Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Todd Miller had a liver transplant due to drinking alcohol and with his second chance at life he wants to make a difference,

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Todd Miller was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in May of 2021 and received a liver transplant just after Christmas 2022.  Todd started drinking alcohol at 13 years old and this would continue until he got sober on February 2nd 2022. Todd reached out for help once his life took a dark turn. Todd has an incredible message of hope for anyone struggling and with his second chance at life he wants to be of service to others and  encourage men to talk about their feelings and what is actually going on. This is Todd Miller’s story not he sober motivation podcast. Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram Check out the Sober Buddy App today to get and stay connected with others on the same journey: Click Here If you need some professional rehab services be sure to check out United Recovery Project: uprecovery.com

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. Todd Miller was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in May 2021 and received the liver transplant just after Christmas, 2022. Todd started drinking alcohol at 13 years old, and this would continue until he got so on February 2nd, 2022.

Todd reached out for help once his life took a dark turn. Todd has an incredible message of hope for anyone struggling. And with his second chance at life, he wants to be a service to others and encourage men to talk about their feelings and what is actually going on. This is Todd Miller's story on the sober motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone, Brad here? Before we jump into this week's episode,

I want to give a big shout out. a big shout out to all of you who are struggling. All of you who are maybe not achieving the results you want. I want you to know that I didn't get this my first time either. But what I do want you to do is commit to showing up despite the results. You'll thank yourself later. If you haven't had a chance to check out the Sober Buddy app now might be the time to do so. We have 10 live support groups per week with different topics.

Also, the community is thriving and supportive and people are coming together to lift each other up, give each other different ideas that worked for them and really work together to make this whole recovery and sobriety thing a reality for so many people. Also, there are some new, evolving community-led meetup groups inside of the app as well. So check it out, your soberbodies.com or your socialobody.com or your, favorite app store and I hope to see you over there. I host three groups per week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Let's go. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we have Todd with us. Todd, how are you doing? I'm great today. How are you? I am well. I'm so happy that we

can connect on this. And why don't you start off with telling us what it was like for you growing up? Well, when I was growing up, my family always had get-togethers. My dad would drink a couple of beers after work. You know, I saw that was more on weekends and being around beer. Sometimes there was hard look or around or whatever, but I didn't see it as a problem as a kid growing up because we're being caring, supportive. But family barbecues, I mean, we had a huge extended family with cousins and aunts and uncles and it always seemed like we were getting together. And there was always just beer and alcohol there. And, you know, as a young kid, I was like, quote, the beer runner for my uncles going out, you know, going into the cooler or going down in the basement to the refrigerator and getting the beers out and bringing up to them while they played horseshoes or barbecued or whatever.

And I always enjoyed the taste of beer. And I'd crack open the beers as I was carrying them up and take a couple of sips. And one day my dad looked at the rim of the can and I didn't realize that he was like, can you take a drink of this? I'm like, no. He's like, well, then why is there? Oh, I must have spilled a little, you know, or whatever. But like I said, I always liked the taste of it. And especially in the summertime, mowing the lawn, painting the house, working on cars.

It was like a glass ice water for my dad and my brother, uncles and stuff. So I just kind of grew up seeing it and those guys didn't have a problem. Yeah. And, you know, I ended up started drinking probably around 13, 14 years old with my buddies hanging out in the woods after football games. games, going to school dances. I was always like that Friday night, Saturday night hanging out with boys kind of drinking. And after I graduated high school, it just kind of, especially here in Ohio, I got grandfathered in when they changed the drinking age from 18 to 21. I got grandfathered in because

of my birthday. So at 18, I was still able to go out and buy beer on my own, buy hard liquor, made some money off of it because my buddies couldn't get into that. I was their supplier, so to speak. Yeah, you were the bootlegger. Yeah, the bootlegger. What is that, though? I'm not familiar with that. So it used to be 18 in Ohio. Yeah, in Ohio, because I'm an old man.

No, in Ohio, it was 18 back in the 70s, 80s around in there. And then they decided to up the drinking age to 21. But because the way my birthday fell, I got grandfathered in before the date change. So anybody that had a birthday before that date of the change got grandfather been and could continue going to bars, go to the liquor store. Ohio is a little different because back in those days, they had a state store where you had the only sold the hard liquor, but then you could go to drive-thrusers and grocery stores and buy beer there. But to get the hard stuff, you had to go to what they called a state store. And now I think it's a little bit

different. But yeah, so I mean, when I turned 18 and got some freedom on my own, it was kind of a little bit more game on, but I was worked in school and always Friday, Saturday night. Yeah. So you were able, so for a while there at the beginning, you were able to keep it to the weekends. What was it? What was it about drinking in the first place that you were interested down getting this started? Was it that you'd seen so much growing up or? Yeah, I think it really was and I mean, saw that I had family members and friends, parents that were able to have a good time on the weekends and then go back to work. I mean, yeah, there was some, a couple of beers after work after a hard day's work,

while you're cooking dinner. I mean, I dated a girl. My mom wasn't a big drinker. My dad came home from work and cracked open a beer or two while he was mowing the grass or doing some stuff around the house gardening. So I figured, I mean, I was just kind of a product of my environment. And I thought I could there for a number of years, I was able to, you know, maintain, so to speak. Yeah.

