Kevin Griffin was a talented musician who struggled with addiction, felt directionless in life and eventually became homeless. Until he discovered Buddhism and a recovery program — and wrote a book that blended the two concepts and helped countless readers struggling with their own addictions. One of those readers was Vic Vela, Back from Broken's host. That connection adds a personal angle to an episode that's full of surprises and hope.
Back from Broken is a show about how we are all broken sometimes, and how we need help from time to time. If you’re struggling, you can seek help through a list of resources we've compiled.
Host: Vic Vela
Lead producer: Rebekah Romberg
Editors: Dennis Funk, Ann Marie Awad
Producers: Jo Erickson, Luis Antonio Perez
Music: Daniel Mescher, Brad Turner
Executive producers: Brad Turner, Rachel Estabrook
Thanks also to Hart van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Martin Skavish, Kim Nguyen, Francie Swidler.
On Twitter: @VicVela1
Transcript
Vic Vela:
In three, two, one.
This past Christmas, a friend of mine got me this nutcracker. It looks like your standard nutcracker in a lot of ways — he's got a red coat and green pants, some gold accents and knee-high black boots, but there's something a little different about this guy. His eyes are closed, he's sitting down and he's meditating. The stand that he sits on says namaste.
When my friend gave it to me, he said, “I saw it and thought of you and your hippie, Buddhist, peace-on-earth, recovery s---.” And I totally get it. Since the start of my recovery journey from a longtime crack cocaine addiction in 2015, Buddhism has become a big part of my life. And it really started with a book called “One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps.” You see, this book was pivotal in my recovery. It came into my life at a time when I was starting to feel the benefits of sobriety, you know, physically, I was feeling good, my head was clear. But spiritually I felt a certain emptiness.
I got into a 12-Step program and I was working the steps, but I got stuck on step number two. It says that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Even though I was raised Catholic, I just never connected with the standard Western definition of an all-knowing God.
So one day a friend in the 12-Step program recommended Buddhism. I was skeptical. That was for rich white people in Boulder, or so I thought at the time, but I decided to do some research. I went to Google and typed Buddhism and the 12 Steps, and boom! The book was the first result. And once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Reading this book became a form of unconscious meditation for me. And it was honestly like a total rewiring of my brain. Once I was able to let go of this confined idea of what spirituality or religion looked like, it set me free. “One Breath at a Time” was not only a game changer for me; it may very well have been a lifesaver. I still read it every year.
I'm Vic Vela. I'm a journalist, a storyteller and a recovering drug addict. And this is “Back from Broken,” from Colorado Public Radio — stories about the highest highs, the darkest moments and what it takes to make a comeback.
Today I'm speaking with the author of “One Breath at a Time,” Kevin Griffin. He had a similar struggle to mine, so I was excited to get a look inside Kevin's own recovery — what inspired him to write the book and to learn about how he connected to spirituality on his course to sobriety.
Kevin Griffin:
I love writing and I love recovery and I love the Dharma, Buddhism and it just turned out that that was a combination that the world had some need for.
Vic Vela:
Well, I first want to thank you personally, because it changed my life in a very profound way. You know, it changed the course of my recovery. And I'm curious how often people tell you the same kind of thing, that your work has changed their lives.
Kevin Griffin:
Often enough to make me feel good about it. It's very moving to think that, you know, something I did really for myself, frankly, has turned out to be of benefit to a lot of other people.
Vic Vela:
“One Breath at a Time” isn't just a pivotal book for me, it's a significant read in the recovery community. It's sold nearly 100,000 copies and part of what makes it so effective is how relatable it is. Kevin's own struggles with addiction led him to Buddhism, which ultimately helped him get on the path to recovery. Kevin grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s in an upper-middle-class household in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but he says his family had a lot of problems.
Kevin Griffin:
I was raised in a very alcohol-saturated environment, but it was very normalized. So it was like cocktail parties, you know, and everybody looks good. And then my brothers started to have their problems, one by one. So there was this dysfunction underlying everything. We all went to psychiatrists in those days, but that was sort of a cultural thing. You subscribed to the New Yorker and the New Yorker would have cartoons about seeing psychoanalysts. It was a whole, like, class thing.
Vic Vela:
Interesting. Well, why did you go, what were you struggling with?
