A podcast for the messy middle.
Policy. People. Everything in Between.
For those who live somewhere between rock bottom and wellness influencer. We embrace ambiguity, non-linearity, and the messy middle—because most of us don’t fit clean narratives.
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Lived Experience. Unlicensed Opinions.
Recovery-ish is ironically named, poking fun at the rigidity in recovery dogma. It’s a space for the loud-mouths, truth-tellers, and whistleblowers who believe silence isn’t safety—it’s complicity. We honor lived and living experience by speaking it, embracing flexibility, imperfection, and the multiplicity of paths to wellness.
Hosted by Chad Sabora and Robert Ashford, each episode features raw conversations with frontline workers, researchers, people with lived and living experience, policy wonks and makers, creatives, and people whose stories don’t fit cleanly into court (or society) approved narratives. We unpack the politics, policies, and personal messiness that shape the landscape today with segments like The Grant Didn’t Cover That, They Said What?!, and Medically Unnecessary.
Robert
Chad
This is not your sponsor’s podcast (even if it is hosted by two middle-aged white guys...we know, we know, just what the world needs more of). It’s group therapy after everyone stops pretending they’re fine. If you’re tired of the “positive vibes only” trap, if you’ve ever been told your experience doesn’t count, or if you’ve survived a system that was never built for you - welcome. You’re finally in the right place.
Starter Episodes
Episode 01
Data-Driven Bullsh*t & The Overdose Olympics
How overdose data is manipulated for optics and funding—and why policymakers love a chart more than a human. Featuring a street-level harm reductionist.
Episode 02
They Called It Self-Care—We Called It Tuesday
Unpacking "resilience culture" and the bizarre expectation for frontline workers to meditate their way out of systemic burnout.
Episode 03
Not Medically Necessary (But We’re Still Alive)
A discussion on how people and services are deemed unworthy, and the quiet violence of denial letters from the system.
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