You sort of had to take it or leave it kind of thing during the week at least where you yeah, I mean, you didn't think about it during the week. No, no. And you know, to go out for a couple of beers after work with some guys from work was no big deal. I'd go home and not really even think about it. It wasn't like I was crack open a beer and it was game on until I passed out. But weekends, it was a little different, especially if I was going to the lake or hanging out with buddies and doing stuff. Yeah, I mean, we'd start drinking in 11, 30, 12 o'clock during the day. day and go until midnight, 1 o'clock. But then Sunday, 6, 37 o'clock, I'd stop drinking because

I knew I had to get up and go to work on Monday morning. But then Monday night, I'd come home and crack open a couple of beers while I was grilling or cooking dinner or, you know, whatever. I didn't see it as a problem. Yeah. And then fast forward, lo and behold, guess what? It became a problem. What did that look like for you, though? Like over the, over that span of time, What did your relationships look like, your career look like? My career, I've always been kind of in business. I had the day, you know, I never worked like a swing shift job. So I always had seven to five or eight to five, nine to five, whatever you want to call it,

kind of jobs, mostly office jobs, sales jobs. It's funny, I used to be an outside sales rep for a company in Chicago that I took clients out to lunch and the proverbial two martini guys that I took out to lunch. But the thing of it is, I never drank this. lunchtime because I didn't want to be that salesman, that person. But come 435 o'clock, guess what? My addiction was sitting there tapping on my shoulder going, it's time for a beer, or we're going to go play golf or we're going to go meet the guys at the bar and hang out.

I felt like it just slowly got out of my grasp and became someone else's grasp. Yeah. And it never really affected my jobs because I always was able to get up in the mornings. And, you know, I might be a little hungover from going to a late night Cubs game or Blackhawks game or whatever being in Chicago. I mean, you know, you could turn around and throw a stone and hit a bar or something up there. And it just slowly, slowly started grabbing more of my attention in the evenings. And relationship-wise, I dated girls we'd hang out at bars or go to, you know, their house. And I never lost a relationship or a job because of alcohol and drinking.

It didn't necessarily control my life during the day. But man, at, like I said, 4.35 o'clock at night, it was game on, especially until midnight. If I got a solid six, seven hours of sleep, I was good. Bad part about it is later in that timeframe, I used to smoke a lot of pot, loved smoking pot. Actually, I was a wake in baker. I'd get up in the mornings, have my one hitter next to my bed and hit that, make a pot of coffee, get a shower, put my suit and tie on. and go do my thing. I actually drank less when I smoked pot. My philosophy was, well, I smoked pot.

I don't wake up with hang over. But in the evenings, it was take a couple of hits and go hang out at the bars with my buddy because I had a lot of friends that ran around with in Chicago. I had friends that owned bars and boats. And I mean, I was single. It was like, this is fun. Being from Ohio and living in Chicago, it was like, God, this is great. Yeah, paradise. Paradox for sure. Yeah, it was a playground. up there. It's always interesting, though, hearing these stories about how it starts out, you know, maybe in an innocent way. And then with time, it really becomes number one. It really

becomes our identity in a sense to where without it, we're become completely lost. Like, what are we going to do without it? And it's a progressive thing, I think, for a lot of people. Well, it takes time to build it up to, you know, be that. It really did. And up until probably about four or five years ago, it became where, and I didn't even realize it maybe even longer before that, you know, I started looking at my watch or started looking at the clock on my computer or my phone. And again, like I said, my addiction was kind of sitting there going, coming up on 430, where are we going to go? What are we going to do? I didn't realize it at the time. I didn't realize that until I spent time in rehab. That was my addiction talking. It wasn't my free will. It was my

addiction one. Okay, it's coming up on 4.35 o'clock. Time for me to take over and I didn't necessarily see it. And up until a few years ago, I didn't realize that now that I've had over a year of sobriety under my belt, I look back and realize that it was my addiction. And yeah, I was drinking in front of my loved ones, my ex-wife, which that wasn't from alcohol. That was just simply we grew apart and in age we were married for over 20 years together for over 24 plus years. But when you start sneaking it is when it starts becoming a problem and hiding it. And that's what happened. I drink a couple of 24 ounce beers on the way home and then have a couple more at home and then go off, drink a couple more and oh, did you drink before you came home? No. You know, even with my

