The Zac Clark Show - Scott Strode & The Phoenix: From Addiction to Building a Recovery Community of Nearly 1 Million

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

This week on The Zac Clark Show, we sit down with Scott Strode — founder of The Phoenix, a free national sober active community that’s approaching one million members and nearly 90,000 events strong. But behind those staggering numbers is a deeply personal story.Scott opens up about the childhood trauma that led him to substance use at age 11, the fractured worlds he navigated between his father’s instability and his mother’s high-powered career, and the early moments of sobriety that ultimately changed his life — not in a treatment center, but in a boxing gym.What started as one man waiting outside the gym looking for a way to stay sober has become one of the most impactful movements in recovery today. Through rock climbing, cycling, CrossFit, yoga, art, and even sober music festivals, The Phoenix offers people 48 hours sober a place to show up, be seen, and belong — no shame, no cost, no strings attached.Scott shares why inclusivity and accessibility are at the heart of The Phoenix’s ethos, how volunteering became the rocket fuel behind its growth, and why healing doesn’t have to look like sitting in a circle — sometimes it looks like 150 kettlebell swings and a high five.We also explore:Generational trauma and how to break the cycleThe launch of The Phoenix’s free New Form app and its vision to redefine digital recoveryThe nonprofit’s challenges with funding innovation in behavioral healthAnd Scott’s new book, Rise, Recover, Thrive: How I Got Strong, Got Sober, and Built a Movement of Hope — a raw and inspiring look at the personal journey that sparked a national revolution in recoveryThe word “community” has become a cultural buzzword — but at its core, it reflects the shared connection humans deeply need and seek. What truly defines community, and why does it matter so much — especially in recovery? Scott Strode has spent his life answering that question, building a movement rooted in belonging, empathy, and hope. What he has to say is illuminating, insightful — and profoundly simple.Learn more at thephoenix.org, check out Rise, Recover, Thrive wherever books are sold, or download the New Form app to get involved.For information about Scott’s new book: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Recover-Thrive-Strong-Movement/dp/B0DGV641P1Connect with Zachttps://www.instagram.com/zwclark/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclarkhttps://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553https://twitter.com/zacwclarkIf you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release:[phone]releaserecovery.com@releaserecovery

all right so we are back here at the uh the zach clark show and for those of you that know me you know uh hopefully that i believe one of the key pillars to my recovery in anyone's recovery is community and i am thrilled to have one of the best to ever do it with us today scott strode who is the founder and executive director of the phoenix if you don't know about the phoenix they are a free national sober active community they're approaching a million members I think they're just under 900,000. They've done nearly 90,000 events. That's a ton of events and a ton of lives.

They've impacted. And Scott's here today to kind of share his story and how he has been such a trailblazer combining, really, movement, which as a runner, I appreciate as a way to find a healthier way of living. Scott, what is up? Hey, thanks for having me. It's good to be here with you guys. We were just discussing Scott's train.

here where he got an omelet and they forgot the bacon so we will uh we'll make sure that the amtrak or isella has the bacon next time and i just want you to know zach that you know scott's a beamedown guy but he's a big birds fan are you grew up yeah yeah grew up outside of philly and so always been a eagles fan lancaster yeah lived in denver and then also lived in boston and still were you there where did you watch the game um i just just at home yeah Yeah, I've actually never gone to see a game. Oh, dude, you got to come. Yeah, we got to see it and take it to you got to come.

You've never seen a game. No, no, I've just, and with little kids, I don't even get to watch them much at home. When I sit down to, I usually end up taking a nap because I'm tired because they're, they keep us busy. Yeah, amazing. There's a lot to dig in here. You know, there's obviously your personal story, and we certainly want to highlight the work that's being done at the Phoenix because I've personally been to events. I know a couple folks at work over there, and I just, I always get inspired when we have our Monday night runs,

and I see kind of the Phoenix clan. They'll kind of latch on sometimes and come, and it's beautiful. And the thing that I love about the Phoenix, and maybe you can start here is, is you have this, there's a lot of barriers to entry, right? Whether it be treatment or therapy,

and you remove a lot of those because it's free. And what you say is, if you have 48 hours sober, you can come to any of our events. And so I'd like to know, like, why did you make it that way? Why did you decide to make it so accessible? Yeah, I think it was, it was sort of an instinct we had early on, like just remembering for myself when I got sober how I felt like I was carving my sobriety out of the wilderness by myself and felt super alone in early recovery.

and I just remembering that wanted to make it accessible to everybody. But there's like one other element that's key is our ethos, which is essentially we're here to lift each other up, not pull each other down. And so, you know, with the 48 hours of sobriety and the ethos, like, that's all you need to come to Phoenix. And what we find is people can dip their toe in, they can try it out. Maybe they're still using the next day or they're drinking. drinking the next day, but we want them back again. So if they get 48 hours again, come back to Phoenix. And all of a sudden you start to piece together, you know, a couple days a week, then four

days a week. And, you know, we hope that they can step into recovery then and come to Phoenix all the time. Yeah. But if they don't, there's no judgment. We love them. We miss them. We want them back. And I think taking away that shame around whether you're drinking or not drinking or relapse or struggling or it's sticking or it's not sticking allows people to step into it in a different way. And we also allow allies and supporters to come, but they also have to be 48 hours sober. And the beauty of that is that they're going through the addiction with the people they love. Why not go through recovery with them too? Yeah. So they come to Phoenix as well. Many of them end up becoming our volunteers. That's incredible. And volunteers run these activities, right? These are all

all people who've chosen to participate and organize? Yeah, so in the early days of Phoenix, we thought it would be sort of staffed in every community. And we started to realize that, you know, we would need like 2,000 employees just to run Phoenix in California. You know, so we had to sort of just innovate and think about how we can do it, you know. And then meanwhile, we were getting all these emails

and social media messages from people saying, my loved ones die and can Phoenix come here? I think it could help them. and so we thought why not empower that person to be the person that starts phoenix and so now anybody who's touched by substance use can be the person who starts phoenix in their community yeah it's awesome i mean and it's and it's easy to read those numbers at the beginning and kind of gloss over them but nearly you know a million members is is it's just such an amazing number and we all know uh as a as a fellow kind of founder and and CEO and

you know, I, I have great empathy for the work you do. It started with your story, man. Like, it started with one. And growing up as a kid in Lancaster, can you kind of dig into what your upbringing looked like and how you got to this, you know, from where you were and to where you are today because it didn't just happen overnight?

Yeah, I think that, I mean, for me, like the foundation, of the pain that I think I was numbing with with drugs and alcohol really started in those formative years. You know, my father had untreated mental health struggles. My stepfather had untreated alcoholism. And so as a kid, I had to sort of read cues from people to sort of figure out who I needed to be that day to be loved. You know, so as a little kid, that's a, that's a tough world to grow up in. And, you know, the, whether it was depression or mania for my dad or, you know, anger for my stepdad around something or, you know, pushing us to be perfect,

you know, in whatever way, um, it damaged my self-esteem a lot. And so when I poured drugs and alcohol on it for the first time, it felt great. Do you remember your first use? Do you remember? Yeah, yeah. My cousins, you know, all the people I respect. at that point, like hung out around a keg of beer or a liquor closet because a cabinet was too small. 55, 52. Okay. Yeah.

So, you know, we, we just, I wanted to be with those guys and hang out with them. So one day we were water skiing on the Chesapeake and I said, hey, can I have a beer? I was 11. And they're like, yeah, but you got to drink the whole thing. It was like a 16 ounce old Milwaukee. Yeah. And it was like, I got through like a quarter of it and one of my cousins dumped it out. and but when I told my buddies I had a beer

they were blown away they're like what was it like oh my gosh and all of a sudden I got this attention and sort of admiration from people for being able to tell that story and I said I know where there's a whole fridge full of them in our garage why don't I just steal a 12 pack of them and we meet behind my house and that's what started it was this when you were with you can you well can you just paint because you had a very interesting

childhood you know between your your how you lived with your father versus your mother. Can you just sort of paint that picture of what it was like moving back and forth and, you know, the experience there? Yeah. I mean, and I'm sharing some stuff not to like put anything on my parents because obviously I was the one that was picking up and drinking and using, but I think you can't really talk about addiction in a lot of circumstances without talking about trauma or pain. And for me, that trauma and pain came from those self-esteem wounds. And for my mom, she was incredibly accomplished. She ended up becoming friends with three different presidents. She ran a huge U.S. company, ended up selling that company and became a U.S.

ambassador. She was just incredibly accomplished. But we would go from a world where we'd stay at the four seasons with her. And when we were with my dad, we would be in a house where he tore out one wall in a manic episode and never put it back because he was going to build an but never did so he stapled plastic over it so we lived in a three walled house with him with uh that didn't have indoor plumbing and had a space heater just in the one bedroom we all slept in and so to go back and forth between those two worlds um it just sort of compounded that feeling i had because in one place i felt like i was phony and didn't belong in that place because it was this like elevated society and then when it was with my dad um

I didn't really know who to be to be loved. So it was a dynamic childhood. Wow. And when you had that first drink, was that with your dad or when you were staying with your mom? It was with my step family. So when my mom remarried, you know, that was a, there was a lot of like alcohol culture in that family. And so I just wanted to be in that culture. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where, I mean, we get calls all the time here from parents and they don't.

they don't understand that right like a lot a lot of us start drinking and drugging because it's just the thing that we feel like at that moment is the thing that we're supposed to be doing yeah i remember my first drinking it was just just the same you know a couple older guys had some beers and yeah they they they wrangled me in and they thought it would be funny if you know young zach had a couple pops and immediately i i i learned that it was medicine you know like it worked yeah yeah and i think i think i think too it's hard to know what is normal use and experimentation and what is something that's connecting with a party you that is more a compulsion to drink and use you know and and it's always tough to tell and even as I continued to drink and got into my 20s I I would I lived in Boston college town right and there's just people everywhere drinking on a Friday night but they would go home when the bar's closed and I would go to the after party and then I'd be at the after party where the sun came up and then I'd be back in my apartment drinking and using by myself. So it's like, you know, you started to have these little glimpses of where it's different for me. Yeah. Did your dad ever

get treatment or did he? He never did. We tried to, he ended up the bulk of his older adult life homeless on the street in Montana. And we tried to help him with housing. We tried to help him with an inpatient program and as soon as he would sign in and we'd leave he'd sign himself out when he was feeling good and he'd go back out on the street and um you know it's it was uh it was heartbreaking to see this man that i deeply loved but also brought a lot of pain into my life um never really be able to cope with the pain he carried and find help for himself because his father left him when he was six months old, you know, so it's like that stuff, you know, kind of flows through generations, right, till one of us is willing to feel it. Yeah, I think it's, well, yes, generational trauma

is real. And I also know that one of the things that's really challenging, what I love about the Phoenix and the way that you guys welcome people into your community is there is a sense of the people showing up there want to be there, you know, through a certain degree, because they've hit a point in their life where they're looking for community or connection or to be sober. And I always struggle with, like, trying to help the person that actually doesn't want to help. You know, they actually, they'd rather kind of keep the train moving the way it's moving. Yeah. I love that.

