Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - John AKA The Tired Dad quit the ”hard stuff” but giving up alcohol would prove to be different.

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

On this week's episode we have John AKA The Tired Dad. John's journey hasn't been without its challenges. In his early years, he faced some troubles and like many teenagers, he experienced a rebellious phase. During that time, he began experimenting with substances, and unfortunately, it led him down a dangerous path of addiction. As he entered his twenties, John had an awakening moment. He took a hard look at his life and realized he didn't want to continue down that destructive road. Determined to turn things around, he made the brave decision to leave it all behind, except for one lingering vice – alcohol. Fast forward to today, many moons later, and John has embraced the role of a loving father and devoted husband. However, on January 1st, 2023, John reached a turning point and chose to bid farewell to alcohol for good. Join us as John shares his inspiring story of transformation and the journey to sobriety. This episode promises to be filled with valuable insights, motivation, and the strength it takes to break free from the grip of addiction. So, without further ado, let's dive into John's empowering tale right here on the Sober Motivation Podcast! ------------ Follow The Tired Dad on Instagram HERE Donate to support the show HERE Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram HERE

Welcome to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation 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. On this week's episode, we have John, aka the Tired Dad. John's journey hasn't been without its challenges. In his early years, he faced some troubles and, like many teenagers,

he experienced the rebellious phase. During that time he began experimenting with substances, and unfortunately it led him down a dangerous path of addiction. As he entered his 20s, John had an awakening moment. He took a hard look at his life and realized he didn't want to continue down that destructive road. Determined to turn things around, he made the brave decision to leave it all behind, except for one lingering vice. Alcohol. Fast forward to today, many moons later, and John has embraced the role of a loving father and devotes. voted husband. However, on January 1st, 2023, John reached a turning point and chose to bid farewell

to alcohol for good. Join us as John shares his inspiring story of transformation and the journey to sobriety. This episode promises to be filled with valuable insights, motivation, and the strength it takes to break free from the grip of addiction. So without further ado, let's dive into John's empowering tale right here on the Sober Motivation podcast. This episode is brought to you by Sober Buddy. Be sure to download the Sober Buddy app today. There's a 7 and a 30-day free trial, and you can join 10-plus support groups per week.

I host three groups myself. And I love seeing people from the podcast. Come in, join the groups, and get so much from it. We're able to connect, show people love, and just work together on getting another day sober. So I'll see you over there soon, your SoberBuddy.com or Your Sober Buddy and your favorite app store. Getting sober is a lifestyle change, and sometimes a little technology can help.

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How's it going, everyone? I don't know if you can tell, but I've been sick for the last week's episodes, a little bit for this episode, but the show has got to go on. I want to give a big huge shout out and thank you to everybody who donated to help cover some of the editing costs for the podcast. It really means the world. It really means the world. And if you're able to help in any way, shape, or form,

head over to buy me a coffee.com slash sober motivation. And if you're not in a position to, I still love you. I still appreciate you. And maybe leave a review for the show. Now let's get into this one because this is an incredible story. I hope you love it. Let me know. And I'll see you around.

Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got John, aka the Tire Dad. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Getting over a cold. That first one back of the late. It's summer. It's pretty hard. Knocked me out, but I'm feeling better. Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. How we start every episode, though, John, is with the same question. What was it like for you growing up?

I had a pretty decent childhood. Just typical, I grew up in Southern California. So I had an older brother and an older sister that I really looked up to. So my brother was into surfing and all that Southern California stuff that you do growing up. So I got into surfing at a young age, skateboarding a lot at a young age, and we would just skate around everywhere. This is mid-90s, late 90s, so it was a good time in skateboarding. It was also the time in skateboarding where you were a loser if you skateboarded a lot more accepted nowadays. But I just grew up like that, riding my bike everywhere, skateboarding. And unfortunately, at a young age, getting into a lot of trouble.

There's a lot of stuff to do in California and hanging with the wrong crowds and stuff. But family life was pretty good. Had a pretty good relationship with my parents. They did get divorced when I was 14 years old. Kind of did the typical acting out as a teenager in response to that. Yeah, that Southern California, that was like the Tony Hawk era, Bucky Lassick era or no? Yeah, Tony Hawk, Bucky Lassick. I was more into the street skating.

So like Chad Muska was a big deal. It's kind of when hip hop and skateboarding kind of started to come together. And Chad Muska and like the baggy pants, oversized shirts and all that kind of. It was peak like 96, 97, all that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's good like to have hobbies and stuff. I used to play paintball like many moons again. Oh, yeah.

Southern California. I mean, all the best of the best came from. Yeah, a lot of my friends did that. I have never been paintballing. I still want to try it. But yeah, that was a really big deal in the early 2000s, too, like tournaments. And it got pretty intense. That for sure.

