The birds are still tweeting ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com Luis grew up as a Jehovah's Witness in a household marked by his mother's severe mental health challenges, physical disability, and domestic violence. By age eight he was her primary carer. When his mother died during his teen years, his grief spiraled into heavy substance use. After his son was born, child protection removed the child from his care. Luis committed to recovery: he entered detox, returned to school, worked with a psychologist, and documented his progress through letters from supporters. Within months he regained full custody. Today, as a peer worker and final-year community services student, Luis supports young fathers and people experiencing homelessness, drawing on his lived experience to build trust and hope where systems have failed. Luis Montero is a peer worker and community services student supporting people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. A single father to his seven-year-old son, Luis spent his teens and early adulthood navigating addiction, child protection involvement, and rough sleeping. He is now rebuilding his life while helping others do the same. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Luis shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Early caregiver responsibility became his template for adulthood. • Shame silenced him before connection could save him. • Substance use masked grief and powerlessness, not moral failure. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and opening 02:41 Hopes for 2026: finishing studies, peer work, time with his son 05:37 Growing up: Jehovah's Witnesses, mother's illness and disability 11:50 Childhood without celebration, ostracized, carer at eight 14:09 Father's belittling, domestic violence, learning what manhood meant 18:15 Finding a father figure; substance use and numbing pain 28:54 Rock bottom: substance use, homelessness, suicidal ideation 30:45 What street life taught him: listening, compassion, relationships 37:46 Peer work now: building trust with people experiencing homelessness 42:56 Teaching his son: freedom of expression, exploration, choice 49:30 Dream: creating support services for young fathers 51:00 Closing: the birds are still tweeting 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience • Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #kintsugistories #livexperience #peakwork #homelessness #recovery #fatherhood #mentalhealth #childprotection #substanceuse #communityservices ——— Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.
