First step that you recommend or you would say to somebody when they say I’m at my bottom.  

 

If you came to me and you said that right now, I would immediately start sharing my most vulnerable stuff. The only reason there’s a stigma around addiction in this world is because we don’t talk about it.  Everybody’s going through something. Everybody’s recovering. And so I don’t know why we live in this world where it’s like everybody wants to live this curated, buttoned up life. Because all I know is once I started getting vulnerable and really sharing stuff, my life changed and other people’s life started changing.  

 

Brother, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you being here. Absolutely.  For me, this is what my rock bottom looked like. It wasn’t what I thought it was. At 22, I entered rehab. I was the youngest at the time, and I was transferred to a mental institution because I was having hallucinations coming off the drugs. And when I was in that place, I didn’t think that I could get any lower, you know? And I came out and I remained sober for decades, few decades, participating in NA and AA, and not even picking up a drink. My addiction turned to success and money and validation and other things at that time, but drug-wise, I was clean. And I felt like I had passed my bottom. And then Coke was reintroduced in my life, which slid right back to meth, which ended up with me in jail and me curled up on my garage floor in a fetal position, shaking uncontrollably and thinking, this is the lowest I’ve ever been. And so I think rock bottom, for me, didn’t mean just a one and done thing.  I know for you, you’re a combat vet. Thank you so much for your service. But you got injured, got into heroin. What did rock bottom look like for you?  

 

straight to rock bottom, rock bottom, for me it looked like sitting in a prison cell and my own mother wouldn’t pick up the phone anymore. She can no longer stand by and watch me live my life the way I had been living it. And so that was the, if I had to pick one, you know what I mean? There’s a, I could point to a hundred different, hundred different times I thought were my rock bottom, but that is the one that sticks out, you know, you take a look at your life and start understanding when mom won’t pick up the phone anymore, like, you know, you’ve messed up. So that was, that was it. That was the loneliest, darkest, darkest time in my life, for sure.  How’d you end up there? How’d I end up in prison? Caught my two, two back to back possession of heroin cases. They had offered me probation. I knew I wasn’t doing well at the time, knew I wasn’t probably going to complete probation. So I just took the time.  

 

You know, what’s interesting about your substance versus mine is I could smoke meth out of a glass pipe. I could snort cocaine and do a bunch of other drugs, but as long as I was not doing heroin, I was okay.  Let’s talk about your experience with that drug. Was there a time where you felt like you can manage that?  

 

I think really early on, maybe. For me, Coke was my original first love and all that, and then just so many nights of not sleeping or blowing bloody Kleenex on the laying side of your bed, thinking to myself every night as I’m laying there going to bed, I’m never doing this again, and then within a couple hours, you’re right back at it.  And then I discovered this drug called OxyContin, and then I snorted OxyContin, and all of a sudden I could sleep, I could eat, I felt good, and so that was my new thing. And then eventually, pills got very expensive, one thing leads to another, and then you kind of find yourself unable to get those pills anymore. Heroin was the next logical choice for me. Once I did heroin, I don’t know that I ever felt that I could control it. There was countless nights where I’d be going to bed with just a little bit on me, and that was gonna be my little bit for the morning, that was gonna get me well, and within 20 minutes that was gone, and I was sick the next morning. So there wasn’t a whole lot of controlling my heroin use.  

 

I had the same experience with cocaine. You know, it’s like at some point you couldn’t even blow another line.  You just know it’s just closed up and pushing it around on the table, just pushing it around and just, and, and, and, and the mornings, you know, the birds are chirping. I’m like, I cannot do this.  

 

again. I’m still scarred from the birds.  When I hear the birds chirping in the morning, it still gets me like I don’t like it, just because it takes me back there. Me too, brother. There’s nothing worse than that sun coming up and you start hearing those birds. You’re like, why?  

 

And the coke is just sitting there all whacked out.  

 

more money than me, my cook was gone by that point.  

 

Let’s talk about how we even got there. So when you went into a military service, were you involved in substances at that point and were there a problem?  

 

Yeah, I was I was a part of your anyways, um, I had actually Me getting injured in the military was just fuel in the fire. So I’d already been went to it.  We’ll call it a treatment center I’d went there one time kind of cleaned up and that’s what actually got me into the army So I was in I was down in Miami, Florida Was completely asked out her burned all my bridges no more money Nothing else to do and ended up going to treatment and cleaned up enough to where I could make a decision of like what? Direction in life I wanted to take and so I had already done six years in the Air Force And so then I was looking at the army and that was the next specs next best choice for me 

 

How many times did you think you were in the hole, out of the hole, in the hole? I mean, countless.  

 

I was just always, I could always speak well. And so I just would continue to get myself out of trouble or be able to manipulate my way into not favorable situations and stuff like that.  Once I started getting in trouble with the law, that’s when all that was taken away. Once they start locking you up and you’re depending on other people to bail you out and all that stuff, like the luck had run out at that point.  

 

You know, for me, I talk about the fact that I just moved from one addiction to another, whether it be another substance, another type of addiction. And what I realized was I finally went to a therapist who said, Judd, we have to stop treating the substance and we have to treat the pain.  What was your pain?  

