Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Justin loved the escape from self alcohol and cocaine provided but knew he had a higher calling.

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

In this episode, I talk to Justin Brien about his life's journey. Starting from his childhood marked by low self-esteem and self-worth, Justin shares his deep dive into substance abuse and the toll it took on his relationships and mental health. However, the heart of the story lies in his road to recovery and self-discovery, marked by his admission of his issues, seeking therapy, and finding motivation in his desired relationship with his son. Despite numerous setbacks, including multiple relapses and personal loss, Justin's journey is a powerful example of resilience and the power of acceptance and forgiveness, serving as an inspiration for others in similar situations. With over 5 years sober this is Justin’s story on the sober motivation podcast. ------------ Check out Justin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinbrien19/ Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Donate to support the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation 00:00 Introduction to the Subber Motivation Podcast 00:14 The Challenges of Sobriety During the Holiday Season 00:23 Introducing Soberlink: A Tool for Maintaining Sobriety 00:58 Shoutout to Sponsors: Charmaine's Cookbook 01:55 Guest Introduction: Justin's Sobriety Journey 02:15 Justin's Early Life and Struggles with Self-Esteem 03:54 Justin's Journey into Alcoholism 05:37 Justin's Life as a Bartender and Struggles with Addiction 09:03 Justin's Realization and Attempts at Recovery 09:39 Justin's Transition into Drug Abuse 21:05 Justin's Return to Hometown and Continued Struggles 25:25 Justin's Journey to Fatherhood and Rehab 27:17 Justin's Suicide Attempt and Continued Struggles 28:43 The Struggle with Substance Abuse 29:06 The Turning Point: Counseling and Self-Realization 31:11 The Power of 'Why' and the Journey to Rehab 31:43 The Struggle with Suicidal Thoughts 34:14 The Importance of Acceptance and Forgiveness 35:26 The Journey to Sobriety and Self-Forgiveness 35:50 The Struggle with Relapse and the Decision to Seek Help 36:57 The Power of Asking for Help and the Road to Recovery 37:29 The Journey to Becoming a Mental Health Advocate 43:07 The Challenges and Triumphs of Sobriety 43:21 The Power of Resilience and the Journey of Parenthood 52:36 The Struggle with Loss and the Power of Perseverance 56:28 The Journey to Writing a Book and Sharing the Story  

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, I talked to Justin about his life's journey. Starting from his childhood marked by low self-esteem and self-worth, Justin shares his deep dive into substance abuse and the toll it took on his relationships and mental health. However, the heart of the story lies in his road to recovery and self-discovery,

marked by his admission of his issues, seeking therapy, and finding motivation in his desired relationship with his son. Despite numerous setbacks, including multiple relapses and personal laws, Justin's journey is a powerful example of resilience and the power of acceptance and forgiveness. Serving as an inspiration for others in similar situations. With over five years sober, this is Justin's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone, Brad here.

Welcome back to another incredible episode. Before we get into it, I had a thought I wanted to share with all of you. It doesn't take you a long time to get sober. It takes us a long time to decide. This is something that's been crossing my mind here or there recently, is that the act of getting sober, most of us have. sobered up many times, countless times. And it makes it interesting, right, because it's all about that decision to decide. And I think the idea out there is that, yeah, you hit a big rock bottom

and your life completely falls apart. And that is the story for a lot of people. And then there's a lot of people who may never experience a story like that or haven't yet. It may come, but it hasn't happened yet. And this whole idea is about just deciding no matter where you're at because hitting a big, massive rock bottom and your life completely falling apart does not guarantee that you're all of a sudden going to get sober. Because then what happens a lot of the time is we're left with whatever chaos was created from our life falling apart that can make it even harder to pull ourselves out of, even though people around us might think, well, that's completely obvious that you need to change your life now because look at what just happened. I say that to say this.

You need to decide. What do you want for your life? How do you want your life to look? How do you want to show up in the world? And how do you want to be remembered? Write that stuff down. And if you're currently on the fence about should I be drinking, should I not be drinking, should I get sober, should I not get sober, you need to decide because it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to get off the fence, stop playing around with the moderation stuff, and just commit to making the rest of your life the best of your life. Now let's get to the episode.

I also want to give everyone a heads up that Justin does discuss some of his struggles with suicidal thoughts in this episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Justin with us. Justin, how are you? I'm doing well, Brad. How are you doing? I'm good, man.

Glad we could connect and share your story. Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me on. I know it's been a while to put this together, but I'm very grateful to be here to be able to share my story. Yeah, beautiful, man. So what was it like for you growing up? Well, growing up was, it was different.

I was a pretty smart kid. I was good grades, but from a very young age, I just had low self-esteem, low self-worth and low self-confidence. And I don't know why because I didn't have a reason to be. I was athletic. I had true. I loved me. I had a great family.

You would think I had a roof over my head, threw down the table, like looking at it with the bird's eye view, you'd be like, oh, this guy's got a great life. But for some reason, from a very young age, is very self-conscious. And I started to compare myself to other people. You know, some of that probably had to do with being smaller, not hitting puberty till grade 11. That was actually tough.

I'd actually get down to my knees. I'd pray to be bigger, stronger, and faster. You know, and then, but eventually I'd start to praying to become normal, right? Because I didn't know what I was going through. I had all these feelings, all these emotions built up, and I didn't understand them, right? That kind of led me to acting out trying to be the funny man, trying to make everybody in school laugh at me

because I wanted to be noticed and liked for everybody. It's essentially because I didn't like myself. And growing up in Canada, I was a hockey player growing up. But I was cut from five to eight rep teams that I tried out for. And it was tough because all my best friends played rep hockey and watching them come to school with their game day jerseys. It was tough for me. And I harbored those feelings from

14 years old from when I got cut my last year that I got cut in Bantam until at 34 I just didn't let it go. But I took all those feelings and I carried them with me through junior high, through high school. And when I got out of high school, I started to find drinking. And I found it playing junior hockey. And I ended up playing junior hockey. And I remember sitting in a basement suite at my teammates house and we were having a beers. And now I didn't drink much in high school. I rarely drank.

It wasn't for me. I thought I was an athlete. But when I got out of high school, I had that first beer, not first beer, sorry, but that day, for some reason I had a beer. And then I had another one. And I remember just sitting there and I'm looking at my buddy. I really want another one. And I didn't understand it, right?

But I just, I remember being antsy sitting on the couch. I remember looking over that beer fridge. I remember it clear as day. and I couldn't wait for him to finish his. And as soon as he finished, I'm like, hey, you guys, do you want another one? Sure, yeah, another one. Now we're looking back, man, like, I realized that.

