Bros & Shows - Hi, My Name is Steel and I am an Alcoholic. This is My Story.

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

What's up Bro's? In honor of Steel's (my) 5 year sobriety date, we're changing things up a little bit. In this special episode I share my story with you. Where I came from, how I got there, and how I ended up where I am today. My story is difficult to tell. It brings up a lot of memories that I've dealt with over the past few years and stirs up a lot of emotions for me. But it's important for me to share these things. I had a very hard time being open and vulnerable when I was younger. I saw myself as the go to person for other people. I would help them deal with their issues while disregarding or not even acknowledging my own. Problems don't just go away and gradually over time they built up behind me without me being aware of it. Eventually my world came crashing down. I went from a professional baseball player, to a professional coach, to having cirrhosis of the liver at 27 years old and potentially not making it out of the hospital alive. This episode is not to garner sympathy, it's more for me and for myself to continue to be open and honest and vulnerable as I struggled to do for so many years. If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol or addiction, if you're afraid to ask for help, I know how scary it is. But I promise you there is a better life on the other side. If you need someone to talk to please reach out to me. I'll happily talk to any one of you struggling. Thank you all for everything you've given me, I don't take one second on this planet for granted. I love you all. Here's to many more years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi. My name is Steele Russell. I am the co-host of the Brab Bros. Podcast. I am a father. I am a husband. I'm a private chef, a former professional baseball player, and I'm an alcoholic. And today is my five-year sobriety date, which is a big deal. That's a big milestone. And I put a call out. to the audience a couple weeks ago and asked you guys, hey, would you want to hear my story? Do you want to hear how I got to where I am today? And what I always reference when I talk about when I used to drink. And it was met with a resounding yes, which was amazing. And every year when I hit my milestones, I like to make a video to talk. I usually do it just on my Instagram, but I either share a story or I discuss something that maybe I've learned. over the past year, but this time around, I've been presented with such a unique opportunity

thanks to you, our amazing listeners. I have a platform in which I can speak to a lot of people, and you guys said you wanted to hear my story, and I would love to share my story with you. When I do this, it's more for me. It keeps me honest, it keeps me open. A big issue I had while I was actively drinking was I covered everything up if it was an issue I was having or something that was bothering me or just anything in general. I just didn't talk about things. It was kind of my MO. It's kind of how I would deal with anything. And for the longest time, I was the peacekeeper in my family, in my friend group, in pretty much every facet of my life, I was always that guy. If something went wrong, you would go to me. And I would help you take care of it. And I liked being

that guy. I still like being that guy. That's still a part of who I am. But it's taken on a different role. It's not all consuming. But what I've learned the hard way, if you're constantly helping others, if you're constantly focused on other people's issues, other people's problems, and you cast your stuff to the side eventually that shit piles up when you have problems they don't go away just because you you push them that way they they build up and when enough shit builds up over time something's got to give and that's what happened to me and i'm just going to jump right in i'm going to start towards the end and for those that don't know i was previously married and we got married really young. We were 23 years old at the time. We had my daughter when I was 25. And,

you know, we thought we had everything figured out. I thought I had everything figured out. I was a professional athlete. I was married. I had a kid. I felt like a grown-up. I felt like a full-blown adult at the age of 25, 26, and I still had a lot to learn. And in 2016 is kind of when it started to ramp up. Things at homework, great. Drinking aside, you know, we just, it was a tough time. It was a really tough time. And I realized that if I drank, I didn't give a shit as much about everything. If I was stressed at work, stressed about life, stressed about anything, or if I had problems going on that I didn't want to deal with, if I just jumped in the bottle, it was a lot easier to move past those things.

So it began to snowball, and that's what people in rehab say, people in recovery will tell you you're functional until you're not. And once you're not functional, it goes bad really fast. And my ex and I separated in April, I believe, of 2018. And when she left her and my daughter moved back to Texas, and I was in Florida alone. And it was just me and my dog, Lou. And for the first time, in a long time, I had no real responsibility to anybody but myself. And that's when it got bad.

