Steve R. Patterson | Writer, Publisher, Recovery Educator, and Podcast Host

Steve R. Patterson

Writer. Digital media pioneer. Army veteran. Liver transplant survivor. Recovery educator. Podcast host.
Self-employed/Remote worker since the 1997s.

Books, podcasts, essays, media projects, recovery frameworks, digital publishing history, and ongoing work in survival, reinvention, culture, and adaptation.

About Steve

Steve R. Patterson is a writer, digital media pioneer, Army veteran, liver transplant survivor, recovery educator, independent publisher, and co-host of the Free Will Burning podcast.

His work spans more than three decades of digital publishing, online community building, recovery work, long-form storytelling, health survival, cultural analysis, spiritual inquiry, and personal reinvention. He is the founder of UGASports.com, the author of multiple books on healing and recovery, and the creator of the Healing Pathways framework.

A former U.S. Army Infantryman, Grateful Dead-era traveler, early internet publisher, recovery facilitator, and liver transplant survivor, Steve’s life and work are rooted in one simple vow made during serious illness:

If I survive, I live differently.

Today, Steve writes, publishes, records, and speaks about survival, reinvention, health, aging, technology, culture, recovery, music, spiritual development, expat life, and the practical work of rebuilding a life after collapse.

He has worked remotely since the 1990s and has been self-employed outside traditional employment systems for most of his adult life.

Current Work

StevePatterson.online is the central hub for Steve’s current work. From here, visitors can find his books, podcasts, essays, YouTube channels, recovery frameworks, media projects, and digital legacy material.

  • Free Will Burning — podcast and video project with Troy Patterson.
  • Wind and Raven — public home for Healing Pathways, illness archive, spiritual inquiry, videos, and future conversations.
  • Valkyrie Counseling Group — publishing, facilitator education, ASAM group resources, and professional recovery frameworks.
  • Healing Pathways — books, videos, reflections, and integrative recovery work.
  • UGASports archive work — early internet, digital publishing, online sports communities, and the Dawgvent era.
  • Books and essays — long-form writing on healing, survival, identity, culture, technology, music, and reinvention.

Free Will Burning Podcast

Free Will Burning is Steve’s current podcast and media project, hosted with his brother, Troy Patterson.

The show explores survival, transformation, health, culture, music, aging, technology, freedom, reinvention, and the strange realities of modern life through the perspective of two Gen X brothers who both underwent liver transplants and rebuilt their lives from the ground up.

Free Will Burning is not a performance brand or a narrow political show. It is an honest conversation project about what happens when people outlive the life they expected to have and have to figure out what comes next.

Topics range from heavy metal, classic rock, road stories, family history, and Gen X memory to AI, digital culture, health systems, masculinity, identity, aging, expat life, and starting over after collapse.

Watch Free Will Burning on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@SRPValkyrie

Wind and Raven

Wind and Raven is the public home for the reflective, personal, and spiritual side of Steve’s Healing Pathways work.

The site began during the years when Steve was living with end-stage liver disease, liver cancer, and the uncertainty of whether he would survive long enough to receive a liver transplant. Some of the writing there remains from that period. It is part archive, part record, part map of survival.

Wind and Raven now carries the public-facing Healing Pathways work forward through videos, reflections, chapter-by-chapter material, and future live conversations about recovery, healing, dependency, story, identity, meaning, illness, survival, and transformation.

Visit Wind and Raven:
https://windandraven.com

Watch Wind and Raven on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@WindandRaven

Valkyrie Counseling Group, LLC

Valkyrie Counseling Group is the professional, publishing, and developmental home for Steve’s recovery education and facilitator resources.

Valkyrie is not currently a direct counseling provider. Its current focus is publishing, education, facilitator support, group process, and practical recovery-oriented frameworks for counselors, recovery coaches, peer-support workers, and group leaders.

Valkyrie is where Steve houses the professional side of Healing Pathways, the ASAM Level 1 Facilitator’s Guide to Outpatient Groups, and related material for people leading recovery groups or building more useful group experiences.

Visit Valkyrie Counseling Group:
https://valkyriecounseling.com

Watch Valkyrie Counseling Group on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@ValkyrieCounselingGroup

Books and Published Work

Steve’s books grew out of lived experience, recovery work, illness, spiritual inquiry, and years of field-tested group facilitation. Together, they form a practical body of work for people rebuilding meaning, identity, and direction after illness, dependency, trauma, or major life disruption.

