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In this deeply personal episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason Coombs sits down with Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart to Heart Adoptions and an adoption advocate with more than 25 years of experience.

Together, they explore the rarely discussed intersection of adoption, addiction, and purpose through both professional insight and lived experience. Jason shares his perspective as a birth father in long-term recovery, opens up about his son Nathan, and reflects on the meaning that can grow from a story still being written.

This conversation is honest, emotional, and full of hope for birth parents, adoptive families, and anyone navigating recovery.

In this episode:

• [01:00] Jason introduces Donna Pope and shares why adoption is central to both his life story and recovery story
• [03:00] The Venn diagram of purpose, adoption, and addiction
• [07:45] Donna’s origin story and the beginning of Heart to Heart Adoptions
• [09:01] Monica’s story: addiction, placement, jail, faith, and extraordinary recovery
• [15:42] Josh’s pivotal question: why was he placed for adoption, but not his older brother?
• [21:35] How common addiction is in adoption stories
• [25:27] Nature, environment, and whether substance use disorder gets passed on
• [30:58] Why attachment is at the heart of both adoption and healing
• [33:10] The painful decision to send a 17-year-old to residential treatment
• [37:23] The response from Donna’s brother that changed everything
• [38:01] Where to follow Donna’s work and what’s coming with Adoptions.com

Key themes from this episode:

• The rarely heard voice of the birth father
• Why voluntary placement can be an act of courage, not abandonment
• How recovery can reshape families across generations
• The questions adoptees carry and why honest conversations matter
• Why attachment and consistent presence matter so much in both adoption and recovery
• Hope for families walking through addiction, adoption, or both

Jason also reflects on what it has meant to remain present in Nathan’s life, and how adoption became part of the deeper story God used in his own recovery journey.

Connect with Donna Pope:

• Heart to Heart Adoptions: hearttoheartadoption.com
• Voices of Adoption Podcast
• Choosing Adoption
• Adoption Utah
• Eternal Family Adoptions
• Adoptions.com

Jason’s book Unhooked is available on Audible and Amazon.

Learn more about Brick House Recovery at www.brickhouserecovery.com.

Join Jason Coombs LIVE each week for tips and tricks and LIVE Q&A’s. Go to https://www.liveunhooked.com/live-unhooked.

For information about treatment services visit https://www.brickhouserecovery.com/

For more information about Warrior Heart Bootcamp for men visit www.awarriorheart.com

https://awarriorheart.com/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Warrior Heart = 2026Brick100

To learn more about the women’s retreat, Heart of a Woman:
https://theheartofawoman.net/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Heart of a Woman = 2026Brick100

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When a family is living through addiction, most of the focus falls on parents and spouses. But siblings carry their own kind of heartbreak, confusion, and hope.

In this episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason Coombs is joined by his brother Cory, his sister Melissa, and co-host Jennifer Chase for an honest conversation about the sibling experience in family recovery. They talk about loving someone from a distance, learning the difference between helping and fixing, and discovering that recovery can change the whole family, not just the person struggling.

You’ll hear how distance sometimes became a healthy boundary, why education helped replace judgment with compassion, how trust was rebuilt slowly over time, and what actually helped their parents during the hardest seasons. This episode is a reminder that showing up with love, honesty, and presence can matter more than having the perfect words.

If you have ever wondered what siblings feel, what they carry quietly, or how family healing really happens, this conversation will stay with you.

Show Notes
In Episode 47, Jason sits down with his brother Cory and sister Melissa to explore a side of family recovery that often goes unspoken: the sibling perspective. Together with Jennifer Chase, they unpack what it was like to love someone through addiction, support their parents from different distances, and watch recovery reshape the entire family system.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why family recovery can begin even before trust feels fully restored
• How geographic distance created natural boundaries during the chaos
• The different ways siblings process fear, confusion, and love
• How education helped replace anger and judgment with understanding
• Why trust is rebuilt slowly, honestly, and over time
• What actually helps parents in crisis and what does not
• Why listening matters more than interrogating
• How simple acts of presence can become powerful turning points in recovery

