Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Ed Latimore had the odds stacked against him from day one.With goals and a purpose Ed found a way out and is living his best sober life.

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Ed Latimore grew up with the odds stacked against him. After sometime Ed would be looking for a place to fit it and drinking alcohol entered his life. Ed is a veteran of the US army national guard and a former professional heavyweight boxer and this is Ed’s Story on the sober motivation podcast. Check out Ed's Book Sober Letters To My Drunken Self HERE Follow Ed Latimore on Instagram: Click here Support the Sober Motivation Podcast for editing work: Click Here Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram: Click Here

Welcome back to season two of the Subur Motivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is 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. Ed Lattimore grew up with the odds stacked against him. After some time, Ed would be looking for a place to fit in and drinking alcohol entered his life. Ed is a veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard in a former heavyweight, professional boxer.

And this is Ed Story on the Subur Motivation podcast. Brad here, everyone. Hope you are well. Look, the editing for the podcast runs about $1,000 a month. And I'm just putting it out there. If anybody's in a position to maybe skip your coffee this week and donate a few dollars to help cover the editing costs of the podcast, that would be much appreciated. You can head over to Instagram and click my link tree or in the show notes.

I'll put the link to buy me a little. coffee.com slash sober motivation. Thank you. At Sober Buddy, we've always got something cooking. And the community and connection that is developing and been built on the app is truly incredible. If you feel like you're doing this whole recovery journey alone, download the Sober Buddy app, your Sober Buddy.com, or head over to your favorite app store and download the app

today. There is an incredible community over there waiting for you. You can join one of 10 live hosts. and support groups per week, and there is also four member-led meetups on the weekends. See you over there. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Ed Latimore with us. How are you doing?

I'm doing pretty good, man. How are you? I'm well. I'm well, and I'm glad we got to connect on this podcast. How we usually start out, Ed, is what was it like for you growing up? Man, I was a typical at-risk use. I grew up in public housing, raised by a single mom, and poverty spent most of the years on and off welfare relying on food banks and public assistance, things that I nature.

And anyone familiar with that environment understands that naturally breeds a lot of other things that are not obvious on the surface, you know, a lot of abuse that took place at home and that it's not like I felt safe outside of my home either because of kids and fighting there. And that was just like the violence that I would directly deal with. We're not even talking about the kind of just prayerful gang violence and things that I nature in the environment. So I say my childhood was relatively a high cortisol childhood. I was always in a period of stress. And as I look back, probably like PTSD kind of.

You know, like if you look up the A scores, the adverse childhood, experiences. I had all of those things. And what do we know about people in prison? You know, thank goodness I didn't get arrested, but a lot of people with addiction. They had a lot of adverse childhood events, and I had all of them. And that's what Grano was like for me in a nutshell. Yeah. How was school for you? You know, that was my saving grace really was because I didn't like school, not because I didn't like learning. I loved learning. I hated the environment and the people I was around. It was another place I got teased. I had to fight it had to deal with things like that. But the school I went to, they had something called a gifted program.

And, you know, they identified you early and then looked at like your IQ. And we're like, oh, you're bright enough to be going with these other kids. So one day a week, until I would die school, I went to a school with other kids of different neighborhoods and backgrounds. And I got to see something different from when I grew up around. You know, it's not like now we get a flick on YouTube or any of the social media and see there's really another life. I didn't have that. None of us had that. So this experience definitely altered my trajectory in a very small way, a way I wouldn't even recognize, but it did it.

And I saw it. And for what it was, and it really helped me out. Then when I got to high school, I didn't go to a high school that my neighborhood should have sent me to because I made a conscious decision. Even at 13, like, I'm not going here. So I had my mom enroll me in a high school across town where a lot of the people who I knew from the gift. this 10th, Santa Rupoa. And that experience changed my life entirely. A lot of my good friends today, still at 38 years old, I met when I was 14 as a freshman in high school. And it really made all the difference in my life. I got to see things that I never saw that were just like normal. But to me,

I was like, wow, that's something that you see on TV, like two parents in the house are people with jobs, you know, like, that's crazy, or are having a safe environment to come home from school or having enough food, things like that. It was cool to see that kind of stuff. That's just the surface level, but beyond that in high school, having those people, they took care of me like I was one of their old. Like, there were two summers. Well, once I were for sure, and then, like, majority of the school year, they just let me stay there. So I didn't have to go all. I'd have to go to my environment. But that whole environment, school, too, it was miserable. I hate it. Hate it. Yeah. And what did things look like for you after? High school, when you?

