From Isolation To Connection: Healing Addiction’s Hidden Roots with Severn Lang part 2

Send us Fan Mail

A single fridge door can tell the truth you’ve been avoiding. When our guest boxed up their home to break a cycle of compulsive shopping, a shelf of condiments sparked an unexpected reckoning with grief, a father’s dry alcoholism, and the way addiction quietly changes shape. What follows is a candid, practical journey from clutter to clarity—using 12-step tools not just to stop a behavior, but to understand the feelings that built it.

We swap stories about how recovery becomes a way of living: creating literal space so better things can enter, replacing numbing with writing and meditation, and choosing community over isolation. The conversation gets personal and grounded, from carnivore diet routines and motorcycle “moving meditations” to the stark honesty of recognizing transferable addictions like sympathy-seeking, overwork, or endless caffeine. The body weighs in too. Autoimmune flares and carpal tunnel become loud nudges to tune life toward purpose instead of pushing through pain.

Creativity sits at the center. As a painter, leatherworker, filmmaker, and playwright, our guest finds that making art calms the nervous system and brings pain down to a whisper. Their new immersive play about a recovery meeting invites audiences into a safer space where loss, divorce, and addiction can be named without shame—normalizing recovery language for anyone who needs a starting point. Along the way we share sponsor wisdom that sticks: if you want to use, have a milkshake; if that doesn’t work, have another. Then follow three rules—don’t use, go to meetings, be nice—especially to yourself.

If you’re carrying more than you can see, this story offers tools you can try today and a community you can return to tomorrow. Listen, share with someone who needs a gentle nudge, and leave a review so more people can find their way to this circle.

Intro for podcast

information about subscriptions

Support the show

Support for Joe's Cure

Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting