Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Josh Connelly found the ultimate escape from himself with alcohol and drugs, sober since 2012.

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

In this episode we have Josh Connolly, discussing his childhood experiences and the impact of addiction on his life. Josh gives a candid recount of his complicated relationship with his alcoholic father and his struggles with substance use from an early age. After becoming a father at a young age, Josh found himself stuck in a toxic cycle of substance use and dishonesty, leading to making the decision to get sober. Navigating through the challenges of life without the means to escape reality, he makes a focused effort to be honest and present with those he cares about the most, even in the face of adversity. After 9 months of sobriety Josh was really struggling and was was so confused on why. Through conversation on this episode, Josh and I underscore the importance of self-love, honesty, and daily commitment to sobriety. -------------- Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_ffw/ More information on SoberLink: www.soberlink.com/recover Free 30 Trial to SoberBuddy App: https://community.yoursoberbuddy.com/plans/368200?bundle_token=8d76ca38d63813200c6c1f46cb3bdbed&utm_source=manual

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Josh Connolly discussing his childhood experiences and the impact of addiction on his life. Josh gives a candid recount of his complicated relationship with his alcoholic father and it struggles with substance used from an early age. after becoming a father, Josh found himself stuck in a toxic cycle of substance use and dishonesty,

leading to making a decision to get sober. Navigating through the challenges of life without the means to escape reality, he makes a focused effort to be honest and present with those he cares about most, even in the face of adversity. After nine months of sobriety, Josh was really struggling and was so confused on why. Through conversation on this episode, Josh, I underscore the importance of self-love, honesty, and a daily commitment to sobriety. And this is Josh Connolly's story on the Sober Motivation podcast.

How's it going, everyone? We're three months into a new year, and I'd like to take a pulse on how everyone's doing and feeling. If you made the commitment to get sober in 2024 but are struggling to stay accountable, check out Soberlink. Soberlink is an accountability tool that will keep you honest. It uses a really high-tech breathalizer system to help when those cravings get a little little too loud. Here's why I love it. You'll test at the same time every day, eliminating testing

anxiety. Devices have built-in facial recognition so it knows it's you testing. Pamper sensors flag any attempts at trying to beat the system. Friends and family receive instant test results helping to rebuild trust and prevent relapse. If you're serious about getting sober, this is a tool to use, and the only monitoring system I recommend. Make these next months count. Visit soberlink.com and receive $50 off your device. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got my buddy Josh with us. I've known Josh on Instagram for six years, seen him around,

and we've reconnected here recently. So it's great to have you on this show. How are you? Yeah, good, man, good. And looking forward to this conversation, like you say, it's been many years, so it should be good. Yeah, perfect. So how we start every episode is with the same question.

What was it like for you growing up? You know what's interesting and I'm just thinking as you speak as I knew the question was about to come, what it was like for me growing up has changed during my sobriety, right? And I think that's important for me to say, if you'd have asked me all them years ago when I first got sober, I'd have said, perfect childhood. There was nothing like it was idyllic. But the reality that I've learned over the years is that it was very different. I grew up for the sort of formative years in my life, perhaps the most important when my brain was developing it, it's sort of fastest and, you know, biggest rate, I grew up with an alcoholic father who, the truth is, scared me when he was drunk,

scared me when he was sober, he was very chaotic and unpredictable. And everything that came with that, you know, and he died when I was nine years old. And after that, my mum had remarried to my stepdad and we sort of moved across town and lived in another part of town. And for all intents of purposes, then, our life became very functional. We lived what was a very, you know, we didn't want for much, you know, we weren't rich or well off, but we certainly weren't poor. and life on the outside seemed like it was pretty good. But I can see now looking back how much pain I was in as a child, I always felt very different.

I always felt like I didn't fit in to the people around me. And I really struggled with life, although I wouldn't have never probably vocalized that as a kid. It was difficult, man, really difficult. And discovered alcohol and drugs when I was 12, and that changed everything, really. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing that.

It's even too interesting too, right, reflecting back because you hear a lot of different stories about, you know, at the time, we didn't necessarily know things were going on. I can relate with you 100% too about that feeling different. It was a different thing that brought it on for me. I was born in Canada. My mom was 16 and she had twins. So that threw in a lot of a lot of wrenches, right? My grandparents did a great job to help raise us when we lived in Canada. But my mom, I think, wanted to spread her own wings. And when I was about five or six years old, we moved. all the way from Canada down to Waco, Texas.

And now it was just my mom and my brother and I. And if I would have at the time or maybe in my early 20s, like you mentioned, we never wanted for anything either. My mom did work. I mean, when you start out in the nursing career, you're working overnight doing that stuff. We had a lot of babysitters. But it's what you know. So you don't necessarily know that it's, you know, maybe a little bit different than my peers.

