Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - He Went From Meth Addict to Millionaire's Therapist — Matt Grace's Wild Recovery Story - E195

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

What if the thing that finally stopped your addiction... wasn't willpower? Today I'm sitting down with Matt Grace — a man who went from Ritalin to crystal meth to arrests and overdoses, and is now, twenty years later, the guy that Manhattan's wealthiest families call when their kid is dying from the same thing he almost died from. He's about to tell you the one thing his own parents did that kept him sick for years — and why he says addiction never lies, but families do. This is not a sanitized recovery story. Stay with us.     Follow Matt Grace - - New Book - God Doesn't Relapse- https://amzn.to/3Spg42y - IG - @mattsavinggrace - Website - https://mattgrace.com     Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy:► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ► Substack: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick     MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is subjective and an acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast.   SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast: You will find a "Follow" button in the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec   Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Operly - Take Back Control of Your Work Day and Get Rid of All Your AI Apps - Welcome to the new world of Time Freedom and Unlimited Scaling and Success with Operly -  https://go.getoperly.ai/video?ref=jean-claude-claude-d-2a95 Blue Blinds Bakery - Handcrafted with all-natural ingredients - www.blueblindsbakery.com 00:00 - 02:23: Intro: Turning the Tables / Episode Trailer 02:23 - 08:58: Before They Met: Mieke's Path, JC's First Marriage & Seven Years of Dating 08:58 - 14:29: Manifesting Love: Mieke's Ritual & JC's Recurring Dream 14:29 - 20:13: The Bumble Match & the First Phone Call 20:13 - 27:33: The First Date, Moving In Fast & a Hospital Scare 27:33 - 32:39: The Reveal: Lexi and the Dream Come True 32:39 - 37:50: What Makes Their Marriage Work 37:50 - 40:47: The Proposal in Front of 11,000 People 40:47 - 44:42: Gratitude & the Adoption Journey 44:42 - 48:35: Advice: Trust the Process 48:35 - 52:35: The Book "Make Sense" & Reframing Your Life 52:35 - ending: Chicken, Dragon & Closing Thoughts   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why do rich families hide addiction better? And why does that addiction kill them faster? Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality.

It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. Great morning humans, great morning world. My name is Dr. J.C. Dornick, otherwise known as The Dragon, and I want to welcome you to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. Today I want to challenge one of the most common prayers people make every single night, and that is, God, please remove this pain.

And my question is this, what if the pain wasn't the interruption? What if the pain, in fact, was the invitation? Matt, welcome. Welcome to what we call the Dragon's Lerner. Blair, welcome to The Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. You and I met at the bookthinkers event. My partner and I had a booth for our podcast academy, and you were just standing right behind us. So I want to kind of go a little bit further back than most people go with your story, because what's fascinating for me is who you were before all this crazy stuff that you went through. Like, tell me a little

bit about the mat before addiction ever entered your picture. And what I want to know specifically is this, who were you? What is it that you remember that you loved? What is it that pained you? What were you searching for? Because every addict was a child first. I had to put a trigger warning in the beginning of the book because I'm not someone who you want to root for as a kid. So for me, I'm probably the only, I don't know, you'll have to do a survey. I'm probably the only kid to be expelled from two preschools. Preschool? Yeah.

Wow. Yep. And I remember, so a lot of people are just shocked at how much I remember from my past, even as a young child. My first memory is my father sitting outside of the class observing me from preschool number two. You know, the teachers asked him to come watch how I behave. At home, I fell in line.

I was respectful and not a problem child. Interesting. But it's interesting. my first memory is he was sitting outside looking through the glass and I walked up to this kid who was building something from licking logs. I looked over at my dad and he just made this face like, don't do it. And I kicked the tower over regardless. And it came into the classroom and picked me up by my arm and lifted me off the ground and took me out of the class. And so then in kindergarten, so by the time I was six, the school therapist,

told my parents that she thought I could end up in prison and be a criminal. Wow. And did you hear them say that? No, but I started swearing at my teachers. I cut some girls' hair off during nap time with a play school scissors. And the teacher said, Mr. Grace, I'm calling your father. I said, go ahead. We're going skiing in Aspen tomorrow. And you can't do a goddamn thing about it. So let me ask you a question about that. Because right now, you know, I'm because of the Aspen comment. I'm thinking you were just this spoiled little brat that just felt privilege and you do whatever the fuck you want. So what is it now? Because I mean, you've done a lot of work on yourself and you're helping other people now. What was it about? I think it's important to note that my parents

left me home and did not take me on the trip. Oh, okay. Good. So that's where I get protective of my parents because they did the best that they could. Right. And so I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor. And so one of the things I say that because my father was my best friend and my enabler. But what I say in the book is that it's not an indictment of his failure. It's a testament to what happens when you love someone too much. When you frame it that way. Can you say that again? Yes.

