The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Q+A I’ve Stopped Drinking, Will I Ever Have Fun Again? Aug 26, 2022

Show notes

In this Q and A episode Ashley answers the listener question "I’ve Stopped Drinking, Will I Ever Have Fun Again?". It can be hard to feel like you're starting over. In our using, we might have lost the things make us feel happy. We might not have any idea about what we actually enjoy anymore. Ashley talks about her own experience getting sober and what you can do to find fun once again.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame has been clean and sober for 16 years, she's a drug and alcohol counselor, interventionist, and the co-founder of a telehealth company called Lionrock Recovery that provides substance use disorder treatment.

Episode Resources

Connect with Ashley Loeb Blassingame

TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Instagram | @ashleyloebblassingame

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
YouTube | The Courage to Change Playlist

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

155: Danny Hudgins: Finding Sobriety After 12 Years of Relapse Aug 23, 2022

Show notes

Danny was born in New Jersey, but spent most of his childhood moving around the country before finally landing in Orange County. His drinking and using started in high school like so many but quickly got out of hand.

At 17 he was caught smoking weed in a grocery store and was given a way to avoid legal trouble. If his parents were willing to send him to outpatient treatment then the charge would be dropped. His parents jumped at the chance and thus began a pattern of 15 years in an out of treatment and sober living communities. Danny was in and out of the rooms of AA for 12 years before he landed on his sobriety date. He accomplished one year of sobriety at least 5 different times. Many doubted whether or not Danny was capable of sustained recovery, but he kept coming back to his 12 step community - knowing there was something there for him, too.

Danny finally found sobriety in 2016 after reconnecting with his now wife. The couple quit their jobs and moved to Mexico - choices that had people questioning their actions but all the while were able to support each other in their sobriety. This move was the catalyst to start his company that has found success, despite many of his clients being in the alcohol business.

Danny has been able to maintain his sobriety with the help of prayer, meditation and the support of his wife and two sons. He is currently living in Wilmington, North Carolina where he maintains his recovery support and his status as a work in progress.

Episode Resources

Connect with Danny

Instagram | @danny.hudgins

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website |lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram |@couragetochange_podcast
YouTube |The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok |@ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email |podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook |@thecouragetochangepodcast

154: Ask the Expert: Dr. Anna Lembke - Living In A Dopamine World Aug 16, 2022

Show notes

Anna Lembke, MD is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, and maintains a thriving clinical practice.

In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), which was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018).

Dr. Lembke recently appeared on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives.

Her new book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021), an instant New York Times bestseller, explores moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.

Episode Resources

Dopamine Nation | Dopamine Nation Book

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
YouTube | The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

How Can I Work In Sales And Not Drink? Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

In this Q and A episode Ashley answers the question "How Can I Work in Sales and Not Drink?". Many jobs can feel as if drinking is a prerequisite. Even more challenging is when you drank when you started working somewhere and now you don't. You have to make choices about what you tell people, who you tell and what will become your new way of interacting with the group. Ashley gives tips and tricks on how to navigate this challenging situation.

Episode Resources

Connect with Ashley Loeb Blassingame

TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Instagram | @ashleyloebblassingame

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
YouTube | The Courage to Change Playlist

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

153: Chris Howe: Firefighter Challenges Addiction And Trauma Stigma Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

Chris Howe endured 17 long years of addiction to alcohol and drugs while working as a firefighter. He was different from everyone else in the department. He was smaller, tattooed and spent his time away from the job with alcoholics, addicts and criminals.

This double life filled him with self hatred and secrets. He’d been effected deeply by childhood sexual trauma and PTSD on the job and had no place to put it. Instead he was asked everyday to bottle up his feelings and do his job and the only way to cope involved massive amounts of alcohol and drugs to numb it all.

Eventually the internal pressure became too much, resulting in 3 suicide attempts in 3 years before finally finding recovery on the morning he wrote his final suicide plan.

Today, Chris is 11 years sober, a Captain with the Niagra Falls Fire Department and an addiction recovery speaker. He shares his story in and out of the prison system, leads a Buddhist inspired recovery group and hopes to inspire others through his actions and his new life in recovery.

Episode Resources

Authentic Adversity Podcast Instagram | @AUTHENTICADVERSITY

Connect with Chris

Instagram | @chrishowe

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website |lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram |@couragetochange_podcast
YouTube |The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok |@ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email |podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook |@thecouragetochangepodcast

152: Casey McGuire Davidson: Hope for Busy Women with "Hello Someday" Host Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

Casey McGuire Davidson grew up moving around the globe with parents that worked as US diplomats. While it provided some amazing experiences it also planted the seed that she needed to be constantly performing at a high level. Being the child of important people made it feel like she couldn’t mess up.