job at the time, I was working at an amusement park near Cincinnati. out of here. And again, I was never during the day, but buddy, five, four 30 to six 30, that little demon inside my head was like, come on, come on, let's go. Yeah. I still thought I was a social drinker, but then when you're waiting for your significant other to go to bed, better go into the living room or go do something else and you're running out and grabbing a six pack, then pounding that before they get back or before they discover, that's an issue. Big issue. That's interesting too where you're mentioning too, not during the day because I know there's like this false belief that a lot of people share that if they keep it till after work and that we're able to show up for work and we're able to do these things that there simply isn't a problem. If we're able to provide and show up for work and we wait until after five o'clock and we're not, there's like an old understanding of the alcoholic or the problem drinker is somebody who wakes up and starts drinking.

And that's just not the truth. I think it can really show its head in so many different ways. Were you ever had yourself convinced because of the schedule you were able to maintain and the level of productivity at your jobs that like, hey, I've got this together? Oh, yeah. I've fooled myself for years now that I look back at it. I was totally a high functioning alcoholic. When you say years, how many years?

Are we talking like two years? Oh, no. I mean, I'm probably the last 15, 18 years around in there. You know, like you said, I didn't consider myself an alcoholic until after I went into rehab because, you know, I was able, I was like, I can get up and go to work and I'm not Jones and during the day. And I'm being productive and going to my kids' functions and things like that. I was around people that were kind of the same way. And my son's lacrosse team, I mean, it was nothing for all the dads to buddy up and have beer. for the game or sometimes during the tournament.

We'd have coolers and grills and you're there at a tournament all day long, Bloody Mary's in the morning and beers in the afternoon and then beers at night. But to me, that was just the social part of it. You know, it was getting up and going to work and being productive during the week. And yeah, it was probably slamming, you know, eight to ten, maybe some nights, 12 beers between five and 1130 at night. I had myself fooled. I was okay with that. I'm not an alcoholic. I just like to drink. I like the taste of beer. What's the difference between someone who drinks six or eight Diet Cokes? And, you know, that's the thing that I think is so funny is you go into a restaurant and you see someone with four empty Diet Coke cups in front of them. Nobody says anything. But if you see the guy sitting there with four empty mugs or a picture, empty pitcher of beer in front of him, then some people might be like, oh, you know, no big deal. or some people might be like, oh, that's kind of excessive.

It always blows me away even when I do go to restaurants still. And I see people casually, you know, these might be like bars slash restaurants. And I see people casually enjoying their dinner without beer. Because that's always a thing for me is I was like, yeah, the beer goes with the dinner. And I see people. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is like, I never even thought of that idea. You know, what I was doing it never crossed my mind. And that's the thing also is one of my counselors in rehab.

asked me, he's like, well, when you get through this, a restaurant, and this is the thing that always killed me is I called myself cheat because I didn't want to go to a restaurant. I wasn't going to a restaurant to get drunk. But yeah, I might have a glass of wine or a couple of beers, you know, with my dinner or before dinner. But I didn't hang out at bars. I did back in the day when I was in Chicago because I had a couple of friends that owned bars. And plus, I had money and single at the time. Didn't have a house and kids and cars and sports payments and all that kind of stuff. Going to a football game or a baseball game. I didn't get drunk at those places because, especially nowadays, prices are so high. Why am I going to spend $10 bucks on a draft beer at a ballgame

when I can go down the street to the gas station and buy an 18-pack? Well, not, but back then. You get what I'm saying is I would go out to those places and have a couple of drink, but then I'd go home and it'd be like, okay, let's keep going. Yeah. What were you on the run from? You ever figured that out? What were you trying to avoid here? I lost my mom when I was like 28, 29 years old and was very close to her.

I'm the youngest of four. I think it was part of that that I was dealing with. And then I think also I looked at it as being social, being the life of the party, being funny friend or the cool friend or whatever. I never really got to the point where I felt like I was just. running from something, but then later on, especially over the last four or five years, my addiction took over when I was told by someone, hey, you need to slow down or, hey, you need to stop.

It was like, I'm 50 years old. I can do what I want. I put in a hard day's work. Don't tell me what to do. I think that's when it became a problem is because I was being defiant, in my opinion. Like, hey, don't tell me what to do. I'm even back when I was 45 years old, let's go back 10 years. someone's like, hey, you need to slow down or you're drinking a little too much today, you know, hold off.

