Advertise on podcast: Rebuilding Life After Addiction

You did the hardest thing already. You got clean. But then you're standing there thinking, all I've known is drugs. How do I even get a job? That's the conversation here. Shayne Weiser knows the work of rebuilding from the ground up. As a young man, legal trouble and a string of bad choices stopped his life cold, and he climbed back from ten dollars an hour into a successful business and a life of purpose. We get practical. Why your first job doesn't have to be your forever job. Why fourteen dollars an hour beats zero. How to find a mentor and what to actually look for in one. Vocational training, entry-level work, and why companies with real accountability are worth starting at. And the mindset shift underneath all of it, that failure isn't terminal, and the right people in proximity can pull you up to a level you can't reach alone. We also get into his own story, from losing his license in 1997 to building Glory Ridge Farm out of a thousand dollars and three beehives, and the moment he stopped seeing himself as a failure. If you're fresh out of a program wondering what comes next, or you love someone who is, this one's for you. Shayne's work: https://gloryridgefarm.com If you or someone you love needs help, start here: https://svtc.info/get-help Rebuilding Life After Addiction is a production of Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge. 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

You did the hardest thing already. You got clean. Then comes the part that rarely gets talked about: the debt, the wrecked credit, the bills you can't look at. I sat down with my friend Jacob Dobscha, a business insurance agent with LD&B Insurance in Harrisonburg, Virginia, to lay out exactly how you dig out. Not theory. A plan you can start the week you get home. We cover the whole thing. Where to begin when everything feels like it's on fire. The first $1,000. The debt snowball and why you go after the smallest balance first, ignoring interest rates. What to do when you can't even make your minimums. The emergency fund, retirement, and the long game of owning a paid-off house. And why the same drive you used in active addiction can build something real now that it's pointed in the right direction. Then Jacob tells a story I won't forget. His mom, a single mother of three, put her whole paycheck in the offering plate the week rent was due. What the church did next is the reason he's spent his life passionate about money. Not to get rich. To be the one who gives. If you're clean but buried, this is the conversation. Connect with Jacob Dobscha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobdobscha If you or someone you love needs help, start here: https://svtc.info/get-help Rebuilding Life After Addiction is a production of Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge. 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Relapse almost never starts with the drug. It starts long before that, in the warning signs most people miss. I've known Nathaniel Gray since 2008. Back then he was coming out of an active heroin addiction with a stack of charges, and he couldn't read. A man in his cell wrote his letter into the program for him. A pastor he'd never met stood up in court and said God sent him there for a stranger. That was the start. Twenty years later, Nathaniel is a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist and a mobile crisis responder, and he came on to talk about the part of recovery nobody films. Not the rock bottom. The staying free. We got into the warning signs that show up long before someone picks back up. The reservation you start making in your head. The herd you drift away from when you get strong enough to think you don't need it. Nathaniel walks through the herd picture, the buffalo and the predators on the edge, and why early recovery means standing in the middle. We talked about why "once an addict, always an addict" is bad recovery advice when you believe you're a new creation in Christ, and the one thing he checks in himself every morning before his feet hit the floor. Nathaniel is the founder of Exquisite Care Companies. Learn more at https://www.exquisitecarecompanies.com. If you or someone you love needs help, start here: https://svtc.info/get-help Rebuilding Life After Addiction is a production of Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge. 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

We set up to sell furniture and ended up recording one of the most honest conversations we've had in a while. No studio, no stage, just three of us on the floor of an empty garage at The Table 61 in Harrisonburg, Virginia. It started with one question. What if the crushing is the blessing? From there we got into the olive press, the wine that has to age, and why Jesus wasn't in a hurry to be seen. I was honest about the last six months, coming back to something expecting it to take off and running into a wall that wouldn't break. We talked about the trap of chasing the destination while missing the process that's actually forming you. Jason Stuhlmiller of The Table 61 brought the teaching on the debtor's ethic, the debt we put on ourselves that God never handed us, and how we've gotten better at earning than receiving. We landed on love, influence, and the new command in John 13. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. If you've been doing everything right and still feel stuck in the pressure, this one's for you. Find The Table 61 on Facebook (facebook.com/profile.php?id=100079579317864) and YouTube (youtube.com/@TheTable61), or stop by 430 North Mason Street in Harrisonburg. Need help, or know someone who does? Start here: https://svtc.info/get-help Learn more at https://svtc.info 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Three and a half years sober. Gone in 30 days. Everybody assumes relapse starts with the drug. A trigger. A craving. A bad day you couldn't beat. It didn't. In this clip, Rocco says it straight. He stopped staying plugged in. The church family, the brothers, the community God built around him. He let it drift. Work got busy. Bible study got skipped. The relapse was already happening months before he ever picked up. That's the part nobody warns you about. The fall doesn't start where you think it does. It starts quiet. This is a clip from our full conversation with Rocco on the Rebuilding Life After Addiction podcast. Get help: https://svtc.info/get-help What is Teen Challenge: https://svtc.info/what-is-teen-challenge Find a program: https://svtc.info/teen-challenge-locations Programs in Virginia: https://svtc.info/teen-challenge-virginia 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Ashley and I sat down during a rainy work day at the center to talk honestly about where things stand with the ministry, the building, and this next season.  Support the 6043 Broad project: https://svtc.info/6043-broad  For the first time in ministry, I don't have a clean five-year plan. We thought we were coming back to restart the residential program. That didn't happen the way we expected. Then we listed the building for sale. It didn't sell. Then a gift came in that changed the direction again. So now we're painting rooms, planning monthly worship nights, working toward groups, finishing the studio, and trying to take the next step in front of us.  The calling is still clear.  The model is not.  This conversation is about faith, uncertainty, obedience, ministry, sustainability, and what it looks like to keep saying yes when you don't fully know what the outcome will be. Thanks for following along as we rebuild this in real time. 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