When they left, I shut the door to my bedroom and I shut the door to my daughter's bedroom in our apartment. And I lived exclusively in the living room. I couldn't bear to walk by my daughter's room and see her stuff in there. And to know that she wasn't there was really hard. So to deal with that, I just closed the door. I closed the door, and I lived in my living room. And what I would do is I would wake up. I would finish whatever was left in my vodka bottle from the night before.

And then I would go coach professional athletes as a professional baseball coach. And when I was done my day, about four or five in the afternoon, I would stop and pick up another bottle. And I would go home. I would sit on the same spot in my couch. I wouldn't eat, didn't need any food. I lived off of vodka, literally. And I would sit on that same spot in my couch, and I would drink until I passed out. And if I finished the whole bottle, sometimes I would go get another one.

And that's when it started to increase. But the other part of my mornings is I'd wake up and I would start out by throwing up every day where I'd have to go to the bathroom and not to be too graphic, but it was usually just blood. because my insides were shutting down. I began to retain a lot of fluid on my body, and my eyes were beginning to turn yellow. I was killing myself. I was killing myself from the inside out.

And I'll never forget there was a specific morning, and this image will be forever imprinted in my head. And it's probably a good thing, honestly. But I woke up and I was standing in front of the mirror naked. and I legitimately did not recognize the man that was staring back at me and not just because mentally I was all over the map but more so physically like I looked grotesque my stomach was distended it was all the way out to here my eyes were yellow not a shade of yellow my eyes were yellow my stomach was all disformed because certain organs were protruding out

You're not supposed to feel your organs. That's a good rule of thumb. If you can feel your organs in pain, something's probably seriously wrong. But I remember distinctly in that moment sitting there looking at myself and just remembering, like, you can't come back from this. You're too far gone. Look what you've done to yourself. Who are you? Like, this is it.

This is who you are now. And from that point on, when I would get back from the field and start drinking at home, every night when I would wait to pass out or fall asleep, whatever you want to call it, I would just hope that I wouldn't wake up. Because it would hurt so much less to just go to sleep and just stay asleep. And looking back now on that, the fact that that was my normal, that was my, my every day was just praying that I wouldn't wake up again. And, you know, I wasn't of sound mind. I wasn't thinking about everything,

the bigger picture, you know, the fact that I was praying to leave this world and leave my daughter behind. It's unfathomable, but that should kind of paint the picture of where I was at mentally. And it all came crashing down finally. I showed up to the field one day, and I was hammered. And there had been some speculation, I think. There'd been some suspicions, but there was nothing confirmed that I had been actively drinking. But that was the last thing they needed to see. I went to coach a game in Florida at noon. I was in rookie ball, which is all the new draft picks, all the younger guys. You play at 12 in the afternoon in the summertime in Florida. There's no fans. You play on the back fields of the spring training complex. It's really a grind,

but it's also hot as hell. And I showed up, hammered. We had a game and I got off the bench to run out onto the field and I fell down in the dugout in front of everybody. The whole team, my coach is my manager. And immediately my manager to sit down. He goes, you need to sit down. You can't go out there. And I, of course, like feigned and injury, like grab my knee and say, ah, you know, trying to fake it off, but they knew what was going on. And my trainer pulled me into the training room after the game and put me on the table and said, we need to figure this out. He said, you're not okay.

And he strapped me into an EKG machine. And my resting heart rate was 149 beats per minute, which is not good. That's borderline cardiac arrest. It's borderline stroke. it's bad and that was me at total rest so immediately sent me to the doctor down there to get blood work done and it had been about five hours since my last drink and my blood alcohol content was 0.36 and that was five hours after I drank so at its peak it could have been somewhere in the fives and the scariest part of all of that is I remember that whole day. I remember getting to the field. I remember being

in the dugout. I remember going to the doctor. And I remember getting home from the hospital and getting an Uber to go to the liquor store. And immediately after I had gotten blood work had the doctors there tell me I wasn't in great shape. I went and got a bottle of vodka and I chugged it as fast as I could. My boss called me and said not to come in. And the next 48 hours are kind of a blur. I don't remember a whole lot. It's kind of a known thing that when addicts or alcoholics hit their end, the end of their run, if you will, it's kind of like your last hurrah.