The book is not an indictment of his failure. It's a testament to what happens when you love someone too much. Oh, that's awesome. Because when you grow up to be an adult, then you realize, you know, for the most part parents do the best that they can i was sent to a therapist starting at the age of nine well three times a week for nine years and he told me that i wanted to have sex with my mother and castrate my father and that the therapist the therapist told you that yep and then i started physically assaulting him every session for four years wow so right this was a bad guy um he never

told my parents that i was that that's what the session was i would go into the session because when you're nine know what therapy is. Right. But I thought, okay, I go in here. I assault him. He would put me in a bear hug and restrain me. And he would say, okay, if I let you go, are you going to stop? And so sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't. That was four years like that. Jesus. So imagine being told that you want to F your mom. I mean, what that could do to your psyche. Right. And so my behavior got worse. My childhood was a disaster. It was a dumpster fire. And I think that the big mistake that my parents made was not, everybody in my family went to interview this guy. Nobody liked him. But their decision was firm and resolute. It's just one of those things

where I, you know, I had to go for nine years. Eventually, I stopped trying to attack him and I just started sleeping throughout the sessions where I would walk in and he wouldn't even acknowledge me. I would just go to the couch and sleep. I don't want to ask this question because it'd be hard for you to answer it from where you stand now because you've you've found yourself and you're you're moving in a positive direction but if you were to go back to that time and i asked that kid that nine-year-old kid hey whose fault is all this shit who would you have blamed my parents your parents okay not not the not not the therapist no because my parents were responsible got you got you picking him and then other family members pleading with them to terminate him yeah and

they stuck with that diagnosis that was just, you know, it's a Freudian diagnosis that's absurd. Nobody really, you'd be hard pressed to find that kind of diagnosis out there. Well, things were different. Things were a little different back then, too, than they are now. And I was a meal ticket. Yeah. Look, and I'm not the only one. There's a lot of people who sit on someone's couch for 10 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. But I forgave my parents. Well, later, later. I'll send you a copy of my book. You'll see that, you know, there's a lot of alignment and, you know, totally different stories, but, but I very much. One thing I just want to add real quickly, this was, I think, even worse just than the diagnosis.

My parents got divorced when I was 13, but this man not only said that I had an Oedipal complex, but he said that mothers are inherently bad for their sons and that I should hate my mother and stay away from her. Wow. Pretty interesting, dude. So when, when did medication first become your teacher? Like, what do you think meds began, you know, when did they begin and what did you, you know, how did it start to change you? I believe your first medication was riddle in, right?

Yeah, but a bit that was, I wasn't prescribed riddle and I was abusing it with my friends. Okay, so you weren't, this had nothing to do with your condition. So, so tell me how you found it and why you took to it. So we moved and when I was 11 into a new neighborhood. And my friends were just one of my friends who was a little younger than me. We were at a pre-party one summer day. And he just said, And what age?

I was 16. He was 14. Gotcha. And he crushed a pill of riddle in and said, Grace, get over here and snort this. And that was it. That was, I was off. I said that was anphetamine bliss.

It was a gift from the gods. and anybody who's inhaled something up their nose on a continual basis knows that amphetamines were my thing right from the get-go. But what, because this is the beginning, you know, and I don't want to make this whole talk about this. I want to make it more about where you're at now. But what problem did that amphetamine serve? Like, how did it, what did it solve for you?

Nothing. So I think what's important to understand is that, um, You know, it listened, I think, well, I'll get to trauma. But that word is just overused and I manipulated my trauma. Sure. Right. Because addicts are very cunning and shrewd. And you say things and you'll say anything to anyone to keep them at bay from trying to help you get sober.

But it's important to understand that the, I had the predisposed genetic component. My grandmother was an alcoholic. Her three siblings were alcoholics. And my great-grandfather was an alcoholic who took off during the Great Depression and just left family. So what, you know, again, like, I'm sure I was, there's some escapism in it, but I was never going to outrun, whether it was riddle and alcohol, that genetic component. Right.