And I think, you know, I'm talking about this sort of early childhood stuff. But for me at Phoenix, we almost never talk about that. We're talking about that rock climb and you climbed that red route and you reached out with your right hand. Is that how you made that move? Can I try it now? Okay, I'll belay you. And, you know, we're encouraging each other to dream. of what's possible in our sobriety and it's forward focused and it's hopeful and it's empowering

and the beauty of that is that if I show up at Phoenix you guys will believe in me even if I don't yet believe in myself and that's the power of it well that's I mean the for many years you think about the movie 28 days with Sandra Bullock and whatever else it is I mean we we are taught as a society I referenced it all the time because because it's just like how terrible is that yeah it just it says everything about treatment and recovery that I don't want people to hear, right? It's like 28 days. You go. You meet some people. You know, they're going to be a little odd and then you're going be thrown back into this world and you're destined to this life of, you know, I don't even remember how the movie ends. Maybe she stays sober and it's great. But my point is, you know, I thought for

me and my lived experience was my life was over. Like I was, I was destined to, you know, therapy and meetings and not seeing my friends and not dating and not having any fun just so that I could stay sober and that's been the complete opposite you know of my actual experience yeah mine too I mean it's I getting sober you know my friend Ben court who helped start Phoenix yeah okay Ben yeah he's doing a project out in um Colorado now with all the the foundry and yeah yeah yeah so Ben Ben's great and Ben always said he's like I got sober because I didn't want to die but I stayed stay sober because I get to live. Yeah.

You know, and I just love that because it just speaks to how I feel about it, too. Incredible. I just, I think what's really cool about, because we talk about this all the time, you know, in recovery, whether it's through the 12 steps. I mean, really my experience was through the 12 steps. I know Zach's was, is through the 12 steps. And, you know, those principles, the values, the directions, like they're applicable to any human being, whether they had a problem with substances or not.

But I think, like, what's really cool about new form, you know, which is the app through the Phoenix and these events is that you, it is recovery. You are having to show up. You are having to, you know, act a certain way. But it's dissolved in this event that is active and fun and not a sober event. You know, it's like anyone who wants to do this thing can do this and you're going to learn about living on life's terms, you know, free of, you know, the self-destructive way. ways you were living before. And I just think like that's really unique and special and highlights connection, which sounds like growing up in your childhood, like there was a lot of disconnection. Yeah. I mean, for me, the early childhood stuff, the way it showed up is it

affected the self-worth, which made me feel like I wasn't deserving or worthy of love. You know, and so I went through a lot of life like that. And actually, I would say when I started at Phoenix, I thought by trying to rescue some people, maybe I would prove my self-worth, you know? And so I was like in it. I was like, we'd have a hundred people doing well at Phoenix and we'd have one guy struggling and I would focus just on him. You know? And I realize my friend, who's also my therapist, said, if you want to save people drowning in a well, you don't jump in the well to save them, you know? And I was like, yeah, good point. You know, he's like, you rest up and you come back the next day so you can get more people out.

And that just shifted my mindset and I was no longer jumping in the well. And what I realized is that it really wasn't about the finish lines or standing on top of the mountains and all these different sports I was doing. It was about the people you shared it with. It was about the community.

It was about people that are there to lift me up on a day when I'm having a tough day. And on that mountain, I can carry more in my pack when they're having a tough day. And that's how the Phoenix works. so you despite you know some of the childhood struggles for lack of a better word make it to college where did you go to school in boston yeah i actually made it to working on boats after i went to a school program on a boat okay and then when i came ashore i had actually started to get a glimpse

of this these unique gifts that i had that i could contribute to others so on the boat you know you you were on the, I was on the man overboard squad. If somebody went over the side, we'd get in a small boat and go save them. You know, we were out there in storms, you know, furling sails and sailing across the Atlantic and doing all this incredible stuff. And then I came ashore and tried to go to a regular school. Um, I'm horribly dyslexic and it was a school for kids with dyslexia. And, uh, I just didn't fit in in that environment. Like I had already seen what was possible in this world, like bigger things. So I asked my mom, I said, if I get my GED, could I drop out of school and start working on boats?

And she was scared that I'd go back to that old life of drinking and drugging all the time. At this point, I was just drinking. I had stopped doing drugs. When did you stop using drugs? When I was on the boat, because I started to see this strength in me. And that strength started to show up when somebody would say, hey, man, you want a line of Coke. I'm like, no, I'm good, man. But for some reason, binge drinking until I blacked out was still cool, you know.

I thought it had more integrity, but something in you just was like no more, no more cocaine, no more waking up at, you know, staying up all night and, you know, saving lives like manically, like whatever it was. Yeah, I just was, I was done with it for some reason. But then my drinking progressed, right, as I got a little older and I get to the point where I couldn't not use, like be so blacked out drunk that I'd go pick up and use. And then it would turn into a bender. Then I'd be out.

And meanwhile, I had already exposed to this sailing world where I was supposed to be inspiring youth and at-risk youth, how to live with this integrity. But at night, the wheels would come off, and I'd be out in Boston, Yuzin, and I just felt so ashamed when I'd show up for those kids. And that's when I took that step into recovery. What age was at? 24 in Boston so a little over 28 years ago and no treatment no treatment uh tried to go to a couple of a meeting at that time but they were not a lot of young people in those rooms yeah and um and so i just started going in the boxing gym every day i would i found a friend who was a golden gloves fighter and she started teaching me about the sport and i would wait outside with my gym bag and they'd

open the gym and i'd go in i train and i hold the mitts and do stuff for other people people, you know, there. And then when they close up, I'd go home and I'd wait till it open the next day. And then I'd go to work in between. And that led me to other sports like weightlifting and triathlon and a whole bunch of stuff. Have you an athlete growing up? Not at all. Not at all. When I was in my addiction, I would be the guy like smoking a cigarette, say, who are you running from? Like when they go by the bar, you know? And, but when I was a kid, my dad used to take us hunting and we'd be out in the woods and being in nature with him was like the one moment where we actually got to bond without all the other stuff and my stepdad was going to take me on this camping trip and

I just remember how excited I was to like get the tents and the gear and it got rained out and everything but but I remembered that feeling so I just thought I'm going to get outdoorsy and I'm going to get into fitness stuff and essentially I'm just going to try everything that I'm not doing now to see if I can change my life because I was so just over the drinking and drug life that I was living. Were you meeting other people, like other sober people or you were building your community kind of despite that? Just on my own, really.

