Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Nathan Harmon battled divorced parents, suicidal thoughts, self harm, alcohol and drug addictions, bulimia and eventually jail.

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

On this weeks episode we have Nathan Harmon. His journey comes from a combination of a troubled past and a great desire to help others overcome many of his same struggles. In his younger years Nathan battled divorced parents, suicidal thoughts, self harm, alcohol and drug addictions, bulimia and eventually jail. On July 17th, 2009 Nathan was the driver in a drinking and driving accident and from that experience his life was changed forever. Nathan has 13.5 years sober and this is his story on the sober motivation podcast. ----------- Follow Nathan on Instagram Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram Check out the SoberBuddy App Check out Soberlink More info about Palm Beach Recovery Centers

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. On this week's episode, we have Nathan Harmon. His journey comes from a combination of a troubled past and a great desire to help others overcome many of his same struggles. In his younger years, Nathan battled divorced parents, suicidal thwarted. thoughts, self-harm, alcohol and drug addictions, bulimia, and eventually jail.

On July 17, 2009, Nathan was the driver in a drinking and driving accident, and from that experience, his life was changed forever. Nathan has 13 and a half years sober, and this is his story on the Sober Motivation Podcast. The Sober Buddy app. This community is one of the most supportive I've ever seen. Starting with the meeting hosts who lead with support, kindness, and understanding, When someone falls, the community rallies to help support and encourage. People from all different countries who show up as strangers leave as friends.

It is a true example of community and connection. What makes sober buddies special is everyone is working on the same mission to get another day sober so we can live our best lives and to provide a safe place so no one feels they have to do it alone. Check out the app today or head over to your soberbuddy.com. come and come and join us for some of our live support groups. It's hard to find the motivation to get sober when you're in the trenches of addiction. It's easy to say I'll stop tomorrow or I'll cut back tonight.

What's harder is putting action behind those words. That's why I've teamed up with Soberlink. Soberlink's remote alcohol monitoring system was specifically designed to help in your recovery, not just some breathalizer you buy at the store. Small enough to fit in your pocket and discreet enough to use in public. Soberlink devices combine facial recognition, tamper detection, and real-time results so friends and family know instantly that you're sober and working towards your recovery goals. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Are you a loved one struggling with alcoholism or substance use disorder?

Palm Beach Recovery Centers can help. Their inpatient medical detox and residential facility provides personalized treatment to help you get. back on track. Their experienced staff is here to support you every step of the way. For more information, visit their website, palm beach recovery centers.com. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode. I just want to give a heads up. Nathan was the driver in a drinking and driving accident in which there was a loss of life. So we discussed this in the episode, and I just want to let everybody know that that is in there. Now let's get to the show. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast.

Today we've got Nathan with us. How are you, buddy? Good, man. How are you? I'm well, man. I'm glad we jump on here and we could do this. Yeah, me too. For real.

I'm excited. Yeah. Well, how we start every episode is the same. What was it like for you growing up? Oh, man. I think it was a mixed bag. You don't realize how much like you long for human connection and that you long to want to belong.

And I think over the years, we develop walls and we develop these layers of protections because it hurts when we were younger and traumas and just life. And so for me, I was in that wild space that I'm an Indiana kid, a Midwest boy when I was raised, you know, big cornfields, big sunsets and kind of that Midwest scene that I don't take for granted these days that, you know, everyday living and every day being sober is, you know, you take so many little things for granted. the scenery there in the old Midwest. But growing up, you know, I came from a family where mom and dad were together at a young age. And my father and my mother, they tried their best to, I think,

create an atmosphere where we thought things were a lot better than what it was. You know, we struggled with some poverty and some finances. And I didn't know any of that as a kid, but one thing that my parents never did, and I think a lot of older generation, some of us, I'm I'm 37 now. I'm becoming an old man. But, you know, it's a little different for me as a father now. We've learned. But I think growing up, our parents protected us.

You know, it's that place of keep everything in house. Don't let anybody know that we have problems. And that was even on a smaller micro level that even me and my sister, we didn't think that my parents had any problems. They never fought in front of us. We, you know, I didn't even know that my mom and my dad, like, smoke cigarettes until I was, you know, 11 years old. I remember being in an elementary school and they're like who, you know,

they would ask a question about nicotine or something. And I was like, my parents don't like I was, I thought for sure that my parents were just like larger than life. And I remember one time walking into the garage and my mom put a cigarette behind her back real quick. And I was devastated. But that's just kind of the model that my parents had growing up is they, they were trying to shield me and my sister from everything. And my dad was larger than life. He was my hero. But at about 10, 11 years old, everything kind of changed. My parents said, down. They started talking about our divorce and the separation and there wasn't really any reconciliation and it blindsided me because my parents literally, you know, anytime I guess they had

arguments or disagreements or any other their stuff that happened behind the bedroom door. And so it was very an abrupt change in my life. My father pretty much moved out within a few weeks and, you know, he tried the weekend stuff and the other ever week stuff, but he ended up moving farther away. And, you know, it just, it kind of never materialed. realized that way, and I was really wounded. I felt lied to, betrayed. I was angry. I found out that my dad had addiction and he had some alcohol problems, some big time stuff. And I was determined not to become like him, honestly. I think truthfully looking back, what you feed grows. And sometimes you're so determined not to become like somebody. You're giving a lot of wasted energy and effort

