The Zac Clark Show - Alcoholic By 17, Suicide Attempt And The Father Who Would Not Give Up: Father-Son Journey From Alcoholism To Recovery

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

This week’s conversation is a tribute to the unwavering love and dedication of a father for his child. I sat down with Steve D’Antonio Sr. and Steve D’Antonio Jr, who openly share their family's journey through addiction. Steve Sr., a successful Wall Street executive and father of five, found himself bewildered and helpless when his son, Steve Jr., fell deep into alcohol use disorder by age 17, shaking the D’Antonio family to its core and leaving them without a clear path forward. When families are confronted with alcohol and substance issues, how can they best support their children?  Equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring, this conversation serves as both a resource and a testament to the extraordinary lengths parents will go to for their children. It highlights the devastating impact of alcohol and substance use disorders on families, while shedding light on the societal stigma that hinders access to necessary tools and resources for families in need. It is also a poignant reminder that when one family member struggles, the entire family suffers, making the healing process essential for everyone involved. Today, the D’Antonio’s have dedicated their lives to helping families navigate behavioral healthcare issues. Steve Sr. left Wall Street and became a Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow studying addiction. He served as Executive Vice President for Shatterproof, a national nonprofit for addiction treatment, is a trained Peer-Parent Coach and continues to share his expertise and experience with families.  With more than 8 years of recovery, Steve Jr. has worked in the addiction and recovery field since 2017. He is the Director of Release Recovery’s New York City program, working intimately with individuals and their families to navigate the process of early recovery.  A wild, harrowing and redemptive story of family recovery – this is a conversation that I hope every parent of a child struggling with behavior healthcare issues listens to.  Close to my heart, this one is for the dads. Connect with Zac: https://www.instagram.com/zwclark/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/ https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclark https://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553 https://twitter.com/zacwclark If you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release: [phone] releaserecovery.com @releaserecovery Resources: https://addictionlessons.com/

All right. Welcome back to the Zach Clark Show. And today, it's one of the greatest family recovery stories I've personally been attached to or been a witness to. We have dad, Steve DeAntonio, Sr., who had an amazing 30-year career on Wall Street, working for Morgan Stanley. And then when son Steve started to kind of go through his struggles with substance abuse, launched full time into. learning about addiction and recovery and being a parent and has since worked for shadowproof and studied addiction through a fellowship at Harvard and most recently is really a parent peer advocate and it's his mission to kind of I think make parents not feel alone in this journey and then I have his son Steve Jr. Stevie D for purposes of this episode who is a good friend of mine works for us as release as our program director here in New York City and started trying to get sober at 16, 17? Yeah, 17.

So 17 years old. Thanks for being here, guys. Happy to be here. Good to see you. It's good to be here. You guys ready to do this? Yeah, let's do it. A father and a son talking about recovery.

So, Stevie D, I want to start because whenever I talk about my story, you know, the Clark family, there was the white picket fence and then everything that happened behind it yeah so for you growing up in garden city you're the youngest of five yeah 14 15 like what was your experience growing up in the d-antoneo home or what were you feeling yeah i mean you know it was interesting i didn't know anything different right i mean having five kids not everybody has that experience being the youngest of five kids not a lot of people have that experience i also had what 17 first cousins who grew up in my hometown all went to the same high school so it was like garden city legends yeah and you know when you're 14 trying to walk down the block with a 12 pack in

your hand you're going to run into somebody who knows you just from the last name de antonia right and so for me it was really hard to hide i walked into every classroom and you know the first comment from the teacher was another d'antonia right and so with that i think there came expectations. You're a really successful family, both in the classroom and on the sports fields. Your four other siblings are what? Dart, it's, what are the colleges? The oldest one is, was the valedictorian of our high school, played college baseball at Dartmouth. There's twins. Johnny went to Dartmouth. Katie went to Hamilton College, played lacrosse there. And then Kevin was, he went to Syracuse University. So. And you're bringing up the rear.

And I'm saving the best for last. The black sheet coming in last. Yeah. at the time being hardly now but um yeah there was a lot of pressure a lot of unspoken pressure um a lot of pressure that i was putting on myself and um you know there were some big expectations out there for me and your dad what was your perception of your dad growing up like what what did you think of of steve here like give me the give me the real real okay um i think hero for a long time right I mean like when I was growing up and he came home from work like I was waiting there with baseball pants on ready to go outside and have a catch and like wanted to spend a lot of time with him and he would walk in and put the briefcase down and like before he even changed out of his

clothes we were we were throwing the baseball around and you know I think when I went into like middle school and high school like that was where I had a little bit of like fierce independence pushing back, wanted to go my own path, really like just a lot of fear about not measuring up. And so, you know, he had a lot of expectations. And that was really like the first, like 13, 14 was the first time like our, our head started his butt together a little bit. Steve. Yes, sir.

Raising five kids in Garden City, I've gotten to know you. I know what you stand for. you are leading a pretty successful career. What was your experience? What were you trying to accomplish as a father prior to learning of any of Steve's struggles? And what was that like? Yeah, I mean, I wanted to be there for my kids.

So, you know, I did the Wall Street thing different than most people. You know, I was home for every game. I went to every parent-teacher conference. My kids were priority one, two, three, four, five. But Steve's right. You know, like every year, I would sit each one of them down and we'd have our little chat before the school year started about how important school is, how important sports are. Also, I would talk about how we have addiction in both sides of the family.

That didn't help very much, apparently. But, you know, the reality was that I felt like my role was to be authoritative, not authoritarian, and, you know, essentially give them a good role model, give them high-eastern, expectations and then support them, support them in whatever they were doing. And it worked out for the first four, for sure. That model definitely worked. For Stevie, you know, dealing with what he was dealing with, not so much. It wasn't the right model. So fair to say kind of like type A, I'm going to put this in front of you. If we do it this way, we're going to have a pretty good outcome and we're all going to be healthy and happy. Is that kind of what your mindset

that was, or? Yeah, type AAA, for sure. No doubt about it. And really high strong, high energy, you know, optimistic. You know, it wasn't pounding my kids. It wasn't negative on my kids ever. But I was just, you know, there was. Yeah, yeah, you tried your best to be negative, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I was definitely a support, you know, like a cheerleader kind of guy, kind of dad. And, you know, to the best I could. but I had high expectations, you know, and I think that the thing was, if things started going off the rails, I didn't really know what to do. You know, so Stevie's one of his older brothers, Kevin, you know, he had a couple little dips and a little turns in there that were challenging, and I don't think I handled them particularly well. Like, I was really good at handling kids that, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to do my homework, I'm going to work card for sports and I get the program and I'm on it right but if it was

