Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Derek lost everything due to alcohol -during a moment of clarity he asked for help from a passing police officer.

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

In this episode, we introduce Derek, a former educator whose battle with alcohol eventually led to the suspension of his teaching license. Prioritizing drinking over all else, Derek's choices took a heavy toll on his personal relationships throughout the years. It wasn't until he found himself alone, after his second DUI, that Derek experienced an important moment of clarity. During this crucial juncture, he decided to seek assistance by flagging down a police officer. This is  Derek's story on the Sober Motivation Podcast. ---------- Follow Derek on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesoberstoic/ Check out Sober Vet Coffee (Use code SOBERMOTIVATION for 10% off): https://sobervetcoffee.com/ Follow (Me) Sober Motivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ More information about Sober Link: www.soberlink.com/recover

Welcome to Season 3 of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Derek, a former educator whose battle with alcohol eventually led to the suspension of his teaching license. Prioritizing drinking over all else, Derek's choices took a heavy toll on his personal

relationships throughout the years. It wasn't until he found himself alone after his second DUI that Derek experienced an important moment of clarity. It was during this crucial juncture that he decided to seek assistance by flagging down a police officer. This is Derek's story on the sober motivation podcast. Sober Motivation is a community of support for our listeners. David, the owner of Sober Vet Coffee, relied on sober motivation as he began his journey while stationed overseas. Moving regularly can be a challenge. So building a support system at the base areas can alleviate some of the loneliness,

with each move. Coming together over coffee has been a great point of conversation for him and his community. Eventually, he found a love of coffee roasting. Sober Vet Coffee offers roasted to order specialty coffee, and 20% of their profits go to organizations that support veterans mental health. Use discount code sober motivation for 10% off your order today. And give them a follow, Sober Vet Coffee on Instagram, and head over to Sobervetcoffee.com to play. your order. Getting sober is a lifestyle change, and sometimes a little technology can help. Imagine a breathalyzer that works like a habit tracker for sobriety. Soberlink helps you replace bad habits with healthy ones. Weighing less than a pound and as compact as a sunglass case,

sober link devices have built-in facial recognition, tamper detection, and advanced reporting, which is just another way of saying it'll keep you honest. On top of all that, results are sent instantly to love ones to help you stay accountable. Go after your goals. Visit Soberlink, com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device today. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Derek with us. Derek, how are you? I'm doing good. Good, man. Happy to hear it. Happy to jump on here and share your story. Oh yeah, no, definitely. Like I said, I've told you I've listened to this show quite often and was kind of looking forward to sharing my story with the audience. Yeah, beautiful. That's what it's all about. Well, why don't we

get started. What was it like for you growing up? Growing up for me was kind of interesting. It's interesting because I hear this story so often on the show where people are talking about their family life and all the different kind of dynamics that they had. And I had kind of like this really interesting one. My parents stayed together until my dad passed away like about 15 years ago. And they were pretty much like the opposites of each other. It's kind of interesting to see such polar opposites. My dad, he was a constantly swearing, chain smoking, alcoholic truck driver. My mom was a never swearing, never smoking, totally devout Christian. They were totally opposite to each other. You kind of wonder how they could actually survive

with each other. I grew up in this small town called Pedley. It was mainly a rural town. We had a ton of cows and dairies out there who was in southern California, about 60, 70 miles from Los Angeles. I have an older brother who's just like a year and a half older than me. And it was kind of an interesting family dynamic where I had basically two parents growing up. They never divorced, but my dad was basically never there. Being a truck driver, he was pretty much out of town, always making trips out to Vegas to deliver. And so he was gone for like six days a week. And so it was pretty much just my mom that was raising us up the entire time. But the thing that was kind of difficult at that same time is that my dad was gone like six days a week,

but that one day that he was home, that one day that he had off, she would just sit around the house getting drunk the entire time. So it was happy to have him home. But at the same time, it's just like, do I want you to be here? I know that might sound kind of bad, but it was kind of like brutal with having him around. And man, when he took vacations for like two weeks, it would just be like a nonstop bender of him. The other thing, too, I think that was kind of interesting with my parents is that they probably should have been divorced. It was one of those things where my dad was a Catholic.

So his faith basically told him that he shouldn't divorce. My mom being a Christian, her faith told her that like she shouldn't be divorced. But it was one of those things of just like their life and probably the life of me and my brother would have been. a lot better off if that would have actually happened. How did that impact you as you were growing up in this world? Oh, gosh, you know, that's the thing is a part of my story is I'm also bipolar. So I've been to a lot of therapy and kind of what I've worked out in therapy is realizing that I talked about how my entire growing up was like walking on eggshells, always afraid

to do something wrong, like always wanting things to be kind of. like, okay, I can't have anything do wrong. And it's kind of interesting is I kind of realized in my story too is that when you realize there's addiction, we have our addictions to like alcohol, drugs. The addiction can come in different forms. And one of the things that did to me was my earliest sign of addiction was I had this constant thing of just needing to see myself succeed in life. And so at an early age, I became obsessed with doing good in school. So much. much so that it was really, really unhealthy. I wouldn't go out with friends. I wouldn't like go and do anything fun. I would just go home from school every single night, do everything that I can to get like

the perfect grades, like every assignment done, perfection on every assignment. And I just needed to be perfect so that I didn't like get any like attention put on me. It's like I was doing this to be noticed by my mother, but also I was doing this to get any glimmer of sign from my father, but also like not his anger at the same time too. And so I worked out in my years of therapy many ways that this impacted me as a person. Well, yeah, because that becomes a full-time gig, right? Full-time job early on. Oh, yeah, no, definitely.

