Mike “StuBoy” O’Brien is a recovery advocate and co-host of Two Addicts and a Moron Podcast, where honest conversations, humor, and lived experience come together to challenge the stigma surrounding addiction and show people what life on the other side can look like.

After roughly a decade of addiction, Mike reached a turning point when he realized he could lose one of the most important things in his life—his relationship with his daughter. With the support of friends, coworkers, and a recovery community that rallied around him, he entered treatment and began rebuilding his life.

But getting sober was only the beginning.

Mike had long told himself that if he ever figured out how to make it to the other side of addiction, he wanted to help other people believe they could do it too. That idea eventually became Two Addicts and a Moron Podcast, a platform built around real recovery stories without pretending recovery has to be serious all the time. Through humor, vulnerability, and conversations with people from different walks of life, Mike and his co-hosts have created a space where people can talk openly about addiction, mental health, resilience, and what it actually takes to rebuild a life.

Today, that mission is expanding beyond the microphone. Mike helped launch the Two Addicts and a Moron Podcast Recovery Foundation, with the goal of connecting people who want help with treatment, transportation, recovery resources, and continued support—particularly those who may not have the financial resources or insurance to access care on their own.

For Mike, recovery is ultimately about paying forward the help that was once given to him. His story is a reminder that getting sober isn't simply about leaving addiction behind. It's about discovering what you can build with the life you get back.

Aston is an amputee and resilience advocate whose life changed in an instant after an accident forced him to confront challenges he never could have anticipated. His journey has required him to adapt not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as he learned how to rebuild his life and redefine what moving forward could look like.

Through the highs, the setbacks, and the difficult moments in between, Aston discovered that resilience isn't about being unaffected by what happens to you. It's about allowing yourself to struggle, adapt, and continue moving forward even when life looks completely different from what you had planned.

In this episode, Aston opens up about the accident that changed his life, adjusting to life as an amputee, navigating the setbacks that followed, and ultimately finding a renewed sense of identity and purpose. He shares an honest perspective on what it means to face circumstances you cannot change while recognizing that you still have a choice in how you respond to them.

His story is a reminder that strength doesn't always look like having everything together. Sometimes it means getting back up, learning how to move differently, and refusing to allow one chapter of your life to determine the rest of your story.

This conversation explores resilience, identity, perspective, and what becomes possible when we stop measuring our lives by what we've lost and begin looking at what we can still build.

Dr. Henry Lewis Higgins is a career emergency physician, healthcare entrepreneur, and executive with more than two decades of clinical and leadership experience. Throughout his career, he has focused on building community-based healthcare models that combine exceptional medical care with greater accessibility, affordability, and meaningful involvement from physicians and healthcare staff.

His philosophy of care is rooted in a simple but powerful standard: approach every patient with a profound degree of empathy while treating them with an overwhelming amount of competence.

Dr. Higgins is the founder and CEO of Family Hospital Systems and Emergency Rooms and has founded and operated emergency centers, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations throughout Texas and Nebraska. He also founded Cage Free Care, a direct primary care model designed to give individuals and employers more affordable access to primary, emergency, and specialty healthcare.

Over the past eight years, much of Dr. Higgins' work has centered on developing RedStone, a recovery program operated through Family Hospital Systems. RedStone begins with the medical stabilization of individuals struggling with substance use and extends well beyond the initial crisis, working alongside community partners to provide meaningful support throughout the first two years of recovery.

The program brings together medical professionals, behavioral health providers, and peer recovery specialists to create an integrated care team focused on what each individual needs to build sustainable recovery. This approach reflects Dr. Higgins' broader belief that addressing addiction requires more than getting someone safely through an immediate medical crisis—it requires continued connection, support, and a healthcare system willing to stay involved.

In addition to his clinical and executive work, Dr. Higgins has held numerous medical leadership positions and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the *Journal of Free Standing Emergency Medicine*. He has also served as owner and Chairman of the Board of the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine.

Dr. Higgins received his medical degree from West Virginia University, completed postgraduate training in General Surgery and Neurosurgery at the University of Oklahoma, and completed an Internal Medicine residency at CAMC/WVU in Charleston, West Virginia.

Across every aspect of his career, Dr. Higgins has remained focused on improving the way healthcare is delivered through clinical excellence, empathy, accountability, community involvement, and innovative models of care. Outside of his professional work, he is devoted to his wife of 35 years, their four children, and their growing family.