Yeah, my brother and I were super tight. He lived in Boston and he was still drinking. And he got sober a couple years before me and I convinced him he wasn't an alcoholic and he went back out with me. And so we drank for a bunch more years together. And then I got sober and then told him he was an alcoholic and it didn't go well. but he finally quit drinking and we were our own little fellowship you know in the beginning and then in the boxing gym I met a couple sober guys and then my first climbing partner

didn't drink and that was the beginning of Phoenix we just didn't have a logo yet I just I love that because I remember the first time someone told me they were sober that was kind of cool right and I was like you're sober you know and then it just it snowballs into this thought that oh maybe this isn't just you know a bunch of people twice my age sitting in a in a church basement like there's actually people living real productive lives doing cool shit that are that are not drinking not doing drugs yeah i love that because that's part of phoenix being out there so much it's like we're at cycling races and our cycling kits you know we're wearing phoenix gear all over the place we're mobbing up together you know laughing and having

fun in recovery and you know we're having it out there in the world so people can see it and see that there's there's hope and joy and you can do all this stuff and have fun and still remember you know where you parked your car the night before yeah what was your emotional life and in your relationship to your parents at this time like when you were on the boat and when you got right around the time before you got sober i mean like was there a lot of internal work that you had to do or i mean you seem pretty even keeled you know you know now were you always that way yeah i think it was that time so i had been in recovery for a while i had already we had already started phoenix and it was serving a fair amount of people in

colorado i think we were just looking at expanding into california and i started being one of those people who can sort of get so good at the language of recovery that i can wall off the stuff that really is still there for me you know you know the lingo you know how to talk about it but have you ever really gone into that deep work to kind of think about why you you fell into that lifestyle and and I always think of it it's like you hear a noise in the middle of the night and you think somebody might be down in the basement like you've got to go down and check it out or you're never really going to rest easy and I had never really taken that journey down there to see what was there so I went to a trauma healing workshop it was a week-long program that I referred a whole bunch of people to because I thought it would help him and it did but I was terrified to go myself and I went there and I got to let go of all of the stuff and it it wasn't just letting go of the pain it was it was the grace and love I had for found for my father my stepfather and my mother in their own stories because they too had early childhood stuff and their own experiences and and I just came back from that different you know I

came back um feeling worthy and deserving of love and that was a big change and i think for you know a guy my size in a gym lifting weights with people talking about that is not something a lot of guys in the gym here you know do you think that's learned i mean that empathy and and the compassion you're able to have for your father i mean do you think you learn that or that's something that's innate I think it's, I actually think it's part of us as humans. I think we have this intrinsic strength and this, this, like, love and empathy for other people, probably because we're like pack animals, right? We want to be in our, in our tribe or our pack.

And, and I think sometimes we, that gets clouded by how we think we should show up and who we think we should be and what we see modeled for us. And, and so, you know, I think that. that growing up, I didn't see vulnerability in a lot of men. So my brother and I, going through the stuff we did together, we started to model who we could be as men. So it was a big shift for me, seeing it modeled. And I think through Phoenix, starting to have love and empathy for other people,

allowed me to find it for myself. Do you have thoughts on, I mean, what I'm thinking is that you were ahead of your time, in terms of the men's mental health movement and the men's kind of vulnerability movement that we're seeing, and we were kind of joking a little bit before about, you know, the social media influencers.

And, I mean, it's really, it's out there, you know. It's something that a lot of people are talking about. And it's very easy to post something on the internet, but then not do it. I mean, do you have thoughts or, like, you know, around some of that stuff? Yeah, I do. I mean, I think that,

I think what we're not, modeling for each other are really foundational principles that we all believe in, like treating people with dignity, like believing in the strength in all people. Like, you know, we'll see our 24-hour news feeds and our social media feeds and we'll doom, scroll, and all this other stuff, but you still see people holding the door for each other. Somebody drops something from their grocery bag, somebody else picks it up. Like that is, us as humans is actually, we want to be in a nurturing connected space with other humans. But I think it's not always something that's lifted up.

Why do you think that is? I think the other stuff, you know, the quick hit scroll, something that you see that's really polarizing is just like a hit. You know, it's like that dopamine hit, you see it. You got to scroll, you got to find the next one, just like the next line of Coke. and it's like when you when you actually show up for somebody and then that person shows up for you that's the log on the fire that actually warms your soul and I think when you do it in this principled way you know which is why our ethos exists that's where the magic happens you know and I think that what's so special about that you guys see it in the recovery community all the time but

the rest of the world doesn't see that every day i think we can share it with them by lifting it up yeah it's interesting i was thinking the other day because i i'm guilty of the doom scrolling i'm i'm guilty of losing focus i'm guilty of of all those things and there's nothing that focuses me more it doesn't matter what i'm doing the eagles could be in the super bowl if i get that note of someone asking for help nothing else matters you know nothing else matters it's I'm going to focus in on that and until that person feels like because there's such a small window and to this day with all the noise that's the one thing that like focuses me focuses me in and I think all humans have that like we want to be helpful I totally agree

I think you have you have unique gifts you can share to help somebody and you've actually been there too yeah so you understand it in a different way and by helping lift them you also lift yourself You know, that's not the why behind it, but it helps you find a life of purpose and a why for being here and a way you can contribute to others. And I think that that ultimately is what we're trying to build at the Phoenix. Who was the person that modeled that for you, though? Because I'm just thinking, I'm sitting here like, okay, no treatment, no real therapy. Like you got so, but who was the person that you, do you credit someone with that? Yeah, I mean, I think it was like this incredible combination of things.

where when I worked on boats, they were sail training boats. So there were these like underpinnings of outward bound type programs, you know, like we're all in the same boat. You know, we got to pull together. And, you know, so there were some, they're foundational elements there. But some of the early people in Phoenix were Bencourt who had worked at summer camps and, you know, helped taking people on outdoor adventures. We had Jackie Hillios, who was a clinical social worker.