What does school look like for you? Were you able to easily connect with your peers? I know you did mention some trouble and acting out and stuff. How did that look? So in California, where I grew up, elementary is still sixth grade. And then you have what we call like middle school, seventh and eighth grade. and then high school ninth through 12th. And in the small town,

I actually did grow up in like a small town within Southern California. And my elementary, middle school, and high school were all within like a one mile radius of each other. So I literally walked to school and skateboarded to school, elementary, middle school, and high school. So what was good about that is friends, we kept the same friend group.

Like I still talk to people from kindergarten that I'm still in touch with. So we all grew up together and then, you know, met some more kids in middle school and then high school. So it was kind of a small town vibe, but within a huge city. So that was good because I didn't have to worry about making new friend groups as we transitioned schools. I was able to keep the same type of friends and get into the trouble with the same people. For better or worse, right? Yeah.

And then where did things go for you after that? So after high school and everything, where do you go from there? Went to community college. I actually went to film school right after high school to backtrack a little. I played golf. I started playing golf in middle school and playing summer tournaments in Southern California. There's like a thing called SCPGA, Southern California PGA. And playing tournaments in golf a lot through high school.

I played high school and stuff. And then I ended up just quitting that because I was at. acting out and all that stuff. I was just over practicing so much and it just wasn't my interest anymore. It probably wasn't the best idea to quit because I just got to a lot of trouble after that. And then went to film school after high school and then some community college. I studied film and writing. And then I actually became a personal trainer just as a hobby.

In Southern California, it's really big health, fitness. So it was a good paying job and I just ended up doing that for a really long time. I mean, I still do it. And it's like 13 years later. Wow, that's, yeah. You were good at golf and then you kind of left. And when did substances come into the picture, drinking party? And it was that in high school?

No, real early. I put this out on social media. So if you want to look at my videos, I put the whole story out on a recent video. But my first introduction to substances was in seventh grade, and it was Adderall. And I know that's viewed as like, oh, is that a substance? Well, it's definitely a substance at that young age, using it as I was using it. So I did it and I realized, wow, like, this is awesome. I want to feel like this all the time.

And it's also when I realize I have an addictive personality. It's kind of how I'm wired. somebody with an addictive personality knows exactly what I'm saying it's like you do something and it feels good and you're like how can I do this forever all the time 24-7 so that's kind of when that started

and then smoking cigarettes smoking weed in middle school and drinking I had my first beer in like eighth grade got really really drunk for my first time in ninth grade I had pretty much got alcohol poisoning at my first first dance of high school. I don't drink any more, but when I was, I still couldn't have

Bacardi Spiced Rum or like Captain Morgan Spice Rum because I pounded like a big bottle, probably three quarters of it in about five minutes. And I was 125 pounds in ninth grade. And I pounded it before I danced and about an hour later, don't remember anything, woke up the next day. Apparently, firemen came. I was foaming from the mouth. My poor dad had to pick me up, it was a mess. So that was a dangerous experience. Speaking of like addicted personality or pushing the limit, that was like my first time getting drunk. That's how extreme I went with it. And it wasn't the last time. That's for sure. You would think I would learn from that, but I think maybe I didn't have a drink for a couple weeks. And then it was like, okay, now I

regulate this. You know, I can't pound a whole bottle of liquor. That's not fun. Partying through high school. I mean, I smoked a lot of weed through high school all day long. We would smoke weed 6 a.m. before school, field trips, anything. Like, any activity that we were doing, we had to do something. That's just how I was wired. And then harder substances later in high school, I had a first introduction with cocaine, my junior year of high school before dance, because I couldn't drink before dances anymore, because if I got caught again, I would be expelled. So I just did drugs before dances.

After high school, it got real bad with cocaine. I smoked a myth for about two years. Fortunately, I stopped that, but the cocaine habit got pretty bad up until my mid-20s. And along with that was alcohol. And if anybody's done stimulants, you know that when you come down, you need something like alcohol and stuff to make you go to sleep. And then I started cleaning up my act.

I'd moved out of California, I moved to Nashville, then I met my wife and definitely cleaned my act up. And it was good. When my firstborn was born, it was stressful. Our marriage dynamic changed. Like anybody knows that when you bring you first born in, things change, right? Started drinking more and more. It never went super off the rails to where I was like waking up or anything. And then 2020 catapulted the daily drinking.

It just got to a point My kids are getting older Where I'm like You know what This isn't doing me any favors And we can not pull over Not wanting to play with them Not wanting to go to the park

And I'm like I think it's time to maybe hang it up Like for good for good And my wife told me We've known each other almost 11 years Because she's the only one That really knew about my story Even my family

I never really told like the depths of my story And she said I always knew that quit drinking one day. Like, I just knew it. I know your personality. You're all in nothing. And I knew that you would do what's right and what's better.

So that was really good from a partner standpoint to have that kind of support. She never was like, you're drinking too much. What are you doing? She never, like, shamed me. She just waited for me. And she kind of just had that confidence that I was just going to quit one day, which I did. I haven't drank since January 1st. So I haven't had a sip of alcohol since.

