Author Jason Smith is not a writer who languished in obscurity for years as he tried to make sense of his journey through addiction to recovery. The Northern California based former teacher only started writing a mere year ago because he was on an ankle bracelet due to some legal trouble (more about that in a sec) and was trapped at home. He loaded some of his stories onto Medium (a fabulous site but one where most posts get lost and ignored) and the rest is history. People started reading them. Lots of people. A book deal followed and that book, The Bitter Taste of Dying, is now being hailed as one that leaves the reader "gasping for breath." While Smith's writing is undeniably gripping, he also had a lot of rich history to pull from: he went from trying pills in high school to losing his virginity to the hottest girl in his class that very day. And you could say he spent the next chunk of his life chasing that high, from continent to continent, job to job, high to high. In this episode (where we're joined by Danielle Stewart!), we discuss attractive sponsors, sex inventories and doing fentanyl in space, among many other topics.

Best-selling author and therapist Dr. Allen Berger is a wonder to behold. Not only is he nearly 45 years sober (though he looks no older than 45) and one of the more articulate dudes out there but he's written many of the classic books about recovery, including 12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery, 12 Smart Things to Do When Booze and Drugs Are Gone and 12 Hidden Rewards of Making Amends. He also has made a series of audio recordings that analyze Bill Wilson's 1956 letter on emotional sobriety and videos while maintaining a very full private practice. But a million times more impressive than any of this is the guy's manner and way of articulating the nuances of addiction and recovery while opening up about the 60+ truances he had in school, shooting barbituates while in the navy and how losing his dad at an early age still causes him to choke up today. In this episode, we discuss the way he practices therapy (in particular his use of the shuttle technique), why procrastination is always about perfectionism and the ways he still doesn't support himself during his fourth decade of sobriety, among many other topics.