and focus on those things. And sometimes you kind of walk right into that because you were feeding that energy and those thoughts. But I was determined not to become like him. And my parents, they thought I was stable enough. They tried to stay together long enough until they thought me and my sister would be okay. She was four years older than me. I was 11 at the time. And my grades were great. Everything on the surface looked good. But when the divorce happened, man, it was some cracks in the foundation big time. And I could tread water. And, you know, I could stand behind the dam and plug the holes. and maintain. But I developed some coping skills and strategies of isolation

and, you know, kind of absorbing how my parents dealt with conflict. You don't talk about it. You suppress it. You don't lean into it. And I was slowly drowning by the time, you know, I'm 14, 15, 16 years old. Man, my mental emotional health is struggling. I'm going from straight A's to straight F's. Behaviors are beginning to spiral slowly, but then more quickly.

and abruptly out of control with poor choices, looking for validation from a lot of external factors. And by the time that I'm 15, 16 around that age, you know, I'm battling with thoughts of giving up. I'm dealing with a lot of anxiety. My attitude hurting people hurts people. I'm trying to find all these ways to get to the route, which ultimately is about talking and being vulnerable,

but I didn't trust people. And that's when somebody, my sophomore year, said, hey, Nate, you know, why don't you come over here on this weekend and take this drink and pop this pill? And all the way up to that point, I was determined never to touch any of those things because my dad was, he struggled, right? But I got to this place where, you know, I wanted to belong. You're looking for human connection. You don't really have meaningful relationships because a lot of times we don't talk.

I've realized that, you know, resiliency is a part of us, but it's activated by talking and the importance of community and we can't see our blind spots. That was the struggle. So I don't trust and I'm treading water, you know, just trying to do this on my own. And I was finding these coping strategies, you know, with my mental health and some of my anxieties or maybe like my anger. I was dealing things that would never get to the root. I was walking wounded, you could say. And around 16 is when I compromise myself. And, you know, I smoked that joint and I popped that pill. And I took a drink at a party and I hit it from everybody and nothing bad happened at first. But that was really the beginning of feeding what I always say, that cute little cuddly grizzly bear. The bear cubbet as a baby, it's cute, it's cuddly.

It seems innocent, right? But when you begin to feed it and the thing grows up and its instincts kick in, and now you have to keep feeding it because it's going to kill you. It's a raging beast. That's what began to happen. The danger for me when I started with substance abuse and some of these chemical dependencies that would change my consciousness is I was walking wounded, right? There was traumas, there was hurts and there was pain.

And so it's that quick instant gratification. Just like when I would get into a fight or I would act up, you're trying to fix a more internal problem by a quick fix. And substance abuse is the prime, one of the leading ways that you get that counterfeit. You know, walking in those wounds, it was masking the hurts and the pains. And it kind of seemed like it was helping, but you wake up every morning and you're just as empty as you were the day before. Then it turns into these counterfeit connections, you know.

I started developing a. a community that we shared the habit. So I had a sense of connection of community, but I never had to be vulnerable and transparent and let anybody in. We were to share in the habit. And so that was my life in middle school and going into high school. And by the time I'm a senior, I go from straight A's, a straight Fs, I'm getting kicked out of school. I'm getting expelled. This little bearer became something that I couldn't control anymore. And then you start stealing and you start making other decisions that you wouldn't normally make, but your perspective gets jaded and you're doing anything to feed the bear. And yeah, that was my journey by the time that I'm, you know,

I'm in my early 20s. I'm kicked out of my house and I'm kicked out of school and, you know, you start to buy into hopelessness and you can't really change. You've tried a few times. And, you know, it's just this crazy journey that I got in. And that was my early years, honestly. was just a lot of developing coping strategies that would never get to the root. I was like a stone that skipped across the top of the water, but I never found any depth. And the drugs and the alcohol, you know, created a temporary fix, but it got bad quick. Really, man, it was, it's a while when I look back at that moment because up to 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, even though there were some fractures and some cracks in the foundation, like you would have never thought

in a million years that I was going to become an alcoholic and an addict and on the brink of overdose and you name it. I'm trying it at the time. I'm attempting it. There wasn't really anything that I had not tried or attempted other than intravenous use, right? And I probably would have continued on that if my life didn't abruptly stop when I was in my mid-20s. So that was the early years, you know? Wow, you covered a lot of ground there. I can relate to a ton of the stuff you're saying, right? About that sense of community, I've taught with a couple people, too, about this before that bringing drugs and alcohol into it is just such a cheap entry to that sense of community as to where genuine friendships and other genuine like, you know, more beneficial

communities are harder to enter, right? You mentioned vulnerability. You might have to be vulnerable to sort of, I don't know, be a member is the right word, but to be to be part of those, those environments. So I think that that's so important that a lot of us, you know, get sucked into that because our sense of belonging is so great. We don't necessarily know how to do it in a healthy way. So we, in this opportunity becomes available and then we get sucked in, right? Yeah. It's, it really comes to, you know, I have a hard time.

