How Do You Live With the Childhood You Survived? with Chaz Holesworth

Mid-life Men: the mental health podcast · Sep 24, 2026 · 43m

Chaz Holesworth grew up in Kensington, Philadelphia, a neighbourhood gutted by poverty and an opioid crisis that hasn't let up since the 1980s. His father was a heroin addict for over 20 years. His mother, overwhelmed and unsupported, pulled the family into a fundamentalist born-again church that cut them off from the outside world, banned music and movies, and taught Chaz from age four that he was one sinful thought away from hell.

In this episode, Chaz talks about what it was like growing up in a condemned house with roaches and rats, dodging drug dealers and police raids on his own street…