050: Stop Drowning & Reach Out for Help with Stephanie Schilling – From raging alcoholic to Radiant Perspective!050: Stop Drowning & Reach Out for Help with Stephanie Schilling – From raging alcoholic to Radiant Perspective!
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Stephanie Schilling shares how her drinking and drug use led to hospitalisation, lost opportunities, and isolation before she accepted help and entered treatment. She talks about building a daily spiritual routine, working at the treatment centre that helped her, and offering hope to newcomers who feel beyond repair.
1:07:44•26 Jan 2016
From Raging Alcoholic to Radiant Perspective with Stephanie Schilling
Episode Overview
- Reaching out for help and entering treatment can interrupt even severe addiction, including repeated hospital stays and blackouts.
- A structured routine of prayer, daily readings, meetings, and sponsor contact helps maintain emotional and spiritual balance.
- Halfway houses and intensive outpatient programmes can teach practical life skills and offer vital peer support early in sobriety.
- Working with newcomers and being of service can create a “natural high” and sustain long-term gratitude.
- Recovery takes time, but physical health, joy, and the ability to laugh again often return sooner than expected.
“You will laugh again. I know you feel like crap right now, but just a little bit more time… even two months from now and even two years… it's worth it.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This episode of The SHAIR Recovery Podcast follows writer and blogger Stephanie Schilling as she talks openly about moving from “raging alcoholic” to what she calls a radiant perspective. Speaking with host Omar Pinto, Stephanie walks through her early drinking at 15, the progression into opiates and suboxone, and the relationship chaos that came with it.
She recalls weighing just 88 pounds and being hospitalised with pancreatitis, liver concerns and dehydration, yet still returning to drinking after being warned she could die. Her honesty is raw rather than dramatic, making it easy for anyone in active addiction to recognise familiar patterns. The turning point comes as she describes getting on her knees, drunk, and asking for help before agreeing to treatment at Bradford.
From there, you’ll hear how halfway houses, intensive outpatient work, and AA meetings slowly rebuilt her life. Today she works in admissions at the same treatment centre that once admitted her, greeting new clients with the same mixture of firmness and compassion that once saved her own life.
Spiritual growth runs through the conversation: simple prayers in bathroom stalls, talking to God in the car, and learning that “I enjoy knowing that I'm not in control.” Stephanie shares practical routines too — daily readings, meetings, sponsor calls, and writing on her blog, Radiant Perspective. This one’s especially helpful for anyone who thinks they’re “too far gone,” or who’s scared to go to treatment or meetings.
As Stephanie gently promises newcomers, “I know you feel like crap right now, but just a little bit more time… you will laugh again.” If you’re standing on the edge, wondering whether to reach out, what might happen if you gave yourself that chance?
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