January 1st and it's definitely gotten easier and I've learned so much in the past six months about myself. I did go dry for like three or four months last year only to pick it back up just as much as before. So I knew that, okay, I'm not going to be able to manage this anymore. When you start to realize you have a drinking problem or a substance problem, you say, can manage this, I can do it. And then time and time again, you start proving yourself wrong that no you can't and that's when you got to make that decision am i going to continue on and it's probably going to get worse not better or i just got to hang it up and that was my realization december of last year my wife's birthday's on new year's eve so we had like a party

it's a good time i didn't go crazy but woke up kind of hung over and i was like i'm going to do dry january that night i had like half a bottle of tequila and i was like woke up the next morning, like really hung over going, why did I do that? I literally could not pinpoint why I did it. So I was like, all right, you don't have control anymore. And that's a scary feeling. I think it's time to make that decision. And that's the scariest part is making that 100% I'm all in decision. What went through your mind when you're making that decision? What was so scary about it? I think it's telling your brain, like we're done forever, that sudden realization is. like, but wait. And then you start saying, well, how am I going to be social? Am I going to lose friends? How bad are the

withdrawal is going to be? What am I going to have to face now? Because I realized literally since I was 12 or 13 years old, every bad emotion, I went to something. Everything I went through, my parents divorced. He's just, I'm going to go party with my friends. I'm going to do this, pop pills. I mean, I'm 37 years old now up until my mid-30s, even if it was five drinks, It was, oh, I'm feeling a little stress. Five drinks takes it away. You know, alcohol is a pretty crummy drug in the sense that it's just poison, right? And it makes us feel like crap and the high is not very long.

That's why we have to drink so much and have the drinks throughout the night. But it helped with anxiety immediately. That's one thing. It helps with so well, only to bring it back worse later. But in that moment, and my addict brain says, I just want it to go away right now. I don't care about tomorrow. I'll just do more tomorrow. It's a vicious cycle.

But you do that for 20, 25 years. And then you stop and you're faced with all these emotions that you never dealt with. And that's the scariest part. And that was the hardest part. Wow, dude, that's incredible. You know, especially January 1st. You know, there's a lot of people I've heard over the years that get sober between that Christmas Day and the new year. There's a lot of downtime in that area too where, like, sometimes we're a little bit extreme with things for

couple days in a row or we're offworked everything. So, I mean, you just congrats on that. I'm wondering, too, you put down some other stuff previously in your life, right? You mentioned meth. And the Adderall is always interesting to me too because I'm hearing that story a lot. See, I was prescribed Adderall for ADHD. And my life really turned upside down when I figured out, my parents used to give it to me. I used to go to the office and get his whole system, right?

I never understood why, but now I do. This stuff could be very dangerous. but I missed a dosage one day. Like I didn't take it. And I felt completely different. Like I could be alive for once in my life. So it was stop taking. I pretend I would take it.

And I didn't. And then like behaviors and impulse and everything just exploded. But I think it's interesting that you can tie it back to that. That was like you were always looking to escape once you had experienced it. But how was it different walking away from alcohol as opposed to the other stuff you were doing? Like was it more challenging? Was the other stuff more challenging? or was it equal?

So it was different. Well, first of all, I was two different points of my life. The hard stuff was easier in the fact that, I mean, I lost some friends that I used to do it with. So it was just a more intense experience.

The why was, do you want to live or do you want to die? And this is like at 19 years old, I'm thinking that. Do you want to live or do you want to die? So I was like, I want to live. So I need to stop this because those kind of drugs, I mean, the places you end up doing them is like not good. I'm at these houses looking at these people.

I mean, like a guy in the corner like carving into the wall. It's like out of a movie. It's like some zombie stuff. And then how it makes you feel when it comes off, you know, you look dead, you feel dead. So it was just like a really bad lifestyle. And I was like, death is the only outcome to this lifestyle, you know? and I'm like 19, 20 years old going, golly, I got to stop this.

So I think when I stopped, it was just I had to get out of that friend group and just focus my behavior on something else. Well, it was easier to do when I was younger to just kind of move lifestyles and everything. So that's what I did. It was easier in that sense of when your friend dies or you lose people to mental illness caused by excessive drug use.

It's a little easier to go, I need to get out of this lifestyle. if you wanted to live. So it was the calm down and the cravings and stuff, a lot more extreme right away with those things when you stop. But you have to just move away or get out of there, stop hanging out with those people. And that's what I did.

The drinking was harder because it's so accepted in our society, even at my age in the 30s. It's not viewed as like a bad thing. But I told somebody, hey, I have a little. problem with meth or coke. They're like, what the heck are you talking about? You know, you weirdo. But if it's like, oh, like go on vacation and I drink in the morning or bloody merry this or that and oh, I have kids. It's stressful and I drink every, like no one even bats an eye. So it's harder because when you stop, people are like, I didn't think you drink that

much or I didn't think you like had a problem because it's also, there's a lot that people see and there's a lot that people don't see. They don't see me sneaking drinks at 10.30 at night alone. They're around me at social gatherings and sure, we're drinking a lot. Everybody is. So there's a lot that people don't see. And also, if you're friends and stuff, they drink. The last thing they want to do is reflect on that if they don't want to stop.