So we all sort of had these different views into this issue. and realize that nurturing community can overcome a lot of things. Everything. I mean, because this is something that I just have been thinking about and, you know, in recovery, like why some people get it,

you know, like why some people, not just I'm not going to drink and use drugs, but like why it moves from selfishness to selflessness. Like why people really recognize the value of that. And like I wish, I mean, I'm more cynical than you are,

you know, because I feel like, I do think, you know, the human hearts, human kindness is in all of us. But it's just so clouded by, you know, the reach and the grab and, you know, what is interesting. People of watching conflict and pain and scandal. And it's just hard for me to reconcile that some people are just born with, you know, better access to that humanity. because like what you're saying it wasn't really modeled you know like yeah you're on a boat and everyone

but like you could say that about like veterans who are in war like they would literally die for one another you know and then they leave and everyone and we all know that like suicide and mental health issues are rampant in that community so you know I don't there's

no answer here I mean I think building community is incredibly important but I just constantly wonder like why, like, you know, you're so committed to helping others, you know, and you're all about, like, lifting people up, you know, like, we just need more voices like that. And I just feel like in this world today, it's, it can feel like we're headed the other way. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I think it's, I think that to me is, like, really why I wanted to write my book, you know, Rise, Recovery, Thrive about the Phoenix and, and my own story was

I sit in our office in Boston and I look down on our gym it's like a 12,000 square foot This is HQ Like climbing gym CrossFit floor Yoga studio meeting space Coffee bar where we crush some coffee bar

And is that all free? That's all free Wow Yep if you're 48 hours sober You know come on in And I see firefighters That are in the Cadet Academy Training down there

We have a partnership The stigma is shifting for them because the kid who welcomed them in had his life saved by Narcan by somebody on the street, a first responder, right? And they're seeing that recovery is possible. You have open gym with the guys from the sober living or the, you know, transitional program, you know, coming home from the criminal legal system. And they're all in there together, right?

From the nicest neighborhoods in Boston to a shopping cart outside with all their worldly possessions. And we got ankle monitors and we got guys with broken noses and we have people, high-fiving and fist bumping and sharing a kettlebell to get their 150 kettlebell swings in and whatever it is it's like they're fist bumping they're lifting each other up and what i think happens when you create this container of safety with the ethos of like you know we leave all the other stuff that divides us outside and in here we are one phoenix i think people actually get to take a breath and relax and they don't have to have that anxiety they don't have to worry about how they show up they just show up as them and and by doing so allows the other person to do the same

thing and I think telling that story to the world now is crucial or else we will start to believe it is only what we see by the loudest voices that speak most often and the truth is there's most people are sitting around talking about how they're worried about what they see today most people sitting around I believe would connect with what we're building yeah can you go back to you like the hang in the first shingle I mean the origin story I'm I'm fascinated by you know you always see Apple like whoever it was in the garage like making the first computer you know I'm very curious to hear um well I definitely like the smile does it for me you know like yeah I mean I we faked it till we made it you know because like i would i would i wrapped my truck in like

phoenix stuff you know and i would drive around boulder and i'd put up on cork boards that was that's how long ago it was right like in cork boards like a flyer with like tear away information that there's free climbing for sober people on a friday night and at the boulder rock club and there's a bike ride on Saturday and I'd show up in my brand new Phoenix cycling kit, you know, with my truck with my bikes on top because we brought, I had like rental bikes in case you didn't have one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember one day a dude came over and he's like, man, Phoenix, what's this? I see it everywhere. I was like, it was just me, you know, going everywhere, trying to get it going. And one dude, is, is anybody else going to come? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, man, just give it a little time,

you know. And the only reason he showed up is I, heard him sharing about like how resentful he was having to ride his bike because he lost his license with a DUI. And I was like, oh, you're a cyclist? He's like, I wouldn't say that, man, you know? But, um, but that's how it started. And then all of a sudden, you know, a handful of people showed up. And, uh, when we really started to turn on volunteers is when we hit that hockey stick. Because anybody that had something meaningful they wanted to share could start Phoenix. And we had people from all over the country reaching out. So when, when, how long ago was that?

That's really been in the last five years. Okay. So I'd say the first 10 years, we held it really tight because we didn't want to lose what was special about it. Um, but we didn't know what we had to hold tight and what we could let go of a little bit in the culture. And we always wanted it to be, you know, physically and emotionally safe, supportive and inclusive. And then, um, we started realizing that like, we distilled this down to an, ethos that almost every phoenix member can tell you what it stands for um and that allowed us to let other people carry it forward because even if we weren't there they could tell you that phoenix was

supposed to lift you up and not pull you down and that's the lens they'd make decisions with because when we show up at phoenix the first time we may not be in a really healthy place you know and it's the ethos isn't about kicking people out it's about it's a handrail is to say like hey man you know you don't have to fight a guy over a barbell we have 32 of them you know maybe where you came from on the yard there was just one but it's different here you know grab your own by the way that guy's here to lift weights with you so why don't you guys get after it you know and two years later those dudes are lifting weights together you know so it's like that's kind of how phoenix works is there uh this is just my mind asking a random question is there do you do any of your athletes

end up competing like cross-fitting like do you do you have any kind of like upper echelon folks that come in and really find that they're awesome runners or oh yeah we we do and you know it's not the goal right but it definitely happens like we had two folks that were a really great cyclist before they came to phoenix um getting sober and then riding together they both ended up turning pro as mountain bikers wow they raced a 24 hour race together as a duo team and podium, you know? So it's like we're also, what you talked about earlier, we're modeling that recovery can be like badass and fun in addition to creating a space for people to come together and support each other. So, I mean, what do you, if you could distill