different than that it was harder for me to be honest yeah all right so Stevie D your first when's your first natural light cores light whatever beer cocktail like when is your first moment of rebellion where you say like I'm gonna I'm gonna drink and then what what happens from there because like you know your dad is clearly outlining like this life that has been built and here you come yeah um 14 just turned 14 summer going into freshman year uh jungle juice okay big cooler of a lot of different ingredients in there um hanging out with older kids and it was like and these cousins or brothers or you're just kind of tagging along

yeah like brothers friends and like it's like i would go to the park every day in the summer and like these were the guys who work there right and so it was the last day of the summer and like They have the jungle juice cooler in the back and, you know, go up to one guy, can I get a cup? He sneaks me a cup. Go up to a different guy. Can I get a cup? He gets me one. And so, like, I had the connections with them because I had older siblings who were friends with them.

And so, like, it was really easy for me right away to just start, like, manipulating and trying to get what I could get my hands on. And it was, I chased that feeling for a long time. I mean, it was, like, no longer remembered that I had braces. Wasn't worried about the peach fuzz on my face. Wasn't worried about being funny. Like it was just, I felt like me, and I know that that's a lot of people's experience. And right away, alcohol just kind of like became my identity of where are we going to do it, how are we going to get it, and how much can we do? So that's leading in a freshman year.

Yeah. And Steve, when do you finally, or is it immediately, or when do you learn that Steve's drinking? That's the first I've heard of that. So that's another good idea. Nice. I mean, we felt like we were on it. of parents, but, you know, as I've gotten older and they start telling me stuff, all five of them, I realize, you know, we weren't as on it as we thought we were. And I think most

parents kind of have that experience. But really, it was when he OD'd, and I think it was ninth grade. You had, I forget what the drink was. It was like twice the alcohol content. Four loco. For loco. Give me the story. Stevie-D. Okay. So, yeah. So, I mean, straight to the hospital, that's when we realized. Freshman year. We're beginning, like, something And it's like serious. I was 14. I had been drinking every Friday and Saturday. There were a couple moments where it was like, have you been drinking and me immediately

being like, no fucking way. Go get the breathalyzer. I haven't been drinking. You know, I don't care what you say. Like, I'm me. How could you not believe me? All that. December 17th, 2011, I remember the day.

Bad Christmas shortly after that. I was out with friends. And we. Cold. Yeah. Yeah. And it was the afternoon. It was one o'clock in the afternoon. And a girl had some four locoes and she was like, I don't want these. Do you guys want them? And so drank one. Ground score. Had a tall boy shortly afterwards. And that's when everybody else stopped. And then a buddy of mine was like, I actually don't want mine. And so I took that and I drank the whole thing in one sit. And I woke up in the hospital. I mean, I don't know how many hours later it was. but I had like a 0.39 blood alcohol content.

The 4 loco, I mean, the 4 loco, shout out 4 loco. Everyone, everyone's got a 4-Loco story, right? I mean, this stuff is like, I don't know how it was ever legal. That was the drug of choice of mine in rehab. That was what I identified with, 4-Loco. Yeah, it was cheap and it was effective. So you get, so dad, freshman, he's freshman in high-es, I mean, 14.

Have you hit puberty? I mean, you're not like, I don't even remember. My friends were really worried. Like, I mean, I was face down in the dirt, like, couldn't move. Someone called. and they called my siblings Johnny and Katie and they were home from college break because I was the only kid in the house at that time

I mean it was like all four of my siblings were either in college or out of the house so it was just me so you go from being the youngest of five to like you're fighting for attention and not that they didn't want to give us attention it's just there's a lot of sports there's a lot of different things going on

and like all of a sudden right when you don't want anyone to look at you when you're a freshman in college I mean when you're a freshman in high school everybody's gone and it's just me so my first my first. friends called my siblings they came uh i mean there's a couple like funny stories about that now that i did you have clothes on covered i my sister walked into the backyard and she said stevie are you okay and i said is that and i don't even know who andre is you know like i mean that was the state i was in

they uh i think they drove me to the hospital and i was just head out of the window throwing up everywhere and woke up at like midnight and you get the call from so I don't even remember whether we brought you. I think we brought you straight to the hospital. And, I mean, obviously it scared the shit out of me when he blew like 0.39. Like that's, and then we made them test for drugs. And then you got this weird thing at the hospital.

Well, we can't tell you whether or not, you know, he's on drugs because of HIPAA and all this stuff. And then some nurse kind of winked to me and said he's good. So I was like, okay. But with our, you know, with our family, like his older brother, who was the valedictorian, He had one of these blowouts where he drank vodka for the first time and it blew his doors off. And so, you know, on the first one, of course, we grounded him for, you know, I think we said for the rest of your life, but it was probably three months kind of thing.

And, you know. But do you remember the conversation the next morning? Like, do you sit them down and say, like, you're trial where you're grounded or is it like, hey, what's going, like, was there? No, no, yeah. I remember basically saying, look, that's dangerous, number one. Number two, we have, we have this issue in the family. and, you know, I think I said to you, I want you to write us a letter. Yeah.

And you did write a letter on, you know, drinking and, you know, how dangerous it is and what you're going to do about it. So he writes this really great letter. It was no TV, no phone, no outside, no friends, go straight to school, come straight home, till you write the letter. And it took me six weeks to write it. Yeah. And finally, I had enough. wrote it. In that point, you were like, rebellion.