And now, my wife still has a couple drinks. She does not have an addictive personality like me. She can have one drink and then not drink again for a mother. She's not like me. Like, I can't have more drink. I'm not against people drinking. Like, if you have a good relationship with alcohol, I'm jealous. I can't live like that.

I wish I could control it. I wish I could have a beer with the guys and that's it. But it's six, eight beers or nothing. And it was getting worse. So that was harder. That was a long minute answer. But it's harder in the sense it's so accepted and it's around everywhere. So it's like just friends inviting it's over.

It's like they're going to be drinking. How am I going to socialize? How am I going to want to be there? How am I going to be happy? All this stuff in the beginning phase is that stuff is the biggest challenge. But that's what helps during the wintertime is that there's not a lot of social gatherings. So it's just you and yourself. And if you follow my socials, you will know that I got into ice pass cold plunging.

And it's all the craze this year for some reason. And I've been into them for like five. years. I've been researching them. So I'm not just on this like fad train that it's on right now. I've been into it for a while, all right? You started it. You started it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, everybody just thinks I'm, oh, everybody's doing nice bath. All the celebrities and this and that. It's like I've been looking into that breathwork, the meditation, all of that stuff for a while because this wasn't an overnight decision. This has been the last five years. Well, ever since 2020 to where I was like, this has gotten out of hand now. I haven't drank this much since, you know, call.

college years. Now I have kids, a family, like, can't be doing this. An addict brain, you have to switch to another addiction. It's either going to be good for you or bad for you. That's the choices you have. So I promised myself I'd do every single night or day on ice bath in January. And I did. And it helped so much. I would do it at night. Crazy. Like, it was very weather dependent because I just had the tub outside. I'm in Nashville. So we had a cold winter. Some night. would be 15 degrees, some nights would be 50 degrees. So it was a mental challenge to go out there, have that breeze hit you. I'm out there in my swim trunks.

What am I doing? And getting into that water of like anywhere from high 40s to high 30s and doing it. But, you know, the main benefit was just doing something challenging and doing something to get my mind off of drinking at that time of night, 5 p.m. 6 p.m. Just obviously you're in cold. You did something difficult. so your adrenaline's up, dopamine and all that. So it helps so much.

So I'm still doing it. Not every day. I do it at least three, four times a week. But any time that I'm feeling a little off or down or anything, I do that and it puts me back to baseline. I mean, it works for me. That's incredible. Yeah.

It's not enjoyable. Everybody's like, oh, you like cold water? I'm like, I hate it. You don't understand. Still, I've been doing it seven months. then I'm like, I don't want to do this right now, but you feel something better after. Yeah, and it's like flexing that muscle too, right? If you can do hard things and you can push yourself and you can do these things that you're

going to get some benefits out of. A lot of the stuff you mentioned there, too, about the differences in quitting. Man, that was just the nail on the head for me, a lot of stuff there, right? Because the alcohol is acceptable, right? And a lot of people, you know, I talk to, it's like they're relapsing or they're having to drink again and you ask what happened and it's like well it was pure pressure but if people pure pressured us into for this example doing meth like we're going to easily say no for the most part but it's that alcohol that it's acceptable and that we want to fit in and we want to be part of

what's going on that just i could share so much of that story myself too and then when you quit you're like oh my goodness the fun's gone what about the events and what about everything else and at first it just seems like everything's closing in on you and then slowly surely sure sure you know, I found in my story I was able to just find a way out to put one foot in front of the other until the days got better. Like it definitely did, you know, become amazing overnight, you know, the next day. But I felt like not waking up feeling terrible every morning, I was able to wrap my head around what the heck was going on, how I was drinking this highly addictive substance, expecting my relationship with it to change. And I did that for so many years.

and still ended up at the same place and much worse. And you bring up a lot of the same stuff. It happens, right? It's progressive. It sneaks up. One day it might be not this big of a deal. And then a couple weeks later, we all of a sudden are like, hey, we're thinking to ourselves, man, I got a drinking problem.

It's a scary thought because then you're like, once you know, you either drink more to quiet that voice or you've got to kind of take that leap of faith that things are going to get better if you call it quits. A lot of that stuff is home for me. man. Yeah, and a lot of people want to quit drinking, but they go, well, I haven't like really hit a rock bottom. And it's kind of like rock bottom's very subjective, you know, like to me, inside I was rock bottom. But to the outside, you would think, well, like you haven't lost your job. You haven't lost your family. Like ideally, you don't ever want to do something that would

cause that to happen. That would be really hard. That would make everything harder. You want to stop before that. But inside I was rock bottom for sure. Like my mental everything, like getting panic attacks, anxiety. Like, it was crazy. So you don't have to be rock bottom. I mean, you could be two glasses of wine a night and be like, I just don't want to do this anymore. It's over, you know?

