Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Mike almost lost his life due to an addiction to alcohol and was in a coma for nearly 3 weeks

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Mike spent nearly 3 weeks in a coma from his body shutting down after daily drinking. Mike shares his honest and raw story with us in episode 5 of the sobermotviaton podcast.  Mike's story shows us that addiction and affect anyone and has no limits.    Grab your free sober tracker from SoberBuddy today: Download Here   Check out Sober Link here: www.soberlink.com/recover

Welcome to Season 1 of the Sober Motivation 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. Mike started drinking to numb and escape. Life happened fast for Mike and he struggled with managing his emotions and processing certain events that happened when he was a teenager. Mike turned to alcohol. Mike's addiction to alcohol almost took his life.

I am grateful Mike is alive and able to share a story with us on the podcast today. Heard's eye view on his struggle with addiction. We need to talk about alcohol recovery in the workplace. Talking about sobriety and proving it to your employer can be so difficult. And our friends at Soberlink want to help. If you need a reliable way to present documented proof of sobriety to a boss or loved one, Soberlink can help. Soberlink is a high-tech portable breathalizer system that uses facial rest. recognition technology to verify identity, has unique sensors to ensure that no other air

sources are being used, and sends results directly to your specified contacts. So there is no questioning whether or not you took the test or whether or not you altered the reporting. This is why Soberlink's remote alcohol monitoring system is considered the gold standard. Being in recovery from alcohol does not define the future of your career. Let Soberlink help. Learn more about Soberlink and request an exclusive $50 off promo code by visiting soberlink.com slash recover. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode five of the Sobermotivation podcast. Today we've got my good friend Mike, who I originally was introduced to on Instagram when

he shared his story about being in a coma from drinking alcohol. Mike shared a video and in the video you can clearly see that Mike's eyes are yellow, Mike's not very responsive and his skin is also yellow and it just doesn't. look good for him. But Mike's transformation was what really jumped out at me. And it is incredible. Mike, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, Brad. How are you doing, man? I'm doing well, buddy. And I appreciate you so much for coming on here and being willing to share your story. Yeah. So bring us back to that picture and the video that you shared.

What was going on there? That picture came to a snapshot from a video that, A cousin of mine sent me, I'd say like right around the time that we met, he held on to it for a long time. He sent it over to me. We hadn't been talking for a little bit. And then finally we got back talking. And I was like, you have any footage? You know, I was putting things together, thinking of stuff that I could put a message. And I just had a lot of old stuff.

I mean, he sent me that video on a Sunday. I was home with the kids. And like, when I received it, I never. expected like what I saw you know I had I had seen some pictures of my family that they sent me that were like a little further away and some videos after I woke up but nothing that gave a clear view of a moment that I didn't remember kind of being conscious and still coming out of my coma I played it and I paused immediately when the zoom came close to my face because I felt my soul dropped. I was at a loss for words and I started crying. I broke down and it took me a little bit

and then I played it again just broke down while I was watching it man like looking at myself. I don't remember that moment and just seeing myself with the tube down my throat. I saw there was a little sticker on my face, a piece of tape that had a date in January. A tube in my like veins. I looked dead, man. I looked like I was dead, you know, and just. Just like at the very moments of like death ready to leave. It broke me down in that moment, man. It brought me back. It was such a trigger for me.

Like it brought me back to the moment of everything. It brought me right back. It was difficult to watch. It was hard. Yeah, man. I could I could see that for sure because it was really real. It was right there. Why don't you take us back to the beginning before this video?

