Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - After 7 Years Sober, Anthony Relapsed and Found Himself Back in Addiction

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

After more than seven years sober, Anthony never imagined he would find himself back in active addiction.In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Anthony shares his powerful story of drug addiction, cocaine addiction, sobriety, relapse, and addiction recovery. He opens up about his early struggles with cocaine, going to treatment, getting sober, and eventually building a life he was proud of in long-term sobriety.But as life got better, Anthony began letting go of some of the things that had helped him stay sober. Secrets, ego, and small justifications eventually opened the door to relapse and a return to active addiction.Anthony shares what happened next, the impact his addiction had on his marriage and family, and what it took to find recovery again. His story is a powerful reminder that getting sober is only the beginning—and staying sober requires honesty, connection, and continued action.If you’re struggling with alcohol addiction, drug addiction, quitting drinking, getting sober, relapse, or staying sober, Anthony’s recovery story offers an important look at how addiction can return and what it takes to rebuild.Anthony on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recoveringoutloudpodSober Motivation Mobile App: https://apps.apple.com/app/sober-motivation-app/id6759266291Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.comSupport the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am officially a homeless person. I have a bag full of my clothes. It was like a laundry bag, too. It wasn't even like a luggage bag. And I'm dragging it along the streets of Toronto. My shoes, my entire life is in this bag. And I'm dragging it down the streets. And then this thought comes in my mind, dude, that's enough.

That's enough. You're done. I'm grateful for every rock bottom I've ever had because without any of those rock bottoms, I wouldn't be here today. Today I'm joined by Anthony for a real honest conversation about addiction and recovery. We get into the neat. fit in, the secrets who keep the stories we tell ourselves, and how easy it can be to lose sight of the things that got us here in the first place.

Wherever you're listening to the show, if you're enjoying it, hit that follow or subscribe button. And if you could use some community support on your journey to giving up drinking, check us out on the sober motivation app. Head over to suburb motivation.com to grab all of the details. And this is Anthony's story on the sober motivation podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. today we've got Anthony with us. Anthony, how's it going? Good, brother. How are you? Yeah, man. I'm well, dude. So what was it

like for you growing up? Yeah, I had a really good childhood. And I know we hear that a lot in recovery. A lot of people say that. But, you know, there's something called the, I don't know why I'm thinking of this now, but it's coming up. The ACE test, adverse childhood effects test, which tells you, you know, sort of if you were more likely to get into substances, if you do this test, it talks about trauma and how your household was growing up. I remember reading that thing and thinking, like, I can't believe that people, I felt really bad. I was like, I can't believe people have grown up in situations like this. My life didn't look anything like that. And, you know, you go to enough rehabs and you start to hear some pretty wild childhoods and some crazy stories. And I never had any of that. I had a very loving

household. And it really, you know, every time I went to rehab in the United States twice, and I would get a new perspective every time I go, I went there. One of the favorite, one of the, one of the, one of my favorite things to think about too about childhood is the longer I stay sober and the longer I practice the principles of recovery, the better my childhood gets, right? So like as I'm getting, staying sober, collecting more time, hearing other people's childhood and stories, my childhood, my perception starts to change and my childhood doesn't look so bad anymore. And I actually grew up in a really supportive household. And sure, I didn't, you know, get what I wanted all the time. and my friends had better scooters than me when I was growing up.

And this is where we talk about, like, alcoholism as a disease of perception. I always talk about this because my perception is so skewed. I can think I had the worst childhood in the world. You get me sober and I start to work on myself and I start to look at these things honestly through a different perspective, through an honest lens. And I'm like, man, my childhood was really good. You know, I had everything I needed. One thing I will say, though, is, and I think about this a lot because it still affects me to this day,

is I was riddled with fear. And I don't know where that came from. This is a common thread that I hear with people in recovery that have struggled with substances. I was always afraid. I was afraid of, you know, in the 90s and early 2000s, there was, in Canada, there was, you know, this big story about Carla Hamoka and I forget the other. Paul Bernardo was like a big thing back then. There were these serial killers that were, you know, on the loose.

And this was all the new story. And I remember my mom being so. afraid to let us go outside and be on our own. All my friends would go to movies and do their thing and, you know, go and they had all the freedom in the world. I had to be home before it got dark. If we were playing ball hockey on the street, which is a common thing growing up in a subdivision in north of Toronto in Canada, I had to be home before the lights got on. I had to have my homework done. So I had a very strict environment, but it was a very loving environment. I had everything I needed, like I said. My sister, who's now a doctor, she was kind of the, you know, the bright

one in the family and the overachiever and the one that never wanted to go out. And I was the one that was always, you know, lying at school and getting suspended and getting into trouble. But I just remember that, Brad. I remember being in fear all the time of my, the future. And if I go and do this, what's going to happen? If I don't listen to my mom, there's going to be consequences. And those consequences were never physical or anything bad. But I would get grounded a lot and I would get stuff taken away. And that would carry into high school as well. So the reason I bring this up is because It taught me how to lie and how to live this alcoholic double life that, you know, the literature of the program that I subscribe to and I follow talks about is like the alcoholic presents a stage

character to the world. I'm performing outside of my family and because I'm always afraid of the consequences. I'm always afraid of telling you the truth because you're going to judge me or you're going to get, I'm going to get into there's going to be something that's going to happen if I reveal the truth to you. And so that followed, it follows me today, man. Like to this day, I have to work hard at being honest and not lying and not telling little lies because I'm scared of what you're, how I'm going to be perceived. Yeah.

Thanks for sharing that too, man. And I think there's so much truth to that. You kind of see in the Hollywood movies a lot, right? Like somebody further down the line that struggles with, you know, substance use is they grew up and it was disastrous in so many ways. But there's so many stories I have. And I feel like people can sort of question whether they belong, you know, as we kind of kind of. go through the story like, do I belong in this recovery thing? Because I went to this meeting or I went to this place or I heard that story. And man, my childhood from what I remember was pretty good. Like,

I mean, everything wasn't great. There's challenges, but we hear things that are, you know, much more challenging. When do you sort of pick up on this though? Because that's really interesting of like, you know, getting in trouble and getting suspended. I mean, that's a big part of my story. I was always getting in trouble for stuff. But I didn't really at the time connect the dots that anything was kind of going on. Yeah, I always wanted to fit in, man. And to this day, that's something, again, another defect of character, if you will, of mine is I want you to love me. I have this codependent tendency where if you love me, I can love myself. If you're okay, if you're laughing, I can laugh. And I just wanted to fit in with everybody. I remember being,

you know, growing up and not being a part of the popular kids, whatever, like, what a cruck, a crap that is looking back now. But I always wanted to be, I felt like I never had the right life. I felt like I never had the right body. You know, in elementary school, just give you an example. And this ties into my body dysmorphia, which I'm sure we'll get into is a result of my relapse down the road. But I wanted, like, I never had abs as a kid. And I remember the popular kid had abs. And he was showing all the girls. And so I never felt like I was a part of. I never felt like the girls were looking at me. I never felt like I was, I fit in. I belong anywhere. Like I said, the, I felt like I had the wrong life, the wrong stuff.

the wrong house, the wrong family. Meanwhile, it's, you know, it was really good growing up. And so when I would want to fit in with the kids, it was like if you were a bully and I would, you know, to go with you to bully or watch you or laugh while you were bullying that other kid, I felt like I was a part of. And so I just wanted to fit in. Everywhere I went, it was, I'm going to do this thing because I think that you'll like me if I do this thing. And then, you know, I don't know who I am throughout this whole thing. So getting in trouble, was just, it was sort of the price of it, the price of admission to be cool, in my opinion. It was the price of admission to fit in, the price of admission to belong.

Yeah. Or even stand out in a way. I look at a lot of the recklessness I did the class clown stuff and, you know, to fit in or, you know, get a laugh or get acceptance or just, even though it came with the consequences, I was like, this is worth it. It's better that than, you know, not even being seen at all. It's interesting. And I don't even know if we'll, we'll kind of. have an answer for this, but it is like, I can relate to a lot of this. Like my mom, she was 16. She had twins. She was young. My grandparents stepped in, but it was good. We didn't have a whole

heck of a lot. My brother and I, we shared an apartment bedroom and we didn't have a lot, but I didn't really connect all of those dots at the time. But I felt that less than as well, unworthiness. And I'm just like, I kind of look back and try to get to the answer of like, how did that all come about. And then other people, they seem to have it like, that wasn't even a worry of some people's, right? Like, they were just, they didn't care, right? If they didn't have this or they didn't have that, they just seemed so comfortable with it. For me, it felt so uncomfortable. Any insight to that about, like, how that came about for you? I mean, I think it's, at the end of the day, I think we always look for love and we're always

searching for wholeness. And when I say we, I mean, specifically, I think people, together. We want to belong in the tribe. It's one of our innate needs. We want to feel like we're useful to the tribe. And I just, I don't know. I think I felt like I didn't have anything to bring if I was myself. I was afraid of who I was. And maybe, maybe I didn't get the love that my parents were giving out. I was unable to accept the love or see the love that my parents were giving out. Maybe I felt like my sister who's, you know, never getting in trouble. never on the spotlight. I'm always trying to live up to that secretly,

and I don't fit in again. But yeah, it's interesting to think about because I don't necessarily think I was born like that, right? I don't think I was born. I think I was conditioned over time. I think I have some genes from my parents that translate. For example,

I'm pretty good at talking to people in crowds. My mom is she can talk to anyone. She can work the room. And that played into my addiction for a long time because drugs and alcohol, specifically cocaine, would allow me to talk to people and enhance, you know, I'm using air quotes, enhance my personality, my ability to connect.

And I was always funny and I was always interesting. And that was the God-sized whole. The power that I was looking for in my whole life was that. Yeah. That tracks so well, man, because I remember one time, thanks for sharing that too, by the way. But I remember one time my parents sat me down and it was about this love thing, you know, like I was searching for love, you know, my codependent relationship. trips in high school. I mean, disaster. My parents saw it clear stay, right? When I was in,

high school, I framed it up this way. I could only live for Friday night. So I couldn't really see any further than that. But they had sort of sat me down and asked me like, why isn't their love enough for me? And there was always like this block. It was so weird because it was incredible. But it was, it just, I was more interested in a stranger, a new student to school, to maybe not be loved, but to be accepted or to feel. in or to impress than my own parents that they were encouraging me and like, hey, let's try to do well in school. Let's at least try to show up. But there was such a block there about maybe feeling the love from them or accepting the love, but just being so like the hierarchy

of it was my peers, which I'm like, man, so backwards. You know, now looking back, I'm like, man, I just had it completely wrong, but that's the way, you know, I saw it. And then obviously it created a lot of friction, you know, with my folks. When do you get into? to like, you know, drinking and everything and cocaine too. Yeah. So I would say I'm a bit of a late starter from just being around rehabs and rooms of recovery for, you know, the last 11 years. I got into, I remember the first time I drank was grade 10, so it would have been 16,

I believe. And we were at my friend's brother's party, older brother, and they had a keg. And I remember thinking, and this ties back into the whole childhood thing, right? I remember thinking, man, I'm going to a keg party in high, for the first. time ever. This is, I've arrived, right? This is it. Like, what a cool guy I am. I'm going to my friends, brothers party and all these, these older kids are drinking. That was another thing, too, is I loved hanging out with the older kids. I always wanted to be with the older kids. I respected them. I worship them in some way because if I was with them, then I was cool. I looked cool.

And, you know, they were way ahead of me in maturity. And I felt like I was more mature. And that was the cool thing to do. But first time I drank it was, I believe it was beer out of keg and then it would have been smearing off and this is the first time i got drunk actually like actually drunk you know i'm sure i had some some beer with my dad before that but nothing this is the moment i remember we we i was sleeping over and my friends and i was three of us we drank an entire two-sixth of the smear and off at 16 years old with no tolerance and i just remember passing out and throwing up in the sink and my other two friends did the same thing and completely blacked out i don't remember most of the night but i remember

I remember thinking, you know, I didn't really have that. You hear a lot of people thinking, oh, man, I can't wait to do that again, right, the morning after. That was great. It solved all my problems. I didn't really have that connection with alcohol. It was more so when the cocaine came in, that I had that sort of, this is it. This is the thing that I've been missing for so long. And I remember waking up that next morning and my dad picking me up and this ties back into the lying thing and the double life and the stage character. He, you know, asked me how my night was. and I remember thinking about I'm never going to tell him that I drank. Like that is off the table and I was so hungover and I thought that I put it past him.

Maybe I did. But at the end of the day, that would lead into this secret life and this keeping secrets and ultimately my demise down the road. Like if I had to nail down anything that kills recovery right now in my life, the one thing that comes up to mind that kills my recovery is secrets, is I'm right, is I'm not going to tell you this thing because I've got it figured out. Don't worry, Brad. I'm good. Like, I can't share this secret with you of how I'm feeling my, what I'm doing over here

because I'm embarrassed by it. I think you'll judge me. I think you won't love me. I think you'll think I'm weak and I don't want to think I'm weak. So the first time I found cocaine was, I think I was 20, it was probably 20 years old. It was at a party. It was a typical, you know, pure pressure moment. The cool kids in school all had the CD case and they were kind of, I always,

loved the, this is weird, but I always loved the running off and going to do cocaine in a different room when the party was out here. There was something, there was a rush. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it now, Jesus. I haven't thought about this in a while. The idea of leaving the party with a certain group of people to go and do this illegal drug that's dangerous and scary that I never, I said I would never do in my life. It was a rush. It was a rush in of itself just to leave the party to go into a room and do it with these guys. And I just felt a part of. I felt like, you know, we knew the secret to life and the rest of the party was missing out, man. And I never wanted to miss out on those, those moments. And so that was it. I went off with what would be

become my drug dealer for a long time, this guy in high school. And he kind of said, you know, try it. He was, it was the peer pressure thing. And I did it. And I just remember the dopamine. I remember feeling connected. I remember feeling better than everybody else. That was the main thing. It was like, I was superior to everybody I came into contact with, and that's what I wanted. Yeah, from that experience, cocaine, you mentioned to the drinking wasn't sort of the maybe air quote coming home moment, but when you started doing cocaine, that things made sense. I don't know. A lot of people share that.

You know, there's a moment where it makes sense and the reality that we're living in maybe slides away or slips away a little bit. Yeah. And then this is what I've been missing. my whole life. Like this is the key, right? And immediately your brain, I think my brain goes into how can I, and this is what I hear with people with alcohol too. And I'm not saying alcohol wasn't a huge problem for me. It became a problem down the road. But it was, this is the thing I've been missing. This is the thing that I'm going to control and enjoy for the rest of my life, as,

as we often talk about, the great obsession of every abnormal drinker and drug user is I will control and enjoy my drinking and using one day. And that's it. Like to have control over how much I take, how high I get, when I stop, I'm in control. It comes down to that all the time. It's like, I'm in control of my life, of my ability to get high, and you can't tell me anything. Yeah.

When, like at the beginning, was it like, I mean, what, did you have it, you know, under control or was disastrous right from the start? Yeah. I think, I think for a long time, it was, you know, the classic story of weekends only. And, you know, this was from, it was a very rapid progression, actually. And this is why I'm also grateful for drugs, because if I had not gotten into drugs, Brad, I honestly, I don't think I would have came into recovery. I don't even, like, maybe I would have, but I, this cocaine brought me down to my knees so fast, especially back then in, you know,

2013, 2014, the cocaine was a lot different than it is now. I don't know if it's better or worse. it was I just it the guys that I was getting it off of were very low level to be completely I guess respectable about that. So the cocaine that I was getting was very you know people say stepped on or very cut with other things. And so I and this would play into my later story is I would get paranoid and I would get very scared and self-conscious and my anxiety was. be through through the roof within that two-year period. It went from weekends, like I said, to pretty much every day. And then I think everybody gets to this point, but I'll speak for myself. There was a point where I'm living with my parents and my friends would say, hey, man,

you know, at this point I'm 1920. We're old enough to go to bars. It's a Tuesday night, or sorry, Monday night. We all like watching football. Let's go to the bar and have a pint, right? The famous, like, you know, just Monday night going to go have a pint and then go home and go to work or school after whatever the thing is the next day. And I just remember thinking to myself that never, I never, I was never enticed by that. That never, you know, I never wanted to do that, man. I always needed to have some sort of drugs on me before I went out to fathom having a good time. And so that's when it became a real problem is I couldn't leave my house without the opportunity to have it or do it that night. And it became anytime I went out. Yeah. A lot of people

talk about that too, like the joy or the perception of joy is on the other side of the substance. You get locked into that is like, you know, people be on the nicest beach in the entire world, you know, with their family or whatever it is, right? Just beautiful. And it's like, where's the bar at? Where's the bar? I need the drink or I need the substance to be able to really plug into this. What's the, what's your life outside of this look like? You go through high school like what what does the day to day look like for you at this point yeah so after high school you know the a lot of what happened to what i explained to you in my childhood what was happening in high school too i missed a lot of parties because my mom wouldn't let me go to sleep over if

she thought it was a dangerous thing and so i would start to sneak around and go out and you know steal the car sometimes and do this this behavior but i would say that i finished high school fine I actually had pretty good marks. I've always been pretty decent when I've applied myself. It was after high school that it really, like I said, when cocaine came in, that's when I would say, if you looked at my life on paper in high school,

you would say I was an average kid drinking and using, you know, a lot of the kids were worse. I'm using air quotes than I was. It was only after high school that things started to go downhill. So I went to university. I didn't show up to class every day. I'm smoking weed every day at this point.

You know, marijuana is a big part of my story. And I've just become the, guy that has to escape his brain all the time and I become reliant on it. Back then we're smoking things called poppers where now looking back it's just crazy the stuff that we did is so bad for our health. But essentially you would put tobacco with weed and clear it all in one bong hit. And I remember, you know, thinking of myself, this was cool. Again, this was the cool thing to do. So I'm doing that every day. I'm missing class. I'm not going to university. And eventually I flunk out. I actually ended up going to three, three different colleges, community colleges,

and then one university and not finishing all of them. I'm a great starter. I've got great ambitions. I can pitch you on the idea that I have, but I cannot execute. I cannot follow through with anything. And that's where addiction plays in for, I think for a lot of us is I don't even know who I am, but I hate myself. Because what is confidence at the end of the day? For me, confidence is saying who I believe I am who I say I am. I do the things that I say I'm going to do. And shame for me, in my opinion, comes from constantly not doing the things that you say you're going to do, not knowing who you are, because you're constantly, you know, drinking and driving. I'm drinking and driving. I'm crossing moral boundaries. I'm doing a drug that I said I would never do. I remember

one night on my 20th birthday after I had a keg party at my house, I'm crying in my bed. Like I'm bawling my eyes out in my bed, 20 years old I just had this huge party. My parents were losing their mind because the cops came and I think everybody has this moment too. My therapist always talks about this. There's this moment that we have where it's, we kind of have this like

out of body experience where we see ourselves in our element and it's that moment of clarity of how the hell did I get here? How did this happen? I was, you know, such a happy kid, happy guy. My parents were so happy. Now everything I touch is

turn to trash and I'm blowing things up and I can't stop drinking and using what how did I get here? Yeah, that's yeah, that's an interesting thing too. I definitely had those moments. What are your parents' thoughts about how things are going? I mean, are they in tune? They know what's going on? Yeah, so this is where actually, and I'm happy you brought this up because I don't think about this enough and I don't give this guy enough credit. I had a good friend in my life, Chris. He went on to become the best man at my wedding, which was two years ago, he was noticing how bad I was getting. And a lot of my friends didn't want to hang out with me when I was using because I would get really quiet. I wasn't funny anymore. Cocaine, you know, drugs and alcohol, they do for you and

then they eventually do to you. And what it was doing to me was completely stripping my soul, completely ripping out my personality. I was not talking anymore. Like you said, I am tunnel vision focused on getting high all the time. So I'm never present anywhere I am. And then when I'm high, I'm not even fun to be around high. At one point, I'm sure I was fun to be around drunk and high. Now I'm in an isolation hole and I can't even talk. I can't even laugh. My mouth is shut every time I use. I'm thinking cops are coming everywhere I go. We're at the bar and I'm looking over my shoulder for no reason. It was a horrible place to be. So my friend Chris, he starts to see how bad it's getting. He starts to see that I'm spending money every day. I'm using every day. I'm

always every time we go out, I'm, I'm either have on me or I'm getting to grab later. And he starts talking to my mom. And this, like, I commend this guy, you know, this guy saved my life. I can't thank him enough. I still, to this day, we talk about it. He was in my mom's year about how bad I was getting. And my parents had an idea, but I don't think, and working at the rehab that I work at now, I talk to a lot of parents that have loved ones that are struggling. I don't, I think we're really good at hiding. I think we come to a point, like I said, this double life. We come to point where it's very obvious and everyone in our life knows. But I don't think that a lot of the parents, loved ones in our life, know how bad it is. Right. And so he was telling her how bad it was.

And that's when, you know, things started to go really south for me because now I'm hiding it everywhere. I'm not coming home. I'm staying at hotels. I have no money, but I'm staying at cheap motels that you can smoke in back then. And I'm smoking cigarettes all night. And I'm peeking out the people of the hotel. I'm calling the front desk at the hotel. And I'm like, there's people outside. You guys, to come get them and the guy's telling me dude i'm looking at the cameras there's no one outside it was a horrible place the cocaine psychosis is like the worst place you can be honestly i don't wish it on my worst enemy it was horrible and so my parents started to catch on at that point and eventually you know there we did all the things doctors psychiatrists life coaches and eventually they get this one counselor

who i love i still talk to him today Dave is his name he's amazing and he was he was amazing He was, he's in recovery. He's a recovering addict himself. He was the one that started to get through to me. I started to go see him because I think there's a point where we're all like, I don't want this to happen anymore, but I don't want to stop using. I want the pain to go away, but I'm not ready to put down the drugs in the party lifestyle because I'm 23 and everybody drinks.

Everybody uses. Come on, guys. This is outrageous. It's not the drugs. It's something else. And so I started to see this guy and rehab started to become a real option. Like it started to really. start to become a viable option on the table.

And I remember the first time him, they started to, and he brought it up very slowly, right? This guy was really good at what he did. He didn't come and smack me in the face and say, you know, you need to go to rehab or you're going to die.

That was always part of the plan, but they would introduce it slowly. And I would see this guy every week and I would feel a little bit better until one day my parents gave me an ultimatum. And they said, you either go to this treatment center that we picked for you or you live on the streets

and you can't come home. And that was the ultimatum that saved my life at that time. So I tried to live in my car, for two weeks because I wasn't going to go to rehab at 23 and I lived in my car and, you know, I brushed my teeth in my office at the time of the job that I was at. It was horrible. People were asking me like, why are you, why do you have your toiletry bag at the office? And that was so embarrassed. I never told them I got kicked out of my house, right? But for two weeks, I lived like

that and it was the middle of winter in Canada. It was cold every night. I'm sleeping in the car. I was too ashamed to ask my friends to sleep on their couch. And then eventually, you know, after a long Bender weekend of psychosis and paranoia and hearing voices and seeing things, I eventually wave the life flag. And I just remember thinking to myself, man, I just want to go home and shower. Like, I haven't showered in two weeks. My friends are all going home. It's Sunday night. I want to go home. I'm done. And I remember calling my parents and I say, I'm ready. I'm ready to go. And then, you know, within two weeks, we're in Minnesota. After one last bender, of course, so one last hurrah, we make it to Minnesota and I go to Hazelden and that place would change my life.

Yeah. Wow. What goes through your mind at 23, right? Because I think it's very easy to say, I'm just getting started here, man, you know, like a 23-year-old out there right now. Like maybe things aren't, maybe the wheels aren't falling off, but they're headed in that direction. What goes through your mind that, like, this is something I need to address? Yeah. I think the fact that, you know, and you hear Anthony Keats talk about this of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one of my favorite bands, and he's also in recovery. But he talks about the drugs when they, the drugs stop working, it's sort of the worst place an addict alcohol can be, when the drink stops working, when it stops achieving whatever effect we were getting from it. When it, you know,

I'm escaping my mind at the end of the day with drugs and alcohol. That's what it is. I don't, I walk into a room and everyone's talking about me. You're all looking at me. I'm sure of it. I can read minds. I can see the future. It's all horrible. I take a line. I take a drink and it's gone. I'm, it's gone. I don't have any problems. My financial problems are gone. Everything is gone. I have the power to solve all my problems because my perception is completely changed with drugs and alcohol. And so there's a point I think everyone gets to, most people get to, I shouldn't say everyone, where it just stops working. It stops bringing relief, right? Ease and comfort.

And now it's doing to us, like I said, instead of doing for us. And I think so when I hit that point, the, listen, if my parents didn't give me an ultimatum, straight up, man, if my parents didn't say you either go to rehab or you, I wouldn't have gone. I would have probably gone on to the bitter end or went into a lower rock bottom. Yeah. And this would be evident later down the road when I would relapse, you know, later is I bring every, I go right to the end. And until the drugs are gone, until the money's gone. And so it just became, it started to seem like the only way out, right? I had, I was out of options.

And that's the gift of desperation that I think we talk about. And not just desperation, but hopelessness is I had to come to a place of hopelessness. I'd been desperate before many times, but at that moment, I was hopeless. I had no other options. So I made a decision to take the one option that wouldn't involve death, really. Yeah. You ever talk with your parents about what that process was like for them? Oh, yeah.

What's their thoughts? In making amends, that was a big part of my recovery journey is, you know, I had stolen jewelry, I had pawned off jewelry. I had done, you know, and I'm talking about like baptism jewelry, priceless jewelry and my parents are Catholic and it was a big part of my childhood growing up so that was a big deal and so I had to make amends for that and it was probably you know the second hardest amends I ever had to make but they were just you know they were so happy to see that I had changed and that I meant it and that I was following direction at that point and you know it talks about it

in the in a spiritual experience like I love the definition of a spiritual experience is like I'm changing, the world is not changing. My perception is changing and often friends and loved ones of the person notices before he does himself. So people are starting to notice that I'm changing because I'm working a recovery program in my life. And yeah, it's beautiful to be able to, one of the gifts of recovery, man, is to be able to talk about the bad stuff that you did and not hate yourself over it. But also understand, and listen, I will never be able to comprehend. I say this all the time. I will never be able to comprehend the pain that I've caused my parents and my wife now,

you know, later on. I will never be able to, but I can certainly practice empathy and I can certainly listen and, you know, take it without beating myself up and say, yeah, that was a part of my story. That's what happened. There's no changing it, but I don't need to beat myself up. I don't need to repeat the behavior. And I remember, too, they also said that they almost got divorced at one point. So, yeah, it was hard.

It was hard because they were a disqualification. agreeing on what to do with me. My dad wanted to kick me out and my mom, actually, I shouldn't, I don't know exactly what it was, but they were disagreeing on a lot of things. And, you know, I would come home and I would push my dad a lot of the times. We'd get into physical altercations. It was horrible, dude. It was a horrible place to be. But ultimately, it led to recovery and it led to a life that, you know, today, my mom and I, we talked about receiving love in the beginning of this. I can do that today. And I actually see. my mom giving it and I see her for who she truly is and it's a beautiful thing like my mom is one of

my favorite people in this world and I'm able to sit with her and see the pain and struggle that she went through but also thank her for all that she's done yeah to be there to support you to yeah I mean I can't imagine for a parent too it's easy right to go through that like an ultimate you never know how it's going to play out right you just never know when you come to that I had a I was in the psych ward for the second time hospital, UNC Chapel Hill. And I was actually looking at it a couple months ago. My parent was, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was, yeah, it was like an ultimatum. It was a letter.

And I was in there, and my parents wanted me to go to rehab. And there was two options. There was one, like, voluntary program that would have been 90 days, an hour from home. And then if I refused to go to that, which I did, right? Because I didn't have, like, come on. Well, there's nothing to see here. There was the involuntary program, you know, when I was 17. It was a year long.

And so they hired a private security company and they came and picked me up. But I read the letter and it was like, it was really heartbreaking actually. I mean, even though, you know, I mean, my life has changed so much. It was heartbreaking, man, of reading the letter of like, we hope you make the right choice. And I mean, there was a lot, you know, I mean, there was a lot of financial commitment to go and stay somewhere for a year. It was a lot of money. So I think, yeah, they would have, anybody I think would have been like we would have hope for you to take the 90 day program and that be effective in changing your life.

I don't think that they wanted to go to the lockdown program where you can't leave. And it was like regimented boot camp basically with some therapy mixed in. But yeah, just reflected on that. You just, yeah, made me think of that too. It was heartbreaking to being. And I mean, I'm a parent now. My kids are younger, but I'm just like, man, I couldn't. They're strong people, man, you know, like parents of kids who struggle are young people or anybody.

it's like man they're just really strong people courageous people you addiction forces you to go against every intuition you have as a parent right and i'm not a parent i won't pretend to be talk like a parent but i've talked to my mom about a lot about this and my mom does a lot of work in the al-anon community she helps a lot of other family members that struggle because you know she's good at it and she enjoys doing it and she's been through a lot she goes against the against every intuition you have as a parent. You know, you're telling me that I need to kick my son out, to cut him off, to not enable him. But if he does that, what if he dies? What if he goes on the street? What if, what if, what if, what if? All these, and I deal with this all the time in my job now when I

talk to parents. I, listen, I never, I never say to anyone. You need to kick out your son. That's the answer. You need to kick out your husband. I can't even imagine how hard that is. My wife had to do it, you know, when I would relapse, she had to do the same thing. Yeah. I can't imagine. You're sending them to the wolves, right? You're cutting them off completely. I can't even imagine how hard that is. And that's what I say. It's, you know, addiction is not a logical thing.

It's not, there's no game plan or template around this disease. It's when I was done, when I was ready, I went and I accepted the help and I heard the message that I need to hear at that time. And then I put in some simple actions against my better judgment that I really didn't fucking agree with. But people were telling me to do it because it works for them. And so I just followed direction because I wanted what they had. I wanted that serenity that I see around recovery, those people that are just not worried about all of life's little, you know, their inadequacies and their insecurity. They're just good, man.

They're just zen. They're happy to be alive. And they're sober. How do I get that? Well, son, here's what I did. You know, just follow this and you'll get it. And so when we talk about parents, it's like, I will never tell anyone to kick out their loved one. But that's, from my experience, man, that's the only thing.

And it's happened to me three times because I've relapsed after those seven and a half years that I had. It's the only thing that worked because I needed to be completely out of options, like I said to you before. Just done. Yeah, I think it to be uncomfortable in that sense. Yeah, slim things down a little bit. So you mentioned you went to Hazleton. What was that like and walk us through sort of after your stay there? Yeah, so that was scary, man.

That was, you know, I talked about fear, but I went there after a long bender. And so from Toronto, Minnesota, I don't remember how long the flight was, but we had an 8 a.m. flight, and I came home late from a bender, and this was 2015. I'm 23 years old. I'm in the airport. The lights are bright. I'm strung out. I haven't slept.

You know, I've been drinking, smoking, and using cocaine all night. And my mom's a mess, right? She's worried about us getting across the border. She's worried about, you know, I don't have a return flight, and she has a return flight. and she has a return flight, like all this stuff. What if they don't take me? Then what? He's ready to go now.

I can't even, the amount of stress that must have been for her. And I just remember sitting in that airport and I'll tell you to this day, I don't think I've ever hated myself more than that moment. You know, maybe in my relapse, there's been moments where I've definitely hated myself. But that was so fresh to me, that that shame, that level of shame that I had back then because I'm seeing all. And this was actually, this was actually foreshadowing of my later. relapse, but there's a common thread here where when I'm at rock bottom, I tend to see the world

functioning and society functioning and people going to work and living their lives. And I'm on the plane going to, and it's like five, six in the morning, seven in the morning. And I see this volleyball team from one of the universities. And they're all around my age. And I just remember thinking to myself, damn, these kids have it all figured out. Like look at their their life is, they have their whole future ahead of them. There's so much potential and promise. And here I am, this dirtbag addict alcoholic who can't even stop using drugs, got kicked out of his house.

I can't even think straight. I'm so tired and I hate myself. And my life is over. That was it. That was really the thought. It's like, my life is over. I'll never be as good as these people.

I am literally not even a functioning member of society anymore. And it's just shame. That's what it was like. And so I got there and I'll, you know, just fast forward to the experience because it was a good one. But essentially it was all in all males treatment center. They took away my cigarettes. They took away my phone, which was all news to me. I remember them searching me for drugs and I never had any drugs. I just, I found it all very weird, right? Rehab, going to rehab for the first time, especially in a different country is a very

strange experience because they're doing all these things. They're testing you and, you know, it just, you kind of feel like you're being treated like less than human, I think. And that that's an experience that, you know, I guess I wasn't really used to because I had never, you know, had that level of, you know, being treated like that. But going through that program, I just, something clicked halfway through and I ended up staying longer than I was supposed to because they recommended it. And this is what I tell everybody in recovery. This is the secret, if you will. This is the key for my recovery. I had to stop thinking. I had to stop planning. I had to stop using my better judgment to solve my problems because I had been trying to solve my problems for the last five, six years of my life.

And it got me into motel rooms by myself doing drugs and alcohol until all hours of the night. It got me broke. It got me all these things, hating myself. Maybe I'm wrong about how to get sober. Maybe these people know what they're talking about. And I started to see the other kids in there that were, by the way, I was the oldest one there. I was 23 years old. and I was the oldest one.

There were 16-year-olds there. There was 15, 14, 20-year-old. It was insane to see all the, and most of them were heroin, needle, opiate users. And so, you know, you talked about it at the beginning. Man, did I feel like I didn't belong? I was the only one there that was there for cocaine. Everyone else seemed like they were there for opiates and needles.

And I was, guys, I'm not this bad. Jesus. Like, wow, this is, you know, next level. And I don't know, man, I just started to make some friends. People were happy and sober, and I wanted that. Yeah. When you mentioned there, something changed. I mean, was it, did you leave it at something because it's hard to put a finger on? I think I started to cry and started to let out my emotions. We did, so this program in Hazel did his top notch, you know, it was the evidence-based

therapy that they were doing at the time was, you know, I want to say cutting edge, but industry leading the stuff. Now that I look back, you know, the psychologist that I saw, Dr. Joseph Lee, I still remember his name. I remember him explaining addiction to me in a one-on-one. And I just remember that the top of my head literally felt like it blew off. It was the first time in my life that somebody explained what was wrong with me, if you will, that I could understand it in simple terms. And he basically, and I still remember it to this day, he simply did this exercise with his hands.

And if you're listening, I'll try to describe it. But he said, you know, the problem with addiction is you have the iPhone that you want, right here in front of you. The instant gratification is right here. And then you have the house that you need to buy down the road with that, you know, to better your life. The problem with addiction is it's, or the answer, I guess, to addiction is to bring these two things in line with each other. Right. So, and it just made a lot of sense the way he described it. He made it very simple. And essentially what I've realized today is your trading recovery is trading instant gratification for delayed gratification. I'm doing these things now. I'm,

I am not taking the easy way out. I'm not taking the Band-Aid solution, and I am just investing in my future. I am practicing delayed gratification. The actions that I'm putting in now are going to pay off one day, but I'm not going to get high in going to sit with another alcoholic at coffee or putting out chairs at a meeting. Those things aren't going to solve my problem right now.

But if I do them over and over again, without questioning even and just doing them, I'm going to get the result that I want, which is contented sobriety. I'm going to get it, but it's not going to happen like drugs and alcohol. It's not going to fix my problems right away. It's not going to, I call it the curing coffee solution, right? Like, I want coffee now, and it takes 30 seconds to make this coffee. That's not how recovery works.

It is delayed gratification of putting in action over time of things I don't necessarily agree with because the suggestions are coming from someone doing better than me. Simple as that. Yeah, it's like making your bed every day. You know, every rehab I've been to, it's like make your bed every day. And then when you first get, it's like, what the point, you know, but then it kind of grows on you. And it becomes a habit. And then you start to develop all the brushing your teeth and whatever, having a shower.

But I think sometimes, too, I mean, let me know if you track with this, we really want to complicate it. I mean, it's got to be because it's so tough. We've tried so many things and they didn't pan out. It's like there's got to be just a secret out there. out on or something that's just really complicated. So like if we just ask a, you know, 100 people, like we'll find that overly complicated answer of the way that, you know,

they found out. That's kind of the way I look at it when I reflect back. I mean, it's been some time now, but when I reflect back of, you know, they're like, keep it simple and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And I'm like, it can't be like they can't, I'm missing something. And I really, you know, I was trying to complicate

a rather simple, you know, not easy, but simple way forward. I love the way that you mentioned you drew that up too because when we first quit, I think for a lot of people too, things can get, I don't know if worse is the right word, but it's like, hey, we don't have that escape anymore. So we're kind of in there. So it can get tough. It can be difficult. But it's like we're doing the hard work today benefit down the road. But that's a hard concept, especially at 23. Yeah.

Yeah. One of my favorite metaphors, too, that I love about this. and I'm a big metaphor guy. So if you've ever seen the original karate kid movie with Mr. Maragi and Daniel's son, there's, so the, bear with me, everybody. He's waxing on and waxing off the car, right? And he just can't fathom how this relates to karate and fighting. And how is this going to help me achieve my goals?

What the hell is this old guy talking about? He has no clue. And it's just over and over, dude, over and over. Wax on, wax off my car. This fucking guy, I can't believe. it. He's making me wax on. Like, what is the point of all this? We get to down the road and spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie, he's in the final fight scene and he's about to fight and the guy throws a punch, his enemy throws a punch, and he goes to block it with the wax on,

wax off motion. And it's in that moment when everything just makes sense. And the whole life has lived forward and understood in reverse. One of my favorite quotes, I'm doing the action now so that when the final fight scene comes or my mortgage payment misses or my wife leaves me or my kid goes through sickness or I have to go to this funeral, I'm prepared for it. And all the work I've been putting in, all the waxing on and the waxing off that I've been putting in today, it makes sense someday and it pans out and it benefits me. And sometimes, dude, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I look back on my life and I'm like, what was the, that didn't make any sense.

Why did that have to happen? Most of the things I look back on, it makes sense and there's a reason. And I can see that there was a universe, God, whatever you want to call it, higher powers, bigger plan for me. And although it hurt in the moment, you know, one of my favorite quotes is God, the universe, I like to say God, so I'll just say God. I'm not religious. God is a terrible gift wrapper, right? The gifts are amazing, but the rapping is so shit all the time. It's like, really?

This is what my, this is what you gave. me. And then you open it and it's like the most beautiful thing ever, right? I just, I don't, I'm so stuck in my plan and my way and my script that I cannot see the greater plan. I'm unable until down the road. Yeah. Yeah, hindsight 2020 and seeing how things play out. Where do you go after Hazleton? I mean, are you locked in and like, hey, this is going to be my life moving forward? Like, you're willing to plug in and yeah, I would say after 30 days. And, You know, we talk about the leap of faith. I took a big leap of faith with, I didn't really have a concept of higher power God.

They were talking about it back then, but I didn't really understand it. I just had a leap of faith in the program. I made the program of Hazelden, I'm talking about, the program of Hazelden, my counselor, who's also a recovering addict, I put my faith in him. I believed his God. I believed in his faith, in his program. And they said to stay an extra 30 days, so I did. They say, and that was hard, man.

It was hard at 23 to make those decisions when I had my whole life waiting for me back home. Meanwhile, there was nothing waiting. Like, I didn't have a job or I did have a job, but I was off on leave. But, and that was all good. I got that job when I came back, which I would later progress in and get promoted in. But essentially it was, I wanted what these people had and I was just, I had that little mustard seed of faith that if I listen to these people, if I stay, and then I started to make some good friends too.

That's the other thing. It's like the fellowship of the rehab that I was with. There was this guy, Sam, my roommate, he was a heroin user. And when I first met him, I'm like, I'm never going to be friends with this guy. People who normally would not mix, right? This was a perfect example. I'm never, this guy is on a different level. He's like a hipster.

He shoots heroin. I don't get anything. We ended up becoming best friends. And he was my roommate. And so he was one of the big reasons that I stayed. He was one of the big reasons that I just said, you know what? This would be actually be fun. He's like, dude, we'll drive around in my truck.

We'll go to meetings. Well, it'll be a good time. Just stay. And I listen to him. And I owe that guy in my life, too. There's so many people along my way that, you know, God's kids, I say, this is God speaking through other people, in my opinion. That helped me get to where I needed to go so that I would get this recovery thing.

Yeah. So you stayed for another 30 days, made some connections. I mean, we hear that too. It might be one of the more famous lines, you know, the opposite of addiction is connection. So you're getting to connect with people genuinely and them vulnerably and probably different than you were prior to it. How does going back home land? Yeah, so that was tough.

I went back home around Christmas too, and again, if I could chalk it up very high level to anything, it was I just listened to what other people were telling me to do. My counselor, the people that either had sobriety or were professionals in the industry, because I was so scared to relapse at this point. I'd been to enough meetings. I had, you know, I had gotten,

I'd followed the direction there in Minnesota. I built a recovery community, and they kept telling me, Anthony, when you go home, you need to do this all over again in Toronto. You've done it in Minnesota. Great job. You have the basics and the basics are following direction and doing what other people say in whatever program you're a part of,

whether it's 12-step or smart recovery, I don't care. Whatever your program you're a part of, I know it works for me. I followed the direction, and then I picked up, I went back home to Toronto, and I did the exact same thing. And I put my roots down. You talk about anyone that moves in recovery. You have to put your roots down. You can't just move and, you know, I'll get to it at some point.

No, it's like that's the first thing I need to do is like get my recovery community set. I have to have the people that I trust around me that I can tell anything to so that I don't have any secrets and then I can go from there. Yeah, so getting plugged in making that part of the routine. Yeah. I feel like a lot of people missed that though. After treatment, you'd probably know better than I do, but I feel like, yeah, like getting plugged in with something, you know, it's kind of like I went for 30 days. Like maybe that's sort of the answer. Where do you go from there?

I mean, things are picking up for you. Like, you're starting to do well after this? Like, you're feeling in life? Like, yeah, I'm hitting a stride. Yeah. I remember I got home and I didn't see my friends for, like, my using friends. And, you know, listen, I'm still friends with them today. So they weren't really using buddies.

They were real friends. I think we just ended up drinking and using together. But like I said, they were all in my wedding party and I still hang out with them today. And they were friends from my high school. Yeah. I didn't hang out with them for four months when I came back home because I was so scared of relapsing. I was so scared of going back down and I had a healthy level of relapse, I think. And so, yeah, I would just, I would, I was living in a sober house too, which I forgot to

mention. Okay. And, yeah, you know, a big part of why I was successful and stayed sober after rehab is because I did the things that they told me to do, like not go right home after and not go home to the same environment and the same bars and hanging out with the people. It's very simple, like you said. It's not easy, but it's very simple. People, places, and things we always talk about.

So I lived in a sober house. I connected. I got plugged in, like you said. I got my recovery community all in order. And then I eventually went back home. You know, I would eventually buy a house in recovery, a condo, which I still own today. I would save up money and I would thrive in recovery. I got promoted at work.

My life became really big. And this would lead me into why I think a lot of people relapsed, but I certainly, one of the reasons why I relapsed is my life got really good. And you get to a point. Some people get to a point, not everybody, I got to a point where I was like, man, my life is really good. I did all of this. And I never, listen, I never physically left my recovery program.

I say that all the time. Towards the end, yeah, I stopped going. But while I was relapsing, it was more, like I said, before we started recording. I would show up on time to my recovery meetings. I would leave on time. I wasn't talking to anybody. I would start to live this double life. and I'm keeping secrets.

But when life gets really good in recovery, I think one of the mistakes a lot of us make, I did for sure, is I did all of this, right? This was all me. I created this life because I did these things to go and do that. When we forget about when we first came in, how none of us did this on our own,

at least me, I'll talk for myself. I couldn't do any of this on my own. I needed help. So fast forward seven years, we go through COVID, which by the way, funny side note, COVID was probably easier for me to stay sober than it was two years ago, which is crazy to think about. But COVID was a breeze for me because I was connected. I wouldn't say a breeze. That's an overstatement. A lot of people struggled in COVID. I was pretty connected on my community and, you know, it sucked obviously being stuck at home all that time, but I didn't drink and I didn't

feel like drinking and I didn't use and I didn't feel like using. So I know a lot of people struggled over that. But it's just, you know, it's just proof to me that connection is everything, like you said. And if you're plugged in, you can get through anything, right? So I got through that. And, you know, yeah. Yeah. Interesting there too of like, yeah, things get better, which, I mean, you think about it, but it kind of goes back to what you said. I mean, the addiction is like erasing the logic of everything. But it's like, things are better now. So it's like, yeah, I can go back to figuring it out and maybe we lose sight of why things are better. I think. I think I went through a stage of that of like, why are things better because I'm doing this and then go back to it.

What role does ego have to play in that, if any? Yeah, huge. Dude, my problem, my only, I shouldn't say my only. My biggest problem today is ego, man. Like, it's, there's no, it was my biggest problem in addiction and it was my biggest problem today is, this is the way I like to say it, okay? My biggest problem is I'm right. Full stop. I'm right.

Yeah, but you can't tell me. anything. I know, guys. Yeah, thank you for your opinion, sir, but I've got this. I know the answer. I'm right. You're wrong. And this close-mindedness, right? A lot, you know, in the, my, uh, my mentor always says, he, when I came back after I relapsed, he goes, do you, do you know why you relapsed? And I gave him a litany of reasons, like a laundry list of reasons. And I can give you all of them. I have, I've overanalyzed the shit out of it because it was such a hard point in my life. He said, I'll tell you right now why you relapsed, why most people relapse. You weren't practicing open-mindedness, right? So if we talk about how do I get sober in the recovery literature that, that I'm a part of,

H is for honesty, O is for open-mindedness, and W is for willingness. Those are the essentials of recovery, they call it. You need all three of those things to get sober. I needed all three of those things to get sober. I relapsed because of open-mindedness, and this comes back to ego. If I have a closed mind, if I have contempt prior to investigation, I'm right, Brad,

you can't teach me anything because I know lack of humility, it comes down to being closed-minded. And when I'm closed-minded, I don't have any problems because I'm going to figure them out on my own. Or at least I'm not telling you about my problems because I'm going to figure them out on my own.

And I've got this. And when that happens, you start to flex this ego muscle. And over time, you don't ask for help for anything. And then you're keeping secrets. And then the ego is telling you, we don't need help. We're going to figure this out. Actually, not that we don't even only don't need help. You can't even, don't tell Brad about this.

Don't tell your wife about this. Don't tell your mentor, your sponsor about this. This is like, no, how embarrassing, dude. You're the sober guy with seven and a half years. you've got this figured out. Meanwhile, I'm like the duck paddling underwater. I'm burning, I'm dying inside because secrets are heavy, man. Resentment is heavy.

Along with I'm right comes resentment. And I, dude, I will die on this hill. Resentment is the most dangerous, worst poison alcoholics can carry in their life. My wife can have resentments all day. She's fine, right? She gets over them. When I have resentments, and I'm not talking about the, you know, guy cuts me off in traffic. It comes up and, oh, man.

fuck that guy. It's the reliving, replaying over and over again of how I just was wronged by that person. That guy embarrassed me at that thing. I'm going to get him back because my ego

doesn't like it, right? And so I always talk about resentment. I can't afford resentments today. Like I cannot afford to have resentments. And I have them all the time. I'm the sheriff of the universe in most days. I walk out into the streets of Toronto, and I don't agree with 95% of the shit people are doing. I have opinions

on everything. That's what it's like for me to be an alcoholic. It doesn't run my life anymore, and it doesn't run the show, but I'm constantly getting thoughts of, look at this fucking idiot. Can you believe this guy's doing it? I'll give you an example. Walking down the street and, you know, the Uber bike drivers are flying on the sidewalk on their bikes. Dude, it drives me insane. And then the best part about all of it is I look around and nobody else is bothered. Like nobody, I'm the only one that has this resentment and I'm the only one suffering. And I constantly have these realizations. And for anyone listening, we all have them. We all have those things that just irk us. And the problem with, with an alcoholic addict having those things

is they're like poison, dude. They're heavy. They weigh on you. And over and over again, you're carrying it around like a backpack full of bricks until eventually. I need relief from this. And it comes in drugs and alcohol. And so whenever I have resentments today, man, I just try to analyze them. And I don't sit in it and think about it too much. I don't try to solve it with my brain.

I just try to let it go. I pray for that person a lot of the time. And I just try to let it go because it's, I'm sure anyone listening can relate to this. It is so painful to be in that suffering of constant resentment and futility and disagreement with other people. I'm right. And I, you know, today, man, I'd rather be free.

I don't need to be right all the time. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's powerful too. Like just the freedom element of, yeah, we don't have to control everything or everything go in the way, the way we wanted to, man. There are so many people on the show that I hear, you know, talk about that. But I think like early on, too, like trying to work through the resentments like you mentioned there. I mean, that's a tough spot to kind of put the ego aside. I mean, have some humility in life of, hey, everybody's not going to get everything right all the time.

And I'm not going to be right all the time. And, you know, both of those things can coexist. Like, it's okay. I see a lot of the comments I get on the podcast, too. And, I mean, teach their own. But, you know what I mean? It could be, like, reckless at times, right? And it's about, I don't even really respond.

I don't even really feel like I need to respond. But it's kind of like people are. Yeah, like, I mean, it's a great sort of, the way I view it is this is a great opportunity to grow. Like, it is really a great opportunity to grow about how can somebody say something about this liking, something that I do or that a guest does. And I don't host this show to give people the answers. I host a show to share the stories. And it's always interesting to me when people pop in the comments and they've got the answer to where somebody's headed. Like, as a host, I don't view, I don't view that as my role.

a lot of experience with doing this with sobriety and working with people. I can see sort of the red flags, but it's not my role in this space to mention to anybody if they come on the podcast and they have absolutely no support in their life. It's not my job to tell them that, like, maybe that's something they should look at. Like, it's just not, but then, you know, you have the comments of like, you got to do this or you should do that. But I just look at it as like, hey, this is a beautiful opportunity to grow personally, to just show humility, step back, understand that everybody has their own path and that the path they

walked in life has brought them to that conclusion and like, that's okay. Yeah. Dude, one of my favorite realizations and I heard this, listen, everything I talk about is recycled information for the most part. And everything I've heard in recovery is recycled information. That's a huge thing for me too, being a creator as well, having a podcast, not being affected by the results. It's such a big, Yeah. Listen, before we got on this podcast, actually, I was thinking about talking about this. Being an Instagram creator or any creator where an audience perceives your work as an alcoholic addict is so assinine if you think about it. Like, I am, I have an opinion about everything that I don't share all the time.

But like you said, it's like I want to comment on things. I want to, you know, I'm right, you're wrong. It's like kind of my nature. And when people leave nasty comments, like I want to. you know, show them or I want to, and I'm like you, I try not to read them at all. But if you really think about it, an alcoholic, you know, sober or not sober, but an alcoholic in recovery, like myself, putting myself out there on the internet and being vulnerable in front of people and being open to opinions and being wrong, it's like, it's so hard, right? I can't tell you

how many times I chase metrics and views and likes. It's exhausting and I'm working on it. And I wish I wasn't, I wish I wasn't obsessed with it like that. But I, I want to do. I want to bring the recovery message and you said it perfectly. I'm not going to get anyone sober. I'm not trying to get anyone sober. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about things. I just want to share my experience, hopefully strengthen hope. And maybe one person will get something out of it.

But yeah, I get comments all the time where it's like somebody is just, I heard someone say this one time. Simply looking at that person. So this works for the comment section, but it also works in the world where I struggle the most around people. Let's say somebody is, it happens all the time in traffic being in Toronto, there's lots of traffic. I'll be driving and I'll look at my review mirror. I'm a very observant person. I don't know if other, maybe this is an alcoholic thing, maybe not. I just notice things that are going around.

I'm like constantly scanning for threats. And I'll see someone in road rage behind me, absolutely losing their mind, right? They're either honking or they're late for something. I don't know, whatever. I simply say today, and I heard someone say this, is like, man, I can look at that person and not have pity for them, not feel sorry for them, not say what an idiot judge them, but simply say, man, I am so grateful that I don't have to play that role today. I don't have to be that person today.

I don't have to play that role because I've played it many times. Don't get me wrong. I freak out on people a lot and I have to make amends. I'm not proud of it. Nothing good happens when I act out, when I react in life. Nothing good happens. And I want to react. I want to comment and I want to.

put someone in their place. And I want to embarrass people sometimes. That's the way my brain works, if I'm being honest. I'm grateful I don't have to be that guy today. I have to play that role. That helps me. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And I mean, I think it goes back to that serenity and peace like that we're so

desperately after on this journey of life. Even the little story of that too, I was in line and somebody cut in front of me in line. And the guy behind me, it just ruined his whole life. Yeah. It was like, you're going to let them, you're going to let them do that? And I was like, I was just like, honestly, I just don't care if they want to go first. It just really, it didn't bother me. But this guy, he couldn't live with it.

And I was like, I just had bigger fish to fry, man. That this really is not. Maybe there's a reason that I'm standing here for an extra 90 seconds. You know, who the heck knows, right? Yeah, man, it's interesting. But yeah, it is tough. Like you put yourself out there. I think people are going to have opinions.

Yeah. And it's all good, right? At the end of the day, like, that's, you know, I mean, everybody, I think you put stuff out there. If they don't know that already, you're going to figure it out pretty quick. And like, it's all good. Heading, you know, moving in, you hinted on this relapse too after seven and a half years. I mean, lock us through that a little bit, too, about, you know, what was that like? Yeah.

So seven and a half years, I'm in my own apartment. Life is good. You know, I'm making a lot of money at work. I have promotions. I'm happy. going to my, I'm plugged into my recovery community. I'm doing service. I'm, my parents are good. Everything's good on the surface. Everything is good. I'm sitting with my friends one day and my buddy starts talking about these steroids that he's getting into. He starts

talking about working out. And I notice him like he's looking good. And I don't know about you, but whenever somebody is passionate about something, like I'm locked in. I'm intrigued. And something happened that day, Brad, that it just, there was a back door in my recovery program. There was a back door in my brain where something wasn't filled in my, I call it the God-size hole, like I already said to you before, but there was a chink in the armor, if you will, where he started talking about the answer to my problem, right? And what I mean by that is I didn't realize that at the time, and again, hindsight, looking back is I still didn't feel like I was enough from a physical perspective. I was running a lot back then. I had run three marathons, and I was really skinny. And I think my whole life, I had always wanted to be this jacked guy. Like I mentioned to you in the beginning with the guy with the abs. And, you know, body dysmorphia is a part of my story where body dysmorphia, quite simply is I'm focusing, I'm hyper-focused on areas of my body that I'm not happy with. And I'm waking up every morning and I'm like, man, I'm looking real fat today. And I don't even know this is happening. This is all subconscious. But this guy starts talking about steroids, like they're the next.

coming of Jesus. And I remember thinking to myself, that's it. That's the answer right there. Like, I can get away with this. I'm in recovery. It's not going to be a relapse. Already my brain is firing and starting. This is all happening in the span of like a week after, right? I'm planning and I'm prodding and I'm manipulating and I'm premeditating how I'm going to get away with this and how it's going to be okay and how I'm going to tell my recovery community or not tell them and I'm going to, I'm going to solve my problem. And my problem is I'm not enough. Right? That's always been my problem. My problem is I'm not enough. This is the key right here. And so I started getting into these things. I'm online one day. And I remember seeing Adderall on the website that I buy

the steroids from. And I'm telling myself, this is the addict brain to a T, by the way. I think a lot of people relate when I talk about this, is I start to justify and rationalize everything about it. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go on testosterone, but it's going to be through a doctor's prescription. And I'm going to do it right. And it's not going to be a relapse because it's not mood or mind alter. And yeah, I'm going to do this. Don't worry, buddy. We've got this under control. My brain is constantly cunning, baffling, powerful, and patience, my addict brain.

It's finding the back door. I'm online one day and I see Adderall on the website. And I remember thinking to myself so clearly, I'm never going to use Adderall because that would be a relapse. I remember that thought consciously going into my mind. And then I filed that away, right? I clocked that for another day. Somewhere down the line, I'm doing the steroids.

I'm starting to get big. I'm putting a needle in my body, which. which is completely foreign to me. I'm so scared. I'm watching YouTube videos on how to do it, and I'm living a double life. Now I'm taking steroids on the side. I'm buying them online.

I'm getting them from a doctor, and I'm not telling you. I'm going to my recovery community. I'm telling you about 90% of the truth, and I'm keeping 10% of the truth back here. And I have this double life going on. I'm bringing a stage character to the world, like I said, which is the theme of my entire addiction and recovery,

is the stage character. I want you to see this person, because I don't want you to see the real me. And so until one day, it's like the typical relapse story of my guard was down and suddenly I have this thought, this alcoholic addict thought, you know what? I'm having trouble focusing at work. Now I've always had a focus problem. Maybe, just maybe I have ADHD.

Yeah, that's what it is. And this is all happening in my addict brain. This is why I love making videos on Instagram about my addict's brain. and the voice that this devil on my shoulder. And listen, I'm not here saying that it follows me around like a black cloud all the time. It's not like that. But that addict brain, that voice, that rationalizes and justifies anything, any decision I make to make myself feel better about how I, you know, I'm not relapsing. So I'm going to spin this story in my head, my perception.

I'm going to tell this story so that it's okay so that I can get away with it so that I can do it. And I convinced myself I had ADHD so that I can get high, essentially. Now I'm doctor shopping. I'm getting it from a doctor because I need to do this legit. And I don't, you know, it's not a relapse if a doctor prescribes it. Listen, I haven't had ADHD my whole life. I haven't had, maybe I've had minor focus problems growing up. I've thrived that work without ADHD to medication.

My life has been amazing without ADHD medication. But suddenly I have this thought that I need this, that this is the answer to all my problems. And so I find the doctor. I do it. Now I'm doctor hopping. I'm buying it online and I'm just filing it and filing it away. I'm telling myself it's not a relapse. It's okay.

It's prescribed. It's helping me, not hurting me until it all starts to fall apart after that. Yeah. Just like more and more and more. Yeah. And then eventually it was, you know what? Cocaine starts to seem like a good idea, right? And then it's, at least I'm not drinking.

That's the thought after a while. while is at least I'm not drinking it's not a relapse if I'm not drinking I'm still going to my meetings it's not a relapse I'm not telling anyone what's going on and I've got this and my ego is on full tilt everywhere I go and I'm holding resentments and I'm you know I'm right all the time and this is where the closed-mindedness comes from I'm right I don't need help I've got this it's the bane of my existence and so eventually I find a way I used to read a lot of forms back then and Reddit forms and on how to, this is my attic brain again. I'm taking ADHD medication and I'm searching up how to maximize the high on the ADHD medication. And I'm still telling

myself, I don't have a problem. So I'm on these forms one day and people keep talking about the dark web. I start to see the dark web coming up over and over again. I'm like, what is this dark web thing? I've heard about it before, but it's no one's ever really explained it to me. I start, can I tell you, I taught myself from start to finish without anyone's help how to navigate the dark web. Now I'm on dark grab i have a separate computer and i'm going online at night high on adderall and this was a part of my i don't know i used to get dopamine off of this i'm shopping for drugs now online and i found this scary community of people that are selling drugs in montreal and shipping it from montreal to toronto it was wild dude it was wild i fully learned how to navigate this crazy internet system

computer system all because I wanted to get high. And it was just insane. Looking back now, the the amount of work that it takes to do it, the amount of, you know, hoops that you have to jump through to get this going and to navigate on this system and not get caught and be secretive about it. And you're sending Bitcoin and Manero across the internet. It's just so sketchy, dude. And so you want to talk about double life? Now on this like secret dark web guy on the side, I'm shipping loads and loads of drugs that were all. all for me from Montreal to Toronto. And I'm living in fear all the time now because I'm relapsed.

I can't tell anyone about it. I might get caught by the police. I'm shipping, you know, loads of drugs that I shouldn't be shipping in the mail. And I'm in constant fear. And what solves my fear problem better than drugs and alcohol? And so I start to use cocaine and I start to use opiates and I start to use benzos because I'm getting too high. And at this point now, I'm in a full-blown relapse.

And I meet the law. love of my wife at some point, you know, before all this, she meets me, before I get out, which is an important part of the story, which I should have talked about, but we meet before I, I'm in my relapse, and she meets the real me, the recovery version, the, you know, if we're talking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, she's seen both of them through this all. And we, I move on to, you know, this starts to happen after we start dating and we're planning to get married and you know it was right before my wedding I had gone to another rehab in Utah and I wasn't sure if I was still going to get married I wasn't sure if we were going to go through with it because I had

been using I hadn't been coming home I had been you know again disappearing for days on end and it was just horrible for my wife to go through so I went to rehab in Utah again she kicked me out gave me the ultimatum which saved my life every single time and I did 30 days there. I did not focus on my recovery when I came back because I was focused on the wedding that was coming up. And I went to the sober house, but I never stayed there. I was never there. I was spending time with my wife. And this is the addict, alcoholic brain again telling me that you're putting your wife first. Recovery is important, but your wedding is more important. And this is why I say to people all the time, and I'm sure your guests hear this all the time, if you put

anything above your recovery, you will eventually lose that thing. That was true for me. And so that's what happened. I put my marriage above my recovery and I relapsed again and went through another horrible getting kicked out of my house, surfing in hotels and Airbnbs for four months over Christmas and New Year's. You know, I was at my my in-laws on Christmas of 2024 and they had an intervention for me on Christmas Day. It was a crazy, you know, out of nowhere. I didn't think they really knew the extent of the situation. I had gone to a casino by myself, you know, New Year's Eve or sorry, Christmas Eve, and I hadn't slept.

I went straight from the casino back to my hotel. I went to a Denny's actually by myself in a complete, you know, cocaine, ketamine high. I'm doing creepy things at the Denny's. It was a horrible Christmas day. I'm walking around Denny's restaurant, and I'm a shell of a human being. I'm saying weird things to weird to different. people. I don't even know what's going on. I'm just in complete delusion, complete separation from reality. And I show up to my in-laws house and they have an intervention for me. And I go on about my

my day and that's what Christmas morning looked like. And so this all lasted for a couple of years? This was 2025, sorry, 2024. And then the four months after that, I still wasn't done. So I had that that I had that experience, that intervention, and then I went on for four more months surfing in hotels and doing my thing and this went over New Year's. I had lost another job in that time. And then I went to my third rehab,

which ultimately brings me to the recovery that I have today and the year and a half that I have today. But it was not a, you know, you want to talk about not being a straight line, recovery, not being a linear, Recovery being non-linear? Yeah, I can relate to that. Yeah.

Man, what a journey to after seven and a half years, too, of plugging in and the rehab, too, to kind of go back at it. I pick up on so many of, you know, the things that I think are important to you. And a big message that you send out there was like the secret of all of it. And I think, like, looking back, you know, we mentioned that too. Like, looking back, I mean, it all makes sense when you first have those thoughts. mention it with somebody, bounce it off somebody, and then, you know, kind of get humbled a little bit of like, hey, this is a really slippery slope. But I think there's a lot of people that end up in that spot of thinking, I won't get bad. You never know where it's going to go. Like, I don't think

anybody else, anybody starts drinking or does cocaine at a party or does Adderall in college and thinks, oh, man, this is going to take me to my knees. Like, nobody sees it all the way through. Like, of course, I mean, I would always tell myself, I know better, man. I'm smarter than that. I, when I grew up, I never even really saw my parents drink. I never knew what drugs were. I was so naive. I didn't know that getting into all this stuff would lead to where it did. I had no idea.

How do you get out of it? So they do an intervention in what, you decline the offer and you go for four more months? I accept it, but it was, you know, I wasn't ready yet, right? Like, I really appreciate my in-laws for doing that. And looking back, it was very difficult for them. I've since made amends and talked about it with them and we're great. We're better than we've ever been. But yeah, it was hard.

I basically, you know, I put a huge black mark on Christmas in their house. And it was, you know, they were just scared for their daughter, right? They were scared and they felt for her. And my wife is a fighter, right? My wife is a lot like my mom. They're fighters. You know, it takes a, I think it takes a different kind of person to deal with a loved one's addiction, you know, um, it's you really, I commend everybody that has been through it.

Any family member listening that has been through addiction, like, thank you. Straight up. It, it, it, you need, you need to be another level of human being to deal with us. It is not easy. Even in recovery, too. I can be a pain in the ass sober, man. I can be, like I said to you before, a sheriff of the universe. My wife is a fighter.

My mom is a fighter. Everybody that, you know, deals has dealt with or deals with a, in their life, in their family, you're a fighter, man. It is not easy what we put you through. And especially when we know my wife knew how good I was before. And when I say good, I mean like spiritually fit, connected. Yeah. A good guy helping others, not taking inventory all the time of other people, not being pissed off,

not disappearing for four days, right? Just like being a good husband, right? There's no me being a good husband and drugs or alcohol in the same sentence. It just doesn't. I have lost my right to chemical peace of mind today. It's one of my favorite sayings in this whole thing. I cannot afford to chemically alter my brain or my emotions because I've lost the right to. I've tried so many times.

I have to deal with it raw dog. That's it. It's done. It's done for the rest of my life. And I've accepted that. And I'm grateful for it. But that takes a lot of work and a lot of time. I am grateful for that because I know that.

that it'll never get better if I pick up. It'll never change. I will never be able to control and enjoy my drinking. And I think at some point in that seven and a half years, I forgot that. I forgot how bad it was. I had lost the, you know, the realization, the being able to accept the fact that I was an alcoholic and an addict, and I thought that I can control and enjoy it. And it's not my drug of choice. And like you said, it starts with something seemingly insignificant and then it morphs into your drug of choice. In my experience, every time, if you don't get honest about it. Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of people, too, who, like, they may quit, quote, unquote, harder drugs. And then if there's a justification there for drinking, and the drinking might be good for, you know, call it five years. But then it's like,

you know, that becomes a serious problem, too, you know? So it's kind of the flip side of what you're sharing there. How do you get things about how do you get this train back on the tracks? I mean, do you go back to your meeting and like, hey, guys, this is kind of what's going on or your community? Yeah. I think so in that four months, I guess I'll tell you about, you know, I had stopped going to meetings in that four months because I knew anyone that's listening to this that has a belly full of, you know, a head full of recovery and a belly full of substances knows this feeling that when you have such a good life and you've cultivated a recovery program for. any amount of time, but specifically after like a few years and then you go back out, you can never really enjoy it after. It's just different, man. And I'm not saying I didn't have fun. Like there was times where maybe I had moments of fun. I felt like I was free and life was good,

but there's like this level of shame that follows you around every single time you use. And then it just makes it worse so that you need to use more to escape that shame because you know how good your life can be. And you know that there's people, you know, so my mom and my, my wife would message me and just check in every once in a while while I was in these hotels and Airbnb's losing my mind every night, getting, it was just, it was horrible, man, like having no place to live and running out of money and doing all these things and trying to find drugs and going to bars and talking to random people and thinking that I was having fun. It's just, it's so shallow and surface level. And so I did that.

And my mom and my wife and my sister would check in every once in a while and just say, hey, there's a bed waiting for you at this rehab. And you know what actually what used to kill me? My mom would say to me. And I would talk to her very few and far between. But it got to a point where she would text me every day and just say, hey, are you alive? That would just kill me. Oh, my God.

