The Recovered Life Show | Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Podcast

So, wondering where I’ve been?

Is Recovered Life still a thing?

Are you still going to be doing the podcast?

What’s up with this new community that I heard about?

We’re going to get into that and much more in this episode.

[Music Intro - 'Recovered Life' theme song]

You’re listening to The Recovered Life Show.

The show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives.

And here is your host, Damon Frank.

And welcome back to the Recovered Life Show.

So good to be with you here on the podcast.

I’ve had a little hiatus as people have noticed.

Many of you have been connecting with me on the lives on TikTok.

But I want to do this quick episode to let everybody know what’s going on.

Why have I not done the podcast in several months?

It’s like I just went silent. What happened?

Am I through with this? After years of doing the podcast,

am I just through about talking about recovery, mental health, addiction?

No. I’m not through with it.

So, where have I been for the people who are just listening to the podcast?

Where have I been? What’s been going on?

And that’s what I want to do this episode, is kind of fill you in

on what’s going on and some changes to Recovered Life.

Several years ago I started this as a podcast.

And it really was a discussion—it was during COVID.

And it was a discussion at the time primarily with friends

that were in recovery about some of the frustrations I had.

And also, I was bored. I was bored going into recovery meetings,

going to meetings online, not having the same fellowship I had pre-COVID.

And also things had changed in my life. I was starting to notice things.

I was starting to notice things about the recovery community I was in.

I was starting to notice things about people that I was helping.

I was also coaching at the time, working for a therapist,

working on a few of his clients and privately coaching people.

And I noticed something—that the recovery world had changed a bit.

And during that time I said, you know what, I really need to have deeper conversations

with people and I need to share these conversations because I would be speaking with friends,

and they would say, 'Oh, I heard that you had a really good conversation about that.'

And I said, you know, why are we not doing this?

So I started really just begging friends to come on the show

and talk about things like grace, and talk about things like 'do you really meditate?'

and talk about how they really got sober. And it took off.

And soon, you know, we had a little following and people started listening to the show

and people started watching the YouTube videos, and it became kind of a thing.

And I for a year or two didn't really do a whole lot,

and then I would be kind of on it and off of it.

And then several years ago I thought, you know what, this is really helping people.

And we interviewed a lot of contributors, a lot of people came on and helped people.

We had different versions of websites, we tried everything under the sun

to try to get people to really have their best recovered life,

which this whole thing is really about for me.

And because the world and the digital world had changed so much,

I realized—you know, one day I had a conversation with a guy named Cecil.

And we did a show about schizophrenia and about recovery schizophrenia

and it had such an impact on people. And then we did a show about MAT,

Medically Assisted Treatment, it had such an impact on people.

And I started noticing when I started going live on TikTok

and when I started doing these episodes, people were really talking

and wanted to have a deeper conversation. And I thought, do I really want to do this?

Because the next level of Recovered Life is me throwing all the chips in.

Everything, just throwing everything in and saying, let's do this.

Let's see if we can help people at scale. Because as much as we’re recovering out loud,

maybe you’re listening to this, you’re recovering out loud, you have a community,

you’re doing the thing, you’re working on your mental health,

there are many people—if you’re not aware of this—that are literally dying on the vine.

Maybe they don’t fit in, or feel they don’t fit in. Maybe they have a co-occurring disorder.

Maybe they just haven’t found recovery. And I had to admit, about two years ago,

I said, you know what, people are recovering differently.

Yes, it’s the same. When I came in in '93, alcoholism, drug addiction,

mental health issues, it’s the same thing. People take a substance

because they don’t like to be in the here and now, it’s too uncomfortable,

and then they can’t stop taking the substance. We get it.

We understand that. But it’s more than that. And the world has changed.

Who people are, how people connect. I had to admit some things had changed.

And if I really, really wanted to help people—I mean if I really wanted to go all in—

I’d have to level up my game and level up Recovered Life.

So I started going live on TikTok and many of the people that are listening to this now,

you know, you found me on TikTok. And we started seeing people come in

that were in crisis and people getting help and people getting sober,

and people living their best recovered life. I’d see, you know, relationships get back together.

I’d see people get a year. I mean, the most amazing things.

And I was like, this is working. Media, community, connection,

access to information and content that’s really going to help you live your best recovered life

and not staying stuck as a victim. These are things that I started to see

that were really helping people. Even people who, if you’re from a 12-step group,

we would all admit had slid very far down on the scale.

People that were younger, people that were middle-aged, people that had drunk 30, 40 years of their life,

and now getting sober and staying sober. I saw this.

