The Rich Roll Podcast - The Addict Who Won The Bachelorette: Zac Clark On Getting Sober & Staying That Way

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Zac Clark is the founder of Release Recovery, a recovery advocate, and the winner of The Bachelorette. This conversation gets into the reality of addiction and why, for Zac, recovery is less about willpower than community. We cover willingness, emotional sobriety, how families get pulled under, the stranger who saved his life, and what running gives him. He also shares how he conned a surgeon into taking out his gallbladder to feed his opioid addiction. The Bachelorette made him famous. This is the unvarnished story. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% off your first month of DS-01®👉🏼https://www.seed.com/RichRoll  Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF👉🏼https://www.gobrewing.com  Gusto: Get three months free when you run your first payroll👉🏼https://www.gusto.com/RICHROLL  Squarespace: Use code RichRoll to save 10% off your first order of a website or domain👉🏼https://www.squarespace.com/RichRoll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Like, I am in so much pain. The only thing giving me that relief is injecting heroin. Zach Clark. Host of the Zach Clark Show. The winner of The Bachelorette. Mental Health Advocate. CEO and founder of Relief Recovery. Here I am.

Newly married. Great job. House. Dog. But I'm miserable. And I have no desire of stopping. And no one knows I kept it to myself. This is the most painful moment of my life.

And this medicine she's giving me is completely wiping out that pain. And that was a feeling that I was going to remember and go chase as hard as I could. Zach, it's great to have you here. This might be the most overdue conversation in the history of this podcast. I can't believe we haven't done this years ago. I am excited and I woke up this morning saying it's exactly how it's supposed to be. Yeah. What is the mission that you're on? Me?

Yeah. It's a loaded question. I think there's two answers to that question. One is there's this bizarre contract I have with the world where I spent 27 years hurting people. I hurt a lot of people. I do a lot of things that I'm not proud of. And there is a sick, maybe not sick. I don't know the right word, but there's a driver in my life that never wants to return to that person

and wants to make restitution for that stuff. And I'm aware that that fuels a lot of my behavior on a daily basis. I'm not always proud of it because it can create competition. It can create comparing out. It can create some things that aren't great. But ultimately, if I put everything in the middle of the table, it's worked for me. And that goes into trauma, my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my family. There's a lot. There's a lot of ex-wife, you know, all these people that I harmed.

So that's the personal mission. Does that come from a place of hardness? Like it sounds like a form of self-punishment as opposed to a heart-centered, you know, desire to serve people and be in the solution. On bad days, it's self-punishment. On good days, it's exactly what it's supposed to be. I'm rooting for others. My heart is full. Yeah. And I spent a lot of time with my therapist on this.

There's a lot of work that's gone into understanding why that is one of my drivers. How does therapy work in the context of a recovery program? Like, is it, in your case, supplemental to doing the steps? and your kind of AA community? Or what is that relationship like? So at the beginning, I needed to be physically separated from drugs and alcohol. I had no shot of being in the world

and not picking up the phenomenon of craving, the allergy, whatever it was was too powerful. So initially I needed a lot of therapy. I need a lot of separation. Ultimately, I knew that the thing that was going to sustain my recovery long term was going to be community fellowship, service, prayer, meditation, helping others. And I found all those things in AA. So today, almost 15 years into it, it's AA end. So AAN therapy, AAA and running,

AAA end going to the concert or playing the golf or finding joy in ways that previously I really wasn't able to. The second part is just letting the person who is out there who is struggling know that this thing is available to them. And that's a lot of the experience I got when reading Running Ultra. That book was not given to me as a recovery aid or, hey, you should check out this guy Rich Roll because he's sober. It was given to me because I was getting into running and someone knew I wanted to

change. And when I got to the part of the book where you were sober, I said, holy shit. And that was something that was really cool to me. And I identify with that. So. Yeah. Back to transgressing the tradition. Right. Right. Right. Right. All right. I mean, look, I was in an AA meeting when I came off the Bachelorette, which I'm sure you're going to get to this on it. So it's a double-edged sword because I'm in an AA meeting where I'm wanting to be anonymous. And it's Zoom. And it's Zoom. inside of COVID and I have people direct messaging like stuff about this show that I was just on. So I don't know if I'm trying to make myself the special snowflake or whatever it is,

but there's times where it's been taken from me. Yeah. I don't have a choice. Yeah. Because those that don't know, Zach was not only a contestant on the Bachelorette. You were the champion. Even that feels fucked up. Like, what year was that?

That was, it was mid-todew. It was COVID, man. And the thing was, like, I have so many things I could say about it, but it was, there was no TV. That was it. Uh-huh. So people watched it. Yeah. You know, like, it was like we, we-

To this day, I Googled you this morning just to see what we come up. Don't even tell me. It's just 100% Bachelorette. Oh. You know, like, like, you need to work on your release recovery SEO because. Like just Googling your name, like it was just us weekly and like, you know, tabloid news reports about your relationship status. Yeah, that's drama for me. Right. Like that I could, I could do some intensive work around that. Is he or is he not back with so and so? Yeah. Yeah. We even just, I remember I walked

into a family meeting like a year after the show and we had, this family had hired me. And I'm usually pretty upfront about like, hey, just so you know. And the family was, very much yeah our kids don't like this guy our son doesn't watch sure enough i walk into the family meeting and the kids like what the fuck is he doing here yeah you know like i just watched him on tv and so there's been some work that i've had to do and i think like i can't change anything right it just says what it is why did you decide to do that what motivated that let's see how i can really dig into the honest answer there i think one of the things i've admired about you is your ability and you might have even said it on this last episode just to acknowledge

that like this desire to be around people and to like me and like where that might be able to take you in life and so I think there was probably an undertone if I'm being really honest around like hey like I love my life my recovery could this potentially kind of amplify this message that is so important to me. accompanied by the fact that my mom and sister, who I love and are like two beautifully strong women and saved my life, took the time to fill out this application. And I got this call in the middle of May or April. And it's COVID.

L.A. is calling me. I pick up the phone. And I'm like, what do you? Hello? And it's this producer. And she kept me on the phone, like, just long enough to have me. consider doing the next thing. I just like one day at a time like one foot in front of the other went through the process and next thing you know I'm doing the STD testing and the background

checks and I'm zooming and they kind of how they do it is you're you're left out to get this phone call a week before the show whether you're in or out. So I'm like kind of going through my life and running the business. Obviously it's shelter in place. Like we have no idea what we're being faced with COVID. And the season that they're about the film is going to be in a bubble, much like the NBA and the NHL and all these other leagues that were able to kind of have their seasons happen. So I was going to test into this community and then basically stay there. And I got the call in like the last month or last week of May and I was on a plane to Palm

Springs like six days later. And then I was gone for four months. But you didn't fill out that application? No. My sister and my mom. Why did they do that? Like what made them think like this is what you needed to do? So are you saying that it wasn't even your idea to do this, that they just went and did that?

It wasn't. Suddenly you found yourself in this situation. When I got the phone call walking into my apartment that night, it was the first I had heard of any of this. They did it without you knowing. Behind my back. And so why did they do? They just thought this would be good for you. Zach's 36.

He's a workaholic. He's, you know, eight, nine years sober and we wanted to find a girl. I see. And this is how we're going to, and they watched the show. So they, you know, they were going to. So the one side of you is saying, well, this could be good for getting the message out about recovery and release recovery and the work that we're doing. We all just want to be seen, right? We want to be seen and validated.

And on some level, fundamentally, addiction is a function of, like, like that emotional need, not having been met, which translates into an adult who is going to go out of their way to be seen. And there's no better way to be seen than to put yourself on television, right? This is like the ultimate for somebody who is just, you know, cravingly seeking external validation. So that's the other kind of side of it, yeah. Yeah, 100%. And to find love. I mean, like, truly, like, the way that my mind works is like, okay, if I just take this time, it's going to work. Because I'm going to be able to focus, like, strictly on this. And it was-

Did you go into it thinking, like, I actually am going to find love here? That's how I go into anything I do. I mean, I don't go into anything, not thinking, like, I am a whole, like, I believe. I believe. Like, so, yeah, but I'm going to do something no matter how crazy- cynical to have like if I was it had been in your shoes I was like this there's no way yeah I think that's like a little bit of my deliver you know like a real relationship the blessing and the curse of Zach Clark is like I like there's a little the earnestness all it's just like a little kind of like

I'm just going to go here and like I'm not going to like there's no contempt like I'm just going to go and that's what I did and then so you show up there and this is when they're like poking your brain with the COVID test so I'm in Palm Springs for 12 days shelter in place in a hotel room. They're bringing you your, like, you're not going outside. And you launch right from that to a Hollywood movie set. And I had never seen it. I mean, like, this is ABC, this is Warner Brothers.

And so like, they basically throw you into this limo and you're live. Like you're with other guys that are in the season. You talk about, you know, experimental or experiential therapy or trial. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Crazy. But this is a good environment for a hustler. Well, and someone who's been to rehab a couple of times. Yeah.

Because there was no travel. You're going into it with a level of emotional maturity and awareness, self-awareness and also somebody who's really good at reading people. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm going to take the word hustler as a compliment because, yeah, like I pride myself of walking into rooms, walking into situations, and like feeling out what everyone is really there for and seeking like the truth. And it was, I had a beautiful experience.

I mean, like I met lifelong friends, you know, the producers catch a lot of shit in the media for bad edits and manipulating and maybe I am naive, but I felt genuine. I just had an experience. That's all it was. Do you think that your success on the show? was a function of you deciding to just be yourself and not perform in the way that the typical kind of reality personality operates? I could take that broader and say my success in life is for that, yes, not just the show.

And life gets a lot easier to live when you start to just kind of move closer to your authentic self. Yeah. But you can't do that unless or until you've done the work to be comfortable in your own skin. And that's really what recovery is. Yeah, I mean, I've had guys reach out to me with a year, two, three years sobriety, and they're thinking about getting cast on the show or they're thinking about doing some form of reality television. And I just say, like, my first and only question is like, where's your program? And if they don't have an answer to that question, then it's probably not a good. my biggest fear was taking my story nationally or taking my story into that environment and then

relapsing and people saying well obviously recovery doesn't work hence the reason for that tradition this episode is sponsored by seed this thing right here if you have ever tried to fix your gut you've probably run the gauntlet a probiotic from the grocery store powders yogurts whatever the internet swore by that month. And if you're like most people, you waited a few weeks, you tried a bunch of things, you felt nothing, nothing changed, and you just kind of quietly gave up. But here's the part that nobody tells you. Most probiotics don't even survive digestion. And that's exactly why seed sits apart and why I've trusted DSO1 for years, which is their premium product. DSO1 uses a capsule in capsule system. They call it Viacap. And what that means is

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Go Brewing. Here's something I never saw coming. When I stopped drinking, and that was a long time ago now, the assumption was that you'd given something up, that you were on the outside of the party. And now the whole culture has shifted. More and more people are drinking less, or not at all.

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Yeah. And it's confusing for family members. In what way? family members really want to know about the whole thing. And there's an element of this for the identified patient or the person going through recovery that they want to keep private to themselves. And so when families come to me or families have someone who's going through it, they want to know when they're getting their amends. They want to know when they're getting all the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a different kettle of fish. Yeah. Yeah. But how you talk about being sober with someone who's just gotten out of rehab. You're married to a guy that goes to treatment for 30 days. How are we going to go out to the country club or to the game or whatever it is and talk about my husband's new sobriety? Yeah, it's confusing. It's confusing.

Even for the most well-intentioned family member or partner. Right. All right. Zach as a kid growing up, what's it look like? You've talked a lot about how you had a charmed upbringing and you have this great relationship with your family. So it's not the typical early childhood trauma tale of woe and despair. And that's something that I've had to wrap my head around.

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm one of five kids. I have four, three siblings from my mom and dad's marriage. And then my dad had Rob, who's my older brother. I'm 42. And so, yeah, middle, upper class kind of didn't really want for anything upbringing. Suburban, New Jersey. Yeah, Haddon Field, New Jersey, which is a one square mile. I love it.

It's great. It's a one square mile town where I always say the parents would go to the country club for dinner and the kids would all be partying on the eighth hole, you know, while the parents are at. And so, but it served its purpose. So when did drugs and alcohol first enter the picture for you? I was 13 years old. Christmas Eve. I'll never forget.