It doesn't have to be this crazy story of you on the homeless on the streets or something. It's like, it could be you'd go to happy hour every Friday and you want to stop. Or you just want to live a different life to where alcohol is not at the forefront of every single decision you make. And that's what it was getting. Oh, we're going to the lake. How much am I going to drink? Oh, we're going over to a friend's house. How much am I going to drink?

How much am I going to drink on vacation? How much am I going to drink tonight? And it was obsessive because the addict grade, you obsess over like the whole procedure of how much you're going to drink. Are you going to control it? You got to let loose. Who cares? So. Time consumed, right?

Yeah. And it's just exhausting. You're like, in the American culture and other cultures, it's a celebratory drug. It's like any good news you get at your job, let's go get drinks, weddings, anniversaries, anything. It's like, let's celebrate with drinks. Let's celebrate with drinks. Now, if you have a good relationship with alcohol, awesome. You know, it's a great time.

I used to be there a long time ago where I can do that. But it's like, okay, yeah, let's have that celebratory party. but guess what? Now I have to continue this on tomorrow and the next day and probably the next year. I can't turn it off. And that's the problem. But yeah, it's like everything we do is surrounded by that. And when you get older, sometimes you have whole friendships that are based around it.

And then you stop drinking. You're like, what do we have in common now? What do we do? What do we do now? So, you know, it's hard. Yeah, for sure. And when you get there too, it's like, I couldn't see that anyway when I was wrapped up in it. I didn't know that my relationships.

You know, I don't know if I really wanted to know that. I wanted to believe that there was genuine friendships. And I believe we tried, like my buddies and I, we tried our best to be good, genuine friends. But when I look back, I'm just like, man, just the booze was just getting in the way of you're doing. But I love the other point you bring up about the rock bottom. And, you know, that's what I always say. I'm like, man, this is exactly, we're on the same wavelength here. Is that internal experience that we have of the panic, the anxiety, the insecurity, the insecurity.

you know, just not feeling well. And then that constant voice in the morning when you wake up and you're like, man, this is it. You know, like I would always commit to this is it. I'm done. And then I couldn't. I just couldn't quit. I made up my mind, right? Like I'm done.

That's it. It's too torturous. And then I would just find myself on autopilot bang for more. And then I would be like at the end of the night, well, that's it. And I'd be like, I just one more, one more. And then I knew if I reached over a certain amount, then I just feel like garbage in the morning and it's like, oh, here we, you know, the cycle starts all over again, right? But I think that's an incredible point is that you mentioned too there about you don't have to do this rock bottom. You

don't lose your family. And a lot of people will share like after that stuff. They'll be like yet, you know, none of that stuff for us happened yet. But who knows if we continue down the road. You know, I mean, how long are we going to be able to keep it all together? Because I know at the end for me, I was not, and that's the reason I reached out for help and rehab and everything is, because I just knew I was either going to die and I just couldn't keep it going. I just physically was just exhausted. So I love that encouraging other people. Like, have a look at your relationship with it and you can change it.

You don't have to blow everything completely. Yeah. The biggest thing with that is look at your relationship and really be honest with yourself, like vulnerable and honest. And you'll know the answer pretty quickly if you do that. If you don't have a problem with it, you'll be like, no, I don't think those thoughts. I don't know what you're talking about.

And if you do, like, you know if it's an issue, I just don't think if you drink a lot now that you're just going to drink less, you know, you're not just going to. Well, you tried that. Yeah, like it doesn't work like that. Your tolerance goes up. The way the drug is processed and you drink more because your tolerance has gone up. Me and my wife were talking about it the other day.

We just argue less because when I was drinking a lot, she was drinking more than she usually does because I'm like, here, I'm feeding her drink, you know, peer pressure because no one likes to feel like the one drinking the most, right? That's another interesting point is, okay, we're at a party with friends, right? No one's seeing how much you're drinking. No one sees that you've had 12 drinks. No one's questioning it. Now go to a soccer game at noon on a Saturday for your kid and pop open one drink. Just have one. People are going to be like, what the heck is that for? like what we've deemed acceptable and not acceptable, but it's all the same thing.

What's the difference if I have 12 drinks at noon when everybody else is drinking because we're at a party versus one drink at a soccer game? Like, why is that so bad? It's the same thing. But as a society, we've made all these unwritten rules when it's just, it's all the same. And I think in a sense, we've bought into it. Like, we've been sold a dream on this. You see, I mean, everybody's jumping off boats, every good time.

they're on the beach. Everything's good. They're not playing that tape all the way to the end to where it ends up for a lot of people. You know what I mean? Sort of the reality, but be able to walk away from it. So when you did in January, what changed, man? Because I know a lot has changed for you, right?

Like, what can you pick up on that? You're like, man, like these areas of my life have really improved. I'll tell you the good and the bad. A lot of people don't talk about that bad, but I'm real with it. So I'll tell you the bad. But I'll start with the good. The good was, gosh, like childhood memories came back super vivid. A lot of stuff that I didn't deal with.

