Rev Left Radio - All too Human: Niko's Struggle with Alcoholism

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Shoeless in South Dakota: In this third edition of our All Too Human interview series, Breht and Dave welcome Niko into the Shoeless Shed to have an honest conversation about his struggles with alcoholism.  With these All Too Human interviews, we aim to highlight and destigmatize the mental health and addiction struggles of regular working class people in hopes that we can provide insight into this type of human suffering, help others who struggle with similar things feel less alone, and deepen our understanding of the modern human condition. Outro music: 'Hundreds of Ways' by Conor Oberst  ---------------------- Contact us, support us, follow us, or learn more about the show here: https://www.shoelessinsouthdakota.com

So it all started in a galaxy far, far away. I gave my sister a call after about a three-week bender, and we're talking 30, 35 shooters a day. So a bottle and a half. My whole rationality with why I went to shooters over a bottle is because if I buy a bottle, that whole thing's gone in an hour. My friend, that is two bottles. You're so drunk you can't do math anymore.

30 shooters is a shot each. Well, when I did my drunk, math, it was 23 shots per bottle. But once again, I might be wrong. Anyways, copious amount of alcohol. Too much, yeah. Yeah, really bad. Um, so withdrawals for anyone who's experienced them, they are, I'm experiencing everything, just have not seized at this point. Oh, yeah. So conversations with people that aren't there. Um, when enough of the alcohol has left my body, my hands crimp up like a lobster. I can't move my body, that type of stuff. Um, so anyway, I gave my sister a call

I'm like hey like I relapsed I've been on a really long vendor I need help and at this point I had a dog at the time wasn't taking the best care of him was just giving him food and letting him outside and letting him back inside

hundreds of shooters scattered across my floor and I come to find out the next day when my sister comes to rescue me per se so I can go detox at home very dangerous I might add she comes over there and I have two pair underwear that I've just defecated in super fucking gross and also the pair I was currently wearing I come to find out had a little bit in there too so that's three pairs on the way yeah dude just ripping through

three and once again like I've already been in treatment they're diapers now yeah dude straight up like I just skip the pens because I wanted to save money oh boy yeah so anyways on the way to my parents house and granted my mom has heard about the relapse but she doesn't know what state i'm in um my niece is there which is also more embarrassing but on the way there i'm crimped up like a lobster shaken profusely um my last drink was earlier that morning because i you know trying to detox um the moment i get to the house All I want is cold. For some reason, my experience with withdrawals, cold feels very, very good.

It's like such an extreme sensation. It helps you kind of forget about the extreme sensation you're currently going through withdrawing. So my mom and sister prepped me in ice bath. And before the ice baths even prepped, my clothes are off, 27 years old, butt-ass naked man, in front of his mom and sister. My sister's 30 years old, and, you know, my mom is my mom. So never thought I would be in that predicament. I hop in this tub and I'm just cradle, fetal position, shaking in the tub.

That's when we all kind of realized, okay, this dude needs to go to the hospital and medically detox. A place I had gone to five times was called Rise Detox. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Rise. In my opinion, the best detox experience of my life. It's local? Yes, local. I found out recently that one of the hospitals, if not both of their emergic cares or whatnot, closed down. I'm not sure if that's a rise thing specifically or not, so I don't know the scenario now.

Anyways, went into medical detox after that ice bath, and since it was my fifth time there, they were like, hey, man, you've been here too many times we are going to discharge you if you don't agree to go to treatment. and I was like I am more than willing to go to treatment like I know I need help again the only thing is I'm still paying off my treatment when I went to North Point so I cannot afford it like I have thousands of dollars to pay off still and they were like well

there's this place in Texas you know they've they've helped us out a lot with particular situations like this let's see what I can do so this guy bless his heart pulls every fucking string possible and gets me insurance-based treatment down in Texas. And I'm telling you this place is a legitimate villa, they call it.

It's called Sage Recovery, and it was a 15-room mansion. Like pool, horses in the back for equine therapy. Some of the best mental health therapy I've ever gotten in my life. I guess that's kind of contradictory because therapy's all for mental, for the most part. Yeah, that was a problem. Well, part of Texas. Um, Austin. Austin, Texas.

Okay, yeah. Because I, yeah, I have family in San Antonio. Yeah. And some in Austin, too, but, um, so equine therapy, the horse is, you're therapist, right? Yeah, yeah. Like taking notes and talking to you. Basically, they had trainers there and you would kind of sit down, kind of get into the room of, like, the energy of the outdoors with the horses, kind of have, um, one thing we would work on. So one thing we would, like, put the, like, put the, like, the energy of the outdoors with the horses, kind of have, um, um, um, um, one thing we would, like, put the,

lead on them and then slowly like walk around their body and pet them and so on so forth and then once you felt comfortable you could actually go through the whole grooming process and there was four horses there was Bo if you guys know Nick Elliott like the from the westerns

the deep voice Budweiser guy Oh vaguely yeah tombstone Okay yeah yeah yeah yeah tombstone's a classic yeah okay so this horse was Nick Elliott just like old timer energy Nick Elliott or Sam Elliott oh it might be Sam Elliot was the guy in the

He's the one Not Bukowski No he's the one that talks like this What am I thinking He's got the deep voice Yeah He's Sam Elliott The Great Lobowski

He has He's the guy at the bar With the cowboy hat on Probably I met Sam Elliott in a fucking Airport when I was like It's Sam Elliott What?

Yeah It's bad Yeah he just says The wise of shit In every movie That's his role So anyways Western man

So that was That was Bo A horse Then there was CJ who was like the young gun I don't care about you horse young stud and then there was Rosemary and Don the two female horses

and I got to like introduce myself to all of them but Bo was my boy and he was like the horse that they would let all the people who were more uncomfortable go to because he was just so calm and did the whole grooming process with him

and he was so comfortable with me and they tell you that horses are very intuitive and like they kind of match your emotions um they they know how you feel and i think i got a little bit of that experience for sure he let me do the whole grooming process without a lead on him and like make him walk backwards and forwards and yeah like strut with me so so it was kind of a magical experience to be honest um yeah we got to do that twice a week that's beautiful i i have a similar story i was uh incredibly depressed i had a sort of a mental breakdown when I was 17 and got hospitalized for it. And then my dad, who had lived in

Montana at the time, was like, you need to come out of Omaha, out of your friend group, all the drugs going on. You need to come up to Montana live with me to sort of get better. And immediately upon getting there, I met a girl who I began a relationship with. And her stepfather was Navajo and her mom was very spiritual, like a yogini type. Anyways, they had medicine horses. This is off the Crow Reservation up in Montana. And they kept medicine horses. And it was very similar situation where for therapeutic reasons, not like in the structure of any facility or any

program, but just by knowing her family and being embedded with them, I started going down every day to the medicine horses with them, started taking care of them. I even got to like have my own. Name one. It was shaman. It was a beautiful young black horse. But yeah, there's something deeply engaging about working with horses,

something almost like spiritual about it. They're gorgeous creatures and whatever it is, the distraction from your problems, the being in the moment, When you're around a creature that powerful, you can't be thinking in your head about all the shit. You've got to be in the moment. And I think that in and of itself is part of the therapeutic aspect of it. Yeah.

And I read about like there's a certain factor where you respect a horse and it's like, not to put it like a high horse. But you respect the horse and that actually works with your own self-worth. Right. Because the horse also depends on you in a certain way. So intuitively, when you help out the horse, it makes you think, like, I'm providing for this horse as well. Like, I'm training it in a certain way. Like, I've heard about that before where that's another factor of, like, self-worth building. Right.

Giving love and attention to some other creature, and it sort of teaches you the mechanics of loving and being compassionate with yourself. Yes. You have value because this thing you find valuable depends on you. Very interesting. I agree. Well, as a wonderful cold open story, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit? All right. What's your name? How old are you? My name is Nico. I'm 27 years old. I'm born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, yeah. I think, you know, to be 100% transparent, I've struggled with depression, anxiety, like suicidal ideation, my whole entire life. Except I didn't understand what I was experiencing until, you know, you grew up. up and you learn a thing or two about life and then you kind of connect the dots of like

absolutely oh wow like I'm pretty mentally sick in the head but I've always been super into personal development self-growth being introspective and I think almost to a point where it's like toxic towards myself fair enough yeah and that's kind of how I went about my whole life so through elementary school and high school even into a little bit of college I always felt like I didn't relate to the people in the world around me and I always found like solace and comfort with people older than me because as I come to find out you know a lot of people get into that mentality um later on in life after they kind of experienced childhood um see I don't know if there's really any other

snippets of introducing myself then um well how about this how'd you come across our our radar How did this happen? Yeah, so this was kind of one of those experiences where it kind of re-solidifies the fact that I don't necessarily believe in coincidences. And I think that's where my whole dive into this religious journey I've turned towards has kind of started because I've always been a spiritual person. I have the fucking chakras on my arm tattooed, you know. I got the goddess, the Hindu goddess Kali in the back of my shit.

Yeah. I love that. big spider that looks pretty cool that's cool I'm sure that's representative to some religion no no it's just I like spider Dave is our resident nihilist atheist yeah but actually one thing I wanted to touch upon before we're

getting that you were talking about like when you were like you had these things going on in your mind and it's funny because I grew up the same way where I had these thoughts that were depressive and anxiety but mainly depressive thoughts and it's one of those things

where eventually you get to a point where it's the old joke where it's like, you know, how have you been feeling, how much have you been feeling suicidal? Like you talked about that suicidal ideation. It's like the normal amount. It's like there's no normal amount. You shouldn't be thinking like that. Oh, busted.

Oh, I thought all the time was normal. Here comes the grippy socks. Yeah, dude. So anyways, I started working at Nebraska Furnsmart, which, Dave, I think you worked there, correct? I did. Yeah, for many years. Okay, okay. Flip-flop. I think about, yes, probably, yeah, six or seven years that I worked there.

Damn. I am going on a year in July. So that's when I started. And that's where I met our mutual friend Dano. Dan, I call him Dan. He's my boy. Shout out. Shout out.

But anyways, I kind of met him and had a couple, you know, conversations with him. When I'm at work or just anywhere out in public, I've really make it a point to, like, acknowledge people's existence because there's been big times in my life um where you know i don't feel like people are seeing me so i think through experiencing like the deepest dark of steps of myself i assume that other people might be experiencing that too so i you know i make it a point to meet everyone there and over time me and him started talking more and more and my my shift kept changing and changing because I started at the 12 p.m. shift

the night shift hated that shit. Brutal. Yeah. And then I moved to the 9 a.m. shift and then about two months ago I finally got on to the 6 a.m. shift, which is what Dan is on. Yep. So now instead of

passing by and having a small little snippet conversation with him, you know, we're actually getting to know about each other, become better friends, yada yada. Yeah. And there was a moment in time about, I think we're almost two weeks ago. We're both aisle by aisle next to each other picking our pieces for the day. And we catch each other in the middle of the aisle talking through the racks.

And I can't even remember what we were talking about. But I just went on this tangent about how life recently changed for me. You know, my last relapse wasn't too long ago, like months ago, you know. How long ago? Uh, in February. Okay, a couple months. And, yeah, and honest to God, I think every single relapse I have, some puzzle piece gets put in the right place. Mm-hmm.

