Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Mike Kinnebrew’s life revolved around alcohol until he got sober

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Mike found that alcohol would help him forget about his personal insecurities and as a teenager, he found out he loved the way alcohol made him feel. He was always the new kid and had a hard time finding his place in the world.  Mike got sober after attending a boy's school but he and alcohol would cross paths again in his early 20s.  Mike was a daily drinker and rarely took breaks during his drinking career. On November 11th, 2021 Mike felt different about things and began his sober journey. Mike never set out the quit drinking for good but he is glad he did. This is Mike’s story on the sober motivation podcast Follow Mike on Instagram Get the SoberBuddy App Follow Sobermotivation on IG

Welcome back to season two of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. Mike found that Alcoll would help him forget about his personal insecurities, and as a teenager, he found out he loved the way alcohol made him feel. He was always the new kid and had a hard time finding his place in the world. Mike got sober after attending a boy school,

but him and alcohol will cross past again in his early 20s. Mike was a daily drinker and rarely took breaks during his drinking career. On November 11, 2021, Mike felt different about things that began his sober journey. Mike never set out to quit drinking for good, but he's glad he did. This is Mike's story on the Subur Motivation podcast. Sober Buddy has a brand new community section to the app. I can't wait for all of you to check out the new live Zoom groups we are hosting two times per day. and you can also plug into the feed and the private groups that are also available in the app.

So track your sober days and get connected with others all in one place. Download the sober buddy app today, your sober buddy.com or your favorite app store. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Mike Cannonbrough with us. We played a clip of one of his tracks in a previous episode. it was incredible. Mike, how are you doing today, buddy? Man, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, Brad. Of course. Well, like all the episodes, why don't we get started off with the beginning?

What was it like for you growing up? Well, I'm a preacher's kid. So I was born in Florida, and then we moved around like we were fugitives. It seemed like every year we were in a different place. I was in a different school. and my dad was a Baptist preacher and he was preaching at different churches. So I was always the preacher's kid in a small town at a new school. And we didn't have any alcohol or anything like that in the house. My parents were both teetotelers. I don't know that I ever heard them say that it was wrong, you know, to drink,

but it was just it was something we didn't do. I never saw. And so I was your typical rebellious teetotal. teenager. We moved to to Georgia right before I started high school. And, you know, I just started experimenting with alcohol then. And I was too young to know what the hell I was doing. I was, you know, ninth grade. I think the first time I had a drink. And, and, and I went, I went all in from the beginning. And, and, and it went bad. You know, I think it was maybe a blessing that it went bad in the beginning. So I wasn't able to take a slow road to addiction. Just from the

beginning, I got caught every time. I got drunk every time. I got busted. Something bad happened every time. So I started drinking and quit drinking when I was in ninth and 10th grade. And I had been getting into so much trouble that I ended up getting sent away, had to go live a home for boys in high school for about a year and really kind of cleaned up my life then and came back senior year of high school and didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't do anything. That was your reformed story, good kid. So through the rest of my teenage years, I remember on my 21st birthday, didn't have a drink, didn't have anything.

And it wasn't until I was in my mid-20s when, you know, I'm hanging out with, with other friends. And one of my friends who was a pro tennis player. And I thought he was so cool. And the guy had great personality, incredible talent, money, popularity. And he was like, what do you mean you don't drink, you know? And I was like, I don't even know. I just quit when I was young and never started back.

And he said, we're going to, let's figure out what you like. And by this time, I didn't think that it was wrong. or anything like that. And so, okay, let's figure out what I like. Because at that point, I didn't think I liked any of it. In ninth grade, I certainly didn't like the taste of beer. And so he would make me different drinks. And I go, okay, well, this is this and this is that.

And I would try them. And we settled on that I liked vodka tonic, I think is what it was. And you go, okay, well, so this is the kind of scenarios where you would order a vodka And you don't want to, you know, never show up in order of jack and a rum and Coke because you're not, you're not a frat guy. You're out of that, you know, that window has closed. So this is what you'll get. And you can drink this at parties. And a lot of it was just like, I didn't fit in when I went to these social events because I didn't have a drink and I didn't know what to drink. And so he was kind of trying to take me by the hand and show me, you know, this is, this, this looks,

this is passable order order vodka and and and and and and and tonic or vodka soda I ended up settling on titos and soda with two limes and so so that was that was sort of my beginnings of it and and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the feeling that I got when I'd have a drink, two drinks and and we started keeping it in the house. I got married when I was about 26 and my wife is a complete opposite of me. nothing in moderation. I don't even understand moderation. And she is a picture of moderation. And so over the slow haul of my mid-20s to my 30s, I'm 45 now, I just started drinking

more and more. If there's nothing wrong with it, why not, why not do it? I come from this religious background where you secretly felt like you were doing something you shouldn't do. And when I was liberated to go, okay, well, there's really nothing wrong with this from some sort of sinful or spiritual perspective. It's fine. And so I would do it. And it just started creeping up from one to two drinks. I remember my wife, Lindsay, would have a comment about, she said three beer mic is, you know, not, he's not cool. Two beer Mike is fine. Three beer Mike is is too many. And that was in the early stages of me picking up alcohol again. And And, man, I went so far beyond three beer mic over the course of the years.

You know, it's just chasing a feeling. And the longer you go, the more it takes to get that feeling. And so by the end of it, you know, I was drinking. It was a question every day of how soon could I start? When could I have the first drink? What did I have to do that day? And when I got that out of the way, you know, I'd get up. I've always been into exercise and working out, so I'd get up, get that out of the way.

Any work that I needed to do, get that out of the way so that I could kick back and make a cocktail. And then I didn't stop until the day was over. That's sort of the journey that I took. C.S. Lewis said the safest road to hell is the gradual one, soft underfoot. You know, you don't realize that it's changing so much, but I went from three years. or Mike back in my late 20s being sort of a red flag, a warning sign to laying in bed at night, you know, in my early 40s, just sort of kind of counting for the sake of counting. How much did I have today?

And coming up with like 10, 11, 12 cocktails that I've made through the day. I hear you on that. What was that like for you, though? The progression there, did you think something something like? Did you try to stop? Did you wait? You know, I woke up many mornings like, that's it. You know, you hear that story a lot for a lot of people.

Like, that's it. What was, what was that like? Yeah. I never attempted to stop until I stopped. I should add in. So, you know, you said, you know, we talked about music as music. So I write songs, sing them, perform, and record them. But when I moved to Macon, I got a job because I was a preacher's kid,

My wife was starting medical school, and I got a job leading the music at the church, a church we would join. And shortly after that, I got asked to work with the teenagers there. And so I've been doing that for about 15 years. So during this entire progression of me going from a kind of uninterested, moderate drinker to a full-time, you know, every day, all-day drinker, I was holding down a job working with teenagers, mentoring, disciplining, and leading music at a church, you know, the whole time. So the journey of it was barely noticeable, you know, if you took me from where I started to where I ended up, if you took me there in a year's time, I would have had a real wake-up call. You know, you would just feel the dissent, but the gradual descent over 15 years was hardly noticeable. I think the people closest to me were, man, I don't know if you can relate, but I had nobody other than my wife ever tell me that they were concerned about my drinking.

And maybe I was hiding it really well, or maybe just, you know, nobody likes to say something to someone that they don't. think they're going to want to hear, you know. Nobody likes to weigh in on someone else's personal decisions. That's tricky territory. But that journey was very slow and gradual, barely noticeable. And there was definitely a lack of any voices from the outside telling me, hey, you're headed for trouble. So you begin to cross, I begin to cross certain lines, you know. Where I live in Macon, especially in the subculture of Macon that I spend a lot of time around is very, very wealthy, very affluent, very connected people. And so drinking is a huge part of it. So I'm around it a lot. And another huge part of it is drinking and driving. You know, I had never seen

anyone be so sort of cavalier about taking a quote unquote roadie. And I didn't even know what that was the first time someone asked for one. And then I was sort of taken aback at how casual the bartender handed them a styrofoam cup and sent them on their way, you know. And so for a while, that was something I was like, I would never do that. But then I crossed that line and I would ride around with a cocktail in my car. If I was driving to Atlanta to Athens, one of these one, two-hour trips, I would have a drink in the car with me. And just to sort of pass the time.

And so I began to cross that line. And one night I got asked to do a guest spot to come up and sing a couple of songs in Atlanta. I got there and I was told I was going to go on later. So I was sitting at the bar just having cocktails waiting until I would go on. I had a few. And then I get on. I do my thing. And I hadn't eaten the whole day.

It was getting late. So I went to a sports bar to get some. wings and had a couple beers there and I've had way too much by this time because it was summertime. I had been sitting by the pool all day having drinks before I even went to Atlanta for the for the show. I was going to sleep at my in-laws house that night and I left that bar. It was only about a mile to my in-law's house. I got pulled over right inside their neighborhood. I got pulled over and quiet upper-class neighborhood and Avondale Estates. suburb of Atlanta. And I've got the blue lights flashing. I'm in my in-laws driveway. My father-in-law

comes out on the front porch. This is about five years ago. And he's looking to see what in the world's going on. And he sees his son-in-law, you know, being pulled over. And then he sees me get out of the car and do the field sobriety test. And I don't know what I would have blown if they had asked me to, if they, if they had made me do it, but they gave me the choice, obviously. And I said, I'm not going to blow. So they took me to jail that night, DeKalb County Jail, which is not an easy one. And so I spent the night in jail that night. And man, I was shook from that experience.

That was a real wake-up call for me. Got home the next day. And, you know, I ended up getting off, got off because of some mistakes that the police officer made. But I remember that next day thinking, like you said, I think I'm. done. I don't know that I'm ever going to drink again. That was on a Tuesday and I had my first beer on that Friday evening. And that was the only break I ever took until I actually quit. What was that like though? Okay. So they pull you over and then you didn't do the breath liser, but they can still like go through with your intoxicated. They can obviously smell it and all kinds

of other things, right? Yeah. You go there, you get the charges, there's court cases and stuff. usually carry out for quite some time. And so you went, you went to jail and then a couple days later, you're back at it again? Yeah, I was so shook from that experience, you know, there's nothing like being handcuffed and taken to jail. You know, this, your position in society immediately changes in those moments, you know, going from a free person to a not free person in society. Even for mine was less than 24 hours, but it was very disturbing. And when I got back the next, that was on a Monday night when I got back on Tuesday. And I was a wreck and so shook and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then Friday afternoon just had

a beer and was like, I'm going to attempt this again, but I'm under no circumstances. Am I going to drive when I've had a drink and I'm going to not get drunk. I'm going to just do it like a responsible person. I'm going to drink in moderation, which goes against everything I know about my ability to do anything in moderation. And then as you or anybody who struggles with this can relate, you could tell my story blindfolded that it just slowly started creeping right back to where it was. You know, if it took me 10 years to get from uninterested casual drinker to getting pulled over that night in my in-laws driveway, if it took me 10 years to get there from that Friday,

it maybe took me a month to get right back there to where I was, you know, doing the same thing, crossing every line all over again. So I just kind of continued and it was pretty good at hiding it, I think. I don't think anybody, including my wife, knew how bad it was, how much I drank. Then on Halloween night, I went trick-or-treating. This was not this past year, but the year before. On trick-or-treating with the kids, I had been drinking in the afternoon. I stopped and was drinking coffee and sobered up so that I could go out.

And we went trick-or-treating, and I got back home probably around eight or nine, made another drink, maybe another one after that. And then I got a text from a friend who said, hey, can you come over? My wife, they'd only been married like a year. My wife, we got in a fight, and she went to her parents' house. I think it may be over. I need a friend. And I thought, yeah, man, I'll, yeah, of course.

You know, so I hop in the car with a drink, go over there, show up. And I remember sitting on the couch and I'm trying to help this guy and talking to him. It says, you know, his world is crumbling around him. And I'm thinking, I'm not 100% right now. I don't, I can't get the words out. I can't. I don't know if I'm being as helpful as I could be as a friend. And I did my very best.

And I don't know that he knew, you know, that I had had too much. I don't know that he knew or noticed anything. But that next morning, when I woke up November 1st, I thought, man, I think I was useless to a friend when he needed me. And I feel terrible. I'm hung over. I'm not drinking today. And so I didn't drink that day. And then I didn't drink the next day.

And then didn't the next, which was strange. I mean, I never took days off, never, ever. Didn't take weekends off. I didn't take anything off. And I was like, closing in on a week. I thought, all right, well, let's see if we can go for a week. And after that week, rather than going, all right, I made it, let's do this. Let's celebrate making it a week. I just kept going. And I've heard people say, you know, you don't choose the day.

The day chooses you. And I don't know if that's right or not. I certainly don't think people with a problem should sit around waiting for the day to choose them. But I didn't set out to quit drinking. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And the further I got away from drinking, the more I looked back at it and didn't like the life that I saw behind me that I had been living. And I could see it clearly. You can't see what a monster it is when you're dancing with it. But when you put some distance between you and it, man, the ugliness became very clear and the benefits to not doing it just started stacking up. And so I never, now I'm at 13 months.

And initially I would have said, you know, I'm not drinking right now. And it was definitely strange for people to see me out and see me not drinking. Or bartenders that I knew so well when I roll up to the bar, you know how it is. They don't ask you what you want because they know what you want. and I have to intercept them before they make the drink and go, hey, can I just get a Diet Coke? Can I just get a? And they go, what, what, what is this? You know, I go, well, I'm not, I'm not drinking right now.

That was as far as I would say, I'm not drinking right now because I had every intention of drinking again. And after a few months of it, I started saying, I don't think I'm ever going to do it again. And I love listening to. was it Leah in the last episode? Yeah. That was her name. I love how she mentioned the long stretch of not doing it

and then sort of having an interruption in that sobriety and then going back and now she's about to celebrate a year, you know? And I love that because now here I am 13 months in and I'm saying I'm never going to drink again but for people who listen who have had some restarts

and stumblings along the way, to know that it's not a once and for all thing. You can, if you fall off, you can get back on. And so I'm still doing what I started doing on November 1st going, I'm not doing it today. And I don't think I'll ever do it again. I don't have any intention of doing it again. Yeah, beautiful. I love that.

And yeah, it's very true. If you do fall off the wagon per se, then you can always make that decision to get back on. And I think it's also important, too, to just keep things in a short perspective, you know, like for one day at a time type stuff and just do the best that we can today. And we'll let that, you know, we'll let tomorrow figure itself out. We're getting to tomorrow and next week. It becomes very overwhelming, very quick. I never, I don't think I would have gotten to where I am right now if I had started with a mindset of, all right, I'm not going to dream. You know, I'm doing dry January.

or I'm, you know, I'm tackling at our church every year from, from Good Friday, no, I'm sorry, from Ash Wednesday till Easter Sunday is this season of Lent. So you hear people like, oh, I'm giving up something for Lent, you know. And every year my wife will go, well, think about maybe giving up alcohol, you know, and just kind of pass that over. And I was like, no, no, no. Because I didn't want to find out I couldn't. I didn't want to try and find out that I couldn't find out that I was addicted. And I just, I didn't want to tackle anything that big. So I think I got here by only trying to tackle a day at a time.

Yeah. And I love that mindset going into it too where we make that choice every day. So we just make a choice. And then that's how the day is going to be. And that's just a commitment. You know, that's just a commitment with yourself that you, you know, for me, I just set that out like this is how it's going to be and like, you know, let the day go the way the day is going to go. This is just one thing I'm just not doing today.

and I'll figure out tomorrow, tomorrow. No guarantees on tomorrow. I'll figure it out then. I was I'm not doing it today. Yeah. I feel like some people too, they want to, you know, big thing is they want to figure out everything all at once. Like, what is this going to look like?

What am I going to do for Christmas? What am I going to do for New Year's? Well, just figure out today. It's a lot less overwhelming and get support. You mentioned, too, that there was a lot of benefits and stuff that came into your life. and you are a singer-songwriter. Why don't we pop into some of that? Did you notice things change with your career when you made this shift?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the very strange unforeseen changes was when I was drinking the most, the songs I was writing were very happy, feel-good, family. family songs, you know, songs about my wife, about my kids, about just gratitude. They're very uplifting, positive songs. And not a lot of darkness in them at all. And yet I was feeling a lot of darkness. I was, like you said in the beginning, the good feeling that alcohol gave me on that first time,

it never delivered again and I kept paying more and more and more to get it to deliver and it kept giving me less and less and less. And so there was, I was feeling a lot of darkness and a lot of just depression, anxiety, a lack of motivation to do anything. And yet I was writing these songs about a very picture perfect life and a lot of gratitude and love and, And then when I quit drinking, the songs that started coming out of me were very dark and very, very raw. And they were the, my wife calls it, they were from the, are you okay, Mike department?

I'd play the song for her. She's always the first one to hear it. And when I was done, go, do you like it? And she go, I mean, are you all right? you know and so that was a very strange thing i think maybe when i finally quit when i quit drinking all of that stuff that was inside of me was able to come out all that stuff i've been carrying around inside of me i was able to articulate and um so i'm in a better headspace than i've ever been in my entire life um but a lot of what i've been creating and writing has been i

I think an unpacking of the stuff I was carrying around during those years and years of drinking alcohol to cover up what I was feeling. For sure, I could see that being a thing. It's like therapy for you. Yeah, and I think maybe, you know, being very honest about, hey, I used to drink too much and now I don't drink anymore. I don't have that story to hide anymore. so it frees me up to be honest about about everything and what else so when i write now i don't have this subconscious feeling that i got to write like i have a perfect life because i'm not hiding that anymore yeah i did for um one or two days in again because i never took breaks one two days

into sobriety was a big i was you know it was a big thing for me and i started making notes every day I just pulled up my iPhone. I wrote sobriety is. And each day I wrote like something I noticed that day as I was, it was a sober day. And I was like, oh, you know, and some of them were pretty heavy. I'm looking at it right now. And the very first one was sobriety is not dying for something worthless. Because I was thinking that day of just, you know, I had been on the road driving while drinking,

going back and forth to that friend's house the night before. And I could have, I could have died. I could have, I could have caused someone else all for what, you know, for something worthless, something that would take everything and give me nothing. But then some of them, I'm looking down, sobriety is reading with Turner. That is my son. And as a dad, you know, when I was drinking, I had no energy to do anything, you know, hey dad do you want to you want to read together do you want to you want to play catch it's like what my default was why don't we just sit here and watch something together you know because that required the least amount of mental physical anything from me and and so when i walked away from that all of a sudden i had the energy you know past 4 p.m. 5 p.m. 6 p.m. I'd have the energy to go hey yeah let's read together. Let's go outside and throw the football.

or whatever. So, yeah, I got a long list of benefits that I noticed that first month. Yeah, that's a great idea. I love that, where you keep track of the benefits that you're experiencing in your life because that helps us, you know, stay on the path. If we're experiencing good benefits from not drinking alcohol, then we're more likely to stay on that path. And if we're aware of those benefits, even more likely to stay on that path.

