Latest / Recovering Out Loud / From Cocaine Psychosis to Cooking on Live TV : Chef Devan

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From Cocaine Psychosis to Cooking on Live TV : Chef Devan · Recovering Out Loud

0:00
It's like getting sober is one thing, but then learning how to
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manage feelings and emotions and live a healthy life is another
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thing. And I'll share something big
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with you right now, man. It's like I'm I'm, I'm about 4
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1/2 years clean and I just started doing therapy again
0:14
earlier this year and it's uncovered so much shit for the
0:19
past few years. Like I thought because I wasn't
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picking up drugs and alcohol that I pretty much had my shit
0:24
together. There's not much you could tell
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me, but yo, there was some like heavy buried shit down there,
0:29
like resentment towards certain people, some things that
0:32
definitely needed to be uncovered.
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So like abstaining from altering my state of consciousness is one
0:37
thing, but learning how to live a good life clean and sober,
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that's a whole other. That's a whole other thing bro.
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But it's way better than living in that shit.
0:45
Hi there, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud
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Podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and
0:52
addiction. I'm so glad you're here.
0:54
If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or
0:57
alcohol, please reach out for help.
1:00
Send me a message on all social media platforms at Recovering
1:04
Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at recoveringoutloudpod@gmail.com.
1:10
You are no longer alone. How'd you get filming this and.
1:30
What do you mean? How'd you get it like?
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Into this. Yeah, it's fascinating.
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Yeah. Caught my attention.
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I found it organically. Yeah, it's funny how that that
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happens. Hey, the God, the universe,
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higher power kind of puts people in your life and you can choose
1:44
to pick it up or you can choose to just it's just a coincidence,
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right? I was in rehab this third time
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and there was a counsellor in there that was talking about his
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podcast. And I've always loved
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podcasting. It's helped me through some of
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my darkest times and I've, I learn a lot from podcasting.
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And I was like, hmm, that guy can do it.
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Why not me, right? Like I like talking, I like
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listening, I like interviewing people like conversations.
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And I was like, what can I talk about?
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Well, recovery, I can, you know, I've been doing this for 10
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years. I'm passionate about it and let
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me tell you bro, like it's everything I thought it would be
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and more. I've had some of the most
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amazing people come in here that I never would run into.
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Ever. Like yourself, right?
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Oh God bless you. And I just fucking like, I
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learned so much, right? And so the reason I started it
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essentially was to stay sober myself.
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I have to keep, I had to remind myself of that this morning
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because I'm doing a lot today. And it starts to become like,
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you know, this is a lot of work and I'm not getting the fucking
2:45
results that I think I want, right?
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I'm not getting this and that it's like, dude, why did you
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start this? You started it to not fucking
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relapse again. Because remember how horrible
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that was? I relapsed after eight years
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and, you know, started doing things that I never thought I
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would do, hanging out with people and never thought I would
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hang out with. And, you know, hopefully it
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helps one person, right? Those are the two kind of things
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I try to lift. The goal, I always tell myself,
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we don't grow in comfort zones, so when things get very
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uncomfortable and I can't handle it, I just kind of close my
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eyes. I try to reset and I'm like,
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it's going to make me stronger, It's going to make me tougher.
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But it's hard, man. It's easier said than done.
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I have a crazy workload with work.
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I have a problem. And if taking on too much, maybe
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it's the attic, attic brain where I just thrive in chaos and
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I need to keep it as stacked as possible.
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But also part of me, it could be ego.
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A part of me too is just like, if I'm not super busy, I'm not
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being productive and I'm wasting too much time and time's our
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most valuable asset and blah, blah, blah, you know, and my
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girlfriend is now helping me take a lot more time and I'm,
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I'm like, I'm scratching things off the calendar.
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Like I had a double production day this week.
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Thursday, Friday, I cancelled Friday, you know, because the
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week is just so crazy. There's so much happening.
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And then Sunday I leave town again.
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I'm always on the road so I'm learning to take more time for
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myself, which is important, but easier said than done.
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Absolutely. Can you describe to people what
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what you do and what what how you got into it not?
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Really, cause 'cause I don't know what I, what I do, but I
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get asked all the time, like what's your day-to-day like?
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Monday to Sunday is completely different.
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In some ways it's by design, in some ways it's not.
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And what I mean by that is essentially have a very dynamic
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workflow. So on Monday I could be, you
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know, shooting breakfast television.
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On Tuesday I'm sitting here with you, you know, And then on
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Wednesday I'm consulting, you know, and then on Thursday I'm
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popping up in Melbourne like, you know, it's, it's really,
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really random. Like for example, this week, I'm
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here with you. We have a, a big production day
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where I'll shoot organic content content this week and some brand
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partnership work. We have some brand partnership
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stuff for PC President's choice, McCain, McCain fries.
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They brought up some like Indian type fries.
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So I'm doing like this loaded. Anyways, you got to see the
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video. And then Sunday I'm, I'm, I'm on
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a work trip in Turkey, Istanbul, doing some fun stuff out there
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with some local chefs from Toronto.
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So every day is different. I love it dynamic.
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I don't want to be in a bricks and mortar seven days out of the
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week. Everyone keeps asking me to work
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a restaurant, but I would prefer they open it and they're there
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140 hours a week, you know, not me.
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So I love being on the road. We, you were talking about this
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earlier, about how much you're learning.
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I just want to learn. I just want to travel and keep
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learning. And I was talking about this a
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few days ago. Like I was in the kitchen in
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Jamaica not too long ago when we were supposed to do this.
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I got stuck there, but the greenest, youngest, most
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inexperienced person in the kitchen anywhere I go has
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something to offer. Me, I got goosebumps when you
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were saying that. Yeah, they have something to
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offer me. And I used to walk around the
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kitchen like 10 years ago, not asking any questions 'cause I
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didn't want anyone to think I had any gaps in my game.
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And now I ask questions. Nonsense.
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I don't care where I am, who's there.
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I could be talking in front of a group of kids and if someone
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does something I don't recognize or I'd like to know more about
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it, I will ask them the question.
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And and yeah, so very dynamic workflow.
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I just want to have lots of fun, inspire people to cook, serve my
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neighbor and and enjoy this life to the fullest.
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Yeah, I love that man. Humility, right?
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I can learn something in every single situation, every time,
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every single situation. And the minute I'm not open to
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it, first of all, like how many I can think about how many
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relationships I could have had with people that I wrote off
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because I'm better than you or I know more than you or you don't
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know shit. Like think about all those
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little micro interactions that you could have where you're just
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like. Or left the wrong impression
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with that being a Dick. You, you mentioned humility.
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My favorite quote in life is about humility.
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It's true. Humility is not thinking less of
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yourself, but it's thinking of yourself less.
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And it's my favorite thing. Prior to going to Renaissance in
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2015, I didn't know about humility.
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I didn't know about ego or ego deflation.
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And I learned all those principles when I was there.
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And although I didn't stay sober coming out of Renaissance in
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2015, those things were instilled in me.
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And we were talking a little bit before about when I was at art
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and all that stuff, and I was able to take some of those
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principles into my last treatment session fourish years
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ago. Now.
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Humility is a big one. Congrats man.
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God bless. What a miracle.