That's interesting. Right. As you know, you mean, go look at like all my Irish friends. It's like great-grandfather, grandfather, uncle, uncle, right? So it's interesting because, you know, alcoholism ran, rampant in my family. And I don't know how. I've never really made sense of this, but I completely went the other way. Like, I mean, I've experimented with just about everything, but I just never took to anything. And I always assumed I would, you know. Well, your brain chemistry is also,

there's brain chemistry also plays a part. Yeah, yeah. And a two. What I was going to ask you before, it was that did the addiction begin when you elevated to things like meth or did it begin like way before, maybe even before Ritalin? No, it was Ritalin. The first time I tried it, that was it. Right. I was doing it almost every day. And then another bad decision was when I graduated high school, I moved to Santa Barbara, California.

It was like Animal House, like even on a Sunday morning. I lived with kids who went, who were from Beverly Hill. the kids who couldn't get into Berkeley or Stanford or USC, right? These were the degenerates that I fell in line with. And I was introduced to meth. And so, you know, people's addictions have different paces and different intensities. And for me, I was just peddled to the metal 100 degrees, having psychotic breaks by 18 years old. Knowing what you know now, was that somebody that was trying to enjoy themselves?

or did you just not give a shit, like even if you, if it killed you? What happens is, right, you build a tolerance, right? That's what every addict is chasing is that first high. Right. And unfortunately, you just never, you can never catch it again. And so it started out as feeling good. And what happened was when I went to Santa Barbara, I was literally, this is how I introduced myself.

I was walking down the hallway of my dorm, knocking on people's doors, saying, hi, my name's Matt Grace, I live on the floor. Nice to meet you. You have any Ritalin? I knocked on every single door asking that question until I found this guy who says, I have something better. And that was meth. Wow. So I was out of Ritalin, and it was, you know, by doing it for quite some time, I needed it by that point. And then once the meth, I mean, the meth was like the C4 that just exploded. Right. How far gone did that take you? I mean, And I've never experienced anything like that. But I mean, when I think of somebody doing meth, I think of somebody in the street, like, tweaking.

That's not what this scene was like. I was like. I was tweaking. I just wasn't in the street. Yeah. You were like tweaking in a comfortable environment and it was like acceptable. The thing is, is though my nickname, I'm a big hip hop guy. And Craig Mack is a rapper.

Okay. And his like one hit wonder came out in 1994. And so I loved it so much. but my nickname became Craig Crack. And you probably thought that was funny at the time. Yeah, you know, I was, do meth is just evil. Right. And thank God, I mean, it's so much more powerful now and potent than when I was doing it.

Right. And so I started having psychotic breaks where I thought people were jumping through the wall to try to kill me with chainsaws. Like I could have sworn that that was happening. And my friends had to pin me to the ground and wait until that subsided. And the addiction was so powerful that you would overlook that and go back again. Yeah, I turned blue and stopped breathing and my roommate had to take me to the ER. And then the straw that broke the camel's back was six o'clock, I think, in the morning.

And I think it was a Sunday morning. I was pounding on this guy's door, begging him to open up and give me meth. I was crying and screaming. Wow. And the RA, right, I'll never forget this. She came out, looked at me and was like, oh, my God. And she said, am I calling your parents or are you? And I called my mom.

It's important to note my dad was out two weeks before because he got my report card, which was a zero point zero. And my credit card bill, which was $10,000. And that's 30 years ago. And so I put that in my book. If your kid is a freshman in college and he gets a 0.00 and incomplete, and gets a $20,000 credit card bill, remove him from school immediately and have him pay that back because that was a potential life lesson to figure out what debt is like from irresponsible decisions.

My father just wipe my slate clean. And then two weeks later, after that running with the RA, I called my mom. And I said, if you don't fly out here tomorrow and pick me up, I'm going to die. And I believe that had I been out there a little longer, I would be dead. What would you say, because I know that you got into, you know, you broke the law and you, there was so much more to the story. And I don't want to give the whole book away because it's just, the book is just going to blow everybody's mind. But what would you say is your lowest moment?

Well, that was on October 2nd, 2004. I came home. I disappeared. I was living with my mom, 29. And she said there's, there's two rules here. Right? This is kind of before smartphone. It's, yeah, no smartphones.

She said, if you're going to live here, there's no drugs or alcohol. And if you're not going to be home, you have to call. So I would just disappear. And I disappeared for three days. I'm six feet tall. I came in at 11.30 on a Saturday morning. My mom said, oh, my God, and started sobbing. That was 129 pounds, like I'd been on a bender, which I had.