it down, like what is the secret or the code, you know, to building community that, you know, lasts and also has like these healing properties um i would say the you got to be clear on vision talk about vision all the time you know for me it's like we want to we want to transform the way the country is approaching addiction and mental health and because i think the way we're doing it now is often like a top down like control approach like treating people as a problem to be managed instead of thinking about people everybody having intrinsic strength in them and if you can just give that strength a little oxygen it's going to catch fire so you just got to share that all the time and the folks that share that vision you just empower them to help carry it forward so you got to you got to be clear on the vision but you also be able to let go on some stuff so people that are talented that want to carry this even further than i can can go run with it you know what's the biggest hurdle um i'd say the biggest hurdle is um is the attention probably of the philanthropic community to try to stimulate innovation you know like what we see a lot

is people fund the foundational programs in their community which is great because we need that we need that shelter we need this program that's been around forever we need those things things but in the private sector capital stimulates innovation right like you can go get you know your venture capital dollars to start your tech company but to get venture capital dollars the equivalent in the private and the nonprofit sector to innovate technology in the addiction and mental health space is harder to do so i think the philanthropic community needs to think differently the same way they do in their day job they can bring that same thinking to their philanthropy and try to stimulate that i also think us as leaders in the space have to be okay with

what we built changing into something better sometimes we try to keep it so much the way it is that you know if i didn't let phoenix change at all we would just be riding bikes and lifting weights and doing crossfit together now we have music now we have art now we have dance we have All these things. New form. Yeah, we have this technology platform where there's a hundred other nonprofits on there. And they're bringing all sorts of different services that we don't even offer. But we're open to innovation and change. So I think that's the mindset we need to bring to this space. Isn't that like the anti-founder slash CEO where you're like willing to, you know, take hands off? And, I mean, that just seems right, but counterintuitive, Zach, do you want to speak to that?

I'm learning. I'm learning from Scott today. Everything is, timing is hilarious. No, I mean, I can answer the question. I mean, like, I'm an open book. Like, I, you know, I, I, I, I, with release, I, I'm always trying to answer that question of like, how do you, how do I carry cold but continue to improve and some of the processes and policies and procedures and things that are going to make us better don't always feel, feel great because it feels bureaucratic

and it feels like it's going to kind of like prevent us from helping the next person. And so I, I appreciate that. You know, I also, in terms of what you're talking about with capital and money, I mean, I heard something the other day that I think, you know, nonprofits or like the GDP or whatever is like 3% of all the money, you know, and of that three. percent behavioral health care gets two percent of that money so there's like it's it's hard i mean like because folks don't get our work yet yeah yeah i mean i mean i think i think that is that tension around like i always think of like so i will say what set my risk profile in business and leadership

is the severity of the issue we work around. So if we have a chance to go and it could save lives, we go. If we have to figure out the standard operating procedures and the ops stuff that supports that, and that's lagging behind, we're still going to go. So that risk profile is so important. I think that the thing is when you really know that somebody's aligned with you, give them the space to start innovating it too

because it can become something so much bigger an example of that is we had a guy who was a musician he stopped playing when he got sober because he thought he couldn't be creative anymore and then some other musicians inspired him to get back to music and we had never done music stuff well now we do tons of music stuff

we do sober sections at festivals we did a whole sober concert in Vermont just a couple weeks ago volunteers volunteers and we get grants and we get funding to kind of you know are you getting like the the logo and the merch like how are you getting that all there i mean it's got to be a logistical nightmare that's that's the stuff yeah a lot of that's what we do through the grant funding so it's um but the cool thing is now you have folks that can go drink some killer mocktails at music festivals they can mob up in a sober section they can find us on the new form app you know

so we're empowering people back to music that actually would never have happened if we didn't listen to a couple people inside of Phoenix that love music and wanted to bring it to our programming. You know, so it's like you got to, you got to think of your organization being as smart as all of the people that are involved that are vision and value aligned. The people that aren't vision and value aligned have got to go because they can take you off course really fast, especially skilled people who aren't vision and value aligned. Do you, what's the number one, what's your greatest event? Like, what is the, what is your favorite day in the, in the history of the Phoenix? Like, what is the greatest event you've seen you guys do? Or like, proud dad moment.

I think the, this is actually not a massive thing, but one of my, one of my, like, favorite stories, Phoenix stories is I, you know, it's a lot of work to run Phoenix. and to grow it and to raise the money for it and now trying to be a dad and you know have a family and all this other stuff and and i was in colorado i was there for some fundraising stuff there was a phoenix ride so i went on it you know i used to race iron man now i'm like just trying to survive this ride in the back you know because i never get to exercise anymore and and i look at the top of this hill the rest of the ride was like up the road they had dropped me you know, and there's a volunteer standing on the side of the road at the top of this hill. And I get up there, and he's like, yo, man, you need some water or a gel.

