Jessica Horn joins Chris and KG on this week's episode of Pondoff's Anonymous to share a story of childhood trauma, addiction, forgiveness, and a life she once never imagined possible.

Jessica opens up about her mother leaving when she was just five years old, being kicked out of her home at sixteen, surviving sexual assault, and the complicated relationships that shaped her early life.

She also talks about her struggles with alcohol and drugs, the consequences of her addiction, and how recovery helped her begin to understand and heal from the experiences she'd carried for years.

Through the 12-step program, Jessica found more than sobriety. She found a new perspective on her past, the ability to forgive, a loving relationship, and a sense of purpose in helping others.

After dropping out of high school, Jessica eventually returned to school and earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, with help from The Next Step, an organization providing educational opportunities to people in recovery.

Now a registered nurse, she's looking ahead to becoming a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner.It's a conversation about breaking cycles, finding forgiveness, and discovering that your past doesn't have to determine your future.

Kris Glickert joins us this week to share a recovery story that didn't exactly follow a straight line.

Kris talks about going from drinking with friends in high school to becoming physically dependent on alcohol in his early 20s, hiding his drinking while working in the restaurant industry, and the friends who finally showed up at his house and took him to treatment.

But getting help didn't mean everything immediately clicked. Kris opens up about drinking again the same day he left treatment, eventually reaching a point where he was simply done, and finding a version of recovery that actually worked for him.

We also talk about nearly 5,000 days sober, family, fatherhood, working in an industry surrounded by alcohol, and why there's more than one way to build a life in recovery.

And, naturally, we spend a completely reasonable amount of time talking about Sugarfire, barbecue and St. Louis restaurants.

For Tim, beer wasn't just something he drank. It was his passion, his career, and a huge part of who he was.

This week on Pondoff's Anonymous, Tim joins Chris, Zoë, and KG to talk about his years in the brewing industry, how his relationship with alcohol changed over time, and what finally convinced him that something had to give.

We get into his early drinking days, the toll alcoholism took on his marriage and family, his decision to get help, and what he's learned about himself through recovery.

It's a conversation about loving something that eventually becomes a problem, letting go of the life you thought you wanted, and finding something better on the other side.

For years, Bobby Drummond was known by a pretty fitting nickname: Blackout Bob.Bobby joins Pondoff’s Anonymous to tell the story of a drinking problem that didn't arrive all at once. It grew through years of blackouts, damaged relationships, nights he couldn't remember and consequences he could increasingly see.The morning of June 23, 2020 became the beginning of his sobriety.Bobby talks about moving back in with his parents, getting completely clean, the role his younger brother's own recovery played in helping him, and the loss of his friend Corey, whose death left Bobby wondering for years about a text he thought about sending but never did.He also talks about the life that came afterward.Ten months sober, Bobby went to a volleyball tournament in Florida and met Shelby after approaching her with possibly the worst successful pickup line in human history.They eventually got married. And six years after Bobby stopped drinking, Shelby gave birth to their first child, Bennett.The date? June 23.This is a conversation about blackouts, addiction, family, grief, accountability, friendship, fatherhood and what can be waiting on the other side of a decision to finally change.

This is Bobby Drummond’s story.

Kent Ehrhardt has spent more than four decades on television. But this conversation isn’t really about television. It’s about being a dad.

Kent joins Pondoff’s Anonymous for an incredibly open conversation about the life and loss of his son, Alec, who died after years of struggling with substance use, mental health and isolation.

Kent talks about the parts of Alec he wants people to remember—the football player, motocross rider and music lover who followed String Cheese Incident around the country and handed out tiny rubber ducks at shows just to meet people. He also opens up about the parts that are much harder to revisit: finding out how badly Alec had been struggling near the end of his life, the questions he still asks himself as a father, and the guilt that can come with wondering whether there was something else you could have done.

There are also moments Kent still can’t completely explain. Cardinals appearing at exactly the right time. A song dedicated to Alec at a String Cheese Incident show. And standing outside the building where his son was being prepared for his funeral and feeling one message more clearly than anything else:

“I’m okay, Dad. Finally I’m okay.”