 

If I had to narrow it down to one thing, and it’s, it’s of no fault, it’s of no fault of my father or anything like that. But I think my dad had a pretty profound impact on my life.  He left when I was two, um, my dad, like on paper, um, you know, good looking guy in great shape tan and all the guys like to want to be like him, you know, women like them. And so growing up, it’s like, I felt like I had this movie star as a dad, my dad parties and he still parties to this day. Um, he burns the candle on both ends. And now it’s finally starting to catch up for him. He was a business owner. He never got in trouble, never know DUIs, but I did hard drugs with my dad. Um, and so I think growing up and kind of sensationalizing that lifestyle or seeing that party lifestyle and thinking it’s cool. And then I started, you know, smoking weed, drinking with him at an early age. And then all of a sudden when it got ahold of me, um, you know, he kinda, he looked down on me for it, like I was weak. Um, and so I, I take a look at that and I remember going to him and telling him like, dad, I got a problem on oxys. And he basically looked at me and said, nobody with my last name is weak enough to, for that to be a thing. So stop. Um, and I was like, yeah, it doesn’t work like that, dad. Um, and so I think that’s where a lot of, well, a lot of my stuff came from because I can see after that, after my dad leaving, it was a lot of attention seeking behavior as I grew up, the way I dressed, talked, acted, the people I hung around. And so I think, you know, that inner piece of, uh, you know, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be loved, wanting to have that father figure, I think chased around and, you know, led to me to being, um, unhealthy behaviors, like trying to get accepted or trying to get people to like me at an early age and all that. And so I think that’s what took me to, took me to drugs because finally you take drugs and it’s like, oh, I feel exactly how I’m supposed to feel now.  

 

Right, right. You know, I think one of my addictions was validation. You know, whether it was on a cover or billboards or helping clients or just anybody who’s giving that kind of attention, there was a high of it.  Yeah, for sure. When your dad disappeared at two, you said, when did you reconnect with him?  

 

He didn’t disappear, him and my mother divorced, he moved to New York, I stayed in Ohio. And so I’d go up and see him like maybe once a year.  But because of that, and because of the distance, as I got older, we became more like friends than father and son, which I don’t really blame him for because as a father, what are you gonna do when your 15 year old kid is coming up? You’re not there on a day-to-day basis. He’s not gonna be able to like lay down rules for me or tell me anything. And so we, you know, it’s not good, it’s not healthy, but we did bond over smoking weed, having beers. We got into some tremendous deep talks. We got far closer than a father and son probably ever should have been. So there was a good part to it. And he and I still do have that closeness. I love my dad from now to the end of time. But I think a lot of that stuff is why things ended up the way it did for me.  

 

There was a bond, but maybe the sense of true security or safety wasn’t there.  

 

Right. And it was more of a bond with a friend than like thought.  

 

What did masculinity look like to you when you were growing up?  

 

Oh, tough, hard, um, no crying, like your typical stereotypical tough guy stuff. Would you call it toxic? Um, yeah, for sure. Now that I’m in therapy, I definitely know how it is.  

 

Has toxic masculinity played into your addiction? Give me an example.  Well, for me, my father was a famous boxing promoter, represented some big boxers and put together the Louis Tyson fight and I mean, some big events. And so I didn’t think that I could show up as me. And so I had to act tough. And so therefore when I was struggling, I couldn’t admit that I was struggling because that would be seen as weak. And so rather than finding peace in those arms, I felt that I had to be somebody else and therefore it led to more numbing. Right.  

 

I don’t think I was around my dad enough for toxic masculinity to like for it to have negatively affected me. But I’d say it did affect me in the sense of that’s what I thought was cool.  You know, I like to sensationalize all the things that he was and think that that’s what a man was. Meanwhile, I have my stepfather who, you know, treats honest, treats everybody with respect, doesn’t have substance abuse issues, works, works turns in the steel mill, never complains about it, honest, pays his bills, like all this, like I had the perfect, perfect model of what a true man looks like right here. But I would chose the sensationalized side with, you know, this is sexy over here, like big strong. And so, yeah, I don’t know if I don’t know if I answered your question, but I think it definitely played a part in that sense. And it was like the struggle of understanding once I got sober and as I’ve gotten older, understanding now in therapy, where it’s like, I know what I want to be, but I’ve been conditioned to be like this. And so now understanding where like I’ll have some behaviors that start to happen, but now I can catch it because I know like who’s in the driver’s seat at that moment. And so it’s like trying to undo all these unhealthy behaviors, toxic masculinity, ways of seeing things or thinking things and trying to let that stuff go. Because at the end of the day, all that stuff every day was getting me in trouble.  

 

Yeah, you know, for me, I think that in my days, you know, I would have been intimidated by you. You couldn’t kick my ass in a fucking heartbeat. And, you know, you just come across as a tough guy. And so for me, I would have been intimidated by you.  And what I’ve now learned is actually the more vulnerable I am with you, the more likely I am to connect with another man. Yes, though. What does rock bottom feel like? Like, I know that you were in jail and your mother didn’t answer that phone call, but can you describe what that actually feels like?  

 

I’d rather die than feel like I feel right now.  