And I know it's not always, but as I've looked back, the mental health space in the substance abuse situation, they're so intertwined normally. The reason you begin to maybe compromise and to look into some of these other avenues of substances or communities because there's a lot of stuff going on on the inside and you don't know how to articulate it. You don't trust people. There's traumas. There's all kinds of stuff that happen. Bitterness, all situations. And you stumble into sometimes these substances or experimentations, right? Just trying to figure out life as you as you get older, you get presented opportunities that you don't realize that that little bear cub is going to grow up.

And it'll get to a place where you can't contain it and you can't control it anymore. And it's ultimately, I think, people are looking to find out how to get to that place on the inside. And it's exhausting. So you start trying different avenues. And some of those avenues get a hook and hold on you. That is not as easy as just ABC, walk away, one, two, three. There are real strongholds and sensories and all the things when it comes to the chemical and the dopamines and all these things that, you know, that literal groove that happens in your life and your brain. and all of these things that we just don't sometimes realize the door and the threshold

walking into. No, so true. I'm wondering, too, as you're going through all of this, was there any type of intervention? Like, did anybody mention to you, like counselors at the school, your folks, your friends? Yeah, I think, you know, it was, again, my parents didn't intentionally tried, I think, to teach me some coping skills that would never ultimately help. You know, they were trying to just protect me and my sister from thinking that we had a more stable than environment. And so, again, at 11, when my world just changed overnight, like, I didn't ask for it,

sign up for it, and bam, there it is. I just assumed that that's the way that, you know, I was really good at wearing the mask. I was really good put on the fake face, the fake smile. And as I began to compromise and some of these things begin to be more internally prevalent, I hit it from a lot of people, probably the gravity of, of some of the things and the pills that are, some of the opiates and some of the, you know, the antidepressants and all these, you know, we're trying to find in high school, you're, you're moving and hustling and you're fine stuff and, you know, I'm starting to smoke and drink. And again, my mama, my mother had remarried and I didn't like the home environment.

And so she tried to always have a different kind of parenting or she kind of knew that these things were beginning to happen, but she also was struggling with some of those same things, too, right? And so she was there, but my grades weren't falling off the cliff yet. And so she didn't know it either. Is this like just that natural, my son's experimenting around at the end of the day. It's high school. These things kind of happened and drinking all the weekends, the parties, at the campfires. And I just don't think people at the beginning knew the depths. And so when it did begin to surface with the grades and the school and skipping and some of my normal behaviors were changing pretty quickly.

There would be people that would step in, but, you know, that requires me being vulnerable and really opening up about, you know, it was deeper than just the substance. There was an anger towards my dad. There was bitterness towards some of the traumas and the abuses and some of this stuff. And so I was pretty good at shielding and sliding. And honestly, what they always say is some of us as addicts and others that have recovered in and we're into, you know, this journey. We're really good at manipulation.

and we're really good at, you know, being that chameleon and being whatever we need to be just to get out of that situation. I kind of somewhat thought I was mastering it, you know. I probably wasn't nearly as, I probably wasn't fooling as many people as I thought I was, you know? But there was people, but I just, you know, it is what it is.

You really, I got to that place of really being stubborn and also not really went to lay down in my guard. And, you know, you just don't realize what's on the other side of that as much until you're losing friends that are overdosed and you're making choices that are affecting other people's lives forever, which happened to me. It was just this crazy journey that I minimalized a lot. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I said that part too of I would always get approached to in high school, like the behaviors were out of control. And I just, I think there was a couple parts. I wasn't willing, but I also wasn't at that level to connect with what was going on. I mean, looking back,

now it's clear as day, right? It's 2020. But at the time, time, I couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together. And I wasn't willing to let anybody else try either. That's good. That's true. We don't realize, I think, when you're in the middle of it, you have, when you're so close to something, you can't really put an improper perspective. You don't realize the forest from the trees when you're in the middle of it sometimes. And I, I think that happens to a lot of us. We don't really understand the trajectory that we're on. No, so true. So what happens after high school? So you mentioned there, you got you left home, and things were getting a little bit rough for you, things were picking up a little bit more.

What does that look like for you? Yeah, so I get kicked out my senior year. And, you know, it's pretty much it's a fall from like stray days, upstanding freshman year to by the time I'm a senior dude just tore up from the floor up, full-blown alcoholic, full-blown pretty much addicts. You start stealing to, you know, I had a job when I was 14, 15, 16. I mean, I was just a grinder. I was a go-getter because we didn't have a lot.

And by the time I'm a senior 19-20, I can't keep a job, you know. If I do get a job, I just blow everything on every, every bag and every bottle that I could get my hand on. And I had a stint in the military because I kind of had, that was my only direction that I could go. I had nowhere else to turn. One of my, probably my biggest regrets is that when I did a little ASVAP test, I actually had my, I qualified for like military intelligence because of my, I guess, probably that chameleon stuff that I have in me, right? There was something that I qualified in some, I was excited about, but I didn't get a diploma. And for that MOS, you had a GED wasn't good enough. So I ended up doing like a fire support specialist.

