The Kelley Kitley Podcast

America's Social Worker Unfiltered
  • 4.6 (8)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

Hopeful, Honest, and Deeply Human Conversations kelleykitley.substack.com

  1. #48 Christie Tate: NYT Bestselling Author and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick, GROUP

    May 22

    #48 Christie Tate: NYT Bestselling Author and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick, GROUP

    Christie Tate is an essayist and author who writes creative nonfiction and memoir. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Group, which was a Reese’s Book Club selection and has been translated into 19 languages. She is also the author of B.F.F.-- A Memoir of Friendship Lost & Found. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. Her essays have been nominated for Puschcart Prizes, and Kiese Laymon selected her essay, Promised Lands, as the winner of the New Ohio Review’s 2019 nonfiction contest. She writes about addiction, eating disorders, friendship, alienation, recovery, and her Grandma’s farm in Forreston, Texas. She grew up in Dallas and now lives in Chicago with her family. She has finally stopped telling people that she graduated first in her law school class. Please don’t hate her because she has no pets. In this episode Christie shares her experience, strength, and hope as a woman in recovery from an eating disorder, the daily tools she uses rooted in a spiritual practice, and the world’s obsession with being thin through the use of GLP-1’s especially for middle aged women, who don’t medically need it. Tate’s book’s are deeply relatable, vulnerable, and offer a refreshing perspective on how we move through this one precious life. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    31 min
  2. #47 Tricia Sims: Host of Recovery Happy Hour, Pilates Instructor, Former Chef, Sober Since 2016

    May 20

    #47 Tricia Sims: Host of Recovery Happy Hour, Pilates Instructor, Former Chef, Sober Since 2016

    Tricia Sims became a sobriety podcast trailblazer in 2018 when she created the Recovery Happy Hour podcast and since then has archived 139 episodes! Each conversation celebrates inspiring stories of recovery from alcohol addiction and gray area alcohol abuse. She and her guests look at life beyond the bottle and what's current in sober culture. Kitley was a guest on Episode #12 of Recovery Happy Hour talking about the power of surrendering. Kitley and Sims reconnect years later as women in long term recovery on America’s Social Worker Unfiltered podcast. They discuss life changes as Tricia recently celebrated her 45th Birthday, heading into year 10 of recovery, a new marriage, leaving a corporate job and transitioning into teaching pilates. Tricia vulnerably lays out her drinking history starting at the age of sixteen with three shots of whiskey and the progression of her alcohol use as a high achieving, perfectionistic woman in her mid 30’s. She describes the thinking obsession around alcohol use and knowing she’d eventually have to stop drinking after witnessing the destruction and chaos substance use disorder caused her family. As we near the end of May, Mental Health Awareness Month, many of our guests have shared their experience, strength, and hope with alcohol use and their co-morbid mental health disorders, often using substances to self medicate. Tricia talks about her journey with ADHD, anxiety, how she manages her mental health today and the importance of being of service to others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    35 min
  3. #46 Riley Whelan: TikTok Recovery Creator, Recovery.com Social Media Marketing Coordinator, Young Person in Recovery

    May 12

    #46 Riley Whelan: TikTok Recovery Creator, Recovery.com Social Media Marketing Coordinator, Young Person in Recovery

    Riley Whelan is a prominent TikTok creator, sober advocate, and shares content about addiction recovery, ADHD, emotional sobriety, relapse, and the importance of community. Her audience grew through candid videos mixing humor, vulnerability, and recovery education. As a young person, (29 years old) with three years of recovery, one of her videos has 6.7 million views after sharing her story of relapse and hope. Riley is the Social Media Marketing Coordinator for Recovery.com, a tech company that combines independent research with expert guidance on addiction and mental health treatment. Their mission is to help everyone find the best path to recovery through the most comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers worldwide. In this episode Whelan shares her experience, strength, and hope identifying as an alcoholic, her journey as a young person in treatment and transitioning to sober living in Charleston, SC, family dynamics, and changing the conversation of mental health and addiction recovery through social media. Riley is inspiring the next generation of people on a sober journey and provides fresh energy with new perspective for those who have been around for a while and looking to enhance their sober journey! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    36 min
  4. #45 Mary Tilson: Owner of Sun & Moon Sober Living, Recovery Coach, Retreat Leader, Podcast Host

