feral but sober

March 2, 2026

Jacob

February 20, 2026

“The Day the Worm Wasn’t Real — But the Rock Bottom Was”-brianbodien-episode25

Tonight’s episode, I’m sitting down with Brian Bodine — and I’m telling you right now, this man’s story is one of the wildest, most heartbreaking, and most honest journeys I’ve ever heard. Brian spent twenty‑two years in addiction, and he’s 43 now, finally living a life he never thought he’d get to see.Brian told me he knew he was “different” as a kid. While other kids were playing ball, he was hustling gum and pencils. By high school he was smoking weed, drinking, and selling. He went to Edinboro University to play baseball, but the grades didn’t hold, and by his second year he was suspended. That’s when the soul‑searching turned into using, and using turned into dealing.He met someone from Cleveland who introduced him to weed, coke, and drinking heavy. He told his family early on that pills were going to kill him — and honestly, he wasn’t wrong. After a car wreck, he got hooked. He made a lot of money, and addiction took every bit of it. His marriage fell apart. He did things in front of his kids that still haunt him. By 19 or 20, he was deep into pills for years.Then came the Fourth of July party — one twisted tea, and he spiraled into drinking again. After that came heroin. Three or four years of it. His wife found him overdosed in puddles of black. He gave everything away. Somehow, he got clean again for a few years. He coached baseball. He worked. He tried. But addiction wasn’t done with him yet.He got put on the run for five years over a $150 fine. In 2018, he accepted God, got another good job, started coaching again… and then a doctor handed him Adderall. Speed was his weakness. He always swore he’d never be like his dad — his dad had alcohol and strip clubs, and Brian had coke and strip clubs. But addiction doesn’t care about promises.One day his son, seven or eight years old, asked him why people always owed him money. That moment hit him hard. But the spiral was already happening. A friend handed him meth and told him it was coke. Brian went into a full psychosis — seeing worms, shaving his dog, cleaning his grill for hours, knocking on neighbors’ doors talking about things that weren’t real. His wife and kids watched him unravel. She begged him to go to the doctor. He refused. She researched vitamins and tried to save him herself.Then came the last run — crack. Two or three years of it. The darkest time of his life. He didn’t leave his basement for eight months. He was suicidal, violent, paranoid, convinced everyone was after him. One hit dropped him for eight or nine hours. He overdosed alone. Twice. Six months apart.His mother‑in‑law laid hands on him and prayed over him. He swears that moment changed something. On 9‑3‑23, he overdosed again, and they said he wasn’t going to make it. He ended up six hours away in treatment in Quakertown. He was so far gone he robbed his own house with a ski mask on and ripped the copper out of the walls.But he’s here. He’s alive. He’s sober. And he’s telling the truth about all of it — the shame, the chaos, the psychosis, the overdoses, the moments he should’ve died, and the grace that kept pulling him back.This episode is heavy, but it’s real. It’s the kind of story that reminds you addiction doesn’t care who you are — but recovery doesn’t either. Anyone can come back. Brian is proof.

February 20, 2026

“Locked In, Left for Dead, Still Chose to Rise”-mystic-episode-clawsout20

Feral But Sober brings you into the world of Mystic — a mother of five, the oldest of three siblings, and a woman who has survived more violence, loss, and betrayal than most people could imagine. Her story is not easy to hear, but it is powerful, necessary, and a testament to the strength it takes to keep choosing life when everything around you is trying to take it.Mystic married young after moving to Colorado at 19. What looked like a fresh start quickly became a nightmare. Her first husband was violently abusive — locking her in cabinets and closets, starving her, feeding her meth, and beating her so severely she suffered a broken nose, eye socket, cauliflower ear, and multiple fractures. The day she tried to leave with her son, he attacked her again. Her little boy escaped and called for help, and that moment changed everything. Mystic soon learned she was pregnant, and with the support of her family, she finally got away. Their relationship dragged on in cycles until 2015, but by 2016 she was divorced and trying to rebuild.But trauma doesn’t disappear just because the paperwork does. After losing her mother, Mystic spiraled into addiction — heroin, coke, LSD — while trying to hold together a second marriage that was also abusive. She worked three jobs, kept a home, and still felt completely alone. Addiction pushed her family away, and she let people into her life who did not have her safety in mind. One of them injected her with a mixture of heroin and rat poison, locked her in a bathroom, and left her to die. Her son once again saved her life by calling for help.Her second husband used drugs with her oldest son. Mystic joined them. She lost control, lost her home, lost her job, and eventually lost her children to the state. Her family tried to intervene, but the damage and distrust ran deep. By July 21st, she had to say goodbye to her youngest boys as CPS took custody. She and her husband were homeless — sleeping under tarps, in trap houses, fighting each other, fighting withdrawal, fighting to survive. They divorced, he got sober, and she kept drifting.In April of 2025, Mystic told her dad she wanted to quit. He couldn’t help. Her sister moved their dad and stepmom in with her but told Mystic she had to get clean first. So Mystic went to rehab. And then the unthinkable happened: her oldest son overdosed on methamphetamine. She left treatment, rode eight hours in a taxi, and learned the truth. She relapsed that night and wanted to die too.But grief can break you open or break you down — and Mystic chose the first path. In May 2025, she flushed everything she had left and walked away from the life that was killing her. She moved states, lived with a church deacon when she had nowhere else to go, tried Mississippi, tried Oklahoma, and eventually found her way back to her family. She is rebuilding relationships, healing old wounds, and learning how to live without the substances that once numbed everything.Today, Mystic is sober. She has a boyfriend who treats her with care. She is reconnecting with her children. She is learning how to breathe again. And she is telling her story — not for pity, not for shock value, but because someone out there needs to know that even after the worst kind of loss, you can still choose to live.This episode is heavy, honest, and full of the kind of truth that changes people. Mystic’s story is a reminder that survival is messy, healing is not linear, and sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is stay alive long enough to become who they were meant to be.