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Hey, for guys that I don't know about you, but couldn't put 4
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minutes together at some, some days of sobriety and then we'd
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come in and we'd put four years together.
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And I was a mess. I was a mess.
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And all my daily mission was to convince everybody that
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everything was good. Like I just it was constantly.
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A mask. So exhausting, right?
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It was it, it, you know, I was talking to this therapist about
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this and he's like, what happens when you wore the mask?
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I was like, I could be this different person on the outside,
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right? So like I would appear to you
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the way I would appear to you, the way that I want you to see
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me. And then he's like, what else
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does it do? And I was like, he's like, it's
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a two way thing, right? So like, I, I, I project this
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image of what I think I want on the outside, but he's like,
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nobody can see the real me because you can't see in.
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So it's a two way thing wearing the mask.
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And I never looked at it that way before.
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And it was like kind of a double whammy for me, you know?
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And I do my best to try to be like as genuine and authentic as
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possible now. And that leads me into being
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vulnerable. It leads me into being more
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direct and blunt. And it leads me into awkward
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situations, places that I was very afraid of before, but now
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not so much. Yeah, You can kind of just sit
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in it and be like you were mentioning before, it's like
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this is going to benefit me, I'm going to grow from this, right,
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Whatever this one. Passes like this, too.
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Shall pass. Like, it's not.
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It's like my mom's has his best. She's like, in five years, no
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one's going to care. Yeah.
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These little things that we worry about in in 50 years, does
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it matter? I mean, I mean, it's a little
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bit morbid. No, it's, it's true.
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It's a small thing. I saw a reel one time of a girl
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saying and this applied to me at the time because I saw I
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struggle with this body image thing.
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I've, you know, same. One of the reasons I got into
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steroids and relapsed the last time I talk about it a lot.
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But she said at your funeral, is anyone gonna remember how nice
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your, your butt was, right? Or how big your boobs were?
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And I was like, yes, like, I needed to hear that today,
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right? No one's gonna be talking about
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how fucking jacked you were at your funeral.
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Nobody, no, it's true. It's very, very true.
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Like and all the material stuff I saw this thing on on Instagram
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too. It's like all these things that
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you amass with, they don't get buried with you.
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You don't take them with you. You come into this world with
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nothing and you leave with nothing.
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So it's all, it's all growth, right?
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We're learning and we're getting older.
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So you train regularly? Yeah, I mean, not as much
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anymore. I've been walking every day with
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my wife. I find that that's liberating
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for me. Here's my problem with well, was
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my problem with working out. I had a very toxic relationship
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with it. So what that means, and I think
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a lot of guys can relate to this that I've talked to, if I didn't
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go to the gym five days a week and I missed that one day, I was
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a piece of shit, right? I was going to get fat.
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I was, I would beat myself up the entire day.
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And so I thought that that was productive because it fuelled me
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to go to the gym everyday. And I was like, you know, I got
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really big, right? Totally, really.
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So today when I don't go to the gym, I'm like, I should really
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start. It's a lot healthier of a
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relationship. And that's what matters to me
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today. Like am I?
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I got to go to bed with myself at the end of the night, right?
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Nobody else sees what's going on or not even my wife, right?
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I got to deal with that shit, that guy in my head that tells
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me you're going to get fat, you're not enough, you're not
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enough. It's it's usually not enough,
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right? That's usually what it is.
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So now I'm happy if I go for a walk everyday, I can enjoy it
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more. I'm with my wife and I'm not,
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you know, alone in my head judging guys at the gym, right?
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Like this guy's fucking staring at me.
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You know those conversations, if he came up to I would say this
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and I would say that I don't know, A lot of crazy shit goes
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on in my mind. You know, after, excuse me,
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after getting sober, I had to learn to relive life.
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And I'm listening to you and I'm relating to what you're saying
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because like when I got clean a few years ago, I was training
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seven days a week, like completely overtraining.
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Because if I missed that 7th day, the voice in my head was
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like, you know, you're not doing what you need to be doing.
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This is your escape. This is what you're, you're
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replacing drugs and alcohol with, blah, blah, blah, blah,
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blah, blah. And then now I'm at a point
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where I like, I took the last two days off.
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You know, I was up at the cottage, but I'm going to go ham
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later today. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Big push date today. But it's like getting sober is
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one thing, but then learning how to manage feelings and emotions
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and live a healthy life is another thing.
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And I'll share something big with you right now, man.
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It's like I'm, I'm, I'm about 4 1/2 years clean and I just
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started doing therapy again earlier this year and it's
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uncovered so much shit for the past few years.
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Like I thought because I wasn't picking up drugs and alcohol
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that I pretty much had my shit together.
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There's not much you could tell me.
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But yo, there was some like heavy buried shit down there
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like resentment towards certain people, just like still not
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treating women properly, you know, like I don't want to get
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into too much detail, but there was some some things that
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definitely needed to be uncovered.
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So like abstaining from altering my state of consciousness is one
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thing, but learning how to live a good life clean and sober,
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that's a whole other. That's a whole other thing bro.
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But it's way better than living in that shit.
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Yeah, yeah. And like this sort of unlearning
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of old behaviors, too. Oh, God.
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Discovered. What are these?
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I heard it once. Someone said, I think it was
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Chuck C, who's a member of a certain fellowship.
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And he always used to say recovery gives you the ability
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to uncover, discover and discard.
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Yeah, like you come in here and you're like, wow, I do this
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thing a lot. And for me, I can relate to, you
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know, this uncovering for me, it's the emotional abuse of
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other people. When you.
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So let's say I'm in a situation and you make me feel
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uncomfortable. Well, I'm going to be passive
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aggressive towards you. And I'm going to make sure that
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every single person hears it because I want to feel better
12:41
about myself. So I'm going to put you down.
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I'm going to make a sarcastic remark and I've done I'm I feel
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good. People are laughing at my jokes.
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You feel like shit and I feel better about myself.
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It's really mean. That's that's when I really had
12:54
to had to dig deep with this last time.
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I didn't realize I did it. I thought it was like, I'm just
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joking guys. I'm just.
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Joking, man, I've done the same thing.
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You know, getting laughs at other people's expense with my
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sarcastic BS. I did it a lot.
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That was, that was my classic behavior when I was under the
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influence class, very class clownish, you know, like jokes
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at the expense of other people. I, it doesn't make me feel good
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when I go back to those times and I gotta, I gotta, I gotta be
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better. Yeah, yeah.
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It never like fighting or or confrontation never ends up with
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me going home at the end of the day.
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Me like, that was great. You know, I feel good.
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I, I, I won. I never feel better, right?
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So you've you've come a long way.
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Yeah, I think so. There's still a lot of growing
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to do, right? But yeah, like I, I had a lot
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of, you know, I was, I was sharing actually yesterday at a
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meeting and I was talking about the principles of recovery, like
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the sort of honesty, hope, faith, perseverance, service,
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brotherly love that, you know, all these things that were
13:59
taught to practice in our, our daily lives.
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And when I went into rehab, those were all the, you know, at
14:04
a high level, those were the things that they were trying to
14:06
install home so I could take that tool belt and get it out
14:08
into the world. Every time I relapsed, I wasn't,
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I was not practicing one of those principles.