But I can pinpoint at that point in my life, I used to go under my mom's bed and I used to just cry because I was just missing how things were before, right? The comfort of grandparents and security. And it was a lot more predictable maybe that life. And my mom did an incredible job. I mean, I have three kids now and I'm a lot older. And I'm still figuring out as I go. But I can look at that time as after that I felt really different from my peers. And I really struggled.

And I really, you know, this when sort of the ADHD kind of crept into my life, that was really exposed. And that created a whole other barrier I felt between my friends. And I was going to see psychiatrists and doctors and stuff. And I didn't understand it all at the time. And it's interesting that you bring that up. I mean, how did that feeling of different show up in your life when you were younger? I think when I was really young, it showed up in me trying to be.

as good and lovable as I could. You know, when you feel different and you're trying to be accepted and you're trying to be part of whatever system or structure that you exist in, when I was a young child, I tried to be good enough, right? I tried to be lovable. I tried to be likable. I became like a chronic people pleaser. Let me figure out what these people need me to be and let me be that so that they love me and like me. And I don't think that's ever really fully left me. But as I sort of moved into being a teenager, I became more of a rebel. I sort of lent into that, I'm different, so let me just be different.

And look, for me at the time, that looked like being like a punk rocker and shaving a big mohican in and dressing differently and hanging about with a bunch of other kids who were doing the same thing, you know? And I guess some ways that sort of made me feel part of in a way, You know, we were rebelling together. But at the core of it, and always the underlying symptom of that feeling different

was a desperation to be loved and to be wanted and to be accepted by people. I didn't know that, by the way. Let's be really clear. I don't remember at 13 thinking I wish people accepted me. Actually, I was more angry. And I did a lot of that, what you said, like being happy go lucky. I was happy, go lucky in front of everybody. And then, you know, at home,

home on my own, quiet myself to sleep, listening to certain types of music and it's crazy man. Talk about people like Chester Beddington and look at Lincoln Park and the lyrics to crawling and how I used to listen to crawling when I was a teenager, cry myself to sleep and not really know why. And then I listen to the lyrics to them now and man, it's no wonder that they touched my soul. But I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that I related to the lyrics. I don't think. I just felt like they touched me and it's so obvious why nowadays, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I used to love Lincoln Park too. Some 41 Lincoln Park. It's interesting that part too about, you know, people pleasing, right? I went through that stage too and I never understood any of this stuff at the time. But I feel like the foundation was being built for me to find an external solution to the problems I was experiencing inside for many years before I even found drugs and alcohol. If I go back, I was always looking for that validation. And I struggled in school so I didn't get a there. So where I did find the validation was from acting silly, you know, being defiant. And I would

get that acceptance from my peers. They thought it was funny and you feel like, I don't know if it's love, but you feel acceptance from people and feel a part of it. But my parents really loved me. And I struggled to feel that. It was more important to me for people at school. It was sad to say that, but it was more important for people in grade eight at the school to love me than my own parents. I wasn't able to really feel it or experience it from them. And that created a whole other thing, but I can, you know, relate in a sense on that level. So you get introduced to drugs and alcohol, 12, 13 years old. How did these come into your life and what does that look like?

So the thing is because my dad was the way that he was, I had vowed to never touch alcohol on drugs, right? I was never going to do that. I was like fiercely against it, actually, as a child. But I think I'm going to say naturally because I do believe it's natural that I was drawn towards the people that were hanging about down the park because it looked like they had an answer. It looked like they found something. And again, I don't think I could see that logically. But of course I was drawn to the people because the people hanging about down the field and down the park, yeah, they were the same people as me. They were the same people.

They were suffering from the same thing. and together we found a common solution. And at the time that was, for me, it started off as cannabis actually when I was about 12. And then very quickly I found alcohol. And listen, I remember when I found alcohol very consciously thinking, as long as I don't end up like my dad, this is amazing. And what's interesting is a few years ago, I was speaking at a children's mental health thing and there was another speaker that was on before me and they said,

you know, close your eyes and they were doing like a visualization. and they said, think back to the earliest happy memory you have from your childhood. And I'm closing my eyes and my head went straight to being down the park drinking. And like, your initial thought is, oh, that must be a mistake. And then I think that it's not a mistake. That was the first time I truly felt alive, the first time where I felt like actually life might be manageable. If I can manage this stuff, then Monday to Friday at the time we're school, that's going to be bearable because I get to do this on the weekend.

I get to do this. And the love affair, and it was a love affair for me, started with alcohol and drugs then, and I was very quickly moved into sort of other drugs as well. And they worked at that time for me, man. They worked so well. That's the truth. They worked so well.

And it's no wonder I became obsessed with them, really. Yeah, with, yeah, I'm with you too. It's that thing, right? When we first started out, we find a solution. We find a solution that alleviates the pain. It makes sense. You know, for me, too, when I first started, especially drinking.