As an adult she led a high achieving life in the corporate world and the hypervigilance from childhood continued. She found that drinking helped her deal. She was basically having a bottle of wine or more 365 days a year and was oblivious to the effects of her drinking. The signs were her 3am wakeups that she treated with Ambien and anti-anxiety medication which were actually symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

When getting pregnant with her first child, she stopped drinking and things felt like they had gotten better so the behavior moved back to the same place it had been before.

It wasn’t until her daughter was 2 and her son was 8 before she finally found recovery and even did so while navigating a stressful corporate job.

Today Casey’s a Certified Professional Life and Sobriety Coach, the creator of The Free 30-Day Guide to Quitting Drinking and the host of the top rated Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women ready to drink less + live more.

Casey specializes in working with women with full calendars and overflowing to-do lists, who are doing all the things and then coming home and drinking to forget about all the things.

Episode Resources

Hello Someday Coaching |hellosomedaycoaching.com

Connect with Casey

Instagram | @caseymdavidson
Facebook | @hellosomeday

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website |lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram |@couragetochange_podcast
YouTube |The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok |@ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email |podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook |@thecouragetochangepodcast

Advice For A Teacher With Addicted Students Jul 29, 2022

Show notes

In this Q and A episode Ashley answers the listener question from a teacher wanting to know how to help their addicted students. They are trying to find ways they can create a safe space for the students to talk openly about the challenges they are facing and want to know how they can help.

Episode Resources

Connect with Ashley Loeb Blassingame

TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Instagram | @ashleyloebblassingame

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
YouTube | The Courage to Change Playlist

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

151: Person Irresponsible: Walking Across America In 4th Year Of Sobriety Jul 26, 2022

Show notes

Person Irresponsible, or PI as most people call her, describes herself as having been “fat, funny, forty-something, and in her fourth year of recovery when she felt an unfathomable urge to walk across America”. Previously she had hiked from the sofa to the fridge and back and considered camping to be a loathsome pursuit. She was also a confirmed nicotine addict and had never even considered climbing the UK’s highest mountain: a 4,000 footer called Ben Nevis.

And yet something drew her to the Pacific Crest Trail. She didn’t fully realize just how big a mistake she’d made until she hiked her way up the first mountain in Southern California. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, a global pandemic broke out in the middle of the excursion - leaving her to be one of the very few people to remain in the wilderness.

PI relied on everything she’d been taught in the AA fellowship to haul herself from Mexico to Canada. She then set about writing a book on how twelve-step thinking kept her from succumbing to the mental demons that lurked within.

She called the book “Everything You Ever Taught Me” to honor her fellow alcoholics who have recorded their stories and wisdom in podcast format. She had listened to at least one podcast each day and it was their voices that kept her company day after laborious day: always reminding her that the twelve steps are a program for living that truly work - in all circumstances.

Episode Resources

Everything You Ever Taught Me | Everything You Ever Taught Me

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
YouTube | The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

150: Elizabeth Sockolov: Meditation Helped Me Stop Hating Myself Jul 19, 2022

Show notes

Elizabeth Sockolov is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a member of Psi Chi, The International Honor Society of Psychology, and the founder of One Mind Therapy.

Elizabeth’s journey started eleven years ago when she got into recovery from addiction. Like so many, she used drugs as a means to deal with her anxiety. Then everything changed when she discovered meditation. It became the cure to the anxious thoughts swirling in her mind. When she realized the power and freedom that meditation provided, she felt compelled to teach others the skills that had saved her life.

She started by leading meditation groups at treatment centers for people who were struggling with addiction. She furthered her practice through silent retreats, loving kindness practices and began the work to become a Mindfulness meditation teacher.

Elizabeth has helped so many people struggling with addiction through her meditation teaching and therapy work. Now as a mother of two, she’s had to find new ways to make meditation work in an environment that includes less and less dedicated time to her practice. She applies those lessons to the busy lives that we all lead.

Episode Resources

One Mind Therapy | onemindtherapy.com

Connect with Elizabeth

Instagram | @onemindtherapy

Connect with The Courage to Change

Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
YouTube | The Courage to Change Podcast
TikTok | @ashleyloebblassingame
Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast

Lionrock Resources

Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
Support Group Meeting Schedule | lionrock.life/meetings

Why Am I Addicted To My Phone? Jul 15, 2022

Show notes

In this Q and A episode Ashley answers the question "Why am I addicted to my phone?". It seems like everyone has a complicated relationship with their phone and its addictive nature. Ashley talks about what is happening in the brain and what you can do to curb your attachment to your device.

Episode Resources

Connect with Ashley Loeb Blassingame