The #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd Bonus: "The Heart Of Harm Reduction"The #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd Bonus: "The Heart Of Harm Reduction"
The Recovery First Addiction Recovery Podcast by Freedom Recovery Services of Greenville
Mike Todd focuses on the human heart of harm reduction, linking tools like naloxone and clean syringes to basic dignity and care. He also shares his own experience and explains how recovery housing in South Carolina is working to keep people safer while they seek recovery.
11:33•11 Aug 2021
The Heart of Harm Reduction with Mike Todd
Episode Overview
- Harm reduction includes naloxone and clean syringes, which can reverse overdoses and drastically reduce the spread of diseases.
- Simple acts of care, like offering naloxone, clean equipment, or clean clothes, can show people in active use that their lives matter.
- Substance use disorder is described as a disease of isolation, making human connection and kindness central to recovery.
- Personal support, such as someone walking with a newcomer into a meeting, can be a life-changing form of harm reduction.
- The South Carolina Recovery Housing Association works to get naloxone into all recovery housing and to train residents, with support from several organisations.
“Folks, that's harm reduction. I'm here today because harm reduction.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This bonus episode of The Recovery First Addiction Recovery Podcast with host Mike Todd turns that question towards one very specific topic: the heart of harm reduction. Instead of arguing policy, Mike talks straight from experience and observation, breaking down what harm reduction actually looks like on the ground.
He walks through practical tools like naloxone and clean syringes, explaining how they save lives and reduce disease, especially in places like South Carolina where syringe exchange laws are limited. But he quickly shifts to the human side: people who use drugs as sons, daughters, friends and once "productive members of society" who are now battling what he repeatedly calls a "treatable, preventable disease".
You’ll hear him describe the crushing isolation of substance use disorder, that lonely routine of "car to hotel to hotel" and the shame-filled distance from family and community.
Against that backdrop, he paints a powerful picture of what it means when someone approaches a person in active use and says, "This is naloxone and I want you to live" or "Here is a clean syringe because I don't want you to hurt yourself." For Mike, that simple act of care is the real core of harm reduction.
He connects this directly to his own story: the day in 1990 when someone outside a meeting asked, "Where are you going?" walked in with him, offered a hug and a coffee. "Folks, that's harm reduction. I'm here today because harm reduction," he says, tying emotional support and practical safety together. The episode also highlights efforts in South Carolina, including getting naloxone into all recovery housing and training residents, backed by organisations like The Clinton Foundation and local advocacy groups.
It’s aimed at anyone curious, doubtful, or on the fence about harm reduction, and gently asks: what if this approach is what keeps your loved one alive long enough to choose recovery?
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