It was your typical kind of kids going to the garage, my brother and some friends. I ended up getting invited. They throw me a Miller High Life. The peer pressure is there. And I say, sure. So I drink that beer and maybe one or two more. And I didn't have this crazy blackout experience in my first drink. I didn't run around town naked.

I didn't throw up. What happened was I went back to the house where my parents were kind of hanging out. And they asked me what I was doing. And I lied. And they believed me because they have no reason not to believe their 13-year-old son who's at a Christmas Eve party. And what I clocked in that moment was I could lie and get away with it. And so the next morning, Santa Claus came and we opened presents.

And now I had this thing that was very much my right, passage or secret that I was going to start to share with others. Did you have that warm blanket enveloping you experience? Like a light's going on like, oh, this is what I've been missing feeling or did that happen over time? Yeah, I mean, look, I think a lot of my pain comes from being super sensitive. I know you've talked about being a people pleaser like that is definitely something for me that I struggle with.

And so the feeling that came with the drink, the warmth that I got was just the brain kind of just stopped for a minute. And that was very comforting. And when did it first become a problem? Or when did you first become aware that maybe your relationship was a little bit different than your peers? The next time I drank, I don't know. It's like, I loved it from day one, everything about it. I always say, so I don't know, I end up being a heroin addict and we'll get there. And there was this feeling when you would text your dealer and they would respond. to you, the feeling of sickness almost lifts in that moment before you even get high. And I can remember back in high school, I would have 20 bucks, right? And that 20 bucks would get me, a case of natural

light, a six pack of yinling and a flask of Captain Morgan. So this is like 2001, whatever it is. And you would give your $20 to the guy, you know, making the beer run on a Wednesday. And he would pull down into the, you know, the circle, which is the parking lot where all the kids parked for high school on Friday and he would pop his trunk and everyone flock there and kind of grab their stash for the weekend. I didn't even have to, I just needed to know another drunk was coming. And this is that 16, 17 years old. The anticipation. So I would pull this kind of like rack out of the trunk and go into the woods and hide it. And I would almost just get high from that. Yeah. The ritual of it is such a big piece that I think is underappreciated in the whole kind of,

calculus around addiction and the allure. And it was a different time. Yeah. I mean, it's a very innocent, you know, kind of thing. It's a very suburban, you know, well-raised kid, typical high school experience. Even if you were a parent and you were aware that that was going on, you're like, this is kind of normal. You know, there's nothing to be alarmed about here. Well, I laugh because doing the work that I do, kids, I get phone calls for 16 and 17 year old kids all the time and they're like, it's the cratum, it's the, obviously the weed, it's the vapes, the jewels. Like, I was smoking

marlborough reds and drinking beer. Like it was kind of innocent. Well, also be much older than you. Yeah, I mean, my high school experience, like kids would hang out in front of the 7-Eleven and wait for somebody who could go in and buy them beer. And like, that was it. Like, there was no, you know, in some kind of like terrible weed that was occasionally available. And, you know, that was the end of it. Like there was no other, like I grew up in a suburban environment as well. Like the idea that that, you know, all of the stuff that's now available to young people, I mean, that wasn't even, that was unimaginable.

I always laugh with the kids now because it's, I tell them they don't know the pain of having to pick the seeds and the stems off of the, like the little shitty dime bag. that was probably sprayed with raid and like putting it in an actual joint and smoking the spliff. Like there they have it, I don't know, good or bad. Yeah, well, there's this whole conversation around how the younger generations, whether it's millennials or Gen Z, like they just don't, they're not into drinking. Like alcohol consumption rates have gone down. And obviously that's something to celebrate.

But at the same time, it overlooks the fact that that is in part due to the fact that there are so many other drugs available to them that are better. and more powerful and more readily accessible. If it was available to me in high school, college, I was doing it. And I figured out very quickly that if I played three sports and I maintained, you know, like my kind of B minus C plus grade point average and I showed up when I needed to show up, I was going to be able to drink the way that I wanted to drink. And that was an equation that I figured out very, very, very early on in my life. And I wasn't an asshole.

you know i actually was the guy they kind of like wanted to bring people along for the ride yeah all right then what after the days and confused high school experience and we were the bad tied i mean we were lost we were lost and we were listening to the grateful dead and rolling stones and think we were somebody uh i went to college you know when i went to college and i remember this is the first time i love my dad but the first time so we we went on this college tour we were going to go visit four or five colleges in Pennsylvania over the course of a day. And we had just seen Gettysburg, which is a really nice college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and it's expensive. And we're in this kind of shitty 1996 GMC truck, this Jimmy. And my dad, we had also seen this school, York

college in the same day, which is where I end up going. My dad says to me, if you go to Gettysburg, you're going to be paying off your, you know, student loans for the rest of your life. If you go to York, you can have the truck we're driving in and I'll help you pay for it because you knew, you know. And so I was like, great. The point is there was no curiosity. There was no thought put into like what I was going to do next in my life. And that's something I try to encourage young men to do is to be thoughtful and have permission

to actually make their own decisions. Because for me, I don't feel like that was presented to me. I was kind of just going to go along with whatever it was. Just playing out the program. Yeah. And college was fine. I mean, college was fine. I played baseball.

I was a left-handed pitcher. I kind of hit puberty late. And so I had a decent enough career. I remember, so my sophomore year, I was put in the starting rotation. And this can just highlight my alcoholism. My junior year, I come back to campus and my coach sets me down. He says, we want you to be the closer this year. And my first thought is I can't be the closer because now I can pitch on any day and I can't plan my drinking.

Yeah, this is going to interfere with the real priority. And I didn't double click on that at the time, but that probably was a concerning thought. Like a junior playing college baseball should probably just want whatever's best for the team. Do you think that if opioids had never entered the picture that you would have been able to manage your drinking or was it just inevitable? No. Drinking is my first love. I love to drink.

So like, you know, in terms of calling myself an alcoholic, I'm absolutely an alcoholic. The opioids didn't come into play until I had the brain surgery. Yeah. So in college, I mean, like it was it was keg stands. It was ice floosies. It was playing college baseball. It was kind of meeting my college sweetheart who would I, who I would eventually Mary, there was just no off switch. I don't know what it's like to be in college now, but excessive drinking in college was

just part of the experience. And you could be an alcoholic in college without anybody batting an eye. No one questioned it, Rich. Yeah. No one, my drinking wasn't really questioned until the first time I went into rehab. And that was when? 25. And what?

What precipitated that? I mean, a lot goes on between college and that moment. There's what, seven, eight years in there? Well, college is what you're 18, 19 years old. I get out of college, four years, graduate. It's a pretty benign college experience. I mean, like, I'm blacking out three or four times a week. I'm playing college baseball, but to your point, like, I'm thinking this is exactly what

it's supposed to be. And I do, when I look back on it, think. to myself, I was a shell of a human. Like, I was just checking the boxes and doing the bare minimum to kind of keep people off my back. When you're in that cycle, there's no reflection or deep thinking around your goals or your dreams or like, what's, you're just, you're literally like just thinking about when you're going to party next. You know, you're not like, here's my life plan or here's what I want to achieve in my life. Like, that's not really, at least for me, that was never really part of the process, the thought process. For the kid or the parent that listens to

this episode, that is one of my messages that I try to get across. Like let the kid have some ability to think about what they want to do because what was drilled into me is I was going to go to college. I was going to get married. I was going to move back home to the town I grew up in. I was going to have four kids and I was going to recreate the same life that my parents gave me and give that to the next generation. Yeah, and just find whatever job would allow you to pay the bills and have the house with the car. That's what I did.

Have the kids. It's what I did. I got out of college and I got my first job as a recruiter. It was like your classic boiler room environment. You know, there's a cube farm and a bunch of phones. And if the number next to your name is good enough, like you can do whatever the hell you want. And I learned that very quickly. Like, I knew how to work a system.

And so when a sales or commission. job, I found the guys in the office that partied and got my numbers up and that fed my ability to Sure. As long as the numbers are up, then you can do whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. If you still are able to be on the mound and throw the pitch, you know, or show up on on time at work and make the calls and get your numbers where they need to be, then you can drink as much as you want. And that's what's so confusing to parents and family members. Because if Zach is showing up, he's getting a degree, he's performing well in the baseball field, he's now got a job, he's got this beautiful girlfriend, there's no possible way that he's an alcoholic. And so when the

wheels start to come off, it's very, very confusing. And that's why I always say, like, the person who's got it hardest after me and you is the family, because, There is no playbook on how to approach this thing. Yeah. But these are all motivated by denial. Like the need and the desire to be able to perpetuate the drinking and the using will create enough energy to make sure that everything is, all those boxes are checked. Because you know that if they're checked, nobody can say anything to you. And you can give yourself permission to go crazy.

and the family's happy or at least they're you know they have their own denial mechanism around what's happening and this will allow you to perpetuate your relationship with substances in a way that if those boxes aren't checked you're going to have to confront it and face it and that's that's something you don't want to do right and i don't i mean you asked the question would i have been able to kind of drink like a gentleman or kind of drink you know the great obsession of every alcoholic is to drink like a normal man, right? And my answer was very quickly no, but I do. But keeping it together just enough out of the need to preserve that relationship. Yeah. And what happens is I end up, so it's kind of the beginning of the opiates are starting to

kind of show up. Like some of your buddies are kind of, hey, I got some of these perk tens or these perk fives or these roxasette, which are the 30 milligrams with no Tylenol in them. And, you know, I had experimented with them a couple times just being out on a Friday night. And I remember one time I got sick, I swore off like I'll never do those things again. And then it is Memorial Day weekend. If I graduated, oh two, so it must have been like 2004 Memorial Day weekend. And me and my buddies historically will pack our cars up, beer, meat, whatever. it is, go down the Jersey shore and spend a weekend. And so we're out kind of the night before that trip at a bar in Philadelphia, which is South Jersey right over the bridge. So we used to go out

in Philadelphia a lot. And I actually wasn't drinking. And I had been seeing kind of these kaleidoscopes when I would close my eyes and I never told anyone because I felt like it was probably just a product of the way I was living. I was embarrassed. So I fall over and this bouncer, I almost get in a fight. He kicks me out. I said, dude, I'm not drinking. Like, I'm actually, there's something wrong with me. Doesn't believe me. He proceeds to kick me out.

I go back to my parents' house that night. I sleep in. I wake up the next morning. I say, there's something wrong with me. And no one believes me. Mom and dad are like, you're full of shit. It's just another hangover. And I don't know why.

And this is probably my first spiritual experience. I took myself to this, like, side of the road, x-ray imaging spot. I don't know if I called, but somehow I got an appointment. And I go in and this lady does a scan, Memorial Day weekend, and she basically says, you're not going anywhere. The only place you're going is right to the hospital.

I said, what are you talking about? So there's something on your brain that we need to get out like yesterday. And so within 24 hours, I'm at this bar getting kicked out, waking up my parents' house, to that night being at University of Penn Hospital with my parents by my side going into surgery the next morning and my surgeon coming in and saying like,

do you know what's happening tomorrow? I said, I think so. I'm having brain surgery. And there was no time to process. There was no time to talk about it. It's just we are doing this and we are going to figure the rest of it out later. A brain tumor?

Like a glioma? So it was a cavernoma. So basically your hypothet, so if you look, my hair is actually, cut short now. We can show a picture of it, but I have this kind of crater on the back of my head. And so there was this growth. It ended up being non-cancerous growing on the back, all my hypothalamus, which was contributing to the balance, the kaleidoscopes, all my motor skills were

kind of going. And so they had to go in. It had birds nested and it had kind of like started to grow and it was at risk of rupturing or whatever was next. And so And they didn't know that. They didn't know it was going to be benign. They had to go in, and this is 20-some-odd years ago, so they had to get in there and kind of figure it out. And I just remember the doctor came in and kind of said, this is a really serious surgery.

Is there anything you'd like to say to your parents before you? I'm like, am I going to die? What are you guys not telling me? Right? And I don't think there's any bedside manner or way to perfect that conversation. And the doctor said, he's like, it's a really serious surgery. And you're what, like 25, 26? 24.

Uh-huh. That's terrifying. Terrifying. Now, what happens is I get the surgery. I come out of it. I remember, like, waking up in the ICU and, like, the catheters in and you're butt naked. And you're kind of, like, I was in the hospital for about 20 days. Because the way it affects, I mean, I was like occupational therapy, making grilled cheese, playing memory, up one step, down one step.