Kevin Griffin:
I started to experience depression before I ever had a drink, which is an important part of my recovery story, because it indicates to me that my depression wasn't caused by drinking and drugs. It's another condition, and it's something that I've had to deal with throughout my recovery.
I know this may sound strange, but when I was able to say, “I'm depressed,” for me, that was like a sign that I'm an adult now, like having a drink. Grown-ups drink and they get depressed. Now, that's, it's a pretty sad model, but that was kind of the model in my family.
Vic Vela:
Well, Kevin, what did depression look like and feel like for you? You know, because it, it can manifest in a lot of different ways and depending on the person. What did it feel like when you were 14?
Kevin Griffin:
It felt like when I get home from school, I just have to lie down on the couch and go to sleep. It felt like life is pointless, that I hate school, I hate my family, that my only refuge is my guitar. You know, my only way of surviving in this world is going to be becoming a musician. Then I'll escape.
Vic Vela:
Kevin was constantly looking for that escape. At the very core of his depression was an emptiness that he couldn't define much less fill. He went through a period of dropping in and out of high school and took solace in music. The dream of becoming a rock star became deeply ingrained in his identity. He went to therapy, which he says didn't do much. Kevin says his problems were seen as a weird mystery. And his doctor was like a cliché, the stoic silent shrink. It was at this time that alcohol entered Kevin's life.
When did you drink for the first time? Do you remember that experience?
Kevin Griffin:
Oh, yeah, of course. Who doesn't remember that? No alcoholic doesn't remember their first drink. It was a 7 and 7 — 7 Up and Seagram’s Seven. And my brother Michael made it for me, and we were in what we called the library in our house. [laughing]
Vic Vela:
I love the upscale-ness of these problems.
Kevin Griffin:
Well, I know.
Vic Vela:
The New Yorker cartoons and the library, yeah.
Kevin Griffin:
You know, it's so funny looking back at it now through the lens of privilege and understanding what just seemed like normal at that time and seeing how much privilege there was in it, and there was a lot of snobbery that went along with that, of course, but I had that 7 and 7, and it was good and I felt good. And it just was like, I need to do this.
I think it was shortly after that, I dropped out for the first time and I got a job mowing the lawn in the local cemetery, right up the street. What I remember about that job, we had to push the mowers cause it was like an old cemetery. We had to like maneuver between the different headstones. A lot of my relatives were buried there and I would be pushing and I'd be calculating in my mind how many bottles of booze I could buy based on how many hours I'd worked that day.
Vic Vela:
Oh wow.
Kevin Griffin:
And that's, I've learned now to understand that that's what we call alcoholic thinking. That was like really? That's what you're doing? Okay.
Vic Vela:
Wow. So now you have this reward system playing out where you're doing hard work and you're measuring it in bottles of booze. What was it about booze? I mean, everyone knows what booze is like, but you know what I mean? Like for you at that time, you were depressed and struggling. What did it do for you?
Kevin Griffin:
You know, it's that, it's just like, this is where the fun is. You know, there's a lot to it, right? Because there's this rebellion in it. There's this being an adult. One of my ways of thinking about what happens to us as addicts is that as children, we kind of see the world in magical terms. And then when we become teenagers, we realize that the world isn't magical anymore. But then if we discover drugs and alcohol, it's like, oh, here's the adult magic. And it's that thing that's like, oh, so I can still have the magic of childhood. It just involves imbibing these intoxicants. And so it was very much that just like, this is cool. It's fun. It's what adults do.
Vic Vela:
Alcohol became another Band-Aid to try to patch up that depressive void. Kevin started drinking regularly during his high school years and soon got into marijuana. It wasn't long before he progressed to pills and speed. His mom and dad noticed that Kevin was constantly getting in trouble at school and his time in therapy wasn't doing much to help his depression. They started to get concerned. And by the time he turned 17, Kevin says his parents were at a loss.
Kevin Griffin:
My parents, I feel so bad for them, because they had these five sons who were beautiful people, but trying to raise them while they're dropping out and getting in trouble and screwing up — and I'm number five and they're just done. And so they sent me to a mental hospital, a private mental hospital, only the best, which actually turned out to be kind of my coming of age. It's where I wrote my first song and lost my virginity and started to become more of an adult.
Vic Vela:
Interesting. How long were you there?
Kevin Griffin:
A year.