This Is How It Feels to Heal

This Is How It Feels to Heal is Steve’s personal account of illness, addiction recovery, spiritual survival, and rebuilding a life from the inside out. The book is not written from theory. It comes from lived experience: cancer, liver failure, transplant, sobriety, spiritual searching, and the hard process of becoming a different kind of person.

The Healing Pathways Companion

The Healing Pathways Companion is a guided book for individuals moving through the Healing Pathways process. It uses reflection, personal story, meaning-making, and practical exercises to help people explore recovery, identity, emotional honesty, and long-term personal change.

The Healing Pathways Facilitator’s Guide

The Healing Pathways Facilitator’s Guide was created for facilitators, counselors, coaches, peer leaders, and group guides who want to bring Healing Pathways into group or community settings with structure, flexibility, and integrity.

ASAM Level 1 Facilitator’s Guide to Outpatient Groups

The ASAM Level 1 Facilitator’s Guide to Outpatient Groups is a practical outpatient group curriculum built from Steve’s direct field experience facilitating recovery groups. It provides a structured approach to ASAM Level 1 group work while preserving the human, conversational, and adaptive nature of effective recovery facilitation.

Visit Steve Patterson’s author page on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Steve-Patterson/author/B09NML25JF

Digital Legacy: The UGASports Era

In 1997, Steve founded UGASports.com, one of the earliest large-scale online sports communities and a pioneer in fan-driven digital media.

From 1997 to 2014, UGASportsNetworks, LLC built and managed multiple online platforms across the SEC, helping shape the future of online sports communities before social media became dominant. The flagship forum, The Dawgvent, became one of the internet’s early long-running social ecosystems.

UGASports became the flagship property of Alliance Sports and later a foundational part of Rivals.com. The company was ultimately sold to Yahoo! in 2014.

Steve remains connected to that story and is currently writing about the rise of early internet culture, online communities, fan media, message boards, digital publishing, and the UGASports era.

Recovery, Healing, and Facilitation

Steve’s recovery and healing work is grounded in lived experience, professional practice as an inactive counselor, and long-term group facilitation. His work does not treat healing as a slogan or a simple formula. It focuses on story, identity, self-honesty, emotional accountability, personal meaning, and the slow work of becoming someone who can live differently.

The Healing Pathways framework and ASAM Level 1 materials grew from this approach. They were designed for real people in real recovery settings, not for abstract theory or polished wellness language.

Steve’s current recovery-related public work is educational, reflective, and facilitator-oriented. He is not presenting StevePatterson.online as a counseling site, clinical service, or treatment platform.

Music, Memory, and Gen X Culture

Music runs through Steve’s work as more than entertainment. It is memory, identity, survival, and cultural record.

Steve played in heavy metal bands around Chicago in the early 1980s, followed the Grateful Dead on tour from 1986 to 1995, and continues to write and speak about rock, metal, garage band culture, Gen X memory, and the role music played in shaping a generation that came of age before the internet changed everything.

Through Free Will Burning and related writing, Steve uses music and memory as entry points into larger conversations about masculinity, aging, adaptation, technology, culture, and survival.

Expat Life and Adaptation

Steve currently lives in Colombia and writes from the perspective of someone who has spent decades working remotely, building independent platforms, and adapting outside traditional employment systems.

His expat and adaptation work is not travel fantasy. It is practical, grounded reflection on cost of living, health, aging, digital work, cultural adjustment, independence, and what it means to rebuild life from outside the assumptions that shaped earlier adulthood.

Earlier Career

  • Counselor and group facilitator as program developer at RecoveryCafe.com, 2015-2026
  • Founder and publisher, UGASports.com, 1997–2014
  • Founder, UGASportsNetworks, LLC
  • Publisher, Dawgs Illustrated Magazine
  • Host, UGASports LIVE, 2005–2014
  • Guest, RivalsRadio on Sirius Satellite
  • U.S. Army Infantryman, 1985–1988
  • Author and independent publisher
  • Remote worker and self-employed digital operator since the 1990s

Current Focus

  • Free Will Burning podcast and video work
  • Books, essays, and long-form storytelling
  • Healing Pathways videos and public conversations through Wind and Raven
  • ASAM Level 1 group facilitation resources through Valkyrie Counseling Group
  • Gen X cultural commentary
  • AI and technology analysis
  • Expat life and adaptation
  • Music, memory, classic rock, heavy metal, and digital culture
  • Online communities and early internet history
  • Recovery education, dependency, identity, and personal reinvention

Channels and Project Links

Contact

For writing, media, podcast, partnership, consulting, speaking, or project inquiries:

[email protected]