Breaking the Silence, September 13, 2026

Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams

Different Wounds, Same Healing: Childhood Abuse Survivors Speak Out with Dr. Peter Verdin and Sonny Von Cleveland

Dr. Peter Verdin - Gold in the Cracks — A Memoir of Silence, Performance, and Repair

Sonny Von Cleveland - Sonny Von Cleveland | Author, Speaker and Advocate | Palm Springs

Dr. Gregory Williams welcomes two survivors of childhood sexual abuse, former college baseball player Dr. Peter Verdin and motivational speaker Sonny Von Cleveland, whose very different roads through trauma, prison, and healing led them to become close friends and co-authors of companion memoirs.

Football, 9/11, and a Double Booking in Houston

Dr. Gregory Williams opens the broadcast live from Houston, ribbing his beloved Texans for blowing an early lead in their season opener and checking on the Dallas Cowboys, who are about to kick off a tough road game against the New York Giants. He turns serious to mark the anniversary of September 11th, thanking veterans, active-duty service members including his own son in the Army, and firefighters and emergency responders, and says the tragedy pulled the country together with a resiliency he believes can never be broken. Williams gives out the call-in number, 888-627-6008, and his personal cell phone for anyone who needs someone to talk to, and notes the show is also streaming live on Facebook. He tells listeners tonight brings a rare double booking, a dynamic duo he promises will be nationally known soon, and explains he is skipping his usual intro segment to bring on Dr. Peter Verdin and Sonny Von Cleveland right away.

Two Survivors Connect Through a Shared Network

Verdin explains he emailed the show after searching podcasts in the trauma-and-healing space and finding Williams' book, Shattered by the Darkness, dovetailing with his own manuscript, Gold in the Cracks, written while he sat on the floor in pieces. He credits Detective Jeremy Henson, who caught his childhood abuser and has stayed a friend for seventeen years since the trial, with connecting him to Jim Cole, a thirty-year federal investigator who co-hosts a podcast with Sonny Von Cleveland. Verdin and Von Cleveland talked by FaceTime for two hours the first time they spoke, before either knew the other's full story, and later met in person in Nashville, where Von Cleveland wrote the foreword to Gold in the Cracks. Williams reads a line from that foreword aloud, noting how one man wore his pain where the world could see