An Invitation to Knowing the Healing Power of God, with Donna Marotto, OFS, LMFTAn Invitation to Knowing the Healing Power of God, with Donna Marotto, OFS, LMFT
Healing Voices Project: Sharing Stories of Addiction, Grief, Recovery and Courage.
An Invitation to Knowing the Healing Power of God, with Donna Marotto, OFS, LMFT and author of Love Changes Everything. Donna is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and discusses her journey to becoming a therapist and how the healing power of God can turn lives around.
32:07•18 May 2026
Love, Faith and Addiction: Donna Marotto on the Healing Power of God
Episode Overview
- Healing became possible for Donna only after she addressed her own anxiety and grief, not just her clients’ problems.
- Addiction can shift forms, from substances like marijuana and alcohol to behaviours such as compulsive exercise.
- Family patterns, including trauma and anxiety, often pass down through generations and can shape a person’s mental health.
- Faith and a relationship with God, introduced gently through therapy, played a central role in Donna’s emotional and spiritual recovery.
- Simple, honest questions about spirituality or prayer can open meaningful conversations with people who feel they have already tried everything.
“"God is in the healing business."”
Curious about how others manage their sobriety journey? This conversation with therapist and author Donna Marotto gives a very down‑to‑earth look at faith, family history, and addiction, and how they all tangle together. Speaking with host Mike Torville, Donna shares how anxiety, grief and a sudden bereavement pushed her into therapy herself, even while she was already working as a therapist.
She describes realising, through a faith‑filled counsellor, that "it's the relationship with God that really heals" and how that shifted both her personal life and her work with clients. Donna doesn’t gloss over her past. She talks about smoking marijuana at university, heavy drinking, slipping grades and how using alone became a warning sign. Later, her compulsive over‑exercise and bodybuilding showed her how easily addictions can simply change shape.
A gentle but firm comment from her husband – that she was spending more time at the gym than with her family – became a wake‑up call. From growing up in a loud Italian household marked by her grandfather’s drinking and her mother’s trauma, Donna traces how "vicarious trauma" and family patterns fed her anxiety. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, she now sees similar patterns in the people she supports, especially around anxiety, depression and addiction.
Her book, *Love Changes Everything: An Invitation to Knowing the Healing Power of God*, grew from nearly 19 years of working with clients and her own story of returning to faith.
Mike and Donna talk about people who say "I've tried everything" and how, for many, opening the door just a crack to God becomes the turning point: as Mike puts it, "God is in the healing business." If you’ve ever wondered whether faith could actually play a role in healing addiction, anxiety or long‑held family pain, this gentle, honest conversation might be the nudge you’ve been waiting for.
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.