That was my first ever craving for alcohol that I can recall. And so I was about 19 years old at that point. And I played my junior career out, but unfortunately, I played a game where I was drunk and playing in that league, you shouldn't be anywhere near alcohol for one. I got caught at the bar when we were in the playoffs, and the coach didn't like me.

I left my junior career, with a stain and I left with a drinking problem. And after that, I ended up living to Vancouver. And when I got to Vancouver, I had that bag that I was carrying, that invisible bag of low self-esteem, low self-worth and low self-love. And then I opened up that bag when it started to get heavy. And when I took that bag off and I opened it up, I didn't unpack any of it. I started to put guilt, shame, anger, depression, drugs, alcohol, and eventually suicidality in that bag. And I put it on my back and I kept walking until by the time of 21 years old,

I'm bartending downtown in Vancouver, or sorry, I was 24 years old. I'm bartending downtown Vancouver. And when you have a drinking problem, where do you go? You go to where you get access to it. So as soon as I got to stop playing hockey, I was like, you know what? And I think part of it that I wanted to be a bartender is because people like bartenders. Right? People come.

They talk to us. You're people like almost, well, that's what I did growing up or not growing up, but when I was 19, 20, I'm going out and I'm like, oh man, these guys are so cool. Everybody loves these guys. They get the girls. And I'm like, I want to be a bartender. So I became a bartender. And people did love us. They show you love.

You help them through their issues at night or you make them happier. So you're almost like, you put yourself on a pedestal. What I really realized was that then all of a sudden, now I'm around it all the time. Now you're drinking after work or you're drinking during work. And by the time of 24, now I'm downtown Vancouver, Vartending. And I'm a straight up alcoholic. I'm drinking every single day. I'm over every day saying I won't do it again.

Go to work. Take it back up. I'm drinking basically two. I get home or I go out after work. No, sometimes by myself, just go to the nightclubs, do the strip. Say hi to the people thinking that, hey, I'm, you know, I'm cool. I'm just going to say hi to my buddies, right? I'm just going to do some shots with my buddies where they're working and I'm doing this strip alone.

But I mean, Vancouver's, it can be a small town when it's the nightlife, right? You start to meet everybody. So I think it's normal. So I'm doing this every single night and then I'm walking home and then I phone up dial a bottle where you can get alcohol delivered to your health. And so I would pick up two Pellegrinos, those cans of Pellegrinos, flavored water whenever they are. and I would drink a whole two six with two pellegrinos. And then I'd pass out. I'd stay up to four or five in the morning, then I'd pass out.

And then I'd just be my vicious cycle. And then all of a sudden, one of the bartenders comes up to me one day and he says, Justin, can I ask you something? And I said, sure, man, what's up? He said, do you think you drank too much? And I did what I always did. I didn't listen to anybody. I brushed him off.

But I should have listened to him because I knew he actually told me his story. He was actually an alcoholic and he was a bartender. But he didn't drink anymore, right? I should have listened to him, but I didn't. And I did what I did every single night. You know, I closed up my bar in 15, 20 minutes. And all the other bartenders to be like, how can you do this so quick? How can you get the bar stock cleaned?

Your cash out done within 15 minutes? I could do it because I need to get out. I needed to get out for power half hour. We closed it to some of the nightclubs are open until 2 or 3 a.m. And I could do it because I had that itch. I needed a drink. I became very good at my job, which is a weird. way to put it and then I'd go out and I got drunk and then something hit me.

You know, I was walking home across the Canby Street Bridge. I just phoned up dial a bottle and a thought rings through my head. It says, Justin, you drink too much. And I'm like, ah, there's no way I drink too much. I'm young. I like to have fun. I'm 24 years old. I'm in a big, beautiful city of Vancouver.

I live right downtown. I'm a bartender. No way I drink too much. So I took a couple more steps and a couple more steps and all of a sudden, thought rings through my head again. Justin, are you an alcoholic? All of a sudden, I had a warm feeling rush up through my body. And I said this word for word.

I said, there's no way I'm an alcohol. I go to work. I pay my bills. I'm not a low life. And I'm too smart to be an alcoholic. But I knew, I know that I knew at that moment because that warm feeling that rushed up through my body, I knew it, but I couldn't admit it. Because once you admit something, then you have to fix it, right?

You got to admit it, then accept it. and fix it. But I just didn't want to admit to myself. And then I said, I was too smart. I was so smart in fact that I graduated that year from alcohol use to drug abuse. At 24 years old, it's the first time I did cocaine. And I didn't remember the night. So I called up my buddy and I was like, hey, man, what happened last night? And he told me and I was like, okay. I was against drugs. I wasn't against other people doing them because that's their choices, but I was against me doing it. For some reason, I did him that night. But then he says something to me that you probably shouldn't have said with a person with a self-conscious, low self-conscious mindset.

He said, man, you were funny last night. It looks like, oh, that was funny? Well, I got alcohol for confidence. I have drugs to be funny. I got Michael Special Juice from Spake's Jam. What's out of this? And then I'm super Justin. But at that time, I was the only one that thought I was super Justin.

I had a nickname from one of the bartenders at the Roxy Nightclub in Vancouver, which is like the most famous nightclub in Van Ro, where all the celebrities go. It was stretcher by walking normal. Carried out nicknames over the years and I'll forget that one. That's wild, man. That is a lot of stuff there to unpack, man. Let's go back a little bit, if we can, to growing up, right? Because I think growing up for a lot of us, I mean, sets out how maybe our young adult life is going to play out.

And if we have the support and we're connected to our emotions and we're able to share of them. You brought up a lot of stuff there, man, I can relate to as sort of taking on that funny guy role. I was always big on, even though it came with his consequences, but at least I felt accepted. That was, to me, was more important at the time on the pendulum of life to be accepted, but deal with the consequences at the same time to fit in with people. What did that do for your own self-esteem, though? Because, I mean, you mentioned, too, you're coming from, you come over good folks, loving folks, because I know there was a lot of problems between me and my parents growing up because I was just acting and operating in a way that I was never raised like that.

And I don't know if that was an experience you had, but at that point in time, like probably 14, 15, 16, there was so much friction between my parents and I think when we're growing up, those are ideally our role models that are going to help influence us. and I just refused to accept any guidance from them. What was that like for you? Well, my parents, they split up when I was eight years old. And I went to go to my mom. I didn't understand it.