And I was like, dude, I would love a gel. And I, like, you know, hit some caffeine in this gel. And I was like, thank you so much, man. Just the fact you're waiting for me means so much to me. He's like, yeah, and my volunteer training, I learned that I should carry some extra snacks in case people get hungry and, you know, that we don't drop anyone. We never drop anyone. and so that dude phoenix me you know like and he didn't even know who i was i'm just a dude who's

a little out of shape on a bike ride and it's like that's the magic of it right like he's he's never going to drop me and i never drop him and that's what it's about is is there like a big and this speaks to maybe you know the misunderstanding or misinformation about you know substance use and recovery but is there a barrier when you're going to try to raise, you know, funds to making people understand that, like, this is a life-saving venture here, you know, because it's not like you're putting people in treatment or, you know, like you're creating events for people to thrive in recovery. So do you have a hard time making people understand, you know, the significance of what you're doing? Yeah, I mean,

that's a great question because you do have to find more entrepreneurial philanthropists, right? Because they, they built their own. companies they think in a creative way they hear they see that that a lot of the institutional structures that exist aren't working that well in addressing this and that we need innovative you know creative um sort of ideas and options and those are the people that are phoenix funders can you break down just in very simple the next question we will get is okay how do i find the phoenix how do i get to an event how do i you know i assume the way that I'm visualizing it, because I've only kind of seen it here in New York,

is that there's chapters or kind of pods all throughout the country, and those are located on the wet. Can you just break it down? If I'm 48 hours sober, which I am proudly, you know, how do I, how do I find you? Yeah. So we, you just go to the phoenix.org or you go to newform.org. Essentially, we built a digital app during the pandemic. We started live streaming and had, demand content, you know, and then we, when we came back in person, you could geolocate the Phoenix events near you on our app. And we started realizing not everybody needs a run today, maybe today they need some group work around some trauma stuff.

So what nonprofits are doing that? Can we get them onto our app? And then after we got about 30 or so organizations on our app, we rebranded it as new form. And the idea is a new form of digital community, a place where like every tap and swipe moves you closer to actually putting your phone down and being with people and a place where you're lifting each other up and if it's something phoenix can't help with maybe you guys could help folks and we could plug them into you and they could find you on new form but you lead your run too right like that could be on the app same thing for she recovers or for ben's friends which does recovery

meetups for folks in the food service industry so we started bringing on groups like seek healing which help people overcoming trauma. And the bulk of these organizations have free activities. So I would just say, you know, download new form, open it up. And if there's not something near you, you can be the person that starts Phoenix and we'll help you do it. Are you, like, are you confident that most people were able to find something somewhat close to them?

Has it gotten to that point? It's, it's getting there, you know. And a good friend of mine who's also our board chair, Josh, he, he always screenshots when there's no Phoenix things around him and he's traveling for work. He's like, yo, man, what's happening in Atlanta? We've got to get more stuff down here. But the beauty of it is you can actually, you can grow it that way. When you find a spot where there isn't a lot, you just say, who knows somebody down there? You know, isn't your buddy a runner and he lives down there too?

Would he start Phoenix? And all of a sudden, you know, you just start having a couple events sprinkled in. so some places like boston or denver new york and other places soon to be philly we just got a building down there Oh, no shit. So we're going to open a brick and mortar, but we'll have a ton of events. Other places, it might just be one workout on a Sunday in a little CrossFit gym somewhere where the coaches are, you have like brick and mortar, Denver, Boston, Philly now, and New York. Yeah, well, we don't have one in New York brick and mortar, but we will someday, I hope.

And then we have a couple small spots like Las Vegas. We have one and then Wichita, we have one out there. Why, Wichita? We just had a philanthropist there who really wanted a Phoenix there. and so we got them up and they crush if you're ever in wichita Phoenix wichita is awesome wow by the way and so you sit in Boston and you watch these people kind of come through are you getting 50 people a day getting 10 is there a couple hundred like what it what are the number I'm just curious yeah so we we're we're serving

probably to 20 to 30 thousand people a week in Phoenix so you know that breaks down our brick and mortar sites serve about double what a community does without a brick and mortar but um but still impressive numbers even in places where we don't have a building like thousands of people annually in those places and are you on the whole i don't know why this is a random thought and i know sarah's got something for us but are you on the whole cold plunge sauna well like are you in that whole thing are you are you are you out on that what's i would love the time to be on that on that train but i i just uh don't have it right now but it's like i'm talking about for the phoenix though would you oh for the

Phoenix. Would you incorporate that into or? Oh, yeah. The Phoenix does that for sure. Yeah. We actually did, we did a cool thing recently where a group of philanthropists came together, came for a Phoenix workout, and then we led him through a cold plunge. And the guy who led it is like a ninja at cold plunging. He's like, he's like, you're okay, man. You're going to get through this. He's like whispering in the person's ear and they're like, okay, okay. But, you know, it's, that's what it is. You come, you do something that's a little scary you push through it we we went through the greater adversity together of that activity we're bonded so when i'm had a tough recovery day i can call you guys up

and you're there for yeah have you gotten so like i mean i'm a little blown away you know just in thinking about like what you've built but and it and you're saying that it's really the benevolence and you know social concern of these philanthropists which allows this to you know continue yeah have you ever had like the pressure or have struggled yourself like now's the time to monetize like now we have to start you know making for ourselves oh yeah all the time i mean all the time your people are like why don't you just charge a few bucks for people to come or and i just think we'd lose something because like no matter how far you go in your addiction because it's intrinsic for you i think we all have

this pride. And when you have a scholarship for something, we used to scholarship some of our more expensive trips like Moab, where you actually have to pay for some lodging or travel. And we all go to Moab, Utah. And people wouldn't take the scholarship. They say, I want to wait until next year when I can actually pay for it, you know, because they're rebuilding their life and their recovery, you know? So it's like, I just want to keep it free. And the people who can pay will pay a little something or make a donation. That's great. Or even better, become a volunteer and you give back that way. Yeah, I mean, I was talking to a buddy the other week who's got a platform some stuff that's kind of growing and his whole, the way he started was to make it free. And

he's debating whether he's going to kind of start charging. And I worry for him because even if it's five bucks, you know, people that might turn people away. And if you're building community and it started office free it's it's hard to kudos you i mean like it's it's amazing to hear the story and you're definitely out there i mean i've seen the logo at marathons i've seen you know like it's it's and it's and that's for me like with release like i'll i'll be in the airport and randomly see someone with one of our shirts and it's just like okay you know like it's kind of happening it's kind of happening and there's a purity yeah like a yeah you know like were you thinking or conscious of 12 steps when you were doing building this yeah yeah i mean of course because