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And usually it was honesty. It was usually honesty.
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To your point, like, I'm OK, I'm good.
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I'm not going to tell you about what's going on back here that
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I'm, you know, taking steroids or I'm thinking about getting on
14:24
ADHD medication because I need to focus.
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I got it. I'm good, right?
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And that's every, like, I've relapsed every time because of
14:31
that, right? I had three major ones where
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they took me down for a long time.
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And so now it's like I got to be brutally honest about
14:40
everything, right? Everything, every little thought
14:42
that comes in my head that is like these sort of plans and
14:45
ideas. It all starts with a seemingly
14:47
insignificant thing like getting on TRT at the time is totally
14:52
insignificant, right? I didn't think anything of it.
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And I'm not saying that everybody that gets on TRT is
14:57
going to relapse, but for me, it led me to that.
15:00
Fuck it, you know, I'm doing this.
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Might as well take a little bit more.
15:03
Might as well buy Anavar and and all these other steroids, right,
15:07
That I'm looking into. And then I'm not telling
15:09
anybody. I'm not telling anybody.
15:10
Next thing I know, I have Adderall in my hand and I
15:12
started using that and I'm smoking meth, you know, in a
15:15
trap house somewhere. Four months later.
15:17
It was a bit of a. Gateway situation, I feel like
15:21
not knowing you very well. I mean, I think I reached out to
15:23
you because I saw, I saw we talked about Eric and stuff like
15:27
that, but I saw the content and I really, it really resonated
15:32
with me because obviously I follow a lot of accounts that
15:35
discuss sobriety and mental health and addiction, et cetera,
15:37
et cetera. But there was one there.
15:39
There was just something that seemed very raw.
15:41
I mean, one part of it is you've, you've worked with guys
15:43
and people that I know intimately, you know, throughout
15:45
the program, you know, not intimately, but very well, I
15:49
guess. But there was something very raw
15:52
and real about it. And you're also like citing very
15:54
specific things from your past in terms of character defects,
15:59
which like indicates to me that you've done a lot of work, man.
16:01
And like you know exactly what it is that you, you need to work
16:04
on. And you're also seem like me.
16:07
It's easy to lose it. Yeah, that's.
16:09
Just so true, you know. Just like that, yeah.
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All I have is. Today, right?
16:13
You know, I this recovery doesn't keep well, you know,
16:16
yesterday's recovery isn't gonna keep me sober today to remember
16:18
that. And you were, it's funny, when
16:19
you came in here, you're like, you know, I've took my foot off
16:22
the gas on the recovery thing for a bit and then it pops into
16:24
my life. And now I have a choice to
16:26
fucking go head on with it or just ignore it and say I'm fine
16:29
when it rains. It pours.
16:30
I was sponsoring a gentleman. He's a gentleman now.
16:34
I was sponsoring this kid a few years ago.
16:37
It's funny, he reached out to me online 'cause he saw me
16:39
celebrating Caravan in Toronto. I was at one of the Fets, one of
16:42
the parties, and people are just losing their mind.
16:45
All around me we're jumping up and down, there's flags in the
16:47
air, there's whistles, there's loud music, there's booze
16:50
everywhere. And he follows me.
16:51
I didn't know him and he's like, how are you remaining sober
16:54
through all this? It doesn't make sense to me.
16:57
And I mean, I was working a program really strongly at that
17:01
time. Those parties, which I still go
17:04
to every now and then, I'm not doing them very often.
17:07
I love the saying, you know, if you sit in a barber's chair long
17:10
enough, you will eventually get a haircut.
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So I live by that, right? So I pop into these things here
17:14
and there. And I'm also not there from like
17:16
11:00 AM to midnight. I'll go for a few hours.
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You know, as much as I think is enough because I love the
17:21
culture, I love the music. I'm Guyanese.
17:22
I'm Caribbean at the end of the day, so he saw me doing this and
17:25
and he's like, how is this possible?
17:26
Long story short, we started working together.
17:28
He lived about half an hour away.
17:29
I took him through the entire book.
17:31
I spent a lot of time with him, but he kept relapsing.
17:35
He kept relapsing, he kept relapsing and stuff like that.
17:38
He eventually found another Home group in the East End of the
17:41
city. He found another sponsor and I
17:43
think he had had enough And his, his, you know, his, I don't need
17:46
to get into details, but some personal stuff had had evolved
17:48
on his end with his marriage and stuff like that.
17:50
And, and guess what, a few months ago, he's like, Dev, I'm,
17:53
I'm approaching a year. Can you come speak at my one
17:56
year? And I was like, bro, this is so
17:58
fire. And, and like, like what we
18:00
talked about earlier. I hadn't done too much prior to
18:02
this, but I went and spoke as the guest speaker on Friday at
18:06
the a, a meeting and then I'm here with you.
18:08
And then tomorrow my buddy and I will do the life after alcohol.
18:12
We're starting a series to talk 'cause he's in Melbourne, other
18:15
end of the world, especially from a, from a time standpoint.
18:19
So yeah, we're, we're, we're doing that, that live stream
18:22
tomorrow. That's what's that Instagram.
18:24
It's on IG live at at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
18:27
But it's just interesting. I also feel like this is where I
18:32
needed to be, like this is this is a little bit of divine
18:35
intervention, higher power spirituality coming in here.
18:39
Maybe character defects were starting to creep back in.
18:41
Like it seems a little bit overwhelming at times.
18:45
Like I was talking to my girlfriend about some serious
18:47
stuff yesterday and I'm feeling a little bit beat down.
18:50
I'm feeling a little bit vulnerable.
18:52
I'm feeling like a little bit like slightly teary eyed and
18:56
like 10 year old boy bald fist. You know, I'm going through a
18:59
lot of stuff with with a very close family member right now
19:01
too, and it all seems like a lot.
19:04
But I also feel at the same time that we don't go in comfort
19:07
zones to my favorite saying one of the one of them.
19:09
And this is where I need to be and I need to feel my way
19:12
through all of this instead of suppressing you of it.
19:15
So, so yeah, to, to have all this like recovery, recovery,
19:18
recovery. Because man, it's exhausting
19:19
sharing your story. It is like to show your your
19:22
full story a few times, like over like in a week.
19:24
That takes a lot out of you. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not
19:27
superhuman by any means, but this is the whole story of my
19:32
life, trying to find balance. You know, it's tough.
19:34
So I'm just, I'm just grateful that this is what it is now
19:37
instead of me going AWOL for four days in a row.
19:40
Right. So I'll take this side.
19:41
Yeah, I agree. Can you get into a little bit
19:44
about like how maybe you know, backtrack a bit how you found
19:49
substances, what they did for you, and then how you found
19:54
recovery? I grew.
19:55
Up in Richmond Hill I grew up into a home yeah yeah baby and
20:01
Waldrick OK OK yeah so where about I was young in.
20:04
Elgin Mills, Bernard. Yeah.
20:05
Yeah, yeah, let's go. Yeah.
20:07
So I Tim Horton's right? There I was fishing for darts.
20:10
There my entire my childhood. So I grew up in Richmond Hill.
20:15
My parents were together. I I had an elder brother who was
20:18
amazing. His name was Jai five years my
20:20
senior. Any room Jai walked into
20:22
immediately he went to Saint Rob's and stuff.