But the thing that I remember the most is whatever this woman is putting in my arm, this is the most painful moment of my life. And this medicine she's giving me is completely wiping out that pain. And that was a feeling that I was going to remember and go chase as hard as I could. Yeah, it's so interesting. Which is the opioids, if you're wondering, that's like she was, it was dilauded. It was morphine. Yeah. The non-addict would come out of that experience with a greater appreciation for every moment of life.

Like, I'm so grateful to be alive. Like, I just want to get the most out of my limited time. That's what everyone was saying to me. I've been given a second chance, blah, blah, blah. The addict is like, oh, this. I'm going to go. I'm going in this direction, you know? Yes.

Which is very difficult for somebody who isn't an addict to get their head around. Like, how could you make that decision? Exactly what you said. If you ever, I don't know if you were like me, like I've pictured my funeral at times, like what that would look like. And I kind of got to see it because this hospital room was just filled with people day after day bringing soft pretzels and water ice and watching the Phillies game. And the whole time, all I'm thinking about is I get to get out of here and have this cape, right, or this mask or this shield to hide behind and go drink like I really want to drink.

And whatever this nurse is putting in my arm, I'm going to go find and I'm going to use as much of it as I can because I feel fantastic. And the thing that I think people misinterpret about opioid use is the initial high actually gives you energy. it allows you to focus. So when you're dosed properly and you're on opioids, it's not this nodding out overdosing presentation. It's actually someone who's like really alert and awake and focused. And I experienced that. And then I became convinced that I needed it to do everything in my life. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. If you run a business, you know what it's like to have an endless to-do list of tedious but important tasks that you have to manage. But because they consume time that takes you away from your business's core mission,

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You can be more productive. You have eliminated whatever emotional pain was causing you to feel a certain way that maybe even unconsciously you weren't aware of. prior to that. It's a survival strategy for functioning better in the world. It's just that it always turns and it always ends badly. But it doesn't begin badly. Nobody starts drinking because it's not working for them. It works. It's a medicine. It works. And it's predictable. Yes. And it's never going to be the same high as the first high, but you're damn sure you're going to chase that all over. way to all the way to the grave, you know, without, without some kind of intervention preventing you from that. Yeah. I mean, you think about the adolescent kid who gets stoned for the first time and

they're running in the field and little do they know, that is the highest they're ever going to get. You know, like that's like chase and and guys like me are going to go chase that feeling for as much as I can. I don't know you that well, but you're a resourceful motherfucker. Like you're, you've got a hustle game to you, you know. And so I can just see that young person out there. I hit the drug out of hustle on. The drug addict jackpot. I get out of the hospital.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm a hero now in the town. I've survived a brain journey. Right. You have a get out of jail free card. I have an image that I can take. And this is during doctor shopping.

I can go to any crooked doctor and say, I need painkillers because I have this very very real image of this thing getting cut out of my head. And all I have to go say is, oh, yeah, my neck. I bet. You know, like the timing is perfect also because those crooked doctors were everywhere. Purdue Pharma, OxyContin, and it's how do you even begin that process that? Like, how do you find the first? Like, I was never like a opioid person, a pill person. So I never had to play that game of, you know, chasing scripts and stuff like that. Like, how does that work? I don't think I even had to work that hard. I don't even know that the non-crucricate doctors really understood what we were looking at. I think doctors that were pretty well-intentioned were writing scripts for a lot more

painkillers than they should have been. So you're just opening up the phone book and calling doctors and making a play. Yeah, there's no computer systems at the time. CVS isn't tracking how many scripts are being filled all over the place. I mean, this is the Stone Age in terms of, and I used it, but I was careful. Like, I didn't, I, people were starting to do. get caught, people were starting to get found out. And I wasn't sharing. So I kind of had my stash. Yeah, but you could keep that shell game going for a while, right, before that house card starts to fall on top of you. Yeah. How long did that go on? I got, I mean, like, the deeper I got into it, the sloppier I got. And eventually. And it's oxy mostly.

It's so, so there is a progression that we, that we, that we know about and that I talk about a lot. I get, so I get out of that brain tumor experience. I am now. And you're fine. There's no recidivism or anything like that. I'm never been healthier. Back then, I mean, I was fine in a sense that they got it out. I was, uh, it fueled my drug addiction and I was very unhealthy.

I wasn't working out. I was not doing anything really other than working, chasing drugs and drinking and trying to maintain this relationship with my college sweetheart, which. the first thing that I decided to do once I was healed is get on one night and say, will you marry me? So this is like, this is like, you know, I'm 24 when I get this surgery. And so it's like Memorial Day of 08, I guess. And I'm like in it.

Like my wife or girlfriend at the time is starting to see like the half frozen vodka bottles because like I'm starting to do the water and the thing. I'm starting to hide and hustle. And still she says yes. I get down on one knee like a good, good alcoholic. you know, managing my life. And she says yes. And then we get married one year later. So June of 2020, 2009. It's a weekend that Michael Jackson dies. So my wedding, if you could picture it is like me and all my other 25 year old friends, probably one of the first like open bar weddings,

Michael Jackson music everywhere. And it's just a party. I mean, it's just debauchery. And there's no there was no ceremony behind it. There was no emotion. There was no love. I mean, I feel bad. She was a beautiful woman and her family was awesome, but she was public enemy number one to my, to my addiction. Yeah. But you're just checking boxes. I have a similar sort of story, a little bit different, but similar in that way. Like you're just, you're just doing what you're supposed to. Oh, this is the age when I'm supposed to do this. And I'll get down on the knee and I'll check this box. There's no sense of like, is this the one for me? You're just moving forward with your life.

No purpose. Yeah. No curiosity. That's why I always talk about that word so much, curiosity. Like, I didn't have a curious thought until I think I was in rehab the second time. You know. And so what happened was we got married. We took our honeymoon to St. Thomas.

I remember going on this honeymoon and saying to myself, I'm not going to do drugs. I'm going to like detox myself. And I kind of did. How aware is she at this point? She doesn't know about the drugs. She sees the vodka bottles and stuff, but not the, not the pills. Based on just like sex life alone, I mean, the opioids kind of take that away. So she has to know something.

Like I'm unhealthy, right? Like I'm unhealthy. Physically, I am 235. You know, like it's just not a good life. but she thinks that's just what she signed up for. Yeah. Life of the party. Right.

You know. Just cocktail hour at the country club. Whole shit. Get people together. You know, go to the Eagles games. Go to the Phillies games. Always tailgating. Always running around.

But that's just who Zach is. Yeah. So we go on this honeymoon. And I remember the second that plane landed back in Philly, I think it was like flip phone. at the time I cracked it open and texted my drug dealer and I was immediately you know and they talk about in recovery like no human power right like if love could have got me sober I would have gotten sober at a very young age but here I am newly married great job house dog a couple

cars in the driveway like I actually did the thing I set out to do but I'm miserable and I have no desire of stopping. There are no intention to stop. What eventuated the first. First rehab? Treatment stint. You went to rehab, right? I did.

Yeah. I would go to rehab tomorrow. It's the best. Yeah, now it's like amazing. You mean, I can just hit pause on everything and go and, like, talk to people and sort out my shit. Work out. It sounds amazing.

I know. You know. Oh, God. If only I knew. So whatever, it progressed. I got to a point where I was smoking pills. So basically like it's caught you like you're chasing the dragon. So you're putting these oxycontons on this tin foil and you're like you're heating it up below.

And it's like the pill slides down and there's like a trail of smoke and you're just chasing it. I've never even heard about that. I didn't I didn't know people did that. Wow. I don't know. I mean, I know about chewing them up. And it was a very intense quicker high. But I just remember like my line.

and like I was coughing up. Like it was, it was bad. You know, it was bad. And the paraphernalia starts to kind of be like popping up all over. Like my wife found a straw one time and said like, what's this? But it wasn't, it wasn't long. I got married June of 09. I'm in rehab for the first time, November of 10.

Was there an intervention or how did that happen? No. My mom and wife were at a local bar, classic like suburban story, drinking, having a glass of wine catching up. I had just visited my dad because I had owed some money to a bookie. So this is back before online gambling. And it was like I was down $5,000 to this guy who was threatening to break my kneecap. My dad agreed to pay him off.

So I'm now back at my house, you know, waiting for my wife to come home. And this is in addition to all the drugs and everything else I'm doing. My buddy, Matt, went up to my mom and wife at the bar and basically. said to them, Zach's in trouble. And I'm going to be the one to tell you. The funny part about that is this guy ends up going to rehab like five years. Right. You know, like spot it. You got it kind of shit. So he was like a hero in the moment, but I got him back. So my mom shows up at my house and I'm like, what the hell are you doing here? She goes, and we know everything. We know you're doing drugs. You need to get help. And I said, fine, you're right. I'm going to get help. I shit you're not. I get in my car.

this bad old like Chevy Malibu. And I had seen a billboard for this treatment center in South Jersey. And I drove that night to the treatment center. And I was think they, I was like their first walk in customer. I knocked on the detox or said like, hey, I'm here. I need help. You can't just walk into a rehab. You need an appointment.

You got to like, so I stayed. I slept kind of like overnight in the parking lot or whatever. And then I was able to check in the next morning. and I stayed there for 28 days and I was just completely full of shit. I was not ready. It was just let's get everyone off my back so I can get back to keep the job to do. Yeah. You know, like I'm going to do what I've done my entire life,

which is like I'm going to be the president of the rehab and I'm going to do this thing perfectly so that no one can question me. And I kind of did that. Become the leader of the community and it's hilarious. Like I don't know if I thought it was going on my resume or what, but the one thing that happened in that treatment stay, and this is a nod to Lois Wilson, who is the wife of Bill Wilson, who created Al-Anon, which is a support group for family members. My wife had started going to Al-Non meetings.

And so she showed up there at the treatment program for a weekend of, like, they called it the Family Matrix program. And we wrote this contract, you know, that they had probably done a thousand times, like this bullshit if Zach drinks again and um i signed that i was like okay great like you're not going to kick me out you're not going to like you know who i am kind of shit it's two weeks two weeks i made it that was it and i woke up on a tuesday morning and i had i had heard about heroin in rehab and so back to when i was telling you about the dime bags that we would buy and pick the seeds and the stems out. So Camden, New Jersey is about 15 minutes from where I grew up in Haddonfield.

And Camden is one of the largest open-air drug markets out there. So I woke up on a Wednesday morning. My wife was a teacher, two weeks out of rehab, had the thought I'm going to go drink. I went. I bought one of these $10 pints of vodka, drank the whole thing down. And within a half hour, I am going right back into Camden where I had bought weed, you know, 15 years ago or 10 years ago. in high school and asked the guy for dope and he had it. And before I even did that bag of heroin, that night, my wife went to bed and I went out to go get it out of the car and she heard the car like, beep, beep. And she came in and I had it on the table.

She said, what the hell are you doing? And I started crying and she started crying and that was the last night I slept in that house. Like, kudos to her. She had done some work. and she said to me in such a beautiful way, I'll never forget it. She was like, I love you, but I don't love this and I love myself a lot more than this. Good for her. Yeah, save my life.

Most people don't have that level of self-awareness or self-respect to make that kind of move. Strong woman. And she's, I mean, I don't, I think part of like I went back and made amends to her. and it was funny when I went on The Bachelorette, some outlets reached out to her and she had some quotes. And I didn't, I just let her, you know, like, I think my sponsor and some people in my lifetime, I said, like, let her live. Let her do her thing. And I'm grateful for her.

And she definitely saved my life. I think my mom and sister are still like in touch. And it's cool. Like, sobriety's giving me that. Like, they can do that. And so that was January of 11. And I ended up in rehab the last time, August of 11. And in that eight months, Rich was, I mean, I could sit here for two hours and tell you all the stories.

You talk about being like a hustler on the good side, like I was a hustler on the very, very bad side. Did you start smoking heroin? And then did you become an IV user also? Shooting heroin smoking crack. Shooting heroin smoking crack. What's interesting is you went and you got dope without being indoctrinated into it. Like being around people and watching them do it. Or having them hand it to you or people ask me all the time.