 

Hmm  

 

Yeah, there was no positive outlooks, there was no way out. This was it, we’re done.  Yeah, there was no, there was just no light. And I don’t think I knew or saw that then, but until eventually later on that I would like see light and actually find hope, then I understood truly like what my rock bottom was. I didn’t realize, I don’t know that I realized I was in it when I was in it. But then once I saw light and started seeing that there was a different way and all that stuff, that’s where I was like, oh man, like it was just a very dark time.  

 

It’s so interesting you say that because I shared that feeling. So when I came out of jail, also, ironically, the same kind of place that we hit our bottoms, I couldn’t find a way out. I didn’t see a way out. I was overwhelmed with shame. I was fucking lonely as I’ve ever been.  I was scared. And ultimately, there wasn’t a tool in my substance toolkit and my coping mechanism kit that worked anymore. And so the only way out I saw was, it was potentially ending my life. 100%. When you’re in that moment, when you are completely dark, when I’m on the garage floor curled up in a ball, when you’re working with now so many other people and you’re doing such great work with men and anybody who’s struggling, what’s the first step that you recommend or you would say to somebody when they say, I’m at my bottom.  

 

If you came to me and you said that right now, I would immediately start sharing my most vulnerable stuff. Whatever I could share my most vulnerable stuff, it’s about to make me cry right now, honestly.  Just to think of that moment, because that’s happened multiple times recently, and I need to let you know I’ve been there. And I’m gonna tell you in the most graphic way that I can, let you know I’ve been right where you’re at. And then once you understand that, that we’re on the same level of playing ground, you understand that if I’ve been there, it’s also, you’re also capable of getting somewhere else. And so like right there is hopefully where we were able to build some trust and some rapport and let them know like we’re the same type of people. And then it’s starting to build somebody up and trying to identify like, what is it? What’s your thing? Like, what gets you going? You know, at this time, if you’re at your rock bottom, it just made me like, you know, I just want my wife to take me back or something like that. But we’re gonna find that one seed, you know what I mean? That we’re gonna hold on to you. And one of the things I always like to use with people, and the only way I know how to explain it is through sports, but I ask people if they’ll identify their Super Bowl. And I like, you know, definitely a football fan. So when I was in treatment, I literally would ask myself two questions for every single decision I made every day. And it was, is this gonna help me stay sober and is this gonna help me stay out of prison? Now, when I say I ask myself that for everything, like everything, am I gonna drink this drink right now? Like, is this gonna help me stay sober? Am I gonna get up and go run the day? Because everything in my brain and my body is telling me to hit the snooze. But I have to sit there and ask myself, is me making the same decision that I’ve made day in and day out for my entire life by hitting the snooze button? Did that keep me sober? Did it keep me out of prison? No, so I better go do it. And so I would sit there and ask myself, there’s so many times where it just became like this working part of my mind. And so when I’m talking to somebody in there in the Iraq bottom, I need to help identify your Super Bowl. What is the most important thing to you in this world? Because if you can identify that, and it truly is, because at that time, those were the two most important things in my life, you’re not gonna let anything stand in the way of that. But when you ask somebody that question, they have to be able to answer it honestly. If you’re sitting in treatment and I ask you, what’s your ultimate goal? And you’re like, to get sober. Is it really? Or are you just here to get out of trouble? Are you here to make your parents happy or your wife happy or something like that? And so if you can really get to the core of what somebody’s Super Bowl is, what’s their most important thing, then cool.  

 

I’m gonna help you get there. And so then we just start working and figuring out who we need to surround you around. What outlets do we need? What resources do we need? How do we set you up with the best team possible so that we can help you reach your goal?  Yeah, I fucking love that.  

 

that brother. Not bad. You know, that’s, that’s, I, I, um, I was, I’ve been doing some men’s work too. And, uh, I was told that if I’m going to do men’s work, go first, go first.  

 

your shit first. Dude, I can’t, I can’t believe you said that. I got something for that. One of the most impact I’ve been in treatment 12 times. The last treatment center I went to was a state funded treatment center. Anybody that’s been in treatment, state funded, not the greatest.  I went there and we did a men’s, a men’s retreat and we did some men’s work there. The most profound work I’ve done in my recovery. But the last night, basically, you come to this point where you’ve been through this emotional weekend and you’ve bonded with all these other men. Like you guys are tight at this point. And so you basically go up and you stand around a fire and the goal is to come off those one or two things that we all hold on to, that we would never tell the world about. Those things that we were so ashamed of that we’re just going to hold on to. And I remember walking up to the fire that night and there was a gentleman that had been there before and he was a buddy of mine and he slid me a note and it said, brutal honesty. And I remember reading that and I was like, yeah, dude, all right. There’s a couple of things. I know you guys, I’m bonded with you guys, but I’m not talking about this stuff in front of you. He went up and he went first and he came up. He came off so much stuff, profound things that immediately I felt like how foolish I had been because it opened up the floodgates for me. And then now I look at my life, what I do with the podcast, who is speaking, that’s literally what we do is I open up with my vulnerable stuff. So you’re able to open up too. And so that the men’s work and going first and all that stuff, since that day, I will always be the first to talk about this stuff because I know what it did for me.  