Episode Highlights:
[01:26] Jason reframes family recovery as a process separate from sobriety
[03:29] How distance became a protective boundary for sibling relationships
[09:22] Jennifer shares what she hopes to learn from a sibling perspective
[10:08] Cory reflects on a brotherly bond that never broke
[13:50] Cory shares the impact of attending Jason’s treatment graduation
[17:34] Melissa opens up about once believing Jason could “just stop”
[18:46] How reading recovery literature and attending family group changed Melissa’s understanding
[22:11] Why trust-building happens slowly and rarely in a straight line
[24:32] Cory explains how Jason’s recovery work became a mirror for his own growth
[30:22] What helped and what did not when supporting their parents
[38:41] Why listening matters more than asking more questions
[43:01] Jason closes with a reflection on showing

Join Jason Coombs LIVE each week for tips and tricks and LIVE Q&A’s. Go to https://www.liveunhooked.com/live-unhooked.

For information about treatment services visit https://www.brickhouserecovery.com/

For more information about Warrior Heart Bootcamp for men visit www.awarriorheart.com

https://awarriorheart.com/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Warrior Heart = 2026Brick100

To learn more about the women’s retreat, Heart of a Woman:
https://theheartofawoman.net/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Heart of a Woman = 2026Brick100

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Episode 46: How Do I Navigate Relapse? - Understanding the Cycle of Change

Relapse is one of the most feared words in a family’s recovery vocabulary. It shatters trust, reignites fear, and leaves everyone asking the same desperate question: Why would they go back after everything they’ve been through? In this raw and revealing episode of the Get Unhooked Podcast, Jason Coombs pulls back the curtain on his own relapse story and reframes how families can respond when their loved one stumbles. The answer is not panic. It’s not control. It’s surrender, and it looks nothing like giving up.

Episode Highlights

• [01:00] Jason introduces the topic: How do I navigate relapse?
• [02:25] Jason recounts his personal history of loss, homelessness, failed rehabs, and incarceration
• [03:24] The drug court graduation that ended with a devastating relapse in Wendover, Nevada
• [05:14] How the removal of external motivation exposed the power of the addict voice
• [07:26] The escalation from one Long Island iced tea to cocaine, debt, and a violent confrontation with a dealer
• [09:39] A participant shares her perspective on surrender and “making friends with the worst case scenario”
• [11:14] Why behaviors don’t always mirror someone’s true stage of change
• [13:19] Jason reads from his book Unhooked on the cycle of relapse and shame
• [16:32] The story of Grace: how a holiday relapse became a springboard to lasting action
• [22:14] Relapse, ambivalence, and the deep identity ties to substance use
• [25:29] Applying recovery principles as a family member and advocate
• [28:30] Introduction to the seven steps of surrender
• [30:11] Why surrender is hopeful, not hopeless

The Day External Motivation Disappeared

Jason opens this episode with a story that most families will recognize in some form. He had done the hard thing. He completed drug court. His felonies were reduced to misdemeanors. His parents took him to lunch, gave him gifts, told him they were proud. By every external measure, he had made it.

Then a coworker invited him to celebrate in Wendover, Nevada. One Long Island iced tea seemed harmless. He never really got in trouble for alcohol, after all. But the drink triggered what he describes as an allergic reaction, both physiological and mental. That single drink ignited a craving that ended the night with a thousand dollars gone, a club ejection for disorderly conduct, and a cocaine binge. By the next morning, shame had already begun feeding the cycle again.

What Jason wants families to understand is this: the promises were real. The commitment was genuine. But when external motivation lifted and internal ambivalence remained, the disease found its opening. Families often smack their foreheads and ask, What were you thinking? The honest answer is that thinking had very little to do with it.

Why Relapse Happens and What It Actually Means

Jason leans on Dr. Prochaska’s stages of

Join Jason Coombs LIVE each week for tips and tricks and LIVE Q&A’s. Go to https://www.liveunhooked.com/live-unhooked.

For information about treatment services visit https://www.brickhouserecovery.com/

For more information about Warrior Heart Bootcamp for men visit www.awarriorheart.com

https://awarriorheart.com/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Warrior Heart = 2026Brick100

To learn more about the women’s retreat, Heart of a Woman:
https://theheartofawoman.net/

$100 DISCOUNT CODE for Heart of a Woman = 2026Brick100