Holly Deane-Johns: 17 Years Inside, One Moment of Clarity, and a Life Rebuilt with Purpose

Holly Deane-Johns: 17 Years Inside, One Moment of Clarity, and a Life Rebuilt with Purpose

⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and trauma & healing, 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 • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Holly Deane-Johns grew up in a stable home until her mother's involvement with a man who introduced the family to heroin. By 16, Holly was using; by 20, she was imprisoned. Over the next nine years, she cycled through Australian jails while her family spiralled into addiction, culminating in her mother's heroin overdose. Arrested in Thailand at 29 during her husband's flight from authorities, Holly received a 31-year sentence. Seven years into a Bangkok prison, sitting on filthy ground, she had a clarity moment and made a decision to never use drugs again. She returned to Australia, completed her sentence, and studied while inside. Today she works directly with men leaving prison, using her lived experience to build trust and show them a different path. She's written a book and gives talks in schools, driven by the belief that her fractured life was always meant for this work of helping others rebuild. Holly Deane-Johns is a youth and community worker who spent 17 years in various prisons across Australia and Thailand after struggling with heroin addiction from age 16. She now works with Wadjining Aboriginal Corporation in the RESET program, supporting men transitioning out of prison, and has written a book about her journey to help others see a future beyond addiction and incarceration. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Holly shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Addiction is rarely about drugs; it's about masking pain from trauma, and understanding this shifts how we approach people struggling with substance use. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and Holly's Work Today 02:40 Working with RESET: Supporting Men Leaving Prison 07:34 The River: How Holly Ended Up in Heroin 10:51 A Man Entered the Family Home 13:06 The 110% Rule: Why Addicts Don't Stop 16:12 Loss: Her Mother's Overdose in Prison 20:36 Thailand: The Arrest and 31-Year Sentence 27:29 This Life Was Always for This Reason 33:00 The Heartbreaking Gap: Housing and Survival 40:48 Studying Inside: Planning for a Future 46:16 What the Community Needs to Know 48:38 Going Forward: Books in Schools and Prisons 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #StoriesThatMatter #GoldenJoinery #TheGoldInTheCracks #LivedExperience #PrisonReform #AddictionRecovery #CommunityWork #SecondChances #HolidayDeaneJohns

Jason Blyth: The Gold in the Cracks, How Pain Refines and Purpose Is Built

Jason Blyth: The Gold in the Cracks, How Pain Refines and Purpose Is Built ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, addiction & recovery and trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Born from rape after his mother's catastrophic accident left her brain-damaged and emotionally dysregulated, Jason entered the world under profound darkness. The child protection and mental health systems failed him repeatedly as he cycled through twenty clinicians between ages 2 and 15. He left home at 15 believing his circumstances would change, only to discover trauma travels inward. A gifted athlete and musician, he spent 15 years seeing himself as a victim, living with rage, engaging in escapism through drugs, prostitution, and even satanic cults. At 29, drinking a litre of wine three times daily to pass out, he hit rock bottom. In rehab on his 30th birthday, a single realisation shifted everything: no one was coming to save him. His wife's ultimatum to check himself in became his turning point. Now, nearly 8 years sober with a wife of 13 years and an infant son, Jason is using his voice and storytelling gift to champion systemic child protection reform and help others recognise that pain refines rather than defines us. Jason Blyth is a speaker, advocate, and systemic change champion who survived profound childhood trauma, addiction, and a near-fatal descent into alcoholism before rebuilding his life with intention and faith. Now 8 years sober, he channels his lived experience into work protecting children and helping others recognize their own agency in rewriting their stories. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 The Riptide: A Story Shaped Before Birth 01:51 The Fracture: How Jason Came Into the World 04:46 The System That Failed: Fifteen Years in Psychology 08:58 The Hero's Journey and Necessary Trials 13:39 Being the Story: Narrative and Presence 16:50 Why Pain is the Great Initiator 22:09 One Person's Love Stops the Spiral 28:44 Marriage, Miracles, and a Son 33:54 Purpose From Pain: The Systemic Change Mission 43:27 Discipline and the Daily Regimen 59:13 Seeking His Biological Father: Closure Without Redemption 1:07:46 What's Next: Growing Into the Mission 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #KHMainFeed #JasonBlyth #HeroJourney #GoldInTheCracks #TraumaRecovery #Redemption #ChildProtection #Faith #SystemicChange #SecondChance #PainToPurpose

Mahir Manot: Six Years of Bullying, One Teacher Who Listened, and the Voice He Found on the Other Side

⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au Mahir entered high school as an energetic, curious kid thriving in primary school. By year 10, whispered jokes became systematic exclusion; by year 11, he was trapped between two new friends and a school full of people who had already decided who he was based on rumours. The day before his HSC exams, 15 bullies attacked him on the oval, humiliating him publicly. That same day, a compassionate teacher on his bus ride home convinced him to break his silence. His mother called the principal; the bullies apologised; he began counselling. University became his reset. Journalism reignited his expressive nature; the Big Lift volunteer program gave him the deep friendships he'd been searching for. Today, Mahir mentors emerging journalists, speaks publicly about mental health, and is building a career in broadcast media, turning his darkest chapter into fuel for helping others. Mahir Manot is a journalism and law student at UTS who survived severe bullying throughout high school. Now an ambassador for mental health charities including Headspace and Are You Okay?, he uses his story to help younger Australians find their voice and build genuine connection. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with Mark Henderson, Mahir shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Rumours and preconceived notions can be as damaging as direct bullying because they prevent victims from forming new friendships and force them to suppress their authentic selves. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction: Who Mahir Was Before 02:15 Primary School: Energy, Curiosity, and Belonging 03:37 The Transition: A Broken Arm and Changing Dynamics 10:01 Corridor Confrontations: The Ripple Effect of Rumours 13:34 The Breaking Point: Physical Attack Before HSC 16:24 Breaking Silence: A Compassionate Teacher and Telling His Mother 19:01 After the Assault: School Response, Loss, and Academic Resilience 22:13 The Navy Dream and the 1% That Changed Everything 22:51 Golden Joinery: University and the Uncaging of Expression 37:48 Forward: Curiosity, Impact, and Broadcasting Dreams 41:00 Core Message: Using Your Voice to Uplift, Not Drown 44:06 Closing and Gratitude 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #GoldInTheCracks #AustralianStories #BullyingRecovery #MentalHealthMatters #FindingYourVoice #JournalismMatters #YouthMentalHealth #SharedAdversity #CommunityConnection