 

I got hair sitting up on the back of my neck now, brother. Thank you.  So rehab 12 times? Yes. All right, well, you beat me there. Let’s talk about that for a minute because there’s a lot of philosophy about that, right? So I know that when I went to rehab the first time, I thought that’s the cure. I come out and I’m no longer, I don’t have a problem anymore. And I’ve since learned, at least in my experience, that’s the place to keep you safe and sound, to separate you from the substance, that coping mechanism, so that you can start to get some marbles back and make better decisions so that you can then start to actually be sober. And I think a lot of people, at least for me in that first time, go into rehab thinking that we’re good, we come out of rehab. What’s been your experience? For sure.  

 

treatment? Well, first thing, just to give anybody to listen to this, the perspective, do you know what the percentage success rate is of somebody that goes and does 30 days of treatment and then leaves and just goes on about and lives their life?  What do you think the percentage success rate is?  

 

You know, it’s a great question. I don’t know.  And I’d like to know all I knew is that the percentage of crystal meth recidivism was like super high compared to cocaine. Gotcha. So I focus on that. But I don’t know the stats of rehab itself.  

 

statistic and it blew my mind 0.02 Wow 0.02. Now when you go up to 60 days of treatment and you go up to 90 days of treatment you still don’t even get the 1% that’s a national average statistic right and so you’re like people have to understand and realize like if there’s a treatment center out there saying they’re gonna cure you they’re lying right it’s not a thing right now I’m not saying if maybe you’re maybe you’re just a recreational user and you’re able to get a little vacation from it you can quit but right I don’t know anybody that’s getting higher getting drunk for 20-30 years and then going for a 30-day stay somewhere and just cured right and so getting to understand that the work really starts once we get out I can tell you though the only time I went into treatment for the right reasons it’s stuck all the other times were me to try to get out of trouble right some places were better than others I never minded treatment I did really well in treatment it didn’t take me long I and I believed everything I was saying like I wasn’t being manipulative when I was in that controlled environment I can do great I’ll be the star student all day it’s as soon as I didn’t have that anymore and I get released back into the world why I don’t know that structure where everything ends up going to shit I don’t know how much I got a really good treatment center story for you yeah I’m in Miami Florida yeah I’ve discovered heroin down there it was about a year shooting heroin and so I burned everything down I don’t got a place to stay nothing so I call home and it’s the first time I ever was honest with my family that I needed help and I was addicted to heroin and so this is back in the days they told me to I looked up and I found a detox in the phone book this is back in those days and so I find a detox in Tampa I get shipped out to Tampa I go there and I remember talking to my mom on the phone and we’re sitting there talking and she goes uh you know I want you to do your research try to find you know the best place you can go and your grandmother and I were gonna pull some money together and we’re gonna send you I was like alright cool I’m kicking heroin I wasn’t doing any type of research all I know is everybody in the treatment center was talking about this place in Louisiana so I was like cool I want to go there and so I get shipped out the Louisiana I go there show up beautiful plantation home there’s a men’s house women’s house it’s a co-ed facility I was like oh this is gonna be great and so my first two or three days in there I started noticing as I moved throughout this house every room I go into has a picture of like this guy on the wall I have no idea who this guy is and so like by day three I can’t take it anymore and I leaned over one of the other clients I was like hey dude who’s the guy on the wall and they’re like oh that’s L Ron Hubbard and I was like huh and they’re like what who’s that and they’re like oh that’s the founder of Scientology and I was like what is that I didn’t know where I was I’d landed myself in Scientology rehab and so he takes me up upstairs this is back in the days of portable DVD players he just happens to have the South Park box set and pops in the DVD and shows me what South Park says Scientology is and I was just like where am I and so for four and a half months I was in one of the craziest treatment centers ever smoked crack and snorted oxy my first night out so it didn’t work 

 

Right, I also had an experience in rehab where there was a nurse who was stealing medicine from the hospital and taking medicine and pills. And it was a co-ed facility. And we started figuring out how to hook up and meet up. And so we both got thrown out. Apparently no relationships are allowed in there. That’s what I’m told.  You know, I’m curious about heroin. Tell me about, you know, did you shoot heroin? Yes. What, for me, you know, crystal meth was, I got involved out in Arizona. I dropped out at ASU and I started hanging around the Hell’s Angels, the Outlaws and the bikers, shaved my head, bought a motorcycle. And now I’m deeply involved in meth.  And so I know how I was getting it. I know how it is moving it. I know how I’m using it. What does heroin look like?  

 

The biggest, warmest blanket just wrapped around your body. That’s just what it felt like.  There was never anything in my, for whatever reason, when it came to drugs, you grow up and you’re told, like, all these drugs are really bad and dare and this is what your brain looks like on drugs and all that. Every drug I did, I was just like, that’s it? Like, that’s it? That’s it? And it was like, I skipped over weed on the drug scale and just kept going up. When I got to needles, I never had any issue with it. Like, nothing registered in my brain where it was like, this is bad, I shouldn’t do this. And so, the needle thing, it was as normal for me to wake up and shoot up as it is for regular people to wake up and brush their teeth. But the heroin thing, it’s just, you know, there’s people that say you can get addicted to it the first time and all that. I believe it. All I know is I did it one time and it was, first of all, the first time I put something in a needle, I was like, oh, there’s no reason to do drugs any other way than this again. So then everything would go into a needle, but heroin is just, at first, you know, you can sleep, you can eat, you just feel great. And then after not too long, you start catching those withdrawals and you start feeling what it feels like without heroin. And most of my addiction, I will tell you, is me chasing to not be sick. It’s not me chasing to be high. It’s just me being able to get enough to not be sick every day.  