I could call for fire, a 13 Fox. And I was a great soldier again in some time of these controlled environments. I went through basic training, graduated with honors, duty station, 101st Screaming Eagles, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, getting ready to deploy and probably, I think it would have been 2006. But I just couldn't stay clean. And so when I got to that place where I had more options and I could. couldn't really, I had no self-control and the impulsivity was just off the charts.

I dropped dirty a bunch of times and made some poor choices. And actually, my, um, Colonel and where I was at at the 101st, they were really kind. They didn't have to be, but they, uh, they just said, Nathan, it's not a good fit for you. And there's a lot of stories in that story, but they, they pretty much said, you know, you're not a good fit for us and we're not a good fit for you. And, and, uh, they gave me an other than animal discharge. Not good, not bad, but basically just and separation. And that whole journey, man, there was this a lot of chaos. And that's when alcoholism was at, it's probably the all-time highest. Or I was drinking a bottle of, you know, just you name it. I'm just drinking it. And then I just also couldn't stay clean. And so I had dirty drops. And

I come home around 20, 21 years old. And you begin us to believe the lie that it is what it is, you know, the hopelessness and wide change. There was moments that you have this moment, I'm going to make a difference. And then people don't believe in you because of pre-revement. mistakes and that's natural they have the right to feel that way but you get to a place where he say you know what forget it you might as well rocket deal the wheels fall off and um ultimately uh just kind of was this living in the mud there not having any traction and had a little job staying with my buddy you know he owned his family on the company and so i had no responsibilities per se um and every weekend he's cash a check and just still living like a college kid party lifestyle even though

I'm not in any kind of better minute of myself. It was July 17th is when everything shifted. A bunch of my friends went to a party and I went and the alcohol ran out and they said, Nate, we're going to go to the after party or we're going to go to the bar first. And so I'm like, for sure, let's go. You know, I'm 23. What's the big deal? It's the bar scene.

It's what we do. And so we went to the bar and, you know, I had probably 10 more shots of alcohol and I was just, I was lit up. And they said, we're going to go to this after party, Nate. you want to come? And I'm like, yeah. And it was at my buddy's house that I knew well. And he wasn't there, but we had the keys. And so we're going to go create the after party after the bar scene. And I wasn't going to drive, though, because I had too much to drink. And I had lost my license months before for DUI. And I had caught a few other possession charges when I was 18 and 20. And so I get

on the phone that I call a friend of mine that had moved from Alabama a couple months previous to to this night, she had befriended a group of about eight to ten of us. Her name was Priscilla Owens. And I said, Priscilla, I need a ride. Can you come get me? And she said, I'll be right there. And she was up there that night. So she comes to get me.

You know, I'm following, quote, unquote, safety measures of, you know, get a designated driver and don't have the keys. And, man, she shows up and what a case of beer to take to the party. My buddy Mike stouts me, you're not driving. No, she is. We walked out somewhere in that transition. I got the keys. And we didn't make it to my friend's house.

We were right around the corner, and I think we have these moments a lot of us have where something happens, positive or negative, but when you pause and reflect, the details are just so vivid. You know, these moments of impact, like I like to say. And I remember every moment of that night, and she screamed tree.

And then I woke up in a helicopter, and I remember the propeller and the wind and the scene, and I black out again. And I woke up in a hospital and police overpopping me asking me questions. Priscilla's cell phone was locked and her ID wasn't in her purse. And so she's fighting for to survive because of some of the trauma from the wreck. And it wasn't until I woke up and, you know, I identified who she was. And they wouldn't tell me a lot because I wasn't family.

And my mama had showed up and she was in the corner. And they said, you know, she's alive, but she's struggling. And I identified, you know, who she was and where she had lived. And that morning, they didn't arrest me right then and there. I don't know if they were still figuring out what happened, trying to get the right charges put together. I had broken my ankle. So then maybe there's some bills and who's the hospital, the care. I don't know.

But they let me crutch out. And they said to be in contact with me soon. In the car with my mama, you know, she just let me know that my life was going to change because my sister was a nurse. And when she got to the first hospital after she got the phone call that, you know, her brother had been in an accident. accident. I had already been transported to the next location. And so she was able to get some details and relay that to my mama. And my mom just said, Nathan, your life's going to change. And we hit the tree of the high rate of speed. And, you know, there's a lot of details to it. But ultimately, I had put on a seatbelt and Priscilla didn't. And upon impact, she launched forward. And

the case of beers that was in the backseat launched forward. And they kind of, the beer and the windshield somewhat sandwiched Priscilla. And there's just a lot of trauma. And my mom said, your life's going to change. You know, you get home. I called the police, the hospital, and nobody would tell me anything. The newspaper had ran a story, two lifeline to park to you, so I decided to stay up the entire night. And just make every deal with myself, make any deal. God, if you're real, you know, let her live. And at 2.47 a.m., the paperman shows up, and he throws the paper, and I jump up and I rip it open, and I read those three headlines and those three words. And it said, crash victim dies. And, yeah, on July 17th, you know, 2009, when I was 23 years old, that, that grizzly bear that I fed, that grew up, the reality of it turned in that, you know, sometimes the ripple effect and sometimes your negative choices and your decisions, you're not just affecting you, but how much that those choices and those decisions can forever traumatically impact other people forever, for real, for real.

