Christopher Penna's StoryChristopher Penna's Story
Airing Addiction
Hosts Lisa Blanchard and Jesse Chaison talk with Christopher Penna about his journey from years of addiction, fear and grief to a life centred on gratitude, AA and helping others in treatment. The conversation focuses on how environment, connection and simple daily principles support his ongoing recovery and family healing.
43:51•15 Sept 2026
From Hopeless to Grateful: Christopher Penna on Fear, Faith and Finding Purpose
Episode Overview
- Storytelling in recovery helps reduce stigma and reminds people that every addiction story belongs to a real person with relationships and responsibilities.
- A change in environment – in this case a therapeutic farm with animals and unconditional love – can make someone more open to recovery support.
- Simple, consistent practices like AA meetings, prayer, meditation and gratitude can shift fear and hopelessness into a more peaceful daily life.
- Connection with like‑minded people and being of service, including working in treatment, helps keep recovery strong and meaningful.
- Recovery can restore family relationships and create space to make new, positive memories, even after years of pain and loss.
“Gratitude is one of the driving forces of my recovery… I don’t have everything I want, but I do have everything I need.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? This Recovery Month instalment of *Airing Addiction* brings you Christopher Penna’s candid account of going from “completely hopeless with a broken spirit” to building a life grounded in gratitude, service and connection. Hosted by Lisa Blanchard and Jesse Chaison, the conversation is shaped around Recovery Month’s theme of reducing stigma through storytelling.
Christopher talks openly about early fears of not fitting in, years lost to opioids and alcohol, repeated detox stays, psych units, jail, and the crushing grief of losing his son’s mother to overdose. He doesn’t soften the reality: addiction for him meant “pain, misery and death” and feeling like pieces of his soul were being ripped away. Things start to shift when probation sends him to a therapeutic farm in Gardner, Massachusetts.
Caring for foster animals, mucking horse stalls and bonding with a resident dog slowly unsettle his old patterns. That environment, as he puts it, gave him the right mix of circumstances, love and structure to finally be a little more open. From there, he leans into Alcoholics Anonymous despite past contempt, grabbing hold of simple ideas like “bring the body and the mind will follow,” daily prayer and meditation, and what he calls “forward momentum”.
Gratitude becomes one of the driving forces in his recovery, helping him stay in the present instead of frozen by fear about the future. Now working at a co-occurring 28‑day treatment centre, Christopher talks about the responsibility of treating his own illness while supporting others, using tools like the serenity prayer and core principles of honesty, open‑mindedness and willingness.
He shares the joy of rebuilding his relationship with his son, now a cadet at West Point, and his focus on making new memories rather than dwelling on lost time. If you’re looking for a raw yet hopeful story that shows how desperation can turn into purpose, this one might be the reminder you need that change is possible, one day at a time.
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