And that's kind of where we can get into it after I finish the story, but where I said, you know, recovery isn't dichotomous. It's not black and white. It's very non-linear. Yes. Ambiguous. Yes. You never know exactly where you are on the path. What's ahead?

Yeah. And so the best thing you can do is show yourself grace and continue to move forward. Absolutely. Because leaning into reflection about you fucking up is no bueno. Yeah. So anyways, I told him that after this last relapse, I had conversations with two very, very good lifetime friends of mine. Shout out Jake and Easton. And they just have always had a way to be very direct,

but very empathetic and for some like good friends should be yeah 100% and like they don't bullshit me and there's a lot of people in my life that play that role too I'm very grateful to have the support I have um but these two guys did and said things in maybe the same way other people have but their words were different so it hit me or maybe I just have experienced enough to where you know you finally hear the same advice make clicks yeah yeah absolutely it was just very profound and one of the conversations was um with easton and i was kind of talked to him about how i did the whole a thing for almost two years and it just there i had the strong gut feeling the whole time that it it wasn't for me but you kind of get so desperate when you're at those low points in life that

you're like okay clearly everything i've tried isn't working so i i need to try this with my whole heart in mind and then if it doesn't work out after a significant amount of time then i know it's not for me yeah and it's also sorry but it no you're good the only game in town too honestly because in uh the omaha area you have like just like i can name two or three like smart recovery meetings um they've started some dharma ones uh you know and i know you'll talk more about like the celebration but like it's really a-a and The thing about it is, the meaning's varying, you know, groups have personality types. But it's really just like, that's about it, you know.

So I understand, like, what you're saying when you're like, I hope this works because the alternative is just myself and that didn't work before. Yeah. So, I mean, I've been to all the clubs, man. Miller Club, Hamilton Club, the 12-step house. off like dude i don't even know 70 second and i or something like that anyways um having this conversation with him and he basically he was the first person i've talked to on a on a very deep conscious level about like i don't want to fucking do a anymore and he was like dude i completely understand um man i i i can't remember everything he said but that was the basis of the conversation

and I found a lot of comfort in the fact of one thing he said that I remember in particular was instead of focusing on how many days you've been sober instead of focusing on oh I can't drink because I have all these problems associated with alcohol I am just a person that doesn't drink anymore and for some reason having that mentality

has borderline wiped any invasive, intrusive thoughts of, you know, cravings and wanting to drink. Right. Not identifying yourself as somebody struggling to stay sober, but identifying you're somebody that is post your drinking phase. Yes. And that shift in your own identification kind of pushes you in the right direction. Yeah, it's usually, it's a better

language in your head when you say, I can't drink. Instead of, I can't drink, it's like I don't have to drink. Yeah. I'm not a drinker. Yeah, like I don't have to drink for blank experience to be useful, good, engaging, entertaining, like, stuff like that. You know, I could, now, I would ask you, you said that having that mindset changed to where you didn't have the intrusive thoughts

or it helped you combat those intrusive thoughts. I think combat is more accurate. Like I said, I go off the top, so I like being asked questions like that because it allows me to rephrase properly. But, yeah, like, it'll pop into my head now, but the amount of power it has, And the amount of time it ruminates in my head, it floats away a lot quicker.

Yeah, yeah. And so anyways, that's kind of where I stopped liking AA. And I just want to preface, like, anyone struggling with addiction, I really do think you should, like, check off the boxes of your options. Try it out, yeah. Because if I didn't go to treatment, go to detox, try smart recovery, try AA. the whole Schmorgasborg of stuff I've tried, I don't know if I would be as far as I am into my journey today. Absolutely.

So not talking shit on AA, just something for me, I didn't like going to a room multiple times a week and talking about the problem. I get very, like once I set my mind to something, like I like to move forward with that. And I felt like I kept hitting the pause button on like, I just don't drink anymore. because I go to there and you know you as you go there you experience people relapsing and you hear you hear stories and that makes you think about your stories and it's all good-hearted for the sake of being sober but for someone who's perpetually hardened themselves I don't want to claim like I'm an alcoholic for the rest of my life I feel you I just I just want to be Nico you know and when people are like

dude like what was a big problem you're like fucking alcohol there's a time where I was a chronic alcoholic and I've almost died from it and like now if that ever gets brought up it's not like I'm living my life to help the next alcoholic

kind of like AA wants you to do because you can't help yourself until you actually do and then that message is to help someone else to keep use over it's more of if it comes up and someone needs help in that regard I'm all there for it

But I'd rather just affect people that I can and directly interact with in a positive way and not try to throw my advice onto everyone. And if they want me to, if they solicit it, then I will let them know what's up. I think that's a totally valid perspective to have. And like you say, everybody's a little different. Everybody needs something different at different times in their various recoveries. And AA, I've talked to people who, like, people that have rebelled against it. Like, I totally hate it.

does nothing for me, people who has been, you know, very helpful for. And so, you know, it's not shitting on something. It's not a one-size-fit-all. Everybody is different. And you got to kind of find where you fit and what works for you. And you can't find that unless you try everything. Yeah. And I think that's a great point.

Like I said, too, you go to one meeting and you, if you think that's AA, it could be, like, almost traumatizing to some people are like, like some, it's crazy, like, the difference between one A meeting to another. Oh, the meetings are so different. Yeah. They can be radically different. one can be very helpful one can be incredibly alienating you just kind of define the right place yeah like one can be good one can be bad one can be good in a different way and one can be like useful to another person you know like some like that's the whole thing is that it's just it's people doing this stuff like they collectively get together and they pull some rubric of something but like at the end of the day you know it's usually just like the people that come to that meeting normally like there's bigger groups like you know miller club will be passed Like one of the I go to is like maybe 12 people like every time like it so you in the same people too.

Yeah. So it's almost like a group like an IOP like for all you normal people out there. What the fuck's an IOP? Yeah. That would be the intensive outpatient. I see. So it's like the group therapy that you do in treatment, but you're not in treatment anymore because you like insurance is so expensive. That comes up again and again.

Are you familiar with PHP as well? Yes, that is the partial hospitalization, which is not hospitalization. I don't know why they use that term. They want to sound cool. Yeah, thanks. It's like a halfway house? What is that? No, no, it's literally just, it's longer IOP.

Yeah. So, I guess we can jump into North Point. That was my first treatment center I went in. So fast forward that story. 2020 is probably the first moment where I actually decided to take action against drinking 2020 drank a bottle of rum and attempted I just struck my head profusely with a fan

and just leaned over the sink and you know when you drink that amount of alcohol your blood's just a faucet and fainted into the doorway kind of came to and I realized oh hey I actually don't want to be dead and I called my mom and luckily I lived in the same apartment complex as my sister at the time she ran over and kind of stopped the bleeding

and then started that journey ended up doing hypnotherapy which is pretty fucking wild placebo or not I went there for three big things drinking not being able to eat food because of anxiety and depression and I always thought like weed and alcohol comforted me enough to where I could consume food, but it's actually the two big things

making it hard to eat when I'm sober. And then also struggles with women I was attracted to. I think women helped me discover how bad my anxiety actually was in college. If I liked a girl and would go on a date or something, I would straight up have to go to the bathroom mid-date and throw up. Oh, really? Like, it was bad.

And so I would fuck up every girl I was attracted to. You'd fuck it up by just being so nervous You were a wreck And then she'd be like, okay Like I'm not feeling this guy So anyways It turns up a lot That hypnotherapy

Something Something was cool about it And I was still drinking And I think Most people would think quite a bit But for me It's like nothing I would have three shooters

And two tall boys a day At that point It builds a tolerance Yeah So I was working out Eating Right successfully working had good healthy friendships was doing the thing but still drinking every day and i decided to like like hit the problem head on with with woman i was like i need to figure

this shit out or the one that i want to end up and spend the rest of my life with i'm gonna fuck up so i kind of called it exposure therapy dates like the spider on your arm when someone has a fear of spider they're like let's just staying in the same room as this thing and then Let it walk on you. Let it walk on you. Let it walk on you. She was covered in barf. Yeah.

It was like this flash zone. So, I basically did exposure therapy dates. And it was, I was genuinely interested in these women. So when I say like exposure therapy, it wasn't like I was using them to help me with something.

Sure. It was, that was like a secondary benefit of going on these dates. Because if it went out, Like, hey, dude, I might have a girlfriend soon. Right, right. So, hopped on the apps.

Fuck apps, they're dumb. But, you know, it's what I thought I needed to do in the time. And I went on, like, four or five dates, and I only had one go very poorly. And I don't think it was really anything I did. It was just two people weren't meant to hang out. The vibe was off. She didn't like the barf. Yeah.

Yeah. She was like, bro, I heard you. That was disgusting. So I just kind of realized after most of them went well I was like holy shit Like you just have to be yourself You're gonna fuck up but you can just learn from it And then don't pedal stole them

Because they just wanted to be treated like human fucking beans And like it clicked That's really interesting Very soon literally three months after I tried killing myself I matched with this girl on Tinder Conversation fizzled out unmatched her two weeks later

I recognized someone and this is during COVID so she just got the mask on I'm like I know this person how the fuck do I know this person look her up on temporary employees see her name I'm like oh shit so I thought she had gotten the job from me

because on Tinder it says where you work yada yada and her profile was like low key help me find a job so I'm like oh this is my in because with temp employees you get a referral bonus if you're referred them so i walk up to her and like the most like clean pickup ever i'm just like basically i know you got the job for me i'm pretty sure we were matched on tinder a while ago all these ladies

i've known for years around her working like they love me i think they're fucking awesome i'm like even if i fuck this up horribly they're going to vouch for me yeah he's a good guy yeah i basically said like, I'm going to come back, give you my email, you'll get me my $100 referral bonus, and if you don't hate me in a week, I'll take you out with it. Nice. That is very smooth. Literally.

There's so many moving parts in this. Well, so the reason why this is such a long story is because it all connects so powerfully, and it was one of two other moments in my life than the moment I feel like I'm currently in, where I felt like I was my most authentic self. And that's kind of what I'm just striving to be day and day out now. So anyways, we start dating and it's great.

But that's kind of where the alcohol started kicking back in. Because I had never had a true, like, girlfriend in a relationship at this point. So rather than continuing all of these things, you know, working out consistently, eating right consistently, having quality times with my friends, going to bed, like drinking. enough water like all of it is a massive equation towards feeling good upstairs absolutely i sacrificed those things one at a time to get my drinking window in yep because i would end every night with those three shooters and two tall boys but now i now i'm going to go hang out with her because i want to so it's like i don't have that time anymore so i'm going to substitute me meal prepping tonight

for two hours of drinking then i'm going to go hang out with her yeah so I sacrifice the wrong thing to add something new to my life. And over time, your body becomes chemically dependent on alcohol. And that's why, for people who don't know, it's so dangerous to, like, cold turkey that shit, because alcohol and opioids are the only things that can literally kill you from cold turkey. Yeah. Everything else you'll feel like death. But apparently, from what I've learned, those are the two things that can shut you down.

Actually, even opioids, the opioids won't kill you. Oh, no shit. Yeah, they actually won't kill you. What about benzos? Benzos and alcohol. Gabba receptor stuff. Because of seizures. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah, because that's the thing. Yeah. That's what's crazy about it. It's like, make you feel like you're dying, but you're not. I just wanted to put that out there. I've been telling a lot of people opioids, so now I feel bad, but he's right about Benzos.