When did you get into drinking? Was that during high school or no? Yeah, no. So, so for what I understand, I'm a bit of a rare case, not super rare, but a little rare, in that I didn't drink high school. One of the cool things about the Fray Group I had is that there's some good kids, man. We started drinking after high school when everyone went to college, and that's where it started for me. I probably had like some beers when I was 17 on like a recruiting trick. But in terms of the real drinking that starts I was 18 in college, you want to talk about what leads a person to be addicted to drugs and alcohol? I think a big portion of it. We have a lot of research to support we're all about to say that it's not just a

physiological aspect. But when you feel lowly and misunderstood and you don't feel like you belong or you have a strong base to fall back on, whether it be family, well, for me, I didn't have a family, because of the day I don't have a lot of family. That I keep in contact with. It becomes becomes very easy to get addicted to something because the product tends to come with a build in social circle. I felt like I could belong with drinking. It was very easy. Yeah.

It creates that social aspect to where that's what everybody's doing. That's what brings everybody together. Yeah. If you're not careful, at first you're drinking to fit in. And whenever there's a thing to do, you go do it because you don't want to be lowly. And then if you have a certain personality trait, like I'm really. really big on just naturally I can't help it. I don't like to blend into the background.

So I like to stand out kind of be the center of attention. Either as a teacher or in this case, a clown, right? So I go drink even harder. And then over time, you can't separate the two. You don't know having a good time and drinking is like independently one another. So all your ideas of having a good time revolve around alcohol. And then something really odd happens. And I remember when it happened, we wrote clearly,

you can't have a good time without boobs, period. And if you do, it feels weird, or you don't even let yourself fall into the moment. You know, you start making all of your selections on what to do or way to go based on how much alcohol is available at that place. It's a very weird environment you end up putting yourself into that way. Yeah, it's a low barrier entry to like socialization, right?

drinking, you can get into these environments as to where building genuine relationships with others, for me, that was always extremely difficult. I didn't know how to do that. Nor did I feel like I was really worthy of doing that because of the self-sabotage. Things usually didn't work out. So building relationships with other people based on the drinking or the drugs was just, that was the only requirement. As long as you did that, then you'd be pretty good. When did that switch place for you? When did you notice it changed from you were looking to fit in to now this is something that's really ingrained in your life? Yes. So I remember this would have been 2011 and I got recruited by this group out of Los Angeles because I'm off boxing.

I was a big guy, good and good pro. I mean, it was a good fighter. Proof, I got recruited by this program out in LA. They were paying guys to a train a fight to get through the Olympic trials and everything like that. And I remember it was a real sudden move. And I didn't know anyone. We were in Carson, California. Anyone listed in who understands Los Angeles.

When I say Carson, I'm like, well, people actually live there. Yeah, there's people out there. And so, and I say that we, it's not like when people think about like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills or Burbank or something like that. I wasn't near any of it. I wasn't near and then. I was away. Wasn't even a Long Beach just in the middle of nowhere. So I was lonely.

And I didn't know how to make friends. I didn't know how to go. meet people. I don't know how to go do something, but I did know how to drink. And where I'm from a Pennsylvania, the alcohol, most of it, they're changing some things now, but most of it is controlled by the state. So you got to go to a state store. That's what we call it. State's a liquor store right. I didn't know, like in the other, there's only one other state like that, Utah, but in the other 48, you go to Target and get you a bottle and some gin bean or something like that. And there was a target right across the street, so I would just go get booze. And that was

my way of feeling happy because I wasn't happy. And I was trying to recreate this happenings and it wasn't working. And that's when I did it was a problem. So you were aware then that there was a problem that was in 2011? Oh, you know, it was crazy. And I wonder how many addicts have a similar story. I've talked to enough about this particular aspect to know that I'm not alone. I just wonder how many there are like me. So I knew probably like 2008, 2009, I knew I was messed up. I knew that my relationship with alcohol had taken a dark path. And I knew it was no longer a relationship where I was the one directed date. That makes sense.

It was the boost. And it was my desire that was directed everything. And I didn't care. And so when I came to this realization for like three, four years after I did these folk quit. You know, I've done it and then be back on the 30 days. Or I want to be sober for a week. Be back on. All stuff like that.

I knew it. didn't take action, but I knew. I knew it was something up. Now, whether I said I'm an alcoholic or not, I don't think I did that full blow diagnosis, but I knew I wasn't drinking normally. And I couldn't, because of the way I think and the way I am, I couldn't attribute it to just being in my 20s. I couldn't do that. Because I saw people around me who my peers, they weren't drinking like this. In fact, I went and talked about it. I said, man, I think I got a problem. I might have to go to A8. And his response, was about you sure AA is forever, which is just like, you know, it is a kind of a dissuading

tool. And what he was saying was he didn't understand how I could think that me drinking this way when it's a problem. So clearly I was just diagnosing things are wrong. I think that's one of the worst things you can do, you know, for the record, just slightly related if you think you have an issue, don't go to your friends you drink with. And that's their perspective. No matter How much control you think they have, how much you think they have your best interest at heart, can't get their opinion. Because what they're going to have to do if they say you have a problem, that's going to force them to, at the very least, consider themselves as an enabler. If not go, wow, do I have a problem, too, with most people are ready for that level of self-reflection. Yeah, that's a powerful thing, too, because a lot of people I hear their parents or other people in their lives are wondering and questioning.

what do you mean you have to quit drinking? Like, just cut back, just moderate. It just seems like a very common thing that other people are saying. And that's one of the things I mentioned is like maybe, yeah, if they're saying like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, you're right. There's a big problem. And they drink as much as you drink. That puts them in a little bit of a shaky spot to say, well, where do I land?

