Golf Prospect w Full Ride to UCLA. Meth Took It All w/ Danny Dalton | The Hopeaholics Podcast #350 from The Hopeaholics

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Golf Prospect w Full Ride to UCLA. Meth Took It All w/ Danny Dalton | The Hopeaholics Podcast #350

1 hour 7 minutes Posted Aug 4, 2026 at 12:00 am.

Cold open

Intro

Danny Dalton, welcome to the show

Golf: how Danny got into it late and why it took over

progressive alcoholism begins

Full athletic scholarship to UCLA

The gene: addiction running through the family

Growing up with Tiger Woods as the benchmark

"I didn't realize how insulated I was until I wasn't"

Losing the scholarship junior year, somehow graduating anyway

Course records / sponsors: pro-level golf he couldn't hold onto

Cocaine, then meth

The needle at 33

First meth charge at 36: parents finding out

Nine charges with the law

Heroin: the thing that took him all the way down

Four years of isolation + his father dies

"I looked in the mirror and saw Gollum"

The shot that almost killed him

Threw everything in the trash and walked to the beach

Detox on his mom's couch, then court

Court-ordered 90 days

Day 2 in treatment: breaking down in church

A stranger named Tom Dalton walks in — his dead father's name

"That's why you have a gift"

Losing his treatment community, starting to slip again

Why he stays in recovery: it's for the next guy

Chad on his own hard year

The two words he says every morning

The recovery side has to come first

What Danny does today

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Golf Prospect w Full Ride to UCLA. Meth Took It All w/ Danny Dalton | The Hopeaholics Podcast #350 Danny Dalton grew up in Huntington Beach playing golf when Tiger Woods was the standard everyone chased. He was good enough to earn a full scholarship to UCLA. He lost it junior year and spent the next decade filling the gap with cocaine, then meth, then heroin. This episode covers the whole run. The UCLA golfer who shot course records and still couldn't get out of his own way. The meth u...

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