

William Ellis was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, when gas splashed onto him near a smoldering fire and he went up in flames from the waist up. He survived second- and third-degree burns, skin grafts, and months in a burn unit — but the narcotics that came home from the pharmacy with him started an addiction that would last most of his life. What began as prescribed painkillers turned into selling pills at school, forging prescriptions across four states with his mother, and eventually shooting heroin and fentanyl just to keep the sickness away.

William is the third of the Ellis siblings to sit down on the show — after his sister Brittany and his brother Cody — and together their stories are one of the rawest portraits of the family disease we've ever aired. He buried both of his parents, bounced from ministry to ministry chasing a geographic cure, survived being electrocuted and flatlining on a job site, and finally found his way to treatment in South Florida with his brother's help. Today he's sober, married, working as an electrician, and building the kind of ordinary, grateful life he never thought he'd live to see.

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I Was A Straight-A Student Blacking Out Every Weekend By 13 Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Paris Bazley had her first drink at 13 — and blacked out that very first night. From the outside, nothing looked wrong: she was a straight-A student in AP classes, graduated high school two years early, joined a sorority at UCF, and became the bartender everyone loved. Underneath it, she was blacking out almost every time she drank, chasing the next party, and using alcohol and cocaine to fill a hole she'd carried since childhood. She survived a traumatic night at a sorority social and the disbelief that followed, and kept drinking to escape it — until her 21st birthday, when she found herself detoxing on her parents' couch without even understanding what was happening to her body.

What turned it around was a phone call from her dad — six months sober himself — asking one simple question: "Are you okay?" That was the moment everything changed. Today Paris is coming up on two years sober, back in school, working as a nanny, training for a Hyrox, chairing her home meeting and serving as an intergroup rep — living proof for a younger generation that putting the drink down isn't the end of the fun. It's where the real life begins.

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Delonte West on Recovery, Rock Bottom & Rebuilding His Life Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

Delonte West lived a dream millions of kids chase — a standout at Saint Joseph's, drafted into the NBA at 21, and years in the league alongside legends like Paul Pierce, Gary Payton, and LeBron James. He was, by his own description, sheltered inside the business of professional sports, growing as a player while the rest of life stayed on pause.

When the game ended, everything he'd built his identity around went with it. In this conversation, Delonte is open about the long, slow progression of addiction that followed his career, his diagnosis and lifelong battle with bipolar disorder, and the years he spent cycling in and out of his lowest points — much of it playing out in the public eye in ways that were painful and dehumanizing.

But this episode isn't about the videos the internet passed around. It's about the man behind them, and the work he's doing now. Delonte is coming up on a year sober this December, and he credits consistency, the right medication and treatment, his faith, and the people who never gave up on him. He's found peace in staying in the moment, and he's using his platform to reach the person out there who's still where he was.

#RiseAbove #DelonteWest #AddictionRecovery #NBA #MentalHealthAwareness #RecoveryIsPossible #SoberLife#BipolarAwareness #Comeback #SobrietyJourney #SaintJosephs #Boston #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning#SecondChances #MensMentalHealth #TheManBehindTheVideos #Redemption #YouAreNotAlone #OneMoreThing

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My Dad Taught Me How To Do Cocaine At 16 | My Whole Family Was Addicted Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Cody Ellis grew up as the youngest of three in a small Georgia town, and by the time he was a teenager, addiction had swallowed his entire family. It started when his older brother was severely burned in an accident at eight years old — the pain pills that followed pulled his parents in, and the household never came back from it. Cody watched his mother forge prescriptions, watched his family lose their home again and again, and was handed his first opioids at 13. By 16, his own father was teaching him how to use cocaine. What followed was more than a decade lost to methadone, pills, crack, and IV meth — cycling through jail, psychosis, and moments standing on the edge of a highway ready to give up.

Both of his parents died in active addiction. But his sister got sober first, came back for him, and got him to treatment in Florida — and everything changed. Today Cody is four years sober, married to a woman in recovery, raising two kids, and chairing a meeting every week to give back what was given to him. This is one of the most raw examples of the family disease we've had on the show, and proof that the cycle can be broken.

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Alcohol Was The Only Thing That Quieted My Anxiety — So I Drank Until I Blacked Out Sep 20, 2026

Show notes

From the outside, Zac Spowart had every reason to be fine — loving parents, a disciplined home, good grades, a heart-surgeon father. But from around 13, he was being crushed by an anxiety so severe he was physically sick, throwing up before school with no idea why. Then he found alcohol, and for the first time the chaos in his head went quiet. That relief became the problem.

Zac is honest that his isn't a story of a traumatic childhood — it's proof that addiction doesn't discriminate, and that what's happening inside someone's head can be enough. Through high school and college he chased that quiet, drinking daily just to function, cycling through a minor-possession arrest and two DUIs. Then, at 21, came the moment that changed everything: driving drunk with his younger brother in the passenger seat, Zac flipped the car. His brother fractured his neck — an injury doctors said could have left him paralyzed or worse, and one he survived by something close to a miracle. (His brother went on to face his own battle with addiction, and is sober today too.)

Zac takes complete accountability for that night, and he's unflinching about the fact that even it didn't get him sober right away. What finally did was jail, a hard-nosed judge, court-ordered treatment, and a 12-step program where — reading the first 64 pages of the Big Book on a couch with no phone — he finally heard his own thoughts in other people's stories.

