Season finale!

Paulo and Anthony sit down with two Chicago recovery constants, John O and Alley B, for a conversation that's equal parts celebration and real talk. John and Alley share what it took to get sober during the Great Recession and actually build a life on the other side of it, including the wisdom of finishing the work on the inside before diving into dating.

They dig into leaning on the sober community when things get hard, and the idea that connection, not sobriety alone is the real opposite of addiction. It's a conversation about what becomes possible when we get sober: the ability to actually show up for life.

And in true No Matter What Club fashion, Paulo and Anthony get vulnerable too, sharing a painful twist in their own journey together and the lessons and light that came out of it. Watch and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

#RecoveryPodcast #SoberLife #RecoveryJourney #SobrietyMatters #OneDayAtATime #NoMatterWhatClub #RecoveryCommunity

Hosts:

Paulo Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Anthony Arranaga-Grayson Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Special Guests:

John O, Chicago

Alley B, Chicago

This week, Paulo, Anthony, and Mell sit down with Ross Mondschain at the Chicago Podcast Studio for a deep dive into chemsex recovery — both during treatment and long after.

They talk through doing parts work with Internal Family Systems, learning to settle back into the body in early treatment, and then settling into the mind for the harder work around chemsex itself. Ross shares why safety containers matter so much in those first few months of sobriety, and then we talk about what it actually looks like to come to No Matter What Recovery for chemsex-specific work, and how clients navigate the transition out of treatment — including the sexual recovery plan that helps set people up for lasting success.

New episode streaming now on all your favorite podcast platforms.

Host:

Paulo Arranaga-Grayson

Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Anthony Arranaga-Grayson

Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Mell McCracken

Director of Chemsex & LGBTQ+ Programs

Special Guest:

Ross Mondschain, LCPC CST

About Connection Counseling

In this episode of the No Matter What Club podcast, Paulo, Anthony, and Thomas sit down with Chicago Roundup Chair Melissa Young for a conversation that covers a lot of ground — sage advice from old-timers in recovery, the "hocus-pocus theory," the legend of local drag king icon Jackson Masters, and a shared love of Madonna and other muses. Melissa also takes us back to the beginnings of the Chicago Roundup and how it became a safe space for people living with HIV during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

Host:

Paulo Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Anthony Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery

Thomas AllenProgram Director, No Matter What Recovery

ChicagoSpecial Guest:

Melissa YoungChair, Chicago Roundup