I mean, you get to be included in the communities. It was like that right of passage. It was the way to be a part of the group. And then when I look back at my story, I struggle with this for a while, Josh, about a lot of people I hung out with. And like, they seem to move on from it at some point. And then there I was.

And I'm like, what is, you know, what is going on with me? Why can't I just turn this off and move on with life? A majority of my other buddies that we all used to hang out it, you know, act a little bit wild with. So you had that experience 13, 14. I mean, how does the rest of your high school days look like? It was turning up at school and, you know, doing what I needed to do and then drinking drugs. I mean, like cannabis was something I did every single day, right up until the day that I quit. Yeah, like every day. Like, I didn't even see that

as using anything. You know what I mean? Like, at least when I was doing other stuff, alcohol, I knew I was going out to drink, I was going out to get drunk dinner. I didn't even see cannabis as that. I saw cannabis as the same as like having a glass of water, right? It was what I needed to do to function. That's how I saw it. And I got by, man. I remember I was so, so chaotic.

I didn't fear death. Like, I wasn't worried about dying. I remember I started doing ecstasy when I was like 15. I remember somebody saying like, how many of these? do you reckon you could do without killing you and I remember like thinking let me try let me see how many I can do in one mouthful you know and it was I was crazy and essentially what happened to me I lived that life my first daughter was born when I was 18 years old and that's what changed everything you know that's when but there were real direct consequences to me to the ways that I

drank you know I needed to show up now and that's when I think my relationship with alcohol and drugs, took a sharp turn, you know, because then up until that point, I used to sell drugs and, you know, that's how I made money. I didn't care about working or any of that kind of stuff. But once my child was born, I had to get a job and I had to start to show up to life. And that's when it started to become an issue. That's when I started to fight against it. Before that, I didn't care, man. I used to say to people, as long as I get my 18th birthday and then when I turned 18, I was like, as long as I get my 21st birthday, I really don't care if I died the day after that.

And I meant it, you know, I really meant that. I didn't want for anything in life. I didn't want a life. But once my daughter was born, then everything changed, man, for sure. Yeah, wow, 18 too. Yeah, very young, man. Yeah. How was the relationship with your mom and your stepdad at this time,

were they still involved with stuff? How'd that look? I lived at home until I found out that I was going to have a daughter and then I moved out at 18. I mean, my mum and my stepdad likes a drink. He still drinks today. I don't think he has a problem with it. You know, as he was a bit of a drinking culture,

but in where I grew up in England, that kind of culture was normal. So the thing about alcohol is, it's so, you know this, it's so widely accepted. At 17, yeah, I drank Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, but didn't everyone? That's how it was sore.

So people knew I was crazy. I was a party animal. I was happy, go lucky Josh, you love to party, you know? So it wasn't seen as a worry, and I wasn't particularly worried either. I was getting arrested for small misdemeanors and, you know, I was involved in selling drugs in the way that I was, but only ever really to feed my habit. So they were worried that I wasn't working properly, but there was no. major concern, I don't think. Yeah, it's just, it's widely accepted.

There's this quote that goes around too. It's almost like people look at you weirder or differently if you say that you don't drink than if you do. That's definitely been my experience. I mean, it's changing now, but even when I got sober, when I did, yeah, it was bizarre. Like, people were more worried about me when I got sober at the age that I did than they were when I drank. And I do think that back then particularly, what 17, that was nearly 20 years ago, right? If I wasn't drinking every weekend, people would have been concerned. Can we laugh at that as a joke?

But it's true, man. If I didn't drink, people would have been massively concerned. I was just another young party animal, you know, I smiled all the time. You know, I was always happy as far as people were concerned. I never showed my pain. So it was seen as normal, yeah, man. Yeah. So where do you go after that?

18 years old and you're having a little one. And things, you mentioned there too, things took a turn. So a turn for the better or a turn not better? Yeah, no, a turn for the not better, for the worst, man. I mean, I did what I thought I was supposed to do. So I got, I had a house. I got a job. I got a job in a factory. But I didn't know any other way of life other than drinking and using drugs. Like, I got a job in a factory. And instead of making myself lunch to take. to the factory. I used to try and ration cocaine because I thought if you take cocaine in the morning and you won't need any lunch because you won't be hungry. That's the kind of life that I lived, you know. And I remember holding my daughter for the first time and looking at her

and being awashed with love and all of that stuff. But at the same time thinking to myself, you need to get as far away from me as you possibly can as quick as you can because I can't be what you mean me to be. And I never vocalized that. But that's what I felt deep down. and I never felt capable of being the dad that she needed. Like, I'd never really work, let alone anything else. But I tried, you know, and I created what was a very sort of toxic family environment, really, dysfunctional family environment. I went to work every day, but it was difficult, and I didn't show up as a father remotely

in any capacity, really, other than earning enough money just about to pay the bills. So it was hard. And that's why I took a turn for the worst because I couldn't be the party. I couldn't hide behind being a party animal anymore because I had stuff that I had to show up to and I couldn't do it. And that was painful, man. That was painful. Yeah. So that part, yeah, it wear it on you a bit, right?