Like can rehab be counterproductive? And in some ways, my first time in treatment, I was around some guys who it piqued my curiosity. And I'd be lying if I told you that it didn't. Once you're introduced to the open-air drug market and you don't need a drug dealer and you don't need anything but a car and a couple bucks in your pocket, it's game over. Because now I can just totally isolate. I don't need anyone to fuel this thing. So eight months of insanity and just an acceleration of the whole thing.

Yeah. And no one knows I'm doing heroin. I never did drugs with anyone. I kept it to myself. There's also a lot of misconceptions around the heroin user, this idea that, you know, they're gaunt, you know, people with like open sores on their arms lying in the gutter. Like, heroin is tricky.

Like there are a lot of people who can use heroin. and you would have no idea. Yeah, I was in a lot of pain. And I always talk about you go to any hospital in the country right now. They're basically legally injecting people with heroin all day long. You know, and this is, I've never had cancer. I know some people that have, and I understand the pain there is, like, very significant. And the thing that they're giving them to try to, like, give that person some relief is opioids,

is injecting dilauded into their soul. And at that point in my life, like, I am. in so much pain, the only thing giving me that warm hug or that relief is injecting heroin. Yeah. I had this back surgery about a year ago and I was on a lot of dilaudit, you know, for four days. Did you try to be the hero and like get through it with that? Like, or you knew. No, there was no way. I mean, this surgery was, I mean, even on that, like, the pain was insane, you know, so I wasn't really getting, you know, the high version of it. because of the pain.

And then I was on Oxy for like two weeks after that, which I needed, but I could start to feel the pull. Like I got off at no problem and opioids weren't really my thing anyway. But you can just, I could just, you could feel the like the inner addict awakening, you know, like that like compulsion of craving. And then that and then the kind of covetous like, oh, how can I like extend this or like make it, you know, like make it last longer or. or, you know, all of those thoughts start to come up, which is really scary. Yes, it was terrifying. I mean, look, I went, the story I'll give you, and I'm just so grateful to be sharing this time with you. I woke up, I don't know, I was out of Phillies game or whatever.

Somewhere in that eight months, I had gone to some event and I had woke it up the next morning, and I had blacked out. And as a good drug addict always saves one dose for the morning so you don't get sick. and I woke up in a panic because I couldn't find my medicine. And my wife went off to, or whatever happened, maybe I was living at home or wherever it was. And I panicked and it wouldn't have been my wife at the time. But I guess it was my dad. I was living at home and he went off to work.

And I called my friend and I said, there's something wrong with me. Like there's just pain in my side. And I went through. I got my appendix out. there was nothing wrong with me. No way. Chasing, chasing the high. Because I had known that like you don't actually need your appendix.

So you talk about hustle. That is one of the all-time great story. Like incredible. Incredible stuff, Zach. You went and had your appendix removed so that you could get home. So the hot, so like, you know, I started down the road of this plan. And I remember because so I get put in this hospital bed in vortals. he's New Jersey and the nurse comes in and it's my brother's college sweetheart or high school sweetheart

Jen she's like oh my god Zach you're here like is everything I knew right away this is great she's going to believe me and then the doctor ends up being from my hometown and when you when you have I'm sorry not an not appendix you're my gallbladder I'm a gallbladder oh wow yeah yeah gallbladder gallbladder gallbladder not that seems that's even more severe so to me but the Goldbladder really, I mean, it helps you process fatty foods, I guess, but like I haven't needed it. The gallbladder seems more important than the appendix. I haven't needed it. I mean, I haven't needed it.

So I make the decision that I call my buddy, he picks me up, he drives me to the hospital. I'm like in my mind, okay, gallbladder. And you can't really test for it. Like you can drink some of the liquids and you can see. But essentially it's kind of a- Did you know that going in? I mean, I'm learning as I go. It's kind of self-diagnosed.

This is an all-time hustle. And I remember, so they're pumping me with Deloaded up until the surgery. There was like a little period where I had to stop because I had to drink the thing. And I started withdrawing in the room and fought through that. And then it was anti-clamatic because I get the surgery. It's not a major surgery. It's laparoscopic. They kind of just suck the thing out.

I remember before going under the guy, Dr. Grabeiac says, and he said, do you know what you're doing today? I said, yeah, I'm getting my gallbladder out. I said, okay. So I feel like there was like a hint of him like knowing that I was full of shit. But I went under. I woke up and I remember they maybe gave me like one or two more doses that's allotted and sent me home with some like weak ass perkoset. And so like my plan kind of backfired.

But what it did is like during the time I was in the hospital, a paycheck hit. And so then I was able to get out and get back to it. You were just bridging the gap between paychecks. Yeah. The lengths we will go. Yeah, the lengths we will go. So that's one of the stories. That's one of the stories.

And then my last day, I mean, I've heard you talk about rock bottom a lot. And so if that wasn't it, I don't know what is. But I made it until like August of that year. And my family and I, we go to the Jersey Shore every summer. We still do. It's a really special time of year. And so we were in Avalon, New Jersey, and we had rented a house. and my brother had just welcomed my nephew Jack into the world.

So I'm coming up on 15 years over. He's a senior. So he's like two or three. It's the first nephew. My family's all together. And I am just, I am in it. And this tropical storm, Irene, starts kind of like coming up the coast.

And I know in my head I have to get out of there because if I don't get out of there, I'm going to get stuck with this tropical storm. And I'm going to get sick. I'm going to go into withdrawal. And so I take off. I take seven of like back. But you need a good excuse to leave, don't you? I was going to go to the Eagles preseason game.

I see. On a Thursday night. So my dad gave me this. It was actual paper tickets back then. And you would sell tickets on Craigslist. So I went and I sold these seven tickets to some guy in Philly for like a hundred bucks. And I went and copped drugs. And I parked my car on the side of the road and threw a surprise party for one.

and cops came up on me. And I remember the cop I kind of had known or been around. And I thought, this is great. I'm going to talk my way out of this again. And he said, Zach, you're going to jail. Like, you're crack pipes. And there's some scratching lottery tickets. I mean, it's a really gnarly scene.

And they arrest me. They give me a DUI. They give me possession charges. I go into this jail cell. I tell them I don't want to call anyone. I don't like I don't want to use my call. I have no interest in doing anything. other than just like sitting in this jail cell and starting to feel like crap, I guess.

They let me out the next morning. I walked back into Camden where I'd been kind of hanging out. And the story is I went, I broke into my dad's office. My dad, you know, runs a pretty good company. I was able to get in to his office, made out a check for myself for $5,000. And I had two drug dealers and we were going to start a business, you know, like we were going to, I was going to cast his check and we were going to go. you know, do something.

And I'll never forget, I walk into this PNC bank in Camden, New Jersey. I have this check in my hand. At the time, I'm probably like 250 pounds. So I'm basically smoking crack and shooting heroin all day. And then I'm taking antipsychotic medication at night, Serequil, and just ordering Papa Johns and just eating food to go to sleep. Like, it was a disaster of a cycle. And the story gets me every time.

I went into this bank. and there was the bank teller behind the counter took one look at me, and she knew something was up. So I handed her this check and she kind of looks me up and down. And at that moment, she could have had me arrested, right? Like she could have called her manager. But instead, she said, like, one minute, Mr. Clark, and she left, and she went and called my dad. And I always joke, like, it wasn't a therapist, it wasn't a sponsor, it wasn't a psychiatrist, It wasn't my mom or dad that saved my life.

It was his bank teller, Rhonda Jackson. Because she went and she called my dad. And my dad happened to be in his office and like answer the phone call from the unknown phone number. And they had filed a missing person report. And he just said, Rhonda, please keep my son there. Like, just please do whatever you can. Like, we were hoping to get this phone call. And I just kind of, I remember sitting in that bank kind of looking around.

It's just cavernous bank. It's this old, old building. and Rhonda would check out, just a minute, sir, like I'm working on getting your funds or whatever it was. And my dad, white as a ghost, came through the doors of that bank and I get goosebumps. And he walked up to me and it was like this, you know, long moment and this long embrace. And he kind of just whispered in my ear like, son, we're going home. And home meant I was going back to rehab. But more importantly, it meant I was leaving that life.

I was leaving that existence at 27 years of just pain and debauchery and line. and I always say like, yeah, I had a pretty privileged upbringing, but there was a shitload of pain those last couple years. What was it about that experience that made it different and instilled you with the willingness to change? I wish I could give it to everyone. I don't know. I don't know why I'm so lucky. And that's probably the thing I struggle with the most just being around this stuff so much. Why me? Yeah. Why?

Why? I mean. Willingness is a mystical, spiritual energy. Like, you can't conjure it. You know, it visits you when you're ready to receive it, I think. That makes it tricky, especially with family members. You know, there's this saying in AA, like, be willing to be willing. But that's like asking somebody to want something they don't want.

I guess you can sort of inhabit this willingness to be willing. But for me, like I sort of take issue with that. That's not really how willingness operates. It is handed down by God at a very specific period of time. You can't make yourself ready until the universe, God, your higher power of your choosing decides it to be so. Yeah. I don't get it. I agree with you.

That was a very spiritual moment. That was a very energy aligning moment. Rhonda Jackson is someone who's still in my life. Like I still am in touch with her. I was going to ask, you go visit her. She's fucking awesome, man. And just like such a good person, hardworking. And here I am.

Like I grew up in this white angle, like this waspy-ass town. And there's this black woman who's like showing me love and kindness. And like it just, it was just, it was just such a beautiful life moment for me having lived a somewhat sheltered upbringing you know and that's why part of why i love new york and my life today is i've just been exposed to so many beautiful humans yeah so you end up in treatment a second time yeah i went to treatment i went to a place in kansaslvania called karen and i stayed for for four and a half months which was what i needed yeah i think you need that time the whole 28 day thing like i'm curious around

you know, you as somebody who, you know, lives in this world now, the idea that you're going to go someplace, especially if you're not going in with that, like, real willingness to do the work, like, is that a sufficient solution to set you on a kind of creating a foundation of sobriety? For some people. Yeah. Not for me. I mean, I went for 100 days, so close to that. But I needed that. I mean, I couldn't have done that in 20, in 28 days was not enough. Yeah, I did it once 28 days. And the thing that I just remember about that experience is that no one wanted to hear from me. Like, I was at a point in my life where I was not, people were not picking up my calls.

And so that, I think, fueled a little bit of my willingness just in the sense that, and they weren't being mean about it. They were just like, you got to figure your own shit out. And I remember, I tell this story a lot, I was in detox. It was me and this kid Matt, who was a really kind of good looking kid from North Jersey and then these two girls that were kind of age-appropriate. And I just realized the first couple of days in detox, I mean, we're all a mess. But these girls keep paying all this attention to Matt and not to me. What's going on here?

Have I completely lost every ability to, pick up a girl you know i'm in a detox so i can't pick someone up and i it was the second night or third night there i remember looking in the mirror and i think it was the first time i'd really seen myself in 10 years like really actually seeing like looked back at the person and it scared the shit out of me and i'll never forget it and i just remember making a promise to myself in that moment that like i don't ever i don't ever feel this way again Was there a sense of relief that you could finally just give the game up? Yes.

I knew. It's one thing to achieve sobriety and realize like, oh, this is the most important thing in my life. And it's another thing to then decide you're going to devote your life to serving others to the extent that it's going to be your career and your profession. Like where did that come from or how did that come about? Yes. I mean, so I always joke.

I went to rehab for four and a half months. And then it's classic. It's like time to pick aftercare. And I really, I was not welcomed back home in South Jersey, Philly area. My brother was living in D.C. Like, they didn't really want me there. And for some reason, I think my counselor put Portland, Maine and New York City on the, like, on the mat for me. And I went and I visited New York.

on a pass to kind of, I guess, be introduced to whatever I was going to be introduced to. And I had never really partied in this city. And I had the opportunity to go to a meeting on a Saturday morning out in Brooklyn. And there was probably like 150 people in that room. And I had never experienced anything like it. Then they said, we're going to go to a show of hands, right? Like we're going to let people share now. And hands, I mean, 30 hands flew in the air for people that wanted to proudly announce

their alcoholism and then share whatever they were going to share. And I fell in love with that energy. I just, I fell in love with the idea that I could have this every day if I choose to come here. And so I made the decision to come to New York. And I moved here in January of 2012. And I haven't left. Moved here without a job. Even though you're from Jersey, you'd never lived in New York City. South Jersey. Yeah. Like most people, this is where, the end of their using, this is the end of the line, you know, part of the using story is somewhere in an after party in New York City, but that was not your experience. I showed up, man, and I've been showing up every day for like 15 years now.