It bothered me because I hated leaving my dad's house every second week. I would cry because I could only see him every second weekend. And me and my dad go along very well because we were sports guys. And my mom got this new guy, her life. And I remember one time at 10 years old, I'm driving with him and my stepbrother. And he looks at me and he's, hey, would you ever fight your stepbrother? And I'm playing, right? And he's bigger than me.

And I was like, why not, right? All of a sudden, the truck veered off the road. And he's, okay, get out. You can fight him right here. And I just looked at him. It was the first time I felt powerless in my life. Right? And I was scared and I felt like a coward.

because I put my head down and I told him it take me home. And I despise this guy. He was an alcoholic. He had a drinking problem. Unfortunately, he's passed now. And I've harbored a lot of anger towards me, but going through what I went through now, I have a little more empathy for him. But I was a little kid, right?

And I know how hard it can be to regulate your emotions, especially when you don't deal with him, especially when you don't really know. what was that that's 28 years ago he doesn't know people don't really talk about being an alcoholic 28 years ago they don't really talk about asking for help 28 years ago so I have a little bit of more empathy thinking about that but I was a little kid and eventually I couldn't handle it anymore and I went to live with my dad and my dad was a great guy I could do any sport I wanted he always put me in sports I always took me to sports but you know I was a smart kid and from very young age I wore a mask

so I could hide everything from everybody. But I was actually, I got good grades, but I was actually getting suspended in school. I threw an eraser at a teacher, or at principal, eventually. I pulled the grades off of our wall in grade seven. I rolled a picnic table down the hill. I was acting out, like, all the time, people pleasing. And I don't think my dad knew what to do, right?

Because I got good grades. Besides the acting out, the teachers loved me. because I was a nice kid too. So growing up, I didn't have that guidance or, and I've talked to my dad about this too, and discipline maybe that I should have had. And I think he was trying, and I've talked to him about it because he was an army brat move.

Growing up, and he was out at 14 or 15 or something like that, and he witnessed his family and was fighting. His dad was an alcoholic. Growing up was, it was different, right? Because I was a good kid, but I was suspended. But I also had this overwhelming hate for myself almost that. Then one time in junior high, I was whipped so hard in PE class by a dude that I was left me bleeding and left me with a bruise and he was bigger than me. And I did nothing again.

I felt powerless to do anything about it. And then that's where I started to, okay, well, if I'm so powerless, how can I get people to like me? Well, people pleaser. I'm a funny guy. I do funny things. But then all of a sudden you start to make funny yourself. right just to get those laughs and as you make fun of yourself people start to join in but then all of a sudden you start to believe and then when you have that thought that's that repetitive

thought even if it's not true while you start to turn your thought into a belief and then that belief becomes your truth and then that truth controls your actions where there's a positive thing or a negative thing and then all of a sudden you're doing whatever you can to be like to notice regardless of how much pain is bringing you. Yeah, thanks for sharing that story with us. I didn't mention that the first time around, but I think that's an important, that's a really important thing there, right?

Because I hear in a lot of these stories and people who listen to the show that we hear in a lot of these stories, divorce and the dynamics, parents separating in the dynamics that causes for people. And it's interesting too, right? You're keeping your grades up, but also that suspension.

Man, I was getting suspended so early on. And nobody else was. That's the wild thing is they had this in-school suspension program at this middle school. This is like grade eight, no, grade six through grade eight in the U.S. And nobody else was ever getting this in-school suspension. And then it graduated from there, right? Then there'd be out-of-school suspension and he could be left wondering.

I mean, I was like the victim of everything, right? I mean, I was doing stuff that obviously wasn't appropriate. I wasn't a victim of anything but my own choices in a sense. But looking back now, I can really only just shake my head. But I think that for some of us, that there's a lot of chaos before. This is my story anyway. There was a lot of chaos in my life prior to picking up drugs and alcohol. And I never was in high school.

In high school, I went to rehab when I was 17 for a year, basically for the dysfunction. And I was never really around the quote unquote cool kids or the drinking kids or like the smoke and weed kids, right? There was all these different cliques of people in the high school, I don't know, seven, eight thousand people. And I wasn't really a part of those groups. So I never really had opportunity. I had a swig of vodka one time from my parents. They might have had two bottles. But my folks were never, I never saw them drink ever. I never even really understood what alcohol was until way later in life than I feel most people do. But I had that vodka. And I did that. I was like, oh, this is just, this is disgusting, right?

you just have that. This is terrible. But I think that for some of us, and for me anyway, there was a lot of chaos in my life before. And the second I got introduced to drugs and alcohol, those voices in that overwhelming feeling of not being good enough. And at the time, I couldn't put a finger on it. I just knew that I just felt different, looked different, ended up in different situations than my peers, than a majority of my peers. Of course, there were some other people getting in trouble. But out of 5,000 people in the in school suspension, I would be the only person, majority of the time. So I knew other people were not experiencing this. But it all came down to that of being low self-esteem and just wanting to

get recognized somehow. And I'm like, man, when I look back on my journey, my mom was a single mom and she had twins at 16 and raised my brother and I for a lot of years by herself. And I mean, she did an incredible job. She's just wonderful. She gave us every opportunity to do well. But I now being a parent myself and I got three kids and it truly takes a village and my wife and I, the two of us were bogged down. So I can only imagine to what it was like for my mom and I struggled very early on with anxiety and a lot of different stuff, ADHD, similar to what you mentioned in for her to look after it, but I just don't know that the attention was there or that I knew how to get it properly.

So I just did the same sort of stuff that the track you were on. And then when I found drugs and alcohol, it wasn't immediately, but I started to find some sort of peace from myself about all of this stuff that I'm not good enough. And I started to maybe even like what you did. You find you get to be the bartender. You start connecting with other people. You feel a sense of purpose. You feel like people notice you. If you're not there, you're missing, or it's a good time.

And that same thing I found. I found a community of people who, like, we were all having a good time. And a lot of them moved on with their life. And then I was the one left behind, unable at the time to move on with my life from this college partying that we did. So where do you go from there? So 24 just in here in Vancouver. And you're doing the bartender gig.

I mean, yeah, exactly. If that's what you want to be around. What good positioning? You hear a lot of people, too, in that industry, right? And I worked in restaurants for a long time. And the routine was solid. It was concrete. We worked.

We closed it down. We would all go to the other place. Monday night, we'd go to this place, Tuesday night, and everybody from all the restaurants would end up at one place because there was one place with longer hours. So we don't end up here. Yeah. So you know the drills. So where do you go from there though?

