In this honest and deeply human conversation, speaker, author, prevention advocate, and Executive Director of RISE TOGETHER, Nadine Machkovech, joins Lisa Wall of Mission Programs & Community Care at SHE RECOVERS. Together, they explore what becomes possible when we loosen our grip on perfection and the pressure to hold it all together as recovery advocates, leaders, mothers, partners, and friends. They reflect on recovering out loud with honesty and courageous vulnerability as a pathway to healing, connection, and empowerment.

Nadine shares her journey of entering recovery in her early twenties, navigating the expectations of being a visible voice in the recovery space, and the profound loss of her teenage son to overdose. She speaks to the turning points that invited her to stop hiding her pain and grief, and to the role that connection and storytelling have played in her healing, especially in reaching and supporting the next generation.

Together, Nadine and Lisa delve into what it means to redefine recovery, to listen to intuition as a guide, and to permit ourselves to show up just as we are. They also offer a clear reminder that we do not have to wait to hit rock bottom to pursue recovery.

Woven throughout the conversation are reflections from Nadine’s book, Enough Already: A Journey from Hiding to Healing, along with an invitation to consider authenticity, community, and self-compassion as essential forms of recovery medicine. Nadine reminds us that no one should have to navigate their struggles alone, and that sharing our stories can create a ripple effect of meaningful change.

About Nadine Machkovech

Nadine Machkovech is a TEDx speaker, author of Enough Already, and Executive Director of RISE TOGETHER. She leads evidence-backed, connection-centered prevention work informed by research published and indexed through the NIH, validating the power of storytelling and trusted relationships in strengthening youth mental health. Through lived experience and practical tools, Nadine helps audiences build resilience, deepen connection, and turn vulnerability into meaningful action. Having transformed personal pain into purpose, she has reached over one million people with her message of self-worth, healing, and courageous truth-telling.

Episode Resources:

NadineSpeaks.com: Featuring Nadine’s books, workshops, and resources
Book: Enough Already, A Journey from Hiding to Healing
TedX Talk: The Secret to Being Enough
RiseTogether: a peer-led, connection-centered prevention model that helps communities create spaces where young people feel safe speaking honestly. EmpowerHER: Organization dedicated to redefining care, reclaiming health, and empowering women.

SHE RECOVERS Support for the Next Generation is here for you.

If you’re a young woman or non-binary individual aged 18-35 who is navigating recovery, you don’t have to do it alone. Facilitated by SHE RECOVERS Certified Professionals, this monthly online support group and gathering was designed to meet the needs of young adults like you. Learn more here.

In this intimate conversation, Taryn Strong sits down with beloved teacher, writer, and artist Elena Brower to explore the layered realities of recovery—including cannabis dependency, tobacco addiction, grief, and shame. Elena shares the self-abandonment loop that kept her stuck, the moment of truth that helped her stop hiding, and the simple, powerful practices that helped her rebuild trust with herself.

Together, they also open into grief as a lived practice—not something to power through but something to move with—and they explore how shame can stunt our inner world…and how repair, compassion, and do-overs can restore what shame disconnects. Woven throughout is the heart of Elena’s book and journal, Hold Nothing, and the recovery medicine of storytelling, service, and self-honesty.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Recovery from cannabis and the quiet dependency many struggle to name
• The daily internal battle: “You can do it. No, you can’t.”
• The role of hiding in addiction - and how shame feeds secrecy
• What helped Elena quit cannabis (and what replaced the ritual)
• Recovery from tobacco and the emotional roots underneath the habit
• Why substances often function as a stand-in for connection and solitude
• Grief as a practice - learning to respect pain and exhaustion as pathways of healing
• Building altars, talking to loved ones who have died, and honouring impermanence
• Shame stress, nervous system repair, and the power of relational “do-overs”
• The phrase ‘how human of me’ as an empathy-based pattern interrupter
• Elena’s service work: hospice volunteering, teaching yoga in prison, and supporting formerly incarcerated women
• A loving invitation for anyone quietly questioning their relationship with a substance or behaviour

Resources Mentioned:

• Elena's website here: books, workshops, resources
• Book: The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor
• Research on shame stress referenced: Allan Schore
• Nonviolent communication: Judith Hanson Lasater
• Death doula course: Sierra Campbell
• On The Inside: nonprofit providing rehumanizing and healing programming to incarcerated women while reducing recidivism and intergenerational incarceration

About Elena Brower:

Elena Brower is a bestselling author, artist, mentor, and yoga/meditation teacher. Known for her depth, honesty, and devotion to practice, Elena creates resources that help people meet themselves with clarity, compassion, and courage—including her journals and the book Hold Nothing.

About SHE RECOVERS® Foundation

SHE RECOVERS Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving thousands of women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful and you are able, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

In this candid and deeply human conversation, SHE RECOVERS® co-founder Dr. Dawn Nickel sits down with Elizabeth Gilbert to explore the intertwined threads of love and sex addiction, codependency, drug dependence, and recovery - core themes of Liz’s newest book, All the Way to the River. Liz shares openly about her own compulsive relationship patterns, her partner Rayya's relapse, and the moment that brought Liz to her knees. Together, Dawn and Liz explore 12-step recovery, emotional repair, and what it means to start again in the aftermath of profound loss. What emerges is a raw, insightful look at addiction, grief, and the deep courage it takes to heal and return to oneself.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Book - All The Way to the River: available at Indigo, Powells.com, bookshop.org/shop/elizabeth_reads, and at your local independent bookstore.

Elizabeth's website: www.elizabethgilbert.com

Elizabeth's Substack: https://elizabethgilbert.substack.com/

SHE RECOVERS: www.sherecovers.org

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous: https://slaafws.org/

Narcotics Anonymous: https://na.org/

Al-Anon: https://al-anon.org/

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.