Because when we're on our own, we could just come and go and you could just do, you know, you could just show up and whichever way. But when that responsibility comes up and probably too feeling like you want nothing. more to be able to show up. I think you shared about it there. You want nothing more to be able to show up in a good, productive, positive, you know, fatherly role, but all this other stuff is getting in the way and you don't know a life outside of that. How was your relationship with the mom? Were you dating at the time? Or, you, we stayed together. We stayed together. But let me tell you this, we shouldn't have. We shouldn't have. I thought the right thing to do was to knuckle down and make it work. We shouldn't have. The relationship was incredibly toxic, you know, it was awful.

And I played a huge role in that. Do you know what I mean? I played a huge role in that because of who I was and what I was doing. And we went on to have four children together in that marriage. We were married. We had four children. My second was born when I was 19, a year and a half after my first one and then my two boys were born in the same year, 2011. One was born in January, one was born in December. And so here we were in this relationship with now four children, very young, four children, all under the age of five. I think I was drinking and using more than I'd ever done, really. And like, I would leave and get set up in a little bed sit, like a one room place, and then fall apart and beyond my deathbed and then go home. And I lived in that cycle really a few

sort of, you know, a few moments where I very seriously attempted to not be here anymore in in that time. And it was dark, man. It was really dark. And it was hard. It was really hard. I wasn't a good person, you know. Yeah. Four kids too. And you're going back and forth with this stuff. So were you thinking during this time? What is this? Like your early 20, like 21, 22, type thing. Did you ever think I need to sober up? Was that in your process at all? I think so. Somewhere in there, I think it was there. But I always tried to protect the drink, you know. I always wanted it to be something else. You know, I went to see the doctor and I was put on antidepressants. And I was just crazy, man. Like I went to see the doctor to get put on

antidepressants. And then I remember, like I took, I was supposed to take one a day or whatever. and I took six one time and my ex-wife who I was with at the time rang the doctor and was like he's took six of these is he going to be alright and they were like look it's not ideal but he'd have to take

a lot more than that for them to have an impact and I remember being like well let me do that then and I remember taking all of them and then it was like there's no point of having antidepressants because I just take them and I used to just go in the cupboard

and take medication and crush that up and just do that anything to try and get out of myself and to get out of my skull and to just not be there anymore. It was crazy, but I never slowed down enough really to think maybe it's alcohol.

Maybe I should stop alcohol. There was like a series of events that happened that led to me going, okay, let me quit alcohol. And it was quite divine in nature, really. But it wasn't until then. I mean, I used to do, let me stop drinking vodka,

let me stop drinking cider, let me only drink on the weekends, let me make sure I don't drink. I did all of that stuff. But no, once the idea, came up that maybe it's alcohol and I need to stop it. I was very fortunate, sort of spiral very quickly. Yeah, walk us through that story. So what happened was I had an accident at work, right, in the factory that I was working in, I trapped my foot in a machine and the ends of my left

foot were basically crushed so severely that they had to cut them off. Yeah, they had to be amputated. So I've got like a, I say three little stumps instead of a big toe and the next two toes along. that's just like a little stump there. And at that stage, right, I'd left a family home. I was living on a fold-out bed at my mum's house. I was like 17,000 pounds in debt. I couldn't get set up on my own because I couldn't keep up with my debt. I was, you know, I was in a bad way.

But all of a sudden I was going to get this big payout for my foot for what had happened to my foot. And so everyone was saying, you know, once you get that payout, you'll be able to clear all your debt and get set up in a home, you know, in a place of your own and your life will be okay. And that was like the story that I told myself. And I remember my best friend at the time and he's still very close friend of mine today. I remember him pulling me aside and he said,

there is absolutely no way you're going to pay that debt off with that money. You're going to drink it all and use it on drugs. And you're going to be exactly where you are now. And I remember thinking, man, he's right. And then I was involved in football violence in the UK at the time as well. And this was about a year after I'd done my foot and we were at a football due. And long story short, I was punched in the face and I snapped my jaw in two places on the right side and it dislocated on the left side and I had to have emergency surgery that night. And they gave me loads of morphine and I had to be transported by ambulance to another specialist hospital.

