Gregg Champion's father was killed in a head-on collision with another drunk driver when Gregg was 4. He grew up angry, filled that with alcohol and attention, and spent his 20s collecting DUIs, assaults, a marijuana trafficking operation out of a van, and two arrests in the same 24-hour stretch at Mardi Gras. He got sober at 25, went back and finished his ASU degree sober with a 4.0, sits on the Arizona State Alumni Leadership Council, taught entrepreneurship at USC, and is 30+ years sober.

This episode covers the childhood trauma he carried alone for decades. The night at he woke up in a jail cell, found a Catholic church in the phone book, and sat down in front of a priest named Father Bill — who turned out to be his stepfather's sponsor — and who sent him to his first meeting. He built Startup Recovery and Wellness over nine years and three sober living homes in the Pacific Palisades. In that same stretch he also lost his mom to Alzheimer's, his sister to suicide, went bankrupt in 2008, and watched the January 7, 2025 fires burn all three houses to the ground. He's still standing.

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0:00 Cold open
0:38 Intro
1:07 Gregg Champion
7:14 31 years sober and still working on it
10:26 The seven-year itch: three years without AA and no sponsor
13:42 Being a girl dad in recovery — why he shares it out loud
17:17 His father was killed in a drunk-on-drunk collision
18:01 Becoming what killed his father
18:49 Attention as the first substitute
20:23 A secret he carried since he was eight
22:33 Age 13 to 25: Arizona State, six credits short, and a rampage
23:16 Going back to finish his degree sober now on the ASU Alumni Leadership Council
24:15 Lost sister to suicide, mom to Alzheimer's, bankrupt in 2008, Palisades fires
24:38 Getting sober at 25: DUIs, assaults, two Mardi Gras arrests
29:13 Running weed out east
32:20 Waking up in a jail cell and hearing a voice say his name
33:17 He finds the nearest Catholic church in the phone book
34:21 Father Bill
36:20 Father Bill turned out to be his stepfather's sponsor
41:36 His daughter asks: "Papa, have you ever been to jail?"
47:25 Teaching entrepreneurship at USC
57:48 The TED Talk he bombed
59:11 Couples counseling: finding the therapist with 25 years in Al-Anon
1:00:37 What year ten of sobriety demands: going a level deeper
1:06:34 The Recovery Playbook: sober, now what?
1:08:22 The thing he relapsed over but never fully faced
1:15:35 Breaking the cycle: giving his daughters the life he didn't have