He Named It, Then He Buried It

Six years old, choking on something, and his father handed him a beer. That was Devlin F.'s introduction to alcohol. By 24, he was smoking meth. By his late twenties, he was living on the streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin, running a system with his then-partner to rob people for drug money. By his early thirties, a needle was the only thing that made sense.

And then, in August of 2023, he stood at the edge and saw only two choices: find a new way to live, or jump off a bridge.

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We've been doing this podcast long enough to know that every recovery story has a moment like this — a hinge. What sets Devlin's apart is what he did after he got sober. He did something we've never heard anyone do before: he gave his addiction a name. Bradley. His own government first name. And then he buried it.

I got the inspiration to name my disease. The name of my disease is Bradley, which is my first name. Devlin is my middle name. Bradley was the person that loved sticking a needle into his arm. That was the only thing that he wanted to do. Devlin buried Bradley.

— Devlin F.

"I dropped the shovel," Devlin says. "He's still buried."

The road to that shovel was long. There was childhood sexual abuse at age four. A massive stroke at ten that nearly killed him. A father whose own alcoholism ended with aspirated alcohol in his lungs on January 5, 2015 — Devlin didn't make it home in time to say goodbye. A quarter-million-dollar inheritance that should have been a lifeline and became an accelerant instead. Four years in Mill City, Oregon, burning through everything. A divorce. An eviction. The "final frontier," as he calls it — the needle.

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RRP 121 — Devlin F / Burying Bradley: Dropping the Shovel on Addiction, One Day at a Time

When Devlin walked into Another Chance treatment center on September 23, 2023, he met Jessica Anderson. "She was the very first taste in a long time that I actually had somebody who actually gave a shit about me," he says. From there, Extended Family meetings, where Colette looked at a foggy-brained newcomer and said, "You're gonna be back here tomorrow." He came back.

Julie tells a story early in the episode that she's never shared on air. When Devlin was in active addiction, he asked her for a hug. She said no. "Absolutely not." She was genuinely scared he was going to die. "I thought maybe you were gonna end up dead at that time. I'm not joking." Watching his transformation since — watching him sponsor, work the steps, earn his certifications, and now work at the very treatment center that took him in — she calls it one of the greatest gifts of her own recovery.

Devlin's fourth step took five to six hours, sitting at a creek with his sponsor. "I can't tell you how much I cried," he says. "It was like the weight of the world came off my shoulders." He started sponsoring others while he was still on steps six and seven himself. His first sponsee relapsed, moved to Arizona, and — against the odds — now has seven months sober.

Today, Devlin holds his CRM and CADCR certifications. He works at Another Chance. He's on his fourth sponsor, back at step one, seeing it all from a different angle. And somewhere in Portland, metaphorically, Bradley stays buried.

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What we love about this episode — what we think you'll love — is that it doesn't pull punches about what active addiction looks like from the outside, or how terrifying it is to love someone through it. But it also shows you, in real time, what happens when someone does the work. Not just gets sober. Stays sober. Sponsors. Goes back to step one. Keeps showing up.

You need to hear the full story in his own words. The way he talks about the river, the sponsor, the 42-person amends list, the one letter that broke him — none of it lands the same way on a page.

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