Don't do any of it. Honestly, because people will, like, they'll choke on their own, like, vomit. Like, it's crazy. Like, just couching it is, like, you should. Like, it's dangerous to do. Absolutely. You know, so, but I, anyways. So, withdrawals kick in.

And for anyone who hasn't experienced withdrawals, your number one goal when you experience them is to not be experiencing them. Now, withdrawal is kick in, in the context of you trying to now get off? No. So, at this point, how much I've drank just finally caught up to me. I see, okay. So my body, it was used to getting, you know, like, a bottle within every couple of days because at that point i wasn't at like my 35 shooters a day

point yeah um so now my body's like okay motherfucker like you're not drinking enough and so i would start getting very irritable and like the hands would start shaking and that's kind of the zone where like you can stop drinking and be good but if you let it progress past that you're probably going to be more in the realm of i need medical detox um but i wasn't doing doing that obviously. So my drinking got super fucked up. It started, I'd wake up early on purpose, right at 6 o'clock when Nebraska starts selling liquor, pick up three shooters, crack those down, and then I would deliberately spend an hour of time drinking Gatorade, gum, brushing my teeth, mouthwash to desmell myself to go to work. Right around lunchtime, my withdrawals are kicking

back in. So at the place I worked at the time, I would literally drink on. lunch and do the same thing and then when I'd get home you know but yeah at that point that's when it became a bottle a day and as she got to know me over time she was like asking me how much I drank her if I drink and basically I would tell her I didn't when I did if I told her I did I would tell her like half the amount I actually did and just built up these house of fucking cards to the point where when we actually moved in together like that shit came crumbling down way fucking fast. So you were

never fully honest that you were an alcoholic? 100% okay. But I think anyone who knew me well enough they're like this guy's got a fucking problem. And I think there's a lot of people that probably thought that do I truly know if that's true no but like people know Nico likes to get

fucked up. Like my drug of choice is more. Yeah and I'll say one thing too is that the thing is that when you go through life like the drinking very similar to mine like drinking throughout the day like at work like I've talked about it like where just the

those dog days of drinking absolutely I was able to drink a handle a day not because I got off work and crushed it but because like from 6 a.m. the morphine drip marathon yeah and so the thing is though is that you don't realize

this that people a lot of people know but they just don't say they don't say because what are they going to do because like if you work with somebody and you are still performing and you're still doing what you're doing it's kind of like if I bring this up and they don't stop what then yeah you know it's one of those things where it's to or is it even my place if you're a co-worker so it's even my place to get in their business and it becomes one of those things where it's like that's just who they are because like you're talking about

like all the stuff you do like I did that same exact thing but the funny thing is is that there's these things that will build that you can't hide anymore. The glaze in the eyes, the like I went from doing all those like drinks, cologne and all that type of stuff to peanut butter to try to put, like, use that.

It's still, it doesn't matter because then you'll sweat. Like something happens like you're not meant to drink all day every day. Turns out you're not supposed to do that. So like hiding it is like when you try to hide your drinking as an alcoholic,

the type that you and I are like drinking throughout the entire day. Basically, you're trying to hide a second person living with you. 100%. Imagine that. Just imagine having a toddler that's running around because you have to like hide stuff. So that's so funny

when you mentioned moving in. Yeah. You've been there. Dude. And the thing about it too is like people are like, dude, you are so much smarter than this. What the fuck are you doing? And it's like, there's a complete different part of my brain working than the logical part of my brain that is rationalizing all this behavior like dude i would hide my shooters in multiple spots so that when i inevitably got caught

i would show her one spot but still have surplus in another spot yeah i would the drop spot yeah dude i would and she eventually learned all my spots so i would develop a new one like i used to hide shooters in the fucking my computer like like like like taking off like the literally yeah yeah yeah Like, bro, like, addicts figure fucking shit out, and if you could apply that amount of mental effort to something positive in your life, like, you're winning. Yeah. There's like a prison innovation that comes to the addiction.

Like, oh, she leaves the house. Okay, I'm going to take my 30 empty shooters I have in, like, different shoes and run across the street to the soccer field and throw it away there because I think my girlfriend is going to fucking dig through the trash. It's like, no, she's not. Just throw that shit away.

Well, and the funniest part is, too, like when you do that drinking throughout the day like it's such a dangerous game because you're getting more drunk and so it's harder to keep it like you'll do all of this stuff all the secret the second hiding spot but then you'll just pass out with the bottle of the beginning you know like it's that type of thing where you'll sometimes just get too drunk and you're you're talking about drinking day after day like I told you about this Brett where I went two years while I probably didn't blow double zeros yes like you're talking about building upon that and that like i used to think well you go to bed and you wake up it's zeros yeah

restart no it's not you i wake up with a point one at least yeah and then now you're getting to the parts where like you could blow a point one five and have the shakes yeah like and so that's you're yeah you don't realize that everything is building upon itself until you stop it and stop it for like a decent amount of time and that all catches up yeah and that relates perfectly to what you were saying about how you can try to cover it up, but eventually it gets to the point where nothing you can do, because

alcohol is a liquid, yes, but all it does is dehydrate you. So you start just like looking like dark cidious or whatever from fucking Star Wars, man. You can look like the healthiest motherfucker, but

if you go on an ice bender, or like kind of what we were doing just drinking every single day, like your life force gets zapped from you. Absolutely. Well, and the funny thing is, is that when you get drunk to you have drunk goggles on. So you think you look good. Yeah. You think you look all right. I'm fine. I got this. You look in the mirror, you're

just like, uh, my girlfriend is probably going to be nervous because I'm about to get all these chicks. Meanwhile, your eyes are like catcher's gloves, like bags, like just sagging so deeply bad. And you look like, like you just

walked out of Docow. Like, And you're like, ladies, watch out. Yeah. It's like, oh my God. Like beer goggles also works on you. Yeah, man. Oh, what's up?

Let me take a step back really quick and just say, this is what I love about this idea that Dave and I had when we started this show, which is that we're only going to do in-person interviews. We weren't just going to, like, find, you know, sober influencers online and try to zoom them in and, you know, get their audience. We always wanted this in real life, Facebook. to face vulnerability and the sort of flow of conversation that comes with somebody being in studio and also highlighting not people you can search on the internet or people that have you know followers and stuff but regular working class people who struggle with this shit and i think you're a perfect example of that because if we didn't go with the in-person strategy if we just try to find people online we would have never have had a nico to come in here and tell this story so i really appreciate

that and i really appreciate you coming in and being so vulnerable but i do want to go back to to the beginning. We've, we've covered some basis, and we'll certainly get back here, and we'll talk more about all of this stuff, including how your relationship continued to evolve beyond that point. But my question is going back into your childhood and your teens. When did the consumption of drugs, alcohol?

When did this begin for you? And when did that? Because we all, most of us experiment with drugs and alcohol as teens. For some people, they can't get out of that. So where did it start and how did it progress throughout your teens and into your kids? your 20s. So I had two friends back in high school, um, and I had discovered that they started

smoking pot. And, you know, as a guy who was a massive people pleaser back then and just wanted to fit in with everyone, like, I've never tried it. Let's, let's go for it. So, held, 15 years old. Um, I want to say 15 years old. Yeah, sophomore year in high school. That's about right. Um, and I remember the first time I smoked weed because it was just like, when you reflect back on it is totally one of those first-time pothead moment. We fucking rolled a J out of a Spanish flash card.

So, not even a fucking joint paper, dude. Like, we're holding this thing together by our spit and finger-crimping. Smokes terribly, by the way, because you're literally smoking a piece of paper. Oh, yeah.

A flash card. Yeah, dude. A fucking piece of paper. So like an index card. It was like Portuga, Turtle. there's weed in that motherfucker Oh my god, the smoke is like Great, yeah dude It's like it smells like a firework Like K2 smells like a firework

When it's being smoked I don't know if anyone else agrees with that Yeah I only fuck with K2 very briefly When it was like a new thing Yeah I tried it one time and I was like no Yeah give me the real shit Not a thing anyways Fucking weed flash card

My buddy's parents had a pool in the backyard We go swimming And I was like this shit isn't working at all And then I go underwater And I realize I'm underwater for what seems like an eternity. It was probably only like two seconds. And I start profusely laughing. And I'm like, this is fucking awesome.

Yeah. And then it was 22 because we got back inside and I closed my eyes. And it was like, I think it's like THX, like the beginning of movies, where it's like... Oh, yeah. And it felt like that. But getting, falling darker and darker into like the darkness behind the little. lids in my eyes, and I thought, if I didn't open my eyes, I'm going to die. But, yeah, crazy. Anyways.

But you never forgot the Spanish word for turtle. Nope. And every once in a while, like, I'll fuck around with people. Like, I'll be like, don't they're like, don't they're like, where's the turtle? I was like, I don't know. I just, I like to say it. But anyways, um... So it starts very innocently. Yeah. And, um, like, my, one of those friends, we would always have fucking land parties on League of Legends, I remember, and we'd be in this tiny-ass room that was supposed

to be like a closet, but they turned into a PC room, so it was three guys, two with laptops, one with a desktop, just playing League of Legends, and his parents would be gone all the time, because they were very social butterflies, and we would just steal their alcohol, so that's kind of where I first experienced alcohol, too. But it wasn't until I actually got to college, so 2014-2015, where, you know, I started going to party. and like the whole confidence issue with girls came in and like liquid courage, blah-bidi-blah. So I started getting absolutely shit-faced in college

and then I also discovered dabs. And I think that's where I actually kind of said, or we'll say weed was a problem then. Fair enough. Like dabs are potent. Diesel. Yeah. And when I'm going through an eighth of dabs in a week, like, okay, that's like not.

On top of drinking? Yeah. Yeah. You're getting blueberry. That's not good. So. Is it something funny there? Just the idea of just doing a dab and drinking and be like, so we're starting the day.

Literally. And dude, I should, I'm so grateful for being where I'm at now because I should have had something fucked up happen with the law or a DUI. Like I've driven multiple times like on acid, which if you guys, anyone listening or you guys, If you see the, like, if you drive in the rain and you see the car lights, how it looks like they're like, yeah. Yeah. That's acid, yeah. We've done hallucinians and drove and it's totally fine.

It's like, yeah, we have a, we have a, he's referencing a fact that we did mushrooms at 16 and we told each other's vehicles. Yep. Yeah. We understand. Don't know how I'm alive from some of the times. But anyways, I, I lived in two different dorms. And the guys I lived with were like,

like foreign exchange student studying you know and I would I straight up got their like word that it was okay for me to smoke fucking dabs an actual felony in the dorm room and dude it had to have smelled in the dorm room dude literally at the dorm rooms and you know you know

I was dabbing it up man and I don't like oseum I guess works but never got got never dude no there was one time Be a map. Yeah, be a mav. The only time I almost ever got in trouble with the law was I got pulled over for speeding because I had just moved into a house I was renting on the house I lived in before I ended up in Texas.

And he was like, have you been drinking? I kind of smell it. And I was like, no, he's like, you've been speeding? And I was like, no, sir, I'm just super fucking stressed out. I've been moving all day. And it was like a half truth. But he bought it. Yeah, dude.

like something's watching over me yeah but yeah that's that's when it started and it didn't get bad until college and then after college i um tried to do the whole military route i try to get into the navy i got all the way through the medical examination process uh i got or i was going to be a cryptologic technician a cti which is essentially like a hacker for the navy yeah um don't know how i got a 96 on my Asvab and got that job because I know shit about coding. What was your college degree? Nothing.

