On this episode of One Last Hit, Austin sits down with Barb Varcl-Smith, a UK-based trauma and PTSD recovery specialist and creator of the Ascendance Method. Barb's own path started with a childhood marked by her mother's hospitalization, chronic fatigue syndrome that left her bedridden at 17, and losing classmates to addiction β experiences that pushed her to understand why people turn to drugs and alcohol in the first place.
Barb breaks down addiction as a trauma response (not a moral failing), explains the four trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn), why 12-step recovery often stops short of the root cause, and how subconscious tools like hypnotherapy, body coding, and quantum healing can release stored trauma that talk therapy can't reach. She also shares her reframe on victimhood ("the best revenge is to live your life fully") and why even high-achievers secretly numb out through workaholism and hidden drinking.
One Last Hit Podcast β real stories of addiction, survival, and coming back from the edge.
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What is One Last Hit | A Sobriety and Addiction Recovery Podcast?
Most people in recovery never tell the full story. This show does.
I'm Austin Rampt the author of One Last Hit: The Remarkable True Story of an Addict's Journey to Find Himself.
I grew up in Tampa, spent a decade chasing drugs through eight different rehabs, and eventually fled the country.
I ended up in Mexico surrounded by members of the Sinaloa Cartel, hit the kind of bottom most
people don't walk away from, and somehow made it back.
On the One Last Hit Podcast I sit down with people who have been through it , addicts in recovery,
people who've done prison time, survivors of overdoses,
family members who watched someone disappear and then come back. No polished stories.
No watered-down redemption arcs. Just real people talking about what it actually took to get sober and stay that way.
If you are fighting your own battle, loving someone in the middle of theirs, or you just need proof that people really
do get better then this show is for you.