And the moment of disbelief, the moment of it should have been me dead. I knew my struggle, right? Like at the end of the day, all these feelings. And now, like, my life's over, to be honest, like that selfishness at the beginning. But then it's bigger than that. You begin to realize that the ramifications and another family and her mom and who was she as a daughter, as a sister. She was a mother of two little kids at the time. And gosh, man, talk about hopelessness.

And in the story, just to kind of give it, then we can pause and you can kind of dissect if you want. But three days after my wreck, her family, Carolyn the mother and Olivia, her sister, wanted me to contact them. You know, what are you going to say? I had never met their family or her family before. She had moved from Alabama. She wasn't there that night. She came to, you know, she was my designated driver. And I'm terrified.

You know, what do you say? Forgive me. And, you know, I call them and I'm weeping. And, of course, you're saying, and you're sorry. But what does that do? Like for real. This family, this courage, they, Harold and the mother, they, you know, they say, Nathan, we're angry, we're sad, we're mad, and a lack of other words. But we've decided in this moment that we don't think that basically one dumb choice should destroy two families.

And we want you to know that we've decided to pick love over hate and we forgive you. I'm crazy, man. And they just ask me to do two things, not let their daughter Priscilla pass away from nothing and try to make the world a better place. And at 23, I'm like, yeah, what? does that mean? Even though the family forgave me choices and consequences, as that began to the next seven months, I was, you know, within a few weeks, I'm charged with reckless homicide, vehicle mansile Lauder. And at 23, even though the mother and the family were very compassionate, the state of Indiana sentenced me to 15 years in prison at the time. And that was the beginning of a quote that I now

live my life by is two of them. At that moment, it would have been easy to give up. I had battled, you know, my mental health of suicide, thoughts and struggles of a lot of other negative ways that I was dealing with the trauma and then my attitude and then the substance abuse. And now my choice has affected another family. It would have been easy to give up. But I remember when I was a kid, my dad used to always tell me, as long as there's breath in your lungs, there's hope in your heart, the long as you're breathing, regardless of the circumstance. And so I had to finally face the person that I had been running of afraid of my whole life. I blamed everything on the trauma when I was a kid. The reason I do this is because of my dad. The reason I do this is because of that. But finally,

boom, locked face to face with that dude in the mirror in that prison cell. And I've decided from that moment when I wrote the word changed the world and I put it on the bathroom mirror that I would rather confront fight and fail myself than settle anymore for the comfort to just stand the same. and that for once in my life I wanted to keep a promise and keep my word to the Owens family. And whatever changes the world meant, whatever that could be,

I was going to begin a pursuit to not let Priscilla, you know, her life be lost for nothing. And that was the beginning of where I'm at today of 13 and a half year sober. And yeah, so you can pause there. There's a lot I just kind of unpacked. But yeah, so that's, that was that moment

of the middle there. Thank you for sharing that, man. I can't imagine it all that that's an easy thing to share and to go through and everything like that. But I love kind of, you know, the message about it is about carrying our story forward too. I mean, I think that that's incredible for you to still bring that with you today. Yeah. I mean, what happened is, is, you know, when I've looked back and, you know, I've learned in this journey of as you begin to get sober and you begin to kind of dissect kind of how you got. to where you were and you learn about other stories and you hear other people.

You know, what I've learned is honestly with this family and they didn't have to. Like Carolyn and Olivia, they were under no obligation to decide to pick love and forgive and see it and be courageous. And to be honest, you know, Priscilla had two young kids at the time that are now 18 and 20, I believe. And I don't know exactly where some of this lies with them because we've never had conversation. There's a lot to that story. But, you know, in that moment, 13 and a half years ago, this.

family found the most courage to step into one of the most uncomfortable moments in their life, you know, but, but honestly, it was that family's ability to confront the most difficult time that, I mean, I don't know for sure, but, you know, that's, can't even prep my mind around it. And so this family found the courage to step into their uncomfortability, you know, for me, I realized that there was a lot of bitterness and a lot of things that I was holding on towards my father and towards other people that were playing a huge part of my struggle. You know, I feel like we've we struggle to forgive sometimes because we think if you forgive, it'll justify what happened to you and some of these things. But that was really this place when I just realized that when I put change

the world on the mirror in 2009 in that prison cell, when my out date was 24, I realized how I'd been living my life wasn't working. And so it was at that moment that I began this pursuit to live my life with basically two principles, which is make the next right choice and treat people the next right way. And for me, it started with finally having to take off the social and the emotional mask and realize the power of vulnerability and transparency and like finding the ability to talk is what activates our resiliency and problem solving. And so I started every day at that moment. I could have said when I get released and down the road, but I just decided to begin to own the moment and to own the next choice as much as I can. And so I started living my life with when I put

change the world on the mirror, I didn't know that currently as I'm a, I'm a communicator and I get opportunities to stand on stages and talk to people on a lot of different venues about adversity and conflict and choices. And I didn't know that changed the world that I was going to be someone who could articulate a message per se. For me, it was a general idea. Like, let me just move in a direction. I think that's helped so much of my, this place of sobriety is that we get stuck on repeat and replay and we get stuck in our past or we get locked into our future of what this

and what if that. And you get stuck on the future and in the past. And it's so hard to sometimes be in the moment. And so I started living my life where let me just funnel as much as I can through this goal, this thing inside of me that I had a burden for. You know, I think a lot of times our why is birth through our pain. And if we're willing to like step into that space a little bit,

like you're going to find passionate projects and things you want to do. And when you find your why, you can find your people. And when you find your why and your people over time, you can do great things. And you can have some healthy community. But it was then that I started every day. Just let me make the next right choice. I signed up for some college classes. so now I had a choice to do homework, right?

