Take It From Us with Kent Johns
by Ember
Latest episode
The morning that made prison officer Rhonda Hāpi-Smith stop drinking
The morning that made prison officer Rhonda Hāpi-Smith stop drinking
About this podcast
If you're navigating mental health struggles, addiction or recovery — your own or someone else's — you'll hear what actually worked, what didn't and what people wish they'd known sooner.
Take It From Us is the voice of lived experience, featuring people sharing their own journeys, unscripted and unfiltered.
Host Kent Johns is a broadcaster and health coach who believes everyone has a story worth hearing if someone takes the time to really listen.
Press play — you might hear your own story in someone else's.
If you need support, click here for helpful links, phone numbers and resources: https://ember.org.nz/resources/in-a-crisis/
Episodes
The newest 20 of 70 episodes
- The morning that made prison officer Rhonda Hāpi-Smith stop drinking · 38 minPrison officer Rhonda Hāpi-Smith spent 20 years on the wings at Rimutaka and Hawke’s Bay prisons. She’d learnt to be loud and hard and to shut down the sensitive side of herself…
- What's the difference between failing and quitting? Ask Stefan Ozich · 30 minThree people lost to suicide in three years. The last was his brother, Jerome. So endurance athlete Stefan Ozich picked a challenge that genuinely scared him — running Te Araroa…
- What 53 days as National Party leader cost Todd Muller · 44 minWith the election on 7 November, we’re re-releasing two conversations that have nothing to do with how you vote, and everything to do with what politics asks of the people in it…
- Why Grant Robertson said no to being Prime Minister · 37 minElection day is 7 November and politics is everywhere right now... but here’s a different kind of perspective on it. We’re re-releasing our conversation with Grant Robertson…
- Nic Russell: How do you keep living after your child dies? · 42 minNic Russell has been through more than most — breast cancer, a heart transplant and Parkinson’s. None of it comes close to 2005, when her three-year-old daughter Kenzie died of…
- Mia Simcock: The bipolar diagnosis she didn't want anyone to know about · 28 minMia Simcock didn’t know what a psychotic episode was until she had one. She was 19 and studying at Otago when she went five days without sleep and lost touch with reality. A…
- 'Do you ever feel like there might be more?' Jemarl Paerata did · 35 minFor nearly 20 years as a firefighter, Jemarl Paerata pushed the trauma to the back and drank to keep it there. But one day, after a cardiac arrest callout, he asked the boys in…
- Eman Ghandour: On being not Kiwi enough, not Arab enough · 38 min"You don't feel Kiwi enough for the Kiwis, but you don't feel Arab enough for the Arabs." Eman Ghandour was 10 when her family moved from Jordan to Dunedin. Growing up, she tried…
- Jason Blyth: The boy who had to advocate for himself at nine years old · 42 minJason Blyth was nine years old when he asked his psychiatrist a question no child should have to ask: why was he the one being brought in for treatment, when his mother was the…
- The 4000 kiwi adults stuck living at home with Mum and Dad · 26 minFlynn Mitchell spent three years in a Dunedin university flat built for wheelchair users — accessible kitchen, accessible bathroom, full independence. Then he moved home to…
- Sam Cox survived the car crash. Then he had to relearn everything he'd lost · 28 minOn New Year's Eve 2022, Sam Cox went through the windscreen of a car doing over 100km/h down a gravel road outside Rangiora. His best friend Kaide, who was driving, didn't…
- Shane Cameron thought he was a dumb kid. Boxing was his answer. · 50 minShane Cameron spent 17 years as a professional heavyweight boxer — a Commonwealth Games bronze, a world title shot and the 2009 fight against David Tua that ended with him in an…
- The second time he was asked, Tai Tupou finally told the truth · 30 minAt 22, Tai Tupou learned that the man who raised him wasn't his biological father. He told no one. For three years he isolated himself, burned bridges and had no idea he was…
- For 15 years, she studied eating disorders. She was hiding one too. · 42 minFive years ago, Meg Vardy was a UK-based researcher studying treatment for anorexia. What most of her colleagues didn't know: she'd been living with anorexia herself for 15…
- Rob Brown: 'Who the f*** you really are underneath all the other shit' · 37 min"Who the f*** you really are underneath all the other shit." That's the question Rob Brown puts to every man he coaches — and it's the one he couldn't answer himself for most of…
- Grant Robertson: 'I am a catastrophiser' — the panic attack that changed how he copes · 37 min"I'm a catastrophiser," admits Grant Robertson, New Zealand's former Deputy Prime Minister. It's a confession that sits behind a high-profile political career — years of COVID…
- Justine & Blain: Running a 24/7 recovery centre after their own addiction · 33 minBlain Collinge was once the reason his parents started Red Door Recovery — refusing help, deep in addiction, with "no desire to change." Over a decade later, he co-leads the very…
- Recovery isn't a straight line — Suzy Morrison on 35+ years sober · 35 minShe took her first drink at 14 — and for a moment, everything made sense. Suzy Morrison chased that feeling for years, through other substances and eventually heroin, before it…
- Jamie Summers: I thought I was invincible. Then I had a stroke at 39 · 34 minJamie Summers thought he was invincible. At 39, working in construction, high stress and no downtime felt like just part of the job. Then he had a stroke. Six and a half years…
- Heidi McIlroy: A book for young people who can't find the words · 39 minHeidi McIlroy teaches kids who can't make it into a regular classroom. They're too anxious, struggling with their mental health, autistic - kids who carry shame because they…