Was it ever good enough? Like how well you did? Well, what I think about it, it's weird, is that my mom would see it. But to my dad, it was like nothing. Like, he just recognized nothing that I did. So, yeah, it's like it's weird. I got it from one parent, but I didn't get from that. the other. What about for yourself? Did you say like, okay, like I'm satisfied with it? That was the

weird thing about it all was the fact that even for myself, it's just like you could always do better. If I, you know, got a 95% on a test, I could have got 100%. You know, it's like I always looked at should be something you could have done better. You could have done better. You got to keep getting better. Yeah. I can relate to that. Not in the aspect of school. I never did well in school there. Never did well at all. But I can see that because that's sort of the behavior of addiction, is that when you hit a certain spot, you think that that's going to offer the relief. And then when it doesn't, you're like spinning in circles to now what's next, what's next, what's next and constantly chasing what's next.

Oh, no, totally. That was the thing that was kind of crazy is, you know, when you get into recovering, you start looking back on your entire life and like where addiction kind of began. And I remember sitting in the last rehab that I went to. And I was just like, dang, man, I was literally an addict when I was. as a teenager, but my substance wasn't of any chemical nature. My substance was doing good in school. As weird as this sounds, I'm just like, I was literally acting like an addict. I couldn't distinguish the differences of how I was being at that moment with how the person I was being like when

I was actually in like my worst depths of like addiction, I have to say. I could see so many parallels between the two. I'm with you two on that 110. I feel like I was destined to find a solution to what I was feeling internally. And as I got older, the solution just changed, right? Because I wasn't drinking when I was six or seven, but I definitely had these behaviors that were extremely unhealthy. And I didn't know how to manage the emotions. What it all came down to for me is that I just didn't know how to manage emotions.

I had to find things outside of myself to soothe what I was doing or how I was feeling. And then as we get older, we get introduced, you know, obviously to other things, right? And it's so interesting because you hear that in so many people's and whether people recognize it or identify with it. I think for a lot of us that the groundwork was set up long before we picked up our first drink or our first drug. Oh, no, it's true. I think, as I had told you, it's like I studied in my recovery a lot of philosophy stuff. And part of what I was studying, it's like I realize you have all of these externals that are going on in your world around you

that you're using to try to fill this hole that's inside of you. you and you can't fill that hole with just external things. That's why it's like never enough. It's never enough. And you're always trying to put more and more into there. But until that internal part, that inside part is healed and fulfilled, then like those external things will never bring you to full satisfaction. Yeah. So true. You hit the nail on the head with that. Let's back up here a little bit in your story. So you're in high school. You're achieving great things. And I mean, even with that, what you're achieving there, you're doing really well in school. I mean, that's not necessarily going to be a red flag for anybody, right?

Like, that's what people want you to do. They want you to excel in school. Like, that's great. You're making it. You're going to go to college and everything, right? Like, I don't know if anybody would have mentioned anything to you for doing really well. Where do you go after high school? Well, that's the thing, though, is what's funny is that my first exposure to, like, doing substances happened in high school.

Okay. But it was the fact that since I was achieving, it went so under the radar. It was something where like no one actually saw it. And it had actually occurred in my junior year. And I had a friend from my childhood, knew him from like my early years of elementary. He had moved away and he came back. And since my family had never moved, he actually came and visited us, stopped in on the old friend. And he took me for a while.

and he smoked a joint in front of me and handed me like my first joint ever. And like I said, I was a junior in high school. And I remember taking that puff of that joint. And it was this thing of just like all of that anxiety and that pressure that I had been feeling. It just went away from that moment. It was like an instant like, oh, wow, this stress that I'm feeling in life, it's gone. And so I got introduced into the. my first chemical thing was smoking marijuana.

It becomes a big part of my story. But because of him, he was into like the punk scene. He got me into like the SoCal punk scene in the 90s. So before knowing, I'm going to backyard parties, going to local shows where obviously drinking then becomes a part of my story too because that's something that happens in that scene quite often. But the thing that's funny, like what you're bringing up is the fact that I never stopped doing good in school.

Somehow, even though I started drinking and smoking weed, I actually never stopped doing bad. I, in fact, graduated, like, fourth in my class in high school. And so even though I was doing all this stuff, it flew under the radar of my parents. It flew under the radar of the school. Like, no one had a clue. And it was something that I would joke about with, like, my friends and stuff because their parents come down on them. I'm just like, well, if you want to get away with doing anything, just do good in school.

And no one will suspect anything. And so it's like, yeah, that was like the worst part about it all was that like I started doing these things. Here I am underage drinking. I'm smoking weed. I didn't think anything bad of it because at that time I wasn't having any negative repercussions from the whole thing. It sent up no flags to anyone. So I was getting by with it all. That makes sense.

Yeah. So you're one of those guys there. Yeah. You can keep it together for a little bit or for a while there. There's some of us that we just can't keep it together no matter what. But yeah, that's a good point, though. It's an incredible point that, yeah, I mean, things are going well. And that's probably sending a message to you personally that it's not a big deal.

But I mean, in all reality, most, I don't know if most is the right word, but a lot of teenagers in high school are probably going to experiment with, you know, marijuana, at least, maybe drinking, you know. So that's like probably a pretty common thing to do. And then some people are able to just move on from it or just have a normal, quote, unquote, like normal relationship maybe with one or both. When did you start to notice that things might be a little bit different for you? Like it wasn't right away or was it?

Were you hooked right away? No. See, that was the thing is what was kind of interesting is that I did it maybe after school a few times a week. I would do it pretty much every weekend. It never really seemed like a problem to me because I graduated, like I said, fourth in my class in high school. I moved on to like the local college. I was studying there. I stayed local.

I was able to still hang out with the same friends and the same crowd. that I was in high school, kept it the same way, sometimes on weekdays, mainly on weekends. I obviously at that time began to experiment with a lot more hallucinogenics and stuff like that during that time. And the thing that was crazy is that I still did good in my undergrad years. Because of this, I kind of like started to set the bar low. I was just like, well, not low, but lower. where like I realized once I was in college, I'm just like, oh, well, you can't be the top person. You're like competing against some really, really smart people. So like, you know, as long as you get A's and B, you know, everything should be fine.