You kept, like, you kept your, yeah. I want the letter. I want you to know how serious what you did, how close to the edge that really was, and how you're going to remediate it, like, you know, what's going to change? And so that was the start, right? And boy, you wrote, I think I still have the letter somewhere. It was classic, I mean, when Stevie wants to turn on the charm, as you know, he could he can spin a yarn and we bought the whole thing and so after he wrote it I think we said

three months whatever and we let him out soon after we got the letter and so this is freshman year you have this blow out when's the next time you drink CBD after February of freshman year caught immediately so you drink December 11th three months you're kind of on or two months you're on house stress it sounds like and then you get out and already full flask of vodka one go throwing up in a you know in my buddies mom's the second time bowl yeah yeah i mean i hadn't drank in two months and it was like let's let's catch up that that was the mindset right i mean like you can picture being 14 alcohol being your identity being your your friend group's identity and you have to sit on the sidelines for two months and listen every day at the lunch table where are we going

what are we getting how are we going to get it and you know as soon as as soon as the opportunity was there, I never missed. And I wanted to take it to the highest level that I could without getting caught. So you drink the last hospital again? Is it? No. No. No. That was in next year. Because we did get the hospital again for sure. I mean, the stat, like when I'm like in a 12-set meeting, like the stats is four years of drinking, four hospitalizations, a psychiatric unit, and a treatment center by 17. And that doesn't include the drinking and driving, the drinking at school the drinking every day cops called on me in my own house i mean like it was and do you remember feeling like and i i don't want to massage this in any way i don't want to put words in your mouth

but do you remember were you mad at your parents did you just want a party like what was the feeling you had towards the family like were you i think i mean you could probably talk about this a lot but like i was really pent up emotionally and then when i got to that level of like being under the influence and there was and we were combative like those were the first words out of my mouth was this is the perfect family I don't fit in I'm never going to be good enough and my parents would just sit there and be like where where is this coming from like yeah there was actually a moment where he was shit faced he went out in front of our house and you were screaming to all the neighbors this is such bullshit

You guys think you have the greatest family. It's total bullshit. I want everybody to know his fucking family sucks. You're a legend, bro. It was like 15 or 16. And look, I mean, did I care? Did that kick up some fear in you? No, I didn't care what the neighbor's thought.

I couldn't give a shit with the neighbors thought. I was just worried about him. Like, I knew who my neighbors are. You know, I know that we're not a shitty family. I know, you know, so I have a little bit of confidence that the 15-year-old. hasn't nailed it, you know, who's shit-faced and who's pissed off at us, right? So we're good there. But it was an outburst. I mean, it was, it was loud. And, you know, look, as I look

back on it now, he was really hurting on a lot of levels, you know? And, you know, that expectation thing that I was probably too tough on him around expectations. And, you know, following his siblings, you know, I can only imagine it sucked. You know, like, they did really well. And, you know, they covered all the bases. Like, Katie was like six times state champion in lacrosse and field hockey in sports and captain of her college team. And, you know, Johnny is, like, voted best all around. So he's kind of like this. Steve just got a really bad left-handed golf team. Yeah. No, but I mean, but I look at Stevie and I'm like, this kid's got unbelievable upside. He's handsome. He's funny as shit. His siblings love him. His siblings' friends love him, but he doesn't

see it. So I feel like the mission is I've got to get him to see, you know, that he's a great kid and that, you know, I wasn't a valedictorian. His mother wasn't a valedictorian. Like, this is shit. It was great that he did it, but that's not the expectation. And in fact, I think I called a family meeting after he got it. And I put everybody, in the kitchen. I said, that's not the expectation. No one in the family, extended family, my brother went to Princeton and got his PhD. He never did it. No one ever did it. That's not the expectation. But the expectation is that you're going to try hard in school and you're going to do well, but that's not the expectation because that's too hard. It's too elusive. But

he really felt it deep down and rebelled against it in a huge way. At what point do you, Steve, Have the thought and maybe you never have this thought, but I'm pretty good at my job on Wall Street I've raised a pretty badass family But I don't actually know what I'm doing here like when does that like I my hard work is not going to solve Yeah, this issue. Yeah, that happened Steady's junior winter When the whole suicidality thing started to creep in he was really depressed because he was pounding alcohol in a heavy way.

And, you know, his girlfriend, he was texting his girlfriend, you know, things that were, you know, I'm going to kill myself. We actually went on a trip. He was going skiing with his cousins. And so we went on a trip to Costa Rica. I get a text from his sister, hey, he's talking about all that craziness again. We turned around and went straight home. And they were in Vermont, and we just camped out.

at a hotel in Hanover, New Hampshire, because we needed to be close, right? We didn't want to, like, surprise him and bring him home, but we wanted to be close because we were scared shows. So we sent him to a psychiatrist, the guys that keeps fine. I want to stop there for one side because that's the chaos that, like, every parent at some point who's dealing with a son or a daughter, I mean, you turn him around from a trip from Costa Rica to go to a hotel in Vermont and camp out just so in the, you know, event something happens with you're there to answer the bell yeah that's like no but that that's

there was you're terrified to just go in the house because i was talking to his aunt who's my sister and i'm like what do you think what's the right move she goes don't come and pull him out because he's going to be furious um i got it i'm going to be watching him closely and i said okay but we got to be close and so we literally we we checked in and checked out on the same within an hour of this hotel and then tried to find a flight and we got home and then we drove up to a hampshire in a freaking blizzard I didn't know this story I know you didn't even know they were there I didn't know you were in hand over and then yeah and and then what we did was we had an intervention lined up where when they got home we were going to immediately take him to the emergency room at Northwell I had my brother camped out

outside in case he tried to run so that we were going to like and there's no professional involved in any of this like this is Well, no, we had a psychiatrist who said, no, he's fine. But we needed to get him again to the emergency. But you were going to figure it out, right? Yeah, no chance. But no, I mean, that's the thought, right? For dads, like, I knew I was out of my league. I knew I was, like, this was too crazy.

And then we took him to the hospital. He's furious. I don't know what he said to the doctors, but they're like, he's fine, right? And then probably two weeks later was the big event. when he was at a party I want him to tell the event Yeah you tell the event And then I'll tell our side

Yeah So at this point You're junior in high school You know that you're figured out Like you know your parents know I didn't know I starting in that January So like there were a lot of big events

That happened in high school But it was like November of that year Junior year Cops are called on me In my house Because I was like That was the event

My dad was talking yelling outside, I don't care who knows, all that. My parents put me really for the first time of like, you can't drink alcohol. You can go see your friends, you can go out, you can do your thing, but you can't drink alcohol until the new year, six weeks. That Christmas, I blacked out so hard that I almost canceled our family trip the next day. I mean, like, you were in my room at 4 a.m. waking me up to go to the flight and I, like, you put his shirt on backwards.

Put my sweatpants on my head, right? And so right then in January, is where there was a couple different things that happened. Like, there were a couple days off from school. There were some snow days. And, like, before I knew it, I had drank, like, five out of seven days of the week. And I was, like, I'm actually feeling, like, as much as I'm hurting internally, this is helping me in that moment. And so that was really the switch, January of my junior year, where I started drinking every day for, like, three months.