 

What does this sickness look like?  

 

Um, what’s what sucks about it is when you go to the hospital or treatment center and they start asking you what your symptoms are The symptoms are basically the flu But it’s the worst feeling you’ve ever had in your life like your Hot and cold sweats constantly restless legs restless arms. You can’t lay on them.  You can’t do anything You just want to like bang them off against the wall Um, you know, it’s coming on when you start yawning You’ll start yawning because you don’t have your jugs And so there’s people even still today years sober that like when they yawn, they still don’t like it Just like you’re in bird’s chirp in the morning but uh Just cold sweats you stink Um, there’s a smell that you admit when you’re sick from heroin that you can smell it it gets on your clothes Everything like that and it is just this might be graphic but imagine being so sick That you’re you’re and you’re clammy and wet that you physically can’t find a vein and so you decide that your Your penis vein is the is the one to use because I can get that And so it’s like when you can resort to that just because you’re sick If that puts it in a perspective for anybody 

 

Wow, and- Sorry if that was too graphic for the show. No, no, I’m gritty, but this is behind the armor, man. Cool. So if I understand it, it’s your body, the withdrawal is almost forcing you to reuse again. Oh, 100%.  And how do you break that? I mean, are they treating that in rehab? For instance, I know that when you come in with alcohol, it can be very dangerous, very dangerous. So the people, and I don’t know about you, but I always thought like people were like drank, like you’re a wussy, like try drugs, bro. I would like almost look down on alcoholics, right? The craziest way that we thought about this. But then my experience last in rehab was when they come in, I mean, they are closely monitored, some of them have to go to the hospital and where me, I’m sweating and I’m craving it and they can give us medications to help make us more comfortable, but alcohol was a whole new game. What does heroin look like when you’re coming off that?  

 

You’re not going to die from it, even though you feel like you are, um, but they can obviously give you stuff, Suboxone, Methadone, um, you know, Ativan stuff like that to make you more comfortable. All I know is every time I was ever more comfortable, it never stuck.  And so like me, I had to go through it. Um, I had to feel the pain. I had to feel the withdrawals go through it long-term, nothing to help me. Um, that to me was the most effective way to actually get through it. It’s great to have to have stuff to like make you feel better, but I did take Suboxone for quite a while. And in all honesty, that was harder to get off than you could get hooked on that. Yeah.  

 

Yeah, there was actually somebody who came back into rehab, now addicted to Suboxone. Yeah.  

 

And there’s probably not enough time to get into the whole big pharma thing. But when they, you know, when you go to a doctor, I remember going to the VA and they had me on one of the most minimal doses that you could be on. Right. I was on six, six milligrams a day to start off. Now they come in like two milligram and six milligram pills. I know people that were taking 18 milligrams of Suboxone. That’s so astronomical. I shot more dope than most people I know. And I only needed six. So how you needed 18, I don’t know. But then I got it down to four and then I got it down to two. And then it was to the point where when I was at two milligrams, which was a tiny little pill, I went in there to try to get off of it and they sat there and were telling me like, you’re not allowed that they were going to pull my benefits. You’re going to relapse. And I was like, well, you don’t understand. Like I work a program. I’m in the running community. Like my life is pretty good and full right now. Like I don’t need this medication anymore. And it was like them trying to force me to stay on it. And so it got down to the point where I took myself off it, but I had it down to the point where I would need to break this tiny little two milligram pill into four and then like take crumbs off the one and basically do a gummy with it to like taper myself down to get that stuff out of my system because it just, it was, it was hell.  

 

Hmm what it what has worked for you as far as staying sober  

 

many things. God, number one, understanding that I’m not the biggest and best thing in this world has been the biggest thing for sure, especially as of late. I can take a step back and look at my life now and understand he’s been architecting all this. I’ve been through everything I’ve been through for a reason.  The other thing is a huge one is community. Community is huge for me. I find that in the fitness community usually, whether it’s running or fitness, but for me, my body spirit and it just accidentally happened. It’s not like I set out and say, Hey, I want to adjust these three areas in my life. All I know is when I accidentally did it, it all worked. And so, I did everything I could to adjust my mental health, going to therapy and taking the medications. That necessarily didn’t work for me. Then I find out about spiritual health and I throw all my eggs into that basket. And so it’s 90 meetings in 90 days and everything I do is recovery, recovery, recovery. Well, I noticed that I would get stuck in this recovery bubble and nobody ever talked to me about it’s on you to find something that lights a fire up under your ass. It’s on you to find something that makes you excited to be alive or excited to be sober. And so I discovered running and I discovered this amazing physical outlet that helped with my mental health more than any other medication had. I discovered community through it and all these people, they didn’t care about my past. They didn’t care. I was a tatter. I was a felon. They just cared. I was showing up in the middle of the woods to run these crazy miles with them. And so all those right there, they all accented each other perfectly. Once I added in this kind of physical piece, it put all the pieces of the puzzle together for the other ones for me.  And so all I know, I don’t have any big equation, but all I know is I now have a profound understanding that I have all this experience for a reason and I needed to use it to help other people. And so all I do is just try to use my experience to help other people put good energy out in the world and good things keep happening. So we’re going to rock with it.  