Like, the good things that I forgot about came back. And obviously, way more present with my children, picking up on, like, just little transitions and obviously spending more early mornings with them and being more attentive in the morning because that's obviously when I'd be hungover. wanting to do more stuff, more adventures with them, never laying in bed all day, hey, go watch a show, like, don't feel good, like get up and go. So all of that definitely changed and was noticeably different. My relationship with my wife, when you're hung over and you're kind of in that crummy area,

you know, it's like hurt people, hurt people. So when I was feeling crummy, I might have started an argument with my wife for no reason or stuff that was bothering me that she was doing was just bothering me because I was not feeling good. So that's gone. I don't feel like that. Or it's easier to manage if negative feelings come up or something's bothering me or I'm overwhelmed stress. I'm able to talk through it.

The communication has gotten so much better. I've opened up more. I've been more comfortable sharing my feelings because I have to because I'm not going to push them down or throw a couple of drinks back to not deal with them. So all that completely changed. and it's been such a huge thing for me with growth and just everything of how I want to live my life now, how I want to be a parent.

The negative things are that you're going to get sober and just live this amazing new life. And there are days where I'm like, this is stupid. Why can't I just control drinking a little bit? Like I could probably right now have three drinks and be done. and be done. But how long a week? And then you're like, okay, that worked out. Let me, you know how the brain work. Oh, I had three drinks and I didn't drink for five days. So what if I just have three more now? And then next thing, you know, it's eight a day. So I'm not playing that

game with myself anymore. But those thoughts will creep up. I don't know if the other go away, to be honest, because I talk to people that have 14 years sober that still have those days, it's always going to be around. It's always going to be at events, parties, going out to dinner, going out to places. It's going to be there. You're going to have to manage it. It's frustrating.

I get really mad at myself sometimes of like, why do you've got to be like this? Is it just willpower or is it like a genetic thing? And then it's like you just get frustrated with life and you don't want to be so vulnerable all the time. You don't want to feel that. Like it's a weird feeling. I relate it to.

maybe like being really high up on a cliff and being really close to that edge and just walking, that feeling that you have that uncontrollable fear and like that lightweight feeling. That's how I feel sometimes when bad emotions come up. It's like I could just walk away from the edge, right, which would be going to have a drink and stuff and feel comfortable way over there, away from the edge versus having to walk that edge for a whole day, that feeling, uncomfortable fear could drop off, like so scary, all these emotion and everything. And I hate it. And those days, you really have to just damage control, I call it. It's just like, do whatever you have to to make yourself better, whether it's,

you know, I do the cold plunges, meditate, walking, going to do an activity, working out, all that stuff will help. But if you just sit there, there in it, it's a really bad place to be. It can be just crummy place. And I think that just those days will come up forever, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, for sure, man. Yeah. I mean, life is definitely still going to happen around us for sure. And you know, it's something for me, man, because I even think back too, like I have those days where I'm thinking, hey, this would be good, that would be good. And I've been at this for 13 years. But the thing is, that stuff works so good. I don't know if it's something that we'll forget. Because there was a point in my life where I

I didn't fit in and where I was uncomfortable in my own skin. And there was a point where I just felt like I didn't have a purpose or belong anywhere in this world. And then alcohol and drugs came into my life. And it was like, aha, wow. Like people like me now. Somebody people want to be around. And I had a purpose.

You know, you stick with it for a while and you get wired up that way. You know, that's what it was me. But I also have the tools now to play the tape through. Like you mentioned, I could do the three and stuff. But I always go back to the story for myself. I'm like, dude, I tried everything, man. I tried to do it after five. I tried to budget the money.

I tried to hang out with these people. Those people move there, change the job. I tried to sleep this time. You know what I mean? I try everything I possibly could to make it work. You know, so when I get those thoughts, I'm like, dude, like I talk to this little conversation in my mind. I'm like, it's a great idea.

But Brad, you tried it all. Man, this time it's not going to be any different. And I'm happy with where I'm at that I don't have to worry about burning down my life completely overnight, you know what I mean? But like that love that how you put it out there. It's like, yeah, I even put up a post the other day. And I was just like, guys, I'm sorry if I've sold this dream of sobriety being this wonderful thing all the time because like you got two kids. I got three kids. Three under five. It's tough. You know, sometimes even as a father, I'm wondering, am I doing enough? Am I enough at this? And that's why I connected with what you're doing, right? Because I

So that message, that stuff. So it's like, yeah, life still goes on. So thanks for bringing that up, though. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, regarding parenting, first of all, whether you have kids or not, when you get sober and when you're sober, for some reason at nighttime, all those negative thoughts creep up in that anxiety. I don't know what it is if it's the way the whole rhythm goes of our minds and all that. But it can be a crummy time of day. You could also have had a bad day and those emotions leak.