And I think that's when I just became, don't tell me what to do. I'm going to kill myself and hurt you. No, or I'm going to drink and hurt you. No, I was hurting myself. Yeah. I mean, I've never put my finger on a specific thing that I was running from. I know when I lost my mom when I was 28, that at that point I wasn't married, I was lost. Like I said, I was the youngest of four. And I mean, they always say, you're mom's your first love. And that was definitely the case. And losing that at 28, 29 years old, it kind of threw me in a tailspin. And that summer that she passed away, I was living in Chicago. And we went to the Grateful Dead concerts, the last two Grateful Dead concerts that Jerry Garcia ever played. And I mean, man, if somebody handed me something, I was like, okay, I'm going to do it. I think that summer, probably three or four years after that, maybe that's what I was running from.

and just, you know, I don't give a crap attitude. And unfortunately, my addiction, I opened up that playground to my addiction. And it loved it. Yeah. So the pain and maybe knowing exactly how to work through a situation like that. And then I think when stuff like that happens to, we go with what we're used to and maybe what's a little bit easier. Not to say that the addiction is easier, but, you know, having six beers might be easier

than reaching out and doing stuff. That's just so comfortable for us, right? The worst part of all of this is that it works so well, like it does the trick. Intelligent doesn't, right? But in that time, it probably, you know, that it distracted, distracts us from what's going on and we just kind of push it down and down. Well, oh, go ahead. No, and what I was going to say is the sad part about it is is 10, 15, 20 years ago. Men didn't talk about their feelings.

Men didn't talk about their struggles. I mean, I've seen a lot of TikToks and reels on Facebook. Facebook that guys are like, you might be hurt. I mean, and I was guilty about that. Yeah. Oh, how are you doing today, man? I'm fine. Nobody wanted to hear that I was hurting inside and that I had pain and that I was miserable

or tired or. And I think that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this today is to break that stigma is, you know, let everybody else out there that may be going through this to let them know that I'm not fine some days. And now I can talk about it. I can share instead of cracking open a couple of beers and hiding, it makes me feel better. Journaling has made me feel better. People had said that to me before and I'm like, journaling, right?

Well, when I was in rehab, I journaled. My counselor and was adamant about it. And the first few times that I did it, I was like a couple of paragraphs or a paragraph on a piece of paper. And the next thing, you know, three weeks later, I'd look back and it was like, those paragraphs started turning it into sentences and the sentences in the sentences in the chapters and the chapters into pages. It really helped me get through that. And I think that's what a lot of these, a lot of younger men, if you're not fine, say some, don't hide. And that I grew up

born in 1967, men didn't talk about their feelings in the 70s. That's the last thing you did. That's part of the stigma that I want to try and help break is, I mean, I've got tons of friends from rehab that they have my number. I've had a couple of guys call me at one, two, a class, three o'clock in the morning. Not necessarily because they were going to go out and use or drink again. They just needed to get something off their chest. Yeah. And I think that's the stigma that needs to be broken. Yeah, because not talking about stuff can definitely lead or maybe explode any addiction that we already are experiencing, right? I totally feel that that's what happened with me over, you know, probably the last eight years, nine years, seven years, you know, whatever is I didn't learn these things.

the hard way. Yeah. I'm wondering too, though, so you kind of brought it up there. How were you feeling and how were you doing like mentally while you were going through this for the past 10, 15, 20 years? I look back on it now and I was hiding. I mean, I was definitely hiding. I don't know what I was hiding from, but I still had to put up the strong front that as a man, I was a father. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was funny because my ex-wife and I now are still great friends. We just simply grew apart and that didn't necessarily, I wasn't hiding from that or killing the pain from that. It's just that my addiction was just so deep in me that I almost couldn't function without the six or eight, ten beers in my mind. But I'm sure I physically could.

But again, I didn't talk about. I'm going to talk to about my friend that that was going to sit there and be like, oh, come on, dude, you can't have those feelings. That's not a true friend in my opinion. And it's hard to have a conversation like that with other people that, you know, are doing the same thing, right? Right. I mean, if I did say, hey, man, I'm having a rough day.

Can I give you a call or can I meet up with you? You know, let's go to get some wings and some beer. Well, okay, that's not necessarily what I was looking for, but it was like, oh, okay. And then talk for five minutes and then the next thing you know, it's four pictures or 10 beers later and you haven't talked about anything. You've just pushed it back down. It's back down in the core of you, not at the surface. Yeah. And now it's nice to be able to recognize that and verbalize it or put it on paper.

If I don't have anyone to talk to, I get my journal out and write. Yeah, that's incredible. So you're writing a book then, Todd. It's definitely not going to be on the best. seller list. Let's put it that way. You never know, buddy. You never know. I'm interested to see where this thing, how this kind of plays out for you. So you've been drinking for X amount of years for like quite some time, right? It's a pretty long career of drinking here. When do things take a change? When do things become unmanageable? Or do they become really obvious for you that something's up?