So I think that's an incredible idea, incredible thing you did there. And I think it's just great as well. The more people who are sharing their story and their struggle with alcohol just reduces the stigma that is around the whole issue. Yeah. And gosh, the more people are honest about it, the more, you know, because coming out and saying, I have a problem with alcohol, it was, to your point, back then that would be basically saying, okay, so I'm putting myself in the camp of the hobo, under the bridge, you know, sleeping on newspaper.

And so if I'm not ready to say, I'm basically like that, then I can't be honest and say, but now the more people that come out and go, hey, I had a problem, I had a problem. I hit it very well. And the more we're honest with each other, the more people feel like they can be honest with us. So I think you opening up this space and having people on to tell their stories, when I listen to Leah's story, I hear my story. When I listen to your story, I hear my story. And it tells us all that we're not alone. And we have the freedom to connect with one another and not be ashamed of our stories.

So, man, I'm so glad that you're doing this. And yeah, thank you for letting me tell a little bit of my story. I hope that just like it's happened for me as I've listened to others, I hope that people out there can can hear their own story in mind as well. I mean, I've got a great life and I could have thrown it all the way. And to some extent, I wasted many years of it. You know, I think about my daughter learning to ride a bike or all the games that I sat through. And I was just not fully present there because I have been drinking. I mean, I did lose a lot of it, but I could have.

lost a lot more. And it would have been a shock to everyone around me because nobody knew what a problem that it was. I mean, I work at a church for crying out loud, you know, I look like I have the perfect life. And, uh, and yet that was something that was slowly pulling me under. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And I appreciate you for doing this as well. What, what is it like that? I'm wondering, I mean, music performing and stuff. A lot of that is, you know, bars, alcohol. What is that like for you now? It was strange. One of the coolest things I'm very grateful for it is I did not realize that I had a chemical dependency on it when I left it.

When I walked away from it, I never had any kind of withdrawal. The only thing I had was just a very strong sense of weirdness. Like you said, it had woven its way into every aspect of my life. you scroll through pictures of me over the last 10 years. There's going to be a cocktail in frame all the time. It was why I chose to eat or eat where I chose to eat, where I chose to eat was if they'd sold alcohol. I hated finding out I was having to go someplace.

I couldn't order a drink. So there was a very sense of weirdness being in these environments, like you said with music. I'm in clubs and bars a lot. and to be there and not be drinking is weird, but it doesn't make me want to do it. I can be around other people, and I know this is not the same for everyone,

but for me, I can be around people who are drinking. It has never made me want to drink more. I was just on vacation in Mexico with my family, and it's all these little moments. You go, man, I can't believe I'm going to go to Mexico. I'm going to spend a week at this resort. I'm not going to have a margarita.

Are you kidding me? I love margaritas, you know? It's so strange. And my wife was like, you know what? Okay, I'm not going to do it either. I'm not going to have anything either. And I can only speak for myself, but for me, it didn't matter. I was like, no, go ahead.

I don't care. Like, you have one. It doesn't matter. You having one does not make me want to have one more. I already want to have one. and you not having one would not help me to not want to have one less. It doesn't make me want to have one less, you know. So being around it does not, really is not, I'm very grateful, and I know that's not the same for everybody.

But for me, it's been weird to be around it a lot and not be participating in it because I was, I was the head participator all the time. But it has not necessarily been hard. I just had to overcome the initial weirdness. And I found that I don't want to, not with music, but just with socializing in general, I don't want to go and sit at a bar by myself anymore. And I used to love doing that. I would sit there for hours and talk to the bartender, chat up the people around me, read on my phone.

And ever since I quit drinking, all of a sudden, my love for hanging out with the bartender and meeting people and reading on my phone, turns out I didn't love that as much as I pretended to. I just loved the freedom to sit someplace and drink. Yeah, the escape, right? Yeah, I mean, once you're there, there's so much going on. And you don't have to really think about what's going on with us, right? Exactly. That distraction part.

Yeah, no, that's great. Yeah, I mean, everybody shares definitely a different story about whether they're comfortable or, you know, where they are with things. did you have a lack of desire people that you would genuinely like very fond of this person but a lack of desire to hang out with them if they didn't drink if they didn't you know participate in the things that you participated in with substances yeah i mean i think over time yeah everybody of everybody around would have would be part of that story if i i I could love somebody, but if they didn't drink, it was sort of like a wet blanket on the idea of hanging out with them at all. And then when I quit drinking, I was like, oh, wait, now I'm the wet blanket. I realized certain people that I was very close to, you know, just sort of didn't call me to hang out anymore. Yeah, I mean, same story here.

