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PODCAST

The Hopeaholics

Addicted to Hope

Chad Carlsen started The Hopeaholics Podcast after his soon-to-be son-in-law died of fentanyl poisoning. Not as therapy. As a response to a crisis that kills tens of thousands of people a year while most of the country looks the other way.Hosted by Chad and WWE superstar Natalie Eva Marie, The Hopeaholics brings on survivors of addiction, mental illness, and the kind of rock-bottom moments most people never talk about. Long-form, unfiltered conversations with people in recovery, families who"ve lost

health & fitness mental health

All Episodes

57:36

$1.2 MILLION in Debt & Facing Federal Prison with Ian...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/10/05

At 18 years old, Ian Bick was running a nightclub and booking major artists. Just a few years later, everything came crashing down — leaving him facing massive debt, federal charges, and ultimately three years in federal prison. In this episode of The Hopeaholics Podcast, Ian Bick shares the unbelievable rise, fall, and comeback that completely changed the course of his life. Ian opens up about the pressure of finding success so young, the decisions that led to his federal conviction, what ...

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144:05

We Should Have Seen the Fentanyl Crisis Coming w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/28

In this re-released episode of The Hopeaholics Podcast #109, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes shares warnings about fentanyl, the rise of counterfeit pills and the programs his department developed as the crisis grew. Sheriff Don Barnes has spent more than 35 years in law enforcement and has been confronting the fentanyl crisis in Orange County since his department began seeing the drug in 2015. Barnes discusses naloxone deployment by deputies, medication-assisted treatment inside the ...

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83:16

Firefighter PTSD, Addiction & the Cost of Being...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/24

Retired Long Beach Fire Captain James Owen spent his career running toward other people’s emergencies while addiction, trauma, and post-traumatic stress were building behind the badge. In this episode of The Hopeaholics, James opens up about the murder of his close friend and fellow firefighter Captain Dave Rosa, surviving a motorcycle crash that broke his neck, losing and rebuilding his sobriety, and the realization that ultimately changed his life: after spending his career trying to save ...

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75:59

My AA Friend Got Me Drunk In My First 90 Days w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/14

Rachel Sereni is co-host of the 2 Girls in a Chair podcast and sober for over 2 years. She grew up mostly alone with her little sister while their dad worked two jobs, because their mother was addicted to opiates and spent most of Rachel's early childhood nodding out on the couch. Rachel got a DUI after she left work early to drink and forgot to pick up her son from school, woke up in jail with her car impounded and her son at his grandma's house. By the end of her drinking she was 221 pounds...

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89:13

I Hid My Heroin Addiction from My Wife for 3 Years w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/10

Jesse Sanchez was 11 the first time he smoked weed, 14 when he tried cocaine and opiates, and 17 when he looked up from a carpet covered in crack and thought "holy s***, what are we doing." He eventually landed on heroin as his drug of choice and spent three years hiding it from his wife, driving 4.5 hours round trip to his dealer while she thought he was at work, once using a co-worker's real funeral as cover to go pick up. When she finally found out, he ended up on his sister's couch in Was...

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55:20

My Dad Was My First Dealer w/ Jessica Nolin | The...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/07

Jessica Nolin is a content creator, recovery advocate, and co-host of 2 Girls in a Chair podcast. Jessica's dad dealt drugs her entire childhood and helped manage her anxiety by giving her a vodka orange at 12 along with random pills she didn't even know the names of. By 15 she was drinking daily. A few years ago she detoxed at home alone over nine days without telling anyone, sleeping an hour at a time, still showing up to work and helping customers on the sales floor between rounds of throw...

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86:10

I Used To Do Heroin At Work Now I'm 10 Years Sober w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/09/03

Adam Wittbrodt is a personal trainer and recovery advocate. He grew up with an alcoholic father who walked out on his 12th birthday and died before Adam turned 19. Carrying grief Adam spent the next decade and a half burying under IV heroin, forged checks, and 8 felonies. One day he collapsed at the front desk where he worked after injecting what he thought was heroin. It was laced with fentanyl and cocaine. A hotel guest walked in at exactly the right moment and called 911. Three weeks into ...

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57:53

I Called 911 Mid Psychosis And They Hung Up On Me w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/31

At 18 Riley moved to LA, got into the adult entertainment industry, made fast money, found cocaine & alcohol, and ran that combination through her entire 20s. In 2023 she got pregnant but couldn't stop using. She missed 2 Christmases that she blamed on her daughter being sick when it was Riley being hungover. Riley's breaking point was being in closet at 4am doing coke, convinced there were people in her house that weren't there, called 911, the operator told her to get some sleep a...

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84:14

(TW) I Tried Committing Suicide Now I Help Prevent...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/27

Nate Block is a professional crisis de-escalation instructor with Jumpstart Mastery, traveling the country to train correctional departments and agencies on how to work with people in crisis. Nate dropped out of high school and spent the years that followed bouncing between apartments, bar shows, and eventually a college town he moved to chasing a girl, working odd jobs and drinking past the point where it felt like a choice, past the point where it was the only thing that made him feel like ...

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48:38

My Parents' Addictions Led Me To Become A Doctor w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/24

Shannon Hatfield grew up in section 8, her dad in federal prison, and her mom spent 2 decades working through OxyContin, black market heroin, and finally fentanyl. She's now a chiropractor running Evolve Sport and Spine working with professional athletes and anyone needing help. Shannon talks about what growing up inside that house actually looked like: finding her mom nodding out with cigarettes on her chest, being brought to the ER as the "normal daughter" so her mom could look functional e...