it's like you see how, you know, a couple people in recovery or seeking recovery with a big book can start a meeting. Yeah. You know, like can we have the threshold to start Phoenix be that low? I think at some point as it gets more complex, you have to have certain safety elements kind of built in because we don't all show up in a healthy spot, you know? So we make it, I love this saying, like make it as complicated as it needs to be and no more. So keep it as simple as you can. yeah yeah something that I heard the other day it's like do just keep doing the boring thing over and over and over again and you're going to get you're going to get the results pass me the book

yeah so rise recover so you wrote this book how I got strong got sober and built a movement of hope have you started to get some feedback or people reading it what's tell us about it yeah yeah they are and it's um pretty cool man it's you yeah I know it's crazy it's writing a book's wild because you're like, you know, you're used to talking about this stuff in therapy and then you're talking about it to a publisher. And they're like, wait, so how old were you when that happened or was that the summer of whatever? They're more about the details of the timeline than the exchange you have with your dad, you know? But I think what's really special in there is the Phoenix members, you know, the people that a lot of folks had given up on and, and

And now they're the ones holding up a beacon of hope for everybody else. Like there's one story in there about Tiffany and Tiffany was out on Mass and Cass, which is like the open drug market area in Boston. And now she's helped over 5,000 people change their lives, you know, by empowering Phoenix volunteers. So she's a staff member now in Leeds Phoenix in our New England area and into prisons too. How far is your Boston location from that open-air drug market? like a block and a half oh no sure okay yeah so right where we need to be yeah and um but like dina

who's in there too dina's out the front door every day calling people in as they go by you know they're heading over to score somewhere and she's like yo you should be in here instead come check it out you know they don't have 48 hours but she's walking them through and giving them a cold bottle of water and saying when you're ready we're here for you and this this front door is free so come on in that's awesome sir what do you got I just think I'm listening to the concept of the program. I just think it's also really great for new moms and, you know, young families to just feel connected because there's so many. Sarah, the producer is chiming in here talking about feeling, connecting for young moms.

Young moms, yeah, because they think, you know, there's a lot of this, like, mommy wine culture and stuff where, like, you know, people will get together with their kids and they'll drink, drink, drink. And so I'm curious, have you seen, like, a lot of, like, family. like are there family events too or is it just kind of 18 older what's the question is have you seen a lot of families 18 and years are older you know right sarah yeah thanks for yeah i just want to make sure our people hear this sarah yeah so we we do get asked about like does phoenix do youth programming or programming for families um and most of our stuff almost all of it is 18 and up And the challenge is we would need to build like a separate track and, you know, because we would have to have separate spaces about, you know, 70% of our folks have some former involvement with

the criminal legal system. And, you know, it's just we would need to build it as a separate track. But that being said, it's like one of my dreams is to find the philanthropist who wants to fuel that because the infrastructure is there to stand it up overnight. And we could, we could reach so many people that way and you know my wife and i talk about it too because you know we're both in recovery too yeah yeah and and and being sober parents you know she wishes there are more spaces where we could go with our kids and connect in that the kind of environment and so it's already got me thinking in the back of my mind of how that how that shows up at phoenix so yeah you just need numbers i mean that's the thing i mean and kudos to you i'm sure you threw events where nobody showed up

I'm sure there's so events where people, one, two, three people show up and you got to keep one foot in front of the other because eventually it's going to catch on. I know. I do joke with volunteers and staff sometimes. I'm like, careful what you wish for, man, because it may just be you and your climbing harness standing here waiting for somebody to show up, but it's going to get busy.

Yeah. Because once people hear about it, they're like, wait, it's totally free. Right. And I can just bring whoever I want with me too. And I'm like, as long as they're 48 hours sober, what I love about that, too, is somebody brings their mom or their dad. All of a sudden, dad's now thinking about his own drinking because he's like, wait, 48 hours, that's nothing.

Then all of a sudden he's like, actually, that is kind of something, you know? And it just raises people awareness so much so that we have people that volunteer because they're an ally and a supporter that end up stopping drinking themselves because they realize their relationship when they hear so many stories from Phoenix member. with substances is maybe not what it should be. Thanks for coming, man. I mean, it's an amazing thing that you've built, and it sounds like you're not stopping any time soon.

So we'll be looking for the Phoenix. Anything we left out, anything you want to plug, anything that we didn't get to that's important to you? No, I would just say that keep lifting up these stories. I hope for people and community. You know, I love your podcast, and I listen to it all the time. Oh, thank you.

I think that if we keep putting this out in the world, more people will be drawn to this than instead of doom scrolling, we'll start hope scrolling. Yeah, I love that hope scrolling. Maybe that's how I need to reframe it. Hope scrolling. And you can find new forms. There is hope, though.

Like, the truth is, there is hope on social media. Like, there is good on social media. That's the other thing. We get so far down this hole of, like, everything sucks, and it doesn't all suck. Like, I've had great thoughts and ideas and revelations from the cheesy quote I read from someone at 10 p.m. on a Thursday night. And the more cheesy quotes you read, the more you're going to get.

So it just keeps, like, gone up from there, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, algorithm. Yeah. Where can you find the Newform app? Yeah, just jump in the app store or Google Play Store and you can find it or just go to Newform.org or go to the phoenix.org and just come out to something. And if you have a unique gift, you want to share, if you want to do a book club or art night or whatever, you can become a volunteer and start Phoenix in your

community or help it grow if it's already there awesome yeah i would just say the more the what i heard today is that it's an inclusive community that you can show up to and feel a part of and uh for the people listening you know i know oftentimes folks listen for people they love i mean it's like someone slid a pamphlet you know to me at one point in my life about a a which which was helpful um i would much rather that been a phoenix pamphlet i think i would have been a little bit more willing so you know there's a lot of good here and scott i just appreciate your time and everything that you do man yeah well thank you guys thanks for having me yeah thank you