And then she gathered herself and said, if you're going to die, it's not going to be in this house. Get out. I'm changing the locks. And so that's why my mom put a boundary in place and held the line. And by the way, I just want to mention real quickly, you know, my mom just passed away. And thank you. But I found a letter. And I stated in one of my clips, like parents, this is why I wrote the book.

My mom wrote a letter to my father I found from 30 years ago. And she knew exactly who I was. And my dad refused. This is the dichotomy that I face. One parent trying to set a boundary, the other parent running over it. That's what I'm trying to reach is parents to embrace their kid, wake the F up. Nobody gets out of this life unscathed. Diabetes, cancer, drug addiction, some depression.

And my mom said, you know, to my father, Matt tells you what you want to hear and only what you want to hear. He's lying. He's manipulating. He failed out of college. He lost his driver's license. I mean, it, he feels like it was just one thing after the back. Your dad didn't look at you as having like a disson. or a problem or an addiction, he was just looking at you as a fuck up.

Oh, not even that. He propped me up because it was important for him to, for his friends to see that I was successful, which is why he paid my bills until I was 29 years old. Wow. Which is a complete, you do that for a man. You're, you're decapitating their spirit. You destroy their ambition. And that's why I am so bullish on parents making things difficult for their teenagers.

This is powerful stuff. I mean, I don't have this problem with my kids, but I know what it's like to hope for your kids and things like that. Let's talk about enabling, because this is a big topic. So when people hear the word enabling, they imagine kindness. And then I've heard you describe it almost as a form of imprisonment. Could you explain that? Enabling. Yeah.

And I think that real life case studies that I put in my book are perfect examples. So one family, they hired me and my former business partner, and we had a consulting practice. So on the first call, this kid calls his mom the C letter under the C word. How old? He was 17. Okay. Now, I think that kids are more disrespectful towards their parents today than they were 40 years ago. Or the parents have just softened a little bit.

Imagine calling your mom that word. I mean, it's just so disrespectful. And I was just so shocked that she was just took it like that. So I drew a boundary immediately. That's a form of enabling, not having boundaries and being stepped on by your children. So I said, if I ever hear him call you that again, I'm not going to work on this case because I'm not doing this for money. I don't need your money. I'm doing this to try to help and really help your son and help you recover as a family.

And he never called her that again. And he wasn't working. He was just smoking pot all day. living a home. Father was checked out. The mom, no boundaries. And so, and he was a tyrant, right? He was like little Lord Fauntleroy running the household. And I said to the parents, don't ever let someone who's not contributing to this house disrespect you. And I said, who pays the mortgage? Yeah, well, we do. Well, yeah, exactly. Right. This, this kid contributes nothing. Does that, does, pointing that out to a parent, because I almost see these parents as sleepwalking, you know,

Just cognitive bias is a powerful thing. I can know something to be unequivocally true and prove that it's not. So when you make a statement to a parent, like I'm just imagining myself in that position and you're saying, hey, who pays the bills, this and that? You've got to set a boundary. How many of these parents listen? 95% do not. Do not.

That's why I got out of the practice and wrote my book. Families are sicker than the addict they're related to. Exactly. Exactly. So what just, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but what's the solution? I think parents need to go away to some kind of two, three, four day course. There's this misconception. Oh, my uncle or my brother or son or daughter, they're the F up. You go to treatment and fix yourself. Yeah. We don't have to do anything. And that's, then you're just coming back to the same toxic environment with no boundaries. and then that person doesn't have a chance. I want to give you one more example.

Obviously, I worked with high net worth families because insurance doesn't cover most of the ancillary services in the addiction space. I had to tell parents that even when I quit the practice and I still took calls, I had to tell people to stop calling me because everybody can relate to when someone calls you and asks for advice and then they don't take it.

Right. But they still call you and ask 500 times. Well, it gives them the illusion they're doing something. This kid said to his dad, I want a BMW, and it better be this color and nothing else. Otherwise, I'm not taking it. That's what I'm dealing with. Yeah. And he acquiesced.

Assuming that your family is a wealthy family, and you can relate to that. You know what it feels like to, maybe you didn't say the BMW statement, but you were constantly getting bailed out. You now can see that it was enabling, you know. Let me ask you a question. Can love actually become a selfish thing? Yeah, so what I say is parents are loving their kids to death. That's going to be tough for people to hear. I take it one step further.