What led up to that? Growing up, normal, normal drinking. like most kids drinking at parties. I was never like a fan of alcohol. I hated alcohol, to be honest, I hated a taste of alcohol. I enjoyed other stuff like weed, smoking weed, stuff like that, even other drugs, Coke and things like that. Drinking was never really my thing as a teenager,

but as I got older, I'd say like 18, 19, 20 was when I started to find comfort in drinking. It just life started to become unmanaged. for me becoming an adult. I wasn't very emotionally intelligent to deal with a lot of shit that was happening at that age. I kind of left the shit that I was having fun with and found comfort and numbing with drinking right around that age. I think like most people, I had a lot of different traumas that happened through the years. I lost people in my life that were very important to me, a cousin of mine that was very

important to me. Just a bunch of things that kept adding up. drinking became more and more of a problem all the way up until I was like 25 years old I'd say I was drinking a lot almost drinking every day all the time at that time I used to make music so I would I had this little studio in my mother's basement and I'd stay down there wake up start to do some music five in the mornings drinking you know follow do it all day take naps in between have people over it was like a 24 hour little party that was going on for a couple years It started to become a huge, huge problem right around 25, and that was around the time that my,

the mother and my kids, you know, my son was conceived. She was pregnant at that time, and alcohol was just baby coming, and I'm like, shit, I got to get my shit together. And now, I tried out a religious retreat at that time. It helped. I went like a year without drinking, then went back into drinking after that. My son was one, started slowly drinking. and, you know, I had like a long run with alcohol

where it was a problem in my family life. It was a problem in my personal life. But I was a functioning alcoholic for like 10 years, you know? I drink, I don't know, on and off throughout the week, sometimes feel bad, take a, you know, a day break here and there and then go back on the wagon on the weekend and just continuous like that for 10 years. I basically had somewhat of like a mental breakdown in 2019. Like I had found, I was already drinking a lot, but I had found out the mother and my kids cheated on me.

And a lot of things, just along with everything going on in my life, just added up to me, kind of losing my shit. I saw like no light at the end of the tunnel, man. The battle going on within the separation between me and the mother and my kids, the fear of me losing my house and losing my kids and losing the family that I had, like, fought hard to keep together, you know, No, I felt hard for this shit. It was like the most important thing to me. And even though I was a function of alcoholic, I thought I was maintaining that foundation of the family. Like this will, this is still working.

And everything just like started to fall apart. And at the peak of my career, too. You know, it was like the peak of my career. I was making the most money in my entire life. Like everything was good on that stuff. And then everything just kind of went to shit. And I started drinking heavily, man, heavily. When we couldn't figure out.

how this separation was going to work and it was just kind of like a halt. Nothing was happening. And then we're also living together in the same house. Things were just really uncomfortable. You can imagine in that situation. I just, I drank to, I drank, I never, like I never drank in my life at that point. This was like a different kind of drinking. I was waking up and I'd have like a 1.75 liter of Syrac.

I buy that shit every day, a whole bottle of that every day. And first thing in the morning, five, six shots of that shit. And it- First thing in the morning. And that's how you got the day started. Get the day started. Were you going through like withdrawals if you woke up and didn't have it? Yeah.

And I had dealt with withdrawals before, but not like this. This was the worst I had ever dealt with. I was waking up out of breath. I couldn't breathe. I had no, like I was completely gasping for air. sometimes with my heart racing so fast, anxiety so high, I'd wake up feeling like I was dying and run to, I knew exactly what I needed, you know, a couple drinks, I'll fix that shit right up because it's the same feelings as any kind of withdrawal. You get the shakes and the sweats,

but this was so intense. It was unbearable. My mind was speeding so fast at times. I thought I was going to have a seizure. My thoughts would be like just going so fast. I try to even talk when I'd be alone and some words would start stuttering. I'd be like, holy shit, maybe I'm about to have a seizure right now. Throughout this whole thing, the separation, the kids, did it come to your mind that sobriety might maybe give it a try, maybe ask for help, maybe do something? Or was this just the way you were headed? It was the way I was headed.