And like you said, people are more times than not willing to go there to do that reflection. Yeah, it's a funny thing. Whenever I talk to people who are, who are like on the fence, one of the things I say, I remind them as like, you know, you can't use your friends as a gauge. You cannot do it because either they are just like you, and that's why you're friends, or they don't know how different they are from you. And you kind of, by definition, don't know how different you are from them. So you're using them as a frame of reference doesn't tell you anything. You never have to drink as much as them, okay?

Because there's more than one way to have a problem with alcohol. And one of the big ways that I find young people afflicted by is alcohol gets in the way of their ability to achieve their goal. Imagine this. Like, no one ever sees you drunk and you never really drunk except, you know, for a big, base, base, bad work, are before. for big day or something like that. And you want to have a good relationship. You want to get a good promotion. But not only do you mess it up, you knock yourself backwards.

I'd say you have a problem. It's a big one. You don't know how to handle stress without alcohol. And to everyone else, it might just seem weird or it might just seem like even a cute quirk, but they don't have to live your life. And that's the hardest thing for a lot of people to get is that at the end of the day your friends don't live your life. And when I finally made the real commitment to get sober, or my first day of sobriety was December 23rd, 2013. I remember exactly what I did because I was

afraid of this. I went to an A.A. meeting came out and I texted all my five closest friends and I said, look, man, I have a problem and I got to stop drinking. And I understand if you guys don't want to kick it with me anymore, but I got to do this for me. Because I was worried my friends and I want to be my friends, which I think is a, I don't think it's a valid concern if you have good friends, but it is a sensible one. Like, all you've been doing is drinking, even though we were friends before alcohol, since I was cutting out what was a significant portion of our life and kind of indicting myself, I could see that, but they weren't worried. They were all very supportive. But I could only do this, whether they had my support or they gave me support, or not. I could only

do this if I was like, all right, I have to do this from my life. I got to live this like. Yeah, no, so powerful and so true. So what was it like for you? What was the day in the life like for Ed? Because you're doing boxing. How did that play out? How did that pan out in California? So in terms of the boxing, man, I probably had, so a little, a little, not completely

off topic, but just to put things in perspective. You know, when I got recruited, I had been fighting for three years and I had like 24 fights, man. I got 24 fights in my first nine months out there. I mean, I really got a lot of experience and training. And it developed me sharply. I ended up winning a national title. I got a national ranking. It set the stage for everything I could do in my professional career. And I really took my athleticism, I think, to a level I may realistically never get to again. I'm just older now, but I wasn't particularly young. I said out as to say that in the midst of all this, and I'm killing a bottle of wine in a fifth or a case, like a day, something.

They're highly functional. And no one really cares as long as you don't hurt anymore. Or you make people look bad. No one cares. So if I could go back, you know, I look and go, well, I was making a lot of progress, but I was a highly functional alcoholic, man. And then the pure sense of work, I just wrote an article about this about, like, how do you know you're highly functional as an alcoholic.

And people should look at you kind of in awe. be like, how are you doing all this and drinking like that? But the reality is, you know, burning a candle at both ends makes it extinguish at least twice as fast. Are you not even extinguish? Man, it gets used up. It's not even going to be a candle left. That was like there.

And then when I came back, I was doing things like I started moving my practice schedule around so I could go drink. I showed up to practice a few times drinking. I had a part-time job. I was drinking between on the shift or beforehand. It became my way to get through the day. It wasn't even just this thing anymore. It was like, I got to drink.

You got to go do something to operate and to move. And I had like this weird foam over. Like, what am I really missing out on? Feeling a little drunk. Having some cool stories. I don't know. But yeah, that was really what it was like. I wanted to just drink all the time.

And it really became this thing that I had to do to live normally. I put normally in air quotes. some podcasts we're going to see but live normally you know move through world function right all that good stuff yeah how did your relationships look like with other people at this time like when oh man you know god bless my friends my good waters because you put stress on a relationship and maybe don't never admit it but i know how i behave i know it's hard i mean i lost some friends not of my good long-term friends because I didn't do anything that crates

the long friends you had you know but the more lenient they'll be and one thing I've also found this is key for anyone listening you know as long as you don't like kill somebody if you get in front of your problems before they cause a big problem people forgive a lot of shit

because they'll see it was this and you got this thing under control and you're serious now so it'll be 10 years this December at 10 years you know people see I'm serious So they look and go, well, it was the booze doing that. It was crazy.