And I don’t talk about this a lot and every once in a while I’ll talk about it on the lives,

but I said, you know what, Damon, I asked God, I said, 'God, do you really want me to do this?'

I mean there’s a lot of stuff I could do. I could produce Baywatch: The Next Generation.

I could start another business, I could further one of my other businesses.

There’s a lot of stuff—I don’t have to do this, God.

And time and time again I would ask God, 'Show me the sign, show me the sign.'

And I would see it. I would see it in emails and see it on TikTok.

I’d see it when I started Substack. And I said we gotta do something about this.

And I’m not pretending we’re the only recovery community, I’m not pretending this is the only voice,

but the message of living your best recovered life, getting out of your own way

and living that, however you piece that together, resonates with people.

It works. Removing the dogma works. Being kind and loving works.

Giving people great information so they can make a choice that works for them works.

Encouraging people not only to get sober but to work on their mental health works.

So much of it worked. So we knocked around on Substack and many people know me from Substack,

and we did YouTube, we did all kinds of things, we did the podcast.

And I said to myself, you know what, what we really need to do is level up the game.

So about four or five months ago I kind of stopped doing the show

and just doubled down on TikTok and really focused on building up the media company infrastructure

and finding ways to help people at scale. So we built our own app, the Recovered Life app.

And thank you to everybody in the community that’s listening to this right now that helped me.

You know, we did a little trial app with an in-the-box service to see if it would work.

It took off. And then people all said, 'We need peer support meetings, I want to volunteer.'

I mean, can I tell you how amazing people are? Can I tell you how amazing people are?

Just amazing. People are amazing. And they stepped up and now we got the app,

and after much trial and tribulation, we got the app up on the App Store and in Google Play.

We redid the website, we redid the media company. And now we’re ready to go.

We’re ready to play big, we’re ready to play full out. And I’d like to thank all of the Plus subscribers

who’ve helped me over the years and everybody who’s come on and given me advice,

and stepped up, and showed up, and connected. But I’m seeing it, friends.

When I asked God, 'Do you really want me to do this?' and I kept seeing sign after sign after sign,

I said, 'How do we do this?' And it became clear: Damon, you’re going to grow the media company.

You’re going to bring on other contributors, you’re going to continue with your podcast,

you’re going to set it up so it’s easy so recovery can be in people’s pockets.

After they sign up on the website, they’re going to just—they’re going to have an icon on their phone

that they can click, and it works. And I’m so grateful that I’ve had this opportunity.

So what’s changed? What’s going to change? One, I’m back, I’m doing the show again.

More interviews with therapists, more interviews with people who are recovering.

More contributors that are coming on, and I’m going to have future episodes where we’re announcing

some of those contributors. We started a podcast network with just people in mental health

and addiction recovery. And it’s all being fed into the app, and we’re so excited that we’re—

I’m so excited and privileged that I have this opportunity to spend time with you

and to do this. So a couple changes to the show. The show was interviews most of the time.

I would interview somebody and I love those and we’re going to continue on with those.

But also some of the shows are just going to be me, just my thoughts about what’s going on.

They’re going to be more frequent. I realized not every show has to be a big interview.

It could just be me talking about a news topic, it could be me connecting with you.

And one of the great things that we have about the new network is we understand that

not everybody is ready to download an app and start talking to people.

Not everybody wants connection right away. People are going to wait sometimes until they feel safe.

So you can listen to the shows anywhere it’s comfortable for you.

And that’s what we’ve designed. And I’m so excited about this because I think,

although I’ve done a lot of things in my business career and in my life,

I really think that this is something that has deep meaning.

And I think it’s something that can help people at scale. So moving forward: more content,

easier to access, helping more. So I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart

for being part of this. And if we’re not connected with you either through email or Substack

or YouTube or the podcast, please go to recoveredlife.tv. Takes a minute to join.

You’re in the community and you can download the app right on your phone.

We’d love to say hi. I’d love to say hi. And in closing I just want to say thank you.

I frequently get messages from people, mainly nice, saying, 'Hey thanks, I heard your live,'

or 'I saw a YouTube video,' or 'I saw episode number 250 about trauma and it really helped me.'

Thank you so much. And I always say, you know what, I’m part of the soundtrack.

You’re really the hero. And I can’t tell you how amazing it is to see people standing up for themselves.

People standing up and saying, 'You know what, I’m going to live my best recovered life.'

I don’t care what happened, but right here, right now, I’m going to make a different choice.

And the impact that those people are making that I see, it’s made all this worth it.

So I love you guys. More episodes to come, more frequently. I’ll talk to you guys soon

and go out and live your best recovered life.