get into nighttime and you don't feel successful. Your brain starts messing with you big time. And that's when you would have a drink, right? And that's why it's called happy hour, you know, let's get happy. And also bedtime is usually the hardest part of the day sometimes for parenting. And your kids are going through it too. They just don't know how to express themselves. That's what I always try to remind myself and I do in my content is your kid is telling

you something. Yeah, they don't want to go to bed because that's separation from you. Imagine how that would feel to be separated from you're everything. That's how they feel. It's like their world. We don't have that perspective because we're not five years old,

but it's like awful for them. So they're getting out and they're fighting you on it and you're just like one to rest, right? It's hard to regulate your emotions like that. Well, if you have a couple of drinks, you can regulate them a lot better. And then it's like three drinks before bedtime, then three drinks to celebrate,

then three drinks for a night. You know how yeah. A point that I want to bring up before we wrap this up and I don't want to forget. And I've heard other people say it. I've heard addiction is a blessing. And I agree with that in the sense that if you can fight and win the battle of addiction

and switch your addictions to something that will benefit your life rather than ruin it. I just think this personality type that we have is a good one to have. It's just we went to the wrong thing. We got swept up with the wrong thing. A lot of creative people, artists and stuff, their substance abuses, just because it can help with that. It can help turn off. Usually that creative mind just nonstop

or it can help manage that a little better. But if you can figure out how to use it to your advantage, then you can do anything. I just feel like an addict brain. They just don't take no for an answer. They will always figure out a way to do something, hardworking, creative, everything. Like there's so many good qualities.

So if somebody is struggling, with addiction right now or something, fight it, win the battle, and on the other side, you can still do amazing things because that's your genetics. It's just, I've always said, I have to be addicted to something that's good for me or bad for me. There's no in between. There's no gray area. It's like obsessed with this or obsessed with that, things that are good for me, things

that have bad for me. It's how I'm wired. And that's what it is. But yeah, if you can find what the good for you, you can do anything. Yeah, no, that's beautiful. So true, though. Yeah, you got to hammer at those good things. But yeah, we did get swept up, you know, but it's incredible being on this side.

And I think just looking back, hindsight's always 2020, right? We kind of see like, man, you know, I personally am glad not to be living like that anymore. I don't know where you are with things, but it sounds like you are too. I mean, a lot of benefits and stuff. Yeah. It just disconnects us, you know, like the big picture. It's connected from the things. things in life that matter.

But it is a challenge getting, I think, reconnected to the things because it's unbelievable. Yeah, a lot of other things that usually add it some hardcore drugs and stuff, they have a little bit when they win that battle of addiction. A big battle they face is survivors' guilt because you usually have been around people that have lost their lives or taken their lives because it's such a dark life to live. I look back on a moment that I kind of forgot about until recently. But one of my best friends, he took his own life.

When I was probably 24 or something, I was out of the lifestyle completely, but he went down a really bad path and ended up taking his life. He was my best friend growing up. There was one night he got in heroin. That's something I've never done. And we were in the truck together and he said, yeah, I've been doing heroin. when I got some like black tar or whatever it was called. And I said, do you have some on you?

He said, yeah, I have some on me. I was like, well, let's try it. And he looked at me and he was like, no, I don't want to be the reason you do this. I don't want to be responsible for this. So if you want to do it, go whatever, figure it out. But I'm not going to be the reason you do this. And it was no more than like three or four years later. He took his own life.

He started doing that. As we know, that's a horrible place. That's a horrible drug that most people. most people don't get out of. But he started doing that a lot, just never got out of it. And then some things were happening with his family and stuff that he just couldn't deal with. So he ended up taking his own life. So it was over, what, like 15 years ago or whatever, that he passed away.

And I still, like, think if I would have done it that night, would I have ended up in the same place? Or, like, did he save me in a way? You know, I just think like that. sometimes I do, I look at my life. I'm like, damn, my life turned out good. I'm like, why? Why did I deserve that? I was in the same exact spot as some of my other friends that lost their life or ended up, you know, in jail or whatever.

I'm like, how did I get out of it so easily? Being where I am now, I'm like, that was easy, you know, but I'm sure if I can really go back, it wasn't as easy as I think it was now, but that survivor's guilt is hard to deal with. I'm like, man, you think of your friends. They didn't even have a chance to meet their love of their life, have kids, have a family, nothing. It's terrible. Yeah, no, I hear you on that. That's definitely a very real thing too, right?

I worked with teenagers, man, for six years when the fentanyl first came in here, up here in Canada. But the questions, man, especially working with people, you always kind of scratch your head when, you know, you get the call from the local McDonald's that somebody is, you know, passed away on the toilet, you know, it's just tragic. It's so tough. And you kind of ask yourself, could you have done more, said more, done something a little differently, maybe not been as upset about something you were and, you know, friends stuff. You know, it's very real though, man. Yeah. Thank God I didn't grow up with that fentanyl stuff because my wife's friend from school passed away from fentanyl,

but didn't think he was doing fentanyl. I thought he was doing cocaine and it was all fentanyl. He was dealt the wrong bag or something. So died instantly. It was terrible. And the fact that you can do it without knowing that you're doing it and it kill you is so awful. I don't know. But that's scary, scary, scary times with drugs right now, for sure.