I don't even think I set it up. I basically just fucked off in college because I had a GI bill through my stepdad. Oh shit. That I just literally wasted away. So no debt, but you didn't finish. Nope. And anyways, like the whole Navy thing failing,

I was 85 days off of weed and somehow still popped, which I think was crazy. You still got, you still got, it was still detectable in your system I passed That's because you're doing daff every fucking day I passed

Dude can you imagine being in the Navy doing the crypto like hacking and you're just doing dabs you're like formal three is gonna start from just

Yeah does it help or does it hurt? Sorry She's so funny to me Oh man So they kicked you out for that Yeah I got fraudulent Because I didn't tell them I smoked weed Because I thought I was good

Damn 80 fucking days some days? Yep. Brutal. So I got a job at Fairway Meat Market, $11 an hour fucking washing dishes, and I was like, I fucking hate my life. This sucks so bad. Why?

Sounds awesome. I wonder why. The pay makes it worth it, right? Yeah, I just went on Glassdoor.com and looked up $14 an hour for a job, and I was like, no human resources. And I was like, oh, bet, let's do it. And I thought I was getting a job.

at Noel but I didn't know what human resources meant at the time back in 2017 so they were like yeah like there's this this laboratory and there's like a receiving job that they need temp employees for you could potentially get hired and I was like sure so that's where I got a job at Midwest Laboratories and like to this day I think it's still the best job I have or had would love to go back there someday and earn my spot back but I did kind of shoot myself from the foot. And what exactly did you do there? So they are a quality lab where they test everything under the sun

other than human fecal matter. But I worked in the agricultural side of things, particularly. Soil samples, stuff like that. Soils are biggest thing we do. And then I would do plants and also manure. So when people would ask me what I do for living, I'd be like, oh, I work with shit. You know?

And I love it. Sitting there pouring chicken litter in a cup. So when you shit your pants three times, It was like, I'll bring work home, mom. This is my career. That's how I found out it was shit. I was like, what's this brown stuff in my underwear? And I sent it into the lab.

Sorry, sorry, I'm a workaholic. I bring my work home with me. So, um, that job, there's, there's one season, the fall soil season where everyone harvest and then they send in their soil samples to get tested. And we're basically testing for metal content, nutrient value. So we can have our agronomists give them, uh, fertilizer recommendations and, like, field recommendations like like hey you should rotate your crop because it's going to increase this value yeah yeah was the pay good at that job dude the pay was dope um 14 dollars an hour at that

time was like the most i ever had made and then when amazon did their whole 18 dollars an hour thing everyone else kind of had to compete so we had our um the guy who kind of watches over our whole department he advocated for us because you know like the receiving department like brought in the fucking dough, dude. Because, like, we received the samples, get them processed, ready to be tested. So he got us 20 an hour. Nice. Back then, like, 2018, like, it was baller.

And then their benefits are sick as fuck, too. But this entire time, you're still drinking every day. Yeah, and so, like, I'm not blaming it on that place, but during that busy season, you know, I was pulling, like, minimum 10-hour shifts, but especially that first fall, it was like 12 to 14 hours shifts. Eventually it got more towards like the 12 hours a day

because the group of guys I rolled in with ended up all getting full time and like you just get better at doing your shit as a years ago so we got more efficient. But I learned reward mentality at that place. What do you mean by that? So what I mean is like good day, bad day, drink day. And that's where the drinking really sped up

because it was like, oh man like i worked my ass off today i want to fucking get lit so i'd slurping dabs and taking shots you know yeah um there's this famous quote by by buchowski i'm gonna only paraphrase it but he's like um you know when you're an alcoholic there's always a reason to to drink if something good happens you drink to celebrate if something stressful happens you drink to de-stress if something terrible happens you drink to commiserate on your in your misery he's like you can always find no matter how your day goes a justification to drink. That's kind of what you're

getting at. Yeah 100% Yeah. And so that just continued. Now one question I do have your drink of choice. Was it always the same? Did it change over time? Honestly dude like if it's alcohol I'm going to drink it but there was a point which you might be able to relate to Dave is like

I still to this day like if I go into the alcoholic mentality like wine and beer are a waste of time I'm going straight to the fucking source and that source for me was Soco 100. Tastes like absolute shit, but like I love the burn

and it gives you fucked up super quick and it until like they released like the 99 proof vodka shooters like I absolutely despise vodka because of fucking college like too much Bartons down the goal you know. We've been there for sure but plastic those plastic handles of Bartons

Soco was my my go too. But that's the thing like Like, the alcohol that you choose is about how you get away with it. Like, you mentioned shooters, like, when you first started saying, like, 30 shooters, like, just buy a handle. But it's also the hiding. You have to be able to, like, infuse it with your day. Right. Like, that's, like.

So the shooters make it easier to place things around. You're not carrying a bigger bottle. You can have little. Yeah. And, like, like, it's all part of the game. Yeah. you know it's just having that buzz continue no matter what you know like i've always cared about my well-being so even when i was you know king of self-sabotage with all that shit there's there's

that part of my brain that was like oh if i just buy eight shooters at the gas station i'm gonna be too drunk to go get more motherfucker like i'm gonna go get more you know because i take eight shooters like I want more after like two hours because it just you just become so accustomed to the feeling it's like you're a new normal and at this point you're you're also drinking actively at work you're hiding it at work yes you're not going out to your car you have like it would be it would be before the day and then it wasn't always at lunch but like basically when the withdrawals kicked in so I would say like 2007 to 2020, I was what you would probably call like a normal drinker. Like I would go through the whole day and then I would drink every day after work. Okay. Like it didn't become like a, it didn't invade work time until the withdrawals kicked in. So like 2020, halfway through to 2021.

I see. Then you start getting in-day withdrawal symptoms you need to alleviate through getting the bottle early and earlier, drinking early. I think what you meant to say is I'm a normal alcoholic. You're like, I'm a normal drinker every day. I did air quotes since we don't have a camera. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, yeah. Absolutely.

Nothing about my drinking is normal. Or ever really was? No. From the moment you got into it. No. Now that, that, you're talking about 2020, of course, that is when the pandemic happened. Yep. That's when, I mean, a lot of people's brains were under incredible stress.

People's addictions went through the fucking roof. I had incredible times, I mean, difficult times, just mentally. And I remember, like, even getting, I'm not an alcohol. alcoholic, but getting into drinking whiskey every single day during that time. So how did that pandemic exacerbate or increase? How did it affect your job during that time if you still kept it? And then how do your drinking change over the pandemic? So we were deemed a central back when they were doing that whole thing.

So I had the job the whole time. And then our job was... In person, you still went in? Yes, yes. I miss the traffic back then, dude. Yeah, I bet. It was nice. Oh, my God.

You're like, normally takes me 20 minutes getting somewhere. I'm getting to that bitch in 8. We're flying. And now NFN when you pull on a 72nd during rush hour, it's fucking torture. Dude, and I live, I currently live on 188th in Harrison, so I have a fucking drive to that place every day. But that's why I like the morning shift, because there's no traffic. On the way there, yeah, you're good.

But anyways, I was deemed essential, and within, like, the first six months of COVID, the lab did a lot of experimenting with, like, how they wanted to, like, practice social distancing. So there was some times in the beginning where like you would be off for a week and then half the crew would be off the next week and then you would be in.

So it only exacerbated it like you were asking because I had more time at home to drink and like you couldn't do anything for the most part so it was literally like, I'm going to play some fucking games with the boys and send it. Absolutely. I remember during that period of time never to compare myself to what you,

both that went through but yeah we're awesome oh i remember that period of time when covid came to an end i had about 10 to 12 came to an end you know what i mean like that that super phase where everybody's in and nobody's going out i had like 10 to 12 big bottles of jack daniels that were just in my garage that i you know when i would finish him i'd put a bottle out in the garage you know and just had this 12 big jack daniels and i was like god damn um i mean a lot of people struggle with that but yeah to be an alcoholic i'm sure that just throws oil on the fire yeah i mean like honestly the people in covid like started drinking alcoholically you could imagine what alcoholics did yeah like they went super saying with their alcoholism well i one thing real quick i remember like grocery stores like

started like having shooters out in front of the salad bar where like normally the deli sections before you go yeah it's so insane and like the the idea of shit that the idea of shooters is so crazy too because it's like just on the go like it means basically drink when you're not normally drinking yeah like like one thing I always thought was crazy is that people buy sleeves now there's no reason to buy a sleeve of shooters except to drink alcoholically because normally you buy a bottle you'd be around with friends you pour you make drinks a sleeve of shooters is pointless except if you need to keep it in your purse or you need to keep it in your car you to move it around like there's no reason to buy multiple amount of shooters at once absolutely

and everybody everybody everybody i've personally known who has bought shooters in a consistent way has had a drinking problem right because can you imagine just like like going on a date coming home be like hey baby do you want to drink you just open the liquor cabinet it's like a hundred like bottles like what the fuck i say i save a dollar a pack i didn't want to buy a bottle okay right like the whole point is to drink alcoholically but we all just pretend like no this is just fun times yeah yeah absolutely so as this is going through we're now coming out of the pandemic how did you lose your job how did things deteriorate oh man last couple years so unfortunately i was so drunk all the time the timelines are pretty foggy from like 2021 to the beginning of

2003 um but anyways um so like i said north point was my first treatment so when the withdrawals got pretty bad the house of cards dropped down i i want to say that was like december of 2021 or 2022 like i said foggy timelines where does your girlfriend fit in here so we're living together at the time so that's the house of cards that you're talking about um and basically you know i got to the point where any time I was drunk, she wouldn't want to spend time with me, um, rightfully. So, like, what would your behavior be like when you were trashed? So it just was utterly selfish. Like, and I just, you know, I think I just became a more shell of my normal qualities. Um, but the emotional, like, turmoil she must have gone through

just like seeing someone, like, you know, destroy themselves. Yes. You know, there would be moments where she would catch me drinking and be super upset about it, but she was like, I can't even yell at you or tell you anything because you're already doing it to yourself, because I'm sitting there like fucking bawling, dude, because, like, I feel like I do have a good heart. Even when I was, like, in my demons, like, I never imagined I would put someone through that. And so she got to the point where she was like, dude, I'm going to fucking, I got to go if you're going to keep drinking like this. And I got to the point where, like, I try to figure out everything, everything, until it got to the point I need treatment.

So I would give her my credit cards, and it's like, I kind of need my credit card to do shit. And when I gave her my credit cards, I just used change to buy shooters. Found a way around it. And then I was like, just get me a breathalyzer. You can breathalize me whenever you want to. I figured out when I would blow zeros. So when she would, I would drink around the time to where when she would breath hose me, I'd be blowing zeros. Yeah.

