The #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd & Guest Dee H.The #RecoveryFirst Podcast with Mike Todd & Guest Dee H.
The Recovery First Addiction Recovery Podcast by Freedom Recovery Services of Greenville
Host Mike Todd talks with Dee H about growing up on the Cherokee reservation, finding NA in 1980, and helping start the Carolina Region’s first NA meeting. Their conversation covers poverty, early drug use, spiritual surrender, and how humour and inclusion shaped the growth of recovery in the Carolinas.
1:03:09•6 Aug 2021
From Cherokee Roots to Carolina Recovery: Dee H’s 40-Year NA Journey
Episode Overview
- Humour can be a crucial tool in recovery, helping people avoid becoming too serious and rigid.
- A simple, honest plea for help can open unexpected doors, such as Dee’s immediate connection to NA after praying.
- Early NA groups in the Carolinas prioritised inclusion, explicitly welcoming gay people, women and young members.
- Service work, like making coffee or setting out chairs, was treated as an essential part of staying clean.
- Using one common identity – "addict" – helped reduce divisions and keep the focus on shared recovery.
“I believe that humour is very healing in recovery... they came back and they added S on the end of HALT, meaning don’t get too serious.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? This conversation between host Mike Todd and long-time Narcotics Anonymous member Dee H gives a raw, funny and deeply human snapshot of early recovery in the Carolinas. Dee shares what it was like growing up on the Cherokee reservation in the 1950s and 60s, describing it as "like being in a third world country" with deep poverty, moonshining and bootlegging woven into everyday life.
He talks about generational drinking, his first drunk at nine, an overdose as a teenager, and how substances became a way to block out pain long before he had language for addiction. The heart of the episode centres on Dee’s spiritual turning point on 13 January 1980.
After a desperate prayer for help, a former using friend turned up the very next day and took him to what became the first Narcotics Anonymous meeting in what is now the Carolina Region. Dee recalls sitting in Marshall Pickens, scared and unsure, saying honestly, "I don’t know if I believe in God or not," yet still picking up the very first white chip in the region – a poker chip he still has.
You’ll hear how NA in the Carolinas grew from that tiny meeting into a full region with 20 areas and countless groups. Dee recalls early debates about whether gay people could sit in meetings, how to welcome women and teenagers, and why they eventually agreed everyone would simply say, "I’m an addict" to keep the focus on unity. As he puts it, "humour is very healing in recovery" and people "just need to loosen up" and not get too serious.
This episode suits anyone who loves recovery stories, is curious about the roots of NA, or needs a reminder that willingness, community and a bit of laughter can change everything. How might your own recovery look if you mixed service, inclusion and humour the way Dee did?
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