Vic Vela:
What was that experience like?
Kevin Griffin:
It was unique. The thing is, it was, it was this private hospital in Philadelphia where they had an open part and then they had a locked part. And when I went in, I was in the open part. There were a bunch of young people. There was a drug dealer up the hall. And we were allowed to go out, so I would go to concerts — saw Hendrix and Traffic and The Band and various bands. And then we'd get loaded and then we'd come back. And one night I had a bad drug experience and I came back and they hit me up with Thorazine, to bring me back down. But then at a certain point, my shrink decided — I had a conflict with him. He put me in the locked ward, and that was really different.
Vic Vela:
That's incredible to me. Like, did you think, Kevin, at that time when you were in that locked area, that wow, there's something wrong with me?
Kevin Griffin:
No, I thought there was something wrong with them. Seriously! I did!
Vic Vela:
So you, even though you're in a mental hospital, you're like, what am I doing here?
Kevin Griffin:
“It's not my problem. I have no problem.” No, I mean, I really did, you know, I wanted to get out, but at the same time there was a pleasantness there. I fell in love there. And we had a band, I'm writing music.
Vic Vela:
By the time Kevin turned 19, the insurance money ran out and he left that hospital. Being there did more to inspire him to become a musician than it did to help him overcome his issues with drugs and alcohol. After he left, Kevin started to pursue his music career seriously and played with multiple bands through his twenties. While he traveled and played music professionally, he lived his life mostly on the road or out of motels.
Kevin Griffin:
The strange thing is that in a way being a musician saved me.
Vic Vela:
Interesting.
Kevin Griffin:
Because when you're playing in a club, you have to be conscious at one o'clock in the morning, you know? And so I had to control it. The thing is, when I was between 19 and 22, that's when I really came close to killing myself with drugs, where I was taking Quaaludes with booze and coke and everything just mixed together and just indiscriminate. But then my body couldn't handle it. So I would still drink. I would still binge, I would still have blackouts, but when I would, I would really pay the price. I do have a certain discipline. I never could just go completely out of control. You know, every addict has a different story, and I had a story that made it possible for me to be in denial for longer than I might've been.
I could have easily gotten sober when I was 20. I mean, I needed it then. It was obvious that I was an alcoholic and an addict immediately, but because I was able to play that game and “control it,” except for when I didn’t, I was able to go, “well, I'm in control,” right?
Vic Vela:
No, but it makes sense, because even though I progressed in my drug use, kind of like you, I did stay somewhat disciplined around other things. Like, you know, I had HIV, and so if I didn't take my medication every day, I wouldn't be here. Forget about drugs, I'd be dead by the other thing. But I always took care of that. I always took care of my medical needs around the virus. So I could relate to you in that you did what you had to do to stay disciplined while you were working.
Kevin Griffin:
There's sort of a model that I think is a false model, which is that you're just an addict or you're just an alcoholic — that's all of who you are, that defines you. And most of us have parallel lives. And for me, my parallel life was this spiritual search, which music was sort of the manifestation of that in a way. You know, music is a spiritual thing, and wanting to be a musician, it expresses a spiritual longing, but there was also this more literal search, where I was like, you know, I started meditating when I was 28 and I didn't get sober till I was 35. So there was this longing for something,
Vic Vela:
This was in the late ‘70s, about 10 years after the Beatles went to India and helped popularize transcendental meditation. At the time, Kevin played guitar for an Afro-fusion band called Zzebra — that's zebra with two z’s, by the way. But Kevin still struggled with his depression and felt an absolute longing to understand life. He thought meditation could be the key to both.
Kevin Griffin:
The underlying impulse really was the meditation is going to fix this depression thing, it’s going to make me happy, but it's going to be this like bliss. You know, you just have these weird images, you know, of yogis in the Himalayas. And that somehow you're going to, who knows? I mean, it just like, it's so vague. But yeah, it was just a fantasy. So essentially what I was thinking is it's going to be like the best drug you ever took, and it's going to be free.
Vic Vela:
You had lofty expectations.
Kevin Griffin:
Oh yeah, absolutely. And they did not pay off, because that's not how meditation works.
Vic Vela:
Buddhism would become a tool that guided the rest of Kevin's life, but not before a wild cross-country road trip. We'll hear all about it, after a quick break.
