The Modern Meeting
A podcast about addiction, recovery, and mental health — with a focus on gambling, alcohol, and substance use.
Hosted by Adam Lyons, a compulsive gambler in recovery, The Modern Meeting shares real stories, support, and strategies for anyone impacted by addiction.
🎧 New episodes every Tuesday.
If you’re struggling, supporting someone who is, or just looking for connection, this is for you.
Episodes
133 episodes
Ep. 135 - Different Games, Shared Experiences (Part 2) | A Recovery Month Panel
Four different breaking points. Four different paths back. For this special Recovery Month episode of The Modern Meeting, Adam continues his conversation with Rachel M., Stephen B., Jonathan M., and Mandy S., four people in recovery from four v...
Ep. 134 - Different Games, Shared Experiences (Part 1) | A Recovery Month Panel
Gambling addiction doesn’t always look the same. Sports betting. Online casinos. Scratch tickets. Casino gambling. The games may be different, but the experiences underneath them can be remarkably similar.In this special Recovery Month e...
Ep. 133 - Getting Sober Wasn't the Hard Part | Janice & Katie Dowd
Janice Johnson Dowd is in long-term recovery from alcohol. Her daughter Katie Dowd Walker was a teenager watching it happen. Together they host the podcast Recovering Relationships, and they sat down with Adam to talk about the part of addictio...
Ep. 132 - Fire Your Evil Caddie | Sean Bourgeoise
Psychotherapist and gambling specialist Sean Bourgeoise joins The Modern Meeting to break down what effective gambling treatment actually looks like. We talk about why focusing entirely on not gambling can keep gambling at the center o...
Ep. 131 - Not Quite Ready For Never | Mary Santora (Part 2)
Mary Santora is 118 days removed from her last bet, but she isn't pretending the desire disappeared with it. In Part 2, she's brutally honest about what early recovery actually looks like: still romanticizing gambling, still missing it every da...
Ep. 130 - You Can't Take It With You | Mary Santora (Part 1)
Mary Santora is a nationally touring stand-up comedian with two full-length specials that hit number one, and this is the first time she's telling her gambling story anywhere outside a GA room. Mary grew up poor in Cleveland, the daughter of a ...
Ep. 129 - The Long Road to Surrender: My Gambling Addiction Story
For those of you who've been here since the beginning, you've heard a lot of this before, scattered across ninety-something cold opens. For those of you who haven't, here it is: my story, start to finish, in one sitting, for the first time....
Ep. 128 - Twenty Cents of Hope | Austin P.
Austin P sits down with Adam just after celebrating one year without a bet and a day away from celebrating one year sober from alcohol. Austin first recognized his gambling problem more than a decade ago, eventually attending GA and going to in...
Ep. 127 - It’s More Than a Financial Problem | Jimmy Morris
Jimmy Morris is a compulsive gambler in recovery from Chicago, and the host of the podcast Gambling Recovery: Taking Back Your Life. Jimmy grew up in Little Italy, where everyone gambled and everyone knew everyone. He got introduced to a bookie...
Ep. 126 - My Proudest Moment (So Far)
Back in 2016, I took another bailout from my Dad, but this time it came up with some serious strings attached. Then it's the full NCPG recap. Four days in Nashville...from my first presentation of Addiction Time Capsule and the convers...
Ep. 125 - The Compulsive Guest | John B.
John B. is a compulsive gambler in recovery from Oxnard, California with over 20 years since his last bet. In 1994, John moved to Las Vegas to get away from drugs and alcohol, only to find gambling waiting for him there. He talks about what tho...
Ep. 124 - The Biggest Misconceptions About Meetings
As long as people keep struggling with gambling, and refuse to go to meetings, I will keep talking about them. This week I posed a question to the listeners who are in recovery: tell me a misconception that you had about meetings before you att...
Ep. 123 - Hang Around Till the Miracle Happens | Rocky M's Story
You've heard Adam talk about his clean date, February 8th, 2022, and the meeting in Austin, Texas that changed everything. Rocky is the man who chaired that meeting. By a coincidence neither of them planned, this conversation was recorded on Ju...
Ep. 122 - Losing Chris, Finding Myself | Tom Farley Jr.
If you grew up in the '90s, Chris Farley was probably the funniest person alive to you. Tom Farley is his older brother, and he's in recovery himself. For years Tom told Chris's story while quietly avoiding his own. In this conversation he gets...
Ep 121 - One Year of The Modern Meeting Meeting
For most of my life I never stuck with anything. Jobs. Relationships. Addresses. And now, thanks to recovery, I actually stick with things. And I'm not doing it alone. We've built a community. A team. People that show up for each other.T...
Ep. 120 - Five Hard Truths About Gambling Recovery
A delayed flight, a karaoke bar in Missouri, and a $248 decision I knew I shouldn't make. What happened next at the gate was the closest I've come to that old feeling in over four years. From there I talk about five hard truths about gambling a...
Ep. 119 - Raised in It, 108 Days Out of It | Carmey B's Story
Carmela aka Carmey B — grew up in Omaha's Little Italy, in a loud, proud Italian American family whose whole world revolved around gambling. Her father owned an Italian steakhouse, hosted Sunday card games, and had a past colorful enough that t...
Ep. 118 - Secretly Self-Destructing | Scott Meyer's Story
From the outside, Scott Meyer had the picture-perfect life. Married his high school sweetheart, five kids, his own accounting firm, a home in the community he grew up in, and the respect of everyone around him. He was the trusted professional p...
Ep. 117 - The Power of This Disease
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sonya — a Marine, an adventurer, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a friend, who passed away on May 27th after a nearly twenty-year battle with addiction. In her sister Tracy's words: "I choose to rem...
Ep. 116 - He Turned Himself In | Paul Buck, EPIC Global Solutions (Part 2)
When we left Paul Buck, the real number had just come into focus, and the obvious question was: how did he get caught?He didn't. In Part 2, Paul picks up at the night everything came apart, and the unlikely thing that finally...
Ep. 115 - Every Day for 17 Years | Paul Buck, EPIC Global Solutions (Part 1)
Before founding one of the world's leading gambling harm prevention consultancies, Paul Buck placed his first bet in October 1994. It was a £10 each-way on a 33-to-1 horse, chosen for no reason other than the jockey wearing his football team's ...
Ep. 114 - Going Back to Springfield, Six Years Later
I went back to Springfield, MA for the first time in over six years. I went for a conference, and I ended up walking through the casino for the first time since I entered recovery.In this episode I break down the top five things I notice...
Ep. 113 - Bookmaking in The Berkshires with Brian Dolan
Brian Dolan grew up in The Berkshires, won $500 in a March Madness pool in fourth grade, and spent the next 15 years chasing that feeling. By his freshman year of college he was dealing drugs to cover gambling debts. By his mid-20s he had $80,0...
Ep. 112 - We Cannot Do This Alone | Gambling Recovery in Real Time
I still have zero urge to gamble, but in the last few months I went from one meeting a week to four. And it's been awesome. This week I share not just what I've been learning in those rooms, but what I've been contributing — including a differe...
Ep. 111 - A Ferrari With No Brakes | Edgar Jones’ Story
On December 1st, 2012, his birthday, Edgar Jones' teammate took his own life and his girlfriend's life outside the Kansas City Chiefs facility. The team played the next day. Edgar played. And then he spent years trying to outrun everything he f...