I was so fucking ashamed of myself in such a dark place. Like nobody really knew that I was. in this deeper shit. I kept that very private and hit it, you know. The person that, the only person that knew the full intensity of this was the mother and my kids. I hid this shit, even with my kids. I was drinking in a manner of like such high intensity, but I, at that point, I was

spending a lot of the day sleeping. Like, I'd get wasted so fast. My liver was shutting down, right? like the first symptom I had these massive hives blow up like on my neck I was at work one day

and I had this huge hive it was like size of a softball on my neck man I have pictures I'm gonna post them one day but it was like I felt it and I knew immediately because I had hives before

smaller ones and I knew immediately I'm like shit's going down and that was from the alcohol yeah okay yeah it was like That along with this other, this kind of taste that could have in my throat, it was in my throat. It tasted like when you taste the end of a battery, it tasted like acidy, very, very, like, specific taste.

And I could tell the taste from other times in my life when I had been drinking very, you know, highly. And when those hives came, I went home, I took some Benadryl and I drank. In my head, I'm like, I got to start weaning off, you know. I've done it in the past. I've got to start we need it off. I'm going to die. I feel like different than I've ever felt. And so you're still working and everything during all of this?

Yeah, the next day I had requested take time. Immediately after that hive breakout, I've requested time off and stayed home. And in my head, I remember that first day home. I was like, all right, I had the bottle of vodka. Heart was already raised and I'm like, I'm going to take three or four shots. I had a twisted tea. And I'm like working it out throughout the day that I'm going to start weaning off this shit, right? Drink little by little and get through this withdrawal.

A day goes by, two days goes by, three days go by. And the issues at home, like between me and the mother and my kids are getting worse. And I'm feeling worse about myself. And as much as I think I'm getting out, I'm going deeper, right? Like, I'm drinking more now. I started noticing after a week. I'm drinking even more. I woke up one day.

And it really was this fast. I was off for five, six weeks maybe. And I woke up one day and my eyes were yellow, man. They were like gleaming yellow, high letter yellow. And it was scary. I started thinking in my head like it's the light, something is wrong. I started freaking out. And it's freaking out.

And I went and drank. trying to figure out what's going on me, even though I know what's going on me. I didn't think about sobriety like that, Brad. Like, I felt like I was just crashing and burning, man. Like, I didn't even know who to fucking surrender to. Like I, I, I, my pride, my ego probably too, you know. I was so, never like faced me breaking down like that, I guess.

I, it didn't even cross my mind. I'll tell you that much that like asking for help today. Yeah. It seems like you were pretty far into it, right? what I'm hearing here is that everything the solution was drinking or whatever happened. That was the everyday thing. And then, I mean, you become physically dependent on it too, right? So it's not just something that you can necessarily just turn on and off switch, right?

Yeah. And I had managed that before in my life. You know, I had like the, I guess the simpler withdrawals that I had dealt with, you know, simpler periods that weren't so deep like this was. I felt like I could do it, man. And at that point, like, when my eyes were yellow, shit was confusing. At that point, I had crazy high levels of pneumonia

flowing through my blood, going to my brain. I had hepatic encephalepathy occurring, not only just occurring, my shit went complete shutdown of your liver, you know, your liver is like, it's not processing, nothing. I remember the drops, like, different things coming out of my eyes looked yellow. The teardrops.

Like everything was yellow. My skin started turning yellow. My belly swell up to a point where I was, I slept so much on my couch all day. I had this reclining couch. Wake up, drink, go there, come back, lay on the couch. Wake up, drink, go there, come back, lay on the couch. Taking liver pills thinking I'm still trying to get out of this. And it got to a point where, like, I couldn't get up off the couch.

I'm like trying to swing myself up and I can't. Mind you, I hadn't gone to the bathroom in two weeks, not, not, not, not pee. Okay, it was like I, when I go, it was like these, these like trinkles of pee, you know, and I could barely eat at that time, everything I was vomiting so much. All of this stuff like, man, my body was like screaming help in every way possible. Yeah, the poison, the poison caught up with you. Yeah, man. What about anyone else?

Did you have any other family members that saw this going on? or were you just hanging out at the house? I was hiding inside the house the whole time. I wouldn't go out for nothing. I would even order my alcohol. You'd get delivered with cigarettes. Like I wouldn't even leave. I wouldn't go out for nothing.