And in the process of waiting for the ambulance, I took all of the cocaine that I had on me and had a seizure. And then when I woke up the next morning in this hospital that was like five hours from where I lived, everybody that I'd traveled up there with had left. left me. And when I phoned them and was like, where are you? They was like, we traveled up by bus and they'd taken the bus and they'd gone. They'd just left me. And I thought these were my friends. And I remember coming home by train on my own the next day and thinking, this is over, man. Like, these people don't care about me. I've got nobody in my life and I can't do this anymore. And within about three months of that day, I knew I was getting close to having this money come as well. I found myself in a 12-step meeting because

The owner of the bar that I drank in, the pub, yeah. He was a compulsive gambler who had stopped gambling. And after a heart to heart with him one Sunday night, it was on the 14th of May 2012. At the age of 24, I went to my first 12-step meeting. And I haven't had alcohol or drugs since then, since that day. Wow. That's incredible. What happened that day? That you were able to, that was it.

I mean, happened there? I think that moment of, I've got, nobody cares about me. Like, none of these people care. We don't care about each other. Like, I don't relate to anybody. And there was a moment I had in the pub on the last day that I drank, which was a Sunday, where alcohol had stopped working. Like, I remember, I was off my head, drunk. And I look around and thought, I don't, this isn't working anymore.

This isn't working for me anymore. I need to try something else. And that night, I had a heart to heart with this. guy, like I say, who was a compulsive gambler, had stopped gambling. And he made me think, if he can do it, then I can do it. Maybe I can have a go at this. But the reality is, I've got to tell you that my darkest days were to come, really, and they were in early sobriety. That's my reality. Yeah. So you reached out to this guy at the pub and he suggested you check it out, check out the meeting, you go there. 2012 to 24 years sold, right? You know, it's interesting,

right? And it's really hard at 24 to think, you know, this might be it. But it's that thing, man. I think that's so powerful, Josh, realizing that it's not working anymore. What once worked so well is just not alleviating the pain, the discomfort, bearing the emotions anymore and everything seems so real. Walk us through what you had just mentioned there previously about things started to get worse for you before they got better. So I did what I'd always done And for me I walked into To a 12 step fellowship right

That's where it started for me So that's when the first time I walked into a room Full of people that was sober In there they say I'm an alcoholic Yeah So I did what I'd always done I need to make this fucking room accept me So they're saying they're an alcoholic

I'm going to say I'm an alcoholic And then I'm going to become everything that they need me to become And so I did that I told everybody that sobriety is amazing I don't need alcohol anymore. I just love it. It's so good to have my life back and all of this stuff.

Yeah, I don't drink anymore, so all my problems have gone away. And very quickly, man, I started to realize that wasn't my truth. And there's two things that I think are important here, right? The first one is that the darkness that I felt was still there. And actually, I didn't have a way of getting rid of it anymore. I had a high at the beginning because I didn't drink anymore. So there was like a high and I dined out on that. But I think much much like my drinking and drug in day,

which were very similar to yours, it all went very quickly for me. I think people get into sobriety sometimes and that, you know, a lot of people call it pink cloud phase. I think for some people that lasts a few years. For me, I got about three months out of it. And then I was like, this is just, this is not good, man. But more importantly than the feelings, yeah, more importantly than that was my behaviours, some of the shit I was doing when I was drinking that I used to say I only did that because I was drinking and doing drugs. Now I'm behaving in that. way sober. So now where do I go? Because now I must just be a terrible person. And I didn't know how to be honest with people. I didn't know how to talk about it. My truth at seven or eight

months sober was that I hated it. And I hated people that that was sober and said they were happy. And I didn't want to be doing it. And I wasn't happy. And they used to have to psych myself up and play happy, go lucky, Joshua, sober and everything's amazing as a result. And it was not true. And for me, quitting alcohol and drugs was the last chance. And at that stage, I thought it doesn't work. And so I planned to take my own life when I was nine months sober. I say it took me like 12 years to nearly drink and drug myself to death. It took me nine months to nearly sober myself to death.

And I made a decision that felt very honest and noble to not be here anymore. And I was having my four kids at the time on the weekends. and I went to see them to say goodbye and it was done, I was going. And because I knew I was going, because I knew that I was going to die, the past became irrelevant, the future was non-existent, and for the first time ever, I was present with my kids in a way I'd never experienced. I remember cuddling my daughter and feeling it. And I changed my mind, but more importantly than changing my mind,

I realized that I needed to come clean to myself and to the people that, the circles that I was involved in that were supporting me at the time. And I sort of tried to make a commitment the best I could at that point to be honest with everybody. And what I really thought is if I can convince myself I'm going to die next week for another week, I could do another week like this and it might be pretty good. And I think the work that I do today remains rooted in that, which is truth. Let me find the truth and then let me find ways to deal with that. And that's when the journey for me really started, you know.

And it changed from one of how do I not drink to how do I try and live a life? where I can be as present as I was that weekend. And it's not been in, it's not easy, man. I wish I could tell you that now I'm present all of the time and I'm free and all that. It's not my truth, man. It gets harder, actually, if anything. I have those moments of presence with the people that I care about the most, you know, and it's worth it for that.