You have this talk with yourself on the bridge there too about this is maybe where I'm at. Like where do things go from there? Well, you know, that that dial up bottle or whatever is telling you about? Well, I find out that you can not only get alcohol, but you can get drugs. So it turned into getting a bottle in half ground, right? And that half gram starts to build up, right? You start to have me full ground. And then all of a sudden, I'm getting skinny, man.

I'm losing. Like now I'm 6.3, 2.30. But back then, I was 6.3, probably 180 or 175. I don't know. 180 because I'm eating once a day. I'm staying up until 5 or 6 in the morning, sleep all day. I'm getting no sun. I have no vitamin D.

I'm beasties heck. I'm skinny and I'm fragile. People can see it on me. My manager is everybody knew. Justin Ryan needs to get out to drink. Justin Ryan needs to do drugs, right? Everybody knew, but I showed up for work. I did my job, but I was a really good bark.

Right? They didn't really, I think they cared about it. I meant also, I mean, you just like, can't really do anything about it. But eventually, I end up moving back home to salmon arm. I quit my job and I ended up moving, back home to Saminar where I'm from and I'm managing at a nightclub. And I remember doing the same kind of lifestyle.

And then I got into hanging out with the wrong kind of people, doing the wrong kind of things to where I always had drugs readily available to me. So now I'm bartending, working at a club, and it's all around me. And I remember one time, and because I lost my license for drinking and driving, I had to get a ride home. And on that ride home one day, my buddy, we mean him started talking about. talking about the topic of depression. To where I looked at him and I said this,

no depressions for the week. Depression is an excuse. You got to man up, you gotta go to work, and you gotta pay your bills. Now, I don't know why I said it back then, but I definitely know why I said it now. I was trying to look stronger on the outside than when I was feeling on the inside,

because I still had that feeling at less than. So at 24 years old, I have two major problems, substance use and my mental health. But at 24 years old, I'm ignoring two major problems, my substance use and my mental health. So I stayed down that track for for many years, moving around to bartend to do other things, not in a good way and just chasing money because I wear out my welcome somewhere.

Okay, I'm a good bartender. Like, I can literally go to a bar and you usually don't get tipped out your first shift, but I could pick it up so fast that at the end of the night, the bartender did, oh, wow, okay, here you go. And then I, they just feel okay, you're good. You're hired. And then I would drink on shifts. And I eventually, I started to get.

fired from places because I was unreliable. I was drinking on a shift that was coming in drunk or I was missing work, right? So finally, I hit 28 years old and I'm back home. I ended up moving back home and I'm like, oh man, I'm not doing well. And that was the first time that I admitted out loud that I admitted to myself that Justin, you struggle with your mental health. Justin, you have substance abuse issues. Like, okay, well, what do I got to do next? That's something I like to call my three A's first you admit the problem, then you accept it internally, and then you ask for help. But I didn't do the acceptance part. I admitted those things, my mental health and substance use, but then asked for help.

And I would go to my counseling appointments, but I hated it. I'm like, oh, I had the wrong mindset. I'm like, oh, she's just there just because she's getting paid. Which is really a cop out for me because I didn't want to be there. Right. I'm like, okay, yeah, I struggle. I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to get a bit of help.

but then I'm missing appointments. I'm not really there. I'm not really engaged. And along this time, I meet a girl and we're together and we break up and we're together and we break up because of my substance use issues. She's a phenomenal woman. And then one time when we were broken up and I was on a leave of absence from work when I was working at, I left the barred street, got a job at a plywood plant at a mill.

And they actually asked me to take a leave of absence because I couldn't keep my thoughts together. I was missing work because of Drake King. They're like, Justin, go get help, man. So I'm on a leave of absence and she calls me up to say, we need to talk. Okay. So she comes to Saminar and she was living in Colonna at the time and she says, Justin, I'm pregnant.

She's like, now you can be in this child's life or not, but I'm keeping it. My first thought, holy shit, this child's going to be like me. I don't want this kid, but the kid's going to be like me. I don't want them to turn out like me. Like the first thing is you imagine me here as a parent that you're going to have a kid, you don't want them to be like you. But then I was like, there's no way I'm not being in this kid's life.

I'm going to be in this kid's life. We get back. So I'm like, let's try to work things out. And so we get back together and all of a sudden I get in a car accident when I was drinking and driving. And I was very fortunate because I was right. I was merging onto the highway.

And I was very fortunate that nothing really bad happened. But I was like, holy cow, I got a kid on the way. I need to go to rehab. So a month later, I go to rehab. And I go to all my appointments. I go to my classes. I do the therapy. But I'm not really there.

I'm in a place full of 60 other guys. And I make a lot of friends. And this is one thing I'll say about rehab is that being a rehab for me was easy because I wasn't the black sheep anymore. I wasn't the odd man old, the one that keeps messing up. And it's like, I walk into that place and you get along, right? And you hear about their stories and you just, it was nice to be there for me because I didn't feel out of place anymore.

But I don't think I was taking it serious enough. I was going to the gym twice a day. I was getting big. I was eating like king. And the first thing I said when I got out of rehab was, I'm not done drinking forever. Well, great. I just spent 35 days away from my pregnant girlfriend, my family. And the first thing I said was, I'm not done drinking forever.

Well, you can probably guess what happened. I got out of rehab. Got home months later, have my son. We have our son. Two months later, I started hitting the bottle heart again. Six months after that, my girlfriend had to make probably the toughest decisions she'll ever have to make. And she had to leave me with my kid at my lowest point. And I don't blame her.

I wasn't in any shape to have a kid around. I was getting blackout drunk, not remembering things. It wasn't a shape to go to work. And then she left. And after that, you think, okay, Jocelyn, you're a smart nut. But I just got worse. My suicidal thoughts started to kick. And then one day I was drinking with my buddies and then we go to a pub and I'm like, I'm feeling weird.

I'm feeling off. And I'm like, mom, you need to come pick me up. So I leave. One picks me up. I get some more beer. And I'm living underneath her at this point. And I drink the beer. I'm not feeling good.

I was getting suicidal. And I just remember thinking, okay, this is the end. Next thing I know, I wake up in the morning. and I pulled the sheets off. There's blood in the sheets. There's a knife in my bed and my wrists were cut. I'm very fortunate that nothing happened, but I was scared and I was shocked in it all.

What just, did that really? Because I don't remember at all. I remember the knife. And I didn't know what to do. So I didn't tell anybody. I washed the sheets and eventually ended up going back to work. and I had to wear those rubber bracelets that everybody wears.

And I went out sneaking on the bedroom. I'd get her makeup and I'd put it on my wrist. So nobody knew because it started to scar up a bit or just scab up a bit. And I was super embarrassed and scared. And I just put it behind me. So that was the first time I had a scare like that. When was that? How old were you?