So that wasn't really an issue. The problem was when I realized I started having an issue was after I did my undergrad years, I moved on and it was the first time I moved out. I moved to Long Beach in California to study for. like a graduate degree, a master's degree in marine biology. And at this point, gosh, dude, if you want to hear something crazy, this is the ultimate sign of codependency. When I moved out to grad school, I met a girl, and she moved in with me within three months, and we were married within nine months of each other. And me and her, we partied a lot. I basically was smoking

weed every day. I was pretty much drinking like three or four times, like a week. Weed was every day. And then where you asked, well, when did I start realizing I have a problem? We also started doing cocaine. And it was the cocaine that became an issue. She introduced me to it. And I was hooked on that stuff instantly, way more. Like I'm talking about like it was tripping me out, like, you know, driving to like shady areas like at three or four in the morning to pick up more and then being gone like out of that stuff and this time it was finally affecting my studies I was struggling in school I wasn't showing up to the lab but when I look back on it with recovery eyes now I kind of laugh at the situation because I'm just like instantly realized oh my God I have an issue with cocaine I'm

addicted to it. I'm going to quit this. And the way I'm going to quit this is I'll just replace cocaine with marijuana and alcohol. And I was just like, that's how I'll get rid of this issue. Now I look at it. I'm just like, wow, I just replaced addiction with addiction. That's my solution. Yeah, I mean, understandably. But I mean, at the time, if that's the one thing that's causing you distress and causing the problems, then, I mean, it only makes sense for your solution to be to remove that and bring in more of the things that aren't necessarily at the time, like, ruining your life. I'm with you on that, too. I had many different interventions that I put in place personally that would, in the time, it reduced the harm. But then when I look back,

like with time, it probably increased the amount of harm that it did, you know, in my life. But everybody has sort of their own thing. How old were you when you were doing this? You're in graduate school at this time? Yeah, so I was like 23, 24 when this was. basically happening. And it's like you said, it's true. It's like I kind of snapped it to this thing of like, well, weed and alcohol were never a problem. And so like that would be like the obvious solution. But then the irony and the big picture of everything is that weed and alcohol become my ultimate downfall in life that like led me to recovery. So yeah. I mean, you even brought it up earlier in the show there about you're trying to fill a void internally with an external substance

or external source, yeah, I mean, eventually that it doesn't matter what it is until we can fill that void with something that's productive or helpful or positive than if we try to fill it with the other stuff. I mean, it'll never be enough. It'll never be enough to fill it. And then, you know, things can get out of hand. So how do things look for you in graduate school? Did you get back on track with your studies? No, no, no. It was terrible. That was the thing is with the cocaine addiction, it lasted long enough that, you know, when you're in graduate school, the main thing is not just taking classes, but doing your research. And I just threw my research to the side. I even remember time where, oh gosh, it's still like stuck in my memory where like the professor who I was studying under, there was one time that he brought me into his office and just laid into me every single foul, like, no word that you could say. And now I don't even blame them because it's just like I was blowing off of like my time there. So I was so far behind. I ran out of like financial aid that like I was able to basically get while being there my ability to actually work there. And then like amongst all this turmoil of everything going wrong in grad school, my wife at the time were now divorced. She got pregnant. And so rather than getting things back on grad school, it became this thing of just like, well, I don't need grad school anyways. I have to go and find. And a career because now I'm going to be a father apparently. And so I have to get things on track. And so

I left grad school and when you have a science degree underneath your belt, like a bachelor's in science, one of the easiest tracks to get into is like just becoming a teacher. They constantly need like science teachers in school. So I saw that that's where the demand is. And so rather than finishing off grad school, I just involved in like a credential. program and became like a high school science teacher. You do a lot of everything. Just like that. We just switch gears in high school.

What's the reason for the shortage of high school science teachers? It's just one of these things of when you get a degree in science, there's a lot of jobs out there that pay really, really well that you can do with that degree. And so someone who is willing to take like less money and also deal with the, I'm telling you, I'm no longer a teacher. now, but like deal with the brutality of being a teacher and what a bunch of teenagers do to you

on a given day. There's not a lot of people that want to sign up that. So like, I remember one of my years teaching. There was a guy who came from a lab, became a teacher, and found it so brutal that he left the job within two months. And it was just like, it's better to go back to a lab. And so people don't realize what those teenagers do to us. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, I'm just flashbacking to how I used to operate in high school. Yeah, it was rough. I can only imagine. So what was that like for you? I mean, are things progressing as far as your addiction to the marijuana and the alcohol while you're doing this teaching career? Like, because you mentioned too, like, that's a heavy job. That's probably a lot of stress. I'm sure you have stories for days,

but how did that look? Well, it's funny because I have a tattoo on my arm and I guess this describes it perfectly. And I thought it was funny at the time, but now that I look back on it, I'm just like, dang, what the hell I was saying to myself? So, you know, usually everyone thinks of like apples symbolizing, like teaching and stuff. So I got an apple tattooed on my arm, but it's a rotten apple. And I got a rotten apple because I was just basically like, well, I'm a teacher, but I do a lot of rotten things. And that's why I got it. Because it goes with what you were saying is the reality is it progressed to being worse. I was pretty much waking and baking every single morning. I would go into and start like my first few periods like completely high and I thought

nothing of it. I look back at it. I'm just like, oh my God, I can't believe you're actually just smoking weed and then going into school just completely stoned and thinking nothing of it. I was drinking a lot more at night. And so sometimes I needed a wake and bake in the morning because I would have such a bad hangover at night that like I needed to get rid of the hangover so that I could actually go into work and actually teach. And so it had progressed where when I looked back at the beginning of everything where I was getting stuff done and it was just a part of my life, now it was something where I was still getting stuff done. What was crazy was I was like generally thought of as being a good teacher. Like I got great reviews and observations and things like that and I was

still getting stuff done. But it was now, it's every day. I have to have some. It was crazy because my wife at the time, she had changed her habits when she had my daughter. But me, it was just kind of like, well, you know, you're the one that's pregnant. Like, you're the one that has to change your habits. I can keep doing what I'm doing. I kind of made that like twisted deal with her, which, I now look back on it and I'm just like, wow, that's like completely unfair telling one parent of the kid, like, you have to be the more responsible one. I'm the one bringing in the paycheck, so I'm allowed to do it. Did she mention to you that you should change your ways or look at your ways at least? No, that's what's crazy about it, you know, because she is my ex-wife because I look back on the marriage and I'm just like when she left me, that was probably like one of her best decisions.