Like, it's the one thing. I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I'm not the fastest. I'm not the strongest. I'm not the best looking, but the thing that no one, you've never missed a Monday, like, I show up. And when I showed up in New York City, like, I made a promise to myself that I was just going to do the things that I was going to be.

asked to do. And that started with recovery, but that translated into business, that translated into relationships, that translated into really every facet of my life. And that's why when I speak about recovery, it almost feels silly because the things that I've learned here apply to everyone. And they're so simple, sit in the front row, get to the thing early, introduce yourself, all the little things I started to learn those first several months in New York City, I still do today. Not to mention, hold yourself accountable for your actions, make amends, make a, you know, do a daily inventory, like all of these principles, all of these practices and tools. They really are tools for life that anybody and everybody could benefit from. They're particularly applicable to the

addict and the alcoholic, but they have broad appeal for anybody who's going through anything. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole movement right now. some of these folks that are choosing not to drink just because they're choosing not to drink. And, you know, I encourage those folks to make other changes too. Because just putting the drugs and the alcohol down for me was, was, I could kind of do that, I feel like, I mean, like, to a certain degree. But there's a huge canyon in between abstinence and emotional sobriety. So maybe talk a little bit about that.

Because I think also in the digital space and in the podcast space with this kind of amazing, resurgence of, you know, people putting the bottle down, not enough emphasis or education around that distinction. I would be terrified of what they call it being a dry drunk, which is someone that does not drink or do drugs and also does not work on themselves. That sounds worse than drinking to me. It's tempting because that person. will think, well, I put that down.

Like, now that I've made that change, like, I'm good because that was the problem, not understanding that that actually was a solution to a problem, that without that extra work is a problem that is unaddressed. Yeah, I think for me, it's the honest self-reflection. Like, can I actually lay the sword down and understand that I am not perfect and I do not have all the answers and I've certainly harmed some people and the point of this whole thing that we call life is not about doing it perfectly and there is something that the person who maybe isn't willing to explore what emotional sobriety is or to actually do the work is holding on to

and that's sad to me it's pride it's ego you know it's control and that was the thing that when I got sober and I moved to New York and I started to work steps and I started to go to therapy and I started to understand and give myself permission to actually do some of the work and really heal that I was introduced to a life that I actually didn't know was possible. And they talk about it a little bit, right, this fourth dimension of existence and they, Bill Wilson used this as it's really like, you know, wild language, but it's true. And it's a big canyon, man. It's a big canyon. The program really teaches you the power of humility and vulnerability as connective tissue. Like your sense of connection to other people in the room is a function of this kind of shared openness of kind of owning your past and being liberated from it, which gives you the ability to kind of share it openly and vulnerably.

And when you hear that, you can't help but feel connected and closer to these people. And it's so powerful you want to take that into your everyday life. At the same time, this is something I've been thinking a lot about lately and curious your thoughts on this. There is this thing in the program where because it is about action-based tools, this curiosity around like, why did I start doing this in the first place? like what made me an alcoholic. We're kind of actively discouraged from looking in the rear view in that way. We're told to take the contrary action, make the amends, et cetera. It's very forward-facing in that sense.

But the longer I've been in this world of mental health through the podcast, the more aware I've become of the importance of trying to understand, you know, what gave rise to this in the first place. I think we know a lot more now about the genesis of addiction. There was this idea like, well, it was in my family or it's genetic and, you know, it's the disease model, right? But we now know that early childhood experiences are inextricably linked to how our brain gets wired and these patterns of thought and behavior that we begin to kind of perpetuate and are hamstrung by as adults. So where are your thoughts around how that works? As somebody who supplements their 12-step program with therapy?

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, what I learned early on is that there's a lot of this talk in the rooms around like giving this power away and turning our power. And like there's also this element for me of like taking my power back and saying to my like, I am going to actually give myself the ability and permission to go figure out. why I am the way that I am. And I don't believe when I sit down with someone who's newly exploring recovery or they end up being a patient in our program, I don't try to figure out whether it was hereditary or manufactured or where their substance use disorder came from. I try to help them come to grips with the fact that they have it. Sure, right? The house is on fire. Right. You have to deal with that. You did not. Typically, if you're you're sitting across from me, you know, life is not, yeah, not going, like I'm the bad guy.

We don't need to get to the why part. Yeah. We need to deal with the what, the immediate what. If I show up in a blazer and a white t-shirt and I'm delivering some bad news, it's probably not like your best, your best day. And even that's changed. Like, we don't do intervention. Like, when I first started working in this field, I would do these interventions where we'd basically bring the family together and we'd read the letters and we'd pull them out of the home and there'd be this cataclysmic, moment and, you know, in a lot of ways, that's trauma. Sure. You know, and so like when you start to talk about some of the things you're asking me about, our clinical director, you know, often says, and it's not hers, it's just recycled content, but, you know, trauma is something that happened to you that shouldn't

have or something that should have happened that didn't, you know, and that's very, very applicable to most humans, I would say. Your pain is your pain. Yeah. And you can compare it to. somebody else's, but it doesn't matter because when it happened to you, it's just what happened. And these early experiences that we have become formative. But when the house is on fire, you got to put the fire out. But to your point around interventions, like the recidivism rate

has to be super high with that because it goes back to this conversation around willingness. Like you can't instill willingness. You can scare people into agreeing to go into treatment. it, but whether or not it's going to stick is really about that person's relationship to themselves and to their higher power. Yeah, I mean, look, I believe more than ever that folks struggling like I struggled, substance use, like, are just, they say that you are the age of your first drink and like I actually believe that. And so if I'm really approaching this thing through the lens of like, this is a child

sitting next to me, a child. It makes it a little bit easier. And I had this experience this past weekend. I was at the shore with my nieces and nephews. And I am an asshole. Like I am the uncle that spoils this shit out of my nieces and nephews. And we had gotten back from the beach and I was kind of hosing some shit down. And my one nephew, Liam, came back.

He said, Uncle Zach, can I help you? So absolutely, like, spray this hose and hosed this thing down. And then the other one came back and he wanted to start washing some stuff. And we proceeded to have this two-hour hang in the driveway, which was so beautiful. My phone was away. And there was no big toy. There was no sexy thing. It was just me and my nephews.

And we ended up giving each other showers and we put the goggles on and we were saying it was a car wash. And my point in telling me that the story is like, it's not about the nice toy. Like those kids just want to be seen. They just want to be seen. And that's what I believe is true in substance abuse. Like most people that I sit across have this deep feeling that they have not been seen and that their feelings have not been validated. And so even if I don't, even if I think they're full of shit, am I willing to say like, tell me more about that? And like have a response like, I'm sorry you feel that way.

just to move them a little bit closer to this idea that they might be willing to put their hand up and ask for a change where in the past you used to be like get in the fucking car dude we're going right well what ground are we starting on and so it's just this whole thing and you've probably experienced in 15 20 years of being sober like what works what doesn't like i don't do we really know so much of it goes back to parenting i think parenting is so essential. You know, I grew up in an era where, you know, sort of, you know, I'm Gen X. I'm the, you know, we're the Lachke generation. Like, nobody I knew had emotionally mature, sensitive parents who were attuned to the vicissitudes of their child's, you know, kind of interior lives. It just

wasn't a thing, you know. And so you learn to be self-sufficient in those situations. And you develop this kind of protective shield that allows you to function in the world in a situation in which you know you're not really being seen and validated. And opening up about your emotions is not going to be reciprocated. So there's no point in doing that. So it's no surprise that then you're going to find devices to make you feel better or put yourself in a situation that, you know, kind of like makes that pain go away. whatever that is going to be.

Yeah, I mean, recovery, and it's the thing that I wish everyone could experience, gave me this opportunity to say, I'm not okay, and then receive this giant hug from the world and be told, like, what you're going to be. Like, you're actually going to be okay. And it's why I take this shit so seriously.

You know, going back to that question about my mission, Like my mission is that people don't have to live in pain and suffer anymore. And I do believe there are multiple ways. There's multiple pathways through recovery. I can tell you exactly how I did it. You can tell someone exactly how you did it. You can go out and try some other ways. Yeah.

But like the bullshit around 12 step for me, it's like when I get someone that wants to fight 12th step, I say, all right, dude, that's fine. But that's not an excuse to do nothing. And that's the thing that I see way too often is like, 12 steps are cold. Fuck those people. And I'm just going to kind of like do it my way in this like lonely endeavor, which never ends well. Yeah, that's a version of saying, well, all right, you just need to go out and you need to gather some more evidence for yourself. You know, I have a version of this conversation all the time.

You do every single day. and I'm on the receiving end of countless emails and DMs every single day. I'm suffering. I can't stop drinking. I can't whatever. I don't know what to do. Tell me what. It's like if you're on my channel, like you already know what to do.

You want somebody to either tell you it's okay to do that or you're looking for an easier and softer way because you don't actually want to do the work. And a lot of the discourse around like, well, A, it doesn't work or, you know, I tried it and blah, blah, blah. like you're not actually availing yourself of the work. You're not going in with an open heart and an open mind and with a degree of willingness in order for all of this to function in the way that it was designed to. You want to just be able to do something else or tell you it's okay to not go do that so that you can not have to take full responsibility.

Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite lines I hear in people that try therapy for the first time is I didn't get anything out of it. And my response is, what did you bring to it? Did you actually show up there in earnest and share and get vulnerable and do the things that you're being asked to do in a therapeutic setting? Because if you didn't, nothing's going to change. Sure. What is the advice that you have for family members and for parents who are watching a loved

one spin out and suffer? Yeah. Because this is so difficult. And it goes back to willingness also. Like, you're watching this train wreck happen in real time. And there's that sense of. powerlessness. You don't know what to do. You don't know how to be helpful. Should you intervene? Should you let them hit their rock bottom? But it's terrifying because the stakes couldn't be higher.

Every day you wake out, you're waiting for that phone call, your worst nightmare. This is something that you're just on the front lines of every single day. Yeah, I mean, in a very succinct way, I feel like the family member, the identified patient is the drug for the family member. So the same way that the identified patients, so me and my story is going out and seeking heroin, seeking alcohol and seeking crack cocaine and this relief, the parent is going to that person. And it's almost that that's what's kind of getting them high almost, right? Like this story, this cycle that they're trapped in that they just can't get out of. So they're almost active in an addiction the same way that the identified patient is.

In a lot of ways, it's similar and just as insane and insidious as it is talking to someone who, again, is the identified patient talking to the family member because I can make suggestions about some things that you should do. I don't know that you're actually going to do that. And what I can say is that having done this work for many, many years, the families that come into our program and the data suggest when the family is willing to jump. in and do the work with the patient, the outcome typically is better. What about the earnest family member when the patient isn't willing to do the work?

Yeah. So the first thing I'm going to say, and probably the most important thing is, I can tell you all this stuff. If you have fear that your loved one's life is in danger, death by suicide, overdose concerning behavior you should never feel embarrassed to call the authorities because you are not going to be able to live with yourself if something was to happen and you didn't pick up that phone so that's the first thing that I always kind of coach families on and that's a fine line to walk I get that I fully understand how loaded that is but the the old adage better safe and

sorry absolutely applies there once you've kind of moved past that first layer, I believe that, one, you need to do your own work. So you need to get your own therapist. Hopefully you'll go to some Al-Anon meetings. You'll find your own community. Anything that you can do to stop thinking about that person all day, every day. Because what we need to do is show that person that you're actually willing to change. So the family member starts to change. And I notice this with my own parents. You know, I remember the time I asked my mom for $20 in between my first two rehabs and she said no. And she didn't say no in a mean way.

