262 Odyssey House Journals - Arian262 Odyssey House Journals - Arian
Odyssey House Journals
Randall Carlisle and Jackie Buckman talk with Arian about his many treatment attempts, early drug use, and how grief and a vision of his son’s future pushed him towards real change. The conversation focuses on choice, accountability, and the possibility of building a different life after years of addiction.
29:39•18 Sept 2026
From Nine Treatment Tries to a New Life: Arian’s Raw Road to Recovery
Episode Overview
- Recovery often takes many treatment attempts, and repeated tries are portrayed as part of the process rather than failure.
- Using substances to numb grief and difficult emotions can feel effective short term but deepens long-term damage.
- A conscious choice to change, made repeatedly rather than once, is central to Arian’s current progress.
- Taking accountability instead of blaming others is highlighted as a crucial step in emotional growth and sustained sobriety.
- Thinking about the impact on children and becoming a positive role model can be a powerful motivator for change.
“I wake up every day choosing to not be the person that I used to be.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? This conversation on Odyssey House Journals centres on Arian, a young man who has been through nine stints at Odyssey and many other programmes, and is finally choosing a different path. You’ll hear how his substance use started shockingly early: stealing beers at five, shotgunned cannabis smoke at ten, then meth at sixteen after a brutal beating.
Later, heroin and fentanyl entered the picture, not as party drugs, but as a way to block out grief after his best friend was shot and killed during an attempted robbery.
As Arian explains, opioids "put a block over my mind, and it put a block over my heart to my emotions, and so I didn't feel anything." Hosts Randall Carlisle and clinical therapist Jackie Buckman talk with him about the revolving door of treatment and jail, and how he used to "master manipulate" the system to avoid prison, entering programmes only to leave and get high the same day.
Jackie adds clinical context about why leaving treatment against advice and immediate relapse is so common, stressing that many people need multiple attempts before anything sticks. The turning point? A vivid fentanyl-induced vision of his three-year-old son living the same chaotic, painful life he’d been living. That image pushed Arian to start taking responsibility, "hug that cactus" of past behaviour, and stop blaming everyone else.
His goal now is simple but huge: be "someone who's strong, that tackles anything that comes at me" and become a father his son can look up to. You’ll also get a frank discussion on Medicaid-funded treatment, the value of not "throwing people away", and Arian’s new dreams of working in recovery or health care. If you’re wondering whether repeated relapses mean you’re hopeless, this raw yet hopeful chat might make you rethink that.
What choice are you ready to make today?
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