No, nobody saw me. My mom knew I was going through stuff, but no, no one knew what I was going through, except the mother of my kids. I had asked one cousin, me, she's a doctor in Florida, some questions pertaining to, like, things with like liver and alcohol.

I ate it, man. I don't, I couldn't ask for help. What fueled that? Because that, I mean, not everybody gets up where it was for you, but a lot of us struggle with that part. What you mentioned ego before, that can be definitely something. Is there anything else? I mean, the shame, the guilt, you just feel like, you know, I felt like for a long

time if I mentioned to people I had a problem, then I would have to sort of maybe try to make some changes. Like if I went to someone who was like, hey, I have a problem with this, then they're going to have an expectation of me to like make changes and I wasn't really ready to. You know, and then and then if I told them that and then I didn't make the changes and I had a relapse or, you know, things didn't work out. Then I would feel that guilty part of like just letting everybody down and it was just like the cycle just continued for years of just like letting people down, letting myself down. So that was part of like maybe for me why I didn't really see. say anything for a long time is because I wasn't ready to really look at anything or make changes. So I thought in my mind, like, well, why just set everybody up with like this idea

that I'm going to do something and I'm really not. But I'm interested for you. Like, because this like serious stuff, you're sitting on the couch for, you know, a couple weeks, six weeks off work. You're like noticing changes in your body that are not good. You know, you know this you know what i mean like you're you're aware of this and yeah what do you think man the ego i was part ego part even maybe a little bit of not caring what happens in me not giving a shit at that point i felt defeated in the manner of like just my soul man i felt like i lost my family man i lost everything i put my life into for the last 10 years and to think that i get i did that and that's the

that's the way I thought because I didn't do that but back then that's how I felt to think that I did that we did that at that time I thought she did that too you know like to think that we did that to them I felt like a fucking failure

I went into this like I didn't give a shit about myself anymore you know I really and I felt like threats and the shit that I was hearing like everything was just going to be taken from me anyway you know like I'm a man like here fighting for my life battling with this shit she was battling with her own addiction shit with alcohol and i'm like i got no fighting chance here you know like i got no fighting chance

i got a broke heart i got a broken head i got a broken spirit you know and i and i kept my face down and shame and the ego part of not wanting to face my family and like throw up a white flag and be like here i am somebody that was very successful and had a shit together and and was known to be a a good dad to destroy that whole image, feel out of control of that, I chose to eat it. I hear you on that. It seems like being a father too is something that's really important to you. It was really and it still is really important to you. And I can imagine that that is hard to be like, you know, for things to look a little bit

different, you know, for the kids and it's tough, right? So it seems like it was just a snowball. Everything kind of just went and then. Yeah, man, you just kind of gave up on it. So this is in 2019 or where are we at? That's, yeah, that's 2019 right around Christmas time. You know, that's like when this is all like going down heavy. And it was about a week later that I hadn't been on Facebook for a couple of days.

My mom knew something was up. And she reached out to my son, Jaden, and was like, get your father on. the phone and then I don't remember much before this but I remember this I remember my son Jaden coming to me and I was in the guest room in my house and I was dying right at that moment like I was dying laying on the bed and I couldn't really move I was just taking these little gas of air and it was so hard to breathe it was like every everything in me for these like little little tiny gas and me kind of just blinking and looking around with no like energy and I couldn't even respond to my mom and that's when my son like started freaking out and ran to his mom

and was like grandma said if you don't call any ambulance now she's calling the cops over here and then the ambulance came you know it was like a very odd thing for me then and an odd thing for me today to process, like what happened with the mother and my kids in that situation. You know, I know, like, my side of shit, you know, a drunk, you know, that's what it took. It took my mother's call to get that help there or else, in my opinion, no help was going to be coming. When the ambulance and stuff got there, like, you know, I fought to not go to the hospital. You know, I started to, like, be, like, shaking and woken up out of my shit.