Did you say 34? No, I was around my 30. 30s. So you're back at your mom's place. What's mom's view on all of this? Oh, she hated it. Yeah, she didn't like it at all. But I was showing people I was trying to get help because I would have these sober spurts, right? But then I just had these four-day vendors. You know, I wasn't drinking every day like I normally did. Like I was when I was in Vancouver. But I'd have a month here or three weeks here and then I'd have one. And it's, and then, and then, And all of a sudden, that would compile on. And then I would go with, I would block him for three days. But I'd be coherent enough to somehow get more drugs, to get more alcohol. It was super scary. I don't remember three days going by in my life.

One time I ended up in a council appointment. My counselor, she looked at me, she said, Justin, and I just came up with three-day bender. She said, do you like feeling like this? Because I'm shaky. I'm sick. I'm pasty. And I'm like, you know what? For those three days that I don't remember, at least I didn't know if I was suicidal.

At least I didn't know if I was depressed. At least I didn't know if I was angry. So sometimes, you know what? I didn't mind feeling like that. And I would choose using overfeeling. And I chose using overfeeling a lot. Because I just wanted to escape that invisible pain that was inside me, that was consuming my body, turning.

Justin Bryan, you could be so happy. Justin Brian, that's so feldful of hate, anger, and uncomfortable. you know, being super uncomfortable all the time, like in your old skin. Yeah. When you had that counseling appointments or any counselors that you saw or even at rehab there, did you talk about like the real stuff that was going on with you? No, they asked me if I was suicidal and I said no every single time because I was scared. Finally, when we have my kid, I was scared of him getting taken away from me, right?

Because he was the one thing that brought me a little bit of solace because he was such a cool kid, man. but I missed times with them because I was out partying or I was hung over. The thing is I couldn't hide it either because I had a blowbox in my car. If I couldn't go pick him up, my axe is like, well, I'm not going to bring it to you. Come on. I know you obviously been out all night because I couldn't even start my car. And yeah, I would lie to people because I was embarrassed. Right.

I saw that man up stigma. You got to be a man. Now I'm going through it, you realize, holy cow, this is real. This is real. the wanting need to escape your own body. It was very real. And then I started to call myself a coward. You got that internal dialogue firing up,

saying other words to myself that are very nice, just nasty and not very encouraging. I bottled it up. And it kept it to myself for a very long time. And then finally, I ended up messing up again. And I'm like, I need to go back to rehab.

So I'm back to rehab for the second. This time when I went to the rehab, I was very fortunate that I started to listen to motivational speaking. I finally started getting into the gym. And I heard these speakers and they all had something in common. It was find your why. So I started to ask myself, Justin, what is your why? What is your wife that's going to drive you and motivate you to get better?

What is your why that's going to pick you up when you fall down? What is your wife that's going to make you do the things that you don't want to do? And I started to look at that little boy again that I had. There was a time where I wanted to end my life so he could have a better dad. because I thought he deserved better than me. I actually at one point went into the DMV to become an organ donor so I could prepare my body to die. I got milk thistle for my liver, kidney flush,

sort of working out, eating healthy, so I could just prepare my body to give it to somebody else. I've ever been in that DMV and she's, oh, you're such a good person, right? I just remember sitting there thinking, smiling, you have no idea why I'm doing this. And it was for me to prepare my body to give away. And I remember that was a day after my dad's birthday, actually.

And then I started to look at the little boy again. I'm like, man, I started to picture him growing up without a dad. And I started to picture him being made fun of. And it's this is what helped me is being made fun of that his dad left him. Right. And for some reason that just helped me. And I'm like, I need to go back to rehab. And this time when I went back to rehab, I went with the power of why.

Instead of quitting the substance, I was like, K. Justin, why do you drink? Well, I'm depressed. But why are you depressed? Why are you low self-esteem, low self-worth, and low self-confidence? Okay, well, why are you like that? It's because I didn't learn how to deal with my operating system, my mental health. And in rehab was pretty cool, is that they don't worry about the, they don't worry about the substance. They worry about the why, right?

And then in rehab, they teach you the howl. But a quick story about my second time of rehab, I think it was a second or first day where we're allowed to go for a walk as a group. We're allowed to leave the compound, we called it. which is really crazy because it was, the rehab center was in Rutland, Colona, right across from a park where a lot of homeless people sleep and use, find needles in that part.

It's right across the street. But we went for a walk around this strip mall, and then we happened to notice like this liquor store on the, like a hundred meters away, but it wasn't the liquor store because they're everywhere. But on a sign outside the liquor store, big sign, It says BC wine is cheaper than therapy.

I just look at 20 other guys I'm in therapy with. Hey, I've only got 20 bucks. Oh, I was like, this sign can't be true. But that was one of the first things I saw when I was in rehab. But you know, in rehab, they teach you to how, like journal, you know, gratitude. Exercise, direct correlation between your gut health, your mental health. One of the biggest things I learned in rehab and in like coaching was the power of acceptance and forgiveness.

And how acceptance and forgiveness is actually for you. There's going to be things in your life where you're going to get hurt things where people hurt you. You're going to have bad experiences. There's going to be deaths in the family. And the first thing you have to do is you have to accept it. Now, it doesn't mean you have to like it, but you have to accept it. You have to accept it so that you can move on. and you got to move on and then you got to forgive it.

And the coolest thing about forgiveness is that they told us is you don't have to let the person. It's not of their business to know. You don't have to bring them back into your life. They can have their life. You can have your life. But you need to forgive them for what they did. They hurt you so that you can move on. Stop living in your past and start creating your future.

The biggest thing for me, I think, was accepting what I've done and then forgiving myself, which actually truly took me into last year when I saw a counselor, I was still seeing a counselor, to where I finally, okay, you know, Justin, I forgive you for what you did in your past and accept you for who you are.

So that took a very long time. But, you know, I got out of rehab again and I hit the ground running. I became a car salesman. What is that for some people? It's not for me. I can tell you that.

Guy, so I was diagnosed with clinical depression, ADHD, But social and general anxiety. So having social anxiety going to be a car salesman is probably the worst thing I could have done. And after two or three months or two months of being sober, I hit the paint cloud. And boom, here I am drinking again. And then I miss a week of works.

And then I don't remember what happened. But on New Year's, I went out party, drugs, alcohol and called my boss told him this isn't working. And realized the next day what happened. I have no job. I have no money. I've got debt and I'm an alcohol opinion. For a couple of days past, I'm drinking 40s of vodka by myself. Then finally on January 4th, 2019, I wake up and I'm alone in my basement suite, super dark in there.

