Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

Holly Hiles has six years of sobriety and a story that’s almost hard to believe. Growing up she bounced through twelve schools, leaned on her twin brother, and lost her footing at fourteen when she got pulled off her cheer squad and fell in with a rougher crowd. What followed was a lifetime shadowed by loss — her grandmother, her father, her first love, and eventually her twin brother, a death she spent nineteen years calling a “motorcycle accident” until recovery helped her see it for what it really was. As her drinking progressed, Holly built a successful healthcare-marketing career and an ego to match, hiding vodka before work and drinking alone until the shakes set in. She shares the surreal night her addiction drove her to a little liquor store where she found the clerk murdered — a moment that still didn’t stop her — and the DUI, the rehab, the relapse, and the ex-husband who finally told her the hard truth that helped save her life. Today she’s rebuilt everything from the ground up: amends with her mother before she passed, a new faith, a master’s degree, and a company built around helping other people find their way out. 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

Cadence came on Rise Above with a story that breaks the mold most people picture when they hear “sober.” She never drank in high school, never craved alcohol, and to this day doesn’t call herself an alcoholic — but her relationship with drinking still cost her plenty. She talks openly about the blackout years in Scottsdale: bartending and partying, hiding her boyfriend’s BMW from the valet after she caught him texting his ex, and a night that ended with her getting arrested. She also lived through the other side of addiction up close, watching a partner spiral into drug-induced psychosis and a friend overdose in front of her. What makes this conversation land is her honesty about the quieter kind of rock bottom — the slow “death by a thousand cuts,” getting sick of being sick, and finally choosing herself. She shares how running a 5K a day, converting to Catholicism, and building a sober community online rebuilt her life, and why she’s careful with the word “alcoholic” out of respect for the people who struggle differently than she does. Her message is simple and worth hearing: you don’t have to burn your life down to earn the right to stop drinking. Follow Cadence at Cultivated Cadence on Instagram and TikTok. 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

Tiffany Mercer flew across the country to tell a story most people in recovery have never heard put into words. She’d already done the hard work — sober from alcohol, years of meetings, treatment at Hazelden Betty Ford, rebuilding her life as a mom. Then, in the middle of a brutal divorce, a friend handed her what everyone called a harmless, non-addictive herbal supplement for anxiety and sleep: kratom. Within two months she was taking it around the clock just to keep from getting sick, buying powder scooped out of unlabeled buckets, and quietly losing the joy in everything she loved. What followed was, in her words, the hardest thing she has ever done — a withdrawal worse than opiates or Xanax, a cold-turkey Super Bowl weekend that didn’t end on Monday, a three-week taper, detox, and the darkest night of her life. In this conversation she’s honest about all of it: the childhood that taught her to fake a perfect family, the relapses, the custody fight, and the faith, community, and small moments of joy that carried her through to where she is now — 17 months free, running her kratom-awareness platform Kicking Kratom and building her juice company, Big T Juice. 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

Amanda Lee grew up a privileged, straight-A overachiever in Birmingham who dreamed of becoming a nurse — but by 10 she was gripped by crippling anxiety, and her very first drink at 12 unleashed something she couldn't control. By 14 she was shooting Dilaudid and addicted to the needle; by her twenties she'd flunked out of college, written dozens of fraudulent checks, and fled across the country with an ex-convict, living out of her car, shooting $5 heroin, and panhandling on highway off-ramps. She survived seven years inside a group later exposed as a cult, a brutal relapse shooting heroin in Baltimore, psych wards, and a night so dark she nearly didn't make it. In the end, she racked up seven felonies and landed on Alabama's Most Wanted. The turning point came when her own mother made the heartbreaking decision to press charges — a choice Amanda now credits with saving her life. She turned herself in, got sober that very day, and has never looked back. Twelve years later, she's an RN who worked the front lines of COVID at the same hospital where she was once strapped to a bed, married to a husband who's never seen her take a drink, a homeowner, and a pardoned woman using her story to give hope to others. This is one of the most powerful comeback stories we've ever had on the show. 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

Lauren Latterell grew up moving from home to home around Palo Alto, never quite feeling like she belonged — and by middle school, she'd found that alcohol and drugs could finally quiet the chaos in her head. What started as sneaking drinks and lying for a thrill spiraled fast: by 8th grade she was spending her days drinking and using with homeless people in downtown parking garages, and her teenage years became a blur of juvenile hall, probation, and treatment centers. After high school came the rave scene, blackout drinking she thought was normal, cocaine she couldn't drink without, three DUIs, and finally a year of pure "oblivion" — paranoid, isolated, and convinced people were coming to hurt her. Facing a year in jail or treatment, Lauren chose treatment — and in a shower, in a moment of total surrender, she made a promise to never go back to that place again. Eight years later, she's kept it. She's rebuilt her life around purpose and service, made amends to the people she hurt (including, in one stunning moment, the woman she injured in her last DUI), cared for her grandmother through her final days, and is now engaged to a partner in recovery. This is a raw, honest, and deeply hopeful story about how far down you can go — and how completely a life can be rebuilt. 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