And so that February, I was on a trip with cousins skiing. I didn't know the Hanover, New Hampshire story. I remember coming home from Vermont and planning to go out to a party that night, and all of a sudden there's an intervention waiting for me. So I walked into the hospital, told them what they wanted to hear, which was that I was fine. I was just upset about a breakup or something like that. And a couple weeks later, it's St. Patrick's Day, my junior year of high school,

start drinking at probably 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I had three four locoes that day. The four loco king. A couple of, yeah, four loco king. A couple of beers on top of it. I mean, this is over a longer period of stretch, like a longer stretch of time. But, you know, I'm in a party. I am pretty close to being blacked out.

And I get kicked out of the party for just being a loose cannon. Yeah. And so I'm walking home from that party. And I'm just, I mean, the saying is like sick and tired. what in Garden City in Garden City yeah yep and there's a railroad track that runs through my town and so this house where the party was happened to be right near there and so my feet just carried me you know like I was I was voting with my feet like my brain was turned off and it was just they was carrying me over there and before I knew it I was standing on the railroad tracks of my

hometown at 10.30 at night on a Saturday by myself waiting for the train to come to have my life and by some miracle a girl in my grade who I was friends with but not particularly that close with at that time happened to be walking across the platform as a shortcut to her house and she saw what was happening as the train was coming and I was too drunk to get up and she pulled me off the tracks and I think I mean I don't really remember that much but like I got home and just got honest really like it was terrified and um they took me right to the hospital i got assessed and before you

know it i'm like 16 years old sitting in a psych ward you know i'm like an ap student an honor student a captain of a sports team girlfriend friends like on paper my life looked one way and it looked pretty good and i was like this person who tried to be confident and outgoing and then at home i was tornado and that was the side that they saw I want to stop what are you feeling hearing him say that tell that story I'm almost crying because it was it was brutal that he stumbled into the house and we just we're like what what is going on tell us and when he told us it the living shit out of us, honestly, because, you know, we heard from the emergency room.

We heard from a psychiatrist. Yeah, he's not suicidal. And now we're hearing that by the grace of God, he survived because of pure luck. And we did throw him in the car. And, you know, he did not want to go to the psychiatric unit. He, and we're like, we don't care. This is, this is what you're doing and he for a week we went every day to see him multiple times a day and he was furious that he was in there 17 years old in a lockdown ward 16 yeah 16 he's my junior year high school yeah and how like when you think back like did you ever have a sober thought that you wanted to end your life or was this typically no I mean yeah I was struggling all the time and like that was my main coping mechanism and then once I start like once I got

to that level with drinking like that's when that's when I was the thoughts really started to come in. And, like, that's when I felt like I had the liquid courage to actually take action. I don't think I would have done it sober. I think I could have really harmed myself under the influence. I'm so grateful you're here. Yeah. Seriously.

I mean, it's like, you don't believe in God, man. Something was looking after you that night. And just to think of all the lives you've impacted today. And, I mean, both of you guys, I mean, that's. we're going to get to that um so how do we get from that moment to because i want to get into the solution and i want to get into some of the yeah the hope um how do we get from that moment where you're standing on the tracks ready to end your life and your dad seeing you walk into that home sending you to a psych ward and a whole i'm

I assume family unraveling around your behavior to, I guess, your first time in treatment and then we meet. So how do you get to Karen? How do you get the treatment? Do you want me to answer or you want to go? Well, I'll say this. I'd like to hear your dad's perspective because, like, at some point there's a shift, and it's probably not here, but.

So we didn't know. Like, my first instinct was this kid has to be locked, chained to a bed, locked, you know, locked in the house and he can never leave. Had you, had you, like, like, as a smart guy, that's what I'm trying, like, as a dad and someone who's intelligent and someone who has high achievers. Dude, there's nothing on Google. Google's shit. Well, I'm just, I mean, the SAMHSA shit, there's no resources.

Yeah. It's awful out there. It's an impossible to be in a parent. It's terrible. Yeah. So, which is one of the reasons why I'm doing, what I do, what I'm doing. Yeah. You're trying to help families and build resources for people.

But it was terrible. My head was spinning. We got really lucky because we knew senior people at Northwell. The head of adolescent psychiatry had just done a two-year stint in addiction at their flagship outpatient treatment center. And I got to talk to him directly about Stevie. And he's like, look, if you send him away, it may not take. because he's not ready for, you know, that kind of treatment. You're going to pull him out of school.

You're going to, you know, it's going to disrupt in a huge way his life, and he's just not ready. So he's not going to get anything out of it. What I recommend is you go to their outpatient clinic, which was one of the few outpatient clinics anywhere that also had psychiatric services. They had a psychiatrist on staff in 2014, along with the addiction professionals.

And he said, look, if that level of care doesn't work, you go to a higher level of care. And it turns out, you know, he was exactly right. When we told this guy that he was going to any kind of treatment, let alone intensive outpatient, I mean, he was, he'd just gotten out of Zucker Hillside psychiatric unit. He was furious. And that began, that was the beginning of the, you know,

the fighting like the confrontations the you know the him like lashing out and you know just massive confrontations and battles with us about his lack of freedoms his he you know he doesn't need any help he's good all of those things this is the end of junior year yeah junior year April junior year pretty much and when does you I just have the story is too good not to mention it when does your dad put you in the car and drive you by the community college. Like, when was his best parenting was he puts you in a car, he puts you in a car, drives you by a community college

and basically says, like, this is your future. That's probably why all this shit happens. Just before it all. Oh, the trauma. That was the trigger. It was a trigger. Before I took a drink, I was 12. No, you were 14.

You was eighth grade. Eighth, 13. Yep. A report car comes back. We'll call it an 88 or a 90 overall GPA. And I get a tech. for my dad and I had the NV2 back then where it's like when you get a text message that's long it's one of seven right like you got to go to the next message and it was long and he said

where are you I said I'm in town he said come me pick you up and he drove me to Nassau community college and we went on a college tour and I walked around this community college of at that point was like nobody goes there from my town right everybody's going to four year universities all my siblings are going to Ivy League schools or really competitive liberal arts schools. And we get back in the car and it, you know, his, what he said basically was if you keep this up, this is where you're going. And this is the only place I'll send you. And I think it was the moment that I decided to basically give up. I still hadn't drank, right? I mean, like, here I am as this kid with a ton of potential, whether it's,

in the classroom around the sports field and like that was the moment where I decided like I'd rather not even try and do it my way and be the kid who doesn't give a shit than try my absolute hardest and not measure up to other people and it's just fear that's all it was and I think for him like what he was trying to do is have that inspirational moment of like now I'm going to work harder than everybody I'm going to prove you wrong which would work with some kids I mean like yeah I fucked up okay I mean I mean I mean you know looking back right not knowing the kid well enough like I like I bad like this is to show other dads no no I get it but I get it but you know I apologize to Stevie about that because it wasn't

it wasn't my best you know like I thought it was like I thought it was a brilliant idea because you know motivate exactly motivate him you know put the little fear in him you know, that he needs to work harder in school. But, you know, looking back, he was maybe not in the best place in eighth grade, and I added fuel to the fire, and I regret it.