I had tin foil and towels over the windows, blackout curtains. I don't want any light to get in, but I'm scared of the dark. I'm scared of the light. And I find myself looking at pictures of my son, his toys in the corner, and his hockey stick on the ground. And I'm like, holy cow, just. And you know what? You got two choices here, bud. You can continue what you're good, which is going to take your life.

Or you can ask for help. So on your 9-2018, I told my mama. She left work. She took me to the hospital. My dad met us there. And that day, I finally told my parents out loud that, hey, if I'm going to continue to feel the way than I am, I have a plan and that plans to end it. I probably took all that weight and lifted it off my shoulder.

I sat in front of a counselor and she allowed me to go back home that day because I was living with my mom and ever since then I haven't. I haven't touched to drop alcohol, tobacco, drugs, nothing like that and started becoming the path of having a mental health advocate, a coach, a speaker, and an author. It was cool on that day, like that counselor, she gave me her card. And she said, hey, do you ever need anything, give me a call? Two years later, I saw her again. And I had my old business cards and I'm like, hey, you ever need anything? Give me a call. So that, that was pretty cool.

Wow, dude. Huge congrats on that too, because that's just over five years, right? Five years, I just had my five year celebration on my five-year sobriety date. With my birthday yesterday, I'm 239. But my five-year, I'm going to start celebrating that morgue. I'm a lot younger. Yes, that's the truth, man. I'm just curious going through this, right?

Because you've shared this story obviously before. But there's a lot of layers to it. I mean, a lot of different things. How do you feel going through sharing some of those dark moments that you experienced? It's the one thing that helps me to do it is knowing that I can help somebody else. It's tough. Sometimes it was when I first became a speaker. It was hard.

Like I would almost break down. Not break down, but I needed to be alone, like after I'd do a speaking gig. Because I could go back there. And sometimes I can go back too, but you get better at not staring, but just a glance backwards.

But yeah, it can be tough. I remember one thing that helped me in the beginning is when I did a speaking engagement and I came home, I had actually watched a movie frozen with my kids. That was my thing to unwelcome. For some reason, it was watching Frozen with my son and my daughter. One of the coolest things that when I got sober, six months later, I got back together

with the mother of my son and we welcomed another baby girl. And that was a, that's another story in itself and how that came and the struggles we had was her. But I was able to get back together with my family. And they are one of my tools I used to unwind after speaking engagement. Yeah. I love that. That's incredible.

I'm so interested, man, to know what changed on that day, January 4th, 2019. I mean, was there something you could put a finger on about why that was different, why that was sort of the jumpstart to everything that you've built now? Well, I think it was finding my, my wife, my son, but just realizing that I'm better than my current situation, that I deserve more than what I'm doing to myself, that they're there is light out there. I have a deep-seated belief in myself and everybody. Like everyone I meet,

I believe in them that they can do basically a form, let's say, of what they want to do or what they want to be. They may not match the highest level of everybody else, but they can become good at something if they put their mind to it. And on that day, I just,

and I knew I had to be consistent. I was never consistent with my counseling, I was never consistent with my medication. my coping mechanisms, my tools. So I made sure that I took my medication every day. I made sure that I went to my counseling appointments. I would go to counseling appointments once a week. I'd go to my doctors once a month.

He really helped me, just seeing him, right? Journaling. I was doing gratitude. I was eating great. I was going to the gym. I was listening to motivational speaking. And I was sick and tired of me, sick and tired. Really, it's, I wanted to be the man I knew I could be.

And I heard a speaker once say, I don't want to die and meet the person that it could have been. And that really, that's true. Because there are many versions of you that you can build. And one could be substance use. One can be you go to work, come home. One can be you help serve other people. Or one can be you turn your life around and you help others turn theirs.

There's this different versions you can be. And I was just, I was done with being that version of me. because with that one point when I wanted to donate my body is because I'm like Justin you have so much potential you're wasting it you're wasting it and there's people out there that wish they could go to school

and don't get good grades there's people that wish they're as athletic as you right? And I'm like, I gotta stop wasting what God gave me. And I think on that day I was like you know what I told God I was like if I get through this

I'm going to do whatever I can to help other people And that's what helps me stay sober. But one of the biggest things that helps me stay sober is that I would, yeah, I would let myself down. But I could, I would let a lot of other people down at people that I can help. Because by me staying sober and working on my mental health, people would see that there is hope, that there is a way out. You got to just, you got to keep moving. You got to keep moving.

And you got to keep working on yourself. And it's not a race. It's a long distance thing. Like you can't just say, yeah, you know what? I'm done today. I don't know. You stop and then you risk the chance of going backwards again. And it's okay to go backwards sometimes, but you want to take more steps forward than you

do backwards. Yeah, you want to learn from everything, right? Because even in your story there, and I mean, a lot of people's journeys and stories to put together five years, yeah, I mean, there's everything we have to learn from, right? Every time we slip up and every time things don't work out maybe exactly the way that we envision them, we have to reflect on those situations and come on. up with different tools and really get plugged in. Just an incredible story, man.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us. And now I know that even on this journey, there's been challenges. What have been a couple of challenges that you've had throughout being sober and how are you able to keep going? Well, like I said, I got back together with my family after six months. And in rehab, they tell you, don't make any major decisions for a year. I understand that why now. And I got back together with my family at six months.

I went back to school. I went back to work. I started volunteering. I started taking courses. I got overwhelmed so fast. But I just, I kept moving. And me and my girlfriend,

we wanted another kid. And we tried and almost we had a miscarriage. And we weren't ready for it. We had one before, like when I was before my son, but we just, we weren't ready. were prepared for it.

And after you have them, you start to realize how often, unfortunately, they occur. It's okay, we tried again and we got pregnant again. And I actually found out on my 37th birthday, or 36th birthday, 37. It was cool. I found out I was having a daughter and Tom Brady beat Aaron Rogers in the playoffs. I have a big Tom Brady fan. But we found out we were having a baby girl. And because we're both older, we knew there's a chance that wanted a 100 chance that she'd have Down syndrome.

So we went and got the testing. And it came back that she had a 99.9% chance that you'd have Down syndrome. So they sent us to the Vancouver Women's Hospital. And it came back that she would need heart surgery. She would need intestinal surgery. And that's when you have the option, right? And the thing with babies with Down syndrome, some people, they just because, of that if they choose to terminate.