And I kept arguing with them and not making sense. And they're like, we're taking you no matter what, man. You're so yellow. You're dying. They kept looking at me. They're like, you are dying. Right now you're dying. We're taking you.

And I started throwing up black stuff everywhere. Like, I guess they also started making me, they're making me freak out while they're saying all this shit, you know? Like, I'm just trying to stay home. I'm still like, that's the weird part for me, Brad, is I was still like in my head of like, no, I'm good. What were you thinking? You wanted to stay home and keep on drinking? At that point, it was like medicating. But yeah, I kept telling them I want to drink before I leave.

I want to drink. If you want me to go, I want to drink. You need to let me take a drink. What'd they say about that? They're like, whatever you want, come downstairs with us. In my head, it was also a lot of like, in and out of, I guess, like hallucination kind of shit going on for me because of the liver shutdown and the things going on with my body. But they slid me down the steps. I couldn't walk. And that's when I was, like, throwing up profusely. I don't remember much, much from there.

But they brought me to a hospital. They put me in an induced coma immediately because I was going to have a heart attack. My heart was, like, just racing through the roof. That was it. It was like comatose, man. I went to sleep. And things were bad. Things were bad.

My liver was down. My kidneys went next. They were calling my mom to get permission, trying to get me on dialysis. They told my family, they're like, he's not going to make it. Like, but, you know, like, we've dealt with this in the odds. He's in horrible shape. His liver is not working. My mom stopped going to see me at one point there because she thought it was like a rap

and started to do her thing playing in my funeral. That was it. My family was having meetings there. And then the doctors are telling them all this shit. And then I think from what I understand, it was like from, You know, one day to the next, there was a, there was a massive turnaround where they did this procedure. They put tubes in my stomach and started to, like, drain my belly. And because I was, like, blowing up, man, you know, I still wasn't going to the bathroom, even in the hospital.

Literally just blowing up, almost 270 pounds there. 270 pounds. Yes, sir. What do you weigh now? roughly my 100 range my my average rate's like 175 pounds yeah so okay an extra hundred pounds wow and how long were how long were you in the coma for about three weeks almost three weeks wow okay sorry so they do so they do this procedure and and it and it helps out it helps out the procedure letting the fluids out of my body.

I had this huge fever going on too, an infection going on in my body. They had ice packs and all these different machines trying to cool my body down. And when they did this procedure, it relieved something. Something changed. And my body cooled down.

My liver, I guess, just it didn't get better. It just like stopped shutting down. it stopped where it was. It didn't get worse. I stabilized in some kind of sense. But I was still kind of dying in the sense. But they brought me out of my coma, which took a process of getting out of. They brought me out of it.

When I woke up, I felt amazing, man. I felt great. Like, to me, it was nuts. I woke up and I had, like, you know, this body that was practically dead. And I woke up so happy. to be alive, dude. Did you have awareness of everything going on around you for those three weeks? I had a lot of different experiences from physical awareness that I had with pain from different

procedures, you know, like changes of catheters. I was waking up at different points ripping out my own catheters. To me, I had a very personal spiritual experience, you know, that I hold like, you know, near and dear to me. I woke up with something. I woke up with something different. I woke up with a realization and an appreciation for life, like I had never experienced. And even though I had a very pleasurable spiritual experience that had some hard times while I was asleep, I was just so happy and grateful to be alive, man, to see my kids, you know, like to see my family and see them there. words can't describe what like what I felt when I when I opened my eyes it was like being being born

you know coming out of a womb again but with everything you you know you you you got another chance and you know everything again you know like you get to do it all with the knowledge you have and that was my blessing dude it'd be born as an adult when you realize what's going on like the gift of how powerful that is that's cool man I mean I'm glad I'm glad that It was like that. What happens after that? I eat some lasagna and they're like, my cousin feeds me some lasagna and they're like,

we're going to move you out of here and you're in horrible shape still. You know, I'm getting like doctors looking at me very scared. And everyone that came in and looked at me was terrified, terrified. You know, they'd look at me and be like, ah. From there, every day I got a little better, you know, like, and I'd say like my fourth or fifth day after. waking up, they were bringing like a walker to me to try to like just try standing up on my own,

you know? And then COVID was like just landing, man. It was like just getting there and between me dying from my, my liver still failing, the doctor suggested I go home to heal because it'd be safer for me to be at home and have nurses come to me. I got sent home, which was a very difficult situation because I still have the mother and my kids there, like this whole like resetting of what was going on before and now I'm home. Yeah. Here healing on this side. But every day being home with my kids, like I said, COVID happened.