You know, and I don't regret a lot of things about being a parent. I regret the hard-ass moments that were not nuanced about what was going on with my kids, for sure. So I'm assuming that you go to outpatient and it blows, like, what, what? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was March of 2014 to February of 2015. You do a year of outpatient? A year of outpatient. Drinking through it at various different points. And basically what I'm doing is sitting in these groups and sitting in individual therapy

and negotiating the whole time of saying, I'm not like these other kids. I have my shit together. I'm an athlete. I'm an honors courses. I have friends. I don't belong here. And this thing was kicking your ass. I mean, you're getting an ass kick.

I was getting my ass. Yeah, the scoreboard was like 100 to nothing. But I just couldn't see it that way, right? And so like, here I am negotiating and making promises. And what basically happened was for a full calendar year, I made promise after promise and ended up not fulfilling them, right? And so, like, eventually came to a point where in the fall I had started drinking again. There was another incident with cops called in the house where I got, I mean, I don't know how you would describe it, like violent.

That's a good description. Yeah, I was drinking in school and I was drinking and driving because those were the two places that nobody really checked if I was drinking. Right. So like it's my senior year and I'm drinking. The car in the high school hallways. Yeah, I'm drinking at 9 a.m. Like I'm leaving campus in second period going to buy four locos or flas and drinking. Yeah.

And so basically in October of my senior year, my parents sit me down there basically like you're going to treatment. Like we've had enough. Like this is yet another incident where the cops are in our house. You've been in the hospital three times. Like it's just if they tell you that you're going to treatment, you're going. And we're going to agree with them. And they decided not to send me. They felt like that was a moment where like I might start to change my behavior.

behavior did change for the first time because I was scared to death of getting sent sent away and being pulled out of school and away from my friends and what they did which was really amazing was they said you have to go to alcoholics anonymous and so I started being around these people who wanted to be there I wasn't it was no longer with the adolescence where nobody wanted to be there I was with adults and and people who would really turn their lives around and so like that's your first time seeing recovery alive yeah first time seeing recovery and I don't drink for three months my senior year of high school and it's hard to like

really gauge what I was thinking back then but all of that was centered around the fact that I had a senior class trip coming up in February of my senior year and I wanted to make it to that moment I didn't want to get a sent away before that it was a class I had taken for four years for this trip to Italy and so February 14th I think is the day we left to go to Italy I show up we get to Pompeii no supervision teachers like 75 years old I go I buy the one tip the older kids told us who had been on the trip before us was when you first get there buy enough alcohol for two days because you're not going to be able to get any on the second day so I bought the biggest thing of Jack Daniels that I could find and I drank the whole thing in one night and so when you're in a.A., you're in outpatient, you're negotiating for a year about why you're different and why you don't have a problem. And then you wake up in an Italian hospital with no idea how you got there. You've urinated all over yourself. You're not wearing any clothes. There's nobody in the

room. You don't know where your class is. And the only thing you hear is two doctors speaking a language that you don't understand outside of the room. For me, that was the first time that word, powerless and unmanageable, popped into my head. And I made, you know, I like, I asked for help. And I said all the things that you guys told me are true. You know, no longer was it my family, no longer it was it the ex-girlfriend, the friends, the siblings, any of that.

Anxiety, depression. Like, my excuses had run out. And finally, I was willing to take. a look at my own behavior. And the seeds, I mean, I think it's important to note that, like, the seeds had been somewhat planted. Like, if you wake up in that situation, and like, cheers to outpatient, cheers to you guys hanging in there, because if you don't know a little bit about what you're dealing with, you probably wake up and say it was just a bad night.

Yep. Yeah, no 17-year-old says powerless without doing a shitload of great work. Yeah. So you get on a flame home? Yeah, I got kicked off the trip. shocker with a couple other people shout out to them and uh yeah i i basically got home i had asked for help in italy i land in new york i do one last like let me try and figure it out throughout patient again they say there's no chance and uh that night they're driving me to

warnersville pennsylvania through go to karen yep which is where i went to treatment which is where you went to treatment yeah mean steve both serve on the board now the new york advisory your boy so it's a common bond in this grew here and this is where it fucking gets exciting man yeah because your your journey starts and I'm just so curious about so you end up you're an inpatient treatment what the hell are you thinking like what are you like well are you still working are you still so I'm still working um I'm still working yeah I'm still working and um He went through a process We went through a process

And the process I guess my I want to start I'm saying like at this moment Yeah, as a parent Because which moment When he's in treatment Yeah Especially for the dads

Yeah Because the dads are the fucking Biggest pain in the ass for us In this work They never change like you change They want to write the check Or they want to give them the insurance And then say fix my son

Yeah Your story is fucking incredible So at what moment Do you say I'm going to do you say I'm going to do the work along with my son? It was never a question, whether I was going to do the work or not.

So, you know, we were required to go to multifamily meetings. We were required to, which was with the kids, and also go to parents' support group meetings. You know, I thought it was odd, like, what the hell, you know? But I struggled because, as you know, and Stevie knows, you know, when you guys want what you want, there's no. rules. And so Stevie targeted me

because I was pretty soft. His mother was, chain him to a bed. I was, let's keep the dialogue open, you know, let's not be so hostile, you know, let's work with the situation. And Stevie took it and ran with it. So he would, you know,

he would do anything to get me off the trail. You know, like you would say, you know this, right? You'd say stuff to me like, you know, you're the reason why I'm depressed. If it for you, I'd be fine. Or he'd tell me that I was the worst parent in the world. And so all of those things, like I told him you're going to outpatient.

He goes, that's why I'm depressed, because you are doing things that are crushing me. I would be fine. Leave me alone and everything will be fine. When he said, would you feel those things? Oh, my God. It was brutal because I wanted to have a relationship with my kid. I love my kid. And he's now telling me I'm the worst parent in the world.