No, 110%. Well, look, John, thank you. John, A.K. The tired dad. Tired dad, yeah. I wonder, too, before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to share? Maybe share us a quick story about the tired dad and how all of that started, if you don't mind. Complete accident.

2020 got on TikTok. I started out as like funny, frustrating videos about parenting. Then I changed my name to the tired dad thinking that was funny. And then in the past year, flash forward, I just really wanted the tired dad and tired mom to mean something more than just being tired. Obviously, we're tired from parenting, not of parenting. And if you're giving this amount of effort into wanting to break those generational curses and being the best parent that you can be, there's really no other way to be than tired

at the end of the day. So you kind of want to embrace that tiredness when you put your head down at night that, okay, I did everything I could. And we're going to fail sometimes. No one's perfect. And then to just keep showing up. So no matter what kind of day you had in parenting, we're going to have rough days that the next day you're just going to keep showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up, you just never quit. It's kind of developed into this whole brand of for mental health, especially dads, but for all parents and just kind of ways we can have an ongoing perspective, a daily perspective to just embrace the time with our children when they're young. And the closer we are to them at a young age, I believe that the closer will be at a later age as well. So it's

kind of just developed into this whole brand. And I've never really desired to be an influence or anything like that. Coming from film school and all that, I've always been into telling stories through visual and writing and that creative. So it just kind of helped fed my creative side a lot more. It's really cool that so many people resonate with it and that it's helping people have a different perspective. I love helping people out, and that's really what I'm doing.

I want tired dad to be you. I want it to be everybody. I don't want it to just be me, like the tired app. I wanted it to be like, oh, you're a tired dad. I know what that means. That's incredible. That's what everybody says, too, it happened on accident. Everybody that blew up on TikTok in the beginning of crazy said, oh, I've talked to a few other people, big creators too.

And they say, oh, yeah, it was on accident. I guess you have no expectations. You're like, I don't know how this is going to work out. So I guess it's kind of exceeded my expectations. Obviously, it was on purpose, but it's just exceeded what I thought it would ever be. be you know i thought we'll just do some funny videos and but i didn't know i would transfer to other platforms and then become like a whole brand and stuff so it's just exceeded everything that i thought yeah that's incredible and the amount of vulnerability to you share i mean i think that really just

gives permission for other people to say yeah this is tough and it's okay we'll get through it yeah and when i was reflecting on what i want to do you like okay if this is really like an important thing to you, you're going to have to get vulnerable because I think vulnerability is the best way we can help other people. Because if you can make people feel less alone, that could be their aha moment of change. And be like, oh, I'm normal? Oh, yeah, I'm normal. So encouraging everybody to just be vulnerable in your relationships and everything, everything just becomes better. But you have to be super honest with yourself in order to be that. So it was really out of my comfort zone. I am not like that naturally, but I said, you know, if I really want to help people, if I really want this to be an important

thing, I'm going to have to really just get out of my comfort zone. Yeah. Well, you know what? So many people love it, man. Keep up to good work. And thanks for joining the podcast, man. Yeah. Thank you for having me, Brad. Appreciate it. Huge thank you to John from the tired dad. You might have seen some of his videos on TikTok and Instagram. What an incredible conversation, though. I mean, giving up the quote-unquote hard stuff and then alcohol lingering around for many years and coming to the conclusion that that needed to go as well and then taking steps to do that on January 1st. I mean, what a way to start the new year, a new year, new year, new you, and maybe making one of the biggest changes

to help improve his life. I think that's it for most of us. I think when we give up drugs and alcohol or drugs or alcohol. That's one of the hardest things that most of us do. But the hard things provide the biggest benefits. The harder, the task at hand, the bigger, the benefit. I always had to remind myself of that early on when I just felt like I couldn't get another day no matter what. And I would always tell myself, just finish today and you can figure out the rest tomorrow.

But look, everybody, thank you. so much for to support us always on the show. I love doing this show. I love getting the messages from all of you that you guys love the show that it's helping you. You guys send messages to the guests and they're just, they just light up. They just love it, that their story matters, that people are listening to it, that people are connecting with it and the people are getting something out of it.

So I always post the guest links to their Instagram if they have one or wherever you can find them. I always post it in the show notes. that way you guys can pop down there, you can find them, and you can send them a note and say thank you for coming on here and sharing your story. It meant something to me. And that means the world to people,

because not only are we trying to help those of us who might still be struggling, but also help those of us who found a way out, continue the healing process by sharing our story and trying to make a difference in this world, because giving back and helping people truly is the key to all of this, I believe. Helping others get out of the mess, get out of the madness,

and get into living their best life is what this is all about. But look, I'll catch you guys on the next one.