20:24
I went to Saint Rob's like, you know, Beverly Acres.
20:27
We spoke French and stuff like that.
20:28
And anywhere Jai walked into, he would be able to connect with
20:31
anybody and played guitar and and and you know, chief Boy
20:35
Scout, star hockey player, like just ears pierced, dyed hair in
20:39
a rock band, like just doing everything that, you know,
20:42
typical brown kid would not do at that time.
20:43
And I'm talking 80s nineties, right, So quite some years ago.
20:47
So I grew up in this type of environment.
20:49
My mom was the best, but I was definitely very disconnected to
20:52
my father and he was very much played the role of an enforcer
20:57
in the years that I can remember and just yelled a lot.
21:00
And my brother and I and, and, and very, what I see now is like
21:04
verbally abusive, but I don't want to paint my dad out to be a
21:07
bad person. You know, I want to be clear
21:10
that he provided us with, with everything that we needed.
21:13
And, and, and over the years. It's like practicing compassion
21:17
and empathy for like him coming from Guyana, him having to face
21:20
the challenges that he did. I'm a lot more compassionate to
21:23
him now. You know, his dad died when he
21:25
was young. These are all things that I
21:26
didn't know growing up or prior to treatment and, and, and, and
21:29
therapy. It was always just like you
21:31
didn't take me fishing, you know, you yelled at me for
21:33
leaving a drawer open kind of thing.
21:35
Instead of me being like he was just doing what was best for us.
21:39
So like man, most of like when I went to treatment bro, this last
21:42
time, my goal in treatment a few years ago was to go get clean,
21:45
but still find a way to resent my dad, which is sick to think
21:49
about now, but that's what I thought I could do.
21:51
Obviously that doesn't work. So anyways, I got introduced to
21:56
substance at like, I think it was 12 or 13 years old,
22:00
marijuana. And from that first puff, I felt
22:04
weightless. And it was almost like you
22:07
placed a warm scarf around my neck or a blanket and it gave me
22:12
a hug. And it just gave me like a
22:14
community of guys to be with, the people to be with.
22:17
And it made me feel something other than the way that I felt
22:22
without it. And I found solace in that
22:25
place. So as the years went on, any
22:28
substance that I could ingest to alter my state of consciousness
22:31
became a happy place. And I found a lot of comfort in
22:34
that place. It made me less awkward in
22:36
social situations. It made me feel more than
22:40
because I felt less than before. And over the years in, in, in
22:44
therapy, I've learned that I was lacking love as a kid.
22:48
I was not getting it from where I thought I should have been
22:50
getting it. So I was just changing the way
22:54
that I felt to, to feel the love, missing love.
22:58
I do believe that we are biologically hardwired to
23:01
receive love from not one, but both of our parents, you know,
23:04
and, and yeah, so, so I just, I just used and used and used Fast
23:10
forward into the future, like maybe several years.
23:13
I'm 21 years old and I get a phone call from my mom.
23:16
She's like, you have to come home right away.
23:18
To give you some context, this is 2006, OK, 19 years ago.
23:22
She's like, you gotta and I'm 21 years old.
23:23
She's like, you gotta come home right away.
23:24
I get home, I find out that my brother died, you know, so my
23:28
brother died. Pretty gruesome man.
23:32
Suicide. We never got to the bottom of it
23:37
and I never got to say goodbye. And like I was already an
23:40
addict. I was already an extreme user of
23:43
whatever was in front of me prior to this happening.
23:45
Excuse me but this just gave me like free range to just go off
23:49
the deep end. My brother died.
23:51
You can't tell me shit. So my, my drug use and, and the
23:56
escaping and numbing just went absolutely crazy.
24:00
And that was my, I don't know if I want to call it get out of
24:02
jail free card, but that was just what I waved in people's
24:05
faces, right? Like, yo, my bro died.
24:06
Like don't tell me shit kind of thing.
24:09
And, and, and, and the drug use and the numbing and all that, it
24:12
just, it just, it just, it increased and increased.
24:14
And while this is happening, I'm, I'm becoming a chef, you
24:18
know, I'm, I'm AT, I'm on TV, I'm travelling, I'm doing all
24:21
these things throughout my 20s. But we were talking about this
24:23
before. My whole goal is to convince you
24:25
that everything's OK. So I just become a master
24:28
manipulator. This is something that since I
24:30
was a teenager, I'm just full of deceit.
24:33
I'm cunning, you know, and I'm just trying to convince you.
24:37
I make, I'm trying to convince you to to, to think what I want
24:39
you to think, you know, and I'm just an actor and I don't even
24:42
know who Devin is at the core of it.
24:45
I don't even know who that person is.
24:46
What are their morals, the their ethics, their principles?
24:49
You know, I don't even know what that what those words mean or
24:52
anything like that. In 2015, I end up going to
24:56
Renaissance where I learned about the program, I learned
25:00
about, I met Eric, you know, I learned, I saw people recover as
25:06
a result of doing the work of 12 Steps and that planted a seed in
25:09
my head. I came out, I was clean for 10
25:11
months, I relapsed and I was back out again for a bunch of
25:14
years. And then in 2021, I had just got
25:17
back from travelling for about a couple months during COVID and I
25:21
called Eric and I'm, I was just like, man, at this point I'd
25:24
already driven myself to the hospital a couple times, you
25:27
know, with chest pain and like, I was just, I was dying.
25:30
I was actually dying. I couldn't stand up straight, I
25:33
couldn't clench my fists. I was putting on a lot of weight
25:37
from the binge eating, binge drinking, like I was just
25:40
unhealthy. My knees were swollen, you know,
25:43
I wouldn't eat for three days, you know, then just eat junk
25:46
food and stuff like that. And I was dying.
25:49
I was dying. I remember driving myself to the
25:51
hospital once, bro, where it's like the, the chest pains were
25:54
so bad that I thought I was going to like heal over and
25:57
crash into something. And I'm walking in like crunched
26:00
cause any sharp movement or any quick movement I felt would just
26:04
slice through my heart. That was the pain that I was
26:06
getting. And I was just like, bro, like
26:08
you have so much potential. You have, you're so talented at
26:11
certain things when you apply yourself like this can't be your
26:13
legacy, man. This can't be your life.
26:16
And I called Eric and he's like, let's get you tapped in.
26:18
And I got a good sponsor and I just like, I gave it 105%, bro.
26:24
And that was, I've been clean since May 2021.
26:28
So that's like a kind of a quick run through of, of what it was
26:31
like. Yeah, man.
26:33
I'm sure you can relate to some of that stuff 100% man.
26:37
I'm just I'm so curious like what was it like?
26:40
You know this term Functional alcohol like gets thrown around
26:43
a lot bro. Like what was it?
26:44
Like and potential. I love that word.
26:46
That word used to fucking kill me because I talk to so many
26:50
people now with, with my job and trying to get them into
26:52
treatment. And you know, you know, my
26:54
husband's a functional alcoholic and it's not that bad yet or I'm
26:58
a functional alcoholic and I'm, but I'm going to work and I'm
27:01
showing up and I'm doing all these things.