And it was like, I saw everything happening as a blessing, man. And as much was going on wrong in the world, you know, and I kept having to see like the positive side of things, you know, like here I am. okay, like this sucks. If I get COVID, I could just die. But then like the blessing, right? Like my family, my mom is there. My dad is there. My kids are there now home every day.

I'm spending like time with them. And I'm this whole different outlook of seeing the positive side of everything was like, it's like a medicine I never got to have in my life. It's like a new taste that I got to have because I used to just always see the negative and shit. I just kept getting better, man. Healing and healing. So how do things look like in your sobriety?

Did you start drinking again after this experience? I did. About four or five months after waking up, getting my body stable, right? I started to come to a point where I went back into, I guess it was a new headspace for me of like being single, getting my life together and socializing. I guess when my doctor told me that my liver was like functioning, okay? I'm like, okay, well, I drank for such a long time in this like numbing sense and this other shit. I went and I tried experiment in drinking in the sense of for a good time, right? Like, I don't know if you remember, like I started in the beginning of this.

When I started drinking even at 19, it was always for like a numbing like thing. I never really enjoyed alcohol like that. I did. I had a whole little phase that I went through for about like three or four months where I was like finding myself with that shit and didn't like who I was facing myself and my experience all over again dealing with a lot of my family extremely upset with me and they had just saw me almost die. I have my entire family like there for me for almost. a month at the hospital day in and day out coming in to see me coming to see doctors coming to do all of this stuff to advocate for me and there you know there goes this asshole out there doing this shit again you know what i mean yeah they were pissed off man and they had every right to be at that

time i was like in this selfish mode of like trying to find myself i felt like that's where i was and i got to a point where i i had to face that all over again and make a make a decision of what i wanted to do. And I chose to stop drinking again. I took a big break from alcohol, big, big break. Almost a year. Right? Like almost a year.

And when I say it like that, there was probably like a 10-11 month period where there was not one drink. And then after that, there were like a few gray areas where I, again, I'm like in my head.

head, I hate to put myself in some kind of area where I feel like I can't do something, even though it's almost killed me. It's reproving itself to be bad in my life. And even when going through that, right, like I still strive to live like this sober life. I still have never gotten to a point where I say I'm never going to not do something or not have something or put myself like in that area right now it's like the first time so I'll tell you this this is the first time I can say this thing my number is now that this is the first time that I'll just say a sober date for it because it's the first time I'm keeping up with one and it just kind of landed that way it just worked that way it was a little bit like four months ago I

My uncle passed away. I went out for dinner, had some drinks, and had a cell phone stolen for me. And then the following day, I was like, cut it out and going into that, like, I had set that little, like, sober buddy thing off. And I was, like, right around the time, it was, like, early, right? And I was like, how fuck it is. Like, I put it on. And, like, let it up from there. And a lot of things played out in the part that, you know, with my health, again, a reminder.

of what happened to me from me not taking care of myself. A reminder again of like I need to make taking care of myself a number one priority because I found such happiness in sobriety, man. Like I've found it's just a different world for me. I found myself. I found like my, I don't know my full purpose yet, but I found my clarity and finding my purpose. I found a different kind of love and appreciation for my family and my kids

and just a different kind of respect and gratitude for being able to experience all of this. And as my time continues on, it's like the less and less that anything really goes through my head where even kind of wanting to feel normal in a situation and socialize and what a drink even comes to mind. Like, it's like it's an even greater feeling. Like I had my surgery. I was out with some cousins and a stepbrother of mine for lunch after work one day and go over there. And everybody's having sangria and doing their thing.

