One on One With Coach Blu: Are We Aware Yet?One on One With Coach Blu: Are We Aware Yet?
Addict II Athlete Podcast
Coach Blu and Marissa blend light-hearted team updates with deeply emotional conversations about overdose loss, trauma, anger, and family recovery. Live questions from the community highlight how grief, fear and parenting struggles can be met with action, support and shared miles in sobriety.
1:08:22•4 Jun 2021
Running for Three: Grief, Grit and Real Talk with Coach Blu
Episode Overview
- Community action matters: Coach Blu urges the team to dedicate three miles to Dennis, Richie, and Kevin as a practical show of support to a grieving family.
- The 4x4x48 challenge is being used to raise funds for sober coach training, especially to launch chapters in rural areas with few recovery resources.
- Anger can be a useful signal rather than a trap, if it’s channelled into planning, protection, and reaching out for help instead of relapse.
- Parents of teens who use substances are encouraged to look for earlier activating events and seek support for themselves, not just send the young person away to treatment.
- Advocating in schools and systems can change outcomes, especially when a child may have undiagnosed processing or spectrum issues affecting behaviour.
“So let's stop advocating and let's start doing.”
How do people find hope in the darkest times? This conversation with Coach Blu and Athletic Director Marissa gives a raw snapshot of what recovery support can really look like when a community refuses to give up. The episode mixes light banter about training runs, team jerseys and upcoming races with some seriously heavy topics. Coach Blu shares the heartbreaking story of a close family who has lost all three of their sons to overdose.
He asks the Addict II Athlete community to run three miles in honour of “Dennis, Richie, and Kevin,” saying, “So let's stop advocating and let's start doing,” and invites athletes to dedicate a mile to each son as a show of solidarity. You’ll also hear about their 4x4x48 challenge to raise funds for sober coach training, especially in rural areas where resources are scarce.
They talk frankly about grant frustrations, how donations have helped pay for race entries, groceries and Project Elf, and why hands-on recovery work matters more than stress balls and billboards. A powerful live call from Chelsea shifts the focus to trauma and fear. After unexpectedly seeing her abusive ex in public, she talks about feeling blindsided and scared for her safety and her son’s.
Coach Blu walks through how anger can fuel healthy action instead of relapse, praising her for turning fear into planning, communication with her son, and reaching back out for counselling. Later, a question from a worried mum about her 17-year-old son’s substance use opens a discussion on “activating events,” why early pain often sits beneath addiction, and why the whole family may need support rather than just sending a teen away to treatment.
If you’re juggling grief, fear, parenting stress or just need proof that people really do care, this conversation might be exactly the nudge you need to keep going—who could you dedicate a mile to this week?
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