One Boy, One Fox, One Glass of Wine. And a Comeback He Never Saw Coming.

"I met a fox on the way to school. He got me curious about taking a detour. And before I knew it, I had a donkey tail."

That's how Ben M. describes what happened when he was 13. He grew up the only boy in a big Hispanic family in El Paso, Texas, spoiled and loved, surrounded by three older sisters who treated him like their favorite toy. He got anything he wanted. Then, in a single year, everything shifted. First pot. First blackout, gin and orange juice, 13 hours gone, waking up having wet himself. First time meeting men off the internet, right after his family got AOL. He came out at 14. Skipped school. Found adult bookstores. The fox had shown up, and Ben followed.

What we love about Ben's story is how honestly he tells it. He doesn't dress up the chaos. At 18 he moved to New York City. September 11th happened weeks after he arrived, and the terror of it actually scared him sober for a while. He went to community college, did well, transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. But by the time he got to law school he was a daily drinker, Franzia wine and Golden Girls, suicidal in blackouts. His family had an intervention. He went to his first AA meeting and bought a bottle of wine on the way home. He wasn't done yet.

A Clean Scan, a Parade, and Learning to Stay Grounded

"I was just lost before I really started this journey."

That's Peter, talking about who he was before recovery. We recorded this one in his home studio, the one with the hummingbird at the window and the plants Julie swears make it look like Snow White's cottage. He was tired that morning. The TMS study he's working on at Another Chance has him up at 7 a.m., and he is not a morning person. But he's nine years sober this Sunday, and his one-year cancer scan just came back clean.

"Over these past nine years, I've become found. I'm no longer lost."

We celebrated three promotions and three birthdays at one dinner the night before we recorded. Julie's sending in her expungement paperwork after 32 years, eight charges coming off her record. She found the documents while digging through a file cabinet looking for tax forms.

A Houseplant, a Forgotten Reveal, and a Room Full of People Who Refuse to Be a Glum Lot

The Glam Lot PDX puts on drag shows to raise money for charity — organizations like the Trevor Project. No bar, no drinks. Just a room full of people in recovery and a lot of wigs. Becca, Bex, and Carrington joined us at True Colors on a Saturday to talk about why fun isn't optional in sobriety. It's the whole point.

Becca co-founded the Glam Lot with Carrington. If you've been listening a while, you might remember her from Episode 18 — a lot's changed since then. She got into drag during the pandemic, watching YouTube tutorials and falling down a rabbit hole of makeup artists and performers. She did her first Glam Lot show recently and, in her own words, forgot she had a reveal. The audience didn't care. They were too busy cheering.

Nothing's wasted. Not even the hard parts.

What do you do with the grief when your sponsor of 26 years is gone, and you still have to show up tomorrow?

Jen L. is back. Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off. Tammy died two years ago on a Wednesday, and Jen is only now beginning to put words to what that means. She had 26 years of a sponsor who walked beside her and knew everything. And then Tammy was gone.

This isn't about loss as an ending. It's about what a sponsor plants in you. What she left behind.

A Parking Spot, a 150-Foot Cross, and the House She Hadn't Used In

Jen L. was sixty days sober and absolutely furious. She was on the fence — one direction led to a drink, the other to a meeting. The parking spot decided it. She walked in, heard everything she needed, and picked up her sixty-day chip. That was nearly three decades ago, and she hasn't stopped coming back since.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation on the Real Recovery Podcast, and if you've ever wondered what keeps someone in the rooms for twenty-nine years, Jen's story holds some answers. She's been Julie's friend since 1997, when she walked into Lunch Bunch as the second woman in a room full of men. Julie was the first. They've been walking this road together ever since.

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.

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.