    May 7

    #45 Mary Tilson: Owner of Sun & Moon Sober Living, Recovery Coach, Retreat Leader, Podcast Host

    Mary Tilson is a Certified Professional Recovery Coach (IAPRC) with a Master’s Degree in the Psychology & Neuroscience of Mental Health. She draws on a holistic background, which includes Somatic Experiencing, a body-based approach to healing trauma and stress-related disorders and over a decade of experience as a Yoga & Mindfulness Teacher. Having experienced drug and alcohol addiction firsthand, her approach to coaching is rooted in compassion and understanding. She’s been sober for 13 years and is passionate about helping others build fulfilling lives substance-free. Mary got sober at the age of twenty-three after attending treatment at Hazelden. She then moved to Southeast Asia where she lived at a meditation center and practiced yoga and ultimately landed back in Colorado where she attended college. She’s a spiritual nomad who leads retreats for sober women around the world and hosts the Sun and Moon Sober Living Podcast. In this episode, Mary shares her experience, strength and hope as a woman in recovery, working through perfectionism and anxiety, living a life in early sobriety when she thought life was going to be boring to living a life beyond her wildest imagination, climbing mountains in Nepal. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    36 min
  5. #44 Caroline Beidler, MSW: 3x Author, Mom, Woman in Long Term Recovery, Advocate

    May 5

    #44 Caroline Beidler, MSW: 3x Author, Mom, Woman in Long Term Recovery, Advocate

    Caroline Beidler is an author, speaker, and the Managing Editor of Recovery.com, a company that combines independent research with expert guidance on addiction and mental health treatment. Our mission is to help everyone find the best path to recovery through the most comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers worldwide. She is the author of three books, When You Love Someone in Recovery: A Hopeful Guide for Understanding Addiction with Nelson Books, Downstairs Church, and You Are Not Your Trauma. Her own lived experience in addiction, mental health, and trauma recovery inspires her to help other others find recovery in all its varying forms. In five short years, she has built a global network of recovery supporters through her storytelling platform and accompanying newsletter, Circle of Chairs which reaches thousands weekly. She is a creative and visionary, founding an annual global event on International Women’s Day with different sponsoring organizations each year that brings in thousands of supporters, along with co-leading a global research initiative on family recovery with leaders around the world. Her writing is described as funny, gritty, relatable, and insightful. When she isn’t writing, speaking, or building community, Caroline lives in Eastern Tennessee with her husband and seven-year-old twins where she enjoys hiking in the mountains and building up her community’s local recovery ministry. In this episode, Caroline shares her experience, strength, and hope as a woman in long-term recovery (15 years!), past toxic relationships and trauma, being a sober mom and wife, her passion for the work she embodies, different seasons of recovery, reframing language, talking to our kids about addiction recovery, and the gentle invitation on a spiritual path. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    31 min
  6. #43 Hilary Phelps: Founder of The Right Room, Author, Speaker, Community Builder, Mother, Woman in Long-Term Recovery

    May 1

    #43 Hilary Phelps: Founder of The Right Room, Author, Speaker, Community Builder, Mother, Woman in Long-Term Recovery

