I Love Being Sober

What does your spine have to do with staying sober? More than you think. In this episode of I Love Being Sober, recorded live at Camelback Recovery in Scottsdale, Arizona, Tim Westbrook sits down with Dr. Marc Blackstone, a board-licensed chiropractic physician with more than 25 years of clinical experience who has spent the past five years bringing chiropractic care into mental health and addiction treatment settings.

Dr. Blackstone breaks down the mind-body connection in plain language: how a chiropractic adjustment affects far more than the joint being treated, why addiction and mental health conditions keep the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system stuck in overdrive, and how adjustments help activate the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) response that lowers cortisol, reduces anxiety, and supports better sleep in early recovery.

He also delivers one of the most important warnings of the episode: unresolved chronic pain is a real relapse risk. With more than half of chronic pain patients likely to use opioids, treating the physical damage people carry into recovery isn’t a luxury. It’s relapse prevention.

In this episode, you’ll learn: how a rugby injury at age 14 led Dr. Blackstone to chiropractic; what he sees treating clients in recovery settings versus traditional practice; what actually happens in your body during an adjustment; why the body reverts to old patterns (and why one visit isn’t enough); how chiropractic supports people detoxing from opioids, amphetamines, and alcohol; the forgotten history of chiropractic sanitariums treating mental health in the 1920s; his advice for anyone in early recovery dealing with pain; and what it would take to bring chiropractic care into every treatment center in America.

Whether you’re navigating substance use disorder, supporting a loved one in recovery, or running a treatment program and wondering what holistic care really looks like, this conversation makes the case that recovery has to include the body, not just the mind.

Connect with Dr. Marc Blackstone: info@azchiropracticservices.com | drblackstone.com

I Love Being Sober is hosted by Tim Westbrook, MS, founder and CEO of Camelback Recovery, an addiction and mental health treatment center in Scottsdale, Arizona. Learn more at CamelbackRecovery.com.

Go to camelbackrecovery.com for more information.

What if addiction isn’t a moral failure — and it isn’t just a brain disease either? What if it’s the natural expression of a terrain that never got the support it needed?

In this episode of I Love Being Sober, Tim Westbrook sits down with Dr. Nasha Winters — naturopathic oncologist, bestselling author, and 35-year stage IV ovarian cancer thriver — for one of the most clinically rich and emotionally honest conversations this podcast has ever hosted. Recorded live at Camelback Recovery’s outpatient treatment center in Scottsdale, Arizona, in front of a live audience of clients and staff.

Dr. Winters scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scale. She came from a family shaped by alcoholism, addiction, mental illness, and trauma. She was days from death when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer at 19 — and she was sent home to die. Instead, she spent the next three decades building one of the most comprehensive frameworks in integrative medicine: the Terrain Ten.

This conversation bridges two worlds that rarely talk to each other: terrain-based medicine and addiction recovery. And the overlap is exact.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why sugar and ultra-processed food activate the same dopamine receptors as cocaine and heroin — and how that keeps recovery stuck
How unstable blood sugar mimics and worsens the craving cycle in early sobriety
Why Dr. Winters now puts mental and emotional health FIRST in her Terrain Ten — flipping the framework she published in 2017
The ACE score, what it predicts, and why a score of 3 or above dramatically increases disease risk
What intermittent fasting actually does to the brain in recovery — and how to start without white-knuckling it
The emerging field of metabolic psychiatry and why ketosis has reversed bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and addiction in clinical trials
Why being “never sick” is a red flag, not a health flex
How chronic stress puts the body in a state where treatments “bounce off” — and what to do about it
EMDR, ibogaine, and psychedelic-assisted therapy in the context of trauma and addiction recovery
The two things that showed up as universal common denominators across 500 cancer and mental health patients: not feeling seen, and not feeling heard

The audience Q&A goes even deeper — covering sleep and metabolic health, keto and depression, sexual abuse and trauma processing, and what it takes to rebuild a life after violence and addiction.

This is not a light episode. It’s a complete one.

Resources mentioned:
Website: Dr. Nasha Winters | Tend the Terrain
YouTube & Podcast: Tend the Terrain Podcast with Dr. Nasha
Instagram: Instagram.com/drnashawinters
Substack: Tending the Terrain: Reflections by DrNasha(TM)
Facebook: Facebook.com/drnashainc
Book: The Metabolic Approach to Cancer
Book: Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind — Dr. Georgia Ede
Book: Brain Energy — Dr. Chris Palmer
Book: The Circadian Code — Dr. Satchin Panda
Camelback Recovery outpatient treatment: CamelbackRecovery.com

#AddictionRecovery #SoberLiving #MetabolicHealth #TraumaHealing #MentalHealth #DualDiagnosis #SubstanceUseDisorder #ILoveBeingSober #CamelbackRecovery #Scottsdale #Phoenix #TerrainTen #DrNashaWinters #BloodSugar #DopamineRecovery #IntermittentFasting #MetabolicPsychiatry #ACEScore #SoberLife

