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Right Now

Corey is in motion. He’s hosting the 217 Recovery Podcast — seven years running — and in the spring of 2026 he’ll launch Dirty Little Pond alongside radio veteran John Jay and Actor Larry Herron. He’s finished a feature-length screenplay, and his proof-of-concept short film, The Kind of Day, goes into production in May 2026. He’s also producing the Recovery Stories live event series and creating documentary content through Restored Voices. The next chapter is being written in real time.

 

|  “I started this podcast from a sober house. I had no idea what I was building.” 

 

The Mission

217 Recovery was born in 2019 from a simple belief: that people in recovery deserve real support, and that community — not institutions — is what actually keeps people alive.

 

In 2023, grant funding enabled the opening of the 217 Recovery Center and the launch of a transportation program targeting one of northern Michigan’s most overlooked barriers to treatment: simply getting there. Before funding ended for that project early in April 2025, the project provided 847 rides covering over 168,000 miles. The total number of people transported by 217 Recovery Peer Mentors continues to grow to over 1,200.  217 Recovery also serves as a valued partner to the state of Michigan in its Recovery Friendly Workplace initiative, helping recruit and train employers to build workplaces where people in recovery can show up, stay, and thrive.

 

The Story

December 15, 2018. The first day Corey was truly free from alcohol. Not the first time he’d tried to quit — but the first time he meant it. The first time it stuck.

 

Alcohol was the one that never let go. It was everywhere — easy to get, encouraged in social settings, disguised as harmless. As long as he kept it hidden from friends, family, and co-workers, he told himself he was in control. The more he tried to conceal it, the worse it became.

 

On January 27, 2015, his body finally caved. He was 36 years old when his liver and kidneys shut down completely. Renal failure — two words that should have belonged to someone much older. But there he was, lying in a hospital bed, his body no longer willing to keep up with his denial.

 

A doctor walked in and asked the question that changed everything: “How long have you been an alcoholic?” Without missing a beat, Corey told him he wasn’t — that he’d just had a good month. The doctor told him he’d seen his liver. There was no argument left to make.

 

That moment — more than the sickness, more than the pain — was what truly woke him up. It wasn’t the day he got sober. But it was the day he realized he had to. The road from that hospital bed to December 15, 2018 was long and unforgiving. There were days he stumbled, moments he doubted himself.

 

But every morning he wakes up free,

he knows two things for certain.

God loves me.

I have finally started living.

The best chapter is the one being written right now.

And Corey Winfield is writing it on his own terms.