because I was very brutal and domineering towards her at that time, which is basically it's like I was the main breadwinner. I'd been the main breadwinner for like our entire marriage. And it was just kind of like, you know, since I'm bringing in the money, things are going to basically be my way. Now, of course, I realize in my new marriage that I have like, no, you've got to be equals and everything and have these good conversations and have a more healthier relationship.

But it was just my way to the highway with her. And so I made her basically except the fact that I was doing that. And so it started off just as that, becoming more of a daily occurrence. We kind of skipped around a little bit, moving from town to town, because it's when the economy was kind of bad and they would lay off teachers here and have more here. We ended up in downtown Los Angeles of all places. And then, like I said, it was kind of like an everyday thing with me, but this everyday me was now wearing on her.

And that's when, like I said earlier, she finally left me. I was verbally abusive. I was domineering. Another part of my story is I do suffer from sexual addiction, but I haven't really brought up. So I was a constant cheater. I was like doing things behind her back or I was talking to people behind her back. And she got fed up with all that stuff. And just after like nine years of marriage, he's just like, I'm done.

Like I always say, it's probably like the smartest decision of her life. But that's kind of where my story becomes now. This is where the downfall begins because now I'm left by myself in downtown Los Angeles, which is a city that has literally two or three bars on every single block. And I can do whatever the hell I want for the first time in my life all alone. So, yeah, the playground's opened up. It's interesting, too, though, back to the tattoo there. I was thinking for a second, right?

Because I think the reasoning I got from it is that you're a teacher, so you got the apple to symbolize that. that, but you're also doing this other stuff that you don't feel good about behind the scenes. I'm only guessing here, but that is like a internal warfare in a sense, right, to where you want to do better, you want to be better. You're holding this job to where people are looking up to you. You're teaching people. But what was that like for you? I guess that's the thing is you kind of realize a lot of stuff in your recovery, is in the fact that I'm just kind of telling myself like, dang, it was funny because you knew that that was bad the whole time. You were

telling yourself that. That's the reason why you got the tattoo, but you were fine with doing it. And I think it's just this thing of I was so dead inside. I don't know. Like, it's crazy now that you bring up that question, it's this realization. Like, I haven't even talked about that stuff with like therapists. I think I had that hole inside all the way going back to my childhood. that I was so dead at that point that it just didn't even matter. I was just numbing myself every single day so that like I laughed about the warfare. I didn't care like here I am trying to teach these kids to become better people. I just like I didn't care.

That's the thing about it is I guess as the weirdest part of my story was I just viewed my job as a teacher as like, well, I taught them what they needed to learn in biology. I didn't care about teaching them how to become better human beings. And now in the bigger picture of things, I realized like, no, that's also part of what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be shaping them to be like these people in this world that are thriving and surviving. You're not just teaching them a subject. You're teaching them how to live.

But I don't know. I guess I was so dead. It didn't even occur to me, you know, that kind of makes sense. Yeah, no, of course. it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I mean, I've been there to myself in different situations, but yeah, to where I just wasn't able to get connected with like any other purpose or have any other motivation to do things differently. And I always ended up at the same place. You know, and I was just looking to escape. I had a really hard time throughout and towards the end, just looking at myself in the mirror

because I was just so upset. There would be these small little windows that would open up. And I'd be like, man, I'm so upset with how I got here. And then I would quickly ask myself like, how, How did you end up here? And then I would shut it down. I wouldn't really feed into it or go there. I had those little windows that would open up to be like, man. And then sometimes when I would get arrested too, I would reflect. You know, obviously you go into the jail and it's maybe quiet for a little bit.

But then it's like crazy madness. But I would reflect for a few minutes to say like, well, how am I back here again? Like this same thing again. I told myself, I wouldn't do this again. I wouldn't be going down this same thing. But like for me, that was the addiction. I felt like 92% of the time I wasn't steering the ship. I felt like something else was making the decisions for me.

And I know that looking back, I love how you said it, the recovery eyes now. Looking back, hindsight, I'm like, man, like that just seems a little bit wonky. But so is going on. So I love how you shed light on that too, right? Because there's so many people that are stuck in this limbo spot, this spot of like, do I do something about this or do I not? And this is like where we end up. with it, right? So I think it's great to like put it out there that like, hey, this is how dark it gets,

but good news is there's a way out and you can't get out of it and you can change your ways and change your life. So where do we go? You said you're not teaching anymore and your wife has made the decision to leave. I mean, was that heavy for you or did you just kind of keep on rolling? Now it was you mentioned the bars. You're in downtown. Things picked up here. What did that look like? That's the beginning of five-year spiral. I started drinking pretty much daily at that point. I actually gave up on the weed. I just started drinking daily.

Because like you said, now the playground's open. I can do whatever the heck I want. No one can actually stop me. And so I started basically drinking daily. I was showing up to work, hungover pretty much most of the time. We had a lot of movie days in my class. There's kind of a joke amongst teachers that sometimes you do a movie day when you're hung over and you don't feel like teaching.

And so you're just like, we're just going to show a movie today. But like I said, this is where the spiral begins. It got so bad. And the thing that shows you still how bad alcoholism, all of this world can be, it got to the point where I finally got the shaking hands every single morning. And you think you would tell yourself like, I'm obviously feeling, I know that when your hands are shaking that this means my addiction is getting bad enough. My alcoholism is getting bad enough.

