The Freedom Recovery Center of Greenville #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd & Guests Ericka Adams PursleyThe Freedom Recovery Center of Greenville #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd & Guests Ericka Adams Pursley
The Recovery First Addiction Recovery Podcast by Freedom Recovery Services of Greenville
Host Mike Todd speaks with peer support specialist Ericka Adams Pursley about her journey from addiction and prison to leading recovery efforts within the Catawba Nation. The conversation highlights naloxone work, recovery housing, culturally rooted support and community events such as the Catawba River Ramble for Recovery.
49:18•22 Jul 2021
Recovery Warriors of the Catawba Nation: Ericka Adams Pursley Shares Her Story
Episode Overview
- Recovery can start from the lowest point, and as Ericka says, you haven’t failed unless you stop getting back up.
- Culturally relevant recovery approaches, including indigenous traditions and the medicine wheel, can help people connect more deeply with support.
- Peer support specialists with lived experience can build trust in communities where stigma and historic harms make outside services hard to accept.
- Community efforts such as naloxone distribution, recovery housing and events like walks and river rambles can reduce overdose deaths and build hope.
- Plans for a healing village with tiny houses and life-skills classes aim to provide long-term, community-based support rather than short-term fixes.
“"You've never failed until you stop getting back up."”
How do individuals turn their lives around after addiction? This episode of The Recovery First Addiction Recovery Podcast shines a light on that question through the story of peer support specialist Ericka Adams Pursley and the Catawba Nation’s growing recovery efforts. Hosted by Mike Todd, with Todd in the producer’s chair, the conversation mixes local community updates with a candid, emotionally honest chat about recovery, culture, and harm reduction.
You’ll hear about naloxone distribution across South Carolina, recovery housing initiatives, and community events like the second annual Walk for Overdose and the Catawba River Ramble for Recovery. Ericka shares her journey from "functioning addict" and pharmacy tech, through losing her children and spending nearly four and a half years in maximum security prison, to finding purpose as a peer support specialist.
A key moment comes when she recalls praying in her cell: realising "I'm not who I'm supposed to be" and choosing a different path. Her mantra, "you've never failed until you stop getting back up", runs through the whole conversation. She talks about serving her own people as "boots on the ground" for the Catawba Nation, blending cultural identity with recovery work.
Topics range from culturally specific approaches like White Bison and the medicine wheel, to the Recovery Warriors campaign, a planned "healing village" of tiny houses for people in recovery, and the importance of partnerships with organisations such as favour, Challenges, Inc. and local treatment providers. The tone is relaxed, sometimes funny (there’s even talk of sharing a bullhorn), but it never loses sight of the seriousness of overdose, stigma, and exploitation in the treatment industry.
If you’re interested in community-based recovery, indigenous perspectives, or just need a reminder that "our culture is recovery", this conversation might be exactly what you need today. Whose recovery story could you share hope with after hearing this one?
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