So throughout that process, we were given opportunities because I think that the doctors are supposed to, right? Not because they're encouraging you to, but right from the beginning, we knew, no, we're keeping her. So we knew we were in for a hall. And so they started setting us up with a place at the Ronald McDonald's house. And we would go down there and within two days of having her, we knew she would have intestinal surgery.

It's called the duodenal atresia. And then we would go home. and then in four or five months you'd have heart surgery. So when we got down there, well, Renee went down first. I kept working so I could save up some money so we could go be down there. But they're all in McDonald's. It's an amazing place. And we're so fortunate to be there.

But I was working like basically every single day. I was drinking black coffee all day, was barely eating healthy. And I would take melatonin as soon as I get home. And while Renee and Taylor are down at McDonald's house, I get a call. I just went into labor. I'm like, what? And I just popped two melatonins. I'm like, well, I could drive.

But it's a five hour drive, five and a half hour from Salmonum to Vancouver. I better not. So I went to bed, got up at five or four o'clock. We'll start to apply down there. And my mind is just racing. What's going to happen? I'm not there. I'm like, you tell that baby to wait for me.

Well, obviously, she didn't wait for me. But we get down there and they had to take her right from there to the NICU to hook her up to all these tubes. because she's three weeks early. She was at least five pounds, but they knew that with all her stuff going on, they had to get her hooked up. And I couldn't see her for the first two hours.

Then finally, it was during COVID, right? So a lot of protocols. And finally, I got two hours later, I got to see her and you see this little girl laying in a bed with a dome hooked up to how many probes and tubes and breathing apparatus

because she couldn't breathe on her own. And you're just like, my God. And then finally, two days later, they take her away. Here's your baby girl. You can't touch her. You can't lift her. Well, you could touch her. You could put her hand. But you can't take her out. You can't lift her up or nothing like that. And all of a sudden, they come in. Then they have this team of six people take her out. We'll be back. And you're just like, holy cow. Like, it just gets a little more real at that point. Finally, after they bring her back,

surgery's successful. And after five days, we can finally hold her. And she's just, is so small. She's like the size of my forearm. And we weren't allowed to come home because she couldn't come off of breathing. So we ended up staying at the Ronald McDonald for six months. And while we were there, she got allergic to cow's protein mill. So she was struggling that way. She had to get a pick line into her heart because her intestines are on fire. And they tried to go through her head. They tried to go through her feet. They tried to go through every single place. And they finally got one in. And then all of a sudden, it's time for heart surgery.

And that's when it gets real. They take you into this room and all of a sudden, stats start flying around. Well, there's Niska, and you're like, hold, cow. You just spend five, four months with your baby girl, like taking turns, being in the hospital because she can't leave the hospital, feeding her through a bag and sometimes getting to hold her. Christmas time was the first time we got to take her out of her room was pretty cool. And in January 4th happening, it's, yeah, it's right all my sobriety date. I went to have sobriety days so that they take you in this room and give you stats. Then all of a sudden, your daughter gets whisked away again.

And so she had two walls in her heart and she needed a valve replaced. And so they take her way. And all of a sudden, they're like, yeah, it can be scary for the first 12 hours. And so they give the heart surgery. Then we get a phone call. And they're like, yeah, your daughter's okay. but she flatlined. So she actually had a lung collapse and she flatlined for two minutes that they had to give her CPR.

And she almost had to go on ECMO and then they brought her back. Now, they said, don't come here. There's no point. There's 16 doctors in this room. Just come tomorrow. So we went to the next day and when I walked in, you look at her and she's sedated. She's on a paralytic. So she can't move because she.

She has even more tubes connected to her. Things go on to her heart. And something for the blood to drain. Her chest is still open. It doesn't swelling. They can't close it. And it was cool. You could tell that she knew you were there.

But I got a flashback. When I was 20, I think 28 or 27, that my stepdad, I woke up and my mom was screaming. And it was my stepdad. He was choking. So I got into her room. I picked them up and put him on the floor and I started to give him CPR and unfortunately

he had a near dissection and he passed away. And I'll never forget the way he looked at me, this breath. And when I walked into that room, it just, it was a flashback to that because she couldn't move and it was her eye. I'm just like, oh my God. And you see this little baby and you're just like, you're angry, you're confused, you're upset. You want to be strong for your girlfriend.

And it was tough, man. It was tough, but we got through it. And when we got home, we finally left the Ronald McDonald's house. We got home. But it was, we're feeding her six every four hours through bag, throughout the day and night, every four hours. So you're getting up. You're feeding her through a machine.

You're doing her meds at the different times. And she has a breeding machine going on. And I'm back at work and getting burnt out again. But you just keep going because I heard Inkey Johnson once say, he said, why me? People would say, why me? Why me? And he's like, why not you?

What makes you immune to life? That's, oh, man, you know what? Just because I went through stuff, doesn't mean stuff's not going to happen to me right now. It doesn't mean stuff's not going to happen to me again. But I brought this baby girl into the world, and I'm going to help her navigate it. So going through that was tough.

And, but you just learn, to be resilient. There's resilience in you. I remember looking over one time in the hospital and my girlfriend then, she's my wife now, we finally got married, looking over, she's sleeping, we're in the hospital area.

There's my son on this bed beside my daughter who's hooked up to these machines. He never complained once about being there. We put him in school, we got him playing hockey down in Vancouver, which is very grateful for Vancouver minor hockey, but he never complained once. and I realize how resilient people are.

Here's this girl fighting for her life. Being born of Down syndrome and surviving the egg plantation is very unlikely to seeing what she went through, dealing with everything she did, to my son being pulled around, thrown into his school, thrown into hockey, spinning the night at his hospital,

looking after his sister, us spinning there and just realizing how resilient we are and you got to remember the Oro, when you're feeling low, borrow a feeling from a feeling. Borrow that time that you were resilient. Not feeling confident, borrow a time where you were confident.

And when things happened again. And we wanted another one after that. And that's 16 weeks, we lost it. You know, 16 or 17 weeks, we lost another baby. And one week after that, I lost my grandfather who,

the person I wanted the most to read my book. My biggest role model, I wanted him to read my book. Within a week, both of those things happened. And I found myself, I meant, I wanted to quit. Screw this book. Screw everything else. Book's not coming up.

And then I had to sit back and I talked to a buddy about it. And I had to calm myself down and realize that it's life. And if I don't put out the book, it's doing a disservice to myself, showing my son something I don't want him to learn that quitting is good. and it would show it to service other people that the book could help. So I had to go back to that my three A's admit, except ask for help. I had to admit that as much as I was mad that we lost our kid because one of the worst parts about it was seeing your wife cry or the devastation that she would have to go through again because it hits women different than men, I believe.