Well, it was in November 21, probably well before that. In May of 21, or before that, I got really sick and started doing some Dr. Googling and thought that I had this or that or whatever. And in May of 21, I got diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. And had quite a bit of fluid in my abdomen. They call that ascites. It's where your liver can't process everything. So it just kind of leaks out into your abdomen.

and I had to have, this is going to blow your mind. They took 22 liters of fluid out of my abdomen. I had fallen at home, called my girlfriend at the time. She came home and said, you're going to the hospital. I'm not helping you up. And that's when I found out. And that was kind of a wake-up call, smack in the face, so to speak. What were the symptoms you were having from that?

Like, were you bloated? Loaded, bloated. Loaded. Yeah, bloated. I thought I had gut. issues going on. I was, like I said, Dr. Googling. I thought I had become gluten intolerant. I mean, I was trying everything. I'm not an alcoholic. You know, I couldn't have liver disease. Did any research, did any of the research you were doing on Google? Yep. That as an idea? Yep. Yeah.

But what did I do? Oh, no, that can't be me. In hindsight, I talked to doctors about it. And I had a job where I would work, like I said, I worked for an amusement near Cincinnati here and I was in their entertainment department. I was spending time up on lifts, you know, hanging theater type lights and doing that. I'd get off work and pop four Tylenol and down it with a 24 ounce beer. I'd look to the back of the Tylenol bottle and saw that this, you know, overextended use could cause liver problems or liver failure or liver disease. And I'm sitting there like, oh, yeah, no, that's not me. That's not me. That's the other guy. And I went on for that. And my research did point to that. But again, I was like, no, it's got to be, I'm not getting enough probiotics or I'm allergic to something or whatever. And how long did that go on? Like these visible signs or discomfort or pain? Was it months or was it like day and then the next day? Nope. Nope. It was over about a three month period. So probably like February, March, April, two years ago. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I was kind of pushing it back.

I didn't like doctors. I didn't like hospitals. I didn't want to go to the doctor or a hospital and find out. They might give you an answer that you willing or ready to accept maybe. Yep. And on May 24th of 21, I got the answer and buddy, it was a shock. So you passed out? You were drinking and then you passed out and fell or no.

I wasn't drinking that day, that night before I had. But I had gotten up to get out of bed. Just, I mean, imagine 20, three liters. That's basically 11, two liter bottles of soda that are strapped around your midsection. And I just went down. I went down on the floor and couldn't get back up. And luckily, I was in the bedroom and had my phone next to me and I called my girlfriend. And she's like, yeah, I can come home and help you, but I'm calling the ambulance when I get there because she knew that something was wrong. But again, I wasn't listening. I was stubborn. Yeah. What did she say about the drinking?

It got to be a problem because especially after I got diagnosed with cirrhosis and my addiction was like, oh, don't tell her, don't tell her. And that's, you know, that became a problem. And that's why I say in November, December of 21, she basically kind of gave me an ultimatum and said, I'm not going to put up with this. She had, you know, a couple of kids of her own. And I mean, even though she was younger than me at the time and but she was like, I'm not going to put up with this. If you're not going to listen, I'm not going to sit by and watch you destroy. your life. And that's when Rock Bottom came up and met me. And I was in a dark place. I had never really thought about it. But that month of November, December, early January, I was in a dark place.

I was looking at ways to get rid of my pain by self-harming. Luckily, it never came to that. So this is after you've been told about the condition you have about what that. And then did you go back drinking during November, December, January? Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, I went back to drinking probably in late July, early August. I tried non-alcoholic beers, which is an oxymoron because there is still some alcohol in those zero beers, but it was the economics that non-alcoholic beers were eight, nine, $10 a six-pack. And my drink of choice was $4.25 on sale.

And being a businessman and I was like, well, you know, I can buy my $4.25 six-pack. and I can have one or two. And then my addiction was like, yeah, okay, there's one or two. Okay, four isn't going to hurt you. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like that was a lot of the thinking that you had with the Tylenol, like, yeah, yeah, you know. But I mean, that's the thing is a lot of us hear about these stories, right?

Like having this and having that in people experiencing stuff. But there's something about the human condition that it is so hard for us to relate to other people's experiences when we see ourselves on the same. track because we always have this idea that not us. Like Johnny did that. And even though I'm headed on the same track and doing what Johnny used to do, I'll never end up where Johnny is. I'll never be there.

And it's like saving money. It's so hard to save money because that's the better our future self. And humans just have a hard time connecting with our future self enough to do something today about it. It's a very interesting type thing. But yeah. And then so you started that you tried to moderate. And that's another thing that was really bad too.