When Kevin was in his late twenties, his band Zzebra got close to making it big. Huge names in music like David Geffen and Leon Russell took an interest in group, but the band leader, who also abused drugs and alcohol, always rejected record deals. Kevin didn't see a future with them, so he left and started to focus on Buddhist meditation. He spent a year going to meditation retreats, trying to find that transcendent bliss he always dreamed of, but he was unemployed, still drinking and using drugs. And he didn't have a place to live. When he would return from retreats, all those problems were just waiting for him when he got back. So he decided to go all-in and jump into his spirituality, full-time.
Kevin Griffin:
When Buddhism wasn't working, I met this strange figure, kind of like a homeless guru, if you will, who said I should become homeless like him, if I wanted to become enlightened. And he would make me enlightened if I would come and live on faith with him. So I did that. By then I had kind of rebuilt my life over the course of six months, had a job, had a band, you know, had a place to live. And I was like, Oh, I'll get rid of all that because I need to get enlightened. So I go off hitchhiking and traveling around the country with this guy for a couple of months. And that was insane. I mean, we were living on faith, you know.
Vic Vela:
What did “living on faith” look like with your homeless guru?
Kevin Griffin:
It was not always great. You know, the one that really stands out in my mind — he dropped me off at I-25 north of Taos and said, “Meet me back in Boston in three days.” And he drove off.
Vic Vela:
That means Kevin was stranded in northern New Mexico and had to find his way to the East Coast. By car, that's at least a 33-hour trip.
Kevin Griffin:
Fortunately, I had my guitar because I found that when you're hitchhiking a guitar is a good thing that makes people feel safe. [Laughing] So I hitchhiked across the country and people gave me food and I crashed by the side of the road and made it to Boston. And then, you know, he would find somebody who had a car and some money and we would live out of a motel room. And it was, it was basically a low-rent cult.
Vic Vela:
Kevin wasn't drinking much during this time, but he got fed up with his homeless guru. He moved back to California to rebuild his life. He slept on couches and even lived in a friend's van for a while. While struggling to find stable housing, he started drinking and using again. Eventually he was able to get his own place. He got back into playing music. And finally, one night Kevin knew it was time for a real change.
Kevin Griffin:
The last night of my drinking, we were in this cheesy club outside LA making like 35 bucks a night, which was bad money, even 35 years ago. And after we'd gotten fired from the gig, the drummer I was playing with, who I really respected, he said, as he was walking out the door, “I remember now why I don't like playing in clubs. I hate drugs.” And I was holding the Heineken in my hand.
Vic Vela:
Of course you were. Oh man.
Kevin Griffin:
And I didn't think he was talking about me, but…
Vic Vela:
But he was.
Kevin Griffin:
Yeah, yeah.
Vic Vela:
When did that register?
Kevin Griffin:
It registered right then. The next morning I was sober. I stopped just overnight. I don't know what happened beyond that. You know, it was like, it was an accumulation, right? It was like, I started thinking about, am I an alcoholic? Then I tried to control it. Then it got worse and worse and worse. Then my life was really messed up and I wasn't getting anywhere. So really in my mind, this is what was happening: I've done everything else. I've tried therapy. I've tried Buddhism. I've tried music. I've tried relationships. None of these things have fixed me. Maybe this stupid sobriety thing will work.
Vic Vela:
Kevin found that meditation helped him a lot in those early days of sobriety. He says having a daily practice and the discipline it requires helped ease the process of becoming newly sober. He also started to understand and appreciate meditation for what it was — not some magical gateway to understand the meaning of life, but rather a way to be present in his life.
After a year without drinking, he decided to join a formal recovery program. He got a sponsor and started attending meetings regularly.
So how did your view of happiness change from, from when you were a musician to when you were not just becoming sober, but actively participating in a program?
Kevin Griffin:
What I realized was that my happiness wasn't contingent on the things that I thought it was contingent on. It wasn't contingent on being a musician or being anything in particular. You know, that that identity was not necessary. It wasn't contingent on being in a relationship, that I could be single. So I realized, happiness is just like right here. It's in being alive and being connected with people.
Vic Vela:
Well, Kevin, so tell me about becoming a writer and when you decided to write “One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps.”