I tell parents that here's what enabling looks like, and there's a lot of people who disagree with me now, for people who don't have a lot of money, there are parents who drive their kids to the bad neighborhoods so the kid can pick up drugs and then shoot up in the van on the way home. Why would somebody do that just to appease them? They think that they're keeping them safe. Now, there are people who will say,

well, at least they're with them and they can give them Narcan if they OD. And I said, you think that that's how a family wants to spend the rest of their life? And that's not the way that's not the way drugs work. You don't get to just try them. That is that that that is talk about PTSD and what like seeing your kid OD and bring them back and going through that same routine. It's absolutely absurd.

Families have the right to live a nice life. They don't have to be hijacked or held hostage by this. And, you know, what I want to say to that is that I think that parents, parents, that that parent, if her son died, should dig his grave. 100%. How do families confuse or get confused between helping with protecting themselves from being in pain? How does that happen? I mean, I can see it.

And in very, very fluffy white manners, I've done it with my kids. But, I mean, we're talking about life and death shit here. here here is what parents are their biggest fear what if my son or daughter kills themselves right now people use that now look there's there's there's two paths here one people do some kids have bipolar disorder they have a history of mental health unrelated to substances but then combined with substances it's it's a tough it's a tall order and so they may have had suicide ideation or attempts in the past. Then there's the others who've never talked about it and who've never made attempts

and not saying that they can't, but you can see how a parent's worst nightmare is. If I put them in the street, they can die. Listen, there's no simple answer. But I will say, if they're going to live at home, they should be drug tested. If they fail a drug test, there has to be consequences and just take away as much as possible. But do you think that would have worked for you? Yeah. Okay.

Because I stopped when my, you know when I stopped, when my mom and dad got together, everyone in the family got together and said, we're done with you. And when my father, because why would I, why would I want to stop using if someone's paying for my drugs? Right. Right. It's common. So as soon as you had to pay for them, that was.

I could afford it. Yeah. I mean, and, and, you know, and my parents called me on my bluff. Right. Now I'm not saying, listen, I'm not saying to throw someone out. I'm saying that after three treatment centers and arrests and drug court and suspensions and failed out of school and this and that, after 13 years, you're damn right that my parents had a right to throw me out. Were you in relationships during all this time? Yes.

Okay. And was that toxic as well? Yes. Not many because I was so incapacitated. All my allowance went to drugs and alcohol. Right. And I just was, you know, I hear, I like this. I heard someone say, I cheated on my wife. I had an affair with booze. Hmm. Well, I've actually, I think, I think you refer to this as the universal disease.

Like everybody has some sort of something they used to escape, whether it's work, success, phones, food. You know, booze is an obvious one, but also food, getting involved in all the bullshit with politics and everything like that. Is this valid? Are those things in some ways as powerful? Well, the subtitle of my book is Sex, Drugs, and the Life That Almost Killed Me. Exactly. As you know, my father introduced me to prostitution. That's crazy.

And then two months later at my cousin's bachelor party, they had prostitutes there as well. And so, you know, that clip got 2.4 million views. All I said was fathers, don't buy your son's hookers. And the internet exploded with like 4,000 comments of saying that my dad is a legend. I'm an ungrateful son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and I think that's just part of trolls being online. Those are people that have never experienced any real form of life.

You know what I mean? Like those are people that are playing video games all day and think that. Probably don't have kids. Yeah, they think that everything that they do, they get another quarter to put in the in the slow. So what I, because there's a lot of, and I put a clip out there, are happy endings cheating. And what I said was, if you're in a marriage, happy ending like a massage parlor. If you're in a marriage or in a relationship and the intimacy has dwindled,

like it does in a lot of relationships, you know, if a man gets a hand job at a massage parlor, is that cheating and is that a deal breaker? And, you know, I guess it depends on the arrangement. but what men say is that it's not an intimate affair or an emotional affair. It's just an exchange. So it's not cheating. So sex was another, like you said, I mean, I played musical chairs. Gambling, sex.

Sex is very powerful because porn is, porn and gambling are wiping out a generation of young men. Right. Porn, look at your phone. You can gamble and masturbate on your phone all day. At the same time. It's just as bad. I mean, you're not going to die from a family. But what I said to myself was that, all right, I'm not drinking and driving.

Go to hang out with strippers. And it's all the same. It all leads to the same empty emptiness and loneliness. There's no reward. There's no reward at the end of that tunnel. This is one of the big blessings that I'm trying to explain to people, but it's a touchy subject because, as you know, I'm going through cancer right now. And I'm telling people how blessed and lucky I feel that the universe.

chose to give me this. And what I'm saying is that I've lived a healthy lifestyle, but I always had my toe in doing stupid shit. I come from doing a lot of stupid shit. When I got my diagnosis, and I don't know if this relates to anything you went through, the first thing that I was blessed with is that the illusion of the guarantee of tomorrow went away. And all I had was the present moment and I started to not do anything at all, like even eat sugar and shit like that. And I find myself in this paradox where I've got cancer and, you know, things are moving in the right direction, but I'm also physically, mentally in the best shape of my life. So what part of Matt had to die before the real Matt, who you are today could begin living?