It's like somebody who's struggling with gambling once they hit a big jackpot. You always feel like you're going to hit a big jackpot. Once you're able to maybe once or twice moderate your intake of alcohol, then we get convinced that, yeah, I got it. Yeah, I figured it out, Todd. You know, now I can do it. It's only like the next day where we're literally either back to where we were or were soft than where we were before.

Oh, yeah. Because I found out for me it was never about the alcohol. It was never about that thing. It was always, this was like an internal problem that I had, that I had to work on. And the alcohol was like my solution to escaping myself. So you go, November, December, January is a dark time for you. What does it mean for a dark time? You're just feeling down, depressed, like really struggling?

Yeah, depressed. I mean, deep depression. I'm not worthy. What have I done? What do I have to look forward to? I've disappointed this person. I've been around now for, you know, the last three and a half years. I'm hiding drinking. I'm hiding beer cans, taking them out and putting them in the recycling bin before she got home. Now she's giving me an ultimatum. I've lost what I thought was the love of my life. You know, my mind went dark. And when I say went dark, I mean, I was Google is a bad thing because I was looking at different ways. I mean, I had been around the food industry before and I knew that ammonia and bleach is the toxin.

And I looked at that and, you know, I lived a block from a river that I was like, man, I can just get down there and walk in fully clothed. And luckily I had a tug of war in my going on in my head of the pros and cons. I am a certified scuba diver. My dark side of my brain was going just walk into the river fully clothed. The lighter side of my brain was going, he knows how to swim. He's a certified scuba diver.

He'll roll over on his back and just float down the river, you know, kind of deal. Luckily, I had that pros and cons, but man, I was looking at ways. And that's when I finally had kind of a realization that I needed help in some form. I checked myself into the hospital to the behavioral unit. They call it behavioral unit now back in, you know, growing up that was a psych ward.

And I have no problem saying that. I mean, I checked myself in and I knew I couldn't stay inside my head. I needed to let it out because otherwise it wasn't going to be a good turnout or an outcome, so to speak. And a day and a half in there and the psychiatrists that I met with put me on Zoloff, which that's part of what I wanted. You were asking about growing up, I had amps that I look back now and depression was in our family, but no one talked about it.

Why didn't anyone talk about it? Well, because it was the 70s and 80s and that wasn't a problem. You were just, you go to church and talk to your friends and everything was fine. God forbid the men talk about it, but I knew I was depressed and that's why I went and tried to get help. Well, a day and a half into that three days, the doctor's psychiatrist is like, yeah, we don't, as I was telling friends, I guess I wasn't crazy enough or I guess I wasn't convincing enough. So luckily, the social worker there at the hospital gave me a list of treatment centers around me and encouraged me to call one of those places.

Called my then ex-girlfriend and said, hey, I don't have anywhere to go. And she let me come back to the house and stay there for a few days. And then on February 2nd of 2022, I got picked up by a van and by this residential rehab facility in Dayton, Ohio, and went with my two garbage bags full of clothes for the next 30, 30, 60, 90 days. I didn't know how long I was going to be there and loaded my two garbage bags whole of clothes because they wouldn't let you bring suitcases because it's a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, residential, meaning you're in. I mean, you are free to go whenever you want, but basically you were kind of locked in, so to speak. And that's what saved my life. I'll be very

honest with you. You know, I don't know if I can say the name of the location or the place, but it was Woodhaven Residential Treatment Center in Dayton, Ohio. They saved my life. I talked to a girl there on Sunday morning, and by Wednesday afternoon, I was being picked up by their shuttle land and taking me up there. That's incredible, by the way. But I'm wondering, right,

because you lived a few years doing this stuff, rarely, if ever, asking for any help, never really admitting, never really admitting powerlessness, really just taking this thing head on about YOLDIA, with it. What at that point in time changed to where you became open and willing to say, throw your hands up in the air and say, I really don't have anything figured out. I need some help with this. What changed? What made that available? As everybody, the way I look at it is it was definitely my higher power that was intervening. That day back in May when I told the floor

getting out of bed. I look back on it and I think it was my higher power that pushed me and said, I'm not done with you. I'm not going to take you right now, but I'm going to make you go through these things. I honestly think that that's what it was. I mean, that he or she or whatever you want to, you know, however you relate to a higher power, basically started the path or started the process in May of 21. And by January of 22, why was I having such a struggle in my head with darkness? And if they had given up on me, if my higher power had given up on me, why were they putting that pros and cons conflict in my head? Like, oh, you could kill yourself doing this way, but you'd probably end up being a vegetable. Or I don't think they allowed me to do that. I don't

think he allowed me to do that. He knew that I had other things to do in my life. And at that point, That's when I felt the need to surrender and throw my hands up and get the help because I knew at that point that I had a problem that I just couldn't fix on my own. Yeah. Or have the tools to fix on my own. When I was in rehab, I came to the realization or I like to use this analogy. I don't know if you're a motorcycle enthusiast, a car enthusiast, whatever. You can fix a motorcycle with an adjustable wrench, right? But it's going to take you a long time.

