Dave S. was pronounced dead on arrival at 15. By 16 he was in a 1980 "attack therapy" rehab — diapers on heads, break-them-down tactics — and sitting in his first 12-step meeting next to his dad. He stayed clean for 17 years. Then came the wife, the kids, the business… and the idea that he was cured. One "social" smoke later, the disease that had been doing pushups for 17 years took the next 9 years of his life: benzos, opiates, a decade on subs, legal trouble, and losing his house, his marriage, and nearly himself.

Twelve and a half years ago, Dave walked into a meeting high, planning to borrow money — and his old friends trapped him into detox instead. Since then: 144 pounds lost, a bipolar diagnosis that finally explained the self-medicating, peace made with the mother he'd hated his whole life (he was with her the day she passed), a weekly prison meeting commitment in PA, and Sober Transport — driving people to treatment with his rescue dog Henry riding shotgun. Today he builds AI answering and text-message re-engagement tools that help treatment centers reach the people everyone else gave up on.

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Meet Dave S
6:26 Dead on Arrival at 15
10:43 Seventeen Years Clean, Then Relapse
15:59 Benzos, Subs, Rock Bottom
22:55 Sober Transport and Henry
28:37 Bipolar and Self-Medicating
31:51 Weekly Prison Meeting Service
37:25 AI for Treatment Center Admissions

One Last Hit Podcast — real stories of addiction, survival, and coming back from the edge.

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Barb Nangle spent 37 years in therapy and never once heard the word that explained her whole life: codependence. She'd been numbing since she was a baby — thumb, cigarettes at thirteen, weed at fourteen, alcohol at sixteen — and when she "just stopped" the substances, food took over. Her bottom came in a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot: buying six donuts so the cashier wouldn't know they were all for her, crying while she ate them, then hiding the box in her own garbage — in a house where she lived alone. On April 20, 2016 she woke up feeling electrocuted by sugar, texted a friend "just for today, I'm not having sugar" — and hasn't touched it since.

Now a boundaries coach, speaker and host of Fragmented to Whole (top 1% of podcasts worldwide), Barb tells Austin how a manipulative houseguest sent her to Google at fifty-two, how ACA's "what happened to me" version of step four unlocked decades of intergenerational trauma, and how she shed over a hundred pounds by treating hunger as an emotion. They dig into boundaries as the antidote to codependence, internal safety — not abandoning yourself when things get uncomfortable — caring more what you think of you than what others do, and why she's "full awesome: awesome AND flawed." This is the One Last Hit Podcast.

Colleen Clifford spent 36 years as a commercial fisherwoman on the Bering Sea — and more than four decades hiding a story she swore she'd never tell. At nineteen, a single shaming moment convinced her she was unlovable, and binge drinking became the way she reinforced it: near-death nights she now calls a self-imposed death sentence. Fourteen years ago she lost her husband Scott to alcohol-related suicide. Her own turning point came five years ago on one last drunk drive home — a double yellow line, and a desperate prayer: "God, get me home and I swear I'll quit." She kept the promise.

Now in her sixties and alcohol-free, Colleen is honoring a second promise — the one she made to Scott to bring something good out of his death. She just published her book, Life Beyond the Binge, with proceeds going to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She and Austin dig into why binge drinking hides so easily behind "partying," shame as the story beneath the behavior, signs from the other side, and finally embracing the nineteen-year-old she spent a lifetime running from. This is the One Last Hit Podcast.