So several things. Yeah. The selfishness and self-centeredness is what plagued me. my whole life, which my parents fed into, that had to die. Humility had to had to seep in and take over instead of arrogance. That's powerful humility. And I was humbled. What changed my life is when I got on my knees, I had a, and I posted this two days ago,

where I'm holding a rifle. And I said, God, if you don't show yourself, I want to blow my head off. And I had a white light spiritual experience that lasted 25 minutes. The room lit up and the urge to use drugs and alcohol. was lifted for me instantaneously. Wow. And then I realized that by putting men in my life who told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear.

So I had to experience enough pain to become humble and to listen. Because I started doing service and volunteer work, I realized that my problems aren't that bad. What happens with alcoholics is that they have this terminal uniqueness. If you had my problems, you would drink. You don't know how bad it is. Right. But privileged people have completely lost perspective.

today and they ruminate on their problems. How do you define a privileged person? Okay, that's a good question. I have a good answer. Even middle class people are privileged. Your car payment is more than someone's rent. Shut the F up. You're right.

Okay, I don't want to hear it. Middle class people, they may not have a six-month nest egg. Okay, they might be, but they're not worried about food. I pay attention to grocery bills. No, you're in whole foods. If you paid attention to grocery bills, you'd be at all these. Yeah, you'd have coupons. Yeah, don't, don't, don't, just don't go there.

Right. We've lost perspective. Everybody's ruminating about their problems. And by the way, I didn't come up with that. I saw that on a Joe Rogan podcast. It was brilliant. This therapist was like people are people's problem isn't the problem. It's them thinking about the problem all day.

Right. Ruminating on it. Was the addiction trying to kill you or was it brought into your life to save you? I love that question. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Amen. 100%. Dude, are you kidding me?

I was so spoiled and entitled. That's why my book is hard to read because my father, you know, I was a TV reporter. Right. My dad got me the job. I'm like, yeah, I'll come into work when I want to. While you were on drugs? Yes, I OD'd in the newsroom in front of my coworkers. Jesus Christ.

So I wouldn't be volunteering. I wouldn't be doing service work. I would still be the same prick. I felt that the world owed me something. That's how every day I woke up and I said, this world owes me something. And then when I got sober, I realized it was me who owed the world. That's what I, I've been speaking for 21 years. And I'm saying, the reason why you're going through this is because you are in a position to be able to help someone else. To learn to harness the pain,

take that pain and turn it into positive energy. And who else is better suited to help someone than another addict. And it's funny that we don't recognize that. And that's a powerful message right there for the person that's listening that may be coming to terms that they're an addict. And sometimes we'll identify with that and not think that there's any way to go. Like maybe somebody is addicted to porn. And they're like, oh, shit, I don't want to talk about that, you know. But they kind of know. The idea of hearing somebody like you say that that is a necessary ingredient in what

you're intended to do, that's a pretty powerful reframe. Let me ask you a question about wealthy families. And, you know, listen, this is not universal for all wealthy families. It's not just about money. It's about toxicity and dysfunction. And I used to think that my parents were dysfunctional until I learned about their parents. And then I was like, oh, you guys are much better, you know. Do wealthy families have better means for treatment or better hiding places for problems?

Oh, I can tell you that I've worked with some of the wealthiest families in this country. and they are, be careful what you wish for. Right. I'm talking billions and billions. I just had a guy on the show a couple days ago that was worth $28 billion. What's his family life like? Well, he's 94 now, but I got to hear his whole story, and it's just riddled with challenges at the same time that he was a genius, you know.

Generational addiction, generational mental health. orders. I mean, families that they don't speak to each other. Right. So you can hide out, right, because a lot. So what I dealt with is either kids or people who had trusts, right? And they were getting X amount of dollars or if it wasn't a trust. It was someone spending 30 grand a month on his dad's Amex Black card. That's just not reality. You know, it's interesting. I didn't want to go to AA because I thought it was just poor people. So think about that mindset. There are a lot of wealthy It's just this was such a dumb stupid, you know. Well, what you don't know, you don't know.