I need to do something about it. But my idea was not to go and seek help. My idea was like, well, you just need to drink when you're at work. So then your hands will stop shaking and you'll be able to write on the board. How bad is that is the fact that my solution to shaking hands was where I never would drink at work before. Now I just need to start drinking while I go to work and I'm at work. And then I can actually write on the board and keep teaching. And like I said, this is where the spiral begins in that solution.

to drink on the way to go to work. I basically, on the way to work one day, got like, sidest wiped a car and got my first, basically, DUI. So that's how my work finally realized, like I was showing up drunk. Thank God the person that I sidestwip did not get hurt. The person was actually even pregnant. And thank God, like their kid was fine. But what's nuts is that, like, you think that would be enough. Yeah. So I get the DUI. My work knows that I was showing up drunk. They basically tell me just to go to rehab. I go to rehab. I get some community service hours. I have to clean up the freeway some. I have to pay a fine. But after that rehab, my work still let me back. And so I just figured, hey, I took like 30 days off from drinking. So I should have it under

control now. And so I just go back again. And I get caught drinking in the class again. And now I'm fired. It's basically this downward spiral of where drinking because of shaking hands, DUI, go to rehab, get better, figure I have it under control, go back to drinking. This time they find me. This time they fire me, but since I'd been there so long, they don't do anything about it. I moved in with my mom because I have no job at that point. She finds out I'm drinking. She kicks me out. I end up being homeless. A friend takes me in, like finds me another teacher. job. But the whole time is every time I keep getting these jobs, it's just kind of enabling me. I'm not seeing the ill effects of what I'm doing. And so I just keep going back to drinking. It's just this thing

of like where I don't see the full on repercussions of my actions. I should be seeing them. When you get at DUI, you should be seeing like, okay. But since it always seems like just little slaps on the wrist to me, I just keep going back to drinking. because of my obsession for it. I just can't stop. So even being homeless and getting kicked out, that doesn't mean anything because I found a place to live and he found me a job.

So I go back to drinking. But it was that job that I finally got caught drinking at again that I lose my credential this time. I'd only been working for them for a short amount of time and they submitted it to the state, like everything that I was doing. And like I actually lose my credential because of that. Wow.

Wow. But that's still not enough to keep me from drinking. That's what's crazy. Yeah. Back to the story with your mom because we haven't heard about her in the story up until now. What was that like, though? Because your mom kicked you out because you were back to drinking again. So she was aware of what was going on and how serious this was.

Yeah. So what happened was after that first DUI, I say first DUI, I ended up getting a second DUI in my story. But after that first DUI, that first time when I signed, spot that person. When they sent me to rehab, I just kind of moved in with my mom temporarily. I still had my apartment and stuff like that. I just moved in with her temporarily to go to rehab in her area. And I was just like, oh, I'm going to get better. And like she was very supportive of it, you know, like she had dealt with an alcoholic husband until his death. And so she didn't

want to see me go down that same route. And so when I was going to rehab, she was very, very proud of me. Once I got better and I went back to work and I moved out, when I got caught again, she took me in with the understanding that maybe this time I'll realize the error of my ways because now I really lost the job. The time before, they slapped me on the wrist and said, you just need to go to rehab and you can come back. But this time, they were like, no, you're done. You're fired. And so she figured that that would be enough. And what she was doing is she was going off to work every single day and I was going down to the store to buy alcohol and getting drunk. And when she realized that that's all that I was doing, she just got that up. She's just like,

you're out. And yeah, she basically realized like she had to give me some tough love. What's funny is, like, you're angry at the time when they basically do it. You're just like, I can't believe you're actually like doing this. I hate you. But you just realized like it's the tough love that they're giving you in that situation, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, for sure. I've gotten a lot of tough love I didn't appreciate at the time. But looking back, it was all good stuff. But at the time, yeah, you were just like, oh, my good.

Yeah, you don't see it, man. I mean, a lot of part of what I'm hearing from you, I can relate with too, is that you just don't see the madness that you're wrapped up in. When you're right there, you just can't see it. Everybody else around us, for the most part, they can see it. They're just like, this is madness to be nice about it, you know, that I was wrapped up in anyway. And I just didn't accept it. Maybe I saw glimpses of it here and there, but I wasn't able to accept it. I think if I did accept it, then the next question would be like,

what am I going to do to like do something about it? And for the longest time, I personally wasn't willing to do anything about it. It was easier to blame other people, circumstances, situations, that boss, that job, that girl, this, that. It was easier to blame all that stuff. But then at the end of the day, it's like that saying, wherever you go, there you are. After so many years, I realized no matter where I go or what situation I'm in, I'm not employable. I don't do well. I have a hard time with this, this and this. And the common theme and the common denominator, going back to the teaching thing. See, I learned a few things is that I was always involved in every one of these things. What about your father? Are you talking with him or throughout this time or no? My dad passed away the year that my

daughter was born. When I went off to grad school, my dad, had gotten cancer that year and struggled with it for like basically a few years. So it's kind of weird is that he stayed an alcoholic until I pretty much moved out. Once I've moved out, like I guess he basically stopped drinking so that because he had cancer, but I never really got to see it. And they couldn't do anything about it. It was like they tried to treat him, but it wasn't going to go away. The part of his neck that it was in, it's like they couldn't remove it. And so the doctors were just like, you just got to wait for deaths. In my book, I wrote the line and it never occurred to me until I wrote it. I was just like, the year I became a dad,

I lost my own. That was kind of like the weirdest thing about it. It's like I become a dad at the same time that I'm losing mine. So he'd been passed away for several years before the madness that would happen. But I also look at the fact that it's kind of funny going back to those high school years where I was obsessed with working and not being like him, not being like him. I became my dad and probably even worse than my dad, like in my story. Wow. That's powerful, man.

