Religious trauma. Coercive control. Addiction. Depression. Deanna survived all of it — and rebuilt her life on her own terms.

Deanna grew up inside a strict Fundamental Baptist home where shame replaced support and obedience replaced safety. When she finally left, she had no tools to recognize manipulation — which made her the perfect target. A man named Steve used love-bombing, ecstasy, and calculated coercive control to pull her into repeated sexual exploitation she identifies as rape.

When she told her family, they stayed silent.
What followed was a spiral into heavy drinking, multiple DUIs, and a depression she drowned in alcohol. Rock bottom came in a jail cell. From there — through Alcoholics Anonymous, treatment, and community — she built something no one handed her: long-term sobriety, a storytelling platform called Intrepid Storytelling, and a family of three kids she created by choice through IVF, foster care, and adoption.

This is what recovering from religion and trauma actually looks like.

Ian Bick joins Clark Fredericks on the Free Like Me Podcast.

It started with hustle. As a bullied teenager desperate for acceptance, Ian channeled his energy into school dances, house parties, and eventually some of the most profitable teen nightclub events in his region. But when he tried to scale into full-size concerts, the losses came fast — and instead of stepping back, he doubled down.

He guaranteed investors their principal. Then he offered 50% returns through an electronics deal built on counterfeit products. When that fell apart, he started cycling new investor money to cover old promises. The spiral deepened with every failed show, every new pitch, every lie told to buy more time.

Federal investigators took notice. What followed was an FBI raid, a wire fraud indictment, a gambling spiral that ran through his own trial, bond revocation, and ultimately a three-year federal sentence with $495,000 in restitution — most of which he has now paid back.

Ian opens up about what prison actually taught him, how he rebuilt from the ground up through restaurant work and Whole Foods, and how a single viral TikTok post launched a criminal-justice podcast that now commands serious audiences and notable guests.

This is a story about what happens when ambition outpaces integrity — and what it takes to earn your way back.

Survivor. Addict. Redeemed. Clark Fredericks interviews Armand — NJ native, heroin recovery survivor, childhood abuse survivor & author of He Calls Me Redeemed | Free Like Me Podcast

Armand grew up in New Jersey with Armenian and Italian roots in a close-knit family. At 10 years old, a family friend's husband began abusing him — and the silence that followed set the course for the next decade of his life. By his teens he was dealing drugs, dropping out of high school, and spiraling from marijuana and alcohol to prescription pills and ultimately heroin.
The night he found himself on train tracks with nothing left, he opened a Bible to Psalm 88 and prayed. What happened next he calls a miracle — a call back to Kezik Colony of Mercy, a counselor who walked him through forgiveness, and a faith that held when everything else had failed.

Today Armand is a husband, a father, and the author of He Calls Me Redeemed — and he's urging every survivor to break their silence before it breaks them.