In this intimate conversation, Taryn Strong sits down with beloved teacher, writer, and artist Elena Brower to explore the layered realities of recovery—including cannabis dependency, tobacco addiction, grief, and shame. Elena shares the self-abandonment loop that kept her stuck, the moment of truth that helped her stop hiding, and the simple, powerful practices that helped her rebuild trust with herself.

Together, they also open into grief as a lived practice—not something to power through but something to move with—and they explore how shame can stunt our inner world…and how repair, compassion, and do-overs can restore what shame disconnects. Woven throughout is the heart of Elena’s book and journal, Hold Nothing, and the recovery medicine of storytelling, service, and self-honesty.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Recovery from cannabis and the quiet dependency many struggle to name
• The daily internal battle: “You can do it. No, you can’t.”
• The role of hiding in addiction - and how shame feeds secrecy
• What helped Elena quit cannabis (and what replaced the ritual)
• Recovery from tobacco and the emotional roots underneath the habit
• Why substances often function as a stand-in for connection and solitude
• Grief as a practice - learning to respect pain and exhaustion as pathways of healing
• Building altars, talking to loved ones who have died, and honouring impermanence
• Shame stress, nervous system repair, and the power of relational “do-overs”
• The phrase ‘how human of me’ as an empathy-based pattern interrupter
• Elena’s service work: hospice volunteering, teaching yoga in prison, and supporting formerly incarcerated women
• A loving invitation for anyone quietly questioning their relationship with a substance or behaviour

Resources Mentioned:

• Elena's website here: books, workshops, resources
• Book: The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor
• Research on shame stress referenced: Allan Schore
• Nonviolent communication: Judith Hanson Lasater
• Death doula course: Sierra Campbell
• On The Inside: nonprofit providing rehumanizing and healing programming to incarcerated women while reducing recidivism and intergenerational incarceration

About Elena Brower:

Elena Brower is a bestselling author, artist, mentor, and yoga/meditation teacher. Known for her depth, honesty, and devotion to practice, Elena creates resources that help people meet themselves with clarity, compassion, and courage—including her journals and the book Hold Nothing.

About SHE RECOVERS® Foundation

SHE RECOVERS Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving thousands of women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful and you are able, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

In this candid and deeply human conversation, SHE RECOVERS® co-founder Dr. Dawn Nickel sits down with Elizabeth Gilbert to explore the intertwined threads of love and sex addiction, codependency, drug dependence, and recovery - core themes of Liz’s newest book, All the Way to the River. Liz shares openly about her own compulsive relationship patterns, her partner Rayya's relapse, and the moment that brought Liz to her knees. Together, Dawn and Liz explore 12-step recovery, emotional repair, and what it means to start again in the aftermath of profound loss. What emerges is a raw, insightful look at addiction, grief, and the deep courage it takes to heal and return to oneself.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Book - All The Way to the River: available at Indigo, Powells.com, bookshop.org/shop/elizabeth_reads, and at your local independent bookstore.

Elizabeth's website: www.elizabethgilbert.com

Elizabeth's Substack: https://elizabethgilbert.substack.com/

SHE RECOVERS: www.sherecovers.org

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous: https://slaafws.org/

Narcotics Anonymous: https://na.org/

Al-Anon: https://al-anon.org/

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

Have you gone above and beyond at your job? To the point of sacrificing sleep, personal plans, and perhaps, your moral values?

Overworking, also known as workaholism, is when someone is addicted to work. It can also be described as incessant internal and external activity with the underlying belief that if you're not always active, you don't have the right to exist.

In this recovery educational series replay, Mental Health Monday, SHE RECOVERS co-founder Dr. Dawn Nickel explains overworking and how to recover from it. She offers support, tools and resources for this addiction that is often thought of as respectable.

ABOUT DR. DAWN NICKEL:

Dr.Dawn Nickel is a Certified Professional Recovery Coach, with a PhD and consulting expertise related to women and health care policy and the author of SHE RECOVERS Every Day. In her work as a researcher, Dawn has focused largely on exploring how best to support women who experience substance use disorders, mental health issues, and intimate partner violence.

Dawn currently identifies as being in active recovery from anxiety, grief, workaholism, and the patriarchy.

When she isn’t writing, working as a healthcare and social policy consultant, or helping to grow the movement she started, Dawn can be found hanging out at home with her family, walking or hiking, and doing puzzles. Her life goals include “graduating” therapy, writing more books and a screenplay, completing her travel bucket list, and spending quality time with family.


EPISODE RESOURCES

SHE RECOVERS in Chicago
SHE RECOVERS Every Day Meditations for Women
SHE RECOVERS Together Online Zoom Gatherings
Workaholics Anonymous


SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

When we get sober, many things come to light and we're faced with knowing ourselves fully for the first time. This includes getting more acquainted with our sexuality.

In this candid conversation, our podcast host, Dr. Tiffany Wynn,  speaks with  writer, podcast host, and "sober sexpert," Tawny Lara, about Tawny's journey to uncovering her bisexuality once she got sober. A self-described love and sex addict, Tawny describes her transformation from finding self-worth in relationships (prior to sobriety) to discovering and leaning into her true personality and sober dating. Tawny also describes how she remains a sober party girl who loves life and still enjoys attending events. She goes into detail on that topic in her first book Dry Humping,  which is set to be released this fall.

ABOUT TAWNY LARA:

Tawny Lara is a NYC-based millennial writer / public speaker who is known in the recovery realm as The Sober Sexpert. Her book, Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating, Relating, and Hooking Up Without Booze, comes out September 19, 2023. She co-hosts the Signal Award-winning “Best Buddy” podcast Recovery Rocks. Invitation to subscribe to her weekly column Beyond Liquid Courage about all things sober dating and relationships.

Her writing is featured in Playboy, Men’s Health, Huffington Post, and two essay collections: Sex and the Single Woman and The Addiction Diaries.

Visit her website here: https://www.tawnylara.com/
Subscribe to her newsletter here: https://tawnylara.substack.com/
Pre-order Tawny's book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730665/dry-humping-by-tawny-lara/

EPISODE RESOURCES

SRF Support For LGBTQ+
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago
Recovery Rocks Podcast

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider making a donation to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

Moral injury occurs when clinicians are repeatedly expected, in the course of providing care, to make choices that transgress their long standing, deeply held commitment to healing.

Moral injury is a form of trauma that can occur in any workplace. It is often a result of someone witnessing or participating in a behavior that goes against their beliefs or values. This can cause an employee to feel isolated and be less motivated and engaged at work — and it can have a lasting negative impact on an organization.

Moral injury and burnout often go hand-in-hand.

In this enlightening conversation between our SHE RECOVERS podcast host, Dr. Tiffany Wynn, and our guest, Dr. Wendy Dean, we learn the definition of moral injury, how and why it manifests, how the systems we live and operate under play into this experience, and how we can recover from it.

ABOUT DR. WENDY DEAN:
Dr. Dean left clinical medicine when generating revenue crowded out the patient-centered priorities of her practice. Her focus since has been on finding innovative ways to make medicine better for both patients and physicians through technology, ethics, and systems change.

Dr. Dean practiced for fifteen years as an emergency room physician and then as a psychiatrist. After leaving clinical practice, she spent eight years in leadership positions, overseeing medical research funding for the U.S. Army, and as a senior executive at a large nonprofit, in Washington D.C., supporting novel strategies to restore form, function, and appearance to ill and injured service members. She turned her full attention to addressing moral injury in 2019.

Dr. Dean is a regular contributor to Medscape’s Business of Medicine, blogs on Psychology Today, and continues to work in innovative fields with NASA, the American Society of Reconstructive Transplantation, and the Transplant Ethics and Policy Working Group at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Visit her website here: https://wendydeanmd.com/
Listen to her podcast here: https://www.fixmoralinjury.org/  


EPISODE RESOURCES

SHE RECOVERS Support For Healthcare & Allied Professionals Support Group & Gatherings 
The Healing Power of Stories : A Symposium For Recovery Professionals
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider making a donation to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation Headquarters is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tewa people—O’gah’poh geh Owingeh (White Shell Water Place)—now present day Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In this previously recorded session of our educational series, Mental Health Monday, bestselling author Ann Dowsett Johnston, discusses how writing can be a powerful tool in recovery, and how we can shape our own stories. Ann believes writing is a process of discovery and at the heart of good writing is finding your voice. She guides us to explore how to tell the stories that are deep within us and how to frame our work and even get it published.

During this session Ann helps us to understand:

• Writing as a tool of recovery
• How to excavate stories and give a voice to our secrets
• How to develop the narrative arc and see your work get published

You will also hear an engaging Q&A between Ann and SHE RECOVERS co-founder, Dr. Dawn Nickel.