Anyways, there was a day where my body was like, bro. you're getting caught and I was I was blowing the whole day which I the amount I drank I had figured out I'd be good by that time and I wasn't so I was like well my girlfriend's gonna fucking break up with me so I was like I called the lady from Rise Detox who's helped me out a couple times prior and I was like hey like I need to go into treatment like I'm down to do it and I forgot to mention this but I don't know if I'm still the only person to this day but I actually went to North Point and convinced everybody that I'm just going to go there for detox and then leave. So actually, one of the times I detox out of the six was actually at the place I ended up going to treatment again, which is wild. So right when she gets home, I'm like, hey, I fucked up. I know you're going to fucking hate me. I already called, I'm going to treatment tomorrow. And, like, you know, she's like, I'm proud of you. Like, fuck. And that was, that was my first. thing in treatment and i honestly i kind of lost track of the original question oh you just how

was continuing to oh and your relationship and how that yeah plays out so went to treatment did the whole thing um i kind of think treatment is like summer camp for alcoholics uh if you go there and like embrace the process like i honestly had a great time and i met some really cool people um the thing that's like dangerous about treatment is you are in a bubble like unless Unless you fucking run away, like, you are not consuming a drug in there. And they search the shit out of you, so you're not going to sneak it by. It's like being in jail, you're forced to be so... Yeah.

And so, like, you know, you actually start living a normalized life, and your brain starts to regulate. And you're like, fucking... What I want. Yeah, like, straight beginning of the movie, happy person in there. And then you get out and you get hit by this wall of reality. Well, the other thing. too is North Point you have this like I always thought

rehab is so crazy because you have this community of people that have been living lies they're like they're all living lies they all come together and the cathartic experience of just being able to be like say all the stuff

you've been hiding all the quiet like all the hiding and sneaking lying it's so relieving and you can't have your phone so you have genuine conversation genuine bonding and it's not your normal life too you don't have to go to work but you're doing therapy like it's not like it's like summer camp in the way like it's fun like you're processing stuff and you have to like go through a lot of things but the whole time it's not like

you're getting training for it's not training for life because it's not life it's just a break from life exactly it's getting you like your brain just to at least be back to normal because just going through the physical like withdrawals is not enough like the physical withdrawals if that was the only problem they suck ass but that would be fine it's just like the depression that comes with it and the emotional like irritability like the pause as i already talked about like post acute withdrawal syndrome like all those things are still there and 30 days is like even that's not enough but it's close enough to just build up like good positive momentum to push you because there's things when you're drinking, and correct me if I'm wrong here, there's things that you're not addressing in your life and your psychology and your own growth. Drinking puts really a lot of that on pause and when the drink gets taken away and you're forced into the bubble of rehab, the stuff that you've been suppressing comes up. And that's, you have to deal with that and it's by itself and that's its own challenge. Yeah. Is that fair to say? Yeah, because you're

finding, you realize and learn that your solution to all your problems that you've been repressing is your drinking. Like drinking isn't the actual problem. it's the solution the mask of the real problem and so like you're like hey motherfucker like emotional regulation

is the foundation of you not relapsing so you need to figure out how you're going to manage your life in a healthier way and that's a lot easier said than done absolutely yeah because you don't have like that there's no more like

one of the best ways I learned like I used to think that it'd be awesome to say like I drink because of trauma or mental illness or all this stuff, but it's an aversion to discomfort. But it hijacks your mind so quickly and so powerfully that it trains your brain to like, I can't have this type of discomfort.

So when it comes up again, you just... Feels like everything's falling apart. Exactly. And like there's a certain point where you don't want to drink to get a feeling, you want to drink to make a feeling go away. and like so when you try like when you have a relapse and you go like back to that state it's not like you just kind of like drank you hung over detox and then you're starting over again there's still like the remnants of like am i going to live this life of drinking every day again no no no like because at a certain point when you go to treatment the toothpaste is out of the tube there's no more like like i can maybe you're moderately drink or I don't know

I don't want to speak for you though yeah but like the idea that like I'm gonna like maneuver this differently it's you have to actually live life completely different like you're not doing different things you're working the same job

with the same person but coping differently right right and it's that's I mean almost impossible in some ways ask somebody else to do that yeah yeah I agree and unfortunately you know um we we know now that i've gone to treatment a second time so that wasn't the end of my story sure i did php so the partial hospitalization program um and then i did iop and during that time

um i made it a point like like hey if i get very very triggered um by my girlfriend like i'm going to ask her if we can take a break and at that time And even to this day, like, I truly feel like I meant a break. Like, I didn't want to break up. Unfortunately, like, 14 days sober outside, I can't be as dead serious as, or I'm being dead serious when I say I felt like a newborn baby because I've been consuming some type of drug since 15. And so I was basically relearning how to live life.

How to be a human being. Yeah. Through that Ph.P. IOP process. And there's some situation doesn't need to be gotten into, but it triggered me really bad. And I was like, dude, fuck. Like, recovery and a relationship are two very giant capital R's. And, like, I don't want to fucking drink again. So I had that conversation with her.

I think she was just over everything at the time. She also reacted emotionally. No hard feelings, but she was like, I don't do breaks. I do breakups. And I was like, fuck, dude. What were you hoping to accomplish with the break? I was hoping to, because I put a lot of pressure on myself, very hard on myself. I wanted to not have to worry about the relationship for a while.

For a while, so you can focus on you. To solidify my sobriety to the point where I could actually mentally put the effort necessary into a relationship again. I see. There's a logic to that for sure. Yeah. And so, you know, just going everything we went through together, I understand why she would have that reaction. And so I was like, well, you're kind of holding a gun to my head. Like, I got, I need to honor my sobriety.

So, went through with the breakup. Um, at that point, I kind of just like, cashed out too. I was like, so I, we didn't do like couples therapy or anything like that, even though it was talked about. She moved out. Um, she said I kicked her out, but I was like, I'm on the least. You, you moved in with me. It's not healthy for us to live together for broken up. Um, so that situation happened.

Messy and hurtful. Yeah. And that's when I dove into AA. full steam ahead um nine and a half months sober got into the next fall which was my first fall for the busy season at the job sober and this was the first fall where it was like those people i had started with were kind of like the head honchos now running the thing because the last generation kind of cycled out sure and so it was a lot more mentally stressful than like oh i'm going to wake up at fucking 3 30 work from 4 to like 4 6 o'clock

and I'm just going to put my head down and blast it. It's like, I can't do that anymore. I have to stay, like, I have to, like, help train people. Like, I know more than a lot of people in there, like the guys next to me. More responsibility. Exactly. And stress me out. So that time, I was too busy.

I didn't go to AA, so that was one slip-up. Another thing is I thought I was, you know, better, which confidence is kind of a killer with alcoholics. you were naive about how much progress she had made so i stopped taking my medication um not good and then i'm sorry what kind of meds were you on um so i believe i was on um um um well buterin at the time okay antidepressant yeah and then also uh i think it's called hydroxazine it was like an allergy medication that also helps with anxiety yeah okay okay um so stop taking those and then i just started seeing a therapist whom I had to stop going to when this whole, when the suicide happened, I saw, that was like my first thing of help after hypnotherapy was this guy, Lauren, bless his

heart, he, I just started seeing him again because he was able to take my insurance again, because he started, went to his own private practice, met with him once the next week, he didn't show up. I was like, hey dude, this isn't like you, went out to Texas Roadhouse with my mom and my sister next day told him like hey like this guy hasn't responded to me this is very weird sister looks him up he's fucking dead committed suicide

um this was your psychologist yeah my therapist yeah oh my god and he was like the only therapist I ever thought I'd get anywhere with like excited to knock shit out wow um apparently

you ever know why your house uh I didn't look too much into it because I didn't want to but apparently on the news it said that there was a domestic dispute and cops were called and he apparently walked out to his car and they heard a gunshot so i mean i'm guessing he shot himself yeah um but that i didn't fully process that till honestly like six or seven months ago but that was like i cashed out after that and that's when

i started drinking again um and then i didn't throw this in but i will uh i actually started rekindling with my ex after like that nine and a half months months. And then that was like she ended up catching me drinking during that time, which I think killed the rekindling, understandably. And she ended up meeting someone new and she was like, I want to explore this. And I was like, well, I put you through a lot. I'm going to try to stay out of your way. And so like all that happened. And I went on super fucking bad bender once again, and this was tail end of 2002

into 22 into 23 because I went to Texas in February and then I got done with treatment in March but all of the fucking symptoms and that's when the naked ice bath shitting my pants fucking thing happened

and like the scariest thing I ever experienced was the fucking DTs. Yep. The Rillium Tremens are fucking insane. Like, I was having conversations with people that weren't there. I saw, like, a giant spider on my wall. I saw a clown in my closet. When I would close my eyes, I don't know if you guys remember way back in the day in school

when they had play, like, history documentaries. Oh, yeah. And they would show you, like, a picture that was slowly moving with, like, unconnected audio to it, like, of people, like, hitting each other with bayonets. Like, that type of shit was happening with, like, different images in my mind and time goes so slow when you're withdrawing because you're experiencing

like every every millisecond yeah I mean it's like a mushroom trip like a bad mushroom trip yeah honestly like also you have the flu like you're sick as fuck too my dad a couple years ago died at the age of 55 from alcoholism a lifelong struggle and there's many attempts of him to get sober

and like without the help of medical professionals and with the help of medical professionals and the, yeah, the DTs were the most absolutely disturbing aspect of that. He would call me up, thinking I'm somebody else, you know, speaking incoherently about stuff. And I'm just like, I just want my dad to be good. And I get a call from my dad. And I'm like, oh, you know, I want to hear. And then he's just like completely fucking out of it.

Seeing people in the room getting very aggressive. So hard to see a loved one go through that. I'm sure it's infinitely harder to go through it yourself. It's brutal. Yeah. So that was your, that was late 22, early 2023. Yep. vendor and then you go to Texas.

Yep. It was kind of crazy, dude. Like, when, because I had to fly down there, obviously. And, like, I was, like, they get you to medical detox. And since, you know, it became a bigger mission to get me into treatment because there was, like, an, like, a trip that needed to happen for me to get there. I was there for three days. And then they, they sent me to the airport.

And, dude, oh, my God. It was, for some reason, I think I landed in. South Carolina one of the South or North Carolina I can't even remember but I had a connecting flight so when I landed in North Carolina

or South Carolina it was hot as fuck and it might have not even been hot but I was still withdrawing so I was so self-conscious the whole time because I was walking around the airport like

I probably looked like I was like I looked like I was detoxing like I was miserable and on both flights the two people sitting next to me both got beers and you know so like I had

options to like get fucked up but i was like dude they're taking me to the rise in texas if i if i blow so when i got on the flight to go to texas there was a mishap with there's a malfunction with the plane so i had to wait like an hour and a half in the plane before we even took off again and so i didn't end up getting there to like one in the morning at the place that's torturous yeah and the poor guy that withdrawing on a plane on the tarmac for yeah dude um and the the poor guy that picked me up there like he was expecting to get me around like 10 o'clock at night and I was like nope it's 12 12 a night so I got there checked in and everyone was sleeping that was there in treatment with me and I met the night tech and I was like dude can I please fucking take a shower like I am

disgusting and he was like yeah so I just went up to the shower upstairs where no one was sleeping in and took a shower and then that was the start of sage recovery um we already kind of talked about it um very very very cool place um some of the best therapy i've ever received um got my medications flip-flop to different things stayed on the wellbutrin and then i um got told about propranol and if anyone is not familiar with that it's essentially they call it like the speech drug a lot of people will take it prior to giving like public speaking yeah seminars and stuff because like a beda blocker yeah anxiety reducer it's done have it for me too yeah okay okay like So if you take 20 milligrams, which is like the initial they throw you on, it just basically helps, like, it regulates your blood pressure.