The line there, too, that you mentioned is powerful. That's heavy, heavy stuff. Yeah. Just from the conversation we're having here, it doesn't sound like you had the best, you know, relationship with your father, but I'm only guessing here that that's still heavy to lose. You know, your father at the same time as you welcoming your daughter into the world and becoming a father of your own and then also realizing on top of that, that you have some of the same behaviors and characteristics of what you were trying to avoid.

Might be a good way to put it. Yeah, pretty much. You know, I never wanted to be him. I never wanted to be him, but I became exactly like him. Yeah. It's interesting how that happens, right? Because that's not just in your story. That's a lot of stories, right? We grow up with this idea. I don't know if we have a vision of what we want to become, but we have this strong vision of what we don't want to become. And then later down the road, we find ourselves very close to what we've said we don't want to become.

It's such an interesting concept. I don't have the answers for it, of course, but it's an interesting concept that that's a very common trend, especially when it comes to drinking and alcohol and alcohol abuse that we don't want to carry that on. And then it seems to be like, I don't know, maybe for some we just can't escape it. It's like it's there, you know, where we just know you grew up with it. You saw it for so long and you're just like, I can imagine it's deep down in you. You're like anything but that, anything but that. And then you grow up and here you are.

Maybe a part of it could be the fact that we're like anything but that. But at the same time, that's all that we know. If you think about it, it's like, my dad is my role model. Like, for instance, I have this realization in my recovery when everyone thinks, oh, drinking and driving is bad. Even when I got my DUI is just like, yeah, but how do you drink and drive? Why don't you just get an Uber? Dude, I grew up watching whenever my dad would go down to the gas station and he would take

us with us, like he would have like a beer can in his lap and just drinking and driving. It's just like, to me, that was like totally acceptable. Like my dad drink and drive. So I think that's the thing is as much as we don't want to be like them, it's at the same time they've also role modeled a lot for us in life so that as we become them, maybe there's just some familiarity to it so that we're not as like disturbed by it if that makes sense. Dude, that makes so much sense. You just cleared it up.

You cleared up a lot for me there, Derek. Thank you. That makes so much sense because, yeah, it's true. That's what we see. That's what, you know, role model and that's, yeah, that has a huge impact on us, especially in our younger years. That has a big impact on shaping us, what goes on around us, right? So that's a great insight.

So where do we go from here? So you mentioned you got another impaired. I want to get into when you got sober and I want to hear this incredible story where you are now. So you got another impaired DUI. Was that what changed things for you? That was. That was.

by that time, I'd met a girl that when I was living in downtown L.A., we'd been living together up in like this small mountain town. And like I'd said in my story, I'm bipolar. And I went down to see a psychiatrist that day and got kind of like pissed off going and seeing him. I was waiting in his waiting room too long. And so I used that at an excuse to just storm out, get drunk. And I was like driving up the mountain to go back home completely wasted and I hit a rock. When I hit the rock is included as a citation in my DUI. They wrote down that I hit a rock. They actually charged me for that. I get this DUI. They haul me into county for basically the night and I get out second DUI, no teaching credential. I do what every drunk basically does. I leave county and what's the first

thing that we think. I need to get some beer. So I walked down to the gas station. I get some beer and there's this open field where I'm sitting in. I have my second DUI. I tried to call the girl that I was living with, the one that I met in downtown L.A. And she's like, I don't want you home. Tried to call my mom. My mom had washed her hands of me too because obviously I never got better. My brother didn't want me to be a part of his life. I didn't have any friends. I kind of burned all my bridges with them. And I literally sat in that field after that second DUI and I was just watching all of the cars drive down the freeway and I just thought look at all these people they have somewhere they're going somewhere that they are wanted they probably have jobs they probably have families they probably have people

and I have nothing I've destroyed everything that was my moment I always say that moment was my step one. That was by step one of me basically realizing like, it's with that beer can in my hand, all for this. All for this thing that's sitting in my hand, I have nothing. And so that was when I came. It was the second DUI that basically finally did it for me. I left that field that day and I kept the beer in my hand until I could see a cop driving down the road and I waved my beer can at them. so I could drag their attention. And they pulled over because here's this crazy guy waving beer around. And I was just like, I need to go to a mental hospital right now.

I knew I was completely off my meds. I was out of whack from not seeing my psychiatrist. I'm like, I need to go to a mental hospital right now. And those cops were more than happy to take me off to a mental hospital that day. You know, didn't get in trouble for like waving my beer around and drinking in public or anything. like that. And they brought me to that mental hospital. And when I was in that mental hospital, I'm just like, the first thing that you guys need to do is you need to find me an inpatient rehab to check me into as soon as I leave this place. I need to basically get this thing solved.

That was the beginning for me. Wow. So do you end up going to an inpatient center? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went to an all men's inpatient rehab. I was there for a hundred days. I basically said, I want to be here as long as I can be here. It was in. interesting because at the time, you know, I only had state insurance. So it was whatever rehab you can get with state insurance. It was funny because the room that I got stuck in was filled with guys that were all awaiting trials for felonies. So I had a bunch of interesting people. They kind of laughed at the fact of here's the ex-teacher in a room with a bunch of guys that are up for felonies. But I got to know those guys so well. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. But I always left because basically I went to an inpatient rehab. I stayed there for 100 days. And the reason why I left that rehab was I finally had my court date for my DUI. And that judge was so pissed at me for how large my BAC was. I was at a point two to for the fact of that it was my second one. And he was so pissed at me that he remanded me into custody immediately.

And so I went from a mental hospital for two weeks to an inpatient rehab for 100 days to 30 days basically in county, like back to back to back. And that was pretty much what began my sobriety. Wow. And when was your sober date? When do you celebrate? This is what's funny. My sober date is 420, 2018. So my sober date is basically.

