The Hopeaholics
The Hopeaholics
Addicted to Hope
From Running Drugs To Teaching At USC 31 Years Sober w Gregg Champion | The Hopeaholics Podcast #351
1 hour 22 minutes Posted Aug 7, 2026 at 12:00 am.
Cold open
Intro
Gregg Champion
31 years sober and still working on it
The seven-year itch: three years without AA and no sponsor
Being a girl dad in recovery — why he shares it out loud
His father was killed in a drunk-on-drunk collision
Becoming what killed his father
Attention as the first substitute
A secret he carried since he was eight
Age 13 to 25: Arizona State, six credits short, and a rampage
Going back to finish his degree sober now on the ASU Alumni Leadership Council
Lost sister to suicide, mom to Alzheimer's, bankrupt in 2008, Palisades fires
Getting sober at 25: DUIs, assaults, two Mardi Gras arrests
Running weed out east
Waking up in a jail cell and hearing a voice say his name
He finds the nearest Catholic church in the phone book
Father Bill
Father Bill turned out to be his stepfather's sponsor
His daughter asks: "Papa, have you ever been to jail?"
Teaching entrepreneurship at USC
The TED Talk he bombed
Couples counseling: finding the therapist with 25 years in Al-Anon
What year ten of sobriety demands: going a level deeper
The Recovery Playbook: sober, now what?
The thing he relapsed over but never fully faced
Breaking the cycle: giving his daughters the life he didn't have
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Show notes
Gregg Champion's father was killed in a head-on collision with another drunk driver when Gregg was 4. He grew up angry, filled that with alcohol and attention, and spent his 20s collecting DUIs, assaults, a marijuana trafficking operation out of a van, and two arrests in the same 24-hour stretch at Mardi Gras. He got sober at 25, went back and finished his ASU degree sober with a 4.0, sits on the Arizona State Alumni Leadership Council, taught entrepreneurship at USC, and is 30+ years sober. ...