She said, Zach, I'm doing my own work and I'm trying to protect myself. So I can't give you this $20. This is new. And I was like, fuck. You know, like, okay. Like we got to go back to the drawing board here. And that makes a difference. I mean, when my parents started doing some work and the pattern was interrupted, the expectations

were, you know, de-reacted. So the conversation wasn't me saying what I always said and getting what I always wanted. It was we love you and, you know, we're available to you when you're, when you're ready to receive help. But until then, like we, you know, we don't really want to talk to you. I was like, whoa. I don't think the family realizes that they can skill build. If they can learn how to do motivational interviewing, they can learn language that is, going to feel good to them. It doesn't have to be so chaotic. And if you've been living in that

cycle for an extended period of time, why wouldn't you try an alternative approach? But a lot of times the truth is the family's willing to write, you know, contact at richroll.com an email or DMU or write me. And then when we respond and say, hey, here are some things that you might want to look into. Oh, but it's not that bad. Well, the general misconception, is that's the person with the problem. I'm trying to solve the problem rather than this problem is a family dynamic. And the person who is terrified of their child or their relative or partner or whoever it is of something bad happening to them, they have to understand they're actually a participant in the problem. And the solution requires them to receive help in the same way

that it requires the person who is actually involved in the substance addiction to receive help. Yeah, and there's a whole other layer to that. I mean, I think about this word relapse, right? And I don't love the word. There's not a better word for it, but families are terrified of relapse, right? So when the person finally does get into a program, what happens if they use again? You know, and learning how to respond to some of those moments and learning how to, a lot of this stuff is so nuanced.

I mean, the question we often get is like, hey, it's my first. first holiday home being sober, how should I treat my, or my, it's my kids first holiday home sober. Like, hey, how about you call them and ask them what they want and then just honor whatever their responses. So if they want you to take the booze out of the house, honor that response and take the booze out of the house. If they say to you, hey, it would be, make me really uncomfortable if it's my first holiday home and everyone else is not drinking because of me, then you can honor that as well. And so oftentimes it just comes back to community. There is a violence around this word and this idea of relapse.

Sobriety is not a linear concept. You mentioned earlier like being a competitive person, like I'm a competitive person. I keep score of everything. And so this idea that my sobriety is something that needs to be tabulated in a way that allows me to develop an ego around like how much time I have versus somebody else really isn't in service to me. And this is another thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately, like kind of transcending the violence that I perpetrate on myself for having relapsed and for not having perfect sobriety and how it impacts my ego in a not great way. Like trying to have a little bit more humility and regard for myself, like a gentleness and a softness.

I don't want to keep score in any aspect of my life. I don't want to look at how many people watch or listen to this podcast, any, more than I want to judge somebody in a room for how much time they have or don't have or think of them differently because last week they went out after accumulating 10 years of uninterrupted sobriety. Yeah, I mean, I've seen people die not being dramatic, but I've just seen it. And I'm sure you have who have relapse and the guilt and shame. It's the most shame-inducing thing you can imagine for somebody in recovery. like this this sense of profound failure that is only going to make you hide and prevent you from

availing yourself of the solution you don't want to call anyone you don't want to go back into the rooms and have to contend with that yeah i just try to tell that person like this does not discredit the three or five or ten years of work you've already done you know like there was something obviously out of whack and and you picked up but it does not because that's that's the first thought is, right? Like this discredits everything I've done. It's erased. It doesn't, it didn't mean anything. I'm back at zero. And maybe this is the gateway or the experience you need it to finally look at that traumatic experience and truly heal. I don't have that answer. But you brought up trauma earlier and that it's exciting because I do think clinicians and our field as a whole are starting

to get more sophisticated with the way that we look at. Like my trauma is like my mom didn't hug me as much as I wanted her to hug me. That was very hard for me to say. Well, it's, it feels so indulgent. You're like, are you serious? Like, give me a break. Like, I had all my needs met and now you're telling me I suffered, like in the same way that we need a better word for relapse, we need a better word for trauma because it's so loaded. And so when I reflect on my upbringing, it's like, I can't, I can't like honestly tell you that I suffered trauma. But whatever happened, happened that made me feel a certain way about myself, and that is inextricably tied to these patterns of behavior that become intractable in adulthood.

And even as somebody who's been in the program for a very long time and been in therapy for decades, is so persistent. You know, it's a very, this whole, like, trauma piece, this whole early childhood piece is a knot that's very difficult to untie. Yeah. It's just the willingness. Again, it just goes back to that. So when you ask about the family member, you ask about the IP,

identify patient, when you ask about myself and my story, it's just the folks that are willing to do the work historically have a better shot to recover. And I don't know where that willingness comes from. Other than willingness in your experience working with so many people and just being this available resource. I mean, you're a guy who just says yes, every time. When somebody calls you and says, hey, my cousin is this or whatever,

you're like, all right, we're into the solution. Like, you're Johnny on the spot. It's unbelievable. It's so inspiring. What have you learned about the difference between the person who then comes in and is able to establish a foundation of sobriety and sets himself up for a long-term relationship with recovery versus the person who's in and out? Or can't get it?

Give me the guy that comes in or the girl that comes in kicking and screaming, saying, screw you, I don't want to do this 10 out of 10 times. Because at least they're being honest and you have a shot. They have a shot. The person that terrifies me is the one that comes in knowing everything. And I've seen that person way too many times. And that's a performance or a mask. It's a performance.

It's a mask. It's an unwillingness to really just. be honest about like for me i truly believe that my word my life depends on me and my word and i don't do it perfectly but i try pretty damn hard to and so when that person comes in and they are telling me that they know what to do and they have it all figured out or they're unwilling to take a recommendation being made by clinical and medical professionals it's really really scary because in no other health care, would you see that? With diabetes, with cancer, with heart disease, they give you that prescription.

They give you that RX. They give you that treatment plan. And most people are going to follow it because they know that their life depends on it. In this world that we're talking about right now, it's like, yeah, therapy, though, really? Every week, I'm going to do it twice a month. A meeting every day. Like that's bargaining. Yeah, that's way too much.

And that's the guy that I see and that's the girl that I see. and that's the girl that I see struggle time and time again. The person that comes in and says they don't want to be there and says it's hard and cries and it's painful, like that's real, that's raw. We can work with that. Yeah, there's that adage, that 12-step adage. Like over here, you've got jails, institutions, and death. Or you can go this way and it's just gratitude and love and a beautiful life.

Do you know why you got it? I mean, can you quantify that? Why? I ended up as an alcohol. No, why you recover. Oh, why I was able to get it. No. I mean, I can say, you know, I was broken and I was willing and I was terrified and, you know, all of those things.

But I know other people that have shared that sensibility and have been unable to get it. Like, it's a, it's, it was given to me as a gift. And I try to honor it every day by being, you know, being of service to other people in that regard. But no, I can't quantify it. It's not something that can be distilled down to some kind of equation. Just do this and everything will be okay. It doesn't operate like that. It's just messy and complicated.

Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this. I mean, I've had release for nine years now and been working in behavioral health care for 14. And, you know, that's created some challenges just in my psyche and the way that I approach things because it is my livelihood. It is, you know, a business. and we try to do it really, really well, and it's hard to do well. Treatment is hard to do well. We are not going to make everyone happy. And we were talking about it a little before we started here.

There's a lot of these programs popping up. They have people that are really smart on the front end, and they're creating these really nice healing environments, and they're charging families, $150,000, $200,000 a month to come get all the psychological testing and world-class therapeutic support. and they're leaving there and dying. You know, like, I don't know why, because probably there's no community. You know, there's no humility.

There's no willingness to kind of like take that recovery and then actually apply it to the real world. Yeah. There's a lot of private equity and real estate plays out there that are predatory because they're preying on people's deepest fears. Well, the thing I see is they can charge a ton of money to, you know, get people into these beds and they staff these mansions in the hillsides of Malibu. There's so many of them with, you know, clinicians or supposed clinicians who really don't know what they're doing. And some of them are. Playing with people's lives. Yeah. And some of them are okay, but it's not

regular. I mean, like to the degree that it should be regulated, it's not. And look, I get to work with the most unbelievable group of humans every day. And I have tons of colleagues from programs that you're probably familiar with across this country that are truly doing really, really special work. But if you look at treatment as a whole, there's no big brands. Like the program, like released, for example, we're 140 employees. We have, you know, 80 some odd beds throughout New York and Texas. You know, we're trying to grow and do some interesting things and set a higher bar for the, you know, standard of care. But there's no Nike. There's no Reebok of treatment. There's hazel people know that.

And I guess there was Betty Ford. Yeah, there's Hazelden, there's Karen. There's these big nonprofit boxes that, you know, are still doing good work and probably need to like get their shit together a little bit in terms of like what's actually happening in the year 2026. Rather than operating on a model that was established in the 70s or the 80s. I think that's a lot of what's swirling this conversation, Rich, is that we're sitting here. as byproducts of a program that was started in 1935 by a drunk doctor and a drunk Wall Street

trader and it's free and they don't want to know your last name, you know? And in 2026, there's thousands of programs and thousands of people, myself included, that are their livelihood is connected to behavioral health care. And that can be really confusing in a lot of ways. because it conflates your you're living with your program of sobriety yeah and there's been times in my career where i just want to say to the person like do just work the steps it just work the steps like just shut up and work the steps and i've had to pause on that because like i don't know if that's actually the thing to say in that moment and so you know what we try to do and and i think what a lot of good programs try to do is a lot of what I've learned by tuning into you and your

channels. Wellness, movement. When we think of behavioral health care, one behavior is removing the drugs and the alcohol. Are we talking about sleep? Are we talking about nutrition? Are we talking about hydration? Are we talking about the actual wellness movement, the wellness component, finding purpose to life? And so there's a part of AA that I think sells short in the, the recovery process, which is like, yeah, we're just going to, we're just going to just hammer nails in front of, you know, like in front of the door before we go in and as soon as we get out. Never got arrested for eating a pint of hog andas. Like, I get it, dude. But like, if I ate a pint of hoggins or two a day for a year, I'm going to be diabetic. Yeah. But the flip side of that

is the person that thinks that if they're really focused on their marathon training, that that is going to solve their addiction problem. And I, you know, I get a lot of messages around that. And it's like, dude, you got to put the running aside and focus on solving the recovery piece first. The running can wait and it will come, but you can't solve every problem at the same time. But that also doesn't mean that you shouldn't be eating healthy foods and tending to your physical well-being while also tending to your mental well-being and your recovery. Yeah, I mean, it's like that warm hug we talk about that we get from heroin. And it's like the way that I get that warm hug and recovery is from being around the community.

You know, and I didn't know that. And to your point, like I have this buddy Kellan who's down in Philly and he's a former heroin addict and he went to AA and 12th up. He's very open about it. And he's fallen in love with running. He's trying to qualify for the Olympics and he's really attacking it full force. And, you know, we've talked a lot about that where running has really become his purpose and his identity. The thing I think he does differently than folks who maybe. stop going to meetings and I'm not sure where he's really at with meetings but um is he continues

to lean into a community and be of service and pull from a lot of the things we get to learn in 12 step differently than I've seen other guys kind of lean into running and I'm just using him as an example who do it and then it becomes their entire identity sure anything where you're attaching your that you're attaching your identity to can be is going to create suffering and problems. And that includes the identity attachment to like who you are in AA. Who you are in AA? I mean, like I went through the whole television thing and how polarizing that's been for me because I was and I don't talk about it on podcast a lot and I should probably look at that

like in a therapeutic environment. I don't know if it's a part of my life that I'm trying to like compartmentalize or keep separate or that I feel like people won't take me seriously. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I'm being, I'm held accountable to the entire universe. And that's not to say that's going to help me abstain from drinking and drugging, but it certainly is there. I've heard you talk about the show and saying, like, they, they, you always speak very highly of the producers and your experience on the show.

We have this notion like, oh, they tell you what to do. It's all scripted. It's all set up. you know, to create and spin certain narratives. But that really wasn't your experience of it, according to you. I can't speak for other people. They tried to tell me to do some things. And I very kindly or not so kindly said, I'm not going to do that.

And I just carried myself the way that I wanted to carry myself. And so they can certainly ask and try. But at the end of the day, like, I'm an adult and I get to make my own decisions. And so, like, I don't ever feel like I was forced. forced to do anything. There were suggestions made, of course. They're making a television show. I also know what I signed up to go do.

And so maybe I'm just too pragmatic about it or I just think about it in a way that just, hey, it takes two to tango here and a mutual respect is going to go a long way. But yeah, I don't take issue with the production. I don't take, at the end of the day, they can't air something on television that I don't say. So if I don't say it, they can't air it. Yeah. All right. We've got to talk about running.

We're two hours in. We haven't even talked about the thing that we both are obsessed with. If you think I'm a nerd about recovery based on the first two hours of this conversation, running has completely changed the trajectory in my life. How so? It's hard to describe. And I'm one of these guys at this running boom that's happening. I'm all for it.