And I had a cappuccino and a Coca-Cola. It felt good, man. Like, it felt nice. So I think I'm cheering with the process that it's taken me to get to the point of where I'm going to live a full. sober life and being completely like comfortable with it you know i'm like getting there like every day now i like that i mean that's just how it goes right i was talking with luke on episode one too and he just said he's he doesn't ever say that he's never going to drink again but it just really scares him but i mean just for today we can my philosophy is that we can do anything for a day

oh man i i really appreciate your story and then we'll we'll share somewhere too when we should this podcast, buddy, the video or the picture so that people can kind of see the transformation that's taken place. I mean, 270 pounds down to around roughly 170, man, in shape, looking good. I'm really proud of you, man, for doing this and at least sticking with it, you know, figuring it out. How many days do you have sober now? You said you punched it in sober, buddy. Yeah, it's like 189. Wow. That's awesome. You know, that's like, yeah, that's like without a lick, you know, of one drink at a bin and nothing. And it was cool.

Like I looked at it after, you know, my surgery recovery. And I was like, oh, shit. Because I, like I said, I don't really check this stuff for key time. And when I looked at it, I was like, holy fuck, it's been some time, man. And I, like, I smiled and I was like, cool. Let's keep fucking going, you know, keep going. And that was it. A few guests have talked about abstinence and then an attempt at moderation.

and it didn't work out for them. They quickly ended up right where they left off. And in your story, you share right from the beginning, alcohol played a very specific role in your life, and that was to numb feelings, thoughts, everything for you. I find it really hard to believe that that would change, that all of a sudden alcohol would serve a different purpose in your life. What do you think?

I think, like, that's a great way to say it, because I went through the process of it being, for it being for numbing. And then after I went through this process of trying to do it for moderation, right? But I didn't really enjoy myself even in the moderation part. And that's where like I'm getting to know this new side of myself where the moderation part. And it's not that it's scary like to me in the sense where I'm like, holy shit, I'm going

to fall back into the numbing. It's like where I like to know what I'm doing. I like to be in control. I found this genuine happiness in like in my clarity, in my awareness that the moderation, if I was to be able to handle it, I'm not really finding happiness in it. So it's like it's a good thing. It's a turnoff for me. So I'm just kind of still pushing with this shit.

And I'm happier this way. So it's all working out, you know? Yeah, no, I love it too. And that's sort of one of the things too we touched on on. You know, it's funny how all of our stories are so different, but they're so much alike. we touched on that too is like once you know it just takes the fun out of it have experienced stuff like what you experienced when you do it again it's not that you're going to necessarily go all the way in right away but it's like man look at the look at what it's caused the pain it's caused

for family for yourself for everybody involved i get what you're saying though like you know in the moderation thing like it's not something i suggest for people obviously people have to figure out what's going to work for them. But I'm just saying here, too, that it's come up in most of these podcasts that I've done so far, just a lot of people I taught with. I think the bigger question is, too, to ask, why are we working so hard to keep something in our life that is just making us feel terrible and no longer serving us? For me, once I had some, I just obsessed over having more. So it's so much easier to have none. I agree with everything you said. And you said something perfect, like to taking the fun out of it. Like it took all the fun out of it, man. Like literally,

like, you know, like in the settings where I've tried moderation, a drink or two, it's like I start to, like you said, like one, I obsess over it, right? Like I'll obsess over the same thing. And it'll be on my head for days. But still, even in that setting, it took the fun out of it for me. me because just from my perspective now, I start to see people acting the way I would act, you know, back like then and see people doing. I just feel so much more comfortable in my skin. I just don't find the fun in it. And being there for your kids and being the best person you could be.

There's anybody, I mean, I think anybody can agree, like you're going to be your best self, you know, in your full awareness, facing a lot of things about your. individual self in any nature without any mind-altering substances. It's just a fact. Like, come on. You know, and here and there, people can do their thing and everyone leaves their own lives with stuff. But I'm slowly, like, coming to the reality with that.