Well, for me, sorry, not for every man. I can't speak for every man, but it hit me. I was angry. She was sad. And then I got sad, but I had to accept, admit that those two things happened within a week. Then I had to accept it internally. And then I asked for help. And I talked to my wife about it. I talked to my buddies about it. I didn't see a counselor or anything. But I knew a guy that went through the same thing. So I talked to him and he helped me through it. So I know I had to have had a lot of things come up and you get tested right out of sobriety and been able to stick with it and very grateful.

for the support team that I have around me. Another thing that helps me is seeing these sober motivation groups that you started. When you posted my sobriety five year on your page, the amount of support and encouragement of people taking a second out of their day to help celebrate with me and acknowledge that, man, that just fires me. It just keeps me going. And this is doing this stuff helps me to keep going or realizing that things are going to happen in life. You're not going to like them.

You're going to get hurt. They got to keep moving. Wow, dude. Thank you for bringing us on that journey there. What's your daughter's name, by the way? OSHA. OSHA. Wow, that's beautiful, man.

An incredible journey, right? Especially early on in your sobriety and everything you've been through, dude. I mean, we've met before we've talked, but I mean, I had no idea. I had no idea, and I'm sure there's so much more. It almost sounds, too, you got to this spot, too, about things are just bigger than us. The story with your daughter and then the story with your book. And I think once I understood that about everything,

not that it makes it any easier, but maybe it just makes it make a little bit more sense that this is not all about me. It's not all about everything. And that's what I really struggled with early on in my life. That's how I lived. Everything was about me, poor me, look at me. And then when I am able to step back

and just say, you know what, like, there's, there's so much more going on here than just me. It really seemed to take the pressure off and help me understand that these, these situations, and that's true in life. I mean, if you're going to love, you're going to feel the other side of that at sometimes. So it's almost, I mean, do you love, of course. You love a lot. And that's going to come with the flip side of the coin at some point. But I think that's really one of the beautiful things about life is being able to experience all of that

and to be able to do it all sober, everything that you've been through in those five years. I'm glad to hear that people stepped up and supported you for your celebration there, too. That's incredible. A couple more minutes here before we wrap up officially, your book. Tell us about that for a few minutes.

Well, it's called Chasing Shadows, Fighting the Monster Within. Why write a book? I mean, I never thought I would write a book. And my body's, you need to write a book. I'm like, okay, I might write one, by my fifth year sobriety. He's like, oh, you're going to write it now.

I'm like, okay, I'm going to write it. Along the way, I was taking notes because I always had it in the back of my mind because I knew I had a little bit of a story. And once I started taking life coaching courses and going into the personal development world, I'm like, well, I got all this knowledge. I want to be able to share it. Right. And how do I get it out to the world?

And finally, I was like, well, why don't I just write a book about it? Right. And so I wrote a book and it's into three different chapters. It's like, during all. Like after alcohol and then learning lessons. So at the end of every chapter, it goes more in depth of my growing up. It goes into my junior hockey experience. It goes into like my life after that and then getting sober, getting married.

And then after alcohol, the things that I faced and some of those places I've spoken at and stuff like that. But then the learning lessons on self-love, making lasting change, finding your why, having a support system, all that kind of stuff. And at the end of every chapter, there's actually a question. that you can ask yourself. And it takes you on a journey of maybe making a change or seeing an area in your light that you want to make a change that you never would have thought before that I'm hoping

that when people read the book, they're like, okay, well, I'll make this change and that at the end of, okay, well, holy, maybe I need to make this change. And it also talks about the human needs of positive psychology, Tony Robbins, how there's uncertainty, there's certainty, comfort and stuff like that, uncertainty of You want some surprise in your life. There's significance where you want to matter. There's love and connection. You want to feel love.

You want to give love. Those are human survival. Those first four are for human survival. And then it talks about growth and contribution or human fulfillment. When you stop growing, you die. And you want a contribution, you want to give more. You want to be able to give more than yourself to the world. So it goes into that and how everything we do, all our behaviors is, is a way to me to need.

It's a way to meet a certain need and that if one need or if one thing that you do meets more than four of those needs, well, then it becomes an addiction. And that's what alcohol and drugs did for me. Alcohol and drugs met certainty. It gave me comfort. I knew that it was going to give me comfort. It going to give me release. Uncertainty, it made me get out of myself, made me actually leave my house.

It gave me significance. I like to write. I'd make people laugh. It gave me love and connection that I was searching for. I felt one with myself. I felt confident, right? With growth contribution, I don't think I contributed much to the world. That was hammered.

And I don't know if I was really growing as an individual, but it met four of my needs. And he talks about if it meets for your needs, it can be down addiction. So find different things that meet your needs. And so it talks about all our behavior meets the needs. It's how sometimes we will meet that need, even if it hurts somebody else.

Yeah, wow, powerful. Well, thank you, dude, so much for jumping on here and sharing your story. Where can people check you out? Give you a follow or send you a message if they want. Well, you can visit my website, www.justin-brien.com. That's j-us-t-I-N-B-R-I-E-N.com at Justin Brian 19 on Instagram. Thanks again, brother, for sharing, man. I appreciate you.

Thank you very much, buddy. Well, there it is, everyone. Another incredible episode. Thank you, Justin, for jumping on here and sharing your story with all of us. Thank you, everybody, for listening to these stories. We're really giving people an opportunity to share their story with a lot of people and try to make a difference out there.

So it's much appreciated from my end, and I know it is from a lot of the guests as well. If you guys enjoyed or were able to connect with any part of Justin's story, be sure to send them a message over on Instagram. I will drop that link down on the show notes below. What an incredible episode, though, of ups and downs. is just an extremely humble human being that I've been lucky enough to connect with and I really enjoyed the story. You always think you know a lot about people until it comes to them sharing their story like this. And let me tell you, an hour flies by. And we just barely scratched the

surface on a lot of these stories. But it really paints a bigger picture for what somebody went through and maybe helps explain a little bit about why they landed, where they landed, and for him to be able to pull himself out of all of that and to be giving back and helping others by sharing his story is so amazing. So thank you all, as always, for the support. It's incredible. The podcast is really moving and shaking right now. We're going to be hitting a million downloads here soon. And when we do that, I will be doing another eight-hour Instagram live with previous guests and friends over on Instagram. I'll be sure to announce that beforehand. So if you want to come and hang out all day, if you want to hang out all day for eight

hours, you're welcome. If you want to just pop in and out or just see a specific person, I'll post the roster as well once I get all that figured out. But I'll see you guys on the next one.