I had an adjustable wrench, but I wasn't fixing myself. I needed to get the other tools, the star bits, the crescent wrenches, the socket set, everything I needed. I mean, yeah, you can fix a motorcycle with an adjustable wrench, but unless you have all the other tools, it's going to take you a long time. And that's where I came to learn. I needed those other tools. I've had that adjustable wrench all my life, and I wasn't fixing myself. And I needed the tools. and that's what I took away from going to rehab.

The other part of that to kind of digress back is about four or five years ago, I was working with a guy over at the amusement park that told me about his journey and sobriety. And I was like playing it off, but his voice always kept kind of coming up in my head over the last three or four years. And I remember a night or two before I decided to go to rehab,

I actually messaged him and said, I've made a decision, your conversation that I had with you three or four years ago has been kind of stuck in my head and I'm going to rehab. And he messaged me back and said, I'm proud of you. It's going to suck, but embrace the suck. And that's exactly what I did. And then I put a post up on Facebook that I was going to go dark off social media for a while,

that I had a journey to go on and that I wouldn't be on social media for a while. and you wouldn't believe the number of responses that I got to that. And I actually had one other friend that I, she and I went to school together since kindergarten. She messaged me and was like, I went through the same thing. You can do this. You and I had no idea. She had gone through the struggle and gotten help. And she was like, you can do this.

If you need anything, let me know. And just the outpouring. And at that point, I knew I was making. the right decision. So I think it was my higher power that said, I'm not done with you. You need to surrender. I'm telling you what, that surrender never felt better. I'll be honest with you. Yeah, wow. That's powerful. I've learned a lot about myself and what I always tell people is the amount of clarity that I have now, the fog is out of my head and the thinking processes that I go through the thought processes. It's amazing and it's incredible. I have conquered things that I didn't think that I was

able to conquer. Two years ago, if you would have told me that I'd be celebrating on February 26th, I'll be one year and two months sober. Wow. That's, I wouldn't have never thought that was possible looking back. And my health has a lot to do with that. December 28th of last year, 2022. I went to UC Medical Center in Cincinnati and had a liver transplant. And, you know, that saved my life. How did that come about? Because my illness just kept progressing. It just kept getting worse. Yeah. I'm not even 60 days in post-transplant. And here I am today. Feeling good. I mean, feel like I got kicked in the stomach by a mule a thousand times. But, you know, that's just the healing process. Yeah. So how like how does that whole process?

work. So they decided that things were progressing. So you needed to get the transplant. I know absolutely nothing about this and maybe you can shed some light on it. Is there a sobriety or alcohol-free requirement to this program? Yep. Before you're even considered, even put on the list. So to kind of go back a little bit, I was in rehab. I had moved over to their sober living facility. May 3rd is my birthday. I had celebrated my birthday and on May 5th, I started getting progressively more ill. I actually ended up at the hospital across the river from the rehab center that I was in in Dayton. I had bleeding in my esophagus. At that point, I had been around 90 days sober. They always say the liver regenerate wasn't for me. But yes, to answer your question, for you to be considered, even going through

the process of getting on the list to get transplanted, you have to be six months sober. before they'll even consider putting you on the list, which, you know, that wasn't an issue for me because by the time I got through this whole process, May, June, July, it was around October that I started the pre-transplant testing. I had already been about six, seven months sober. That helped me, but the illness just kept getting worse. And so by November or so, I had gone through most of the process, and there was just a few other things. that I needed to do. And then I was put on the list on a Thursday and got a call on Friday that they wanted me to be at the hospital on Christmas Eve. I was only on the transplant list for about two days, maybe, but because of my, they call

it a meld score, and I forget what the acronym breaks down to, what M-E-L-D spells out. Because of that, because of my ascites, the fluid in my abdomen, because I was going every single week in getting 10 liters drawn off of my abdomen from May of 22 all the way till November, December. Yeah. I mean, it was just getting worse, worse and worse. And I went down on Christmas Eve and it wasn't viable. The doctor said that the liver that they had for me wasn't a good fit.

So they kept me overnight Christmas Day still wasn't a good fit. So they sent me home on the 26th. I got a call again. went back down, was there the 27th and in surgery on the 28th at 4.30 in the afternoon. And spent about six and a half, eight hours anywhere between six and a half. I mean, I couldn't tell you because obviously I was out of it. But I think it was about six or eight hours in surgery. And luckily, here I am today.

