012: Luis Congdon of The Lasting Love Connection shares with us his 10 year saga with Alcohol and Drug abuse that began as a child in Medellin Colombia.012: Luis Congdon of The Lasting Love Connection shares with us his 10 year saga with Alcohol and Drug abuse that began as a child in Medellin Colombia.
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Luis Congdon shares how childhood addiction, homelessness and adoption shaped his relationship with alcohol and drugs, and how poetry, new friendships and forgiveness helped him change course. The conversation highlights the emotional side of recovery, from early trauma to choosing a different life as a young adult.
53:41•5 May 2015
From Medellín Streets to Healing: Luis Congdon’s 10-Year Battle with Alcohol and Drugs
Episode Overview
- Early exposure to substances and family addiction can plant deep emotional wounds, but they do not dictate a person’s future.
- Education about the effects of drugs, even when resisted, can resurface later and support major life changes.
- True change often requires stepping away from long-term friendships that keep substance use and old identities in place.
- Creative outlets such as writing or poetry can provide a vital, healthy way to process pain and find meaning.
- Letting go of resentment toward family, even after serious harm, can release a heavy emotional burden and support ongoing healing.
“"I really do think that if people are going to have a transformation, you can't play around."”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation on The SHAIR Recovery Podcast follows Luis Congdon, founder of The Lasting Love Connection, through a decade of alcohol and drug use that started shockingly young in Medellín, Colombia. Growing up with a mother who was a “pretty hardcore alcoholic, cocaine addict,” Luis recalls being handed alcohol at around four or five years old, sitting on a pillow in a dimly lit room while adults laughed.
After his mother was killed when he was five, homelessness, adoption to the United States and a deep sense of not belonging became the backdrop to his later substance use. Listeners are taken through his first cigarette in fifth grade, getting “smashed” on cheap wine at 12, selling and using cannabis, trying cocaine at 14, and experimenting with mushrooms and ecstasy.
He shares arrests, outpatient drug classes and the quiet misery beneath the chaos: “Something was eating away at me internally, and I would have never admitted it to people.” The turning point comes when poetry, teachers and an ecstasy-fuelled night crack open a different side of him. Luis describes hugging his friends, expressing love, and then realising those friendships couldn’t support the life he wanted.
He literally threw out his “little gangster” clothes, quit certain music, joined wrestling, organised open mics and poured himself into writing and volunteering. Alongside the drug story runs a powerful thread of family and forgiveness: being tricked into an orphanage, adoption, and later facing the father who signed him away. His eventual phone call years later, letting go of anger and hearing, “I love you,” shows how emotional healing and sobriety often grow together.
This is one for anyone who started young, feels different, or wonders if changing friends, habits and even language could change everything. What “reality” might you choose next?
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