And that's what I did. I bought a bunch of vodka, and I just drank and drank and drank and drank. And my uncle flew out the following day or a couple days later. and packed up all my shit in my truck, packed up me, packed up my dog, and drove us north to Philly. On the way to Philadelphia, I went through withdrawal in D.C. And if you haven't gone through withdrawal, it's enough to make you not want to drink ever again. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced. My eyes, I was getting tunnel vision. I was hallucinating. The sounds were so loud. It sounded like they were inside of my head.

my heart rate again was through the roof. And this is a public service announcement for anybody out there. Alcohol is the only withdrawal that you can die from. We did not know that. We thought I had to white knuckle it until we got back north. What I should have been doing is drinking from Florida to Philly to make sure I got there safely and been detoxed in the hospital with doctors around me. We didn't know any better.

So we were doing what we thought was right. But I could have easily had a stroke or a heart attack. So if you are struggling and you go through withdrawal, and you're trying to white knuckle it, make sure you're detoxing in an actual center, an actual facility under the care of health care professionals because you can die. But we made it. And I remember getting to Philly and things are a little foggy, but for the most part, I remember. And I got out of the car and my mom was standing there.

We got back to my parents' house. And I just said, you know, I'm going through withdrawal. And she told me to go lie down. And I did. And she talked to my other uncle who's been sober for about 25 years now. and he said you need to get him to the hospital immediately he can die they need to monitor him they need to make sure he's going to be okay and uh she woke me up and we got in the car she drove me to the hospital in abington um and when we got there uh things got really bad

really quick and um my blood pressure was 190 over 140 or 150 i believe which is like stage 3 hypertension, which is really unsafe. And they got me checked into a room and the doctors started to get blood work and run tests. And the prognosis wasn't

good at all. They weren't very confident that I was going to make it out of the hospital to the point where they called my dad who was in Major League Baseball at the time and told him to get to the hospital.

Um, just in case. And once the test came back, it turned out that at 27 years old, I had cirrhosis. I had cirrhosis of the liver. I was carrying over 20 pounds of fluid on my body. Um, again, my eyes were yellow. I was really weak. Uh, I was bleeding internally. I was, um, falling apart.

They said they hadn't seen that kind of liver damage in anybody under the age of 65 before. And that's really, really hard to hear. But after about four days, being in there, I was in there for a total of five days. But after four days, the doctor came in and said, we do think that you're going to be okay. We think you can recover from this. We're not going to pump the fluid out because we want to see if your liver is going to return to functionality. And another thing that a lot of people may not know is alcoholics don't get liver transplants because they're nervous we're going to ruin that one too.

So that one was the only one I have. This guy right here. But on that fifth day, they came in and were talking to me about rehab. And somebody from Karen actually came to talk to me. And Karen's a treatment center in Wernersville. It's an amazing place. They asked me, you know, what do you think? And at that point in my life, I didn't have a job.

I didn't have a house. I was getting divorced. I hadn't seen my daughter. So I said, yeah, let's go, I guess. And I can't put into words really how scary it feels and how nervous you get driving up to a rehab facility, knowing you're getting checked in for an unknown amount of time. I remember sitting in the front seat as we pulled up, and my mom was sitting behind me, and I was gripping her hand as hard as I could, and I was shaking.

I used to shake a lot. I don't do it anymore, but that was kind of my go-to. If I got really nervous, I would start to shake uncontrollably. And I was shaking, and I was holding my mom's hand, and I remember she was scared. And my stepdad was driving. He was scared. We all really didn't know, sorry, what to expect. you hear from a young age

rehab is stigmatized rehab is talked about as a place for degenerates you know drug addicts go there alcoholics go there when you picture an alcoholic you think of a homeless guy gripping a paper bag

and living under a bridge what you don't know is the story behind that what you don't know is how that got there and you learn really quick and when I got there I was met by an amazing group in my unit that were really supportive and made me feel comfortable.

But it took me a while to buy in. I went to all the classes. I went to the meetings. I didn't cause any trouble. I woke up on time. I did what I was supposed to do because that's how I'm wired. If you tell me what I need to do, I'll do it. But as far as believing that I should be there, I did not buy in for about three weeks.