Do my work or not. They asked me to make my bed. You know what? That flip doesn't matter about me making my bed. I'm in prison for 15 years. But I realized it was a chance to make a choice. And every time that I can make the next right choice, and even though it wouldn't be perfect,

there would be good days and bad days and 10 steps forward and three steps back and three steps back and no steps forward. If I zoomed out over those three days, I'm still four ahead, right? And so it's this pursuit of failing forward and refusing to accept, it has to be what it is. And that's what I started doing, man. I started getting into some places where I could talk and have some counseling

and verbalizing some of the story and processes and found some meaningful relationships and connections, even while I was incarcerated. And every day, though, I just consistently try to make the next right choice. I always say what you feed will grow and what you starve will die. And if we can just try to convince. to put small goals and things in front of us and surround ourselves with people that can be our cheerleaders, as in it's good to have accountability. It's good to have that sponsor, that mentor, some of those people that can call you on your craft, right? Like, we need those. But also, I think for me, let's help me say 13 and a half in this in sobriety right now is that in that process, especially on the mental health space and the repressions or like when I struggle with some other really negative coping sales of that things that I did.

It wasn't having people that would, you know, judge me at all. At the end of the day, I had some people that didn't have any stock. And if I did good or didn't do good, right? They were just people that would always be my cheerleader. And even if I made mistakes, long as I continue to be vulnerable and transparent over time, the more that I'm talking and will go longer days and longer stints, that was a big key to me. I found some people that were absolutely, they wanted to be. to seem to become healthy and successful.

But at the end of the day, if I screwed up, if I dropped a ball, it wasn't like, oh, I'm so disappointed in you. They were like, okay, suck it up, get back up, and keep moving forward. Like, you've got this. And that kind of really began to help me. And I got involved in a therapeutic community in the prison where it changed the way you think it'll change you. And it was lowering the recidicism rate, the return rate to the prison so much in that

process that they started to want to take an ambassador of the program and send them across different places in Indiana to talk about it. And so when they began that, they selected me because I was just their grind and being vulnerable and really trying to own this recovery journey in my life and keep a promise to the Owens family. And so it was crazy for 2010 and 11, the first two and a half years like into that journey, I was leaving in street clothes and going to different places and talking in in 2013 the governor and his counsel and some other things happened where they wrote a letter and they said that this young man is more effective out there than he is and he and I walked out of that prison 11 and a half years early because the truth is we're never product of our environment

we're product of what we find the courage to do in the middle of it right and sometimes we've made self-inflicted wounds and our backs are against the wall and sometimes life just brings us hell things that we didn't ask for we didn't sign up for what we got to deal with how we respond Are we going to step into pressure? Are we going to to hide from it, let the pressure bust pipes? And it's not a perfect formula, but for me, it's allowed me some traction where now it would be hard pressed for me to go back to changing my consciousness because I've learned to love life on life's terms.

And even though sometimes it sucks and sometimes, man, it's not a good day. And there's moments when you're like, dude, this is terrible. I've realized that, man, there's no greater feeling than having, complete control over emotions and thoughts and sobriety. Like being sober is flipping phenomenal. And I don't know how I got caught in this vicious cycle thinking the drugs were going to fix anything. So that kind of was up to that point.

That was in 2013 and I came home and I was met with a lot of mixed emotions from people, which is fine. There's a lot of people that, you know, had heard my song of change a few times before and they weren't buying it. Talks cheap. And this time instead of being offended, I had enough awareness. is to say, you know, you have the right to feel that way. But let me make so many good choices moving forward as much as I can. You can't deny my actions because our lives speak, scream and shout.

And so I reached up to a public school in Indiana. I knew prom time. There's a lot of drinking and a lot of terrible decisions that can happen from high school students in the party scene. And one school said yes. And man, ever since then, it's been downhill when it came to one school turned to 10 and that opened up to different venues and different places. And before COVID, I was one of the most book school communicators in the nation and just really begin to realize that there was more stuff about mental health and things that I had navigated. And so that's what I do now. I travel.

I'm in New York right now. I just finished a school and I fly out to Louisiana. And I do a lot of talks and different platforms on mental health and substance abuse and just constantly trying to give people a visual reality that we can recover. We can navigate some of these terrible. patterns and habits that we've created. And yep, it'll be uncomfortable. And yep, sometimes getting out of that ditch, you can't veer out of it.