Colin Parsons: The Gold in the Cracks, How He Built a Life on His Own Terms

Colin Parsons spent decades people-pleasing and chasing externally imposed goals until a move to Luxembourg, the birth of his children, and therapy catalysed a complete reckoning. He took paternal leave in a country that supported it, discovered his gift for genuine human connection through a Chief Happiness Officer role, and later questioned everything: money, marriage, identity, and what it meant to show up authentically. A divorce forced him to surrender the shame and labels others placed on him. Today, he runs free weekly LinkedIn Live conversations with people worldwide, building trust through imperfection, and has learned that confidence isn't a destination but a compound return on small daily acts of courage and self-kindness. Colin Parsons is a Luxembourg-based conversationalist, former Chief Happiness Officer, and founder of unscripted LinkedIn Live interviews. After a career in banking and consulting, a divorce, and six years of therapy, he now facilitates genuine human connection globally through intentional dialogue and has built confidence through small, compounding acts of courage. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Taking time to genuinely connect with your children reveals what parental responsibility actually means and builds deeper bonds than any schedule can predict. • Money is a borrowed value, not a true one; when we make it the primary goal, we sacrifice alignment with ourselves and justify pain we didn't need to endure. • Vulnerability and therapy are not signs of weakness but courageous acts that disrupt the conditioning and narratives holding you back from living authentically. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introduction to Colin's story 02:28 Paternal leave in Luxembourg and the gift of deep parental bonding 07:15 From frustrated consultant to Chief Happiness Officer 14:53 How job loss and relocation sparked a career pivot 20:06 Questioning money as a primary value and reclaiming intentionality 27:38 The turning point: therapy, self-discovery, and disrupting old narratives 35:43 Awareness as a superpower and the art of reframing self-talk 43:49 Divorce, shame, and learning to stop people-pleasing 56:11 Building confidence through small, compounding daily acts 01:05:42 LinkedIn Live: creating genuine connection in a digital age 01:14:47 Why human imperfection matters more than AI perfection 01:19:00 Closing: gratitude and where to find Colin's work 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://kintsugiheroes.com.au] ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes [https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes] 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes [https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes] #KintsugiHeroes #GoldInTheCracks #RebuildingAfterDivorce #SelfCompassion #MentalHealth #Authenticity #PersonalGrowth #Therapy #HumanConnection #Vulnerability #IntentionalLiving #Fatherhood #Confidence

The Closet Is a Performance: How Gene Moore Dismantled Homophobia in the World's Toughest Institutions

Gene Moore grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household where his sexuality was framed as sin. He married, became a pastor, and spent 14 years denying who he was before a near-suicidal crisis forced him out of the closet. After losing his partner Victor to a plane crash in 1994, Gene channelled his grief into studying gay identity and eventually transforming military and police cultures by reframing homophobia not as prejudice against gay people but as a masculinity enforcement system that damages all men. His paradigm shift, grounded in research by David Plummer on homophobia phobia (the fear of being labelled gay), has proven effective in the most resistant institutional environments, creating what he calls a fellow victim paradigm where straight and gay men become allies against a common enemy. After 20 years of silence driven by safety concerns, Gene has begun publicly sharing this work. Gene Moore is a scholar, former pastor, and cultural change specialist whose decades-long career has focused on understanding and eliminating homophobia in military and police organisations across New Zealand and Australia. Born in Texas into a fundamentalist Christian home, Gene came out as gay after years in the closet, a trauma that sparked his lifelong mission to dismantle the systems that damage both queer and straight men. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Gene shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • The closet is not a secret kept by individuals but a performative system that damages everyone in an environment, particularly in hyper-masculine institutions like the military and police. • Homophobia phobia (the fear of being labelled gay) is the invisible driver of toxic masculinity enforcement, and naming this fear breaks its power by making the mechanism visible and absurd. • Straight men… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Gene's Interdisciplinary Mosaic 05:09 From Texas to the Pacific: Geographic and Intellectual Wandering 08:42 Fundamentalist Upbringing and the Denial of Desire 14:46 The Closet as Performance: Crisis and Escape 19:02 From Grief to Academia: The Birth of a Mission 25:28 The Military Paradigm Shift: From Tolerance to Attitude Change 32:27 Homophobia Phobia and the Fellow Victim Framework 44:00 Operational Effectiveness and the Rational Case for Change 50:17 Twenty Years of Silence and the Decision to Speak 01:02:14 Victor Neo: Love, Fate, and a Plane Crash 01:10:09 Breaking the Silence for Suicide Prevention 01:13:05 The Unpublished Book and the Path Forward 🎧 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 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 every week. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #KHMainFeed #FirstPersonStories #masculinity #homophobia #mentalhealth #suicideprevention #culturalchange #lgbtq #military #toxicmasculinity