And then, you know, the other... You're questioning yourself, who you are, you are. And then, you know, look, you guys, I mean, he's very, very persuasive. But now when you add the ability to lie with impunity, that's so powerful. Like, you know, I tell this story because it's just so poignant to me is we were in the kitchen. It was just a three of us. It was my wife and Stevie. And my wife sniffed it out like immediately.

You've been drinking. And it's like, no, I haven't. And so I just inquired like, you know, just innocently. Stevie, were you drinking? He turns to me with this vicious stare and goes, I can't believe my own father doesn't believe me when I'm staring you straight in the eye and telling you I did not drink.

And I'm like, okay, he was totally drunk. So, you know. I get it. I've been there. You've been there, right? So I was such an easy mark for all of these tactics. And then, you know, he realized quickly that my wife was here. I was here.

We weren't on the same page. We were both like, you know, felt like we were saving his life, even though neither one of us were, and he drove a truck through it. So it was a big learning curve for me for the first six months to where I finally, for the first time, stood up to him. Six months from treatment or for when he got into outpatient. You started to do the work. I was doing the work, and the first time that I confronted Stevie and said, if you drink again, you're going. going away was six months to where I had the strength and the knowledge and, you know, the support to actually stand up to this 17-year-old kid. Like, are you kidding me? Like, on, you know,

at Morgan Stanley, I was a badass running huge global businesses. Like, I stood up to everybody, right? I was nobody, nobody pushed me around. Here, this 17-year-old kid that I was love. It was my son, and I would do anything to support him, was pushing me around to get what he wanted. And it took a lot of learning to get there and to basically confront him. And when I confronted him, after that blowout, when we called the cops, you know,

and he, I mean, he was like saying, come on, hit me, you know, he wanted to fight. I'm like, call 911, you know, I'm not doing this. Two days later. It's scary, though. I mean, it's scary. Oh, no, scary as shit. Like that night, my wife and daughter

are crying and screaming at me, do something. and I'm like, what am I going to do? You know, he's out of control. He's blackout drunk. I don't know what the fuck to do. Call 911. We call 911. Two days later, I confront him.

And I said, look, you know, we're going to our meeting. If the recommendation is residential, you're going. I don't give him shit that it's freshman year, excuse me, senior fall. You're the captain of the soccer team. I don't care. If that's the right answer, you're going. And he looks at me and goes, if you do that, you will no longer be my father. You will have four kids and not five.

And it was an unbelievable moment because for the first time, it didn't hit me. I had this, like, warmth that went through my body. And I stood on the shoulders of the clinicians and the experienced parents. And I looked at Stevie and I said, I don't think I've ever been more of a parent than I'm being at this exact moment. If the recommendation is residential, you are fucking going.

And then we went to our meeting. Wow. And look, it sounds like a lot of bravado. When we got in the car, it was the hardest thing I ever, I was scared shitless. It's going to run away. Is he going to get drunk?

It's going to hurt himself. Like, what's going to happen? Like, that was throwing down the gauntlet. and, you know, in standing my ground for the first time. And when we got back, it was a note on the side door. I turned to my wife and I said, damn, he ran away. There's the runaway note. We walk up to the note and it was just the opposite.

He's like, you're right. Dear mom and dad, you're right, I have a problem. I'll go to AA. I'll, you know, I'll see my counselor. I'll read the big book. I'll get a sponsor. And so we brought that to the clinician. and we all kind of talked about it for like four days

and they're like, give them a chance. That's a big ass concession, which you talked about. You went to A.A. That's huge. I mean, like, one, the fact that you're doing the work is huge. Two, the fact that these clinicians were able to say, give him a chance. Because all he wanted, I mean, probably all he wanted was to feel.

It was the person who really pushed out was Audrey. Audrey freshman, yeah, yeah. And she said to us, look, if you send him now and he doesn't graduate high school and he gets off track, that's a reason why people get depressed because all of a sudden they're graduating a year later, et cetera. So as long as he's safe, the longer you can keep him on track and doing the things he needs to do, that's the right strategy. And it seemed right to me and it was totally right because, you know, you went away, you know, the second half of the second year already

applied to college. You know, there was all sorts of good things that happened. And she was dead right about it. And, you know, I kind of, you know, every year of his anniversary, I send her a text. You were the architect of his recovery, you know, big hearts. Thank you. Because it wasn't clear, but she made the call and it was a great call. So you go to Karen, fast forward. First of all, Steve, I mean, this conversation is so good. And I hope you're appreciating what he has to say. I mean, I hope there's like a general appreciation here. And I really hope that people, people, specifically fathers, but families listen to this because the chaos that you're explaining is chaos that we hear about every day in our work here at least.

I mean, it's just we hear about the chaos and I know and Steve knows, CVD knows how fucking good we are with our words and we will make you believe that we are literally going to kill ourselves just to put one more drink in us, you know? And that's like, it's fear, man. We're just instilling fear in you. So I will tell you one more thing. Yeah, yeah. The darkest, darkest time was the summer

when we got sort of counseled to create contracts on behaviors. So we would write, we wrote six things that he couldn't do with five sub-things on each of the six things. So it was a contract with 30 things that he had to do. And, of course, he signs the thing. And then he proceeds to find a way around all 30. And it was literally when I said to him, I'm like, dude, did you go to Harvard law school? Like, you're finding every gray area, every way around everything that we've written here.

And it was just massive, massive confrontation. And so the thing that we learned after all of that was the 29 of them are bullshit. The only one that really mattered was not using. because that was the key and the thing that would open up his entire life if he stopped using everything else was possible and we didn't have to try to manage getting up making his bed

going to school on time taking out the garbage like all that crap didn't matter and what really mattered was getting to a place where he wanted to get sober period that was it

so you're in Karen you finally like this the party in Italy yeah blackout in Italy I have questions about why Jack Daniels and not like some good Italian liquor but we'll get there at a later date so you end up in Karen you're there you're there for 30 days and then at some point so I'm running another program at this time we get a call from you or dad and it's like there's a 17 year old kid do you take 17 year olds like you know kind of like going through the process and then you know we get on the phone with that and you show up in this program um that i was helping run back in the day and yeah you were the guy i spoke to when i was a

carer i mean like this is 2015 crazy yeah and so you show up there and you're in sober living with us and your dad at some point in a conversation or we were reviewing cases at one point there's this thing where steve's dad is going to like leave his job and like totally thrones like at what point so you show up in the city you're going to a a you're kind of like you're staying so like what's that i'm a senior in high school um finishing out school through like tutoring and going to aa meetings i'm in intensive outpatient again i'm living into sober living and i did that from i would say like mid-march until the end of june and that was like my first experience of treatment and and that was after 28 days of care and

And I was, like, super gung-ho about it. Like, wanted to be there, wanted to live a big life, wanted to be sober. Like, I had been through the ringer enough to be beaten into a state of reasonableness. And I really, I was, like, doing it. Yeah. Which was great. I go home for the summer, work, construction job, continue to do AA meetings every single day, and then go to college in the fall.