Kevin Griffin:
Yeah. At three years sober, I realized, Oh, I always identified as I'm a high school dropout. And as weird as that is, that was like, cool. Like I'm a high school dropout who had to go to a mental hospital and I'm a rock musician, okay, that's who I am. That's pretty cool. I'm a rebel. I'm a bad-ass, you know? And then I was like, you know, I'm 38, the music career is not happening. It's not going to happen. And I noticed these other people in the program go to school. Could I go to school? So I go to my sponsor. I'm like, I was thinking about going back to college, but it would take four years to get a degree. And he was like, “Yeah, in four years you're going to be four years older and you can either have a degree or not have one.” So I was like, “Oh, that sounds like some of that AA wisdom right there, you know?”
And my first English class, I'm just writing and I'm really having fun, it’s great. At the end of the class, the teacher says, “Do you ever think about being a writer?” And I just started writing and I just fell in love with it. And of course, sucker that I am, I go, okay, I'm going to be a novelist now. Because I'm like, I can be a rock star; I'll be a novelist. That's good. So I kind of set off on another illusion that like, Oh, now I've got this heroic thing that's going to happen to me. But I wrote that novel, didn't get published, but I got into grad school, creative writing. Wrote another novel, didn't get published, finished grad school. I was broke, in debt, had to get a job, look for jobs with the title “writer” in them.
So I became a technical writer. Now I'm like 10 years, 11 years, 12 years sober. And I know we were talking about like, it's okay. I realized, Oh, I invested again in an identity that I thought was going to fix me and I need to let go of that, ‘cause I'm happy. And I'm very serious about my Buddhist practice. And then I'm invited into a teacher training program. I start teaching and right away recovery kind of slips into my talks. And I actually remember apologizing for that. Like, Oh, I know you people don't want to hear about that. But after one night early in this process, somebody comes up and says, yeah, I want to hear about that. I'm in the program too. So I started to realize that there were other people like me, I'm not the only sober Buddhist.
Vic Vela:
Yeah. And it was purely accidental.
Kevin Griffin:
Yeah, totally.
Vic Vela:
I love how you talked about how we had all these things in our mind that we think will make us happy. And so you had this plan to be a musician then, Ooh, I'm going to be a writer. I’m going to be writing a novel. It wasn't until you let go of those things, right?
Kevin Griffin:
Exactly.
Vic Vela:
It seems counterintuitive, you know, once I've stopped plotting out this scene of happiness around me and just staying present, then maybe something's going to happen. And it, does. Yeah, it's crazy.
Kevin Griffin:
Basically after 9/11, I lost my tech writing job. And my wife who is an English professor who thinks like this said, “Why don’t you consider this to be a sabbatical?” I was like, “A sabbatical, great, I like that. I'll go for that.” Take unemployment for awhile and write your book proposal. And she's a great editor. So I was trying to get it started and I would write, write some, I'd print it out. I'd run upstairs to her office, hand it to her and she'd read it. She'd come down. “No, that's not it. Keep going.” And she guided me to find the voice. And, I had had novels out to agents and collected rejections and you know, and, and gone to writers’ conferences and tried to connect. As soon as I wrote this book proposal, I get an agent, they sell it. It's like, Oh, this is the thing I was supposed to be doing.
Vic Vela:
Kevin’s book explores many facets of Buddhism and explains how mindfulness and other practices can enhance more traditional recovery programs. And that was absolutely the case for me. When I got stuck on that second step, God was no friend of mine, or so I thought after everything I went through in my life. Kevin's book really helped the God medicine go down easier, so to speak. And that's part of the reason the book paired so well with my program. Kevin says there's a concept at the very core of Buddhism that mirrors a concept in 12-Step recovery.
Kevin Griffin:
What makes Buddhism such a natural fit for recovery is that right in the core teaching of Buddhism is the four noble truths. The first truth is the truth that there is suffering. But the second truth is the key, which says that our suffering is really caused by our craving and by our clinging. And that, of course, makes it a partner of addiction. It's, it's defining almost that our lives are almost defined by addiction.
Vic Vela:
It's the constant craving of addiction. It's the ultimate form of suffering.
Kevin Griffin:
Yeah. So then the third noble truth, though, says that if we stop craving that there's freedom. And so, wow. Okay. That's what we want to know. That's, you know, in the 12 Steps, that's saying, we came to believe that the power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I'll put the power aside for now. But just to say that it's saying, yeah, we can be restored to sanity and Buddhism says the same thing. And then the fourth truth is the path that gives us the tools. And so it's very similar in that way to the steps in terms of being very practical and about life itself. It's not esoteric. It's not metaphysical.