27:02
And what was it like, you know, trying to be live to your
27:06
potential and not being able to? My output was mental my and I
27:11
was just telling someone this in the car the other day because we
27:14
were talking something about like, why didn't anybody talk to
27:17
you Or like, why didn't like, why weren't people more like if
27:20
they were your friend? So, oh, someone asked me, your
27:22
friends from back in the day that you used to use a lot with,
27:25
are you still close with them now?
27:26
And I'm like, you know, this, this my friend Donovan said it
27:29
once. He's like, I love them from a
27:30
distance and that's what I do. I love them from a distance,
27:33
right? But I couldn't blame any of
27:36
them, bro, because it's like I was on billboards, you know, in
27:40
those years in Toronto, like I was the, we, we would be after
27:43
party. You turn on the TV, I'm cooking
27:44
on TV, and it's like, what were they supposed to tell me because
27:47
my output was so high? But that was all part of the
27:50
charade, bro. It was all part of the charade
27:53
that it's like I worked so hard to build this image of someone
27:57
who had their shit together that like you would question me less
28:01
about how effed up everything was right?
28:04
And that you would look past all this like guilt and shame and
28:07
like self seeking behavior and egotistical behavior that was in
28:10
me. But to your question, like, what
28:13
was it like knowing I had the potential, not living up to it?
28:16
Man, it was really like it was really unfulfilling.
28:21
At the same time, I was like, you know, I lost my brother and,
28:23
and, and, and I should have been valuing my life and like pulling
28:27
it to my parents to live my best life possible.
28:30
And I was just kind of throwing the dice every day with my life.
28:33
And man, it was just like a very lonely, dark place.
28:36
I don't ever want to go there, man.
28:37
It was a really, it was a really lonely place for sure.
28:41
That's interesting that yeah, because, you know, my wife and I
28:44
were actually talking about this the other day.
28:46
An alcoholic or an addict with like sort of, I don't want to
28:50
say no limits on finances, but when you have the finances
28:55
coming in and your work is good, it is so hard to get sober
28:59
because why would you like things are OK, You know what I
29:02
mean? Even though I'm dying inside so.
29:05
That's part of my story in, in 20 in 2019 I'm cooking in India,
29:16
2020 I'm cooking in Turks and Caicos for a month.
29:19
Pakistan, I'm travelling for four months cooking all over the
29:21
world. And I fly back March 15th, 2020
29:26
because my mom, I flew from Borough Market in London.
29:27
I'm doing I'm cooking there in in UK.
29:29
I was like, get your ass home. They're closing the borders.
29:31
So I came home because I was going to be gone for another
29:34
month or two. I come back with probably what
29:36
was COVID and food poisoning and I came out five days later at my
29:39
parents house, March March 20th, 2020.
29:42
And I put out the first what was the Chef Dev at home series.
29:45
All my posts started going viral.
29:46
I started to build a massive following utilizing pantry
29:49
staples at home. Whether I'm grading $50.00 worth
29:52
of black truffle on KD or I'm remixing the Shin Ramya noodles
29:55
downstairs with all kinds of veg and cracking eggs on top, that's
29:57
what I'm doing. I'm in the papers, I'm here, I'm
29:59
everywhere. Brands start knocking at my
30:02
door. So bro, I come from a place of
30:03
like working 3-4 days to make a certain amount of money, you
30:07
know? Whereas now I'm doing a one hour
30:10
live stream and getting paid double for 45 minutes to like 2
30:14
hours work. So just as you're talking, bro,
30:17
I was making more money than I'd ever made at the beginning of
30:20
COVID because of all the brand partnership deals that started
30:23
coming through. And what happens?
30:25
I'm moving to a place downtown. I'm living in this place at
30:28
Queen and Gladstone. I'm paying an ridiculous amount
30:31
of money for the first floor of an entire home by myself.
30:34
So dumb, bro, you know? And what am I doing?
30:37
I'm just hosting parties every day, every day, every day.
30:40
And then what happens? And further to your point, I
30:43
have budget for whatever I want. I've never had money like this
30:45
before. And what happens the, the youth
30:48
starts to become more and more, I start isolating more and I
30:51
start going further and further deep down into that hole.
30:54
And it was actually, that's what led me to my bottom.
30:56
You know, it was, it was less than a year later that I called
31:00
Eric and I got got into art. So, yeah, I can fully relate to
31:03
the, to the money part of it because before you're scrounging
31:06
for money, like I was stealing money, I was trying to, to, to
31:09
support my addiction. But then it just started rolling
31:11
in and and yeah, I would have died.
31:14
I would have died, man. I had no limit.
31:18
Yeah, it's, it's, you know, 'cause my, one of my, my last
31:22
bottom, I went into rehab and I gave my wife probably, I would
31:27
say probably a week or two worth of drugs, right?
31:30
I had the drugs and I had never done that before, right?
31:32
I usually, I ran out of drugs and then ran out of money at the
31:35
same time and I had nowhere to go.
31:36
And I hit an emotional bottom with all three of those things
31:39
kind of lined up. But this last time, and I talk
31:42
about it a lot on your but I ran out of money.
31:45
I had nowhere to stay because my wife had kicked me out at the
31:47
results as at the advice of a very smart, educated therapist.
31:52
That was like, you're enabling him just by allowing him to
31:54
sleep in the bed, right? And I went on a four month
31:58
Bender and I can relate so much to.
32:01
Well, I got to stay at the Ritz because I can.
32:05
And I'm going to have people over that.
32:07
You know, I don't know any of these people in my house.
32:10
You know, my drug dealers, the only one that'll hang out with
32:12
me at that point, right. Because no one, when you, when
32:14
you stay sober for a long time, you build a a network of people
32:17
that know you as the sober guy. So when you invite them to come
32:21
party, they come once or twice and then they realize that
32:24
you're back. You know that it hasn't gotten
32:27
better. You haven't gotten a hold on
32:29
this addiction thing and you're still an addict.
32:31
And they and then I don't yeah, I'm enabling him just by hanging
32:34
out with him. I don't want to.
32:34
And plus, I'm not a fun guy to be around when I'm.
32:37
I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even invite those
32:39
people. Yeah.
32:40
Oh. Really.
32:40
No, not even. Anybody that would that would
32:44
question, question it like it's interesting, like when I would
32:47
get clean, like I had my cousins and I had a crew that I was
32:49
with, but I did not. I did not prioritize those
32:52
people when because they would call me on my bullshit.
32:55
Yeah, yeah. No, you're not coming.
32:56
I know who I can invite over. I know who won't judge me.
32:59
That's why I won over. The yes man, Yeah.
33:02
No negative, no negativity over here, you know.
33:06
I want enablers. Yeah, yeah.
33:08
And. It's true though, right?
33:10
Enable Bee, Yeah. It's.
33:11
True. And one of the hardest things I
33:13
try to get family members to to and I, I never tell anybody to
33:17
kick out their loved ones out of their house.
33:19
But it is such a hard, you know what if he dies?
33:23
Yeah, that is always a possibility.
33:25
You kick out your husband, you kick out your son and he dies.
33:29
What if they die in your house, right?
33:30
I had a a lady in here that was a a therapist for teenagers,
33:34
right? And family.