Yeah. I just think that when you give someone, when they don't have to work for something, then you just destroy their ambition. It takes away purpose and meaning in someone's life. Now, some kids, right, there's the kid who goes to Harvard, right? He plays golf. He does, he's spoiled, but he's driven. Yeah.

But then you have, then you have the family member that's not ambitious and not driven. And I'm not saying that you have to be ambitious like you want to be Bill Gates. but if you take someone's ambition away, they're not going to want to do anything. Interesting. I want to talk about God, the GOD, the big guy in the sky. It appears that you had some sort of a surrender. So I'd like to know what that meant to you, but also did God remove your addiction or did God reveal your true identity?

God, it didn't cure my addiction. You know, when you get sober, you have to start from a place of honesty. the people who die were never able to get honest. You can't launch from being dishonest with yourself because you're just lying, you're just ruining your own life. So when I started to live a spiritual life and do service and pray, and, you know, it's important to note that most people don't have that white light. So I always like to say that.

It happens over a period of time. Yeah. Well, you were for whatever reason, ready to receive it. The white light is always there, but you were ready to receive it. it. I think that the people who live have a responsibility to give back. I think that's why I was spared, and that's why a lot of my friends are dead. Right. And so God revealed, you know who revealed? It's just, it was a, it was a process. I think it was a process of a combination of therapy, God, and removing my character defects to the best of my ability. And so why I wrote my book is because, or the title,

there's a lot of men and women who struggle with the concept of God. And that book is called, what does it? What does, it's called God doesn't relapse. What I say, kind of my, my tagline is that if you're atheist and an agnostic, you can do service work. That can be your higher power. Right. And, you know, there's a one, we have to have a coming to terms moment that I can tell

if an addict is serious or someone is serious about recovery when they say, I don't want to go to a 12-step meeting. And I say that I understand, no problem. Why don't you come with me and volunteer somewhere? Oh, you don't want to do that either. Right? And that's where that's what's, that's the biggest problem is that people don't want to stop, which is okay, right?

I didn't want to stop. You can't, like, someone has to want to make that decision. You can't make that decision for someone else unless you get locked up. And sometimes people make it, make it change. But God revealed who I was and then who I want to be. What does God doesn't relapse really mean? Like, tell me about that. I'll tell you when I came up with the title.

Yeah, it's very interesting title. This is, if you were in the treatment center industry, there's a pill for everything. So if you are an alcoholic, they give you an abuse, right? It's a pill that if you take it, it makes you vomit. It sounds like an awful name, an abuse. So they use that. But then you have to take it. it. Right. And then there's people who just who power through it. And my first treatment center,

I walked into the bathroom and one of my roommates who was an attorney was drinking scope, guzzling it. Right. So and abuse. Okay, got it. Now the big thing today, or methadone has been around for a long time, but now they have Suboxone and something called Sublicade. Right. And so they have something for everything. Right. Right. That's the medical field saying, if you take this,

it will prevent this. You know, you know what's happening now with Suboxone? Nitrous has made a comeback. Right. So what Suboxone does in case people don't know

is it curbs the appetite and the desire for alcohol and opiates. It's a nice addiction right there. Okay. Now I've seen people get high on the Suboxone because they not out in meetings.

Right? They don't take it as prescribed. And at the end of the day, how I came up with the title is that at some point in your life, you are going to get smacked in the face like you have with cancer. And I got a, I became. And also remember, we're both saying it's the greatest thing that ever happened to us. I was 16 years sober. And that's when I thought of the title.

I had everything a young man would, you would think that they want, financial security, a purpose, you know, everything was coasting. Just didn't have your health. Then I got COVID and I almost ended up in a wheelchair because I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And I was bedridden for five months. Wow. I could barely get out of bed. And I was this close to take in my life.

And because anybody who's been in chronic pain knows what that is like is relentless, it's unforgiving. Why bother? And I said, I want to die. And then I drew a line in the sand. And I said to myself, what kind of example am I setting for someone who's new? If I check out because of this illness, if I ever my lot of people don't know what it is, it's crippling. It's crippled my life. And I doubled down right then and there.

And I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that. And I think that this is a test from God to see how faithful I really am. That's the service part you were speaking. of right because you can go through a bad marriage but you have to work on it you can have a bad relationship and so this was like it's easy to believe in god when things are going well but what happens when things aren't going well right do you just turn away and that's what i'm trying to tell people is that you can face you there's going to come a point in your life whether you and i use

these stories this book is not just about me i share inspirational stories of people facing catastrophes, but having faith in pushing through them. One example is my friend whose wife and buried his wife and son in the same year. That's a tough year. That's a tough year. And his wife was, this is so inspirational. That's why I took care of my mom. I was at the funeral, his son's funeral, and he was pushing his wife in a wheelchair.