My anxiety kind of starts with like, I feel like my heartbeat throughout my whole body. So it helped with that. And then if you take any more than that, it becomes a cardiac dose. So people who have like accelerated heart rates and stuff, it helps with that too. I see. So went through that whole third. be processed um the plan was uh because i made a deal with the guy who got me free treatment was that i would do sober living down there for three months and then decide whether or not i wanted to

do the whole texas thing and move or go back to omel oh and that house i was renting at the time i got a new landlord his name was george he is the one of the coolest people i ever met my life we had such a good relationship landlord-de-tenant that i didn't have to be a little bit have a lease with him anymore. I would just venmo him $1,000 a month. And he was like, okay, I think you're a really fucking good guy. I've been there with the struggle. I get it. You go down there. You spend those three months in Texas. I will take care of the mortgages if you can keep the utilities going. Wow. So I had my whole life waiting for me back in Omaha. My dog stayed with my family. I went down there and I made the decision.

but you get told about the power of suggestion throughout your recovery process and how like you thinking for yourself isn't working so like follow people's suggestions and like talk to people about decision you're about to make so they can let you know if you're crazy or not basically and i ended up doing the sober living down there in texas but i didn't go to the place the guy recommended to me um moved they showed me a super nice apartment and then they gave you gave me an absolute shithole. Like, the cleaning we had to do was asinine because it was so dirty. So that first day, I walked up to the guy at the sober living. I was like, dude, I'm gone at the end of the month. And then... Gone meaning I'm coming back home. Well, that was going to happen if what happened didn't work out.

I ended up looking into apartments down in Texas, and I got an affordable living situation set up. So I got this almost $1,400 apartment for $1,100 a month. And so I got a job with the husband of the case manager of Sage doing landscaping. And so I was doing landscaping down there, living in an apartment, did that for, I think I was down there for like a total of six months. But the thing that kind of shot me in the foot down there is I trauma bonded with someone in treatment. and I ended up We ended up fucking

Two times in treatment Which In treatment? Yeah for people who don't know Like fraternization is very frowned upon And you go bye bye if you get caught You get kicked out for it? Yeah

And we did that And that was a crazy experience I'd never thought I'd be that person to do that But I did Crazy And um Where did you do it? Huh?

So I have to Sorry, I have to So dude Going back to how like addicts figure shit out like there was two different like not trailer houses but like two different buildings like a wreck building and then like an art building and then the main house and so when there was a night tech there was less staff there just that person you would kind of figure out which ones are cool which ones aren't which ones are newer and don't know what the fuck's going on so we waited for one of those days like went on a little walk because they let you walk around like the it was a big property like an acre or two they'd just let you walk the street and then when the ghost was clear we snuck a into one of the, like the rec room

banged on the couch there and then... Had to be thrilling. And then the next one was even crazier. We waited for an even more clueless in-experienced, yeah. Night tech and we actually like had one of my buddies there be like a lookout and we went into

one of the rooms that weren't being used and banged in there and was it just a purely sexual thing? Was there any sense of like romantic feelings bubbling up? Well, so I think it was just lust at the end of the day but like when you trauma bomb with someone

you feel super connected to them It's like why it's like a drug of its own Yeah and you know when you're in a place For 30 plus days And you have so much Time between Like the programming and all that You really learn about someone fast

Because that's all you can do And so when we got out of there Like we kind of made this pact like Hey if things are still going strong If we can both stay sober for a year Then we'll like make this a fit and she ended up relapsing that obviously like that's the danger about trauma bonding with people in early recovery because if you go down they're probably going to go down too very rare that it doesn't happen granted if you guys are both successful it can be one of the most beneficial relationships of your life yeah they say the goods are odd and the odds are good yeah so ended up getting to that and that sent me into my own relapse and then eventually you know

I think at that point my body is like if you consume even the slightest amount again I'm going to become dependent on alcohol and so like the DTs came back and I ended up getting super suicidal out there I had a Glock

and I like threatened I was going to kill myself and I blacked out and woke up to four cops over my fucking bed down there. In your apartment? Yep I got a wellness call on me and way more people knew about that than I thought and I ended up finding out like some people from Sage found out right away and blah blah blah ended up breaking my lease and basically running away from Texas

back home and in a poor state you're fleeing Texas so I'll get there but I had sent a letter of like resignation to the lab because I wasn't there in person telling them like hey like this is pretty life or death at this point I really appreciate everything you guys have done and I've been so supportive of me and trying to like stay sober. I hope someday I can come back and like let you guys know about all the progress I've made and maybe even come back to work someday.

So I think I left on the best note I could, but still like in total working there seven months of being gone for like substance abuse, there's a big chance I may not even ever go back there if they would let me, which is I own my decision. decisions. But anyways, so my mom drives down because we're going to pack up as much as we can into the car and then leave everything else outside of the apartment. And then my sister used my money, which is okay because at that point, they're like, dude, stop fucking up, man. My sister flew down. And then over the course of like the next two or three days, we packed up as much as we could in the two cars. um and then drove back home to omaha and i was the plan was um i'm going to wean off this time

so as we're driving back to texas i'm literally sitting there and like the passenger seat on my mom's car like withdrawing pretty fucking bad again and like she had like fireball shooters and like every time it got too intense i would ask her like hey can i please just have like two shooters and it wasn't enough to like make me feel drunk or any even though I probably was sure it was just to have me feel a little less miserable and that went on for like two or three days even back home and then that's when the DTs came back harder than ever and I was like okay like I needed to go to the fucking hospital again went to the ER this time just to get

fluids which they gave you um basically the if you go just to the ER for fluids you get however much to rehydrate you with saline solution and then they give you phenobarbital, which is our barbiturate, really helps avoiding, like, seizures. And then they sent me home with Librium. And then that was the start of my, like, my sobriety in Omaha. And then what time is that? That was, I got back June 3rd, 2023. Okay. And then between then and February, probably two or three relapses. Lasting how long each time? They got progressively not as bad and they lasted all less than a week okay um so when i would when i would be like hey i fucked up again it was like one day of like feeling pretty fucking sick and not like hangover

sick like it was significantly worse yeah um but that's the thing too like people think like i was experiencing hangover because at this time i started rekindling with my dad again because I cut him off a long time ago and I recently kind of just cut him off again temporarily because after this relapse in February like he fucking hand agotted me like you're acting like a fucking child blah blah blah like I would fucking put you in

senior Francis house if you were living with me like you disrespect your mom doing that like blah blah blah it's like man I don't I don't need to hear this stuff I already tell my stuff this all the time And was he not, he's been out of your life, various periods of your life, making his sort of authoritarian crackdown even more off putting to you? Yeah.

So he, when I was a kid, I would only see him like once or twice a month, if that. The only big memory and time frame I have with him was there was like a six-month window of time where he like got me into archery and we went hunting a few times. Other than that, like he really hasn't been there. and I would never say this before but like I do love my dad and like going through this whole process you you practice humility and you understand like I was part of the problem too so like I asked him for forgiveness he forgave me and we've had a pretty good relationship and then up until the February thing happened he just like I don't know just the way he

handled my relapse he was basically talking to me like someone who's just getting into relapsing in recovery and stuff it's like dude you know a portion if that of how much work I've put into this like I don't need to be

belittled so bad man right right like even though I relapsed I get your fucking pissed off about that but you telling me I'm not trying is yeah not helpful you do not know how hard I try right and that's kind of where we get into this whole

new like spiritual journey i've gone on um which yeah i do want to i do want to get there yeah yeah but uh before that though we've had a long not a debate but a long standing conversation on this show when it comes to this stuff about the relevance of childhood trauma and later addiction and you know david has a position that oftentimes people over-emphasize um childhood trauma and there could be a sort of naval gasey obsession with trying to uncover what trauma and childhood created the monster that is today. What is your take, at least in your situation, about the relationship between any possible childhood trauma and you're becoming an addict later in life?

Can I say in terms of addiction? Like, not other mental illness type stuff, like in terms of alcoholism. That direct line from childhood trauma to addiction properly. Yeah, like I wanted to make that clear, like other problem, like behavior problems. Sure, absolutely. If I'm understanding what you just articulated, I would say I agree for the most part. I think childhood trauma has a huge part to play in people's lives. I don't think, I think you can work through it.

And there's only so much you can work through. And at a certain point, you have to just be comfortable with the fact that, like, hey, I went through this experience and it's really bad. but just like I say about not wanting to claim I'm an alcoholic rather than there was a period of time where I was like I don't identify with that anymore because you know whether this sounds good or bad like I think it's a form of victim mentality yes and victim mentality is just like a self-limiting thought in my mind absolutely yeah like my position is like the the brain is hijacked by the addiction. So, like, the instant gratification, all that type of stuff, like, all the mechanisms are already there.

So it could start from childhood trauma, social, like, expulsion, like, isolation, like, so many different things it can start from, but it all manifests the same way, and it needs, like, the same, like, type of, like, care. Once it's neurochemical, you can only get so far, trying to deal with your childhood traumas like maybe you can maybe you can't but now it's a it's hijacked your neurobiology yes and you have to deal with it on that level it can exacerbate it and it can trigger like like relapses and stuff like that sure but like a certain point like fixing your past will not fix your addiction yes aside from an absent father uh did you have any other

major trauma as a child or did you i mean i'm i'm sure i did um like even just with the dad thing i think that would cause a subconscious need for like external validation absolutely and like like feeling like you're not enough um but like i said like i think you can work on that stuff enough times but it gets to the point where it's like let's uh move on and focus on other things yeah and so now you know since being back in omaha there is like i'd say probably october decemberish there was a like a week period where I don't know if you guys are familiar with like the whole like theory of like dark night of the soul deeply familiar ego death deeply familiar um a part of me a pretty big part of me kind of believes like my last relationship might have been like a twin flame thing and it

sounds so crazy and even I think it sounds kind of crazy but like the whole thing about a twin flame is like it's literally your soul split in two and like your soul and like your soul is existing between two people on the same planet but anyways and hence a deep desire to connect yes yes um and like there's more to it but in a sense i discovered that and whether or not that's true i don't really care but with that experience it causes the whole dark night of the soul thing and maybe that was the universe's way of getting me to grow it's just discovering this thing that may or may not be real, but it's provoking me to move forward in my life.

It's a catalyst. And so there was a week, dude, where I was just fucking, like, I don't even know where it came from, didn't feel like it was me. I was just crying. Like, I'd get to my room at night, like, settling down for the night and just...

Sober. Yeah. And it was just, like, what the fuck is going on, dude? Like, this is crazy. And then as I kind of discovered the Dark Night of the Soul terminology and stuff, it made so much sense.

Absolutely. And it's like, I got to this point from being back in Omaha where I'm not, I'd say more often than not, because I think no one's perfect and I slip back into like the ego often. But the amount of time I spend there is a lot less now. I've just become a lot more conscious of like I have a mind, a body, and a soul. And like the mind is just your ego and your mind lives life through duality. Like good and bad, black and white.

um and so just as i live a more conscious life i'm thinking more about the thoughts i'm having and understanding that i don't need to associate how i combat the world and walk through the world through that frame and i like once again sounds crazy real or not i don't give a shit i feel abundant so i'm running with it i feel like i'm Being my most authentic self, which is like kind of accessing your soul. Yes. So hopping back again to the whole childhood trauma thing, it's like I've worked on my mind for the past 27 years in my fucking life. Well, not when I was born because I didn't really think.