But the relationship's not. They get strained. You can't have a functional relationship. I mean, I wasn't. I only wanted to socialize if there was alcohol. As simple as that. If there wasn't, what are we doing? Or we go to drink.

And then on top of it, there's like the brain for fallout. There are the stupid risk you take. Your friends have to be like, I don't know how I feel about this, but I'm going to distance myself. Like a lot of the driving I did under the inflows, It was a stupid thing to do. And I don't blame my friends for. Didn't even have a mad stop associating with me.

And then there was like, I didn't have any money. It's been on. I always had money for booze. Couldn't quite get enough to get a place to live, but I could always find booze money. It's insane to me looking back. It's not like crack, but it's alcohol costs a bit, man. And you got to take the time and do it. My whole life was just sitting around like chasing girls and drinking.

And I'd use the former to really, I think. think justified a ladder or maybe it's vice versa. But one of the things I also found was you can convince yourself of a lot. Like you convince yourself to stay out and then party and you think you're really social when the reality is you just want an excuse to drink. Once you take care to drink, it's amazing how introverted you were called. Yeah, no, so true. Did you start to isolate towards the end or was it all a big party for you? So I can't really fool. fortunate. One of the things that helped me get sober are making me realize I could do it sober is despite, you know, what I consider to be kind of a train wreck on my life, despite the box

success, I decided to enlist in the Army. And I listed because I realized that I needed resources to go back to school. All right. And when I listed, that wasn't the goal to get sober. where the goal was to go back to school. So I did the National Guard here in the United States where I only go, you know, one week and a month, two weeks a year. And it's not like they cover full tuition, but it was enough with scholarship and all that stuff, all rather with aid and then I got a scholarship later on

because I busted my eyes. Trabri was able to do these things. But when you enlist, you go away for basic training. That's 10 weeks. So from Gerald Ford to August 13th, basic training in the middle of a hot Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. And then I went to AI, I'm in Fort Lee, Virginia, for 22 more weeks.

So at this point, what is that, 1022? That's 32 weeks without boobs, without alcohol. And I was thinking about it, and then I stopped thinking about it, and then I started thinking about it again, when I realized when you go to AIT, you have a little more privileges. You still can't be drinking, right?

It's a big deal. Snuck out base one time. Why didn't sneak off? I got a pass to go, but I snuck to the liquor store because they catch you in the liquor store, you're in bad shape. So I snuck, and then pour some booze into a diet coat I was watching Bad Grandpa, I was from Bad Grandpa and just dropped from the Jackass Boys.

And then I sat there thinking, I was like, wow, man, I might have an issue, but it's all good. I went home and they went out, partied and drank, and pissed some people off and woke up, I didn't know how I got where I got. I just knew I drove there. And I was like, wait, this is bad news. And then I thought about it. It was easier this time. It was easy to stay sober, really make the commitment because I had goals.

and I think before that was something I was missing when I tried to get sober. I was just said, let me stop drinking. This time it was like, let me stop drinking because I just turned pro. I just joined the army. I just did the role to school. I just met the woman now who's the mother of my son, you know, it's just 10 years ago.

So I said, let me do it all of this. I had a goal. I had a thing I was driving towards. In fact, I still had to trick myself. First how crazy this shit is. I had to trick myself. I said, we're going to be sobering too. And it was like to our, I think it was like write a book,

graduate from college or win a title. But after a year, I was like, I'm never going back. Because all it took was a year, this focused effort and becoming a person to be respected and being able to respect myself, I was just like, well, I would never go back to that person? I hate that person. I look at it. And I was talking to a friend and she hates that I call that person the loser who I was. And I'm like, you're one of those people I drink with.

You don't understand. You don't get it. You know, because for you to accept that, you got to accept that. you got to accept some things by yourself because you was hanging out with me. So. Yeah. So did something specific happen on December 23rd? Nothing, nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, other than like, you know, the morning up, waking up and not know how I got where I got. But that was nothing new, the drunk life of Ed Lattimore. But I think I finally had something to looms. When you have something to lose, you just make decisions differently.

There's also one of the reasons why I think one of the things that really matured is meant is having kids because now you have something to lose, even if you're a piece of shit. Like you have something that you can really focus on growing and develop it. But I finally had some of lose. I didn't have anything to lose all those times before. And I saw how that got in the way of what could potentially be in my life for once. And that's what helped me stick. You know what I like in it too?

It's like that scene in the Matrix when they're taking Neo to meet Morpheus and he's like, no, I'm not doing this. And he tries to get out of the car and run and Truddy stops him. And she's like, you know, you don't want to go down that road, Neo.