Yeah, well, thank you so much for sharing that. It's interesting there too, right? Because everything, you know, everything piles up. Everything can pile up throughout the journey and that, You see everybody around you too. I'm just imagining this. You see everybody around you doing well. They're happy.

They're experiencing all the benefits of sobriety. And then here's your story where it's everything but that. And that's a really hard thing I could see to witness about everybody else has got it figured out. But you mentioned something that I think is really important is about removing the drugs and alcohol is only one step of the process. And then you mentioned too about the behaviors continuing, right? I'm sure all of us can relate to that. some aspect, right? The dishonesty ran deep with me. The manipulation ran deep with me,

you know, not being genuine, ran deep with me and authentic. I was far from that. And we continue those behaviors. We go on. And then that's sort of whatever program we do, whether it be 12 steps or a therapist or we just join a community, a reread books or meditation. We're hopefully going to try to connect with those behaviors and make small adjustments to turn them around. but that can weigh on you. That can weigh on, especially because you mentioned there too, your one solution, the thing that you had counted on, is now not in the picture.

And now you're facing all this stuff head on with a limited amount of tools to manage everything. How did things turn around for you? What did that process look like in your life after those nine months? I think it was that level of honesty, right? When I started to connect with the supportive people around me in an honest way,

it's easier to find the things that you need, right? Because I'm trying not to lie and I'm trying to be clear and honest about what I'm doing. And what I did is rather than my sobriety, I guess, changed from trying to manage and create a life that meant that I didn't have to drink was what I originally did. And I think what I had to change is how do I learn to understand and love myself enough to not feel like I want to escape from who I am. And that's different. You know,

it's an inside job, man, for me. This is all an inside job. And I think, you know, in the years that have followed, I've tried to just live with the idea that I could be wrong about everything, you know. And what I've found is that my sobriety has been like a series of picking something up. It really works. I do it. Stay with it.

I feel great in it. And then slowly it stops working. And I need to find the next thing. And then let me go and find that. And then I do that. and then it works and then I think, I don't know why I ever pick that. That don't work.

And it's been about remaining true to myself, you know. And I think, look, in May this year, it will be 12 years. And I think I've already said it, but I'll say it again, you'd think it'd be easier by now. And listen, like, I have longer periods of it being easier. That's the truth, yeah. But I know I have the ability to, this is the best way I can describe it, turn up to a bit of a car crash and realize,

damn, I was the one that caused this. How did I get here? And you know, when I got sober 12 years ago, I said, how did I get here to myself? And how did I get here? It's something I find myself still staying to myself more regular than I'd like to. But that's just the truth, man. I'm still a messy human being,

but I feel like as long as I don't, as long as I don't get too carried away, I feel like I have the tools to be able to deal with life today, you know, a bit more. Yeah. I'm with you 110% man. I still go through it all the time, right? Everything go through it.

And it's interesting. You say that my first thought too about it is that, like initially, you know, we want to get sober. We want to just get sober. And I anyway, I was under the importance. expression that if I just got sober, all this other stuff would work itself out. And then I hit the spot where you get into as we get sober. And then I'm like, well, what the heck?

I'm sober. Why aren't things working themselves out? Why am I not where I want to be or where? And then it was sort of explained to me, well, now, you know, this other stuff, this emotional set of things and the behaviors are things that you have got to start to work on. The alcohol was merely just a solution that no longer works for you. So you have to find other ways to really come back to yourself. and like you mentioned inside job.

You got to work on yourself. And then, you know, it's almost like you mentioned there too about things are still tough, right? And I'm with you on that. But for me, it's not necessarily sobriety. It's like life. Okay, life is tough at times. And to work through this and raise kids and show up in the world and do all of these things. You know, if you want to have a big impact in this world and make a big difference and you do that to a T, I think it's going to be hard on us a little bit here.

and there to keep showing up and be vulnerable. I mean, your level of vulnerability is next level. And that is, is a growth place that you're going to be constantly growing in. It's incredible to see, man, share all this. Yeah. In some ways, you start to think to yourself, was I better off when I was asleep and I wasn't open to the vulnerability, right? Or I can at least understand why I was.

You know, I can at least understand why I was. And it's like you say, look, I don't think much about myself and, you know, I don't think much about myself in terms of sobriety anymore, you know? I think you said something about showing up. I can show up today, man. I never showed like you remember when I said my daughter was born and I thought you need to get away from me. It's because I couldn't show up. I couldn't show up. I'll show up today. Sometimes when I show up I'm disheveled. I'm a mess and I'm doing it all wrong. But I show up and I think that's different to where I was when I drank. Alcohol and drugs helped me to run away.

And I probably still run away in different ways today. But I show up, man. I feel like I show up to my life. I feel like, look, I've remarried in sobriety. We've got two children. I have six kids now. So my eldest will be 18. I'm very close with all of my children.