It's too deep. It has to be a violent turn where there's going to be some turbulence and it's going to suck. And it's going to be painful. But man, there is a time when some of those things can be compressed a little bit and there's hope at the end of that tunnel. Wow, I love that, man. Huge congrats to him the 13 and a half years. Yeah.

Of all places, though, in jail, I mean, was there something specific? I know there was a lot of stuff that, you know, led up to that thing, but was there something specific that were you kind of connected the dots, maybe that sobriety was just going to have to be part of this journey? Like, it wasn't just, you weren't just going to be a one or two beer kind of guy or one or two joint. Like, if you were going to do exactly like that postcard said, changed the world, then sobriety, you know what I mean? That was going to have to be someone's connected.

Was there a point where that kind of made sense? Yeah. I mean, even today, right? And I'm not, again, everyone has different views and stuff. And so even today, do I feel like if I wanted to have a drink, maybe I could, but why would I? At the end of the day, I'm a very, I'm an all gas, no breaks kind of a guy. I know the DNA of who I am, right? And so to me, when I really realized that I had walked in some of the same patterns that my father

and some family members that I had, and I was determined not to become like them. And I kind of, again, what you feed grows. I was so consumed not to become, I kind of navigated into that same space. You know, I realized that why, you know, what, what did you ever do to me? There was, there was 14 good years, 13 years that, again, I was 23 at this moment, but I remember what it was like when I was a kid and what it was like being sober and some of the good friendships that I did have in middle school and some of those things that I realized, like, why did I find myself in the slippery slope and how did I get here, right?

at 23 in prison, the accident, Priscilla's family. It's, it's hard to wrap your mind around it. And then there's the place that I wanted to really eat my word. I didn't know at the time what changed the world men or, you know, how can I make a difference and, you know, sobriety. Man, I'll tell you, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful journey. Again, if I could change it a million times over, of course I would. The Owen's family have, I mean, they've, words can't put it to scale the cost. And again, it's not that I talk to on a daily basis. And I mean, we're like Carolyn and I are close as in we've had conversations.

And Olivia and I mean, there's, but they also are living their life. And I don't always know what it's like what I call them, you know. They've given me like they're supportive, keep running. Thank you for the difference. But I know when I call them, it comes right to the surface. What else would like anytime you see what I'm saying? Like I have always that they can get a hold of me. I'm just constantly doing what I can to try to let my life be an example and a witness that Priscilla isn't gone through anything.

And of course, I would change it. And as her kids now, I know are older. I don't know where they land. I'm just trying my best to continue. And I would say I've forgiven myself. I don't, it's not like this unhealthy relationship of like this drive. But there's just a lot of reason that I choose sobriety. There's, there's, why go, why go back to a couple of years now?

13 years. And I think there's so many people as it's built, like, people need to see visuals that, like, wait a minute, we can go for long stints and we can. And so that for me has been really that. And Faith played a big part of it in prison, you know, my dad and I was raised with some belief in God. And at that moment when I hit rock bottom, there was this some real moments that, you know, I stopped running from, you know, for me.

I was running from God, you could say. And so that kind of gave me some foundation. Regardless of what you believe, I think when it comes to mental health and substance abuse, a lot of times when people don't believe in anything, you just feel like you're lost in the middle of the chaos. And, you know, there's no purpose, right? So that's really what that core of the spiritual part and the belief part or the bigger than you part, right?

you're acknowledging that you're powerless on your own, that whole space. It really is about purpose. And I think too often we get so focused on the internals of chemical dependencies and the chemical imbalances and the, you know, the different serotonins and the different, you know, chemicals that happen and all these things, right? They're valid. But I think there's a lot of externals too. And it's about purpose.

And it's about, you know, what are we doing with our time and our actions and what we feed grows? There's also very much a valid external journey that I think we want to minimize. And again, there's not a formula to this. Recovery, sobriety, you know, addiction, it's a very unique thing. There's a lot of similar stories and sounds, but your specific reasons and wise and hows, that can be very much a mosaic. But I do think for me, really, I took that change the world off the mirror, and I put it on my first house when I got released in 2013. When I got married to my wife and my kids, I put that

changed the world on my first, my set my home with my wife. When COVID happened and the world changed and I had 106 lectures get canceled in three days. We went out to the desert and we came back and we sold everything and we live in a bus now and we travel and tour and I'm actually not with them because some of my routes, I have to fly now, which is kind of crazy. Why am I staying in an RV if I'm not with my family all the time? But I took that same change the world off the mirror and I put it on our first little RV window a mirror again. And so that's been, again, setting these small goals and these trajectories, they help. So that's some of my, yeah, yeah, that was a long answer to your question there. Oh, that's beautiful. So wait, so you still have the same, the same sticky note or the same

thing you originally wrote this on? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. It's not on the mirror right now. It got ripped when I, I put it on a toothpaste. But yeah. So how. I have it. I think my wife, Reed, did another one that made it cooler with like an actual Atlas picture and put change the world. And she's a great writer. And her, she's so artsy. And I'm super chicken scratch, right? And so, but yeah, I mean, that's been that that. And again, there's just some crazy other parts of, you know, I just, I couldn't deny that for me, guys existence that he had, he didn't cause it, but he stepped into my story. And I surrendered.