    Hilary Phelps spent a long time being a woman who appeared to function — who had the family, the work, the life that looked like something — while quietly managing something she didn’t want to name. The perfectionism. The performing. The slow, creeping sense that the version of herself everyone saw wasn’t the whole story. Alcohol was part of it. So were the choices she made to keep disappearing into her own life rather than living it. The need to be good enough. The belief, wired into her early, that if she just held it together long enough, she’d eventually feel okay. She didn’t feel okay. In 2022, Phelps made her sobriety public. That decision was not about bravery. It was about not being able to pretend anymore that her private experience and her public life were two separate things. The work she was asking other women to do, the honest, uncomfortable work of looking at themselves clearly, required her to do it first. She grew up in Baltimore, the eldest of the Phelps family — a household that understood ambition, excellence, and the particular pressure of being expected to be extraordinary. Hilary spent the first half of her life meeting that expectation. She spent the second half learning that meeting it had cost her something she couldn’t immediately name. She works with women who are somewhere in the middle of their own becoming: not at the beginning, not at the triumphant end, but in the messy, necessary middle. That middle is where she lives too. That’s why she can guide you through it. She founded The Sanctuary because she needed a space that didn't exist: a community for women doing serious inner work that felt like a home rather than a program. A room where you don't have to explain what you're going through, because everyone in it has been in the dark too. In this episode Hilary shares her experience, strength, and hope through her mental health and sobriety journey (19 years!), her daily practice of opening her heart after experiencing what she calls, the quiet collapse, being in the right room, and the release of her forthcoming book in 2027 about women and addiction. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    45 min
  7. #42 Judith McLean: Women for Sobriety Facilitator and Advocate, Woman with Long Term Sobriety

    Apr 29

    #42 Judith McLean: Women for Sobriety Facilitator and Advocate, Woman with Long Term Sobriety

    Women for Sobriety: Experiencing a life-threatening problem with alcohol or another drug is not a moral weakness. It is a serious disorder that demands rigorous attention to healing. Founded by a sociologist, Jean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., in 1975, who believed that women face unique challenges in overcoming addiction, the WFS New Life Program is specifically designed to help women overcome guilt, depression and low self-esteem for which substances have become the primary coping mechanism. To overcome substance use disorders (SUDs), women must address their real needs — those for an increased understanding of self-value, self-worth and self-efficacy. Women learn how to overcome their problematic substance use with peer support and by adopting a new way of thinking based on the 13 Acceptance Statements. Judith McLean is a woman with long term sobriety, (20 years!) a Facilitator, Advocate, and Community Connector for Women for Sobriety. She lives a beautiful life in Hawaii, waking up at 4am to seize the day! She’s found peace along her journey through hot yoga, being near water, volunteering and being of service to others. She practices a way of thinking and behaviors that are rooted in self acceptance and self love. In this episode, Judith shares her experience, strength, and hope while educating listeners about the foundation and principles of WFS. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    36 min
  8. #41 Nikki Soda: Owner of Sodas Consulting, Advocate, Marketer, Public Policy Guru, Board Member Extraordinaire

    Apr 22

    #41 Nikki Soda: Owner of Sodas Consulting, Advocate, Marketer, Public Policy Guru, Board Member Extraordinaire

    Nikki Soda owns Sodas Consulting with her husband Jim and is a highly accomplished advocate and strategic marketer with a strong background in the behavioral health field. She possesses an MS in Addiction Policy from Georgetown University and has amassed 10 years of experience in this domain. In this episode Nikki shares her experience, strength, and hope as a woman in long term recovery, recently celebrating 22 years alcohol and drug free. She’s made it her life’s mission to help other’s achieve sobriety. With a wealth of knowledge acquired from working on both the front end and back end of treatment, Nikki possesses a deep understanding of systems and outcome tracking. Passionate about advocacy and public policy, Nikki actively engages in volunteering and community initiatives to make a meaningful impact. Previously serving as the Director of Membership and State Advocacy for the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP), she leverages her expertise to lead productive discussions with industry leaders and conducts comprehensive tours of treatment centers nationwide. Through these experiences, she has gained a profound understanding of the substance use disorder treatment landscape. Nikki has excelled in various leadership roles, including Director of Business Development and Marketing for renowned treatment facilities. In addition, she has overseen multiple alumni programs while serving on the board of the Treatment Professionals and Alumni Services. Her diverse responsibilities in creating and managing a treatment center start-up have honed her skills in admissions, policy development, procedure implementation, and business growth. As a result, Nikki has built an impressive reputation and is frequently sought after for client placement recommendations. Residing in Jupiter, FL, Nikki enjoys a spending time with her husband, 14 year old daughter, and their Great Dane, Sophie. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com

    33 min
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4.6
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Hopeful, Honest, and Deeply Human Conversations kelleykitley.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    America's Social Worker Unfiltered
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Kelley Kitley
  • Show Website
    The Kelley Kitley Podcast

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