Most of them live with me. And the ones that don't I see on the weekends. And I think that if you ask them all privately, they would say that I do all right, man, the dad's all right. You know, and I promise you now, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, yeah. I get to do a lot of amazing things in the world today. And I feel, you know, I get applauded for some of the work that I do. But honestly, like, there's no recollection of my dad anywhere. Like, I don't show my kids a photo of my dad.

because I don't have any memories to share with them of him, you know? I don't know what to say. What am I going to say about my dad, you know? I hope when I'm gone that my kids and their kids, there's a picture of me somewhere and their grandkids and my grandkids say, who's that? And they say, that was your granddad. And he was all right. You know, he was a good man.

He did some good things and he looked after us and we cared about him. And listen, man, if nothing else but I get that, then thank you very much, man. I'll take that because that's all I want, man. I really mean that. And 12 years ago, I don't think that I could have bet on that. I don't think that would have happened.

I think I would have been another version of my dad with no pictures and no chat like that. So that's what I want, man. Yeah, that's what you're doing, right? That legacy. And I was going to ask you, too, How are things with the kids now? Six kids. Josh, you've got your hands full and a half, buddy. I've got three, dude. Six. My goodness. But that's incredible. The act of getting sober,

because a lot of people message me, right, Josh, how do I get sober? I mean, that's a great question, but that's not the question. The question is, how do we stay sober? A lot of us have probably sobered up and we go back to it. But once we're able to figure that out, you know, that just gives us, gives me anyway the mental capacity and the other processes to be able to show up in the world willing to be honest about, hey, I don't have everything figured out, but I'm willing to make progress and move towards the things that I don't have mastered, which is basically everything. It's always learning, right? You brought up that other thing, man, that I can't help but have the wheels turn on, man,

about that thought of what if we just left the dream dormant? What if we just left the personal development dormant? What if we just ignored that side of things? And I've been thinking of that because when you get into this, and I don't even know if this is where you were going with it. But when you get into it, it's like when you're struggling with addiction, that's the nagging thought. That's the thing that's always bothering you is that the next one.

And then when you get into this personal development journey and started for me kind of six, seven years ago where I looked in the mirror and was like, I'm just not happy before I'm at in life. And this is in, you know, this whole recovery thing, right? We hit these roadblocks and you hit these whys in the road and you can either choose to remain comfortable or get uncomfortable and change. And then I went down this rabbit hole. I've been down ever since about, you know, what's next? How can I do more?

How can I be better? How can I grow? And for me, it's all about balance because I'll stay up all night thinking about the next bridge that I want to cross and everything. But it's so interesting, right? Because it's overwhelming as well. It's challenging as well because listening to your story here, I'm a people pleaser too. It was huge back in the day. I wanted acceptance.

I wanted to fit in. I wanted people to be like, hey, you know, there's that guy there, Brad, you know? And it's all fine balance now about how far are we going to push it in understanding that things take time and in letting things play out naturally sometimes. But it is a big challenge, right? Because then you get on this journey of development and you always want to make progress and move. but that just really hit me, man, because I'm in that spot now about, you know, what's next. And I'm working on this acceptance part about, you know, accepting things exactly how they are. And that I don't always necessarily need to be moving forward at 200 miles an hour.

I can make it slow, you know? Yeah. And so I always say it's easy to love myself when I've just done something good, yeah. What about loving myself when I've just messed up? Or what about just loving myself? Yeah? Because when I think about things like joy, I've somehow taught myself over my life that joy can only follow real hard work.

What I mean by that is I think, if I think to myself, oh, I want to experience joy, I'll be like, let me run up a mountain really quickly and do it in a quick time, yeah? Then I can experience joy because I've earned it. And joy is not something that I have to earn. It's not something that I have to. I don't tell my kids, if you want to have fun today, you better be good, right?

A lot of people do that, by the way. That's some of the systems that we live in, but joy is free, you know, and there's a great philosopher, Alan Watts, and he says life is not like a sprint where there's a start and a finish. Life is like a dance, and dance isn't about how quickly can you get to the end.

It's about being free in the moment and trying to enjoy it. And I think we really do, as people like us, to get caught up in the next thing all of the time, sometimes we have to put it down and just allow ourselves to be played for and to act up a little, you know? Because otherwise we miss life, man. And I actually last year made an active choice

to not do too much work on myself. You know, to actively not do any courses, not do any learning about myself and just be Josh for a bit, you know? I don't know how successful I was at it, but I think I just worked harder. But, you know, the thought was there. Yeah. Now, that's so true. And I think even too, and, you know, even relating it back to like sobriety too,

it's always great to move forward. We always want to move forward. We always want all the answers. But it's about being present in the moment and just making, you know, one day at a time and making the days count. And it's not always about how many days we got. I had this early mentor that would always tell me, Brad, if you woke up before me, you got more sober time. And this guy like literally was a true living example of one day at a time. If you woke up before me, you got more sober time. And I think it's really great to string it together and see we've got a thousand days, five thousand days, whatever it is.