33:36
And she said that to me. And I was like, yeah, that's
33:37
that's a great point. You know, what if they die in
33:39
your house? But these are these are things
33:42
enabling to me is, and this is, I didn't make this up, but
33:45
whenever. So it's shielding somebody from
33:47
the natural consequences of their addiction, right?
33:51
So if I'm running out of money and someone gives me money for a
33:54
haircut, you just supported my haircut.
33:57
Now I have money to buy drugs. You know what I mean?
33:59
Like it doesn't seem like it. It's often LED with good
34:02
intentions, but it it always you're you're allowing me to be
34:06
comfortable in my in my using right?
34:08
And you're not allowing me to hit my bottom that I would have
34:10
hit without it right. So I had to, I had to go the
34:14
hard way and I had to rack up a bunch of debt and go and surf
34:17
hotels and the Bisha and all these guys.
34:19
I've never been. So I got to try them all out,
34:20
right? They suck, man.
34:22
There's nothing. You know what I mean?
34:23
Like, there are hotel rooms at the end of the day.
34:25
There are four walls with fancy furniture.
34:27
And I thought I was living. But at the end of the day, it's
34:30
your point. It's like, I want everyone to
34:31
see how good I'm doing and how how successful I am.
34:35
Yeah, All ego, right? I have to check that shit every
34:38
single day. My biggest problem was.
34:39
Ego, bro Yeah. Just just my whole life was the
34:41
Devon show, yeah. It's.
34:44
Hard to think about bro. That's hard to think about it
34:46
man. So you get.
34:47
Sober and you continue on. Let me ask you this.
34:52
What does what does success look like to you today?
34:57
It's a really good question. I think success to me today is
35:03
being able to sit in a room for like an hour with no
35:06
distractions. I think, I think if you asked me
35:10
that five years ago, I would have given you like a, a salary
35:13
figure or something like that. I think for me, success is to be
35:17
comfortable in my own skin and, and just be able to build and
35:23
support a family. You know, it's things that I
35:27
never thought before. It has it always had to do with
35:29
money before or being financially secure.
35:31
It has nothing to do with that. It's just to be able to live a
35:36
good life without the goosebumps, man.
35:38
Like just be comfortable in my own skin and like, not let me
35:40
handshake. I think like, this is success to
35:42
me, bro. Yeah, 'cause I used to be like
35:44
all over you just. Reminded me about that actually.
35:47
I remember there was a specific time.
35:49
And This is why I love doing this because, you know, it
35:51
brings up remember ones and yeah, because it was bad.
35:54
But you know, I, I'm a good forgetter at just how bad it was
35:57
sometimes, right? And I can remember, you know, my
36:00
dad loves watching F1 and I used to go there Sunday mornings in
36:06
addiction. And, you know, benzodiazepines
36:08
became a big part of my story because I would get way too
36:10
high. And again, to, to the point of
36:14
it always gets worse. Like I, I never touched that
36:17
shit in my life. And then now I'm like, anyways,
36:20
it's a progressive illness. That's my point, of course.
36:23
So I'm doing benzos and that's a dangerous thing because you mix
36:26
that with stimulants. The stimulants come down at the
36:28
end of the night and all the benzos you took that were kind
36:30
of levelling you out, they smack you right in the face, right
36:33
when the, when those stimulants wear off.
36:35
So I'd be driving and I would black out.
36:37
Yeah. I wouldn't remember, right.
36:39
And it would come out of nowhere.
36:40
And so I remember going to my, my parents' house and sitting
36:43
down watching my dad has ATV outside.
36:45
And I remember, you know, we were smoking cigars or
36:48
cigarettes at the time. And I just remember this, like,
36:51
shaking. And he, I remember him looking
36:53
at my hand and knowing that I wasn't OK, right?
36:57
Did he know before that that you weren't?
36:59
Yeah, they had some. Inclination because I would
37:03
subconsciously I would go there in a blackout.
37:06
I did once. Actually I went there in a
37:07
blackout one time. Now I see it as a cry for help.
37:11
At the time I was just like, I'm going to go to my parents house
37:14
and I'm in a good mood and you know what I mean?
37:16
But that was that was the point where I was like, help me.
37:20
You know what I mean with help, because I, I don't know about
37:22
you, but I fucking suck at asking for help.
37:25
I suck at it. I, I'm very, I want to know the
37:28
way to do it. I know the way to do it.
37:30
I'm OK, right? I'm better now.
37:32
I'm better now. Because I've dropped the ego.
37:34
But going back to what I was saying before about not wanting
37:36
to ask any questions in the kitchen, I don't want to show
37:39
any chinks in my armor or any gaps in my game.
37:41
I want it to be the know it all. So now I ask for help.
37:45
I think it's tied directly to humility and ego deflation for
37:48
sure. I ask all the questions now and
37:51
if I need help or admitting when you're wrong.
37:52
Like that's one thing that I'm really proud of is like,
37:55
especially with my girlfriend or someone else, it's like I was
37:57
wrong, you know, that was my mistake.
38:00
I think that's really, really important, that accountability.
38:05
But yo, when you're talking about your parents, it gives me
38:07
the chills too, man. Because bro, my whole life all I
38:10
wanted to do was hide this shit from my parents.
38:12
And my mom always knew. She would know three days after
38:16
she could see it in my eyes or my behaviour or my short
38:19
temperedness or like, yo, there my car, bro, was like, there was
38:24
so many Kleenexes in the door of my truck that like, you couldn't
38:28
get another one in there, bro. You know, I should have been
38:32
sponsored by Kleenex back then because I was plowing through
38:35
them. So she would borrow my car or
38:37
get in my car and she would see them like just bursting out of
38:40
there. And I felt like I was emptying
38:41
it three times a day, bro. But my mom, I was not stupid,
38:45
she knew and she's the person that I feel like I robbed the
38:49
most sleep of over the years. So that's I was showing this on
38:52
Friday actually. Like that's why she's my best
38:54
friend. That's why we travel so much
38:55
together. That's why we shoot content
38:56
together. That's why we spend so much time
38:58
together. It's because that I can't make
39:01
up for the time that I robbed, but you know, I can make the
39:04
most of the time that I have going forward with her, right?
39:06
So I really prioritize her. And I was just on the phone with
39:09
her this morning, you know, just chatting with her about some
39:11
stuff. So yeah, parents and my dad, my
39:15
dad's relationship, my relationship with my dad rather,
39:17
is also really in a good place. It's it's it's in my opinion,
39:20
it's in the best place it's ever been in 41 years.
39:23
And I'm 41 years old. So super grateful for that.
39:26
Yeah, I love it, man. I always get reminded of what I
39:30
need to hear. And yeah, that's one of them.
39:32
My, my, my mother and I used to go for walks a lot.
39:34
And there was a time when the only text messages I would get
39:39
from her in those four months were, hey, are you alive?
39:41
Like that Was that was, you know what I mean bro?
39:45
You know, the amount of calls I ignored, like I'm ignoring them
39:48
at 8:00 AM, at noon, at four, at 8, at 12, at 3:00.
39:53
And it's just like, it makes me feel sick.
39:55
And the whole time I'm seeing it ring, bro.
39:58
And I never answered, you know. That makes me sad, I think.