And as I've said to other people, I think this definitely solidifies my sobriety because in my opinion, if I was to put a drink to my mouth, today, I might as well just find that donor family and smack them in the face because I would be doing a disservice to them and to their loved one that they lost during the holidays. And I couldn't do that. I just, I couldn't. And the other thing that's brought me to this on the other side that I want to reach out and help, that's the reason why I wanted to be a part of this today. That's the reason why I I follow you. I follow other sobriety social media outlets.

I had a counselor telling me in rehab, if we plant one seed of sobriety with everybody that we meet, eventually we will grow a forest recovering addicts. And addicts, whether you're a drug addict or an alcoholic, you're an addict. I mean, and that's the way I look at it. Guys in rehab would say, well, my DOC. Well, my DOC. Okay, your drug of choice, my drink of choice. Yeah.

know, saw a relative. Right. And, you know, guys that I was in there with, which I'm amazed at my life today, because I could have met these guys on the street a year and a half ago and never, never would have uttered a word to them. The same thing goes for them. They wouldn't have talked to me, but now we are best friends. We're brothers in sobriety. We're family in sobriety. We rely on each other. I think that's the great thing is for the people that don't think there's an outlet out there. There is. Give it a chance. You will meet some amazing people. They'll keep you accountable. You can keep them accountable, but it's a great family to build. And I mean, I've got 200 plus people now that I've met through this that I didn't have in my life before. Yeah, that's so powerful.

Community aspect of things really helps us heal. And just feel like we're not alone, like on the journey, you know, where we struggled alone for so long. Look at the famous actors that you wouldn't realize. I never knew that Anthony Hopkins has been in sobriety for what. I forget how many years. I think 40 plus maybe. Yeah, Rob Lowe, 31 years. Rob Halford, the lead singer of Judas Priest. I think he just hit like 20 years or 30 years. I follow Ivan Moody from five-finger death punch. He's four plus years sober. I've chatted with him through instant messenger and Instagram and stuff. like that. I feel like what I'm doing now is once I get fully recovered from my, I've spent a number of years in corporate America, had good paying jobs, done everything in corporate America from sales to everything. I'm going to school and I'm going to get what they call my CDCA, which is a certification to be a counselor for drug and alcohol dependency because I want to reach out to the younger generation. I don't want anyone to wait to be my age and go through the health issues and everything that I've gone. on through. Yeah.

Again, like my counselor said, if you can plant one seed of sobriety, eventually will grow a forest of recovering atoms. Yeah. And I think that's powerful. That's extremely powerful. I love that mission. I'm wondering here back to the transplant thing. Yes.

Was there, that's okay. That's all incredible stuff. Was there, did you feel any sort of shame or any way of like, sometimes it's perceived that these are choices we make. And I'm not sure your stance on this, but I'll just kind of share from my experience. is that this is a choice we make. We've chosen to do this to ourselves type deal. I don't necessarily believe in that 100%,

but a lot of people around us do. And then you're in line to get this transplant. Was there any sort of shame or anything from anybody? Or was it something that was handled very professionally? It was handled very professionally. I've been an organ donor since I was 18 years old on my license. You know, that was a choice that I made. And that's the choice that this person that saved my life made.

I think what some people may be worried about is the stigma, you know, being an alcoholic, being a drug user and having Hep A, Hep B, Hep C, whatever. The stigma is only there if I think you allow it to be. If you go out and you get a second chance on life like I have today, I think you better be ready to use it and do something with it and not go back. I think that's the only stigma that would exist in my opinion was if I went back and dishonored that donor and his family or her family by picking up again. As far as the doctors go, I never once got the feeling that there was any kind of stigma or shame or guilt that I should feel. They never made me feel that way.

Okay. I'm really happy to hear that. That's good because I even know here, I'm in Canada, and I even know here they're moving towards. eliminating the duration of sobriety requirement for people, you know, to even reduce it a little bit more. I mean, I think it, you know, there's obviously different sides to everything, but I think it's a good step in the right direction to let people know, you know, either way that, yeah, we're looking at things a little bit different. Yeah, Todd, this has been incredible. I appreciate you so much to come on and share your story. Well, thank you. I definitely following you and following your

paid. That's what led me reaching out to you and wanting to share my story. I'm an open book. I want to help. If my pain and suffering can be a helpful thing to someone else, I'm all for it, man. I mean, I'm all for it. I'll sing from the mountaintops. I won't preach sobriety, but if you ask me about it, I'll tell you about it. Yeah, I love that. Wow, what an incredibly powerful episode with Todd. He's got what he calls a second chance at life, and he is on a mission to make the best of it. Thank you again, Todd. Todd is an avid listener of the podcast

and has been reaching out for a while, so I had a spot open up, and I said, you know what, Todd, if you're ready to go, let's do this thing. Thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. If you haven't left a review yet, be sure to do so on your favorite podcast.

platform and I'll see you on the next one.