I think people should all have access to the joy. I mean, just from a mental health perspective, from a movement perspective, from a I can do hard shit perspective. And it's something that I just hated it as a kid growing. I never could run. Running was a punishment. Right. If you played sports as a kid, that's what you had to do if you didn't do the drills properly or you weren't paying attention. So you learned to associate it as like something to dread.

Yeah, they used to call the sprints where you like suicides, which is like obviously very poorly named. And someone I was talking to was like, yeah, I made the kids do some suicides. I said, you might want to rethink what you're, yeah. Talk about punishment, right? I mean, yeah, it was like the worst. When did it start? How did you get into it? Rehab.

Yeah. Rehab. There was this hill in the rehab center that I went to and I was over overweight. And so I basically just started kind of like walking up the. that hill one day and then one day I started like jogging. And so that was like a very small taste of running. And then I moved to New York and I started just jogging around the city. It was a great way.

That meetings was a great way to kind of see the city or if I would travel. I'd go for a three or four mile run. And then I really fell in love with it. I moved here 2012. The marathon was canceled that year because of Sandy. And so then I watched it in 2000. 13 and I remember just sitting on the sidelines on First Avenue the New York City Marathon and crying. Just I lost it watching all these people together and I just thought to myself like there's no race,

religion, creed, like they're all just kind of moving towards the same thing which in today's world so rare. It's the best day in New York City of the year. Amazing. Just to watch it, let alone. participate in it. I swear to myself I would run every New York City Marathon from that day forward, and I've done that, which has been cool.

And I've been able to create kind of a whole nonprofit out of my love for running, which we raise money at the Release Foundation to provide scholarship funds to folks who, you know, can't afford behavioral health care services. So treatment, intervention, therapy, whatever it might be, you don't have commercial insurance you don't have the research so that's been really cool but um i just i fell in love with it man yeah and i had this experience where the first so i've run like you know like 18 or not you know like i think you know about the marathon distances like once you've done a bunch of them you can probably like i could go run one today it's not going to be my best but i remember like my ninth or

10th marathon i crossed the finish line and i felt nothing and i said something i got to change so i got a coach and that has been a whole other unlock of just fucking awesome dude i mean dude going for like so i was a four-hour guy and like you get a coach and you start like what's a 40 mile week what's a track workout like i was just slogging the most boring just going out and running and like i have an hour i'll run yeah i'll run as hard as i can in that hour it'll be fine not understanding that just like everything else in life, if you approach it methodically, scientifically, and intentionally,

you'll get a better result. That's just it. You just said it. And that's what my coach is, so my coach is this guy, Mario Fraoli. He's actually Ken. I know him. Yeah.

Mario's the best. It's great. And he's a perfect temperament for me because I can get like way, way fired up. As you can tell by my smile right now as it pertains to running. And I remember he took me from like,

like the first. The first block we did together, I went from like a 345 to a 321 in the marathon. And I think this is great. I mean, you're running a 230 in like two years, you know, like, and not knowing that every minute thereafter becomes exponentially more difficult. There's this interesting relationship between people in recovery and running. I mean, I've had no shortage of ultra runners. I know.

This is my favorite. It's just like, you know, it's like honey for. the person in recovery, there is this relationship with voluntary suffering that becomes very appealing to the sober person. Do you have an operating like theory of mind on that? I know what's on the other side of suffering, which is joy and happiness and sense of accomplishment. Like nothing I've ever gotten in this life and it sounds very cheesy has been without a lot of hard work. And so as I embark on these 20 mile runs or these marathons or even just the whole trying to raise more money around it and build more community and get more people involved, it's you're going to have to be told no, you're going to have to be relentless. You're going to have to experience training runs that really suck.

But at the end of the day, like, you said it. I don't need to say it. You said it perfectly. It's like most things in life when you apply the thing that's just like show. up and taking direction and following the plan, you're going to suffer a little bit because it's work. But at the end of the day, you're going to get a result that you're really fucking proud of. You also have to be careful, though, because the addict will use anything as a means to escape dealing with. Where are you at with that? Where are you at with that?

Well, it's, you know, it's an ongoing relationship that I'm always trying to calibrate. Like, I think you have to acknowledge and admit and accept on some level that it does provide a kind of, like, an emotional relief, you know, that on some level, drugs would reliably deliver. Like, running does produce a version of that. That is, that is, yeah, you get, you get the runners high. and there's a calmness to being in that elevated heart rate state that makes your problems seem less urgent in a way that kind of drugs and alcohol do. And that can be problematic if you're using running to run away from something as opposed to running towards something. And I think, you know, on some level, you know, it's always operating to serve

both of those. So for me, I just have to be careful because I can I can use it to make an argument for de-prioritizing other important values in my life if I'm not careful. And I've done that in the past. Now I can't, you know, I'm forced to be still, which has its own challenges and gifts. But I'm just curious about how you think about that. I mean, it's a little easy. You're single, I think you're single. Maybe you're not. I don't know. You don't have kids, things like that.

But you're running a complicated business and you have lots of responsibilities and demands on your time. I prioritize it because it is so important to me. I absolutely get high from running. I can be very honest about that. Like I, the same way that when I would snort a 30 milligram rocks a set

and get a lot of work done, in the next two hours, I'm super productive after a 15-mile run, you know, while I'm still in that elevated kind of dopamine rush state. And I do try to pay attention to that. I do have significant fear around being injured, which is why I've been so inspired by the way that you've handled your surgery and kind of coming out of that. And I don't know. There's like the Ken ride out like, you know, this is this is a healthy addiction, you know, like leaning really hard. into it and then there's like probably where I fall like a little short of that which is like I need to be aware and mindful of the way that this is impacting my life both for the good and the bad like

I don't want to ever feel like I'm going to miss out on a life experience which I have because I have to do this training run and so as I start to look at relationships and I have responsibilities at businesses like that I run I am not a professional runner I have to like understand that. The qualitative difference is that the rocks are easy. Like picking up is easy and it makes your life worse ultimately, whereas running is hard and makes your life better. But it can make my life worse.

Yeah. Like if I get really selfish with running and I start to miss out on social gatherings because I worked late and now I have to run 10 miles and sorry I have to cancel on you, it can have a similar effect as my drug use did. And all I'm saying is I have to be aware of that. Yeah. You mentioned the resurgence in running

or this like surge in popularity. I think most of that is around all of these run groups now. It's a community approach to running, which feels new. I mean, New York City has always been a running city and there's always been like run clubs and all that kind of thing.

But now we're seeing like, There's almost too many run clubs and they're competing with each other and cannibalizing each other. But I think it speaks to this human need that we get sated by going to meetings of being with like-minded people who share a common set of values. And these run communities and run clubs are filling that void in the aftermath of COVID that we need as human beings to be around other people, to be engaged in an activity, a shared love of something. and to do that communally. Yeah, it's in that positive. I mean, it's the same way run clubs, you've talked about it with podcasts

and how there's been this like, everyone's got a podcast thing. And I can poke holes in all of those things and be upset about a lot of it. And some of the run club stuff is annoying and frustrating. And you've heard like horror stories about kind of bullying or like, you know, time shaming and that stuff. I'm like, that's not for me.

And not all this fashion etiquette. Oh, it's crazy. You know, like the apparel industry is like really, you know, kind of showed up in a way that like now you have to have a certain kit. And there's like almost it's it's like gatekeeping on some level, which I'm not crazy about. It's, I like the fact that like there's a fashion sensibility in running now. But that's the not. It's going to level set though. I mean, don't you think it's going to come back down to this like simplistic.

You know, you have like the satisfy running company, right? Like with these shirts that are $400 and they have the holes in them and like, you know, I have a couple pair of them. You know, it's like, I like that. But I also acknowledge like that is controversial and like, you know, it's not accessible for everyone. It's something that is fun and available. But yeah, there's all of that, you know, that I think anything that's intimidating

somebody from getting involved in running or feels like they, they're not good enough to be in a run club or something like that, like that part that has to get solved. I think if the run club is communicating clearly what they are. doing like this is actually a club for serious runners then it's the consumer's job to go find a run club that is you know more suitable like like we have a little run club that we do on monday nights in central park and we have a one mile walk option and that's more just to bring people together around mental health and the most someone's doing is the six mile loop in central park and no one's timing it but then there's you know it's like it's like it's like it's like

It's like you got to know where you're showing up. Yeah. All you need is a pair of shoes. That's the best. But all you need to do a podcast is a pair of microphones. Maybe that's not the best. Yeah. It's like in the same way that you're saying, oh, you know, well, I'll just remember that like running is a very basic thing.

I keep thinking, well, eventually we're going to remember that the value proposition of podcasts is that it's a portable form of medium that you put into your ears and you can do something else. while you're doing it. But culture seems to be saying that this needs to be a television show, you know. It's wild. So it's wild. Yeah. And we haven't even talked about the Zach Clark show and the podcast that you're doing now and how you think about like your place in this whole ecosystem of content creation. Yeah. I mean, I just, I had to start with gratitude for you voicing change, taking a shot on me. Like I'm very late. to the podcast game and I feel like it's been a slower burn for us as we try to not figure it out but really create something that has that's a resource that has purpose and the conversations

are real and that's all we want to do. It's like that question you asked me which rocked me at the beginning around mission. That's everything that I do is kind of driving towards that and there were certainly moments early on where we wanted to quit, you know, and then I would get the DM or the message or the email from someone who, you know, was 90 days sober because they heard an episode. Yeah. And that truly is, you know, what makes it all worth it. And so, yeah, storytelling and really like taking a lot from, you know, it's funny, rich,

sitting here. I always tell people there was, there's two books that I've, like, read front to back several times. One is called Alcoholics Anonymous, that is our big book and the other is running ultra, you know, And so like for me, except it's called Finding Ultra. Finding Ultra. I'm sorry, Finding Ultra.

I keep calling it. You need to read it one more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Finding Ultra, running ultra. Anyway, thank you for the correction. Maybe I should have called it. Maybe I should have titled it running ultra. You're not the first person to think about it.

Anyway. But, you know, you guys took a shot on me and welcomed me into your network. And there's some cool people doing cool things. And that's really what it's about for us. And hopefully some of that collaboration and community that you're building, we can kind of benefit from. vice versa. Well, I'm super proud to be working with you when we started voicing change. The idea was to identify and the people that I think are very worthy voices doing good work and, you know,

being very intentional and conscious about what they're sharing with the world and being able to step in and hopefully amplify and sort out. whatever kind of like learning curve the creator has to put them in the best position to have their message broadly heard. And as I mentioned before we even started, like you're, you were at the top of this list always. And yes, maybe you're a little later in this, you know, kind of evolution of this medium, but it's still early days here. Everyone thinks it's, yes, it's, there's a, everyone's got a podcast, very saturated. But that doesn't mean that there isn't room for really good voices who have something important to say.

And you're somebody who's doing that. And so for anyone who is new to Zach and his story and to what he's doing with release recovery, like check out the Zach Clark show. Like, I really think that these recovery-oriented podcasts are important. And we need a diversity of voices. Like, I love what Dave Mannheim is doing at dopey. Like, it's fantastic. He has a very certain,

flavor to him. And he's cultivated an incredible audience. But we also need guys like you who are speaking the same language, but maybe reaching a different aspect of, you know, a different audience that needs to hear what you have to share. I appreciate that. And I'm just grateful. I really am. You know, and I don't know where this thing goes.

I feel like it's very clear to me why I'm doing what I'm doing and, you know, I'm just going to kind of stay at it. And like, I know I referenced it earlier, but like that whole idea that you've never missed a Monday. Like for me, that is my most important quality that I just keep showing up. And it's something that I think a lot of people discount and discredit in this world. Like with all the new technology and new ways of doing things and you don't have to, be the smartest guy in the room to just keep showing up. And recovery taught me that. But more importantly, like, I've learned that in my business dealings and in life. I feel very blessed. And just grateful that you're sharing this time with me, honestly. Congrats on a thousand,

by the way. I have to be honest. I got, like, I listened to you when I run, full disclosure, and I got a little choked up when they went back and were playing a clip from episode four and just thinking about the moments that have transpired since that's pretty cool. It's surreal. It's been a surreal journey. It hasn't been easy. But it's been such a gift. I mean, the gift is twofold.