Yeah. That is what I always laugh is that my sober date is 420. 20. The irony is my sober day is the thing that began my whole experimenting into all of these things. You know, it couldn't be more ironic than that. Wow. Full circle. It's interesting, though, you mentioned back of your story there, right? The second DUI was sort of what broke the camel's back, I guess you could say, right? That was what switched for you. But do you feel like all the other events and everything else that sort of happened that maybe seeds were planted along the and they were just getting watered a little bit here and there.

And then that second one happened. And it's so strange how when that moment takes place, there's that time of clarity. For me and for so many people I talk to it, I don't know if you experienced this, but for once, it makes sense that whatever the heck is going on with us, the alcohol and the drugs are not going to solve that problem.

And they're only going to create more chaos. And the severity of the chaos is only going to increase with time. did you have a moment of clarity there that was like, man, and you kind of mention it there. You look at the can and you're like, this alcohol is responsible for so much destruction. Yeah, you know, I think it's fascinating that you're saying like these seeds to water.

That's actually like a very Buddhist thing, if you haven't really studied much Buddhism, is that one of the most interesting lines I read in one of these Buddhist books as reading was talking about how we have like these good and these bad seeds and everything that we do in life actually chooses which one that we're going to water. and what's going to come into fruition, and that if you want to just do good things in life, you just need to keep watering the good seed.

And I think that's what it becomes, is that you do have those moments where I keep watering the bad one with that alcohol. But the good one has moments where it is getting some water, and I was having them. I went to basically like three different rehabs by the end. The inpatient one that I went to was finally like my third rehab that had been to. Each time I went to rehab,

I would water that good seed, and I would get a little bit of the taste of a good life, but I would go back. And I would begin to see like that life could be possible, but then bad seed had been watered so much. It'd been thriving so long. I would always turn back to that. I think it was finally like at that moment of that second DUI that I guess I could say I got like a downpour of rain onto that good seed. I'm just basically like, boom, you need to basically change your life for good because this evil seed that's been growing inside of you right now and has chosen. broke out your entire life. Now you have to just choose the good one. You've seen like some of its blossoms.

Why don't you go and see like a field of blossoms if that makes sense. Yeah, no, that's incredible. How do you stay sober? What helps you? Like since the beginning, what's helped you? What continues to help you? What the heck does life in sobriety look like for Derek? I think it's one, always remembering that last moment, that second DUI. I think what's helped me out a lot for sobriety, and I was kind of telling you when I first contacted you and kind of like talked about in here, is that early into my sobriety, I had that girlfriend who I met in downtown LA, she's now my wife. I'm now remarried.

She's my wife and everything's going good. We've been married for like a year. I also had a friend at a sober living that I moved into after all of the county inpatient stuff. And they pointed me to like this one philosophy that was basically called Stoicism. It's like this ancient Greek philosophy. And it's been around for like 2,000 years. And that is literally the thing that has been guiding my recovery.

It's been the thing that has really strengthened me. Because the thing that's fascinating is that this philosophy basically says that your whole purpose to life is just to be the best person that you can be. as long as your goal in life is to be a good person, then you've fulfilled this. And you could do this no matter who you are, what you have. All of that stuff where I was talking about, like way back to the beginning of this talk that we've been having where you try to fill your life with like the externals and you're trying to feel that empty hole inside. Well, what this philosophy basically finally told me is that, no, the whole inside just can be filled with you being a good person. And in fact, you're trying to feel that. You're trying to feel that. You're trying to feel that. You're going to be. to fill your life with all of those externals, you don't even need them. You don't even need those things. They're not even anything that actually really matters. As long as you feel that whole inside that you will be a good person and you will actually have everything that you need in life. And it's weird. A part of the philosophy basically says, try to remember the bad parts of life.

It's like this thing called negative visualization. Try to remember losing everything. And that'll help you appreciate everything that you have in life. If you can remember everything being gone, I think about that moment on the side of the freeway where I lost everything and it gives me appreciation for what I have every single day of my life right now. That makes sense. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I'm wondering too, though, because you mentioned that to be a good person, right? What does that mean? What does that mean to you? To be a good person. See, that's what's so fascinating about what got me so interested in like this philosophy is that it's a philosophy of life. You know, there's different branches to philosophy. And a philosophy of

life is pretty much a way of exploring and looking at the way that you should be living. And there's different ones out there. And I've looked at different ones, but this is the one that kind of like made the most sense to me. And not only when you're reading this stuff, does it give you guidance on like, well, this is the purpose of life, but then it kind of gives you like some insight in what that would mean. And so what's fascinating about stoicism is the fact that it says, number one, the goal in life is to live excellence of character, be a good person. And the way that you do that is in four ways. And the four ways that you do that is you live by wisdom, you live with knowledge, you live by justice, you live by temperance, which is why I found that

this is so good for people who may not know what temperance is, temperance is moderation and self-control. So one thing, if you ask me anything that an addict needs is definitely temperance in life, and that you live with courage. And so if you can live with these four things, justice, wisdom, courage, and temperance, you should be able to actually achieve a life of excellence or a good life. And so that's kind of, I guess, to get at what you're answering is that's what it basically means for me to live a good life is that I'm living justice. I'm doing good by other people. It doesn't really matter as much what I want in life anymore. I have to live not a selfish life. I have to live a selfless life. I have to live with other people, which solves another problem

that I had with addiction, which is an addiction. We're very selfish. Now I got to be selfless. I got to be courageous in doing the right thing whenever it actually matters. You know, you always have to have courage. I have to be wise, have wisdom, and always think of the right decision at the right time. And obviously, if I'm not practicing self-control, I run the risk of having the danger of falling back into my addictions and the madness that comes with them. It's actually interesting is a core part of this Stoic philosophy is like living the serenity prayer. Literally, the serenity prayer is written directly into the philosophy. And I kind of laugh at the fact that they were practicing the serenity prayer a couple thousand years before it was actually