Fordham. Fordham University, yeah. And where, and so he's kind of on his job. journey. He's finally got like there's maybe like a little bit more sleep at the house. Like you're a little bit comforted that he's finding his way. When do you leave the job at Morgan Stanley and decide that you're going to? So yeah, all of that was amazing. All the work he did was incredible. September. So we had agreed that he wasn't going to live on campus. And we called the school and said look he's going to commute and they screw up and they assign him a dorm and

roommates so we don't know this so he comes to us like two weeks before school with this did they screw up or did you work an angle no they screwed up and he comes to us with a sales pitch and he said here's what i'm thinking do you remember this i remember we're sitting outside in the backyard. He goes, so if what we're talking about is my mental health and staying sober. Weaponizing is sobriety. And that's the other side of this thing. Like you weaponize the suicide. But this was so good. Yeah. So he says, I think that I have just as big a chance of getting depressed and using if I'm sitting home in the basement with no friends commuting to school in the Bronx as I do being in a party environment with the right supports.

And I think, you know, that I should be given a chance for, you know, big upside with big risk because the other situation is just as risky. So, of course, we don't make the decision. We go and we talk to Audrey, we go and we talk to, you know, counselors. And they're like, he's not wrong. He's got a lot of risk sitting in the basement. not experiencing the college experience, not making friends because it's hard to do as a commuter,

give him the shot. And so what we decide is we've got to have supports. He's got to have an AA meeting. He's got to have a psychologist, and we've got to do testing. And of course, he doesn't do any of that, and he can tell what happens, which was the big relapse.

for me and when I left Morgan Stanley it was he has the big relapse at the exact same time that the head of capital markets at Morgan Stanley is now the CEO Ted Pick who I'm friends with comes and sits down with me he's now running all of capital markets and he's like we can do awesome things together I want to put you in a big job and that big job is like as big as it gets, and he said, but I need a three-year commitment. And so it's Wall Street, and there's only one answer when someone says that to you. Fuck yeah, where do I start? Let's go. And so that's what I said. And then I went home, and I got this kid who's relapsing. But I, you know, I also had a very strong sense that

I had been given gifts in terms of my parents, my family, education. Morgan Stanley was a dream, run and it's a lot of people suffering so maybe I shouldn't just spend my life making a lot of money for myself and Morgan Stanley maybe I can do some good and so literally that it was a Thursday that Ted came to me during the weekend I took out an Excel spreadsheet I'm like okay here are my four options here are the things that matter to me and no matter how I waited all my options. The thing that won every single time was quitting and retiring. Do you know this story? Yeah. And I retired. And the president of Morgan Stanley, a guy named Column Keller, who's now, he's the chairman of UBS, awesome guy. I love the man. He, I told him, and he said, well, let's not

set a date. And I go, dude, I know your strategy. Don't set a date, which means never. So we're going to set a date. And he goes, look, I need for you to help me write. the strategic plan for the fixed income division, because you're the only one who knows where the bodies are buried. And so you'll work with Ted, you'll work the head of HR. Give me four months. And I said, so September when I told them, I said, fine. So right after New Year's, I retired.

I actually left. But I made the decision in September of 2015. I mean, this fucking story is unbelievable because your son is like newly sober. You pull out this Excel spreadsheet. you've worked for 30 years assuming like for this opportunity right like you want it like for this moment where you're kind I mean like yeah

in some degree to some degree or most people I mean to be to be honest like that is true for almost everyone but for me I cared about other stuff okay I did you know like I mentored probably 200 people at Morgan Stanley like I cared about other stuff besides you know the big title

the big paycheck and all of those things. And so even though I was type A doing my job, and my mom said to me, his grandmother said, I thought you'd work there until you're 80. That was kind of the persona. The truth was that it wasn't crazy that I wanted to take my shot at doing something different

and trying to help people. And Stevie's behavior and like his grit and resilience probably helped impact that decision, right? Like you saw him doing some work. And I mean, it sounds like maybe This big relapse, I mean, like, I personally hate the word relapse because I feel like it keeps people drunk, like, you know, in our work. But this moment happens and your dad's kind of like, what, what? Yeah, I mean, I'm sober six, seven months.

There's a system in place that works, which was using supports, having friends in recovery, getting into meetings, therapy, all that. And I get to campus and I stopped doing it all, right? And so I drink from probably, let's call it, September 1st to September 28th. and I basically wake up on a Monday morning. I was drinking on a Sunday night. So late in the hours. I wake up at a Monday morning. I'm sitting in class at 10.15.

Hardly the worst night of drinking in my career. Yeah. Like made it to class, went to bed at a reason. We've evidence of that. Yeah. Plenty of evidence. And I'm just sitting there and I just have a knot in my stomach of like, this isn't who I am anymore.

You know. And this isn't how I want to live my life. And I basically like have a decision as to like, do I want to lie and be a closet and alcoholic for the rest of my life? Or do I want to just go back to what works and what really made me feel good about myself? And I left that class. I went to therapy later that afternoon for the first time. And I just got honest with one other person about what I was struggling with and why I started drinking again.

And he kind of just looked at me and said, like, it's okay. Like, you know what works. Go do what works. So it was a sober date, September 28th of? September 29th, 2015. because I drank until like two in the morning. That's fine, dude. And that's just like the stories of recovery that we tell.

