Inside A Chicago Street Junkie's 20-Year Spiral | 3 DUIs, Heroin, Cook County Jail & Finding God
About this episode
Mike Supak shares his harrowing journey through addiction and eventual recovery, highlighting the struggles and transformations he experienced over 20 years.
Mike Supak was a Division 1 track athlete. He never touched a drop of alcohol in four years of high school. He was structured, dedicated, trustworthy — the model kid. Then he discovered alcohol the summer before college and everything changed immediately. What followed was 20 years of cocaine, heroin, DUIs, overdoses, jail, and a slow death that nobody around him could stop. He got his second and third DUIs within 48 hours of each other. He overdosed on heroin in the back of a cab, was Narcanned six times, and showed back up to his family's St. Patrick's Day party hours later wearing a blue paper hospital suit — with no memory of any of it. He tried to die. He kept waking up instead. It wasn't until a judge set his bond at $900,000 to keep him off the streets — and a nun in Saint Augustine, Florida answered a calling from God — that Mike finally found the thing that saved his life. He spent three years with no phone, no TV, no computer, washing his clothes in a five-gallon bucket, praying the rosary three times a day. And it worked. Now seven years sober, Mike is married, reconnected with his kids, back working as a building engineer in Chicago, and more at peace than he has ever…
More episodes of Rise Above with Kevin Lanning
- I Blacked Out Every Night While Running The San Francisco Bureau of HuffPost | Highrise Suicide Attempt and How I Got Sober
- I Drank A Bottle Of Scotch Every Night | From Alcoholic Depression to 39 Years Sober | Suebelle Robbins
- I Was Taking 10 Xanax Bars A Night At 17, Stabbed A Woman At 37 Weeks Pregnant & Sat On A Sidewalk Ready To Die | 11 Years Sober
- I Made My First Million On Wall Street At 28 & Was Broke & Addicted To Opiates By 30
- Inside A Functioning Mom's Secret Alcoholism | My 30-Year Battle With Alcoholism
- 7-OH Pills Destroyed My Life | The SHOCKING Truth About 7-Hydroxymitragynine Addiction
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Rise Above with Kevin Lanning podcast page.