And I was only there for 30 days. So three weeks out of 30 days is a big portion. And I'll never forget my biggest issue was comparing myself. I'm not as bad as him. I'm not as bad as him. He does heroin. I'm not as bad as that guy. He lived in a dumpster and did crystal meth.

Not as bad as that guy. He hit a family with his car and killed somebody. I'm not that guy. That's not me. And I'll never forget in week three, we had a meeting and it was all fathers. It was an entire group of dads, and everyone goes through and says, you know, hi, my name is so-and-so. You know, I've got two kids, whatever, and it gets to me.

And again, up until this point, I always gave the run-of-the-mill answers. I was very generic. I always said what I was supposed to say, but I never dove in. I never broke down and opened up and really became vulnerable because my entire life, I wasn't. You're not supposed to be. And you're in professional sports especially. You've got to be, you know, full of test.

testosterone and like bow up all the time and growing up that way as well. So for me, trying to get in touch with my emotional side, trying to unlock my vulnerability was not even on my radar. I didn't understand. And in meetings, you're not supposed to cross talk. So if I'm sharing, I don't expect you to cut me off. If you're sharing, I'm not allowed to cut you off and give you my opinion. That's not what it's there for. But it got to me and I started to share. share i said hi my name is steel i have a daughter she's two at the time and i want to get this right for her and blah blah blah and as i'm talking um an older man cuts me off mid-sentence and he says you don't know how fucking lucky you are and i was livid like what are you talking about he said my kids

are 26 24 21 and 17 he was they remember every single thing that i've done and he says if you get this right then your daughter doesn't have to know that side of you. And it was like somebody hit me in the head with the fucking sledgehammer. In that moment right there, that man saved my life. Because everything clicked. Everything. Why I needed to be here.

Why I needed to get my shit right. Why I could never drink again. And most importantly for me, what it did was why I'm no different than any other person in that facility. Why I'm no different than anybody else. why we're so quick to judge the homeless man and gripping a bag under the bridge. You don't know how they got there.

And you learn really quick when the fog lifts, when you're sitting there with all of these amazing people in rehab, and the fog lifts and people start to get clean and they're two, three, four weeks in, you start to talk and you hear their stories and you listen and you learn. These are amazing people. So many addicts and alcoholics, they're amazing fucking people,

and they just go down the wrong path, and it happens so fast. You don't even know what's happening. You have no clue. But the fact that people sit there and compare, it's so counterproductive because you never look inward, you never learn about yourself, you never realize I am the heroin addict. I am the kid living in a dumpster. I am the guy that hit a family. It just didn't happen to me.

That's luck. It's dumb luck that I didn't go down those paths. That's all. It's a flip of a fucking coin. had the nerve to sit there and compare myself that I'm better than them. Who the fuck am I? But once that hit, once that clicked for me, it opened up everything. I knew why I was here.

I knew what I had to do. And I was so fucking determined after that for my daughter, for my mom, my dad, my stepdad, my stepmom, my family, my brothers and sisters. But... I got out about 10 days after that, I did 30 days in there and left on their recommendation. I didn't leave earlier anything. I stayed the whole time. And when I got out, I had no idea what I was going to do for those that don't know.

You know, when I was 18 years old, I moved out of my parents' house pretty much because of baseball. You know, I was playing summer ball every summer. I would come back maybe for two weeks, maybe four max, but for the most part, I was on my own after that. Not that I wasn't getting support. I just had to travel the country for ball. I moved back into my parents' house when I was 28. I turned 28 in rehab. Moved back into my parents' house, 28 with no job, out of rehab,

haven't seen my daughter in a while, in the middle of a divorce with nowhere to live. And that's where my life had gone. And it happened within a year and a half. That's how fast you can lose everything. and I had no idea what I was going to do. Baseball was my entire life since I was a kid. It's all I knew.