Yeah, same story. I mean, I kind of started my life over to, like, in a whole different place up here in Canada now. So I had to like rebuild from the beginning. But yeah, I mean, it's the same sort of idea. I mean, it's good. For me, it's good and bad. You know, I like the energy people bring. I'd rather sit around instead of talking to bartenders.

I'd rather sit around and talk about what like we're going to do with our life, improve our life, spend time with, you know, with my kids and a lot of, you know, other buddies that do the other stuff. They, I don't know, man. It just was a kind of a culture to it, the drinking culture. Yeah. You want to sit around, you know, talk about why we aren't where we, where we should be, you know, while we're doing absolutely nothing to be where we want to be. Time deal, you know, I would just, it was freeing to get away from kind of those conversations for me personally.

Man, I had not even, until you mentioned it now, I'm just running back, how many hundreds, thousands of hours of sitting at the bar, drinking, and yeah, talking about why you're not where you want to. be but not doing anything to get yourself there yeah that was my life for a long time and that was sort of one of the things that led up to me for for recovery too was just that i had this feeling this subconscious sort of thinking feeling that i could do something with my life but i had failed so many times like you know education my first time i got arrested i was 16 you know and it was like i went to treatment and i had been health struggle, like everything was just like piling up. And it was like, I never felt like I was going to succeed at anything. But someday, man, it was kind of like what you said that the day chooses

us and not to be a motto for people to live by to wait around because this stuff can definitely kill you before that day comes. You know, that day kind of came, buddy. And I woke up one morning and I just, I was just thinking differently. And I was like, I'm going to give it a shot for I'm going to give a shot. I'm going to ask for some help. I'm going to get, you know, honest. Everybody knew kind of my, I was living on my brother's floor in his apartment. So everybody kind of knew my life was relatively a mess, right?

I couldn't hold the job. And it was a disaster. But, I mean, it was just one day. It wasn't, it was one day I woke up. And I'm like, man, I have to do something different with my life. I have to see if I can bring something to this world instead of take from it every day. of my life and started the journey yeah and then i ran into a bunch of other problems after that and i went to i went to prison for a year in the u.s and then i was deported after that

you know for stuff that had happened prior to um it's starting for me you know it caught up some some things you can't get away from even if you get even if you get sober yeah some paper trails still still follow you but But, you know, everything was sort of a blessing. And it was like extreme gratitude. Not in the moment of things, but looking back, you know, it was like, wow. You know, things are happening for me, not to me. You know, it just was a big changing the way I was thinking and not playing a victim anymore.

You know, it was a lot of aspects went into it. But it's been great. So what's next on the music scene? Are we writing right now or what's coming up? Yeah, man, this is literally where I sit and write. I kind of disciplined myself to sit down every day and write for an hour. I just go for an hour. After an hour of working on lyrics and melodies,

start hitting this kind of point of diminishing return. So if I just put an hour in a day, I see the ball move down the field. So yeah, I'm writing. A show was just announced today at the Buckhead Theater. in Atlanta, which has been a dream and a goal of mine for years to play. And the Live Nation picked it up and gave me a headlining show at this really cool venue. So February 10th at the Bucket Theater, I'll be doing that. And I got a sold-out Christmas show a week from tonight in Highlands, North Carolina.

That's put on by the old Edwards Inn. So that's really cool. And yeah, man, good things are happening. But yeah, so I got a Christmas song out and I got a big show. I'm super excited about it. If you want to come down in, I'll fly you down for the show. I need butts and seats. And I'll get you down there.

But February 10th at the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta. So any Georgia listeners can come out. Do you have anything you want to play for us? Oh, I just picked this up. That's something you were saying reminded me of a of a verse of a song that I wrote. And now I can't remember what you're saying that reminded me of it. But it says,

Every day I need to feel something. So I don't feel the things that I must really feel. This world's a drugstore of distractions. You just reach for one and tell yourself it's real. You can take a drink, a smoke, a pill, a screen, a show. You can't sleep with someone you don't even know. When you start to come back down with your mind still hanging around, boy, you're going to feel the real thing now.

So, yeah, it's that idea of... I think that was me. Every day I needed to feel something to keep me from feeling what I really felt. And so it was how soon can I take the medicine of that first drink and keep that flowing through my veins until I go to sleep. And, you know, for me, it was alcohol for other people. It's pills or other drugs. And some people it's just sex, streaming Netflix, whatever.