And he's like, why? And she's like, because you know where that road goes. You've been there before and you don't want to be there. And I feel like I had that peak. I had tried a bunch of things in my life. Or I had tried, boxing was far about my most successful venture, but I had tried and failed out on a few things in my life before, and it had really taken a toll on, I think, when I thought

I was capable of accomplishing. But once I sat and looked at everything through the lens of alcohol, and I said, this is what the railway issue is. I said, okay, let's not, we're going to get rid of the booze and see if it's a big deal now. Yeah. What I can do and made a difference. Yeah, well, yeah, for sure. Definitely seeing you what you do over the years.

Yeah, I can see it's made a huge difference. I had this thought a while back, too, because a lot of us did the dare program, right? So the dare program and the say no to the- Yeah, the old dare program. Yeah. So we had these models. They're like a, I call them like a scared straight type deal, a little bit of information, but scare us straight because this stuff's going to ruin our life. I had this idea, and I'm hearing a little bit about maybe it played a part in your story,

is when I reflect back to when I started all this stuff, there was a whole bunch of things, but one of the pieces of the puzzle is I had no purpose in life. Even as, you know, young, right? Nobody gave me a purpose. Nobody asked for my opinion. Nobody, I never felt validated in that way like anything I thought ever mattered. I was just constantly in trouble. And I'm wondering if we went back to the high schools and we built a program

some way, somehow, to give people a purpose that come from these situations and stuff. I don't know. I'm like, would it maybe help them out to have these goals? because I didn't know what goals were. Like, I never passed the test in my entire life. So goals, and I had no idea, and I feel like throughout my journey in education, which 12 years or whatever of school, I never heard about setting goals or how to set goals or what's important in life.

I'm always curious about that. Yeah, you know, I think humans are, we are goals-seeking organism. I think we decide we want to do something that we get after it and try and do it. And we gain a lot of satisfaction from that I always say that, It's just the differential, not the destination. It's not getting to a place. It's not the arrival out of places getting to it that makes the difference in how you feel. But if you don't have a place to go, you know, you'll find one.

That's how it is. It's like a father figure. You know, we all need a father figure. And if you don't have your father around, you'll find a father figure. And you might find one that ain't got his, but your best interest in heart. It's how street gangs work. So if you don't have things you're trying to accomplish, goals are trying to reach levels,

they're trying to ascend personal records, you're trying to shatter whatever, something that has an outcome to, or a measurable outcome where you go, okay, I either made it or I didn't, that I think you're going to find yourself in a straight of mental health. And one of the most powerful treatments

are most common treatments, not necessarily effective, is substance. man. I always say that it's hard to tell the difference between being liked and being respected if you're not used to either. And when you're trying to become, it's like that socialization part. It's like you said, a low barrier entry to a social circle, being like, being funny, being the cloud, right? Being the got to drink, being a got to party with. The high barrier is being a person that people learn from, will offer advice that inspires, that motivates. The people respect, that's harder.

It's a lot harder. It takes more time, and it is not as easy. But I think it shields you from a lot of the BS that comes with a far with a cheap goal, which is, I think it's cheap gold, man, being like, fool's gold, as they call, or being like, chased out, you end up becoming an addict or something like that, man. Yeah, actually, yeah, I'm with you on that because that was a lot easier for me as being, sort of an outcast and then getting into these social circles. But the other part there you mentioned about being somebody that people look up to,

that I never could have imagined because that requires action for me to be doing the right thing. And I'm like, man, when I was 18, 19, 20, I was doing everything. But that, but I can see that as taking baby steps towards that. I definitely see as being very, very beneficial. And it feels the same but better. Like, it's not even a comparison, really. It just, for whatever reason, I compare them because they're both about the external appraisal of you, right?

But they couldn't be, in reality, any different than hating loves. Like, they're both external appraisal, so we put them in the same category, but they're not the same emotion. Like and respect, stem from two different things entirely. Like, I'd much rather a person contact me once a year because they need. need to hear my advice and guidance that want to spend, they're like, oh, where are you out? Why have you called me? Why have we hung out? Why have I heard from you? Like, man, like, if you hear, if I hear from you every day, that means you don't think what I'm doing my life is

worthwhile enough just that I'm going to be available. You know, I think people have a very twisted when they look at what you should be aiming towards in this respect. And you should be aiming to be seen as someone to emulate. And the only way to do that is to accomplish. And the only way to do that is to accomplish things and that requires having goals. And if you don't have any goals, you don't try and accomplish what you'll try and do is you'll just try and feel good. That's it. You'll try and feel good.

Which is what people do. They're like, oh, man, I want to be happy. I want to feel good. Like, nah, that shit is nice, but it's about better if it's a side effect of wanting to be impactful,

wanting to be meaningful, wanting to make a difference, wanting to develop a skill and hold yourself to a higher standard. You don't do it for the other people. You do it for yourself. It just so happens that. that other people take notice and admire. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's a great thing is to have the goals, yeah, because you don't have any, you just kind of aimlessly wander, and then, of course, I mean, substances, alcohol, drugs are going to fill that, you know, do a great job at first to fill that void for you, to give you some sort of purpose and all that stuff. So did you do any programs, treatment, fellowships, anything like that? No, man, you know what? I went to one AA meeting.