But it ultimately comes down to what we do with each day and how we carry ourselves and how we give back and how we help others and how we love ourselves. You've brought it up a bunch of times in this interview about loving yourself and stuff. And that's for me personally, it's a constant work in progress. I'll get flashbacks, you know, here and there, right, from the different mug shots or the different things that I did to people and how I behaved. But you got to come back to forgiving yourself and, you know, over the years, you know, working things out with people and stuff, you know, but that's a super powerful thing, right? Get to a spot where we can love ourselves to where we don't want to poison ourselves and we're okay with the decision and we can move forward, right? Exactly. And we have to make sure that we spend time with that, right? Because the more, if we're doing the work all of the time, then we're not.

present, right? And we do to work so that we can be present. And sometimes I'm doing the work because it's too painful to be present. So let me just get busy working on myself so that I don't have to slow down and be with the pain that I experience of just being who I am in the world today. And that's the hard bit, you know, and that's why presence is often hard to come by. But listen, it's a journey, man, and I think just when you think, man, I'm reaching the summit. I'm somewhere where I need to be, you turn the corner and you think, and that's why time in some ways, you know, I used to want loads of time under my bout, but the more time I've got under my belt that I've realized how worthless it is because sometimes I look at people in early recovery

and internally, there's a big part of me that wishes I could be back there and be like thriving in my recovery and doing that, you know, and they're actually further along in their quest because they're in it, they're living it and they're doing it. And so what I'm trying to say is that on any given day, I wake up and I'm the same man that walked into that meeting that I did on the 14th from May 2012. I'm the same guy, man, or I feel like I've done as much work as that guy had, you know? And that's the truth. And then that's why for me, what living in the day really is, is let me see how I can make this day better. You know, yesterday might have been crap. Tomorrow might be even worse. But let me just see if right now, today I can try and make this day

better. And I have to live like that, Bradger, because I was on a podcast recently and we did a question of if you could find out when you were going to die, would you find out? And my pal who was on it with me said, no, because if it was next week, the panic would really kick in. And I was like, oh, my head went straight to, I don't want to find out because if they told me 50 years, I'd think, fuck that, I'll get off now. I'll never make 50 years on this planet, you know? So I have to live in the day because life itself seems too much for me to go that long, you know? Yeah. Josh, before we sign off, is there anything that you would like to leave everybody with today? Man, listen, what I would say is that just if you can, come back to yourself as quickly as you can.

If you feel like you're lost, if you feel like you're down, if you feel like you can't do it, come home to yourself, man. And whatever that looks like for you, try and do it because of all the things I've talked about and sometimes I feel like when I talk sobriety, I'm a little bit of a downer with it. you know, because I talk about the difficulties of it. My life is incredible today. You know, I don't often think about not wanting to be here. And I thought about that every second of every day unless I was drinking and drugging back then. I wouldn't most days switch with anybody.

And that's incredible, man, that I'm living that life, you know. I wouldn't switch with anybody. So stick at it because it's the best thing that I've ever done for myself. There's no doubt about that. Thank you so much, buddy. How could we track you down if we want to give you follow or send you a question or anything. I'm Josh underscore FFW on Instagram and TikTok, which is my main place that I'm at.

But you can find my website as well, Joshconnelly.com.com.uk. And all my links are there. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much, buddy. Thank you, mate. I've enjoyed this. Well, there it is. Another incredible episode.

Thank you so much, Josh, for coming on here and sharing your story. And if this is your first time listening to the show, don't forget that we've got over 130 stories. in the catalog wherever you listen to your podcast. So jump around and check out some of the stories you feel that you could relate with. And I hope that they're helping you out. What Josh brings up a lot there, too, is that the initial decision or act of getting sober doesn't really fix everything. And I think in my own life, what I can relate to is it gave me the opportunity to continuously

look in the mirror and be willing to do things a little bit differently. But it does take time. Not everything is going to change overnight. So keep that in mind. But no matter where you're at, as long as you're making some progress, that's what's so important. And that our level of awareness is increasing about what we need to work on and then how can we go to work on it. The problem is when we put alcohol and drugs into our systems, we don't really care to work on stuff. We're so distracted.

We're so about this escape. And we're so just about further stuffing down any emotions or anything that makes us feel uncomfortable. We don't allow ourselves the opportunity to work on things that, they're really going to help us show up as our best selves. So check out some of the other episodes. And if you're joining the podcast, don't forget to leave a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. Share with a couple of friends. Let's keep this thing moving.

And I'll see you on the next one.