 

Yeah, you know, they there’s the same meeting makers make it right. But I didn’t make it just by going to meetings. It didn’t work for me.  And I think the programs have been a and a are amazing. They’re great programs, great community, great place to start to find a higher power and things of that nature. But, you know, for me, that that wasn’t it. Yeah, I had to to get underneath the addiction, which isn’t spoken about in the meetings. And that is why the pain and where the pain came from and things of that nature. And, and so, you know, I’m, I’m wondering for you, my, my addiction started to show their face in other ways. So when I became a lawyer, and Uber successful at that, I found money and validation and, and, and those and those began to appear as addictions.  And, you know, I know you’re a runner and a big time runner and and also, you know, big time in the gym. Do you ever worry about like these things showing up as as another form of a coping mechanism to hide other things?  

 

I think at the beginning, they started to, I was doing all my running and all that stuff. And I would have a lot of people in the program, they’re like, oh, you’re replacing one addiction for another, which I get what they’re saying. But number one, if you’re gonna tell me this thing that I found that’s given me community, has put structure back into my life, discipline, makes me eat healthy, go to bed early, like all these good things, like if you’re gonna try to tell me this is bad, I don’t know if we can have the conversation. But the worst thing that happened to me with running is I got good at it. And so then I started winning races, I won a marathon, I started placing pretty consistently. Well, now this thing that I, this outlet that I found was my salvation, all of a sudden had a whole bunch of pressure on it. And so I go to run 100K this weekend and all of a sudden I don’t place or win, now I’m walking away feeling like a failure. Just the fact that one point that I could run two miles was one of the biggest wins ever, and now I’m running 62 and feeling like I failed.  And so it changed the dynamic of the running stuff for me. And so somebody at one point asked me like, what are you gonna do if you ever get hurt? And I was like, ooh, I didn’t think about that. And so, one of the things that happened was like right around all that time was going on. What got me into the gym in the first place, or the running in the first place was I didn’t wanna go in the gym and feel like I looked stupid. I didn’t want people to know, I didn’t know what I was doing. And that’s what I, now training people, that’s what I see is the case for most people. And so it’s like being able to be that bridge, get people comfortable in the gym. But so I go all in on the running and then the girl I was dating at the time happened to break up with me. So I get my heart broke. And that was that last kick in the ass I needed to get myself in the gym to build myself up to actually feel like I was worth something.  And so I did that. And then I started understanding like, okay, running is a tool. It’s not my end all be all, just like meetings is my foundation. It’s not my end all be all. And so it’s like all these things, therapy, meditation, running, they’re all tools. And so just now being able to understand, about six months ago, I started going through a tough time mentally. Depression hit me from out of nowhere. It was very, very difficult. And I took a look around and quickly within a day realized it’s like, man, I haven’t been to a run in a while. I haven’t been around my running community. I’m focused so much on work and doing all this stuff. I know what I need to get back to. And so it was like pretty, it was a relieving feeling of understanding. It was like, I immediately identified what was happening, knew what I needed, had the tools and the resources to do it, did it and pulled myself right out.  

 

So interesting, it is that where is that healthy balance between a new addiction and something that’s actually helping our recovery? For me, when I was working as a lawyer and I’m building my firm and I was a workaholic and I was really looking for the end result of that, the success and to your point, if like I had to step away from my computer or I couldn’t work or I lost a case, though it felt like coming off a drug and then winning my cases and crushing it for my clients and working harder was a high.  And so interesting that like how you pointed out that you would run, but what happens if you didn’t place? And so there’s I think an awareness that we all need to have in finding that healthy balance because now between a lot of times I’ll do meditation and yoga and I could start to get off tilt a little bit and I’d so appreciate you sharing about the depression and some of these things can sometimes just hit me out of nowhere and I’m like, ooh, you know what? I haven’t meditated in a few days or I gotta get back in the yoga mat and but I think the point is for me that if I’m doing yoga and now like something comes in between it and I’m acting off of that, then has this become a mechanism to cope with something else underneath it?  It’s such a great point. There’s gotta be such an awareness there. I know that you count minutes and seconds and hours of sobriety and days. What’s your count now?  

 

I’ll be honest with you, they did that on my website. They started to run with that. I have no idea what it says now.  All I know is I got sober on April 18th, 2017. People get all hung up on time. A lot of the people that I work with in early recovery, my view is that all we have is today. We got this 24 hours, that’s it.  

 

Well, that’s a great segue into the question is… Oh, sorry. No, no, I’m so glad you said that because when we see somebody who has 7,200 hours, 14 minutes and 23 seconds, what happens when that clock resets?  What happens if it would go to zero? Because for me, I imagine sometimes the shame of that, and I’ve been in the room, right? That white chip, how hard it is to pick up a fucking white chip, right? That one day and everybody claps and five years is amazing and 10 years is incredible and any day of sobriety is a great day. But it’s so difficult to pick up that white chip and it’s so difficult to think that your clock goes back to zero. What do you say to those people?  