She had full-blown dementia, didn't know where she was. And I walked up to him and I said, why don't you put her in a home? And he looked at me, he said, because that's my wife. Right. And he said, I owe her for the years of infidelity and selfishness. And I was a lousy husband. And I'm sober now. And I mean, how inspiring is that?

Yeah. And so when he said that, that's when I decided that when my mom got sick, that I was going to take care of my mom, when people said, just put her in a home. Why would you move back from Florida to Michigan to take care of her? And I said, because that's my mom. Who is this book for? Because I personally think that this book is for everybody.

You know, and when I think about my listeners, my listeners love to read personal growth, self-development, and, you know, I quickly remind them, you mean like the Bible or something like that, right? There's personal growth and self-development, discovery, and everything, and you don't have to be an addict, even though you probably are in some sort of a way. I was a workaholic and on all that stuff,

or maybe it's porn or whatever. But when you wrote this book, was it just for the addicts that were like you or was it for everybody? Because when you're an active addiction, you're not reading books like this. I mean, I think as a non-addict, I would thoroughly grow from this book. There's so many lessons. Yeah, you could struggle with, there are other addictions. Yeah.

And that's really, it's a universal message. If you're depressed, if you're struggling with any kind of addiction, it's not just drugs and alcohol. I make one promise to you. If you go get a service position, go to a nursing home and spend a half hour with someone who has nobody visiting them. Right. Go to the VFW. Go to a soup kitchen.

Right. Then it comes down to the person. I guarantee you some of your depression will go away. And I'm not, this is not to, this is not an elimination of medication. Right. I believe in medication for the, for the right diagnosis. I believe that it can work. But this is an additional layer other than,

because here's what it comes down to. The pills help your brain, but service work helps your soul. They're two different things. So this book is for parents who are at their wits end. Hopefully they can digest the information instead of me sitting in their living room telling them what to do. Maybe they can take a step back,

read it, and then digest it and implement it. And then it's also really, honestly, for the person who's struggling with God, if you don't want to incorporate God in your life, if you volunteer and include some type of service in your life, that can be your higher power. Yeah, I love that you say that because it's obvious that you're not pointing at one vehicle to take you to God. And people misunderstand this. People blast me online saying, oh, you're, you know, you're some false Christian. You don't know God. I'm not even like, I don't, I don't talk about religion.

By the way, I haven't heard you, I haven't heard you mention it once. I've had a, I have a tremendous amount of respect for religious people. Sure, sure, me too. Those people don't have the same problem as the atheists and agnostics. Right. And I tell stories of how atheists and agnostic in my book that, that you can, you don't have to believe in God to go help someone else. Right.

The idea of being of service predates. any recovery program. Yeah. It's the highest form of self-actualization is serving mankind. You know, I mean, it's- And I think that, that especially men. And it's the biggest high, it's the biggest high that exists. Yes.

You know. Matt, first of all, what a crazy, crazy story. And I'm just so happy that you had all that shit happened to you because it's made you who you are today. And we all get to benefit from that. You know, talk about being born again. What is it that people, where would you like to direct people? Obviously, we're going to remind people, Matt's book is coming out on what date?

August 11th. August 11th that hits the stores, and Amazon, but it is actually on pre-sale right now. And we're, Matt's a good friend of the show. We want to help Matt. You know, this is a very powerful book that's going to help a lot of people. So we want to help Matt, you know, hit that New York Times best selling list. So please go out and get this. you're not the person that needs to read it, gift it to somebody because I don't know anyone

in my life that doesn't know somebody or a parent that needs this book. I mean, unless you just don't know anybody in the world that we live in. But what else would you like? I know that you're also on a national sobriety tour and you're speaking. Yeah, I'm available. If you can go to my website and fill out information if you're interested in me speaking, that's my end goal. What's that website? Mattgrace.com. Simple enough. Two T's. Yep.

Awesome, man. Well, I'm very excited for you. Congratulations. I love the book cover as well. It's very, very, very cool. And I think the world's a better place with this version of you in it, for sure. Thanks so much for being on the show. We're excited to see what happens next in your life.

Thank you so much for having me. That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the Make Sense substack for free daily quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action

is just another form of distraction. If something hit home and you learn something today, give it away. That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Makes sense. If you like the show,

please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening. listening.