And I want to be the best person I can be. I want to be there the same as you, like emotionally available for my kids at all times. And I guess for everybody in life, like this full awareness, this full being here, this full like I'm here I know what's going on I can actually be of use I you know like that's to the person that couple drinks and life starts to become even more manageable shit starts to fall apart and it's even harder to deal with and I'm not trying to go down that that road again I'm with you man look this has been great I think I really appreciate you coming on here to to share your story I mean it's a real it's a real raw story it's mean from you sharing your story from

what I saw. I mean, I'm no expert, man, but I'd say that that's where you, you know, it was a close call, man. I'm glad that your mom had a feeling, had a feeling and got a hold of you and got you some help. I survived what I survived and my liver went back functioning. Basically, my liver's okay, but I cannot and should not add any more damage. No, buddy, you should not. That's for sure. Why? did you decide to share your story? And what was that experience like? Because there's got to be something there because you shared this story. Incredible story. But, I mean, you really put yourself out there when doing it. Walk us through this, Mike. Sharing the hardcore part

of my story and putting that out there came along with like, man, if, like, people got to see, like my face there and at some point face themselves in any aspect like that something they're doing can do this to them and and all I want is to be out there not that that's going to happen to everybody it probably happens to you know won't happen to the majority of people but just know that that that's what that shit does and that's what it can do it and just kill you like that like And that's what that's what that image is. That's what my face is right there. And I want people to know about it, man.

It's like alcohol is fucked up, man. It's to me, it's the most dangerous thing I ever encountered in my life. You know. Well, I'm glad you did, buddy, because the response from your story there, like you said, a lot of people related. And I know I got a lot of messages for it and you got a lot of messages from people. And I mean, that's the reality. And like you said too, earlier, that side of the story is not shared, right? That takes bravery, my friend.

That really does to put out there. But it also frees people, man. And that's what the whole sober motivation platform is all about is sharing stories so other people can connect with them. And then maybe just maybe they can believe that it's possible for them to get to get sober or possible for them to start making changes, right? Like we're not forcing people to get. it's sober and all that type stuff, but maybe just creating awareness around what's possible. To co-s things out for today, Mike,

I really appreciate you coming on here and be an open book and willing to share your story with us. Me too, man. I appreciate it, right. Honestly, thank you. From day one, man, you posting my story up. It was like you, you came into my life for a reason and not just to share my story.

Like, I've told you, it offset everything, like my mentality at that time. When you put my story out there and the way people responded, it just, it lit up this whole new area of my brain of where things have been going for me in my head with my sobriety and with sharing more of my story. And also just a direction I've been ahead in life. Like, that was a curveball when you shared my story. like I was in a little bit of a dark place and it was like a it was a nice saving grace man it brought a lot of things to light and there's been

major changes in my life since then that have been awesome I can't thank you enough dude and you're always supporting me man like you don't know how much I appreciate you brother like we're always talking dude you're you're you're a special guy man and and since we first spoke like I got that that that vibe for me we we We talked a lot originally when you shared the story. And I don't know. Friend to life, man. I appreciate you having me on, brother.

Yeah. You know it, buddy. And I appreciate all the kind words, man. It means a lot. Well, there's episode five for you. I hope everybody enjoyed Mike's story. I know I sure did. When I was going back through editing the podcast,

I feel like I lived it through this with Mike. And it was just incredible. And that's why we're extremely grateful to be in recovery. and to have this new opportunity. Thank you so much for everybody who left a review for the podcast, who subscribe to it on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. It means the world. Thank you so much.

And for the two people out there who are not tracking your sober days, be sure to grab the Sober Buddy app. Free app to track your sober days. I love it at Sober Motivation here. We love it. Download it today for free at Your Soberbuddy.com or your favorite App Store, Google or Apple. See you guys next time on the Subur Motivation podcast.