And then I said, it was funny, man. I was like, oh, I'm not like these people. I have a problem, but I'm not like these people. And so I didn't go to it anymore for like four years. And I went back and got contacted me along and was like, you know, the stuff you put out is really helped me. But my sobriety, I'd love to see you get you chip. So we went to a meeting a year four.

But I didn't really do anything. I had everything in place. Now, I think the 12 steps is a really magical thing. I absolutely think so because a lot of the work I did on my own mirrors the 12 steps directly. Because the program, as I understand the program now, I don't think the program is about getting you to stop drinking. It's about putting all of those pieces in place

and the natural benefit of if you follow through is that you'll go, wow, I don't need this at all because, you know, while some people can enjoy a drink, the value they give from it exceeds the cost for people like us, the cost that exceeds the value. But you keep spending on it because you don't realize there's another way. You don't understand why. And even if you understand why, you're not ready to deal with the world in the aftermath of everything you did rinded in the influence. You know, one of the big things I've talked about, and then this is something that I think the 12 steps handle is well in Austin. But I always talk about how you have to, you're going to have to learn to live with guilt.

That doesn't mean it won't go away or it does mean it won't go away. That doesn't mean it's got to run you or rule your life. But, you know, that guilt is a powerful thing because anytime you might think about getting drunk. You might. You think about how a bunch of a fool you were. And then I think you feel it. And then you go and you contact. I wrote what I was right in so below is my drunk and self.

My drunk himself, I think I wrote five people. people because I was just remembering all this stuff and I was like you know I've really got to apologize for my behavior XYZ I didn't mention that it was like but I didn't say because I was drinking I said you know my behavior was completely unacceptable and I've been working real hard towards being a better person I just thought about this because I'm working on this project to have others in a similar space I have no need for a response but I'm just like you know that I recognized that I was fucked up and he was not in the wrong and he was shape or form and you recognize that and me help me get sober whether you know it or not and that's

very similar to like you know make amends kind of deal but you don't do it to restore a relationship you do it to own you you got to own that shit so because of the way i naturally think and one about up anything i didn't i didn't go into a program or anything like that obviously they are good and they do great work and perhaps different me in a different life did do them i just didn't do one this time around myself but as I studied the literature I realized a lot of what I did I've always exactly mirrors funny how that works yeah the fundamentals you still put in place without knowing it at the time the things for change right might not have known yeah what it was that it was like in line with what was being taught there yeah that's incredible so if somebody's

listening to the show here and they're struggling to get or stay sober what advice would you have from your experience for them? I would say two things. One easy, one hard, get an easy one for. First, the easy one is you got to find something to replace drinking. It ain't got to be complicated, but it should put you around other people because, you know, obviously they exist, but I find that most of us who drink drink. There's a heavy social and ritual element tool, so you need to find something social, ritualistic.

You ain't got to be a pro at it, but you probably should pick it up. You know, go learn, pick up basketball or join the chest need, or taking class or volunteer. I don't care what you do, but you need something to start getting feelings of non-alcohol-based feelings of belonging. All right? That's the easy one. And the hard one, and I used to think you could avoid this, but the more I learn, the more I'm convinced you can't. you're probably going to have to modify your social circle at the very least heavily. Sometimes you wipe it out entirely.

And you have to do that for a short while. Maybe not forever. If you really want to be friends with them, but you may, you know, once you really got over that hump, you'll be like, wow, what I was even hanging out with these people. So you don't know. But you got to do that. You have to do it because I consider sobriety a habit, just like alcohol is. Sobriety's a habit.

And when you're building that habit, you need to give that habit enough rule to grow without obstruction. It's not like it doesn't develop well in stress. It's not one of those things, right? But it's not like a muscle. You know, you got to push it against it, and break it down and challenge it. And it grows big and strong. Like, no, it just needs to be over time you become that person who doesn't drink. All right?

So if you're hanging around all the places you've, been, but all of a people you know, but now all of a sudden you don't drink. Oh, yeah. Another, what in your life has changed? Nothing. So it won't be long before you're like, this sobriety feels so incompatible with who you are and where you're at. You won't have a choice with a drink.

Or you go, oh, you know, what a one hurt? And before you know it, it's what a, well, one more hurt. Well, you already have four shots. Oh, I'll try and fine with them done. You got to change your environment. You got to change your environment and get something to do. You pretty much get to got to build a whole new. I'll talk about this in my TED,

talk about addiction and identity. And one of the challenges to getting sober and staying that way is you don't. It was part of your identity for so long. You're like, what are I going to do now? Well, that those two things do. You gut that old identity and you apply the new one in effect. And if you do that for six to nine months, you do it right. You don't just go through the motion.