Vic Vela:
Let's talk about God.
Kevin Griffin:
Okay.
Vic Vela:
[Laughing] And the God issue as it relates to the 12 Steps. That’s a common barrier, as you know, that people put up when it comes to the 12 Steps. I often hear people say, well, I know I need help, but I don't want to sit in a meeting and talk about God. And some people go a step further and say they're against any, they're against religion or whatever. And now the 12 Steps says it's not a religious program, obviously, but there are a lot of references to Christianity in the Alcoholics Anonymous book, let's be real.
Kevin Griffin:
For sure.
Vic Vela:
Please talk, cause this, this is really important. Please talk about how using Buddhism as a companion can help people deal with that God part.
Kevin Griffin:
Yeah. Besides the fact that I wanted to teach meditation to people in recovery, this is the second big reason why I wanted to do this work: the obstruction that I saw people had with God and my sense that you could use Buddhism as a way to work with that. And I will say, because this is such a deep and broad topic, that my second book, called “A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery” is totally about this. And it took a whole book for me to explain my thinking about it. So I will try to do so in less than book-length form here.
Vic Vela:
Yeah, Cliff's Notes version of God.
Kevin Griffin:
So it comes down to, fundamentally, Dharma as God. And so then you have to understand what is Dharma. So the Dharma refers to, essentially ,the teachings of the Buddha, although it has a broader meaning of “truth,” kind of spiritual truth. So the idea for me is that if I turn my will in my life over to the power of the Dharma, then what I'm doing is I'm trying to follow or live in accordance with these teachings, which are things like mindfulness. I'm going to try to turn my will and my life over to the power of mindfulness. I'm going to try to turn my will and my life over to the power of loving kindness, of right action, of right intention, of right effort. So the key, it seems to me, to God in the Steps is that we recognize that we're talking about powers greater than ourselves.
And the problem for addicts is that we try to be that power, or that we fight the powers that exist that are unfightable. And the process is really one in which we try to live in harmony and let go of the results, let go of controlling. And that's why my story, as you were kind of pointing out, was realizing, like, when I was trying to make myself into a rock star or into a novelist and the world was pushing back, it's because I wasn't really moving in harmony with what needed to happen. And when I started to just show up and do what was in front of me and what the world was calling for, then everything kind of played out much better.
So it's really about this kind of non-conflict with the world and trying to just do the next right thing. Of course, that means you have to figure out what that is, you know, what's right. But, but it basically means you don't have to leap. Just take a small step, just take the next step. As we know, it's like just don't drink or use today.
Vic Vela:
Yeah.
Kevin Griffin:
Just do the little steps and then things unfold.
Vic Vela:
You know, we often hear addiction talked about like it's a battle. Like when someone says, I have a friend who is battling addiction or a loved one has lost their battle with addiction. When I turned to Buddhism in my recovery journey, I realized that the more we try to fight our addiction, to go to war or battle with our drug and alcohol use, we’ll always lose. It's in surrender, when we stop fighting, that our recovery starts. And through Buddhism, I learned that surrender is not the same as giving up. As Kevin puts it in “One Breath at a Time,” the great irony in this process is that only in surrender, do we grow.
Oh, and by the way, that little meditating nutcracker? It's still in my living room well after Christmas. That's one thing I haven't surrendered.
Kevin Griffin continues to teach Buddhism and write books about mindfulness and recovery. In fact, his latest book builds on “One Breath at a Time.” It's called “Buddhism and the 12 Steps: Daily Reflections.”
“Back from Broken” is a show about how we're all broken sometimes and how we need help from time to time. If you're struggling with addiction, you could find a list of resources at our website, backfrombroken.org.
Thanks for listening to “Back from Broken.” Please review the show on Apple Podcasts — it really helps other people find it. “Back from Broken” is hosted by me, Vic Vela. It's a production of Colorado Public Radio’s Audio Innovations Studio and CPR News. Our lead producer today was Rebekah Romberg, and you can find a list of all the folks who worked hard to make this episode in the show notes. This podcast is made possible by Colorado Public Radio members. Learn more about supporting “Back from Broken” at CPR.org.