But the world is a, it's a drugstore of distractions, but, but you do have your mind hanging around when you come, when you come back down from whichever distraction it is, you know, that, that mind is, is going to be there waiting for you. Yeah, powerful. Yeah, that's so true. I mean, we're adding new and new distractions into our life every day. On that topic, though, I'm wondering, what were you running from? Like, have you been able to figure something out here of what you were trying to

avoid all these years? Man, that's such a great question. I would say whatever it was was, you know, I don't have any external things that would make someone look at my life and go, yeah, I get it. You know, he's destitute, you know, the only way he can feel good about his life would be to escape it. And, you know, I don't, people would want to kick my ass for thinking that I want to escape this life because I have a really, really great life. So whatever I was running from was inside. And, you know, you mentioned sort of not being the, maybe, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but in high school, not being the guy that was super interesting that people wanted to talk to.

And, you know, I said early on in our conversation, I was the new kid, everywhere I went. We didn't have much money. I had thrift store clothes. So I was, I was really insecure that I wasn't anybody. that anyone would want to talk to or be interested in, that there, you know, I wasn't super smart. I wasn't the athlete in high school. I didn't come from the family that everybody knew. And so I didn't really have anything to distinguish me and to make me stand out.

And when I drank, I felt more interesting. I felt less self-conscious about who I was. I felt more confident. It was misplaced confidence, you know. the classic guy who thinks he's just killing it in conversation. And everyone is just, you know, waiting for him to stop. But I think I was running from insecurity, never having dealt with those feelings that were ingrained in me as a child, that I, that I was nothing special.

There was nothing interesting about me to recommend me to this world. Those feelings went away. You don't grow out of those feelings, you know. like you turn 21 and go, okay, you know, put that away. I'm 45 and just now working through those insecurities. Yeah, no, and that's a great point, too. They don't go away. I feel like they just kind of transform.

Yeah. Getting in in high school, but now it's, you know, fitting in and feeling, you know, accept yourself and stuff. That's a big thing for me. Like when I look back at like, what could have possibly made a difference? And I don't like live in the past or anything like that. But when I look back and I think about everything that was done, right, when I was in grade five, we had the DARE program. So you would look at the impacted drugs and then, you know, through high school and then we had the just say no campaign, the war on drugs, different things.

You know, I think a big thing to help young people is if we worked on building a purpose for people, I feel like if I went back and I had a purpose in life that wasn't based on me not making the school of soccer team or wasn't based on what great. I got on a test or wasn't based on whether or not I could behave in school, you know, then maybe I would have felt like that for myself that I had a purpose. But when I got out of high school and when I went into college, I got kicked out of college. I got evicted from my first department. It was just like, thing, you know, not to play a victim, but just a thing after a thing. I was like, man, like, when am I going to catch a break?

What am I going to catch my break? And I just feel like I just didn't have that. You know, and I didn't grow up around. My story is, you know, a lot like years. Like, I can't ever remember when I was younger, seeing my parents drink or do drugs or anything. I mean, they did, but I never saw it. It was never something that was there for me then.

But I mean, it's, you know, same. I can relate to it too. I mean, for the insecurities for a lot of stuff, I use drugs and alcohol to, you know, kind of fit in. And then it's an interesting journey, man. It's an interesting journey when you take that away. you're one thing and you start to learn about yourself. You know, you learn things you like and you learn some things that, you know, you don't.

I did anyway. Yeah. You know, what you're saying about purpose, I think, and again, I'm just working this out as I'm talking, but as you said it, I was thinking, you know, the times I really never thought about drinking were when I was getting ready for a show, when I was playing a show, when I was, when I had purpose. You know, when I was actually leaning into the way God made me, what I'm gifted at, what I can do, I didn't need or want alcohol in those moments. And so I think a sense of purpose really, you know,

is a game changer for people who are struggling with addiction. Because if you don't have a sense of purpose, addiction, substance, alcohol is happy to step in and be a seat filler for as long as you will keep him around. But having a sense of purpose really took the desire for the seat filler away. Yeah, I feel the same way for me once I was able to have something else to, you know, drive the bus, then I feel a lot better about it. I feel confident and comfortable in my decisions,

and I just don't feel a need to really burn my life to the ground. You know, even though every day my mind tells me I should, it would be a great idea if you just burn your life to the ground. And it's interesting. But look, I really appreciate this, Mike. This has been incredible. And I love that little track that you played too. Yeah, I just struck.

It made me think of it when you were talking. And yeah, thanks for the man, I'll talk to you anytime. Thank you so much. I'm glad we're pals, truly. Yes, yeah. And I love. I said, don't come south without letting me know. Yeah, man.

I love other creators and other artists too. You know, I kind of consider myself a creator and completely different than your craft. But I really love artists and creators and people who, you know, I see you as a guy who puts your heart on your sleeve, with your music, the stuff I've checked out. And I feel like that really opens up the doors and can't open up the doors for people that are there, right? Like you're sharing this stuff about what it was what it was like and some of these heavy emotions and some of this stuff.

