Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

Dalen McMillon’s story is almost too wild to be real. A bull rider and martial artist as a kid, he became an Army airborne paratrooper before 9/11, then built a glamorous career as a celebrity hairdresser — flying around the world teaching for a major hair brand and making a thousand dollars a day. Then a routine injury and a bottle of pain pills pulled him into OxyContin, and eventually into shooting two grams of heroin a day, despite a lifelong terror of needles.

He holds nothing back about how far it went: dealing out of his home with fifteen families dropping off their prescriptions, driving the getaway car for a pharmacy robbery, a home invasion where his girlfriend and infant son were held at gunpoint, an informant planted in his house wearing a wire, a 140-mph chase fleeing the feds, a DEA raid, and finally becoming a fugitive who got caught by bounty hunters. He also learns a devastating family secret along the way — the truth about how his father really died. This is the story of how a man who was homeless and loading syringes hoping not to wake up clawed his way back: a brutal detox, a thousand meetings in a thousand days, and the life he’s built today — married to his business partner, a proud dad, and nearly 17 years clean.

Follow Dalen’s business, Junk Wax Vintage, on Instagram, Facebook, X and eBay.

Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers

My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above

📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103

Recovery starts with taking the first step.

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Brandon Kelly is about to celebrate two years sober — the longest stretch of his life, and something he never believed he’d live to see. He grew up in Hammonton, New Jersey in a loving home, raised by a dad and a stepmom he calls the love of his life, and he was a good student on his way to Rutgers. But he carried a secret about who he was from the age of eight, never felt right in his own skin, and found that the first time he got high at 13, all of it went quiet. That chase would cost him nearly everything.

He’s brutally honest about the slide: Percocets, then shooting heroin, borrowing and stealing until he was kicked out at 21 and not allowed home for a decade. He talks about losing his grandmother while he was too far gone to make it to her funeral, years of homelessness in Camden, and a fentanyl-related infection so severe that seven doctors told him he might wake up from surgery without his arms — and how he got high within an hour of them saving his life. This is also the story of how he finally came back: the shelter that led him to treatment, getting honest for the first time, the service work that rebuilt his self-esteem, and the slow, patient work of making amends and learning to trust his family again. If you’ve ever believed you were too far gone, Brandon is proof you’re not.

Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers

My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above

📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103

Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the outside, Lily Trestan looked like she had it all together — a private-school kid from Montreal, a straight-A student on track for an engineering career at McGill. Underneath, she was struggling badly, and by her late teens drinking and weed had turned into mushrooms, Ambien, cocaine, and fentanyl-pressed Xanax bars bought off a dealer’s menu. She’s remarkably honest about the double life she kept, the toxic relationships, the isolation, and the night it nearly ended: an overdose on Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol at a party — one that happened to be themed “death,” on the same day she’d signed her life insurance papers.

Lily also opens up about losing her friend Jake, the one person she’d ever been truly vulnerable with, and how his family and his old counselor kept showing up for her in ways that felt like more than coincidence. She walks through the rehabs, the relapses, and the four-day binge that finally became her bottom — and the work that’s followed: getting to a meeting every single night, leaving engineering to study psychology so she can help others, and building the kind of relationships and peace she never thought she’d have. Now a year and four months sober, she wants young women to know it’s possible, and it’s worth it.

Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.

My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above

📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103

Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Delonte West lived a dream millions of kids chase — a standout at Saint Joseph's, drafted into the NBA at 21, and years in the league alongside legends like Paul Pierce, Gary Payton, and LeBron James. He was, by his own description, sheltered inside the business of professional sports, growing as a player while the rest of life stayed on pause.

When the game ended, everything he'd built his identity around went with it. In this conversation, Delonte is open about the long, slow progression of addiction that followed his career, his diagnosis and lifelong battle with bipolar disorder, and the years he spent cycling in and out of his lowest points — much of it playing out in the public eye in ways that were painful and dehumanizing.

But this episode isn't about the videos the internet passed around. It's about the man behind them, and the work he's doing now. Delonte is coming up on a year sober this December, and he credits consistency, the right medication and treatment, his faith, and the people who never gave up on him. He's found peace in staying in the moment, and he's using his platform to reach the person out there who's still where he was.

#RiseAbove #DelonteWest #AddictionRecovery #NBA #MentalHealthAwareness #RecoveryIsPossible #SoberLife#BipolarAwareness #Comeback #SobrietyJourney #SaintJosephs #Boston #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning#SecondChances #MensMentalHealth #TheManBehindTheVideos #Redemption #YouAreNotAlone #OneMoreThing
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Carrie has 26 and a half years of sobriety — and a story that shows just how far this disease can take someone, even after years clean. Adopted at birth and carrying a deep fear of abandonment, she took her first drink at ten and felt instantly invincible. By 17 she was a daily drinker, and her father loved her enough to sell his own life insurance policy to get her into rehab. She got sober at 24, built a life, got married — and then, after eight and a half years, drifted from her program and relapsed.

What followed nearly killed her. She’s honest about all of it: drinking through an abusive marriage and divorce, the night she got in her car with a plan to end her life, and the overdose that left her in a coma on the side of a road, with police telling her parents she might not make it through the night. This is also a story about coming back — how much harder recovery was the second time, losing and rebuilding the business she loves as a dog trainer, staying sober through the deaths of both her parents, and finally finding the peace she chased her whole life. If you’ve ever relapsed and felt too ashamed to walk back through the door, Carrie’s message is for you: people will embrace you, and it’s never too late.

Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers

My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above

📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103

Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices