Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - After a blacked-out date night Ray embarked on his sober journey.

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

In this episode, Ray discusses his experience of sobriety and how his journey has reshaped his life. Ray, who was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, shared about his childhood marked by his parents' divorce and recalled the instability and confusion during those years.  Ray tracks his alcohol use back to his early teens when he started hanging out more outside of the house. A series of various life experiences, including moving frequently, falling out of university twice, and flirting with danger in Ethiopia, culminated in a 'come to Jesus moment' after a blacked-out date night, inducing Ray to seriously address his issues with alcohol. He sought professional help, leaned into therapeutic healing, and eventually launched his podcast, 'Stack N Days, to share stories of other people of color battling and overcoming addiction. --------------- Donate to support the Podcast here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation Follow Ray on Instagram/ Podcast info: https://www.instagram.com/stackndays/ New SoberBuddy Platform link: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation Follow (me) Sober Motivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/

Welcome back to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, Ray discusses his experience of sobriety and how his journey has reshaped his life. Ray, who was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, shared about his childhood marked by his parents' divorce and recalled the instability and confusion during those years. Ray tracks his alcohol use back to his early teens when he started hanging out more outside of the house.

A series of various life experiences, including moving frequently, failing out of university twice, and flirting with danger in Ethiopia, accumulated in a come-to-Jesus moment after a blackout date night, inducing Ray to seriously address his issues with alcohol. He sought professional help, leaned into therapeutic healing, and eventually launched his own podcast, stacking days, to share stories of other people of color, battling and overcoming addiction. And this is Ray's story on the Subur Motivation podcast.

Hey, how's it going, everyone? How's it going out there, everyone? Brad here. Thanks for checking out another episode. I hope your new year is going well so far. We're at the time of this recording 15 days in. My goodness, it's went fast. If you guys are enjoying the podcast and we've kept you,

out from an expensive bar tab or any other things. I would love for you to consider donating just to help cover some of the costs of the podcast. You can go over to buy me a coffee.com slash sober motivation and I'll drop that link down in the show notes. It would really mean a lot. Thank you so much for all the kind messages and everybody who's reaching out to be on the show.

I'm doing my best to get everybody on, but it just takes a little bit of time. I also want to mention over at Sober Buddy. the brand new community platform. As always, we've got our 10 support groups each week. And we also have some new incredible host, too, for the new year. So some people that you might be familiar with. So if you're looking for some support, some community, and some connection, I host three groups a week over on the Sober Buddy app.

I'll drop the new link to the platform in the show notes below. There's a free trial so you can come and check it out. And I hope to see you in a group soon. Now let's get to this episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Ray with us. Ray, how are you? I'm good, Brad.

How's it going, brother? It's good, man. We've got the snow falling and all that stuff, a little bit about it. Yeah. It's good, though. We were chatting a little bit before the show, and turns out we have Canada in common. So, yeah, I know all about the snow. Funny enough, I'm in Colorado now.

You'd think that we have snow at this point in the year in January, and we haven't gotten really anything. So I'm almost envious of you, the fact that you got a little bit of white stuff on the ground. Yeah, that's the truth. So how we start every episode is with the same question. What was it like for you growing up? Oh, man.

Growing up was a mixed bag for me. I feel like in a lot of ways I had a really fulfilling childhood, but I think in certain ways there were some gaps as well, right? So I grew up in Montreal, Canada, born and raised. And my parents divorced at a really young age. I was four years old when my parents divorced. And one of my earliest memories is that of my dad just leaving the apartment that we were living at a time and with all of his belongings in trash bags and just really confused as to what

implications that was going to have on my life. And my mom, both of my parents were very young when they had me. They were 24. So by the time they got divorced, they were 27 and you're a parents as well. And having young children is just a very stressful environment as it is. I think that they just really had a lack of tools to be able to really embrace those roles at that point in their lives. And my father, you moved out and he ended up moving to the States, to America. And it was just my mother, myself, and my younger sister, who's two years younger than

I. And we ended up moving in with my grandparents, who are just angels, honestly, of human beings. And I certainly wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them, but they accepted us into their home, the three of us. And for the next several years, those kind of early years, heading into kindergarten. We live with them. My grandmother was a school teacher and my grandfather was retired out of the construction business, but just lovely people. And so the first handful of years, it was really stable being in my grandparents' home. But when I was about 11, 12 years old, my mother finally got her situation somewhat together and struck out on her own. And we moved into our own place. And she wanted to pick her life back up, right? And I think that being young,

coming off a divorce, having two kids, and really trying to figure out her direction forward was a challenge for her. And I think that one of the gaps that she had been, you know, focusing heavily on was finding partnership in her life. And what that led to was a series of men who came into her life, who came into my life. And some of them just didn't really jive well with me. And I think that ultimately created a home environment that at some points was just really, really cancerous and really an environment that I was looking to escape from. So, you know, which kind of brought me to my early teens, 13, 14 years old. I started hanging outside of the house more than I was hanging out inside of the house. And that led to me finding a group of friends who

I loved and adored at the time, but we would drink a lot. We were drinking 40s. We were smoking a lot a weed and as the legal drinking age in Canada is 18. So we just generally started drinking a lot earlier than I think a lot of folks south of the border and are accustomed to. And that was like the extracurricular activity of my friend group over the next several years. So I doubled as an athlete on one side. But in my spare time, when I wasn't playing sports, we were hanging out at people's houses and just doing what we do. And it gave me an opportunity to really keep away, I think in a lot of ways. And ultimately, my home life started to crescendo at a certain point and caused a lot of

conflict between my mother and I, a lot of conflict between my mother and her partner. I ended up leaving home at 17, and I moved to Toronto, to Ontario. And for those of you who are stateside, the school system in Quebec, which is the province that I'm from in Canada, is a little wonky where you graduate from high school and then you go into this kind of junior college slash called Sejep. So it's like a two, three year program that you go into before you go into university. And I just got completely lost in that. So I ended up having to leave Montreal to go back to high school in Ontario in order to get the

credits that I needed in order to graduate so that I could ultimately go to college in the U.S. And that had always been an aspiration of mine ever since my father had moved south of the border. So I found myself in Washington, D.C. in 1999. I was 19 years old. and I felt as though that I had a new lease on life. I had made my way to the States, which was a huge dream of mine. But unfortunately, a lot of the bad habits and bad behaviors that I had involved in order to find friend circles, I ended up defaulting right back into that in college.

And it was completely okay because literally everybody else at the same time was trying to fit in where they could, were trying to find their niches, their crews, their cliques. And I just started drinking a lot. And I think that ultimately what happened was because it was just generally accepted It was no real light that was shone on it. I think that I was dealing with a lot of probably some underlying mental health issues. I was pretty much alone and had been alone at that point for a couple of years and in and out, still trying to find my way. And ultimately, that led to a pretty unsuccessful run at university.

I ended up dropping out not once but twice. The first time I dropped out, moved away from Washington, D.C., ended up coming back to try to give it a second go, dropped out again, in 2008 and really spent the next, I want to say probably several years, me, three or four years, just trying to hobble together a life that I could be proud of. I think that there was a lot of shame that came with me dropping out. I come from a family on my father's side of immigrants and education is number one, it's paramount, right? So it was a huge disappointment, I think, for my father, and it was a huge disappointment for me

to not really be successful in that chapter of. of my life, which caused me to bounce around a bit. So I did some things at that point in my life that I'm really not proud of. I had my father's credit card, which I was basically living off of, and booked a one-way airplane ticket to L.A. and ended up moving to California and slept on a buddy of mine at the Times floor for a year. And I was a door-to-door salesman selling everything from office supplies to credit card processors, just trying to pinch two pennies together to live and ended up moving from L.A. to Oregon. And I hit my initial rock bottom in Oregon where I was living in this rented house that we had, a couple friends of mine and I had, and just didn't have

anything. I mean, I was at that point saving the few dollars that I had for a Paps Blue Ribbon at the end of the day and just getting whatever I could and maybe like a bag of Fritos. That was my dinner. And so it was just really a point in my life where it caused me to just look elsewhere. where for answers. And I remember standing in the rain, looking up into the skies, just like asking for some sort of sign, some sort of help. And that was a low point for me. And then ultimately, I was able to make my way back to the East Coast and again, still trying to put things together, right? And it was right in the midst of the financial crisis. There wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for people who hadn't graduated from college. So I ended up finding myself in the service industry,

working in restaurants and really doing everything from polishing, cleaning silverware all the way up to managing the front of the house. But for anybody who's spent any time in the service industry, you recognize that it's rife with alcohol and for some folks, alcohol abuse. So I spent the next five to ten years living that life where I would start work when everybody was going home from their jobs. And when I finished my job, I was going to the bar for another several hours after that.

And it was just one of those vicious cycles. And I think at that point, it was probably about 2011. I ended up meeting my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, and I think that in a lot of ways, it was one of the best things that had ever happened to me because it forced me to try to white knuckle my way to something a little bit more respectable. But even in that, I never put down the drink. We ended up moving from Washington, D.C. to New York City. And I was still in the hospitality industry working in hotels at that point. I was working for Starwood. And they do like W. Hotels, Sheraton, and a couple other really fine brands. but I was the one who was responsible for stocking the liquor closets and ordering in and requisitioning the booze and the wine. So I never really had any separation from it. And I think deep down inside of me and in the back of my mind, I realized that it was a problem.

You know what I mean? Like it really was. It held me back in so many aspects. And now I'm now in my late 20s, early 30s, and recognizing that I'm just a lot further behind where I thought I was going to be. and just trying to do the best with what I had. So fast forward again, and I ended up moving to Africa in 2013. I moved to Ethiopia to Addis Ababa and spent the better part of that year in Ethiopia. And I was doing this thing where I was bouncing back and forth between Africa and New York.

So I still had my girlfriend at the time and we had an apartment in New York. But I was just completely fucking lost, excuse my language, and didn't know what I wanted to do. I had burnt out working as an operator in hospitality, and I felt as though that maybe a change of scenery would help me up. But I ultimately went to Ethiopia. And even though I did some great things and it was a great time and provided me with a lot of cultural exposure, I was just going out and I was partying a whole lot. And the dollar goes very far in a third world country. But I found myself not only like having fun, but in retrospect, putting myself in a lot of precarious situations in a country that I didn't speak. the language and I didn't know the culture and I was literally on the other side of the world and

I could have probably disappeared and probably no one would have known for a couple days at least and had a couple really rough moments out there and ultimately that brought me back to the U.S. and back to my girlfriend. I'll tell this story sometimes, but she basically was like, look, we can be together here in the U.S. or you can be single in Africa and I made the decision to come back and I'm glad that I did. We ultimately ended up, I ended up proposing to her probably within a year of me. We got married a couple years later in 2016, had our first kid in 2018, and then in 2020, the pandemic hit. So we ended up moving from Brooklyn in New York to Colorado, which is where I am now. And in this entire time, I've pulled together a pretty

successful career for myself, working in food and beverage on more so like the brand and manufacturer side, selling products into hospitality outlets that I had previously worked in. So it was like a natural progression from a professional standpoint. But again, alcohol never really left my side. So pandemic hits. And I think for a lot of folks, I spent a lot of time indoors. I had just moved to a new state, a new city, didn't really have a community of people that I could turn to. And the pandemic obviously made that a lot more challenging. We ended up having our second in the midst of that in May of 2020 after only having been in Colorado for a few months. So there was just a lot of weight and not to mention the fact that I was unemployed at the time.

So I'm here trying to figure out employment, becoming a parent second time over. And also how do I manage this alcohol, which is now, you know, showing up in much more frequently than it used to because I just have constant access to it. I'm at home. I don't have to put on a good front for anybody. and I went from drinking wine to mixing up martinis and harder liquor and just taking a lot more time to rebound. September of 21 rolls around and this is like the last, this is my last ditch. This is my last moment with, I'm in Colorado.

We're two kids in and we're trying to find an opportunity to connect to a couple. My wife and I, we ended up going on on a date night out here in Boulder, Colorado. So we go to a fantastic evening of sushi where we're drinking soccer. and we're having wine. And that just ended up putting me on a really slippery slope really quickly. We found ourselves at a bar. My go-to when I'm at a bar is a shot of Jameson and a beer, an IPA. And after two or three of those, I start literally going off of the rails and ultimately

ended up blacking out on our date night that night. Did damage in the bar. Ended up being put into an Uber and on the way home in the Uber. Literally on the highway, I almost jumped out of the Uber ride. got back into my neighborhood and at this point it's probably midnight, one o'clock, I don't know, causing quite the scene on my front lawn. And I live in a very quiet, well-to-do neighborhood here. So when there's commotion happening, it's very hard to disguise it for anything else. So mind you, I'm blacked out for the entirety of this exchange and this last night.

Woke up the next morning, still blacked out, and then ultimately ended up doing some things in front of my children that I'm not proud of. have said some things to my wife that I'm not proud of. And then finally, once I came to, and she walked me through all of this. And mind you, she's traumatized by all this, by the way. It's not one of those, oh, you went too far. And no, she was traumatized. And it was recounting kind of everything that had happened. And I was just like, man, I got to do something differently here. Like, I'm running the risk of losing my family, losing my kids, my wife, losing my home, maybe losing my freedom, and in ultimately, potentially losing my life, because I was, again, putting myself in situations that I wasn't thinking about. And so I just threw literally everything that I

thought that I knew at the time. So I went to my general practitioner. I got prescribed medication. So I know the debate is out on like Naltrexone, for example, but I needed something to help wean me off of the cravings and give me the best, like, fighters shot at being able to put together and stack some days, and not feeling as though that I needed to turn to the alcohol, I ended up pursuing a therapist to start trying to delve into a lot of those inner workings just to why I started drinking in the first place all these decades prior. I read a ton of quitlet, listened to a ton of podcast, and yours being one of them, I think that I still listen to a lot of recovery elevator, a lot of this naked mind.

Like I said, I read a bunch of quitlet. and then ultimately just tried to live that life as best as I could. One of the things that I didn't mention is several years earlier while I was living in Brooklyn, I had another triggering event where I drank way too much, I think maybe a fifth and a half of whiskey in one sitting at home and fell down a flight of stairs. It was horrible. And I was shamed out of my mind the next day. And that was the first time that I, the first and only time that I found myself in an A room

where I was like, I need to figure this thing out. and all to say, like, I didn't end up, you know, quitting for several years after that moment. But it had been a problem for a long time. And I think that ultimately it took a quote unquote come to Jesus moment for me to say, if I don't get this thing right this time, I may not have a next time. And ultimately, that's what got me to starting my own podcast around highlighting people's stories in sobriety and the journeys that they've been on. because what I found is, particularly in communities of color,

there just weren't a lot of people talking about it. We don't talk about mental health, I think, broadly speaking. We certainly were talking about addiction and substance abuse. And so I started that not just as an outlet and another sober podcast, but really, because I didn't really have a community of my own. So I just genuinely wanted to talk to other people about their own experience so that I can keep myself honest and keep myself accountable on my own journey. And the last two years of my recovery slash sobriety have been equal parts

challenging as they have been fantastic. I feel like it certainly has been a process of me evolving and growing and developing as a human being. And as you're almost trying to learn a lot of things for the first time, because you've never emotionally have had the tools to be able to do so. So it has been a challenge, but I wouldn't be here today had it not been for all of those dark days that had preceded what got me to where I am. Wow, Ray. Thank you. Thank you for sharing all of that.

So much to unpack there. So much I could relate to. The more and more you shared to, I could hear a little bit more and more of the accent, which is incredible. I had a quick thought too, right? Because you're moving all over the place. And I just was thinking this thought came through.

It was like, were you running from something or were you looking for something? I appreciate that question. I was actually having a similar conversation with my wife earlier today along the same lines about this sense of fulfillment, right? And this sentiment that I've felt for a long time of being unfulfilled in certain aspects of my life. So I think it was probably a combination. I think part of me was trying to get away from this version of me that wasn't showing up in life the way that I had set expectations on my. to do. And then I think another part of me was trying to chase for a sign of this destiny

that I had always felt in the back of my mind that belonged to me, but it wasn't showing up in my day-to-day life. So I think it was a combination of the both I was both running from and running to, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure, 110%. Going back to your story too there about the situation with the divorce, I mean, you've probably heard it too and you probably know this. That's very common in so many stories, a story of the parents divorcing. And I could relate with you in a sense, too, with your mom, because my mom was 16 when she had twins. My brother and I, she had twins. And we lived with my grandparents from the beginning, but it was extremely stable.

My grandmother ran a home daycare and things were extremely stable. And then we moved to Texas. My mom wanted to spread her own wings, right? So she was finished up her nursing school. And we went down there to be a nurse. And that's really when I relate everything in my story and my journey. At the time, I had no idea, six, seven, eight years old. I didn't know about anxiety.

I didn't know about panic attacks. I didn't know about trauma. But when I look back in all the work over the years, that's when things switched because that stability of grandparents. I mean, grandparents, too, you shared. They're just incredible, right? I mean, that's most people's story, right? They really look after you and they give you the extra candy and toys and whatever it is.

And then my mom, when she moved, it was a whole different world. It was a whole different world. And I really internalized stuff and I didn't share, but I could relate to you on that. I mean, when you look back at your story, is there a specific time that you can identify where you were like, this is a problem and this is really getting progressive? Did you ever identify that throughout the journey? Yeah, being the alcohol itself. Yeah. Throughout my journey.

I think that there were multiple moments that I identified that it was a problem. I mean, I probably have more scars and chips in my teeth than I would like to have. And I think that those are, every single event that took place that led to something like that were clear indicators that this probably is not working for you, but you keep coming back and doing the same thing over and over again. but I also think that as I matured in life and as I took on more responsibilities and more roles where I wasn't just responsible to myself and now I'm responsible to two little ones and to a wife and to a family unit, I think that's really when it crystallized for me that this is not only a problem for me, but this potentially could be a problem that could live for another generation, if you know what I'm saying, right? I feel like a lot of

the pain that we go through is pain that we didn't necessarily own initially. It was passed down to us in a lot of ways. And I think that at that moment, when I started growing into fatherhood and growing into husbandhood is when I started to realize that all the shit that I've been harboring and trying to like manage and cope with for the last several decades, inevitably that is going to spill out into these little kids' lives, and they don't have any ownership into whether or not they can absorb that trauma, whether or not they can absorb those issues. So it's incumbent upon me to take a really hard look at myself and do the hard thing

and figuring out how do I get a handle on this. So number one, I can live the back half of my life the way that I want to. And number two, I'm setting them up as best as I possibly. can because they're not in a position to do it for themselves. Yeah, that's, and it's incredibly powerful. And I had another talk with somebody the other day, too, just about being fathers, too, in this world. And my father was never really around growing up.

And I had an incredible stepfather that came into my life further down. But I'm really seeing an incredible hands-on type thing. And it seems to really be having a big impact. I'm seeing a lot of stuff on social media and a lot of fathers I know. maybe things are looking a little bit different that way about being more involved. And it's something that, I mean, personally, I'm like so excited about that. And it's just I didn't really have that or maybe feel that love in a sense. And I think that's incredible too.

That's really the only way I think we can move forward to is that honesty about being honest about what it is. I think you use the word harboring. What kind of we're holding on to and make changes on that? And it's a, was it a thing? was drinking a thing in your family, like generation before? I think that unspokenly, I think that it always has been. It was never explicit in my immediate experience.

So, for example, my father, who is still very much a part of my life, even though my parents divorced at a young age, he's always been a staunch proponent for staying away from substances. So he was never a drinker. My mother, on the other hand, she always drank from what I remember. I mean, I remember like my first exposure to alcohol was probably taking sips off of her beers. Folks in the States may not know this. I don't even know if they still have this beer in Canada, but it was called Bredor.

And I remember sipping like her beer at a young age. So I think similarly like over time, her dependency, her turn towards alcohol probably changed. And I mean, I left home at such a long time ago that there's a ton of her life that I didn't have a firsthand account with. But I know that there are certain things that she's leaning. towards to cope with a lot of the pain that she's had in her own life. I never experienced any of that. However, I think that particularly on my brother's side of the family, our family on her side is from Nova Scotia. For anybody who knows anything about Nova Scotia, like drinking is not uncommon in Nova Scotia. And I've been keyed into now in my adult years, especially since I've been very

public about my own sobriety, that that has been something that has been part of like my family history. So even though I didn't have a direct personal relationship, a lot of the folks in my family who drank, it certainly is part of the, and I hate to go this way, but like, it's certainly part of the genetic makeup of who I am because it has been such a prevalent part of like my unspoken history through generations. So yes and no, I never really experienced it as at least being problematic as a child directly. But now I know in retrospect, having been more vocal about where I'm at today, that it certainly has been an issue for other people in my life, and my family, rather.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Sir, I wanted to say one more thing about fatherhood. The one thing that I recognized about in pursuing sobriety is that it's a pretty monumental choice that one makes. And in order to, number one, pursue sobriety, and the number two, in order to persist in one's sobriety and recovery. And what I've tried to do in that degree of intentionality is also bring that into how I father. I try to be really intentional about how I show up and how frequent and what the quality is of my presence in my children's life.

And that comes on the back of me pursuing sobriety. And I think that that's a degree of empowerment that I've given myself in the role that I play in their lives. And I do see a lot of men, not necessarily just men who are pursuing several lifestyles, but a lot of of men who are making that call to say, hey, look, I want to show up differently in my children's life than maybe my father showed up in my life or his father showed up in his life. And I think that we're at a point in our history where that matters, right? There's just way too much going on in this world for us not to show up for our children because ultimately they're going to have to navigate an ever more complicated world than we had to even. So they only benefit from us being as present

as we possibly can be in the role that we signed up for. They didn't ask it of us. We asked them to be our children, right? So we got to show up for them the way that, you know, that we would have wanted a father show up in our lives. Yeah, wow, that hits. That hits for sure. Scary too, right?

More complicated than the world we live in today. Yeah, but it's true. That's the one constant, right? Yeah, I mean, it's true. It's change, right? Doesn't stop. Doesn't wait for anybody. Yep.

It's interesting too. I mean, so in 2001 there, right, the pandemic and lots of big time for people, right? Because we were stuck with ourselves. And I think if there was a problem or there was something going on, it got put under microscope or expat up a bit because we didn't have to necessarily show up the next day for work. We had a lot more free time. And we didn't have the communities. A lot of people, too, thrive on communities at workplaces, right? It's an outlet.

Even though it's like, oh, I don't want to go to work. but like when you're off work for three weeks or something, you might miss it a little bit, right? That's a strange thing. So you have that night right at the bar. What are your first steps? That next day, your wife's walking you through all this. I'm just thinking of somebody else listening, right?

They're looking for those first couple of days, right? How do I get through those first couple of days? What did the steps look like for you? Well, I mean, I think one, I just want to highlight that I had already been trying to identify a past. before that evening and that next day. Like I had already been started listening to podcasts. I had already started reading on what potentially I could do.

So I think from that standpoint, directionally at least I had some sort of a sense of like where I should at least be Googling. Right. So I was like what the hell do I do? I need to address this. What do I do? And I think the first stop for me was number one coming clean with like my doctor. I was like I need some help here and I had read. that there's medication out there that could give you a shot at getting through some time without alcohol.

So I think one was honesty with myself that I got to do something different. And then two, starting getting honest with folks around me, one being my doctor. And then two, just like trying to get to the root of like why the fuck was I at where I was at in the first place. Like why was I drinking to the extent that I was? What was it doing for me? And I think what ultimately happened in that, I also really early a few days after started looking for therapists to start trying to unpack some of the other stuff. Because I had read that it's not just about abstaining or removing alcohol for your life. Like alcohol is but a symptom of something deeper, something that's underlying.

And I recognize that I'm not going to be able to be successful on this until I start interacting with some of the aspects within me that I've spent the last 30 years trying to avoid. So it was number one, being honest with me and being critical about where I'm at in my own journey. And number two, starting to be honest about, honest to others around me about this thing that I had been struggling with. Struggling with the drinking and also struggling with not drink. And that it was a problem for me. I mean, I had put on a pretty good front for the most part. And I think that for the most part, folks looking in from the outside wouldn't say that I really had an issue. Because I drank every day, but I didn't drink in the morning.

I didn't drink before I had to work. I drank when I got home and I drank bottled, two bottles a night. And the cycle continued. So for the folks who were not intimately involved, they didn't realize that had an issue. So for me, it was really about starting to come clean and being honest with the folks around me. And that started with the people who are closer in and then ultimately ended up rippling out. But I think for the listeners to answer your question,

I think the first thing I did was just acknowledge that this is something that I can no longer avoid addressing. And then I sought out professional help because I realized that I couldn't do it on my own. Yeah, those are incredible steps for sure. And I like how you brought up the point too, because I think that's a lot of people's stories. I think there's going to be some research maybe done before. You're right. So like a lot of people ask how do you do it? And if you're not at a spot where you're ready to necessarily do it today, right in the moment,

like it's always a great suggestion to start, just put on a podcast or read some books. There's so many out there over the last five years that's really started to flow in. it's so many different options of things that you can just start to bring into your life and you can start incorporate into your life. That's what it was like for me too. I would go to meetings and I'd go to this and I'd go to that and I went to rehab and it was like this was all years. It was years before to do these things and then one day, right? Enough is enough and let's just try to do something else. Interesting too there. The thing about other people around us, not necessarily knowing it's a problem drinking every day, but not necessarily knowing it's a problem.

You're not waking up to drinking. I mean, was that a confusing place for you to live in? I think it was, I had started to listen to podcasts and listen to other people's stories before I got to a point where I needed to make a change. So I had recognized already that there was a problem with the stigma around alcoholism. and I recognize that I wasn't the dude necessarily under the bridge with the paper bag. But I also recognize that even though I'm not that person, doesn't mean that I don't have a fucking problem. You know what I mean? All to say that I recognized that I had an issue and I needed to deal with that issue.

It didn't really have anything to do with what other people believed me to be, right? And I think that's where it comes down to you primarily doing it for yourself because nobody knows you better than you do. And I think that in that moment, yeah, there were a lot of folks that were surprised. There were also some folks that I think that probably looked at in retrospect and said to themselves, well, yeah, you know what? He probably, yeah, he did always drink a little bit too much red wine. And who knows what happened once he left the party. But I think for me, that wasn't like an identity crisis that I had. I was pretty clear on the fact that I had an issue that I needed to address and what everybody else thought was almost secondary to that. And I had an issue that, and I had an

issue that, and my wife recognizes that I needed to address it because she was the one that was living it. I mean, she was also a victim of my substance use. I mean, even to this day, we still are working through almost two decades of pain that I've caused that I wasn't fully present for. And so I think it was clear to the people that it needed to be clear to. And for the folks who were part of the audience, it wasn't necessarily as much of a consideration for me because they hadn't been a consideration of mine before that. I like that. And it's a, I mean, it's that rigorous honesty.

It's just being really truthful and honest with ourselves, right, to get to that spot. Yeah. And when it takes time, right, because it wasn't always like that, right? What's changed for you since you made that decision? What's been some of the exciting stuff about being sober? I think the most exciting thing for me in being sober. is this idea of, to put it, for a lack of better term, like almost having a new lease on life, right? Like, I have an opportunity to craft the life that I want to have and be in full control of that.

I mean, I'm in my early 40s, so I have a lot of like years behind me. I think that maybe had I become sober in my 20s, I would have looked at it differently. But I feel as though that I have this, like, sense of responsibility to myself at this stage of my life to really drive where my life is going. And I feel really fortunate to have the opportunity to be able to do that with the years of experience that I have in my life up until this point. So even as painful as a lot of the personal development has been for me, I think that it has equally been gratifying in that I'm able to embark on this path and this journey of growth that I hadn't really been able to engage in previously because this thing and this addiction had been holding me back from being

able to engage in my life the way that I felt as though that I owed to myself. So that's been the best part for me is trying to develop myself in all aspects of life, really emotionally, spiritually, physically even in a way that I never had been able to beforehand. And for anyone who's like ever embarked on any type of development journey, whether it's like a fitness journey, it's a dietary journey, whether it's a mental health journey, or it comes with its own degree of challenges, but it requires repetition, it requires consistency, it requires discipline, it requires a degree of like self-reflection and ownership and what you were saying earlier, a degree of honesty that frankly, I wasn't living by previous to two years ago.

I mean, I had some pretty core values that I was living by in my life up at that point, but I'm able to double down and amplify those today in sobriety and do things that I put myself out there in a way that I had never done before. Putting yourself out there and doing a podcast and speaking to people regularly about the deepest, darkest corners of your emotional and actual life. Not everybody can do that. And I think that's been a really special gift and has just caused a degree of self-fulfillment and development that I don't think I would have been able to really do with a degree of

honesty otherwise. Yeah, that's incredible. Speaking of that two podcasting, yeah, I even shared too, like, I learned so much in this last year because we published like a hundred episodes or no, probably more. Somebody will correct me. I don't know the exact number, but it's probably over 100 episodes in a year. And that's 100 conversations with a hundred, yeah, thank you, with a hundred different people and learn hundreds of different things and perspectives and ideas. And it's one of the coolest things that I think I've ever done, man. And you start in your show. And you mentioned there, too, about people struggling with talking about mental health and talking about addiction and all that stuff. And for you to come out, create a platform. And I love the name, by the way. I wish I would have

thought of it. Stackin days, right? Well, sometimes I think about it, I'm like, maybe this is a little too ambiguous. Maybe I need to be more specific about what this show is about, but I appreciate the shout out there. Yeah, which I think is incredible, but like, how did that all come about? So you want to create something to help people and give people a platform to share stories because it's important and it's not always there. How did that come about? How do you mustered up the courage to make that happen? Yeah, thanks for asking that. That has been part of of my therapeutic growth, creating stack and days. And the reason why I created the show was, one, because podcasts had been such an integral

part of my own journey towards sobriety and recovery. Like I said, I had started my quote unquote research into this new space before I, you know, became sober. And podcasts and listening to podcasts and listening to other people's was just a huge part of that for me. And I think there are some that. I listened to on a weekly basis as they were coming out. What I recognized, even though all of those shows are fantastic, and I know the underlying sentiment is to look for the similarities and not the

differences, I had a really hard time finding other individuals who looked like me and who sounded like me, who are also on this path to self-betterment, on this path to healing, on this path to recovery. And I started saying to myself, like, where are all the colored people who had been struggling with alcohol and are now finding that there's a life on the other side of their addiction? There's life on the other side of their struggles. And it just caused me to start seeking them out. And say what you will about social media, like, that's where I turn to to try to find these people. I mean, the population of black people in Colorado is 2%. So all to say, I don't come across a whole lot of people who

look like me and certainly don't come across a whole lot of people who are comfortable in their sub... at least at the time, rather. I'm going to make that distinction at the time that or at least I wasn't searching for them in the right places that were talking about their struggles with alcohol. And so I created

stacking days quite just literally as a platform where someone else who maybe is in my shoes can go to find other people who look like them because the truth of the matter is people of color are not a monolith. Like black people are not a model. We all have different journeys, different stories, different experiences, but there is a through line that connects us specifically back into our culture, our country,

and the world that I think is unique. And that is how do we experience life as a person of color? And that obviously is going to color the way that we experience our journeys and addiction and substance use and ultimately in our recovery, particularly when it comes to the resources that we feel comfortable turning to in order to pursue our own self-appermit. So I create a stack in days as an opportunity to create that space for other people, but also selfishly so I could talk to more people of color who are winning. Even though it's a hard fight, they're winning, right? So my goal initially was like, look, I'm not a podcaster.

If I could just put five episodes out there, I will have fulfilled in being able to do this, right? I think it's important also to note, like, when you become silver, you got to find things to get yourself into to kind of offset the time that you were drinking before. So I started working out more. And I also started podcasting to help offset this like time. And five episodes came and went. And I recognize that it's something that I just enjoy doing similar to you. These are all individual conversations that I'm having with people about their lives.

And I think that there's nothing more special than being able to share that, you know, with the broader community and more specifically to like people of color that oftentimes can feel lost when they don't feel as that they're being included in some of these conversations. So that's why I created stacking days. So that's like the long and short of the motivation behind why it came to past and in large part why I still do it today. Yeah, beautiful. I think that's incredible. I'm so happy to see stuff be out there for everybody to let, you know, people know and to find people and to share all the different stories because it is different, right? The journeys through addiction are different. The journeys through recovery. And I think

on my end, it's so important to include as many people as we can in the conversation that want to share about their story and feel comfortable and create spaces. And that's just incredible. I mean, it's incredible. How did you come up with the name stack in days? a lot of like internal like trial and error I mean for me like many things in life rather recovery is about being consistent right and so I started thinking to myself what does that mean for me I need to make sure that I am on a path where I'm doing value added things activities value added behavior in my life on a daily basis if I'm going to stay on the path that I have chosen for myself.

So stacking days was just literally a representation of me stacking one day on top of the other and being consistent at that so that ultimately I can arrive at this place in my life that maybe I have envisioned in the onset and maybe I haven't. But I do know that if I stay consistent, that I'm going to be in a better place than I was yesterday. So that's really where the name came from. It's all about how do you progress in your life? in a manner in which you are consistent in investing back into yourself. So yes, the podcast is about sobriety.

Yes, the podcast is about battling addiction. But it really is about how do you pursue your own healing? How do you pursue your own betterment? How do you become a better parent? How do you become a better husband? How do you become a better wife? And as through our conversations, like these things all come out, right? And I think that those aspects of what it is to be a human being are all parts of

intentional decision one makes that oftentimes, just particularly for people who are overcoming addiction, start with the decision to overcome their addiction. And then the one day at a time after that. So true, that consistency part of things, staying consistent for it. And I love how you wrap that up there at the end of one day at a time, right? One day at a time. And it adds up. A lot of us who start out on this journey too, sometimes we surprised ourselves where we've landed. And for anybody who's early on in this whole process, too, get plugged in. Ray, we talked about get plugged into these podcasts, get plugged into books. I mean, you got to just stick around.

It's like anything else that we want to make adjustments with, right? Consume the information. Some people might say manifest, but consume the information about where you want to be, who you want to be, how you want to live and do stuff before you're ready. Because that was a big thing, big thing for me. Ray, as we wrap up here, my goodness, 50 minutes, just like that, man. Is there anything you want to leave us with today, man?

What's the best way if somebody enjoyed this episode, they'd like to connect with you? Best way to do that. And is there any thoughts that you would like to close with? Yeah, I mean, I think one thought that I'd like to close with, and this is not a new concept, but I think that oftentimes when someone's looking at pursuing sobriety, when they're coming from a place of struggling with an addiction to alcohol, at least,

is they look out and they say, well, oh, my God, this guy or this gal, she's got two years, she's just winning on so many levels. Try to avoid comparing your day one to somebody else's day 365, right? Everyone started somewhere, right? So take it all the way back and only bite off what you need to in order to make it to the next day. Because otherwise, I feel like it could be a little daunting to embark on this like forever path, right?

So I think it's really important to call that out as you were starting to become more curious about what the road could look like for you. I think that's another thing that I wanted to note as well as be curious. There's nothing wrong with being curious because, as I've been told, the opposite of curiosity is judgment. And the last thing that we need is to be judging ourselves and hitting ourselves with that shame slap. So be curious about what are some of the opportunities and some of the avidies that you can take in order to start addressing some of the things that deep down, you know are things that you want to address within yourself and find that honesty with yourself and with others. As far as like where people could find me, again,

the Stackin Days podcast, that's my baby. So www.com. That's sT-A-C-N-D-A-Y-S dot com. And then on all social channels, so IG, TikTok, at Stackin Days. So spell up the same way. I release episodes on a weekly basis on Wednesday. And they're just coming from all ends of the spectrum when it comes to sobriety. And it's funny because I was talking to somebody the other day and it was like, you're talking about so many other things on this show. But the through line is sobriety. The through line is recovery. We're all people. And I don't think that sobriety and recovery is the sole circumstance that defines who we are. Right. We're all pretty dynamic, I feel. And we're able to uncover that dynamism through our sobriety. But I think that the conversations

are just really robust. And I think that they're similar to like your podcast and listening to some of your episodes, we just can gain a lot from being observers and witnesses of other people's journeys and other people's stories. So stacking days, if you want to hear more of what I talk about and what we collectively as a community are talking about, that's just another resource for you. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much. Yeah. And thank you for sharing the podcast. Thank you for starting the podcast. Even your experience, too, with podcasting to where you say that has been so helpful and I'm thinking about mine, like, man, I wonder if there should be some therapeutic intervention for people to start a podcast and just be forced out there in a sense

to share your thoughts, right? Because I think that's another thing that I struggled with anyways. I just kept everything inside. I didn't know how to articulate. I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't know how to talk about it. And it just makes it so real when you put it in a show and you connect with other people. And I think for the right folks, it's not going to be for everybody thing, but it's been so healing for me and to hear that it's been healing and helpful for you too is it gives it a little bit more credit now. Brad, I'll tell you, the first time that I was just completely open, honest, and vulnerable about my own story was on the episode one of my own podcast.

So to your point, like there's a lot of therapeutic benefits that come, obviously with telling your story, there's a lot of therapeutic benefits that come with being vulnerable. obviously you have to advantage that. But to your point, had I had not started this show, I may be in a very different place in my own journey than I am now. And it's been hugely beneficial for me in keeping me accountable and keeping me honest, not just with the audience and the people who are around me, but also myself. It's kept me on the track.

So, hey, man, if there's a podcast challenge, I feel like that could be something like we tack on to dry January from next year. Like how many episode ones can we release in January of 2025? And that's all you got to sign up for. All right. Look, we'll make a deal. I love that, by the way. And we'll make a deal.

You've got the door-to-door sales. So we need you to get us a team together. And we're going to have to do this one door-to-door, man. This is going to be the podcast challenge. Everybody and their brother is going to have a podcast next year. Ray, I really enjoyed it, man. Thank you. Yeah, exactly.

Thank you again so much. Hey Brad, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for creating this space and thanks for having me on. Of course. Well, there it is. Another incredible episode. Huge shout out to Ray. Thank you so much for Vimona.

Share your story on the podcast. Thank you so much for all the incredible nuggets that I believe the audience will take away. Very insightful, very connected to the journey. And it was an incredible episode. You know, I'm just reflecting here. I did another recording today with someone else. and I'm just reflecting on, you know, every story is so much alike and so much different. And just the bravery that people show and the courage that they have to come on here

on a decently big platform to share their story with the world. You never know who's going to hear it. You never know whose life it could change. You never know the impact you could have on somebody else to where that could be the story that they relate to most. And that's what gets them going on the sober journey. And I guess that's one of the big inspirations behind the entire. Subur Motivation Podcast.

And a lot of people are going through it right now. It's a new year. The buzz from the holidays is kind of over. Everything's kind of settling in or moving forward or back into our routines. And a lot of people are out there struggling. And I just know because I get the messages all day. And I just want to tell you guys, just keep going. You know, a drink, a drug, none of it's going to make life any better.

It might temporarily help us forget about. the pain or whatever it is we're trying to avoid, but it doesn't actually fix anything. It really is just like pouring gasoline on a fire. It just makes everything much bigger when it comes time to deal with it. So if you're going through it, just hang on, just keep working through it. Stay connected with other people. Make sure you're sharing what's going on with you. No more of this.

You're going to do it all on your own and you're not going to talk to anybody. Let's talk to people. It helps so much. Thank you guys, as always, for checking out another. episode and I'll see you on the next one.