The No Matter What Club podcast aims to advocate, educate, and inform listeners about substance abuse and mental health challenges within the LGBTQ+ community. It welcomes both LGBTQ+ individuals and allies who are struggling with these issues, or who are affected by them. Through heartfelt and honest stories, the podcast offers transparency and insight, providing even better access to LGBTQ+ recovery resources and professionals dedicated to championing this community.
Season finale!
Paulo and Anthony sit down with two Chicago recovery constants, John O and Alley B, for a conversation that's equal parts celebration and real talk. John and Alley share what it took to get sober during the Great Recession and actually build a life on the other side of it, including the wisdom of finishing the work on the inside before diving into dating.
They dig into leaning on the sober community when things get hard, and the idea that connection, not sobriety alone is the real opposite of addiction. It's a conversation about what becomes possible when we get sober: the ability to actually show up for life.
And in true No Matter What Club fashion, Paulo and Anthony get vulnerable too, sharing a painful twist in their own journey together and the lessons and light that came out of it. Watch and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
#RecoveryPodcast #SoberLife #RecoveryJourney #SobrietyMatters #OneDayAtATime #NoMatterWhatClub #RecoveryCommunity
Hosts:
Paulo Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Anthony Arranaga-Grayson Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Special Guests:
John O, Chicago
Alley B, Chicago
2 Jul 2026
The Road to Chemsex Recovery
This week, Paulo, Anthony, and Mell sit down with Ross Mondschain at the Chicago Podcast Studio for a deep dive into chemsex recovery — both during treatment and long after.
They talk through doing parts work with Internal Family Systems, learning to settle back into the body in early treatment, and then settling into the mind for the harder work around chemsex itself. Ross shares why safety containers matter so much in those first few months of sobriety, and then we talk about what it actually looks like to come to No Matter What Recovery for chemsex-specific work, and how clients navigate the transition out of treatment — including the sexual recovery plan that helps set people up for lasting success.
New episode streaming now on all your favorite podcast platforms.
Host:
Paulo Arranaga-Grayson
Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Anthony Arranaga-Grayson
Co-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Mell McCracken
Director of Chemsex & LGBTQ+ Programs
Special Guest:
Ross Mondschain, LCPC CST
About Connection Counseling
19 Jun 2026
Hocus Pocus
In this episode of the No Matter What Club podcast, Paulo, Anthony, and Thomas sit down with Chicago Roundup Chair Melissa Young for a conversation that covers a lot of ground — sage advice from old-timers in recovery, the "hocus-pocus theory," the legend of local drag king icon Jackson Masters, and a shared love of Madonna and other muses. Melissa also takes us back to the beginnings of the Chicago Roundup and how it became a safe space for people living with HIV during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Host:
Paulo Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Anthony Arranaga-GraysonCo-Founder, No Matter What Recovery
Thomas AllenProgram Director, No Matter What Recovery
ChicagoSpecial Guest:
Melissa YoungChair, Chicago Roundup
Who has been a guest on No Matter What Club
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Sandra Vergara
Jessica Steinman
TJ Woodward
Kendall Gender
Christina Simos
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 30 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
41
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
51
Contact No Matter What Club
Guest appearances
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