even written down. Because if you think about those four virtues that I just discussed, you could literally see the serenity prayer in them. Yeah, wow. That's incredible. So that was somebody introduced you to that in the sober living. And then you obviously looked a little bit deeper under the hood. And is this one of those things you can continue to learn? I know there's some of these philosophies out there where there's more to be uncovered or you understand things differently as you go through. See, I think the thing about it is there's a lot of books out there that will give you the basics and something that like, okay, this is like where you get starting stuff. And so I constantly keep reading books on the subject and I constantly try to keep teaching myself more. What's fascinating about a philosophy life, it's a philosophy that is lived. It's not something that you basically read and that you're just like, oh, I'm done with it. I got this stuff down. It's a philosophy that's lived. It's a philosophy that's lived. It's a philosophy that's lived. It's a philosophy that's lived. You have to basically live it every single day of your life. And in fact, another part of Stoicism would actually fascinate me is another thing from recovery,

is there a big believer in progress, not perfection? Because they actually say, you will never achieve perfection. Everyone messes up. You're never going to be perfect at living this philosophy. So to get at what you're asking is, in their opinion, you have a chance to learn every single day because you have a chance to learn every single day how to become a better person. And if you ever get to that point where you stop and you're just like, I've learned enough, there's nothing else for me to learn, then that should be a red flag to you because like,

no, no, buddy, like your life on how you could become better. Yeah, no, that's so true. Is there anything else that you have found helpful? I know you mentioned therapy too before. Is that something that you find helpful? Or you still do? Yeah. No, I still do therapy. Being bipolar, you know, I have my psychiatrist that I speak to. Therapy was really, really helpful. Obviously, cognitive behavior therapy is one that really, really works for us. So therapy helps. And then I would have to say, like, the support of my got my family back, you know, like my mom, where she gave up on me, she's like come back in my life and is in support. My brother's back. I have like friends that I stop talking to that are back. I have my wife that I I'm married to now. And it's funny, like my wife, she's not an alcoholic, but she saw what it did

to me. And she just stopped drinking herself. She just was just like alcohol's bad and just like stopped. So I'm with the normie, but the normie that I'm married to actually doesn't even drink anymore because she saw how destructive it is. So it's philosophy, it's therapy, and it's just having family around. And also my daughter, she's a big thing. Alcohol. whole is and took away me missing like half of her life. Half of her life I wasn't around. And so she becomes a constant reminder to me every single day of what I need to be around. Like I need to be there for her. And so I guess it's going back when I mentioned with that philosophy. It's like the selflessness. I got to support family around me and I got to live for them these days. And that's

what really, really keeps me going. Yeah, that's so beautiful. It's so incredible how things start to come back. And it's not going to be everything's going to come back into our lives. But it's so incredible how when we make a decision of one thing to get sober, how so many benefits just rain down on us from all over the place and so many maybe relationships we thought were maybe gone forever, people start to open up and be willing to work on things with us, which I think is so incredible. If somebody is listening to the show and we'll wrap up with this, Derek, if that's cool, if they're struggling to get or stay sober, what would you say to them? What I would say to someone if they're struggling to get sober is that life can be better.

Life can be better because I remember in the worst of my addictions, I was just fine. It's kind of weird. You become fine with the shell of the person that you become. And you think that it's done, that it's written for you and nothing can get better. But that I wouldn't reach out and tell them that life can be better. and things can improve. And that the first step that we need to take in getting to a better life is just stopping the thing that's bringing us to that downward spiral.

It's kind of like what you were saying. And the last part is that everything's going to take time. Nothing's going to come back quick enough. But with enough time, life can get better. That makes sense. Yeah, no, perfect sense. And that's incredible because it's the truth. It does get better.

But when we're wrapped up in it, oh, man, I never even thought it was possible. I never did for years. And it's like you mentioned there too. You just become comfortable with the shell of the person that we become. You become fine with it. But it doesn't have to be that way. Beautiful message. Is there anything you want to leave off with?

You did mention something about a book. Do you have a book out? Oh, yeah. So officially this week. So I used stoicism to help my recovery journey. But one problem that I had with using stoicism for my, recovery journey is that you can search online and you can find people that will talk about doing the same thing as me. But there's no one that ever actually wrote a book on like, here's how you can

use stoicism for recovery. And so actually officially releasing this week is I have a book that's coming out called a stoic guidebook for recovery. And what I do is kind of take one of the most famous guidebooks for stoicism. And I take the reader through not only that guidebook, but I related to addiction, different types of therapy, to 12-step programs, recovery programs. And I kind of unveil for the first time, like, in a book, how you could actually use this philosophy that's based on living a good life by being the best person that you could possibly be and use that to have a wonderful and productive recovery. I got to the point where I was just like, you know what, man, since no one's ever wrote like this,

this book before or since there's no books out there. And I found this to be something that's just so useful. I've shared it at meetings and other people have found insights from it to be useful. I'm just like, man, I'm just going to put something out there so that people can finally read how you could use this amazing philosophy that drives for 2,000 years and how you could use it to actually live a good recovery. That's incredible, man. Selfless, right? Yeah, selfless. You got to be selfless and live with courage and wisdom and self-control. Yeah, that's beautiful. So everybody checked that out. How can people find it? It'll be available on Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. You can find the book. The book is called a Stoic Guidebook for Recovery.

A Stoic Guidebook for Recovery. Awesome. Thank you so much, Derek. Really appreciate the conversation today. Yeah, thank you so much. I listen to your show quite often, so it's definitely been an honor to be on this and share my story with your audience. Thank you. Wow, another incredible episode. Thank you, Derek, so much for jumping on the podcast and being a fan of the podcast. That's incredible. Love having people on the show that are fans of the show that listen to other people's stories and are willing to share their own. Be sure to check out Derek at The Sober Stoic on Instagram.

Let him know you appreciated the episode. If you have any questions or thoughts for him, that's where you can reach him. Thank you to everyone as well for your continued support on the show. It's just incredible. If you want to get in touch with me, send me over a message on Instagram too at Sober Motivation. And I'll see you on the next one.