But you guys know what I mean. Yes. Now it's time to just what feels good. What feels bad? What is going to make my energy vibrate at a higher frequency? what makes it vibrate as a low frequency okay let's keep going with these things

that are helping me vibrate at a higher frequency and that's kind of been my whole mojo for sure for the past two months and I think for a majority of my life it's just I didn't know I knew myself my whole entire life until I've gone through all of this and got to the point where it's like okay this is actually like me

absolutely I think you have it's crazy I think you have a lot of wisdom far from sounding crazy it resonates with so much that I've gone through. My predominant spiritual path has been through the teachings of the Buddha, through Buddhism, through deep meditation. And one thing I heard from a Buddhist teacher, his name is Jack Cornfield, he talks about this ocean of tears within us.

And as I got deeper in my meditation, I would often have these sort of inexplicable outbursts of weeping, not even for myself, like for the world, for compassion for other beings, a deep connection with the human experience and how we go through it individually but it's collective you know you're talking about the hell that you've been through you had to deal with it individually but it also connects you to every other person who's had to go through those sufferings and those struggles and ideally it will make you much more compassionate and loving to

those people and then yeah you have this sort of endogenous urge to want to help want to relieve people's suffering based on your own suffering the deeper you know yourself the deeper you know your own mind the deeper you know your own suffering the more you understand and others, the more effective you can be at trying to help them. So let's get into the religious part. You've talked to, you said the word ego a lot. In Buddhism, of course, seeing through the ego, seeing it as an illusion is core to the entire process of meditation.

But also in Christianity, you know, the idea of the sacred heart of the Christ, of universal love and brotherhood, of de-emphasizing the individual ego, as Christ says, love your neighbor as you love yourself. that's almost an impossible demand with an ego right that implicit in that demand is a is an at least a skepticism if not a deconstruction of understanding life solely through your own ego the prism of your own ego the distorting prism of your own ego and spiritual traditions at their best regardless of what they are have that have that message you know this sort of universalizing of your experience and the de-emphasizing of the individual ego so with all of that in mind what

speaks to you about the Christian tradition, and can you talk about rekindling that interest within yourself, or maybe for the first time, I don't know if you, I don't know if you have a religious childhood or not. Where does that come from? How has that helped you? How have you navigated it, et cetera? Sure. I mean, as a kid, I got brought to St. Clement Hill, Catholic Church a couple times by my parents, but I was literally playing with my hot wheels. You didn't do a shit. Yeah, didn't even register. And then when I was in college, I had met some people and like their families and kind of experience like I call it hyper religion but I don't know what you necessarily call it but it essentially like people are

using religion as a blanket to justify their like means of like you know being homophobic or racist weaponizing your religious beliefs against us and then like oh I'm just going to repent and we'll be good it's like dude come on so bad experience with it but like I said I've always felt spiritual I've always felt connected to something and so I kind of just started like even in AA when they're like you need a higher power it's like I don't know who the fuck win why how any of this has happened but like it's all so significant that there's got to be something so I would just kind of just pray to the universe and then as my buddy Jake he was my other good buddy that's really helped me recently he has just been casually inviting me to church you know three or four times over the past Since I've been back in Omaha, basically. Catholic Mass? No, it's celebration.

I'm pretty sure it's non-denominational. Protestant Christian? Yeah, something like that. I don't really even claim with a title right now, because it's just... It feels good. It's on a journey. Yeah, it feels good, and I'm fucking with it.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So I went to Celebration Church with him someday. I actually did today as well. And very awkward experience for me the first time. like I felt super out of place. And then there's a men's group on Monday I started going to as well that's also at Celebration Church and finally opened up the Bible.

I'm on the Book of John right now. And I don't think I can like refurbish or like even annotate what I've read so far. But the gist of the message of this church I've been going to is basically like everyone there is just trying to live how Jesus did and that's something like I really connect with and you're just trying to live the live your life through the mindset and frame of like love and care even to like your enemies and obviously easier said than done but just praying to God recently in morning and night and maybe throughout the day if I feel the need to and asking for help for things for myself specifically and then also praying for other people. I've already had moments that like kind of proved to me

like there's something to this. And so I'm definitely going to run with it. And one of those moments was my mom has cancer twice or had cancer twice and she's developed really bad neuropathy from like the radiation and chemotherapy she's done. Which is nerve damage in the face? Or anywhere? It can be anywhere, It's mainly in, like, her feet. I say, okay. So pins and needles type stuff. And anyways, she had a problem happened recently. I wouldn't even say a month ago

and that her appointment was like three weeks out. And I found out about this information. I prayed in the middle of the racks at NFM, literally, like, out loud. I was like, please, like, help my mom with this. And not even two hours later, there was a cancellation. She had an appointment in, like, three days.

So amazing. So once again, like, Can't prove it's real Can't prove it's not Not even interested in doing so I don't care I don't care It helps me

Yes And so Subordinating your will To the will of something greater than yourself Yeah Jesus on the cross You know I'm not a Christian But I have a lot of love

And I see Jesus as a deeply Important spiritual figure In the history of humanity That I can learn a lot from You know you're talking about love Forgiveness Not judging people from the ego Not weaponizing your beliefs

But trying to live like Jesus And you know Jesus on the cross as he's being crucified, says, forgive them, Father, they know not what they do. And that is, for me, like, a beautiful example of having raw, deep love and compassion, even when you are the victim of somebody else,

even when somebody else is victimizing you. And you have every right to hate them, to resent them, to want the worst for them, and to still open up your heart in those moments. I think there's something deeply beautiful there. So that's incredibly cool. And I totally agree, too, the Christian and I was a, my revolt against Christianity took the form of, like,

hardcore atheism in my early 20s, in which I understood Christianity as what it's been shown to me, which is this sort of belligerent weapon, a cudgel that assholes used to bash others over the head. Like, you know, you're gay, you're going to hell forever, you're a Muslim, you're going to hell, especially after, you know, I'm a little older than you after 9-11 in the war on terror, the racism, the bigotry, the nationalism, and then trying to shoehorn all that into Christianity, the message from Christ, it turned me off. Only as my own spirituality deepened, ironically through Buddhism that I begin to open up my heart again and see the beauty and depth within the Christian tradition. So I find that absolutely wonderful and I highly encourage people to do it.

One of my deep beliefs of modern society is that, you know, Nietzsche said 200 years ago or whatever, God is dead and we have killed him. And he was saying that lamenting, without religion, without belief in a higher order, how are we going to organize our minds? How are we going to organize our societies? And Nietzsche was worried about the rise of nihilism. that you would take that religious impulse that you pointed towards God and toward religion and you start pointing it in other directions that are much less helpful

and in today's world I think people worship the self we live in a society without a God without a higher order without higher meaning without stuff like love and compassion being stressed at all people worship the self they worship the image of the self they present to others they worship status and money and play these little games

and those are empty those feel incredibly empty if you're going to aim your religious impulse at anything it might as well be religion. It might as well be in the healthiest, most clear-sighted direction and not have it diffuse into all these other really shallow things about modern life, the alienation, the consumption for consumption's sake, the expressing yourself through what you buy and how you offer your image up to others on the Internet.

These are all incredibly shallow and leave thoughtful, sensitive people feeling incredibly empty. So if you can regain some of your humanity and you can aim that religious impulse in a proper direction, like trying to emulate knowing you'll never succeed but emulate as best you can the life of Christ I think it's a gorgeous thing and I really applaud you for doing that thanks man dude my friend Jake taught me what sin actually meant you know I thought sin was like doing bad but it literally it's like a different language for just straying from the path yes and that kind of in one sentence explains being human like you can always get back on the

path I think it literally means missing the mark yeah missing Yeah, missing the mark. Yes. So that whole start of that journey on top of journaling most nights. I forget some nights. Like, I'm not perfect once again. Sure. But journaling has been super helpful.

And then, like, I've always been into, like, I don't know if you guys know the book The Secret and, like, Law of Attraction, Manifestation. Yeah. Like, I add that stuff into my spirituality and prayer as well. So basically, every time I pray, I, I say a couple things I'm grateful for. I ask a couple of people. Some people are in the rotation, and then I sometimes add people.

And then I ask for things for myself, and then I just, I say, like, please help me. Stay mindful and be able to check my character defects. And please allow me to continue to manifest a great life, like the great life I've already, like, created. and keep me open and able to notice opportunities in love, opportunities in, like, career opportunities for money, business knowledge, connection with others. Creativity. And, you know, I really do think that that whole conversation and how this podcast came about with that conversation with Dan and the racks.

I think, like, dude, I think this is a part of it, dude. Absolutely. And a part of me was a little, I don't know, only. even say nervous to come in here but like this is just something i've never done before yeah and it was like regardless of how this goes i'm going to learn so much from this experience and so i'm very grateful for you guys wanting to have me on because you know i can't i don't know i guess you could uh like say your piece about it but how did you guys think when you just got a text from dan like hey there's this guy i talked to in the racks yeah god wants to talk to you on his power

What do you think about that? We were immediately totally open. Cool. And I know Daniel for a very, very long time and trust his judgment. And I knew when he said this that he meant it, he wouldn't just be saying it. He's not one of those people that engages with life shallowly or just throw out a recommendation just to do it. So he saw something in you that he thought would be very copacetic with what we do here. And I love that.

And, you know, that's the thing is like now that however we got here, we have a deep sort of understanding now of your struggle. than that, you're able to put that out to hundreds, maybe over time, thousands of people that are also, to varying degrees, struggling with this or knowing somebody else who is struggling with this, that they love dearly, and use your suffering as guidance and help and maybe even inspiration for others. And I think that's the, that's the alchemy that we should strive for, not to be perfect human beings, but to use our imperfections, to use our errors, our failures, our suffering, to be able to not only first and foremost grow from that in our wisdom and our compassion, but also to turn that suffering into love for other people.

And how not to make it let it make you small or bitter or to compare yourself to others, but to crack open your heart and to try to use that suffering in a generative way to connect more deeply with other people, help people in whatever ways you can. And I think you're doing that, and that's a wonderful thing. Well, I think for the most part, most people, their view on alcoholics and acts is famous people. The problem is famous people don't have normal lives. Right. Like, so their experience is so different.

I was actually reading, oh, my God, I was reading this morning about, like, Eminem's journey, like, through, he's, he does recovery, and he tries to make meetings, but it's impossible because people ask him for autographs. And, like, how do you do that? So, like, we talked about, like, Matthew Perry and stuff recently, and you talk about this stuff, like, why I love this type of interview is because, you know, I don't want to say this with the bitterness, but, like, when you go to treatment centers or you go to places and you watch these interviews and they talk about their lives, I always just kind of just, you know, I'll listen, but, like, at a certain point, I'm just like, they don't have a life that I have. They don't have the life, like, you going to work, going to the gas station at noon, like, you know, working. But change in your pocket. Yeah, change your pocket. Sharing, like, renting an apartment or a house with your girlfriend, like doing this type of stuff. Like, the stories are fun.