In February 2025, historic flooding tore through McDowell County, West Virginia. Sandy's basement filled with five feet of water. Her daughter lost everything. The food pantry she had been running for nearly a decade was destroyed. And while her own home was still under water, Sandy helped coordinate over 50,000 hot meals for her neighbors. That sentence alone tells you most of what you need to know about this conversation. Sandy came to Jesus on her own couch in Statesville, North Carolina, after a pastor named J.B. Parker Jr. knocked on her door every Saturday until she finally let him in. She grew up in a home where the family Bible was decoration. None of that disqualified her from the work God put in front of her. It built her for it. In this episode, Sandy talks about what she calls real church versus play church. She tells the story of a man who walked into a service with a beer can in his shirt pocket and the woman who scooted over to make room for him. She talks about why stateside ministry gets passed over when there's still a harvest field in our own Jerusalem. And she names something most ministry leaders feel but rarely say out loud: the people you keep showing up for will not always meet you in the middle. You feed them anyway. You plant the seeds. You let God give the increase. If you serve in ministry, lead a church, or you've been quietly wondering if your work matters, this one's worth your time. Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/she-fed-50-000-meals-after-the-flood-took-her-own-home 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

He watched God work what felt like miracle after miracle in the NICU. And then, the moment he crossed back home, everything unraveled. Jeremy puts words to a moment many people recognize but rarely admit: the split second where faith feels distant and the old escape routes feel close again. We talk with Jeremy about the grief of losing his infant daughter, the slow drift from trying to cope into prescription drug addiction, and how clonazepam left him numb and chasing relief. From there, his story moves into meth addiction, the strain it put on his marriage and parenting, and how relapse tends to come back worse. He also speaks honestly about NICU trauma during COVID, financial pressure, isolation, and the role community played through prayer, texts, and practical help. Then we get into consequences and rebuilding. Jeremy shares what happened after his arrest, why prison became more than a temporary wake-up call, and what it looks like to live recovered while staying aware he's still one bad choice away. We also talk about daily sobriety practices, Christian recovery, staying spiritually rooted, and how he now uses his addiction recovery leadership training to help others through 5:17 Ministries. If you or someone you love is battling addiction, grief, or relapse, this conversation offers clarity and hope. Subscribe for more stories like Jeremy's, and share this with someone who needs it. 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Yes, his name is Bill Gates. No, not that one. This Bill is from Boston originally, lives in Port Saint Lucie, Florida now, and spent twenty years of his life absolutely convinced there was no God. Then life fell apart. A divorce he didn't want. A rebound relationship that broke his heart. Friends who kept inviting him to church week after week, and his answer was always the same. Whatever the answer is, that isn't it. One Sunday night there were no ball games on TV, and he decided to go with them just to not be alone. A young youth pastor named Joe Keefe was preaching that night, filling in for the senior pastor. His message was about letting Christ into your life and trusting Him to bring the right person too. Bill sat there running the math on whether his friends had set him up to hear that exact sermon. When he couldn't make the numbers work, he had to admit something else was going on. Twenty-eight years later, Bill and his wife Sunseri are stepping into Living Free together because they've seen what targeted discipleship does that a Sunday morning sermon can't. In this conversation, Bill tells the atheism story, walks through sixteen years of children's ministry he never felt qualified for, and explains why the most effective ministry sometimes happens outside the walls of a formal church. If you love someone who says they don't believe, this one's for you. Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/bill-gates-god-retired-me-from-atheism 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Jeff Arp serves as Vice President of US Operations and Training for Living Free. He gave his life to Jesus at four years old. He went through Bible college and seminary. He pastored for twenty years. And for most of that time, he looked at addiction the same way a lot of church people still do. If you have a problem, just stop. Just say no. Then he started working with Living Free, and the whole framework fell apart. In this conversation, Jeff talks about the paradigm shift that changed how he preaches, counsels, and does evangelism. He unpacks what he calls "the trap," the reality that most addiction is people trying to numb pain they never learned how to carry. Emotional pain. Relational pain. Physical and spiritual pain. And he points out something the church rarely names out loud: the things we reach for to numb out are not always drugs and alcohol. Sometimes it's food. Sometimes it's entertainment. Sometimes it's whatever keeps us from sitting with what actually hurts. Jeff also shares one of the hardest conversations he's had in ministry. A pastor once asked him, "Why would I want those people in my church?" His answer was short. Because Jesus would. We talk about the Living Free online academy, the Awareness Workshop, and why equipping family members to minister to their own loved ones might be one of the most overlooked opportunities the local church has right now. If you lead a church, love someone caught in addiction, or you're rethinking what recovery ministry could look like in your community, this one is for you. Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/jeff-arp-living-free-trap-behind-addiction 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