I grew up in it. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That's it. And I was. And I gave it all up. And what I didn't realize is that it was one of the biggest blessings in my life was to move on from it. And that kind of kick started when I was, you know, asking my mom and talking to her, she worked out and worked with a gym and Chestnut Hill and said they knew.

need a new male trainer. Would you be interested? And I said, yeah, why not? You know, I worked out my whole life because of baseball. I found a certification test in like bum-fuck PA in the middle of nowhere. I drove, didn't have time to study because it was the next day and hoped that I'd learned enough from my career in baseball to pass because it was just a pass-fail kind of deal. And I did. I passed, which was awesome. And I started training the next week. And being at that gym, I fell ass backwards into a private chef gig because I had an Instagram account that I do food on called Steals Meals.

And she asked, you know, do you cook for people? I said, no, I take pictures of the food that I cook and I post it. That's literally it. She says, do you want to? I said, sure, I'll try it. Why not? And I had my first private dinner for one of the most affluent families in all of Philadelphia,

which was a very nerve-wracking experience. It went super well, what jumpstarted my career as a private chef, but that's a story for a different day. But all of those things came about because of the people around me. And I can't say enough about how much I've been blessed by my family, my friends, when I got home, Shooter, that fucking moron, reconnecting with him and a lot of my other high school friends. this is a life I never dreamed I'd have. I didn't even have it on my radar forever.

I was a baseball player. That's all I wanted to do. And because of this experience, and I'll never forget when I was in rehab, it was like the third day, and this woman spoke to us, and she had been sober for a while, and she introed with, hi, my name is so-and-so, and I'm a grateful alcoholic. And I was so mad. I was so upset.

I didn't understand. Like, how can you stand up there and be grateful for this? Like, this is terrible. I lost everything. And I didn't get it until the last day of rehab. I'd been in there for 30 days, and you kind of give a speech to your unit. The way they set it up is as you progress through rehab, you sort of take on a leadership role. It happens with everybody for the most part, where you, the group,

kind of looks to you. And then when you leave, the next person steps up and so on and so forth. And so I spoke to my group at the end and I said, look, my third day here, I heard this woman say that she was grateful. And I was livid. And I hated her. I absolutely hated her in that moment. Um, but I'm, but I'm standing before you today as a grateful alcoholic and I sit before you all today and talk to you guys as a grateful alcoholic because I wouldn't have any of this shit if I didn't go through what I went through. I wouldn't have this outlook on life, my family, reconnecting with Dev who's been a fucking godsend. She's amazing. The relationship with my daughter has never been stronger. My family, my parents,

I would have none of this without being an alcoholic. And I speak to you like this and I open up like this, one, to remain vulnerable, to remain emotionally connected, to remain open, to remain honest, to speak from the heart because I think it's so important to be that person. I need to be because I know what I'm like if I'm not. On the flip side, I also need to share this to try to erase the stigma that comes along with this shit. If anybody out there, I don't care what you're going through. I don't care what you think you know. This can happen to anybody. And people's problems

are people's problems. It's not up to us to decide what impacts a person more than the other person. You don't know. What might seem trivial to you could be the hardest thing that person's ever gone through. Who are you to decide? Who am I to decide? So walk with grace. Treat people with grace be open understand that there's a lot of shit going on and we all deal with a lot of shit and that's okay it's okay to hurt it's okay to need help it's okay to talk about it and it's okay to open up and i pray that anybody listening if you need help if you're teetering on the fence if you need somebody to talk to talk to somebody i know how scary it is i know how hard it is. If you want to talk to me, message me, DM me on my personal page on bravros. I don't

care. But if you need to talk to somebody, I'm always here. But I'm just grateful for what I've been given. I never expected to have a second chance on life. Standing in the mirror of that one day, you know, five plus years ago, I was convinced that was it. And I look around now and everything that I have, and I am the most great alcoholic you'll ever meet. So thank you to all of you, amazing listeners. I never dreamed that I would have a podcast with one of my best friends and sit here and talk to all of you and have you actually listen. This has been one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. um my amazing wife to have all of her support my parents all four of them got mom stepdad dad dad

step mom all them my little brother stole my older brother brooks riley finley sidney um my inlaws susy and weed just everybody man who to thunk huh um but thank you for everything to all of you to everybody listening um i wouldn't be here without all of you and i know that and i take a lot of credit for what i've done i know i did it but it would be impossible without everybody around me so cheers to five years baby and uh here's many many more i uh i love you all