Like, you know, it's crazy. I was drunk in front of, like, Barack Obama or something like that. But it's like the true, like, struggle of, like, alcoholics and addicts is trying to live a life with this horrible affliction. and the process of it and like those secrets that we keep those moments like the things we do the moral lines we cross like all that type of stuff and i want to hear that from people that share my experience yeah like the thing is is that i will always have like something with um all the famous people that have like the same addictions like we all have the same type of thing but i i want to hear experience that's similar to mine right like you know like i don't like i love to have the money and all the type of stuff and oh he got high and crashes lambo that's what he knew was his rack bottom i know like yeah my rock bottom is shitting my pants i know like to a cold back i'm drinking bartons you know like stuff like that but you know the idea of just like talking to people that we do alcoholism the good old fashioned way the working class way yeah

going to mega saver and running in and running out absolutely and another thing you said earlier that I want to touch it as we sort of enter the wrap-up period here is you talked about every time you relapse, you learn something new. And we've long had this discussion back and forth between us on the show. I call it kind of spirals of learning that, you know, you have to go through the same thing many different times, but every time you do, you extract a new lesson. And you have to go through that spiral a few times. For some people, it's three times. For some people, it's a hundred times, anywhere in between. It depends what your issue is. It could be mental health. It could be addiction. It could be anything else. You have to go through dark nights of the soul.

which is sort of, you know, if you think about your life and your growth and plant metaphors, you need the storms to come in and bring the rain. You need those times when the ground is completely drenched in order for when that sunlight comes out for something new to grow and sprout. And to learn every time you go through relapse, not to conceive of it as I'm a failure, I'm starting all over, you're not. You went through that and you picked up, you know, one-tenth of the lesson you needed to learn.

And maybe you'll go through that nine more times before you finally, I'm not saying you personally, but, you know, just as an example. But every time you do, if you can extract some lesson from that, that you can then take into your next failure, your next dark night of the soul, your next period of suffering, and deepen that wisdom, I think that is the point. That is the point. You know, humans are meant to be on this earth. Whatever comes before or after, we're here to grow and we're here to connect.

And I think that you were getting at that in so many ways with your story. And your story, of course, helps other people do that. I think one quote I've heard recently from the trailer of fucking monkey man out of all things was the pain still exists because it hasn't finished teaching you its lesson yet right there like that's that's so true yeah just starting to look at life and the things that you're struggling with in your life as maybe maybe not a game but just a test and like I don't have to change who I am as a person to get through this test

even though my mind wants me to and that's just been a very empowering thing like NF says it in one of his songs like the world doesn't stop because I'm in a bad mood so just keep on trucking um acknowledging the emotions you're feeling and like experiencing

them rather than trying to repress them whether it be with a substance or distraction yes find out things that keep your brain healthy for me that has been you know the spiritual journey I've talked about with you guys today and then also fitness that has been very very important to me especially recently but since I've started working out and you know I'm I'm actually excited to wake up each day. I might not feel that right off the bat. You know, I got to wake up a little bit first, but

you know, all I hope I can do in the world, which I think truly happens when you stop focusing on it, is for people to, you know, get something from the two sense of the life I've lived. And even recently, like, people have been like oh hey like i'm going to write that down like that's some good advice or they'll say something about like how my mood is infectious on them and makes them feel better

and um i've kind of started becoming a guy that people i don't really talk to too much they'll come to me and talk to me about some serious ass shit and i'm like where'd that come from yes so i like this whole law of attraction manifesting living life from a place of like love and compassion even though I'm not always in that mindset. Of course. As long as I'm in it most of the time I truly feel I will affect people in a very positive

way and just life's kind of coming to me now rather than me being so headstrong about seeking out all these things. Absolutely. And can I say one thing about like working out like eating well

and like even certain things like dressing up or how you view yourself like that's so important not just in the sense of like the dorphins and all the stuff you talk about but it goes to a critical point about you care about yourself because when you the day in day out drinking and the bags under your eyes putting your body through the withdrawals how many detoxes you go through like sometimes i think about my body as a separate self and i i i weep for it because I put it through so much like so much turmoil it's like I need to treat this body well because it means something it's I've been given it it's healthy yeah hopefully and

it's valuable people don't have what I have like like all functioning like that type of stuff like that being grateful for that and like acknowledging that you're worth it It's, like, the biggest thing that I can think people, like, space out. Like, you know, we always talk about it is endorphins and, like, you know, it helps, like, sleep schedule and all that type of stuff, but just it shows you care about yourself when you do stuff like that. Absolutely. And if I could bounce off that thought for one last thing, unless you guys have any more questions or whatnot. Chris Williamson, I don't know if you've heard of him, he kind of, he brings people on his little, like, podcast talk show. Modern wisdom.

Yeah, yeah. And he said something in one of the ones he had where it was along the lines of like, he was particularly talking about men's health, but I think anyone's health in general, it's like what you think you might have, you might actually not have it as bad as you think because you're not doing what you've kind of described, just taking care of your body.

So like now that I have a regulated sleep schedule, now that I'm working out consistently now that I'm eating right, drinking enough water, having healthy relationships with people, taking downtime when I need it, going out and experiencing nature, like just getting vitamin D is so good for you.

All these things with the equation of life make you feel so much better than if you're not doing most of those things. And that's kind of what his whole philosophy kind of became. It's like, I might not be as depressed as I think I am because I'm not treating my body the way I should be.

Right. Absolutely. And as you start feeling those benefits, it stops becoming a chore. Working out becomes something you want to do. Eating healthy is something that just makes sense. You don't want to eat like shit. You know how that makes you feel. You've been through that ringer enough. I always say like, and this is something we've said many times on the podcast,

when in doubt, get out of your mind and into your body. There's something negative and counterproductive about constantly living up in your head, talking to yourself all day. and like hardcore moments like COVID isolation I think really drives that point home people drive themselves crazy when in doubt to physically engage with the world and lifting weights is a great way to do precisely that the weights don't lie 200 pounds is always 200 pounds you know you're always you're wrestling with that iron and there's no there's no time when you're like your your your ninth rep of the bench press and you're

barely getting it up there's no time to talk to yourself in your head about how you feel you know you're just in that moment and a beautiful thing that you've done twice now in this conversation is put your finger on what I call the four pillars of health, and you've articulated them perfectly. It is near daily exercise, be physically active. You've got to get out there in the world, ideally in nature. Eat mostly whole foods. You can have cake on birthdays and, you know, if you like, you know,

your snacks once in a blue moon, but 80% of what you eat should be whole foods. You know, foods that are from the earth, they're not processed, et cetera. The third thing is a consistent sleep schedule, right? Being able to more or less fall asleep and wake up, more or less at the same time, getting your seven to eight hours asleep every single night. Absolutely crucial. And the fourth thing, often overlooked, but you've put your finger on it many times.

Social relationships. We are social creatures. We evolved to be social. And you have to put your effort into maintaining those relationships. Not something you can just take for granted. When you do all four of those things, they reinforce each other and they provide a foundation. It's not to say you'll never have a depressive day or a shitty mood, but your foundation is up here instead of down fucking here.

you know and that can make the difference of suicidal ideation to just i'm just feeling shitty today but i'll be okay and that difference can get you to that next day and so you have that you have that wisdom uh garnered wholly through your own experience and i think that that's that's really really interesting and the fact that people are coming up to you sort of it seems random that that this period of your life people come up to you and start um being very vulnerable with you asking for your advice you know you're talking about just being people attracted to you in some way subconsciously there's something in you that you're emitting in the way that you carry yourself that makes people feel I'm safe to be open with this person this person has some wisdom that maybe I can ask and crack into and it's without you even trying you're not presenting yourself as some guru who knows everything come to me let me teach you're just living your life and being authentic and that attracts people I just have a massive spiritual boner right now honestly it goes back to when we were talking about like hiding it yeah trying to hide it it's the opposite of that

like the the way you smell or like the way you look all that type of stuff like you're doing the reverse of that where you're putting out like a good vibe your like eyes are clear like you're walking upright and you feel like you're connecting with people you're not trying to like whisk away or like I don't want to talk to the manager, like, I don't want to breathe near them, like, all that type of stuff. It's all the reversal of that. Like, the way you carry yourself is so different when you actually, like, give a fuck about what your body is, what you're, like, what you're doing to yourself. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, my friend, I think we're over two hours here. We want to be able to give you the last word. One question we asked to spark this final thought on your part, and you've kind of said it throughout this conversation. but you know and you can take this any direction you can give any last word you want but one question we would ask at the end here is people listening right now you know they themselves might be going through it or nor know somebody in their lives who are going through an addiction of some sort based on your experience knowing that you're not you're not perfect you have all your flaws who's to say what what's going to happen tomorrow but what advice or words of wisdom might you offer somebody who has

is going through what you went through in 2020 or what you were going through in 2019 whatever man there'd be so many things I want to say um show yourself grace and don't just tell yourself you're showing yourself grace you have to feel it at a core level and also live it um I think if you get those three things down with anything you do that's when shit actually finally sinks in and find at least one person in your life you can be truly honest with about everything you don't have to make the mistake I did and wait till you've built up this huge house of cards and life just falls on you like even though my rock bottom is maybe not as bad as the next person's like it's a rock

bottom for me and you can decide how low you want to go because there's really only three directions addiction takes you it takes you to an institution it takes you to prison or you die there's really no other way to go um so you know don't start tomorrow start today type mentality try everything in the recovery realm for a significant amount of time and actually give it your best effort and be truly honest with yourself am i trying hard enough with this um and i think just having that mentality everything else i would want to say is kind of going to learn itself within you so just don't give up Because I've, like I've said in this podcast, even in February, like, I was at the hospital because I was suicidal, and, you know, now I've had a complete turnaround, you know.

So you never know, it's like that one saying, like, the miner who's trying to mine for gold and he gives up after however long, but the gold nuggets literally an inch away, a couple more hits. Like, it's so cliche, but it's so fucking true. So, hang in there. Beautifully said Thank you so much Nico for coming into the shoelous shed and sharing your experience

with that Thank you guys It was an awesome experience What a thing to be a witness to the sunshine Would a dream to just be walking on the ground What a time to live

Among the ashen Remnants of our love That came before And I'm still looking for that now It took centuries to build these twisted cities It took seconds to reduce them down to earth And all the tour of God could say was take your pictures, folks, it's late

Try your best please to remember what was done Don't look so forlorn, don't you look so scared Don't get so upset this world was never fair But there are hundreds of ways To get through the day There are hundreds of ways Now you just find one

I used to think that time was of the essence Now I just wish I could get some sleep A strange parade of Sands City Makes when I lie down Little explosions That set fire to my dreams Sometimes I get mistaken

For this actor And I guess that I can see it From the side Maybe no one really seems to be The person that they mean to be I hope I am forgotten When I die Don't contradict me.

Don't make me cross the line. If you feel threatened, it's only because I might. But there are hundreds of ways to get through the day. There are hundreds of ways to get through the day. Yes, there are hundreds of ways. So you best find one All my heroes, they're all talk Running in circles

Some stop, watch some chaos Love was the message Full Star We ramble on And on We ramble on I stole all the rhinestones out of Carolina and sold them out in Bakersfield for cash

the band shell got a band sound like an arcade in Japan blew all my quarters trying to get that feeling back 90sucker can turn boredom into violence A sociopath riding on a bus Asiruses are black from his novelty contacts He looks around But you can't see the rest of us

In my sunglasses Don't mind the blinding light Yes, get him talk broke But I've always loved the night But there are hundreds of ways to get through the day There are hundreds of ways to get through the days There are hundreds of ways to get through the days There are hundreds of ways to get through the day

There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ways To get through the days just fan one