Episode 873: Kade Smith (gay, overcoming addictions) and Terri Smith (Kade’s mother)

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2026

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friends Kade Smith (age 38, lives in San Diego, married to husband Chris for 9 years) and Terri Smith (LDS married mother of 4 sons) join us to share their story. I’ve been friends with the Smith family as we lived together in the same Sandy neighborhood from about 1993-1998. Sheila and I love the Smith family. Kade shares: * Coming out at Age 18 * Moving in San Francisco and being groomed into an abuse relationship. Was vulnerable and need validation * Becoming HIV positive—told his Mom * Going “all in” with the gay community—needed belonging * Abuse, drug and alcohol addiction—suicidal, called Mom from his balcony—drive back to Salt Lake City * Long road to sobriety—being “loved back to life” * Role of Heavenly Father and Kade’s Savior Jesus Christ to help him * Importance of the Word of Wisdom * Belonging withing the sober community * Helping others. Moving forward Terri shares: * Challenges of parenting an adult child with drug/alcohol challenges * Always loving and believing in Kade * Being there for his drive back to Salt Lake City * Love of Kade’s husband Chris—“our family would not be complete without Chris” * “I love you Kade, and am proud of your life” This is a super powerful story of Kade’s long journey to be sober and do the hard work necessary to get to this point. It is a story of survival, resilience, hope, turning to God, and courage. It is also a powerful story of a mother’s love for her dear son. Doing this podcast together is super powerful—a beautiful family love story. I encourage everyone to listen and share this episode. Thank you Kade and Terri for your courage to share your story. It will help so many!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:09.4	Today on the podcast, I have a family, a mother and her son, that we were in the same ward for about five years from 1993 to 1998.
0:25.6	In Sandy, Utah, before we moved it's um my friend terry smith
0:33.7	um who's on the podcast and the mother of her third of four sons kade smith welcome to the podcast youtube thank you. Thank you. We're really excited to be here.
0:39.5	And I'll introduce them to you. Let me first start with Cade, spelled K-A-D-E. He is 38. He was 10
0:47.9	years old when we left the neighborhood, so I remember Cade. He is the third of four boys for Mark
0:54.1	and Terry Smith. He's gay. and he's going to share his story coming out as a teenager and going through really difficult chapters. Let me just, before I introduce Terry, I'm going to give you an overview of the outline. They'll do a brief introduction. Then section two, there's five sections listeners.
1:14.1	Section two is coming out in the hard times.
1:17.7	And that's 18-year-old Cade coming out.
1:21.3	And he'll talk a little bit about that journey, really difficult situation.
1:25.9	Mom's not knowing how to connect, son in a really tough spot.
1:30.5	Section 3 will be the decent and the decade of struggle.
1:34.9	The dissent and the decade of struggle.
1:37.4	I've got to read Cade's notes here better.
1:40.0	And he'll talk about addiction and alcoholism, the dark years.
2:04.3	Terry will talk about her perspective as an active LDS mom knowing how to navigate this space, knowing her son's in a tough spot, and how do you navigate that? Section 4 is evolution of faith and relationship. That's 10 minutes. And that's more of probably a positive section. Number five is where we are today and our advice for others. Terry is just
2:12.8	retired from 40 plus years in the banking world.
2:20.6	Terry and her husband, Mark, our dear friends,
2:23.0	Mark was kind of my go-to guy in the neighborhood whenever I needed something fixed.
2:25.3	I have memories of Mark on the roof,
2:27.5	helping me fix something or put up Christmas lights,
2:30.0	or he is just that kind of guy
	...

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