 

You can build that to be something in your head that you think people are looking like that. But at the end of the day, nobody gives a shit if you go up there and get a white chip. It’s all about how you show up in this meeting. So let’s say you had been sober for five years and all of a sudden you fall off and you come in and you get a chip, a white chip. Are you acting like somebody that just got a white chip? Like, are you acting like you haven’t been in these meetings for five years? If you come right back in and you’ve gotten yourself to a point where you have some integrity and you can admit your faults, use those to help other people and all that stuff, then I think it changes the dynamic of that. Like you’re still that person. It’s not like I’m not gonna talk to you because you’re only a day sober now. You know what I mean?  I think a lot of people think this AA stuff is clicky where it’s like the people that are double digit ears stay over here and this is all the newly sober people. Like, it’s not set up like that. We’re making it like that. And so it’s, you know, how are you acting when you go into that meeting? Like, are you acting like somebody that deserves to be getting a white chip? Or you’re like, hey, do you stand up for anybody? I had five years, I fucked up. Don’t be me. Here’s what I did, don’t do this. It’s just very different. I think now, you know, we’ve grown up in this world, there’s a stigma around addiction for a reason. And you’re a speaker, so I know you get this, but from what I’ve been able to gather, the only reason there’s a stigma around addiction in this world is because we don’t talk about it.  I was my family’s biggest kept secret for the longest time because they were so ashamed. One thing is I’ve traveled around and spoke with a documentary and I’ve understand now is there is not a person I don’t speak to and most of the speaking I do isn’t even in the recovery world, but I go talk to these large groups of people and I’m able to say something like, I’m willing to bet everybody in this room is either related to or, you know, closely related to somebody who suffers from addiction and every eye locks onto me. And so it’s like, if we’re gonna sit here and not talk about this stuff and act like we’re not all going through it, it’s very silly. And then for me, it was drugs and alcohol. For you, it ended up being the same thing. But at the end of the day, like, we’re all recovering from something. Everybody’s going through something. Everybody’s recovering. And so I don’t know why we live in this world where it’s like everybody wants to live this curated, buttoned up life. Because all I know is once I started getting vulnerable and really sharing stuff, my life changed and other people’s life started changing.  

 

You know, we all have a little piece of that tiny brokenness in us, right? And I think my experience with people is that we’re always, or have had the experience of wanting to escape from something, wanting to run from something and wanting for something to just numb it.  And it’s the person who actually picks up the white chip. It’s the person who actually is vulnerable, is the person that, at least for me, that I have such respect for, you know? And there is a stigma to it. And it can provide a lot of shame. And I speak on shame, you know? I know our co-friend, Dr. Abby, leads on the subject of shame. And it’s when we can say, you know, I messed up, I fell short, I slipped, I’m back to zero, that there’s such power in it. Have you found owning your story has been the most powerful thing you’ve had in your life? 1,000.  

 

1,000%. I can’t tell people enough.  I did not know a world existed where I could literally, the things I was most ashamed of are now the things I’m most proud of to stand up and tell people. But if you want to not, like anybody that’s suffering from addiction and stuff like that, if you want that feeling, like I said, I was my family’s biggest kept secret. We all went through a tremendous amount of pain, right? But if you want to understand that that pain is power, once you give it purpose, use that experience to help other people and watch how that pain becomes your power. And so again, we’re all recovering from something. We’ve all been through hardship. We’ve all been through loss. If you can go back and use that to help people watch how it changes your whole dynamic.  

 

What would you say to, I know how you’ve helped somebody who’s at that bottom, but what about the family member? What about the other person who’s answering that call?  What about the person who wants to help somebody? What’s the best way to help somebody who’s suffering from addiction? That’s probably the- 

 

Is that the biggest question you get? Probably the biggest question I get.  The way I usually answer is I can only speak for myself because obviously we’re understanding. I don’t want to tell you how to deal with your son, daughter, wife, husband, whatever. And then the way I tell you ends up going wrong because we’re dealing with people’s lives at the end of the day. But for me, all I know is I needed my rock bottom moment. I needed that. I needed for people to turn their back on me. I needed to be cut off from everything. And I needed to understand that if I was going to continue this way, I was alone. And so I think anybody that would be asking that question is first, you have to protect yourself. Now, if I’m telling this to a mother, I already know that goes against every moral fiber being in your soul because everything in your brain and your body tells you protect this child.  But understand that everything you’re doing that you think is protecting this child is actually killing them. When you give them money to go get groceries, that doesn’t go towards groceries. You know what I mean? My mom used to give me, she wouldn’t give me cash. So when she would come visit, she’d give me a $100 gift card to a HUB. That gift card never made it to HUB once. It got sold for 50 cents on a dollar. And so understanding that, that the best thing you could do for those people is draw that line on the sand. We are no longer willing to do anything until you’re ready to get help. If people don’t ever experience consequences, then what reason do they have to change?  I’m not saying you got to go to prison. I’m not saying like that. But if my mom still sits there and my wife or anybody wants to sit there and continue to allow me to manipulate my way to get my way all the time, why would I ever change? It’s when all that’s taken away where do you understand this is not the way to lead life anymore?  