Now 19+ years sober, Zac is an addiction counselor with a master's in the field, a world traveler who's been to 50+ countries, and the author of a new book on self-acceptance and conscious relating. He's candid about the hard parts of long-term sobriety too — a divorce, a suicidal stretch a couple years back, an injury that took away the diving he loved — and how gratitude, service, and doing the work carried him through.

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I Tried Out For The NFL While Secretly Smoking Crack Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

Against every odd, Jerod became a college football star at Marshall, playing under future NFL head coach Rex Ryan, with a real shot at the pros. Then, weeks after his final college game, his father died — and a bartender at his dad's old bar handed him cocaine. Within weeks it was crack. He tried out for NFL teams while secretly smoking it, showing up 45 pounds underweight and unable to explain why. The football dream collapsed, and everything else went with it: two marriages he torched, restraining orders from his own mother, and years cycling between homelessness and prison. By the end he'd been charged with 12 felonies and convicted of four, all drug-related.

What turned it was a conversation with his grandmother in jail, where he listed every reason he couldn't get sober — and she gently told him that a man who could find a way around all those obstacles would be valuable to the world. That night he started writing a program. Today, 18 years sober, Jerod has built treatment programs inside prisons across the country — including the largest in-prison treatment center in the United States — turning the exact system that once held him into the place he now saves lives.

Jerod Thomas grew up in what he calls a "house of horrors" — two alcoholic parents, a father who drank a fifth of vodka a day and turned violent, and weekends spent walking on eggshells. He was dyslexic in an era when no one caught it until his second year of eighth grade, bullied relentlessly, and told by his own father that if he didn't learn to fight, he couldn't stay in the house. Football became the one place the chaos made sense — fast, loud, and violent, just like home.Against every odd, Jerod became a college football star at Marshall, playing under future NFL head coach Rex Ryan, with a real shot at the pros. Then, weeks after his final college game, his father died — and a bartender at his dad's old bar handed him cocaine. Within weeks it was crack. He tried out for NFL teams while secretly smoking it, showing up 45 pounds underweight and unable to explain why. The football dream collapsed, and everything else went with it: two marriages he torched, restraining orders from his own mother, and years cycling between homelessness and prison. By the end he'd been charged with 12 felonies and convicted of four, all drug-related.What turned it was a conversation with his grandmother in jail, where he listed every reason he couldn't get sober — and she gently told him that a man who could find a way around all those obstacles would be valuable to the world. That night he started writing a program. Today, 18 years sober, Jerod has built treatment programs inside prisons across the country — including the largest in-prison treatment center in the United States — turning the exact system that once held him into the place he now saves lives. 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 step.

#RiseAbove #AddictionRecovery #18YearsSober #CrackAddiction #RecoveryIsPossible #SoberLife#FromPrisonToPurpose #Football #MensRecovery #SobrietyJourney #SecondChances #FromRockBottom#RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning #JerodThomas #GenerationalTrauma #Redemption #Dyslexia #ServiceWork#OneMoreThing

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I Survived Jeffrey Epstein And Numbed The Pain With Xanax And Alcohol | 6 Years Sober Sep 13, 2026

Show notes

Marina Lacerda is a survivor, an advocate, and a mother who spent most of her life carrying pain she was told to keep quiet. Now 6.5 years sober and one year into publicly breaking her silence, she sat down with Kevin to talk about all of it.

Marina was born in Brazil and raised largely in New York. From around the age of nine, she was sexually abused by her stepfather — abuse that continued for years while she was made to feel she had to stay silent to keep her family together. That wound shaped everything that followed. By her teens she had found the nightlife, and by adulthood she was self-medicating the trauma with cocaine and, eventually, a devastating Xanax addiction — at her worst taking 15 to 20 pills a day and going through dangerous withdrawals before she finally got clean.

The turning point wasn't just getting sober. It was finding her voice. In the last year Marina has connected with other survivors, spoken publicly for the first time, and become an advocate determined to make sure other people — especially children — don't suffer in the silence she was trapped in. She's candid about the guilt, the complicated relationship with her mother, the long road of recovery, and why service to others has become the center of her life.

This is a hard, brave conversation about surviving abuse, the addiction that so often follows it, and the freedom that comes from finally telling the truth.

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I Was A Police Officer Secretly Addicted To Meth On The Job Sep 12, 2026

Show notes

Bob Zbikowski wanted to be one thing his whole life: a cop, like his dad. He got there — nearly two decades in law enforcement, including years as a K-9 handler. From the outside he was living his dream. Underneath, he was a first responder carrying the weight of thousands of traumatic scenes with no healthy way to put it down, and a brain wired for addiction he didn't yet understand.

Bob is open about the two things that took him under. First, gambling — when New Jersey legalized sports betting, what started as a little action turned into compulsively running his account to zero night after night, in debt by morning, doing it all over again. And then, after being prescribed Adderall for ADHD, a shortage left him without his medication — and someone offered him meth, a chemical cousin of the very prescription he'd lost. He describes it as "Adderall times a hundred," and it pulled him into a secret addiction he carried while still on the job.

He's candid about the impossible bind so many first responders face: the fear that asking for help means losing everything — the career, the income, the identity — and the culture that told him to shut up, take the next call, and never show emotion. Eventually it all came apart, and Bob got sober in 2025.

Now he's turned his pain into purpose with the Behind the Badge Project, using his voice to reach cops, firefighters, and first responders who are silently struggling — before self-destruction, before it's too late. Because the first responder suicide rate is staggering, and Bob believes the system has to make it okay to raise your hand and ask for help.

This is a powerful conversation about addiction behind the badge, the cost of carrying trauma in silence, and finding a new identity in service.

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