Retired journalist Chip Womick talks with individuals who have a connection to substance use disorder in Randolph County, North Carolina. Guests will include people in recovery, people who have lost loved ones to drugs, people who help individuals trying to beat the demon of addiction -- anyone who has something to say that will push back against the stigma associated with addiction and help raise awareness about what's going on in the community.
Send us Fan Mail Rob Murdock is an Asheboro native who had his first taste of beer when he was just a kid, 13 or 14, and later developed an addiction to alcohol that ebbed and flowed throughout college and several decades after he graduated. He never seriously considered his drinking as a problem until he lost his job. And then, his mother asked him if he would go to treatment if she paid for it. Murdock marked his fifth year of sobriety in April 2026.
13 Nov 2025
Paul Sanders (In Recovery/Works in Recovery)
Send us a text Paul Sanders carried his years-old addictions with him to college, where they blossomed. He got the boot from school but when granted a second chance, he earned a degree. Unfortunately, his substance use continued through it all. Eventually, drugs robbed him of his wife, family, and a six-figure career. He has lived under a bridge, in a homeless shelter, and in prison, when he spent 18 1/2 years for crimes committed to support his drug use. He found sobriety via a 12-step progr...
4 Nov 2025
John Kelly (In Recovery/Works in Recovery)
Send us a text John Kelly will mark 13 years in recovery in December 2025. At the age of 16, in an effort to fit in with his peers, he smoked marijuana for the first time. A year later, he was in prison. Until he was 53, using drugs to escape reality seemed like the solution to his problems. Then, he checked into rehab. Now, he credits his higher power, his sponsor in a 12-step program, and his focus on giving back to others suffering from the disease of addiction bringing him a better life t...
28 Oct 2025
Rachel Price (Works in Recovery)
Send us a text Both of Rachel Price's parents and her first husband battled addiction. When Rachel's first child was 6 months old, her mother died after an overdose. She learned to be strong and stand on her own two feet out of necessity, and for a long time did not understand how trauma had impacted her life. Eventually, she decided she wanted to be a cop, in large part to help people whose alcohol and other drug addictions brought them into contact with law enforcement. Someone at Randolph ...
8 Nov 2024
Blake Easley/Part 2 (In Recovery/Works in Recovery)
A California native, Blake Easley smoked marijuana in high school, then drank cough syrup to achieve a buzz (almost every day) until his mother found a stash of empty cough syrup boxes hidden in their house. She marched him over to the 99-cent store where he was buying the over-the-counter cold medication and made certain they would never sell her son cough syrup again. He moved on to other drugs and eventually into an active addiction so severe that it led to him living on the streets for ma...
3 Nov 2024
Blake Easley/Part 1 (In Recovery/Works in Recovery)
A California native, Blake Easley smoked marijuana in high school, then drank cough syrup to achieve a buzz (almost every day) until his mother found a stash of empty cough syrup boxes hidden in their house. She marched him over to the 99-cent store where he was buying the over-the-counter cold medication and made certain they would never sell her son cough syrup again. He moved on to other drugs and eventually into an active addiction so severe that it led to him living on the streets for ma...
24 Oct 2024
Amber Poe (In -- and works in -- Recovery)
Amber Poe was in her late 20s until she experienced her first-ever buzz from drinking alcohol. The unexpected intoxication was linked to how her body metabolized alcohol following weight-loss surgery. She liked the way alcohol made her feel, but over time her alcohol consumption increased to an unmanageable level that led to consequences she did not like. She lost jobs. She lost her driver license and faced the prospect of jail time.
17 Oct 2024
Treston Dickerson (Recovery Story)
Growing up in West Virginia, Treston Dickerson struggled with his self-image. The first time he smoked marijuana, at 12 or 13, he felt better. Through his abbreviated years in high school, Dickerson thought he and his buddies who used drugs were cool. School and drugs were not compatible. He dropped out. His mother took him to his first 12-step meeting to help him reclaim his young life. Today, he says the program and its principles saved his life. He is 18.
10 Oct 2024
Erik Kuykendall (Recovery Story)
Erik Kuykendall has always had the ability to look on the bright side, even when his life was grim due to poor choices on his part -- and there have been plenty of those times. For 20 years, Kuykendall ingested and injected a laundry list of substances -- alcohol and other drugs -- in an effort to numb his feelings. These days, he does not have to try as hard to find sunshine: That's because he has been drug-free since December 2021. It's a different world.
1 Feb 2023
Capt. Bradley Cooper and Sgt. Jason Burgess (Randolph County EMS)
Capt. Bradley Cooper and Sgt. Jason Burgess know one aspect of how drugs impact Randolph County: They are employed with Randolph County Emergency Medical Services, and county EMS personnel responded to 784 overdose calls across the county in 2022. Cooper and Burgess talk about how dramatically overdose calls have increased since 2008 and what happens after someone calls 911 to report an overdose.
19 Jan 2023
Bob Shackleford (Family)
Dr. Bob Shackleford says he did not understand anything about the disease of addiction when his son went to treatment for the first time. He still did not understand much when his son left that 28-day program. Years later, he is still learning. In this conversation, he talks about some of the myths about addiction and how a loved one's substance use affects the family.
14 Jan 2023
Scott Smith (Recovery Story)
By the time he was in the fifth grade, Scott Smith was drinking most weekends with his buddies. Several of them were years older. But his future addiction did not involve alcohol. It was opioids that ensnared the Asheboro native and eventually led to a period of IV drug use, even though he never learned how to give himself an injection.
5 Jan 2023
James Michael Martin (Recovery Story)
James Michael Martin drank his first beer at the age of 15. Twenty-three years -- and the ongoing use of alcohol and a laundry list of other drugs -- later, he had lost virtually everything save his life. And he did not care whether he lived or died. This is his story of addiction and recovery.
15 Dec 2022
David Mabe (Recovery Story)
David Mabe stopped using drugs while working to get himself in shape to go to bootcamp. After he entered military service though, addiction reclaimed its grip on the young man. Struggles with substance use followed him back into civilian life. Eventually, drugs robbed him of everything but his life. Today he is a peer support specialist who uses his life experience to help others.
8 Dec 2022
Amber Mabe (Recovery Story)
Amber Mabe was almost 29 years old and operating a thriving graphic design company when addiction took hold. She lost her business. She lost her children. She lost herself. This is her story of reclaiming her life.
29 Nov 2022
Susan E. Hunt First podcast
Susan E. Hunt is a co-founder of Keaton's Place, a recovery resource center in Asheboro, N.C., which was established to make a difference for individuals and families living with addiction and to honor the memory of her son, Keaton Scott Hunt. She shares Keaton's story and journey with drugs before he died after a fentanyl overdose in the summer of 2019 at the age of 20.
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