 

Yeah, so I agree and that’s pretty much the same thing I would say and particularly stick with the consequence too, right? It’s hold the accountability because it’s, well, I’m not going to continue to give you a food court card if you continue to sell this to use drugs, but two weeks later, you’re going to give a food card.  You have to hold us addicts and alcoholics accountable for our own actions. And I think not being enabled allows us to start to find the way out.  

 

I was doing an intervention with a, it was a young individual. This kid was only like 15 years old and I was talking to the mother and she was sitting there like debating with me. Like I was sitting there telling her like, you know, man, this, in my opinion, you’re asking me, this is what I think you should do that could best support him. And she was like, well, he said this and like, well, he said he’s going to do this. And I was like, man, you understand we’re dealing with fentanyl, right? Like the next time he could do it, we’ll be the last, right? What do you mean you want to roll the dice on this? Um, so it’s, you have to draw that line in the sand cause you’re playing with their life.  Tell me about the documentary. Um, the most bizarre thing to ever happen in my life for sure. Um, you know, we don’t, people like us don’t usually get phone calls like that, but, uh, I did, uh, I did an interview with Austin marathon from there. Lance Armstrong had, had read it and then invited me to come on his podcast. I had never been in front of a camera and never spoken into a microphone. I was, couldn’t even catch my breath. I was so scared to talk to him. Uh, but went on there, went on the podcast. And then the next thing I know, there was a director that reached out, asked me if I would be willing to be part of a project he was thinking about doing the shoot on my story. I thought it was a prank call. I thought somebody was just messing with me. So I’m almost hung up on him, but it just so happened. I was training for this a hundred mile race called the Pinotio 100. It goes from Alabama to Georgia on the Appalachian trail. And so they, uh, we met, we talked. Um, and I just told him, I was like, man, if you think my story can help anybody, I’m, I’m all for it. Cool. And so we go down and we filmed that. And then, uh, we filmed that and basically with the documentary, the first thing that documentaries don’t make a ton of money. Usually, you know, it’s not like they get released in theaters. So it’s usually a passionate filmmaker that believes in a project and you know, funds it himself. And so he had created a sizzle reel, um, basically like a mini trailer. And so he come back to Austin and he organized basically for 200 people in the Austin running community to come out and to be able to check out the sizzle reel to try to get some, some traction and excitement around the project. And so now up to this point, people knew a little bit about me. They knew I was running ultra marathons. They knew me for that. They didn’t quite know the whole story. And so these 200 Austin runners come in, the lights go off. They throw the trailer up and within three minutes now, all these 200 people know him a four time felon kicked out of the military, heroin addict, you name it. And then they flip the lights back on. And so the only feeling I can ever describe to people is it felt like my mom pushed me out the front door naked for school on my first day and just shut it.  

 

And I’m just standing there. And so I remember talking on the microphone and I don’t even remember anything I said, cause the whole time I’m sitting there thinking like, what are these people thinking of me? Like they’re not going to want to run with me anymore. They’re not going to want to talk with me.  As soon as I was done talking, 200 people converged on me and immediately started talking about their brothers, sisters, cousins, uncle, alcohol, sexual trauma, depression, suicide, like coming up all this stuff that most of it didn’t even have to do with drugs and alcohol. And so that right there was what taught me and showed me. It’s like this world exists where we could use our experience to help other people. If we get vulnerable, it opens up the floodgates for everybody else. And so they ended up completing the film. And just as we were getting ready to book flights, we were going to be traveling around all the film festivals, quarantine happened. And so it got shut down. So you can imagine this huge moment in my life of like going from complete rock bottom and now this amazing thing that I don’t even think is real happening. And then they’re like, ah, we’re going to put it on hold for a little bit. So it got released virtually. And then we ended up doing a premiere in Austin downtown. And so for the past five, six years now, I’ve just traveled around and spoke with it and they’re actually in production right now or going about to go into production to make it into like a movie movie. So that’s cool. Very bizarre experience.  

 

Your podcast is called. I am redemption redemption. What is  

 

redemption? What is redemption? What’s redemption for you? I think being a proud of where you came from.  The fact that I can have pride in saying that I was a mentally ill heroin addict that’s been to prison that got kicked out of the United States military, but be prideful when I say it, because I know being able to use all that experience and the amount of people I’m able to help today. And so it all happened how it should for sure.  

 

As we wrap up, you remind me of a parable that I’d like to share, which is a man is in a hole, deep in a hole, and he has no way out. He can’t find a way out and a doctor walks by and he yells, doctor, doctor, I’m down here. And the doctor writes down a prescription, he throws it in the hole and the doctor walks off and well, now he’s still in the hole. And then a priest walks by and he says, father, father, I’m down here in this hole. And the father writes down a prayer and throws down and walks on. And the guy’s still stuck in this hole.  And finally a stranger walks by and he says, hey, hey, I’m in this hole. And the stranger jumps in the hole. And he says, no, I’m not, what are you doing? Now we’re both in this hole. And the guy says, yeah, but I’ve been down in this hole before and I know the way out. Let’s go. Thanks for coming on the show, brother. Thank you, brother.