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Rise Above with Kevin Lanning: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Kevin Lanning
Welcome to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning. Join Kevin, a former Google executive in sobriety, as he shares inspiring stories of resilience. Each episode features individuals who have faced life’s toughest challenges—addiction, trauma, anxiety, and more—and emerged stronger. These conversations aren’t just about survival; they’re about thriving and finding practical solutions to rise above adversity. Kevin’s own journey through addiction and childhood trauma fuels his passion for sharing stories that uplift, educate, and inspire. Discover the strength within you.
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- Today1h 47m
I Was A College Athlete Who Ended Up Homeless Shooting Heroin
Dom Scalzo lived and breathed lacrosse. He was the first kid from his small Rochester high school to go Division 1, chasing a childhood dream of playing at Syracuse — until a nagging injury, a bottle of pain pills, and the slow pull of OxyContin took it all apart. What started as prescriptions became 30 pills a day, then shooting heroin, cocaine, and even vodka, as the identity he’d built his whole life around disappeared. He holds nothing back about how far it went: getting kicked out of two schools, an arrest that ended his college career, bringing his own mother into the worst part of the city to buy drugs, overdose after overdose, and a stretch living homeless under a bridge in Brooklyn. He also carries the weight of everyone he lost along the way — more than 200 people over the years. This is the story of how a plane ticket from a near-stranger, a blunt counselor, and one simple phrase finally broke the cycle, and the life he’s built in the 14 years since: a father, an endurance athlete who runs 100-mile races, and a coach who helps high-performers rebuild their health and, quietly, their lives. Follow Dom on Instagram (@dapperdon) Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 3 days ago1h 44m
I Drove The Getaway Car For A Pharmacy Robbery To Feed My Heroin Addiction
Dalen McMillon’s story is almost too wild to be real. A bull rider and martial artist as a kid, he became an Army airborne paratrooper before 9/11, then built a glamorous career as a celebrity hairdresser — flying around the world teaching for a major hair brand and making a thousand dollars a day. Then a routine injury and a bottle of pain pills pulled him into OxyContin, and eventually into shooting two grams of heroin a day, despite a lifelong terror of needles. He holds nothing back about how far it went: dealing out of his home with fifteen families dropping off their prescriptions, driving the getaway car for a pharmacy robbery, a home invasion where his girlfriend and infant son were held at gunpoint, an informant planted in his house wearing a wire, a 140-mph chase fleeing the feds, a DEA raid, and finally becoming a fugitive who got caught by bounty hunters. He also learns a devastating family secret along the way — the truth about how his father really died. This is the story of how a man who was homeless and loading syringes hoping not to wake up clawed his way back: a brutal detox, a thousand meetings in a thousand days, and the life he’s built today — married to his business partner, a proud dad, and nearly 17 years clean. Follow Dalen’s business, Junk Wax Vintage, on Instagram, Facebook, X and eBay. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 4 days ago1h 13m
Brandon Kelly on Losing Everything to Fentanyl and Nearly His Arms
Brandon Kelly is about to celebrate two years sober — the longest stretch of his life, and something he never believed he’d live to see. He grew up in Hammonton, New Jersey in a loving home, raised by a dad and a stepmom he calls the love of his life, and he was a good student on his way to Rutgers. But he carried a secret about who he was from the age of eight, never felt right in his own skin, and found that the first time he got high at 13, all of it went quiet. That chase would cost him nearly everything. He’s brutally honest about the slide: Percocets, then shooting heroin, borrowing and stealing until he was kicked out at 21 and not allowed home for a decade. He talks about losing his grandmother while he was too far gone to make it to her funeral, years of homelessness in Camden, and a fentanyl-related infection so severe that seven doctors told him he might wake up from surgery without his arms — and how he got high within an hour of them saving his life. This is also the story of how he finally came back: the shelter that led him to treatment, getting honest for the first time, the service work that rebuilt his self-esteem, and the slow, patient work of making amends and learning to trust his family again. If you’ve ever believed you were too far gone, Brandon is proof you’re not. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 5 days ago56 min
I Was A Straight-A Engineering Student Secretly Overdosing At Parties | Lily Trestan on Overdosing at 21, Getting Sober Young and Finding Her Purpose
From the outside, Lily Trestan looked like she had it all together — a private-school kid from Montreal, a straight-A student on track for an engineering career at McGill. Underneath, she was struggling badly, and by her late teens drinking and weed had turned into mushrooms, Ambien, cocaine, and fentanyl-pressed Xanax bars bought off a dealer’s menu. She’s remarkably honest about the double life she kept, the toxic relationships, the isolation, and the night it nearly ended: an overdose on Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol at a party — one that happened to be themed “death,” on the same day she’d signed her life insurance papers. Lily also opens up about losing her friend Jake, the one person she’d ever been truly vulnerable with, and how his family and his old counselor kept showing up for her in ways that felt like more than coincidence. She walks through the rehabs, the relapses, and the four-day binge that finally became her bottom — and the work that’s followed: getting to a meeting every single night, leaving engineering to study psychology so she can help others, and building the kind of relationships and peace she never thought she’d have. Now a year and four months sober, she wants young women to know it’s possible, and it’s worth it. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 6 days ago56 min