And people are really going through this stuff. Like, that's a reality. And I mean, coming up on a holidays too, a lot of people I've come in, you know, cross paths with over the years, a lot of people get sober from the 20th to the second. I would say the most sober days are between there is because that time is really when you go all in with your addiction. And it really, you kind of wake up after, after, you know, that and you're like, I got to change something. A lot of people are going to be going through it, and I feel that. What would you say to somebody, though, from your experience?

What would you say is like, well, on this? What would you say is, you know, one or two things that you could put out there that, hey, if somebody's struggling, to get or stay sober, what would you say to them? A couple things. One, it's just been kind of rolling around in my mind is if you're wondering if you drink too much or if you're wondering if you have a problem with addiction, the way, the surefire way to know is if anyone has ever told you that you have a problem with addiction or that you drink too much, you do.

you know it's so easy to get defensive and and to discredit the person telling us but you know if someone has sold you that they didn't want to tell you that that was difficult for them they see this as a problem that is big enough for them to endure the awkwardness endure your possible anger so that's a surefire way to know is if anyone has ever told you that you have a problem you you probably have a problem you have a problem But for someone who's wanting to do it, I'd say tell somebody, you know, you can't handle it alone. If you could have done it yourself, you would have by now. So be honest about it, especially for people that you know that it will be a shock for anyone to hear that you have a problem. If you've been really good at managing it, if you surround yourself with people who work for you and who don't really have a right to weigh in and tell you what to do, then it will be very easy for you to continue burning your life down to the ground. But you need to tell somebody, if you could have handled it, and, you know, again, for people who are, you handle your business, you handle your family, you make a ton of money, whatever.

It's easy to think. I'm so capable. I can handle this as well. You can't. You need to tell somebody and talk to somebody. And just be honest. Be honest about it. You know, there's amazing power to walk away from addiction as soon as you're honest about having a problem.

There's there's power in saying it out loud, saying it to someone else, I have a problem. Then it gives you amazing power to make a turn. And then the last thing I would say, Brad, it's just, it's so easy. The older we get, it's easy to think, well, this is just the way I am. If I haven't conquered it by now, I'm not going to. If I haven't made a change by now, I'm not going to. That's not true. As long as you're on this side of the dirt, you can make a change today.

If it's stirring around in your mind to make a change, today could be your day. It starts with the decision. It's never too late to make a turnaround. It's never too late to make a life-changing decision. And for millions of people who have walked this road before me or before. you would say you have no idea what hangs in the balance of your decision to get sober. You know, it's not just you. It is, it is the people who love you. It is your kids, your wife. It is your best friends. It is people that you haven't even met yet. All of this hangs in the,

it is the stuff that you could create, the lives that you could change. I mean, for crying out loud, your exhibit A, Brad, the lives that you change, that all hung in the balance of your decision, day waking up feeling different and going okay i think i'm turning around it's like throwing a rock into the water the ripple effect of of making that decision to help other people and it's true too because it does affect everybody around us does affect everybody around us and yeah surround yourself with good people surround yourself with people who are going to be honest with you about what's going on but it's so easy for us and throughout the years you know i did it i did this really well i just intertwined with people who co-signed who went along with my story.

And if you weren't wanting to go along with it, then I probably would create some distance there. But and I think people know too. You know, I think, you know, I think there's an element. There's a little voice that turns on from time to time after those bad nights or those really bad hangovers and the anxiety is just getting out of bed.

It's so overwhelming. And you have those little thoughts. of I can do better. I should be doing something different. I can be better. This is not the way. You know, and just instead of just shutting them down, lean into that a little bit.

Like, lean into it and start, you know, asking those questions. I mean, so much powerful stuff. Thank you so much again, Mike. Man, it's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Well, that was another incredible, incredibly powerful story from Mike. Wow. That was a lot. Mike dropped a lot. And Mike really was really honest with us during that episode.

And I can't thank him enough because I feel like this is going to be helpful for so many people. Just to hear the story, not even the advice and the other stuff that he brought to the episode, but just his story is a very powerful story. And I want to let you guys go today with one of Mike's tracks. He was kind enough to share some of his songs with us. it's really hard to pick. He sent three songs. I think they're all amazing,

but I really like what he wrote about this one. Just Getting Started. That's the name of it. Hopeful. Even when you look down and out, you might be able to make your biggest and best move. That's directly from Mike. So see you guys later in the week.

And here it is. I was a dreamer when I was younger. Dreaming kept my heart from going under But I got older The world got colder It makes me wonder Oh I was waiting A summer shining moment

The door that helped my future Would come right open And I'm still standing here with the weight of fear that I'm holding everything I ever touched just winds up broken love cut me wide of me broken heart and just keep watching I'm just getting starched around sometimes I threw myself right on the ground until now I've just just Why everyone I ever love cut me why