40:03
I think just to pivot a little bit, passion is an important
40:06
thing in recovery, right? To find some kind of passion,
40:10
something to stay close to, to, to.
40:11
How did you get into cooking and what is cooking?
40:14
What does it do for you? What?
40:15
What do you like about it? Yo, so like I'm so passionate
40:20
about cooking and food, man, Like and I hear it all the time
40:24
from people. I feel like they we were at the
40:26
cottage and, and the guys were talking about it there.
40:29
And I think it's because like I can't fake it and and I can't
40:34
hide it and anybody who looks at my command, I just love, I love
40:37
everything about food. I love the way that it makes me
40:39
feel. I love how it, it, it opens me
40:42
up to other cultures. I love how it's, it's something
40:45
that we have to do. You have to eat right, So you
40:47
might as well make it super exciting.
40:49
It's allowed me to travel the world and meet so many people
40:53
and learn so much about myself and others.
40:54
So I got into cooking as a kid. I just loved flavors.
40:59
I was always attracted to the sights and sounds and aromatics,
41:03
the scents coming from the kitchen pots clanging, you know,
41:06
like the flame clicking on smelling basil hit a tomato
41:10
sauce. I know you can relate to that.
41:11
You know, like all of that. And, and, and funny enough, I, I
41:14
grew up very close to my Uncle Joe and Auntie Maria and
41:17
Concord. They worked with my dad.
41:19
Uncle Joe worked with my dad. So we grew up with like
41:21
sopressata and like torone and like, you know, melons and
41:25
parmigiana. These are all things that I grew
41:26
up with, right? Carbonaras, etcetera, etcetera.
41:28
So I was very close to that culture growing up and in my
41:31
cookbook, in my, in my cookbook and in other content I do I, I
41:34
cite all these experiences I had as a kid cause sitting at Uncle
41:38
Joe and Auntie Maria's table influenced me a lot.
41:40
And in the opening intro of my cookbook, I talk about them.
41:43
So I was shaped by those types of experiences, shaped by trips
41:48
going to Guyana, shaped by sitting on the floor of my
41:50
grandmother's apartment grating coconuts for, for condiment
41:53
dishes and stuff like that. Really, really, really exciting
41:55
experiences and I was just always obsessed with food.
41:59
Still to this day, I'm going to go for lunch and I'm going to be
42:02
eating this bowl of pho on Ossington with my buddy and I'm
42:05
going to be thinking about what am I making for dinner and so on
42:08
and so forth. You know, I've always been that
42:11
way as I got into cooking because my dad was always
42:15
pushing me to go into business, law, engineering, medicine.
42:19
I used to think it was a brown thing, but the more I talk about
42:21
it, it's a world thing. You know, it's a world thing.
42:25
So I ended up going to culinary school at 24 and as I got into
42:28
culinary school, I never looked back when I went to culinary and
42:31
I started studying butchery and mother sauces and internal
42:34
temperatures of meats and, and then the, the, the why and the
42:37
culture of food as opposed to studying standard deviation and,
42:41
and accounting and economics and all the things that didn't
42:43
interest me. It was just like I had found my
42:44
passion and I never knew I could go to school and study something
42:48
that just was something that I would naturally go home and
42:50
study at night or throughout the day.
42:52
That never made sense to me. I never once felt the feeling of
42:55
being excited to wake up and go to school, you know, ever until
42:59
I went to culinary school. But a very important thing
43:02
happened earlier on in my life. I recognized the feeling food
43:08
had on people, the community, like bringing family together
43:13
around the table, like at Uncle Joe and Auntie Maria's where
43:16
they fed us until we had to be rolled out of their place.
43:19
When I was a kid, you know, it's just like courses kept coming,
43:22
salad, then there's bread, then there's just cheese, then the
43:24
pasta, then there's fruits. And it just, they just never
43:27
stopped. There was always way more food
43:29
on the table. And like those experiences,
43:31
there was a sense of togetherness and there was no
43:34
real drama. You know, like I've sat at
43:37
tables around the world with people who I didn't speak their
43:39
language and we have a whole conversation through body
43:41
language and smiling, right? And it's a really, really
43:43
beautiful thing. But there's a nurturing aspect,
43:48
an unconditional love and like cooking with intention, like all
43:51
these beautiful principles, Like when I'm cooking for you, I get
43:55
to look after you, I get to take care of you.
43:57
And I have like seva on my arm. It's like in Sanskrit, but it
44:00
translates to selfless service. And I'm a big fan of that for a
44:04
lot of my life, bro, I would do things for public recognition.
44:09
And the more anonymously I do it now, or I try to do it that way,
44:12
it's the more fulfilling it is, man.
44:14
It's like, it's like give with your right hand so anonymously,
44:17
anonymously that your left hand doesn't even know it like that
44:20
selfless. It'll take away that praise and
44:22
recognition component. And then, you know, practice the
44:25
humility and the ego deflation. So yeah, I love being in this
44:29
industry because food is popping off these days, but it's so
44:32
dynamic. If I study food 24 hours a day
44:35
for the rest of my life, I'll probably scratch way less than
44:37
1% of it. It's amazing to think about and
44:40
I get to take care of people man.
44:42
Like my girlfriend is the greatest thing, one of the
44:44
greatest things that's ever happened to me.
44:46
We started getting very close earlier this year and, and we're
44:50
going ring shopping and we're doing a lot of fun stuff like
44:52
big things are happening and we spent so much time together.
44:56
But what I love most about her is like how family oriented she
45:00
is, how she calls me out on all my bullshit which I hate but she
45:04
calls me out of my shit bro and it makes me feel like a kid.
45:07
But I'm getting better at being less avoiding with her in those
45:09
situations. So she's teaching me a lot about
45:11
myself and how to effectively communicate and how to build
45:14
something and nurture something with a partner.
45:17
But the reason why I'm telling you all this is because like, I
45:20
just love cooking for her. I'm good at it, right?
45:25
I'm decent at it. And I love being able to cook
45:28
for people. So at a very young age, I
45:30
learned that, you know, I could nurture and look after people by
45:33
cooking because my mom did it for me and and Auntie Maria did
45:35
it for me. And you know, Uncle Joe would
45:37
Take Me Out back and I remember when you'd pull down the salami,
45:40
he'd be slicing the salami with a shaking hand.
45:42
You know, I remember all these things and.
45:44
And yeah, like, I found a really beautiful career in food and I'm
45:49
just so passionate about it. And I would have lost it, man,
45:52
if I didn't get my shit together.
45:54
And the crazy thing, too. What do drugs make you do?
45:57
Not eat. Yeah.
45:59
Yeah. So it's like.
46:00
The thing that was dominating in of my life and the thing that I
46:04
I just prized so much, like the drugs they took away, the thing
46:08
that mattered to me most, that gave me the most passion, that
46:11
gave me the most fulfillment. It's so sick, man, to think
46:14
about the irony of. It right.
46:15
It's so ironic and I can think about so many nights where,
46:19
yeah, just like that plate of you could have made me anything,
46:22
bro. And I would just I'd I'd.
46:24
Well, I kind of want candy instead because that dopamine is
46:27
so low because of all the the drug use that nothing looks
46:31
compelling. I couldn't even stomach candy.