They never get old. And to think of all those watershed moments that we just heard about. And like it was a Monday morning sitting in class like when you just knew, man. And we can't as providers, healthcare professors, manufacture that. As parents, we can't manufacture it. Like it has to come from somewhere else in the therapy and the, meetings and the supports and all that stuff probably played into it but like this is also where I think there's a spiritual nature to this to this process like something something

crawled inside of you man and you you knew all you had to know I've never met anyone with my sobriety date right like it was just the most mundane Tuesday morning in September late in September and it was just like I had done enough work at that point that when I went back out it didn't it's not what I wanted to be and so So I just went back to what worked and stayed sober since. It's been eight and a half years. Eight and a half years and now you are, I mean, I love you. I'm emotional sitting here talking to you because I just think about, you tell that story

and I think about all the fucking people you've helped, you know, and like the work you're doing here with release and, I mean, running our women's program, our men's program, like, you know, and like I always believe like the best player plays, you know, and you got this promotion at the beginning of the year and the first thing that created him out he's like he's fucking young man he's young and then like it was just like you know you proved me right you made me look good because you're killing it um and then we have your dad here who goes you work at chatterproof you study under john kelly like give me a quick update and then i'm going to do a little something here at the end but give me a quick update on how you're spending your time and

just like why why you continue to be so passionate about helping other parents and sharing your story and well first of all i'm beyond proud of stevie so let's just put it out there like he's a hero to me and um i'm blessed and um i'm beyond words so i just want to put that out there the reason why i do what i'm doing and i'll tell you what it is is because it was so painful and so scary. And so, we were so alone. It almost destroyed my marriage, my family. It was, we almost lost Stevie,

which would have been beyond catastrophic. And anybody who's had that happen, my heart goes out to them. I bleed for them. It's like the most brutal thing in the world. Yeah, people die. So what I do now, I left Shadowproof like a year and a half ago, it's a great experience. But what I do now is I work at Northwell as a volunteer working with families.

Oh, cool. Yeah. So I work with parents of teenagers. And I really just, I'm not a professional, but I share what my experiences were, the things that I learned that worked, that I learned from professionals. I'm also working with the parents of young adults now, and so that's been phenomenal. I've become an advisor to a number of people, people who run companies, because I have a lot of business experience, and also, which is a shocker to me, researchers. So I'm on a study now as a formal research person with Dartmouth Medical School and John's

Hopkins on how to teach craft to caregivers, parents and other caregivers. That's community reinforcement and family training for those you who are listening. Yeah, it's a really powerful intervention, but it's designed to help people convince their loved one to accept treatment. And what we're going after are young adults with opioid addiction, which is the hardest people to get. And so that study has been, you know, I've been on that now for six months. It's been phenomenal.

they invited me to be an advisor. I'm an advisor to John Kelly with his new at Harvard. He's at Harvard Medical School. He's got a new foundation on youth prevention, treatment, and recovery. And so I'm also, I brought him some research ideas, and he's about to do one of them, which I think is really cool. He's going to do a study on teenagers that got sober and do a systematic study on how it actually happened.

What were the barriers? What were the things that worked? Because the field just doesn't know how people like Stevie got sober, right? And so that's pretty cool. And that's really how I'm spending. I have a website that's really powerful. We just crossed over a quarter of a million visitors. It's AddictionLessons.com.

And we'll share that for sure. Yeah, it's everything. that I wished that I knew that I couldn't find on the internet about addiction as a parent of a kid that was suffering. What did I need to know? And so all the eight years that I spent doing the fellowship at Shatterproof, you know, time in these meetings with families that are suffering. I just put it all together. It's like a 30-minute read. And it's everything that people need to know to get started to understand the problem they're dealing with.

so those are the basic things that I'm doing and you know my answer to anybody who needs help um is yes like if you're doing something that's cool and I can help you from my experience either in business or as a parent um in the space I'm in are you cool with him doing the work like yeah yeah I've always been supportive of it always been open about it I mean like when he wrote this blog I mean the blog's about me right in my experience and what it was like to see me go through that and like he basically wrote three different versions which was one of them was completely anonymous one of them like had a little bit more detail in it and then you know what I said to him in that moment was one of them was the truth and that's the one that's up there on

addiction lessons.com yeah it's like that's what's important to me and if he's had a lot of success reaching a lot of different people and being helpful in that way so if my story gets him there then I'm in for it yeah I want to I want to you something to close this but one I mean like for three guys to sit here and have this conversation and be so vulnerable and share in a way that just feels authentic and real to who we are so so cool to me like I appreciate both of you guys doing this um you know I thought about my dad countless times yeah through this episode because my experience with my father was very similar, you know?

And like, the thing about my dad is he never gave up and you never gave up. And the thing about me is I never gave up and you never gave up. You know, and we lived to tell the stories, and hopefully those stories will go on and help some people. But what I've really been thinking about when I'm talking to you guys is like this moment in time and how powerful it is that you're sitting next to each other and we're going to go to this gala tonight and be in the same room. And something you said to me yesterday, Stevie-D, was like,

you know, and this is his experience, I don't know if this is your experience, but he said, you know, me and my dad, we don't talk about my recovery so much. You know, you shared that with me. Yeah. I hope you don't mind me sharing that here. And you kind of said, like, I think he knows that I'm good because I am, and you are. And there's a respect there. You know, And I think, for me, I just want to, like, you just said a lot of nice things about Stevie. And I'd like for you to, like, actually tell them those things, like, that he's a hero. And if there's anything that you guys want to tell each other now to kind of close this episode, just because I think it's valuable, like, this moment in time right now where you're sitting next to each other, like,

good, bad, and different. Like, if there's anything. Yeah, I think what I was saying is, like, it's interesting when we do these types of things because we're talking about our experiences. We're talking about recovery. We're talking about, like, you know, you volunteer full-time recovery. Yeah, tell him. Don't talk to me. And I work in addiction recovery, and it's like, but behind the scenes, like, that's not that's not who we are to each other.

It's like, you're my dad, and I'm your son, and we go golf, and we talk about the Mets. And it's like all of that damage that was done between 2010 to 2015, like, has been repaired in a really meaningful way. And, you know, I think it's a testament to the work that I did. I think it's a testament to the work that you did. I'm really, really grateful for you, and, you know, you saved my life in a lot of different ways. I never looked at it as damage. I never looked at it as damage, TV.

I know you think about it that way. I view it as you were very sick. And it wasn't you. You know, it was a disease that was talking to me. in those ways and you know I just couldn't be more proud and you know that because I've told you that I think that your journey is so spectacular and what you're doing to help other people is so beautiful that I just I couldn't be more proud of you and what you've done and who you've become thank you

I need a fucking four loco or something like that was you know joke joke um that was that was fucking awesome you guys I mean like I'm just I'm grateful to have been a witness to that conversation and just the journey and I really fucking hope people listen to this because it's powerful and it's a story of a father and a son who you know by doing their own work came together and like are helping so many people in this country so I appreciate both you I'm sure we'll have you back at some point because there's a lot more to kind of unpack and talk about and I want to you know stay up to date with all the work that you're doing obviously and you know we get to do it together so that's all for today's episode and yeah love you guys thanks for coming thank you yeah thank you