Dude, I used to hate reading that. And I never answered anyone when I was in my addiction. But if someone to text me and say, hey, are you alive? I would answer and say yes because it would just hurt like it would just really shine the light on the damage I was causing like here my my family's thinking that I'm dead and they don't know where I am and it's scary and you know my wife too another thing that really helped that really pierced the armor of addiction was my wife would send me photos of us in sobriety like me in sobriety she's not she doesn't have a drinking problem you know vacations of us of us us sober, she would send me a group of photos and write like a huge paragraph about that time and what it meant to her and how much she misses the sober version of me. And dude, that would just eat me up every time I would see those photos. Another level of shame would just get added and I would think to myself like, what am I doing here, man? You need to get back into recovery. Your life

was so good. You have so much to live for. What are you? You're killing yourself slowly. But it was hard, man. It was hard. It was, I wish I could tell you that, yeah, after that, intervention, I just snapped out of it and I was like, yeah, I'm going to go to rehab. But no, it's, I'm a defiant alcoholic. I need to run out of options. Like I said to you before, I need to, for me, rock bottom is is not just desperation. Like I said, it's hopelessness. So I'm out a hotel one day. I can actually see it from where I live now. Downtown Toronto, it's, I don't know, like a Sunday or Tuesday. I don't even remember. But I'm in the, I had spent the last four months, moving money around. I'm not working at this time. Plus, I'm spending money more than I earn

anyways. I had like five or six credit cards maxed out. I'm trying to move money around so I can stay another night in this hotel. And this is, you know, this is now in January of 2025, the beginning of January. So New Year's just passed. I spent New Year's by myself walking downtown Toronto. I remember the, you know, it was midnight and I'm walking down downtown Toronto by myself. And I'm at this hotel and I'm trying to move money around to stay another night. And I can't come up with the money. Like I'm, I'm, I exhausted all my options. I took out as many loans as I could. My line of credit is max. My credit cards are all max. So the front desk calls me and they say, hey, you need to check out. Like, what are you doing? And so I go downstairs. I try to like,

manipulate my way into staying another night. It's not working. She goes, you need to leave. We're going to have a security guard come and take you off the premises. I'm like, oh, man, all my drugs and all my substances, everything I had was scattered all over the hotel room, all over the tables, all everywhere. It was a crime scene waiting to be, you know, happened. I'm sitting in the lobby and they've locked me out of my room at this point, so I can't even go back up. And they're like, don't worry, the security guard's going to come. So I'm sitting in the lobby, and this is that moment I talked to you about before. I'm sitting in the lobby and it's probably a day, a Tuesday or Wednesday, because all these people are going to work. They're checking in, they're checking out, they're living

their lives. This is the same moment that I had in Minnesota on that airplane. I'm watching all these people, this moment of clarity, I'm finally realizing that where I am, I'm literally separate from society. I am literally apart from. I am away from society. I am, I felt like, you know, this small, it was tiny. All these people are going to doing their thing. Here I am, using and drinking, getting kicked out of a hotel. How did I get here? I'm having this another moment. How did I get here? How did this happen? The security guard, I see a from across the room, which feels like 20 minutes I'm sitting in the lobby. It probably wasn't that long. He's walking across the lobby. This guy's wearing a suit. He's got an earpiece in his ear.

He looks like a James Bond villain or James Bond himself. Fit guy, young guy. And he comes up to me, Anthony, is this? Yep, your room, blah, blah, blah. Yep, come with me. I'm like, oh, my God. Now my fear is running rampant. I'm literally, I'm going to jail. All this things are happening. How am I going to get out of this? What do I say to him? We get in the elevator. I think I was on four, four or five. Four or five. It's just me and him in the elevator. We go up to the fourth floor, and again, it feels like I'm in the elevator for an hour with this guy. In my head, I'm like, how do I get out of this?

He's going to see all the drugs. How do I do this? I'm manipulating and I'm planning. And finally, I draw up the courage to look at this guy and say, yo, man. And I think he just saw the desperation in me and just realized how, you know, where I was at. I was having a bad, bad goal of things. I just kind of, so I started to break down. I looked at him and I go, yo, like,

Do you mind if you just let me clean out the room by myself? And at that moment, he just kind of looked up at me, and I'm overthinking everything. I'm thinking he's going to kick me out. All these things are going to happen. He looks at me and he just goes, oh, yeah, no problem, man. No worries. I'll give you time. And so after all that, my, you know, I'm thinking I'm going to jail.

All this stuff is happening. The guy just lets me off. And he's like, I'll be back in 20 minutes. Of course, I go in the room. I do the rest of my drugs or a lot of my drugs because now I need to deal with this. fear and this pain that's happening in my head. And I'm sweating. I'm packing up my stuff.

I'm falling over. The room is so big because I thought I was a baller. I'm buying these big expensive rooms back then. It was just insanity. He comes back. I'm standing on the streets of Toronto and now I am officially a homeless person. I have a bag full of my clothes. It was like a laundry bag too.

It wasn't even like a luggage bag. And I'm dragging it along the streets of Toronto. all my shoes, my entire life is in this bag. And I'm dragging it down the streets. And then this thought comes in my mind, dude, that's enough. That's enough. You're done. And so I call my wife and I say, I'm ready to go to rehab again.

I go to rehab after that weekend. I detoxed at home for four days. It was horrible. I'm sleeping, you know, 20 hours out of the 24 hours in the day. I'm eating everything all the time. And I'm falling asleep. I can't even hold a conversation because I'm detoxing from benzodia. from cocaine, from alcohol, and then eventually I just go to treatment.

And, you know, today I talked to my wife about that. And I remember, you know, she was being really nice to me while that was happening because she was so scared that I wasn't going to go to rehab, right? But I'm happy I made that decision, man. I'm happy that I ran out of all my options. I'm grateful for every rock bottom I've ever had because without any of those rock bottoms, I wouldn't be here today. Yeah, wow, man.

What a ride, dude. Do you feel that way or no? Not really. you know, it's interesting. And this is me, I mean, yes, in the grand scheme of things, yes, in the grand scheme of things, the way my recovery turned out, you know, people say you're not supposed to have any regrets. I do, I regret going back out, man. I regret causing all that pain to my family.

I regret causing that pain to myself and people around me. You know, I got robbed a bunch of times. Like, it was just people were taking advantage of me. I was taking advantage of people. my drug dealer was taking an event. It was just, there's so much in between all of that that I could have avoided. But it also brought me to a new level of understanding of my disease. And that, I believe, is so important.

When I was in this last third treatment center, there was a counselor there. You know, you only remember certain things from each treatment center. You don't remember the whole thing, but you'll never forget certain lines that people just pierce right through your armor. This guy, Dave, was my counselor. And he said, you need to become a P. in your disease. You need to blow up your spot and tell on yourself, not have secrets,

but you need to become a PhD in your disease. And this relapse, as horrible as it was, has brought me a bigger, better, more real, serious understanding of the disease of alcoholism and addiction.

And I don't know if I could have got that any other way. I don't know if I didn't, maybe I had 10 years, I celebrated 10 years, and then I have kids one day with my family and I relapsed then. I don't know.

No, again, I'm unable to see the greater plan. What I know today is that I cannot safely use or drink any mood or mind-altering substances, including, but not limited to, peptides, steroids, all these things that are people are in recovery. I see seeminglyly enjoying without provocation, without problems. Yeah. It's, I just can't do it. ADHD medication. I just, it's not for me.

me. And I don't want to test it. I don't need to test it. The sooner I could accept the fact that I have lost my right to chemical peace of mind, like I said, that the peace of mind needs to come from in here, needs to come from my higher power, my recovery community. The sooner I accept that, the better my life gets and easier my life gets. Yeah. Way much, way, way easier, especially the stuff he just walked us through there, like not doing all that day in a day out. Um, That's the insanity of it too, right? It's because that just feels, I mean, you just get into the mix there and it just feels normal and, you know, we make sense of it or, you know, rationalize it that, you know, that's just part of the quest. Well, heading towards wrapping up, man.

I really appreciate you jumping on here. Thanks for having me, bro. And sharing us, dude. What are some of the biggest takeaways, man, from, you know, from there? How old are you now? 34. Yeah. What are your biggest, biggest takeaways, you know, 34 years into this thing?

I think that addiction doesn't care how long I have sober, how long you have sober. Addiction doesn't care where you come from, how much money you have, what your life looks like, how successful you are. The key to recovery for me today and the biggest takeaway is I can sit here and talk about recovery all day long. I know it. I'm good at it. I'm not an expert by any means. But I know about addiction.

I know about recovery because I've done the work, essentially. None of that matters. None of that knowing matters. When I turn off this camera today and I say by to you and go on about my life and do the things that I have to do today, am I incorporating my recovery program? Am I taking action toward my recovery or not? That is the only thing that matters. I can intellectualize, you know, talk, give a talk at a recovery meeting and sound like I've got it all together.

I'm good at that. I'm good at spinning a story and selling you on how good I'm doing when I'm dying inside. The only thing that matters for me, man, addiction, listen, recovery is not for people who need it. It's not even for people who want it. It is simply for people that do it. Full stop. I need to do the work, whether I want to or not. And I think that's the biggest piece that I missed for a long time is that I could think my way out of this relapse. I could think my way out of my problems.

It's not the case, man. You have to do the work that is unsexy that I don't post about online Instagram, to be honest with you. I don't post about the boring, insignificant daily tasks because that's what keeps me sober. not talking about it, not intellectualizing it, not wishing for it, praying for it, hoping for it. Those are all good things. And I can pray and meditate and do all these things. But at the end of the day, how am I in the world? Am I a good person or am I living in resentment? Am I acting and living on principles? Am I a principled man? Or am I lying, cheating and stealing and being the worst husband ever? But putting on a show in the world. Yeah. That's it, man.

That's the key, dude. That brings me back to one of my early. the earliest mentors too. He told me that. He said, you know, I could put, I do well in structure, you know, jail, rehab. Like, I'm, I'm the top guy. I'm going to reach the highest level. Like, no problem. I'll always thrive. But he told me one thing that's always stuck with me, man. He's like, what you do when nobody is watching or nobody would know is going to decide how this goes for you. You know, like, and I think that in a roundabout way, I, that's kind of what I picked up. It's all of those little things where do we go right or do we go left. Like, do we do the right thing when nobody would notice?

Do we pick up, for me, it's like it's oddly weird and it's probably all the rehabs I went to, but do I pick up the garbage that I walk past or do I just leave it? That gives me, it's the smallest thing, but it truly gives me an indicator of where my life currently is. Am I okay with that? Or am I going to do something about or am I, am I okay with that? It really gives me a reflection. I love that so much because you're right. Some of the toughest people I've worked with, they know it all, man.

Like, they know too much. You know too much because you're thinking yourself out of it. They don't ask for help. You know, it's kind of like half-truths and stuff. And it's like, yeah, just keep it simple. Anything you want to mention for closing, man? Or is that a good spot to wrap things up? No, I think just, you know, it's, yeah, like what you said,

it's not what I don't know. That's the problem. It's what I know for sure. That just isn't so. That's my biggest problem today. I'm right. Good stuff, man. Well, congrats with where you're at today. And yeah, man, thanks for hanging out. Thanks for having me, Brad.