46:34
I couldn't stomach anything. We would we would force down
46:36
protein shakes. Just to survive, right?
46:38
Yeah, just. Gagging on protein shakes just
46:40
to push through another day. Yeah, I love I.
46:43
Love the idea too of what did you said the the left hand
46:48
serves. Oh yeah, give it the.
46:49
Right, like the left hand doesn't know no that anonymously
46:52
Yeah, it's like. Not with no expectations of
46:54
anything in return. No praise, no recognition, no
46:56
expectation. Yeah, exactly.
46:57
And that is? Service of it's in of itself,
46:59
right? Selfless service that definitely
47:01
contributes to your recovery program.
47:04
And it's like I'm gonna show up no matter what and I'm not gonna
47:08
respect any praise or results. And when I'm doing those things,
47:12
I'm not thinking about my problems, right?
47:15
I'm not thinking about my shit from yesterday or tomorrow or
47:18
I'm kind of there's like a of, of, of mindfulness involved in
47:23
coping. Yeah.
47:24
As you're talking, I'm thinking about myself and it's like a lot
47:28
of my a lot of my like character defects bro, and a lot of my
47:31
past behaviours. It's all like self seeking
47:33
selfish behaviour, bro. It's like just so it's like
47:36
always like me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
47:38
It's always like me, me, me, me, me, me.
47:40
Which is why these things like the being of service to others
47:44
and selflessly, it just constantly keeps taking me out
47:47
of myself, bro, you know, and that's why I show up here and
47:49
that's why I'm showing up tomorrow.
47:50
And that's why I was there on Friday.
47:52
It's like I keep putting myself out there.
47:54
I was thinking about it driving to that meeting on Friday.
47:57
I posted to Instagram. I'm like, imagine Friday night,
47:59
8:30. I'm guest speaker and I'm
48:02
sharing my, my, my story of hope, strength and courage at a
48:04
meeting. This is not what my Friday
48:06
nights look like. I checked in on Instagram as
48:08
well because I'm just in this zone right now where I need to
48:11
be, where I'm sitting on the dock at 7:45 AM in Muskoka
48:15
showing the background. This is not what Sunday mornings
48:17
used to be like. Like we know what we were doing
48:19
on Sunday mornings and that wasn't it.
48:21
Jumping into a therapy session, you know, sipping some coffee at
48:24
7:45 AM. So I'm just super grateful to to
48:28
to be in the place that I am today.
48:29
And I just need to keep getting out of myself and putting myself
48:32
in situations that are uncomfortable because the old
48:35
way of thinking is not doesn't want me to be in those places.
48:38
I'm thinking about the the the blinds that I'm picking out of
48:41
on Sunday mornings. Eric, always.
48:43
Talks about that with the people.
48:44
I'm looking through in the hotel room that that was my Sunday
48:46
morning bro like. At my old condo I would think I
48:50
would see the flicker of someone walk by and I'm just fixated on
48:54
that for hours. I remember when I.
48:55
First came in and people started to talk about that stuff and I
48:58
was like, Oh my God, thank God. I'm not, I'm not crazy.
49:01
Like this is a normal thing, right?
49:03
I'm not terminally unique. I thought I had.
49:05
Super hearing bro. You know, I could hear someone
49:08
coming from a mile away and no one was ever there.
49:11
Never. And you get to a point to where
49:13
you know that no one's there, but you're like, I just I, I
49:16
just, there's this little bit of like, maybe they are.
49:19
I didn't get to that point. I never.
49:22
They're just always there, always there every time.
49:24
Yeah. Oh man, I appreciate you so
49:26
much. Thank you.
49:27
Thank you for coming down, bro. I appreciate it.
49:29
Let's end with this. If you if you could say someone
49:33
something to someone that's struggling right now, either
49:38
getting their passion started or maybe getting sober, what would
49:41
you say to that person? I.
49:43
I get asked this every now and then and like, I really wish I
49:47
could, part of me wants to have like a more like prepared
49:51
response for this, but I'll just like kind of speak from the
49:55
heart, I guess things, things that kind of work for me.
49:59
And, and I think I might have been a little bit all over the
50:02
place, but like I just kind of go on tangents and I talk.
50:05
But I think the best thing that I could say to that is like, if
50:07
I could just talk to my younger self, 'cause I can only speak
50:09
from my experience and my journey, right?
50:11
But if I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would tell
50:14
myself how worth it I am. I would tell myself to stop
50:19
caring so much what people thought about me.
50:23
I put so much power. I took so much power from myself
50:26
and gave it to other people. And and, and your opinion of me
50:30
dominated my behaviours and my actions, right?
50:34
This too shall pass is also another one because when I'm
50:38
when someone when I was in early recovery, I saw no hope for
50:43
myself. I'm like, I can't continue this
50:44
and, and, and, and I can't keep showing up this way at meeting.
50:47
Like I don't want to be, do I don't want to be here.
50:49
I don't, I don't want to go. I don't want to feel everything.
50:51
And like it just seems so daunting, which is why we say
50:54
one day at a time. So practice one day at a time
50:57
and practice This too shall pass.
50:59
Because if you asked me a day or 30 days into recovery or 60 days
51:03
or 90s as a recovery, if I'll be sitting in this chair right now,
51:05
I would have told you no, absolutely not.
51:07
So don't get too far ahead of yourself.
51:09
You know, this too shall pass. And don't be afraid to reach
51:13
out. Love it.
51:14
Yeah. You got to put a hand down and
51:15
say I need help. Yeah, I still need help.
51:18
Yeah. Yeah.
51:19
Help. Yeah.
51:20
Amazing bro. What's next for you and where
51:22
can we find you? Yeah, so.
51:24
I appreciate it and again, thank you for having me.
51:27
There was something that that caught my attention about what
51:29
you were doing. It's very real and very raw.
51:32
There was no frills about it. And I and, and I love that.
51:36
Yeah. At Chef Devin DEVAN.
51:38
I'm on Instagram, Tiktok, Chef Devin Rajkumar on Facebook, at
51:42
Chef Devin official on YouTube. I'm really easy to find.
51:46
I like to stay super addict. I like to say to say I like to
51:51
stay super active. Actually, we didn't talk too
51:54
much about the functioning attic thing, which we're going to save
51:56
for next time because that's a big part of my story.
51:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's more things I want to
51:59
say there, but yeah, I'm, I'm all over the place.
52:01
I'm really easy to find super active.
52:05
What's next? I have a really cool show, 2
52:08
shows coming out on Gusto TV. It's a food focused streaming
52:11
platform and it's my first ever show.
52:13
It's called Global St. Eats with Chef Dev.
52:15
It's coming out in October, free app, Gusto TV and the holiday
52:18
special. And yeah, I'm popping up at
52:22
Queen West in a month. I'm always doing pop ups in the
52:24
city. You know John Luca Ruggieri,
52:27
He's a very popular local Italian chef.
52:29
We've done a bunch of stuff. Together.
52:31
So there's lots of cool things happening.
52:33
Just follow me on social media to see what's happening and and
52:37
yeah, like I I think that's that's really about it.
52:40
I'm looking forward. We got to do this again.
52:41
Amazing. Girl, thank you.
52:42
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52:48
The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for
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