Lily Trestan on Overdosing at 21, Getting Sober Young & Finding Her Purpose
From the outside, Lily Trestan looked like she had it all together — a private-school kid from Montreal, a straight-A student on track for an engineering career at McGill. Underneath, she was struggling badly, and by her late teens drinking and weed had turned into mushrooms, Ambien, cocaine, and fentanyl-pressed Xanax bars bought off a dealer’s menu. She’s remarkably honest about the double life she kept, the toxic relationships, the isolation, and the night it nearly ended: an overdose on Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol at a party — one that happened to be themed “death,” on the same day she’d signed her life insurance papers. Lily also opens up about losing her friend Jake, the one person she’d ever been truly vulnerable with, and how his family and his old counselor kept showing up for her in ways that felt like more than coincidence. She walks through the rehabs, the relapses, and the four-day binge that finally became her bottom — and the work that’s followed: getting to a meeting every single night, leaving engineering to study psychology so she can help others, and building the kind of relationships and peace she never thought she’d have. Now a year and four months sober, she wants young women to know it’s possible, and it’s worth it. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago58 min
I Was Found In A Coma On The Side Of The Road...No Pulse, No Heartbeat
Carrie has 26 and a half years of sobriety — and a story that shows just how far this disease can take someone, even after years clean. Adopted at birth and carrying a deep fear of abandonment, she took her first drink at ten and felt instantly invincible. By 17 she was a daily drinker, and her father loved her enough to sell his own life insurance policy to get her into rehab. She got sober at 24, built a life, got married — and then, after eight and a half years, drifted from her program and relapsed. What followed nearly killed her. She’s honest about all of it: drinking through an abusive marriage and divorce, the night she got in her car with a plan to end her life, and the overdose that left her in a coma on the side of a road, with police telling her parents she might not make it through the night. This is also a story about coming back — how much harder recovery was the second time, losing and rebuilding the business she loves as a dog trainer, staying sober through the deaths of both her parents, and finally finding the peace she chased her whole life. If you’ve ever relapsed and felt too ashamed to walk back through the door, Carrie’s message is for you: people will embrace you, and it’s never too late. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago1h 57m
I Was A Sex Addict Living A Double Life For 20 Years
Ben Brown has seven years of sobriety and one of the most layered stories we’ve had on the show. Born in Brooklyn and raised between two completely opposite households, he grew up never feeling like he belonged — and found that the things that finally got him acceptance, weed at 14, then alcohol, cocaine, and above all sex, became the very things that ran his life for the next two decades. He’s remarkably honest about all of it: the performance anxiety, the womanizing, the BDSM, the love-addict/love-avoidant cycle, and the double life he lived while appearing to have it all together as a New York real estate agent. Ben also opens up about the wreckage underneath — a chaotic childhood, his father’s long struggle with mental health, and the heartbreak that finally cracked him open. He walks through the string of “God moments” that led him into recovery, the hardcore sponsor who put him through a full year of withdrawal, the 500 days he went without sex as he rebuilt himself from the ground up, and how he finally learned what real intimacy and love actually look like. Today he channels all of it into helping other men through his coaching and his podcast, The Shift. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago1h 8m
I Had A D1 Lacrosse Scholarship — Then I Started Shooting Heroin
Mac Chase had one goal growing up in the Annapolis area: become a Division 1 All-American lacrosse player. He got there — a scholarship to UMBC — but his drinking, which started around age ten, already had its grip on him. Within two years the scholarship was gone, and what followed was a decade-long slide through cocaine, pills, OxyContin, and eventually shooting heroin. He talks openly about it all: getting paid in OxyContin through a shady deal at the lacrosse shop he managed, driving eight hours each way to score, smoking pills in his hospital bed after a head-on crash nearly killed him, and conning his own mother out of her savings until she took a second mortgage and broke down. Mac doesn’t flinch from the wreckage — the stealing, the lies, the near-fatal relapse that left him in kidney failure on dialysis at 34 — but this is ultimately a story about what came after. Ten years sober now, he shares the spiritual turning point that changed everything, the long road of making amends to his mom, being at his father’s side for his last breath, and the life he never thought he deserved: a wife, two daughters, and a gratitude he lives out one day at a time. Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About Rise Above with Kevin Lanning
Welcome to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning. Join Kevin, a former Google executive in sobriety, as he shares inspiring stories of resilience. Each episode features individuals who have faced life’s toughest challenges—addiction, trauma, anxiety, and more—and emerged stronger. These conversations aren’t just about survival; they’re about thriving and finding practical solutions to rise above adversity. Kevin’s own journey through addiction and childhood trauma fuels his passion for sharing stories that uplift, educate, and inspire. Discover the strength within you.
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