You don't have bad. Don't you really lean into this new group, these new connections you have. You'll find that it's a lot harder to go and drink. You may not be completely free, but you're going to be much closer than you think. It's just time and time away and time spent being sober. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Do you ever have the thought of drinking? No, you know why?

Man, why not I've become this person that people look to as a person who doesn't drink? And that means so much to me If I can really If I can save somebody From ruining their lives Because I said some shit And they go, oh this guy said it They look like me, got my background or whatever

Because guys are the worst with this shit You know, if you look at a lot of the Like you're in the sober space There are a lot of guys And certainly not a lot of black guys either So now that's not to say That everyone else can learn from you or me And I was never representation

dog. I'm still not really representation guy, but I understand that for some people, that makes a difference. So I would never go back to drinking if for any other reason, then now what I've become is something more than a guy who doesn't drink. I'm a guy you interview on a podcast, right? The loud speech is so people. I'm a guy who's interviewing a podcast. The guy who's giving a TED talk about this. The guy who wrote a self-pubber's book about it. He goes a lot of Cox on my site. There ain't any money. I mean, not. If there is, I haven't found it. We were talking about that before the show. There ain't any money. And if it's there, I haven't found it yet. This is my way of making sure that when I die. I didn't leave the planet in a worse state

than I found it. I did my best, the best thing I could. And so I couldn't go back on top of that, man. Like, I'm just kicking wife's ass, man. That's the other thing. The people in the podcast, maybe they can hear them a little sick right now. But I was drinking. Who know? Who know, Those aren't my system or my physique would be, who knows? But instead, man, I feel great, woke great, not wasting money on the BS. I can focus on all the things around me. I remember being consumed with drinking when I was at a social event. I never want to be that person again because the world is beautiful.

And I get to really contribute to living it. There's so many there I could go on, man, but never going back. Yeah. And you know what? Let me scratch that. Here's one scenario why I drink again. If NASA showed up and was like, yo, so we didn't get the technology in enough time. There's an Empire State building, size media coming.

This is going to be here. Or like on some don't look up type shit. It's going to be here in like three months. Get your affairs on order. I mean, it don't matter because there won't be much left. Yeah, I'd probably go get a few bottles and chill. Like, what else am I going to do? Yeah.

Yeah, that I don't know. Now, I think that's so important, though, is because over time we build up that barrier between us way things used to be. And the more stuff we put in between, then the less likely it is that we're just going to go back and it just doesn't provide that value. And it all goes back to, I think, for your story, those goals, what you're after, what you're working towards.

You're not willing to give all that up because ultimately that will happen. We have to be willing to give up where we're at, relationships, careers, how we feel about ourselves to go back to something that literally doesn't work to help us get where we're... Yeah.

But still, with even all of that said, it happens, you know, it happens time and time again, right? It's an interesting thing. So I would put it out there for the listeners. If you're struggling with this loop, this hamster wheel of being on and being off, like maybe look at the two things there that Ed shared about, are you changing your social circles and are you plugging into a more positive, productive community based on a hobby or a passion of yours? because the alcohol really strips us of all of that stuff and it just becomes the number one, it becomes the main focus. Yeah, you become like everybody else. I think that's the worst part.

I always had a little bit of that in me. I want to be different, but it's hard being different. Now I love it, but one of the things I think a lot of us do is we drink because there's safety in numbers, or so we believe, and there's safety in the long angel crowd. I have a lot of criticism. against the college university system. And one of them is that they promote that lifestyle.

And they don't do it like, oh, low drink. They do it, by the way socialization is set up and the insulation from the real world and not allowing bars to exist and not really dealing with the alcohol culture or the right way. It's weird. I have just a lot of thoughts on the university. I don't know how it is in Canada. man, but in the U.S., they were turning out more alcoholics and making them. I really think that a lot of kids are made into alcoholics, man.

And they don't even know it. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, we have a substance that has a really strong profit potential. I think, I really think it comes back to the money. And because they put so much money behind this, in all aspects of it, you know, they're not going to go quietly into the good night. means you know you got to protect yourself in a lot of ways because you're not going to get the government to step in and really protect you i mean what have they done at least in the u.s you can't

have commercials where it shows someone drinking alcohol what did you realize that that's a law all these alcohol commercials look like you y'all look every time it's oh not drinking not you can't show someone drinking you can apply everything else that is going to make you cool life at a party it's going to get you late but then i want to show you drinking that's their compromise, okay. Yeah, yeah. But we'll never see it like the way we see it here where there's no cigarette commercials. Like there are none of those here. They got rid of that a while, I guess the booze, lobby, or whatever is buying a lot. And they know that there's a lot of alcohol so in a college campuses a lot. So there's not exactly, it's like a soft partnership because

they can't formally come out and say it's a partnership because one laws. I mean, maybe in Canada is different, but here laws. can't do it, but they don't exactly discourage it. You know, like the university, they sell the booze and like, we'll card and we break down bars on the other end of that. While schools don't necessarily want to be labeled a party school, when a school makes the party list, it's enrollments go up. I did that research too. So they're not, obviously, maybe I mean, I'm going to assume they don't want students to be drunks. But there's a lot of money

in them being drunks, man. The kid comes up because he knows no party. You don't really have the incentive to squash that reputation. You know, if your enrollments went down, that would be different. But because enrollments go up

and our applications go up, it left kind of with this weird deal with the devil. And I know enough about our human nature to know if don't let them charge you $250 for a textbook, there ain't no way they're going like, Look away on this one.