One, it keeps me curious and interested. And it's just the ultimate device to meet people who inspire you in various ways and continue to learn from them. But the service piece of being able. able to share that and know that it's benefiting other people. Like there's no greater gift. And you're somebody who's your whole life is about service. And the meaning that that has, and the purpose that that has given your life is very inspiring to me. It's the most important thing to serve others and just to, because if I don't, I'm just sitting there thinking about myself. And I think for me and you, we understand that,

having been at this thing for a while. obsession of the mind is not a good place. It's not where you want to live. No. And people don't understand that. They think it's, if I can afford to just sit around and think about myself and not give, give, I probably would, but my life depends on the opposite. Yeah.

You think that indulging that would move your life forward, but it's actually regressive. Yeah. Moves your life in the wrong way. Yeah, I don't get out of bed of them thinking about myself. I have to get out of my self-obsession in order to function. and ironically, shockingly, I'm much happier when I'm invested in the welfare of other people. I never forget my sponsor in early days said you're going to call three other alcoholics a day. So why the hell am I going to?

It's like, was this some kind of dating? So I don't have, I don't need friends. And you see like hit me right between the eyes. He said, if you call three other guys a day and you ask them how their day is going, you can't possibly be thinking about yourself. And those are just like the little nuggets I got in the rooms in recovery and I don't know. One of those things that you think early on, what does this possibly have to do with me staying sober? Like making coffee, showing up early, introducing yourself, sweeping the floors, all that bullshit. It's only in retrospect when you look back and you realize like, oh, that is recovery.

That is the foundation of sobriety. Did you reach a point where you decided to start talking about it kind of openly and the anonymity piece? Because I think I struggle with that early on and now I'm just like I've lost the... I made a decision early around that. But it's not an easy decision to have made. And it's also one that I still reflect on quite frequently because every time I'm behind a mic and talking to somebody about their recovery journey, I'm thinking, like, am I transgressing? the tradition that tells you not to talk about this, the level of press radio and film. I mean, my whole career is sort of premised upon violating that tradition.

But I think when I started the podcast, or even before that, when I wrote Finding Ultra, I just thought, if I had known about this earlier in my life, I could have, or there's a possibility that I would have gotten sober earlier. Like when I came in to the rooms, I didn't know anybody who was in recovery. I didn't know anything. All I knew about AA was what I saw on TV or in movies. And my experience completely defied all of those expectations, but I had to learn that firsthand through direct experience.

And so to the extent that I could save somebody, some of that consternation, it seemed like worthy of potentially being, you know, criticized for violating that tradition. And it hasn't been without, that criticism on some level, but at the same time, like, I feel pretty convicted about it. You know, like, I just, I know that it's been beneficial to people. And I think culture has changed since the, you know, the 1930s and the 1940s when, you know, the big book was written and the

world was very different than it is today. I mean, and this was one of the questions that I'd written down for you. Like, how do you think about that? As somebody who's a very public-facing figure in the recovery space. It's been hard. It's something I, I, I, I, I love AA. I love AA. I love the history. I'm a total nerd for the whole thing. And so I respect it.

And I feel like that's one of the reasons I've stayed sober. But there is this glaring kind of piece of my existence that's confusing. And I'll give you a story. I mean, last night I am running some errands to get ready. I'm heading down to the All-Star Game in Philly today after this interview. And this guy stops me, which happens from time to time. And it's either Bachelor or it's recovery. It's one of the two things.

It's not just someone that randomly, you know, knows me. Do you know in advance? Can you just tell, oh, this is a, I know this is going to be about the Bachelor? I mean, women are typically Bachelor. The guys, there's usually something else behind it. But there are, there's a certain level of fandom from the men as well. You just got to drag it out of them because they don't, you know, they don't leave with that. But this kid stopped me dead in my tracks.

He's like, Zach, right? I said, yeah, I'm Zach. Nice to meet you. What's your name? He said, my name's Keith. He was, I just celebrated 17 months sober, and I got sober because of you. Thank you for all the work you're doing in the recovery community. This isn't a guy that came through any of my programs.

This isn't a guy I've ever met. I've never been in a meeting with him. He saw something somewhere along the lines and felt moved to move towards a life that was going to suit him better. And so just when I want to stop and maybe like pull, pull like a little bit closer and be a little bit more private, I get an experience like that and I have to trust it. Yeah. For those that don't know, the purpose of this tradition, there's 12 traditions in AA and one of them is around the anonymity piece, which is really important to protect people's anonymity so that they feel free being open because if you're not open in the rooms, you're getting in the way of, your own recovery. Also, sharing it on a public level, what goes on, is trepidacious because if somebody relapses, then the public perception will be that this program doesn't work. And I think

there is a sort of perception out there in culture that AA is an outdated modality. And, you know, we know better now. We know so much more than we did. And, you know, A.A. doesn't work. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I think you and I are aligned in the fact that we believe deeply in the 12-step program. It saved both of our lives. How do you think about that when people kind of confront you with that argument? The argument about anonymity and why. No, the argument that that like A.A. is an outdated modality and it doesn't work. And, you know, I've heard so many people who've gone in and they struggle and they don't stay sober. John Kelly at Harvard ran the stud. I mean, like the recidivism rate if you stick around AA long enough, I believe it works.

If you work it, it works if you. I mean like that if we're going to go. You could be a tourist. Right. Like if you're going to get into the traditions, the one that is most important to me is that third tradition, which basically says if I identify as an alcoholic, like I'm like the only requirement, the only requirement for membership is that I pay it. I'm like the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So if I have a desire to stop drinking, I can walk into an AA meeting. The only requirement for a gym membership is that I paid every month.

If I just look at the equipment, nothing's going to change. So once I get to AA, there's a shitload of work that I have to do. And that was explained to me very early on. And I still, to this day, take that very seriously. I have come to the other side of it where AA worked for me. I also, you have to remember, run a business that is focused on behavioral health care, substance abuse, mental health. not everyone comes into our program fired up to go to a meeting in fact it's quite the opposite and so i have had to really understand what has worked for me personally and what works for the masses

and kind of filter through that in a way that works for me and so to the person that wants to say that a.A. is outdated or it's an occult or maybe it is i don't i don't know i don't i don't care to embark on that argument, I will say to them, my experience is that it saved my life. We're in a culture right now that incentivizes a lot of bad behavior. And that certainly applies in the digital space by dint of the algorithms that favor like a lot of crazy talk and contrarianism and, you know, kind of outrageous thinking. It takes discipline to play the long game and operate from a place of integrity. but you're a long game player, I'm a long game player,

sobriety is about playing the long game. And I think the kind of silver lining in all of this is that what really matters long term is reputation. And when you get caught up in what the algorithm wants, you're sacrificing your reputation and your integrity for these short-term gains without really understanding or seeing the damage that it's doing to you long-term. And, you know, when I see what you're doing, you're clearly operating from a place of integrity.

And I think in time, like, that becomes undeniable when you are continuously showing up in that way. And people can't help but value that because I think there are a lot of people out there looking for who to trust. Who can I really trust? Oh, my brain can't help but scroll these crazy videos. But when it comes to making decisions about my life, like, I think everyone's looking for. those people that they feel safe with. And you're certainly somebody who's doing that. Well, that was beautiful. And that's all I try to be. So I think the way I want to end this is with two questions. The first being, there's a lot of discussion right now around this epidemic of loneliness

and this dearth of meaning that people seem to be having in their lives. And you're somebody who's very anchored in purpose and meaning. You mentioned gratitude. So for the person who feels like they're suffering in the midst of one of these epidemics, how does that person begin to engender their lives with a little bit more meaning and purpose and direction? Yeah, I mean, I'm big on that word permission. So for that person, like giving themselves permission to acknowledge and understand that they're not feeling great and that they need a little help and that's okay. You know, it's a question I get asked all the time, Rich, and I can give a million answers to it. Go to therapy, find a run club, and just

yourself and change careers, move, all of these things in theory could potentially work. But it goes back to this thing that we've been circling time and time again in this conversation. It's just, is there a level of willingness to actually change? Because the word change is loaded. That means I'm committing to not being the way that I've been for a certain period of time. and what I know is that I get a lot of phone calls about people that are no longer with us. And when someone dies by suicide, where they die by overdose, historically those people are dying alone. And for me, the most obvious way to combat that is to like throw yourself into the middle of some community.

Get out of this cycle of just being in your four walls. And for me, I've been able to do that through AA and through running. Those are two really vibrant, awesome communities that I feel blessed to be a part of. And it's amazing what peer-to-peer support can do, like really being seen by someone who has been through what you are going through. And it's hard, but it's achievable for that person who's sitting out there and feeling, feels really alone and feels really scared and feels like there's no hope. Simply putting that hand up and walking into a room and saying, I need help. And I'm not saying in a meeting.

I'm saying any room, you know, show up to a yoga class and pull the girl aside next to you and say, like, hey, that was a great class. Can I like share something with you? Just start practicing asking for help. Yeah. It can be hard to be on the receiving end of being told, like, raise your hand and ask for help. it gets to this willingness piece. So I think the question is always like, well, what are you willing to do? Maybe you're not willing to check yourself into treatment or to show up at a run group

with a bunch of people you've never met before. But what is the one thing you are willing to do that is a little bit different? Like what is that contrary action that you can take today to just drill it down from the abstract into something super tangible? Well, it gives that person autonomy too. Like it gives them the ability to actually name it. And then they're actually held accountable because it wasn't someone else's idea. So I love that.

I love that approach. What are you willing to do? And I say that to the family members. What are you willing to tolerate here? Are you willing to tolerate your son stealing $20 from you once a week? We're not. And so it's all about this communication. All right.

Last question. Yeah. And this is just your message to the person who is struggling out there. there, you know, in the midst of a cycle of addiction that they feel trapped in and hopeless. What is what is it that you want to say to that person? Yeah, I mean, even you're just asking that question, like, I feel the emotion. It's crazy. Like, and I think that's like what this whole conversation kind of circle back to is this

idea that like, I can't explain why I'm here. I have no real reason. And I can tell you that I have a beautiful life that I'm very grateful for and that is available to you too. And it sounds very mainstream and cheesy, but it's just the truth. And that person needs to know that they are worth it and that they are valued and that we see you. And that there's a lot of people in this world who are really good humans and would be willing to you know bring you along for the ride yeah um because that's just what people did for me it was therapist it was peers it was co-workers it was my family and 15 years later like i still experienced

that even in meeting you today like sure we had a nice conversation but at the end of the day like i get to walk out of here with a with a fellow which is really powerful yeah this was great man let's do more cool shit together yeah i mean i think we can i think like voicing changed. I think we can actually do some cool shit and you know, you hook them with a run or a cool event and then tell them that there's an easier way to live. Yeah. And that's accent, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, if people want to learn more about release recovery, where do you want to send them? Releasrecovery.com is really where you can learn about our services. We're doing some really cool work within New York City and Westchester and Austin treatment. We've really

evolved as a program and as a team and that's been really under the belief that I think good programs have really strong medical and clinical professionals along with coaches with lived experience and a community that kind of lifts folks up so certainly if you or someone you know is struggling like Rich is not joking I respond to DMs about that stuff pretty much nothing else it's crazy yeah you can email me ZAC at release recovery Like I will respond. You're going to get a lot of emails, I think. That's fine.

And if somebody wants to get involved in the 501c3, do you still have bibs available for the marathon if people want to raise money for the foundation? How does that work? We got 50 for London this year, which is like, we have 140 for New York. We're like pretty much at capacity for that. We usually have one or two floating based on injury,

but I can't make any promises. People launching political campaigns to get these. Yeah, it's crazy. These bibs. No, but yeah, if you want to get involved, there's volunteer opportunities. We have our runs in the park. We have a lot of people who have reached out and said, like, we actually don't want anything from you.

We just want to do an event like in your honor. So that stuff's like super cool. Like people will just have golf events and write us a check, which is we're grateful for. But yeah, run a race with us, come to do an event. We have fun. Yeah. Awesome, man. You're legit, dude.

Thanks, I appreciate you sharing so openly today, man. You're a force for good in this world. I'm proud to be associated with you and really appreciate the time today. Thanks, man. I feel the same way about you. Congrats on a thousand. Hopefully there's a thousand more. Thanks, man.

Cool. Awesome. Until next time.