Kent also shares how Alec’s death connected him with Addiction Is Real and turned his grief into advocacy aimed at helping other families recognize the warning signs of addiction before it’s too late.

We also get Kent’s accidental start in television, a helicopter crash, getting screamed at for interrupting Survivor with a tornado warning, his time as a Cardinals bat boy, David Gilmour, Leroy Jenkins, the world’s most well-traveled dog, and more than a few stories from 40+ years in broadcasting.

This is Kent Ehrhardt beyond the television screen: a father remembering his son, living with grief, and trying to make something meaningful out of an unimaginable loss.

Donnie Millas has lived enough lives for several episodes of Pondoff’s Anonymous.

A lifelong friend of Eric’s and someone Chris has known since he was a kid, Donnie sits down to tell a story that goes from being a three-sport athlete and walking onto a semi-pro basketball team in Alaska to addiction, devastating loss, homelessness, jail and eventually finding his way into recovery.

Donnie talks openly about the years he spent living on the streets, why jail sometimes felt like a “vacation” from homelessness, the strange sense of structure he found while incarcerated, and what it takes to survive when the people around you are struggling just as badly as you are. He also gets into gambling addiction, relapse, and the difference between simply being sober and actually working a recovery program.

But some of the most powerful moments come when Donnie talks about the people he’s lost and the series of events that completely changed his relationship with faith.

It’s an episode about addiction and relapse, but even more than that, it’s about grief, friendship, second chances, faith, and what can happen when somebody refuses to give up on you.

For nearly 30 years, Dawn Stanley worked inside Missouri’s probation and parole system, helping people navigate addiction, mental health struggles, incarceration and re-entry. Eventually, she thought she was ready to walk away from helping people altogether.

Turns out, that wasn’t really the problem.

On this episode of Pondoff’s Anonymous, Dawn joins Chris, Kurt, and Zoë to talk about a career spent trying to help people inside systems that don’t always make helping people easy and how that experience ultimately led her to the work she does today with TMAC.

Dawn talks about her introduction to the recovery world, what families taught her about addiction, the importance of meeting people where they are, and why there is no single treatment center or recovery path that works for everyone. Sometimes the most important part of helping someone is knowing the right questions to ask and knowing how to navigate a system that can be incredibly difficult to understand from the outside.

We also get into the realities of insurance and treatment, supporting the families affected by addiction, and what it actually looks like when someone calls asking for help and has nowhere else to turn.

Dawn describes herself as relentless. After this conversation, it’s pretty easy to understand why.

Michelle Charbonnier knows addiction from both sides of the conversation.

Today, she's a clinician, recovery advocate, executive director of a recovery community center, and someone who helps individuals and families navigate treatment. But long before she was helping people find their way into recovery, Michelle was trying to find her own way out.

Michelle joins Chris, Zoë and KG to tell the story of growing up in Granite City, experimenting with drugs before she even entered high school, smoking weed every day, bartending in biker bars and eventually developing a cocaine addiction that escalated into a roughly $300-a-day crack habit.

While working toward her MBA and maintaining one version of her life on the surface, she was spending days isolated in hotel rooms and making daily trips to East St. Louis to smoke crack. Eventually, the addiction won out over school.

But quitting crack wasn't the end of Michelle's story.

Her relationship with substances continued to change—from cocaine to Adderall, marijuana and eventually alcohol—until a complete mental and emotional breakdown forced her to confront the fact that she couldn't keep living the way she was living.

Now, Michelle has turned those experiences into a career helping other people. The conversation gets into harm reduction, Narcan, marijuana, mental health, finding the right treatment instead of simply a treatment, the importance of what happens after someone leaves treatment, and why there's no single correct way to recover.

As Michelle puts it: “Judging other people's recovery doesn't serve ours well.”

It's a story about addiction, survival, purpose and what can happen when the person who once needed help becomes the person helping someone else find it.