In McDowell County, WV, a little girl hides her food kits under the porch so her mom won't find them when she's sober. That's the world Pastor George works in. Bail bondsman, biker church pastor, and missionary to the communities everyone else forgot.  This week on Rebuilding Life After Addiction, I sit down with Pastor George. He pastors Home Church in Dayton, VA, a church built for the people who don't fit in anywhere else. Bikers. People coming out of jail. People with addiction and abuse in their past. People who have been turned away from traditional churches and are looking for a place to belong. George also works in the bail bond industry, where he has built relationships with people at their most broken moments. 2AM phone calls, families in crisis, and conversations most pastors never get to have.  His work has taken him into homes and situations that have shaped how he sees people and how he does ministry. We also talk about his work in McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest communities in the country, where his team is helping build a women's recovery center out of an abandoned church. He shares what life looks like in Appalachia right now. The poverty, the drug epidemic, the lack of healthcare, and the children caught in the middle of it all. If you have ever felt called to do something outside the box, ministry that does not look like a Sunday morning, this conversation is for you. Episode Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/the-bail-bondsman-pastor-who-shows-up-when-everyone-else-walks-away 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Sometimes momentum matters more than order. I'm at the 6043 Broad Street chapel working on the renovation, and I wanted to talk about why visible progress, even small and out of sequence, keeps you from stalling out. The sober living home page has been up for three days and we've already gotten calls. Monday the painter arrives. And today, I mulched the flower beds before the building even gets painted. If you're rebuilding anything right now, find something you can point to today and say: I moved forward. Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/progress-over-perfection-why-i-mulched-before-the-paint-job 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

We recorded this from the empty chapel at Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge. No students, no program, just an honest conversation about what's next. The ministry isn't closing. We're relaying the foundation and building something that serves the community differently. Full show notes and transcript: https://svtc.info/podcast/were-not-closing-were-relaying-the-foundation/ 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

How do you honor the past without getting stuck in it? Sitting in an empty ministry building after sixteen years, Justin wrestles with gratitude, nostalgia, and the fear that the best days are behind him. Full show notes and transcript: https://svtc.info/podcast/what-i-m-learning-about-letting-go-and-what-you-might-need-to-hear 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

What if the story you tell about yourself is the very thing holding you back? We sit down with Aaron Gordon—raised in DC during its most violent years, humbled at West Point, and now a leader, speaker, and unexpected children’s author—to unpack how identity gets built, broken, and rebuilt on a truer foundation. Aaron shares candid moments from pickup games on concrete to a chlorine-stung locker room where a 1.8 GPA and a failed swim test shattered the myth of self-made strength. That collapse didn’t end him; it introduced him to the freedom that only structure, discipline, and surrender can bring. Together we trace the danger of low expectations—not just dragging us down, but pushing us into pride—and the subtle ways comparison steals calling. Instead of chasing applause or keeping score, Aaron shows why peace arrives after alignment with design, not after another trophy. We also explore the surprising origin of his children’s book, Cutler’s Wonderful Creations, a clear and charming guide to purpose that speaks to adults as much as kids. From the “spork season” of trying to be everything to the image of plugging into the source, Aaron offers memorable stories and practical cues for discovering design: follow the patterns where grace flows, honor the roles that keep finding you, and let time do its work. The cocoon has to hold until the wings are strong. Separate missions carry equal worth; a spoon is not a failed fork, and your path doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s to matter. If you’re wrestling with transition, comparison, or the ache to prove yourself, this conversation offers a grounded way forward. Listen, share with someone who needs hope, and tell us: where are you sensing alignment these days? Subscribe, leave a review, and join us as we keep amplifying stories that help men and women rebuild with purpose. Full show notes and transcript: https://svtc.info/podcast/you-can-win-at-life-and-still-feel-lost-or-aaron-gordon 🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge 🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast 📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info 🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate 📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571