Go to camelbackrecovery.com for more information

What if addiction isn't a moral failure — and it isn't just a brain disease either? What if it's the natural expression of a terrain that never got the support it needed?
In this episode of I Love Being Sober, Tim Westbrook sits down with Dr. Nasha Winters — naturopathic oncologist, bestselling author, and 35-year stage IV ovarian cancer thriver — for one of the most clinically rich and emotionally honest conversations this podcast has ever hosted. Recorded live at Camelback Recovery's outpatient treatment center in Scottsdale, Arizona, in front of a live audience of clients and staff.
Dr. Winters scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scale. She came from a family shaped by alcoholism, addiction, mental illness, and trauma. She was days from death when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer at 19 — and she was sent home to die. Instead, she spent the next three decades building one of the most comprehensive frameworks in integrative medicine: the Terrain Ten.
This conversation bridges two worlds that rarely talk to each other: terrain-based medicine and addiction recovery. And the overlap is exact.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why sugar and ultra-processed food activate the same dopamine receptors as cocaine and heroin — and how that keeps recovery stuck

How unstable blood sugar mimics and worsens the craving cycle in early sobriety

Why Dr. Winters now puts mental and emotional health FIRST in her Terrain Ten — flipping the framework she published in 2017

The ACE score, what it predicts, and why a score of 3 or above dramatically increases disease risk

What intermittent fasting actually does to the brain in recovery — and how to start without white-knuckling it

The emerging field of metabolic psychiatry and why ketosis has reversed bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and addiction in clinical trials

Why being "never sick" is a red flag, not a health flex

How chronic stress puts the body in a state where treatments "bounce off" — and what to do about it

EMDR, ibogaine, and psychedelic-assisted therapy in the context of trauma and addiction recovery

The two things that showed up as universal common denominators across 500 cancer and mental health patients: not feeling seen, and not feeling heard

The audience Q&A goes even deeper — covering sleep and metabolic health, keto and depression, sexual abuse and trauma processing, and what it takes to rebuild a life after violence and addiction.
This is not a light episode. It's a complete one.
Resources mentioned:
Dr. Nasha Winters: drnasha.com | Tend the Terrain Substack
Book: The Metabolic Approach to Cancer
Podcast: Metabolic Matters (metabolicmatters.org)
Metabolic Terrain Institute of Health: mtih.org
Book: Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind — Dr. Georgia Ede
Book: Brain Energy — Dr. Chris Palmer
Book: The Circadian Code — Dr. Satchin Panda
Camelback Recovery outpatient treatment: CamelbackRecovery.com
#AddictionRecovery #SoberLiving #MetabolicHealth #TraumaHealing #MentalHealth #DualDiagnosis #SubstanceUseDisorder #ILoveBeingSober #CamelbackRecovery #Scottsdale #Phoenix #TerrainTen #DrNashaWinters #BloodSugar #DopamineRecovery #IntermittentFasting #MetabolicPsychiatry #ACEScore #SoberLife

What actually keeps women from walking through the door of a treatment center — and what keeps them from staying once they’re in? Tim Westbrook sits down with Dr. Whitney Howzell, a licensed clinical social worker, US Army veteran, certified sexual therapist, and Vice President of Inpatient Operations at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, for one of the most honest conversations about recovery this podcast has ever had.

Dr. Howzell breaks down why shame is gendered and shows up completely differently for women than for men, why emerging adults struggle to engage in treatment even when the consequences are right in front of them, and why the prefrontal cortex matters more than most treatment programs acknowledge. She talks candidly about digital culture, dopamine, and how recovery has to evolve to meet a generation that was born into the internet age.

The conversation goes deep on intimacy — not the physical kind, but the kind most people in recovery have never learned: eye contact, vulnerability, what it means to let someone actually see you. Dr. Howzell also discusses her work treating sexual trauma, sexual compulsive behavior, and the new Willow Healing Center at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, a combined women’s program that integrates eating disorder treatment with intimacy disorder treatment after clinicians discovered the two were almost always co-occurring.

This episode is for anyone in recovery, anyone who loves someone in recovery, or any clinician who wants to understand why the one-size-fits-all treatment model keeps failing the people who need it most. Recorded live at Camelback Recovery in Scottsdale, Arizona with a live audience of clients and staff.

What actually keeps women from walking through the door of a treatment center — and what keeps them from staying once they're in? Tim Westbrook sits down with Dr. Whitney Howzell, a licensed clinical social worker, US Army veteran, certified sexual therapist, and Vice President of Inpatient Operations at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, for one of the most honest conversations about recovery this podcast has ever had.
Dr. Howzell breaks down why shame is gendered and shows up completely differently for women than for men, why emerging adults struggle to engage in treatment even when the consequences are right in front of them, and why the prefrontal cortex matters more than most treatment programs acknowledge. She talks candidly about digital culture, dopamine, and how recovery has to evolve to meet a generation that was born into the internet age.
The conversation goes deep on intimacy — not the physical kind, but the kind most people in recovery have never learned: eye contact, vulnerability, what it means to let someone actually see you. Dr. Howzell also discusses her work treating sexual trauma, sexual compulsive behavior, and the new Willow Healing Center at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, a combined women's program that integrates eating disorder treatment with intimacy disorder treatment after clinicians discovered the two were almost always co-occurring.
This episode is for anyone in recovery, anyone who loves someone in recovery, or any clinician who wants to understand why the one-size-fits-all treatment model keeps failing the people who need it most. Recorded live at Camelback Recovery in Scottsdale, Arizona with a live audience of clients and staff.