Or rather, if there's the way they wanted to attack this one, it's like, ah, let's see what this goes. Yeah, no, so true. They actually released some new guidelines. I'm reading it here. The Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction state that no amount of alcohol is safe and recommends no more than two drinks a week for men and women.

As alcohol-related deaths soar in Canada. It was interesting. This came out maybe a month or two ago, and it used to be 15 drinks recommended to, to reduce the risk of... Wow! It used to be 15, and they've brought this a recommendation down to two. And I read an article yesterday that alcohol sales started to decline as well.

So, I mean, the way I look at this, too, Ed, is it's interesting. But I think we're going through the beginning phases of when cigarettes were exposed, right? It's like your doctor was smoking and everybody. I hear these stories from older generation, like having a baby, having a cigarette, You know, this was just airplanes. And now, like, if you were to talk to somebody who's, like, 16, 17 and be like, yeah, they used to smoke in restaurant, they would just look at you. Like, wait, what? It's wild.

You remember the smoky section. You used to be a thing. Yeah, in restaurant. This is crazy. So, like, now it's not, and that's cool. But, you know, I was in California. When I lived down in Cali 10 years ago, I remember seeing for the first time, like, smoking bands outside. And I was like, wow. Yeah, that is something else. But it's progress,

you know, because you can't make them illegal. We learned that lesson, but prohibition. And the only reason why we know Al Capullo is because we decided we were going to make booze illegal. You can't do that. But instead, what you got to do is really educate and change habits. And I think there's, I think there's a lot of hold there. Because that's one of the things that sparked the thing with cigarettes is, you know, they were marketing the kids. Joe Camels, Damn cartoon, characters, kids. It's nuts.

And people are like this crazy. So I think there's this road. But yeah, even when you bring up that kids thing, I was watching a show and I can't remember the show or what it was the day with one of the kids, but it was like on Disney. Like they're having a rough day in this show and they pulled up to like a bar. And it wasn't like what I would vision a bar, but it had the fundamentals and the basics of barstool,

height table, like a little bar top and having a drink. And this was like a Disney show. So I'm like, what purpose does that play? But we could go down this rabbit hole, I'm sure, for a long time. But it's been a pleasure having you on the show and sharing your story. You've got a book in the works, too. We're a little bit of time out from that book.

But is there anything that people could check out in the meantime to warm them up to get to know you a bit more? Check out more of your stuff. Yeah, you know, you can come check on my website at latimore.com. You can also check out, I believe it, have been to show notes. So I'm not sure you'll be able to check out a free chapter from my last book, Sober Letters to My Drunken Self. I wrote that book on my five-year anniversary of sobriety. And I wrote that to give back to people to help people in the same or similar situation

to where I was at. I just think it's a great, it's a different way to approach sobriety from the emotional aspect which you have to deal with. I guess that was my goal. I look at some of the Amazon reviews and some of the things people say and I think I had that goal spot on. And it's not a long read. That was the other great thing. People gave me great compliment.

Not a long read. Yeah. So definitely check that out. Get a free chapter and that'll really help you out in any way, shape, or form. If it's not you with a problem, then I understand it. Someone who does and perhaps being able to break through and communicate with them. Yeah, powerful. What's been the feedback from at Amazon?

Sometimes people can be rough. but has it been pretty good? No, it's been great. I got one bad review. Someone was like, the print was too small. It didn't show up. Like, it was the kind of review. It was no one said anything negative about the content.

It was the thing weird Amazon reviews. Like, packets didn't rob one time. Like, why? Like, do you understand the review was for? No, but people have enjoyed it. And I'm happy that I've had a chance to have that kind of impact on people. That's incredible. Well, like I said, thank you again.

And keep up all the great work. It's been amazing to connect. Hey, like Wise, mine, I feel the same way. Well, another incredible episode. Huge shout out to Ed for dropping in on the podcast episode and sharing his story. Ed has a ton of insight into this stuff. And be sure to check out his book, Sober Letters to My Drunken Self. Check that out.

I'll drop that in the show notes. And as always, if you're enjoying the podcast, be sure to drop a review on your favorite podcasting platform. And if you have anything else or I can do anything to help in between shows, feel free to send me a message over on Instagram at Sober Motivation. And I'll see you on the next one.