ABOUT ANN DOWSETT JOHNSTON

Ann Dowsett Johnston is the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, named by the Washington Post as one of the top 10 books of 2013. An award-winning journalist with more than 30 years experience, Ann is now a practicing psychotherapist. Three years ago, she launched her popular Writing Your Recovery series, memoir-writing courses for women in recovery. Ann has won many awards for her work in battling the stigma around mental health and addiction, including an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University. She lives in Toronto. Visit Ann's website: https://www.anndowsettjohnston.com/

EPISODE RESOURCES

yOUR story speaker sessions
Introduction to Recovery Storytelling Workshop
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider making a donation to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation Headquarters is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tewa people—O’gah’poh geh Owingeh (White Shell Water Place)—now present day Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Gender is often a core part of identity, and like other aspects of identity, it fundamentally shapes our perception of ourselves, each other and our experiences in the world. From the earliest recovery literature to the most contemporary recovery meetings, gender roles have affected and continue to affect both individual recovery and recovery communities.

In this previously recorded episode of our educational series, Mental Health Monday, Marya Hornbacher and SHE RECOVERS Co-Founder Dr. Dawn Nickel, have an insightful, lively and engaging look at the role of gender in recovery.

Marya doesn't hold back as she speaks about being a woman in the recovery space and the difficulties that come along with this.

ABOUT MARYA:

Marya Hornbacher is an award-winning essayist, journalist, novelist, poet, and the internationally bestselling author of five books, including Wasted, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and the New York Times Bestseller Madness. She is the recipient of the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, a Logan Fellowship for Social Justice Journalism, the White Award for Magazine Journalism, the ASCAP Award for Music Journalism, the Fountain House Humanitarian Award, and other distinctions. Her writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Smithsonian Magazine, Crazyhorse, AGNI, Gulf Coast, The Normal School, Fourth Genre, DIAGRAM, Arts & Letters, and many others. Hornbacher is currently at work on her sixth and seventh books, a work of long-form journalism and a collection of essays.

Connect with Marya on her website.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Mental Health Monday Replaylist
SHE RECOVERS Together Online
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider making a donation to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation Headquarters is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tewa people—O’gah’poh geh Owingeh (White Shell Water Place)—now present day Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In this candid conversation our podcast host, Dr. Tiffany Wynn, speaks with storyteller, recovery coach and recovery advocate Meghann Perry.

They discuss:

• Meghann's recovery story and how she created her storytelling workshops 
• Why and how the system of the recovery movement needs to be shaken up
• How powerful and empowering storytelling can be in the recovery realm
• The importance of women's stories

ABOUT MEGHANN PERRY

Meghann Perry, CARC, RCPF, is an award-winning Storyteller, Theater Practitioner, Facilitator, Curriculum Designer and Addiction Recovery Coach Professional. She creates unique learning, growth and performance experiences for people of all ages utilizing a blended practice of Theatre, Storytelling, and Coaching principles, and is a nationally-known educator in the field of Recovery Coaching. She has designed and facilitated countless workshops for diverse groups, including those with mental health and substance use challenges, transgender youth, adults and allies, adoptive caregivers, non-profit boards, and others. Meghann recently integrated Theatre and Storytelling practices into Youth and Young Adult residential treatment services for the MA Dept. of Public Health. She has also worked extensively with adolescents and young adults as a Recovery Coach and Theatre Practitioner.

She is the creator of the nationally-renowned Phoenix Tales Recovery Storytelling workshop which is currently under research as an evidence-based recovery support by the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice at Northeastern University. She served as an Actor, Playwright, and Facilitator of Youth Workshops with the Theatre Prevention organization Improbable Players, and now serves as the Theatre Education Consultant for the Boston-based theater organization, 2nd Act. She recently co-directed the musical, This is Treatment, about Black and brown women in a residential substance addiction treatment program, with students at Northeastern University. She holds a degree in Theatre Education from Emerson College. You can learn more about her at www.meghannperry.com.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Amplifying Women’s Stories in Recovery Advocacy
SHE RECOVERS Together Online
SHE RECOVERS in Chicago

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider making a donation to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation Headquarters is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tewa people—O’gah’poh geh Owingeh (White Shell Water Place)—now present day Santa Fe, New Mexico.