And man, one of the greatest decisions I've ever made in my entire life. So, wow. Look, this has been incredible, man. Rapping up here, though, is there any message you'd like to leave everybody with? I mean, to sum everything up, what, like, what is your message to the world to the people listening? I think at the end of the day, it's perspective, right? I think the cup can be half empty and the cup can be half full. But if we can zoom out and just be excited that we have a cup in our hand, right? And we have, as people, creative control by our actions and our decisions to decide how we

perceive the cup. And I know what we've been through kind of helps us see the world through the lens, but it doesn't have to be that way. And for me, I live my life with really this quote, and it is, I would rather confront, fight, and fail, then settle for the comfort of staying the same. It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to let our friends stay that way. We can't change people, but man, the power of of community and being vulnerable and who gives a rip what anybody thinks about you. At the end of the day, as long as there's breath in our lungs, there's hope. There's hope in our heart.

And we may fall down 30 times, but man, get up 31. Don't believe the lie that what it is is what it has to be. Because change is possible and sobriety is possible. And you just have to continue to refuse to accept that you're never going to get to a place that you can't confront life because you can. It won't be easy, but man, you can do hard things and resiliency is a part of us. It's who we are as humanity. But it's activated by community and vulnerability. And you've got to start there. So that would be my message. And that's what we we share with a lot of different places and spaces there with your life

speaks. So that's our organization that we started in 2013, 14. You're life speaks. Your life speaks. I love that. What's that like for you, though, speaking at all these schools? You get nervous doing stuff like that? What, like 100? You said he had 106 and you're doing a lot this year, right?

Man, it was a crazy journey. It was a rock. Before COVID, I was doing, you know, 220 schools a year. I could do four talks in a day. You go into a county and just go and talk and that kind of just materialized. And now even today on this side of COVID, I still, you know, we have plenty of opportunities. and we go coast to coast, and we're doing less now because my kids are a little older. I'm trying to be a little bit more in their life on a daily basis,

just because I don't want to be the same kind of my dad did the best that he could, and I knew he had his own stuff, but I just am trying to be, and I'm really vulnerable with my kids, like my kids know everything about me, all the mistakes, and I don't hide stuff anymore. I think that generation of us that are parenting now, I hope we've realized the power of being real and raw and raw, vulnerable because our kids need it. But yeah, so it's busy. I mean, we've did probably,

well, when May gets here from March, April, May, I probably did, you know, 75 schools in those three months. It's all over the country and some venues and mental health community nights and gala's and just a lot of places, right, that hopefully we can bring a message of hope. And so it's been, it's been incredible. People asking, where, where, where's my therapy? What do I do for like how, where's my, where's my, where do I'm like, I'm like, I stand in front of thousands of people every day and I just bear my chest and I'm raw and it's I always say what you give away is what you get to keep and so I've got some good mentors that you know I can really be vulnerable with but then I also realize pursuing passion and doing what you love and trying to figure

it out it's it's it's a great medicine to sobriety too so it's pretty it's pretty it's it's humbling and it's it's really uh I always say I have no idea how I got to where I'm at other than I just woke up and just said, let me do the next thing. Let me just do the next thing. Let me just do the next thing. And I believe hard work, good choices and having community, the opportunities are limitless. And it's not about hiding from the rain. It's learning to dance in it, you know, pretty cliche, but it's true. So yeah. Yeah. No, thank you so much. Yeah. And thank you for, I know you're busy. So thank you for jumping on the show and sharing your story and sharing all like this great stuff you have. I mean, it's a great, you know, direction for anybody who's struggling,

I think. Yeah, man. And again, I so appreciate your work and just the whole sober motivation, man, it's such a great reality because people need to see those stories. They need to see that we can confront this, this grizzly bear. And we don't have to just to go wherever that symphony takes, that we're the choir director. And we can call for that orchestra. And we can call for percussion and strings and instruments. And I think what you're doing here is just really giving people that visual of, you know what, let's stay in the fight. Stay in the fight.

So I appreciate your work, man, so much. And even for having me, I'm really humbled and grateful for the opportunity. Same, brother. Thank you so much. Wow, what a powerful episode. I am so grateful that Nathan came on here to share a story. It kind of takes me back a little bit to hear a story like that. That's a heavy story.

And for Nathan to really dedicate his life to giving back, I think he's given over 1,400 keynote speeches to students, to professionals all over North America. To be able to do that, I think, is incredible. I think what happened there in his story, it would have been so easy just to throw in the towel. Just to throw in the towel and just give up there. And he's really fought back,

and he's really trying to make a difference. So if you enjoyed this episode, let him know. Send him a message on social media. Let him know you appreciate him sharing his story. I can't. I can't even imagine that that was an easy one to share. At times, it was a hard one to hear, to be quite honest. But we got to share the hard stories.

And what I've noticed through sharing these stories is that people who find recovery often go through a lot of pain. And maybe that's how they're able to get on the other side. to things is they don't want the pain anymore. They use the pain to develop a why. And once they find a why, they run with it. But another incredible episode. Thank you, everybody, for the support. And I'm looking forward to seeing you on the next one.