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67:21

Breaking A Generational Addiction Curse w/ Noel...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/20

Noel Arevalo returns to the show to talk about three things she's been sitting with: how your breakthrough gives the people closest to you permission to do the same, how deep alcohol gets woven into your identity without you ever noticing, and how the people, places, and patterns that were dragging you down start to fall away naturally once you surrender the thing that was holding it all together. For 15 years Noel Arevalo cycled through bender weekends while running a fitness coaching busine...

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65:02

(TW ED) My ED Caused Heart Failure & Almost Killed Me...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/17

(TW ED) My ED Caused Heart Failure & Almost Killed Me w/ Kate Avnaim | The Hopeaholics Podcast #354 Kate Avnaim's father was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was just 6 months old. When Kate was 13 they found it had spread through his whole brain. He chose quality time over more rounds of chemo. She was furious at him but she just didn't understand yet. He passed away and her mom was laid off right after, leaving Kate stuck in a permanent feeling that there was nothing in her life sh...

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131:25

We Fell In Love Thanks To Sobriety w/ Nic And Ant...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/13

We Fell In Love Thanks To Sobriety w/ Nic And Ant (@nic_n_ant) | The Hopeaholics Podcast #353 Nicole and Anthony one of the most recognized and popular sober/recovery couples in social media. They met in a recovery meeting in 2018. She had six years and he was 60 days out of detox. His first year clean was a mess. Lies, cheating, not working a program. Both going through divorces simultaneously, his kids hating Nicole, his ex-wife's family leaving homewrecker comments in the comment section ...

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91:58

Purple Heart, Addict, 14 Felonies, and 1000 Days...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/10

Jess Seiwert grew up in Kansas. He was abused at home from age 5 to 12. After 9/11 he joined the Army at 18, made sergeant, survived an IED blast, and came home with a Purple Heart and an Oxycontin addiction. One day he woke up in county jail charged with first-degree attempted murder and kidnapping after his best friend slept with his wife while he was passed out. He walked out with 14 felony convictions, seven rehab attempts, and 3.5 years in county jail across eight Kansas counties during ...

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82:23

From Running Drugs To Teaching At USC 31 Years Sober...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/07

Gregg Champion's father was killed in a head-on collision with another drunk driver when Gregg was 4. He grew up angry, filled that with alcohol and attention, and spent his 20s collecting DUIs, assaults, a marijuana trafficking operation out of a van, and two arrests in the same 24-hour stretch at Mardi Gras. He got sober at 25, went back and finished his ASU degree sober with a 4.0, sits on the Arizona State Alumni Leadership Council, taught entrepreneurship at USC, and is 30+ years sober. ...

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67:43

Golf Prospect w Full Ride to UCLA. Meth Took It All...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/08/04

Golf Prospect w Full Ride to UCLA. Meth Took It All w/ Danny Dalton | The Hopeaholics Podcast #350 Danny Dalton grew up in Huntington Beach playing golf when Tiger Woods was the standard everyone chased. He was good enough to earn a full scholarship to UCLA. He lost it junior year and spent the next decade filling the gap with cocaine, then meth, then heroin. This episode covers the whole run. The UCLA golfer who shot course records and still couldn't get out of his own way. The meth u...

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75:26

They Said I'd Never See My Kids Again. Got Them Back...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/07/31

They Said I'd Never See My Kids Again. Got Them Back Sober w/ Ian Day | The Hopeaholics Podcast #349 Ian Day grew up a standout athlete in a one-stoplight town in Indiana with one bar. His first drinks were sips of Miller Lite off his grandpa's lawn mower. By 17 he was smoking weed every day and panhandling in his high school hallways for lunch money because he'd spent it all on drugs. By 26 he was in Maricopa County tent jail in pink underwear and it was a country song in the jail chapel t...

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77:14

My Baby Passed In The Car Because I Blacked Out w/...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/07/28

My Baby Passed In The Car Because I Blacked Out w/ Carolina Ayala | The Hopeaholics Podcast #348 Chad and Natalie sit down with Carolina Ayala, founder of The Happier Life Project, a recovery community organization built to give people the peer support she never had. She was drinking, using, and married by 15, and had watched two of her closest friends get killed before she was old enough to graduate. One night she drank too much, blacked out, drove home, and didn't take her daughter C...

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92:21

From USC Football to Cartel Cocaine w/ "Cocaine...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/07/24

From USC Football to Cartel Cocaine w/ "Cocaine Quarterback" Owen Hanson | The Hopeaholics Podcast #347 The "Cocaine Quarterback" Owen Hanson was a volleyball player at USC who wanted to get stronger and start again. That led him to smuggling steroids in from a vet in Tijuana. He walked onto the football team and began selling Adderall, Xanax, and cocaine to teammates. After the 2008 recession killed his real estate job, he became a bookie, landed a cartel lieutenant as a client, and lost $2...

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82:12

I Was A Lawyer Smuggling Heroin for the Mexican Mafia...

The Hopeaholics ·

2026/07/21

I Was A Lawyer Smuggling Heroin for the Mexican Mafia w/ Jason Keller | The Hopeaholics Podcast #346 Jason Keller was a criminal defense attorney with his own firm when he started smuggling drugs into jail for his clients. Papers that looked like textbook material turned out to be black tar heroin flattened between the pages. Then it was a cell phone. Then a charger. All for the Mexican Mafia. He was also smoking crack in the courthouse parking lot before walking in for hearings. He got arre...

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364 results

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