Latest / True Conversation / A Gambler's Recovery and Mission to Serve - with Adam Lyons of The Modern Meeting

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A Gambler's Recovery and Mission to Serve - with Adam Lyons of The Modern Meeting · True Conversation

• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, it's really good to meet you finally.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I've known I've we've met uh under different circumstances for a while.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was when I started to get honest about my gambling, you know, I've always I've I've really been into podcasts for a long time.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think part of it is because I do have ADHD.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's easy for me to listen to stuff like when I work or when I'm driving.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I was like, well, shit, there's got to be some gambling podcasts out there.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you were the first one I found, and I was really sucked in because you're a great storyteller, and I think that's what really drew me.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the cold opens that you do really suck me into the episodes that you do.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um tell me a little bit- I appreciate it, brother.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me um, tell me a little bit about growing up in Massachusetts.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a lot in common.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're both we have both have Irish blood.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: We both don't like American Airlines because they don't have TV in the headrests.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's some other things, but tell me, so did we start?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, we just jumped in.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_08: Awesome.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_08: Um, yeah, no, so uh wait, so you're from Mass?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_08: Where are you from?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm from Wisconsin.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh my German, Irish, and Norwegian.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, okay.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I'm like uh I tell everybody I'm 50% Irish, 50% Italian, but I'm actually like 60% Irish, like 25 Italian, and then like 15% like a bunch of other things.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_08: But I love saying that I'm Italian, even though I'm only like 25%.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but no, yeah, I grew up in Massachusetts.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_08: I um, you know, uh just I would say like a middle class upbringing, and uh but gambling was definitely introduced very early.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're your uncle, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, my uncle Rick taught me how to play craps at nine years old uh using a monopoly board.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_08: He would uh fold it and put it against the couch.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_08: And um, I mean, I can literally, I know it's like a cliche, but like if I close my eyes, I I can picture the whole scene.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_08: I can picture the way the carpet was, I can picture my grandmother's house on Cape Cod, and he was like shirtless, and he was just like, you know, he was the bank, and we were playing with like dimes and quarters, and the big bet was one dollar, and just you know, him calling out the numbers and just the dice and the dice tumbling.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I I mean, thinking about it now, I I can I can get back into that mindset.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_08: Like I was just infatuated by it.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_08: And and once again, it it even back then it wasn't really about the money as much as it just was the excitement of like the what if, right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_08: Like the oh my god, if these two dice roll two and two, that's a hard four, and I'm gonna win, you know.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and so that kind of just obviously stuck with me forever, but I didn't really act on it until college.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me before you go on, yeah, please do his seven out voice.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_08: So, yeah, so so I'd be waiting for that hard four to come seven and go, seven out, seven out.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and you go, and then like I told this in the story a couple of times, but like my first bailout was also during this crap session where I was so upset that I lost, I ran into the bathroom and I started crying.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_08: And then my mom, like, she stuck her head in, she's like, Oh, you it's you you sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, it's not fair.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_08: And then he like stuck his head in the bathroom and he threw the dollar at me, like I'll crump it up at my feet, and he's like, There you go, baby.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_08: And I immediately was just like, Okay, you want to play again?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_08: You know what I mean?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_08: Like, just like it was crocodile tears, it wasn't even real, you know what I mean.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I remember well, and I'm gonna try not to talk about myself too much here, but uh, there's a lot of things that you went through that I'll maybe interject every now and then because we relate.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember the first time I had a I I was in middle school and there was a kid across the street named Chris Sweeney.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whatever happened to that guy, but he was um I remember playing blackjack.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how to play blackjack, but we we all took our change over there, and of course I lost everything I took over there, but that was my first time.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um probably seventh grade.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm I'm with you.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, no, I mean, like, so like I, you know, I before college, like through middle school and high school, you know, the occasional poker game, usually like at family events, but like scratch tickets for sure, like every Christmas, every holiday, every time I went down to Cape, my uncle Rick, I mean, make no mistake, he was absolutely a compulsive gambler, God rest his soul.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_08: And like every time we were down there, he would either have a book of tickets in his shirt pocket that he was waiting to scratch, or he would go to the store and get a bunch of scratch-off tickets.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_08: And and I, you know, I would just watch him scratch, and you know, why like I would watch him scratch, like, you know, 10 tickets in a row and win nothing, and he'd get so angry, and then he would just like I always wondered, like, how is he able to do that and not win any money?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_08: Like, why isn't he winning?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_08: And how does he have the money to keep going?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_08: And later I would find out that he had deals with some of these convenience stores down there where they ran a tab for him.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_08: He didn't even have the money, and and they would just add, oh, Rick wants another, okay, 200 add to his tab, and then he would leave and he would have to eventually pay them.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_08: Um but once I got to college, it was you know early 2000s around the poker boom.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_08: And um that's when I started playing poker.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_08: You know, poker was my poker was my safe space in college, even though, you know, I I grew up and you know, I was I played three sports and I was, you know, I I had a lot of friends in high school and stuff.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_08: And but once I went to college, for whatever reason, initially, I just felt like uncomfortable.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_08: Like I was just kind of shy and you know, and but poker was like, oh yes, let's play poker.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_08: Like I've I used to play poker at Christmas, but yeah, you guys want to play five bucks, ten bucks, let's go.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_08: And it's like all of my all of my like anxiety and insecurity about like having to go to that first frat party or having to, you know, go do whatever like socially, I was like, Yeah, let's just play poker, let's just chill.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_08: And then two years later at UMass Amherst, like that's all I did was play poker.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was did you did you get into the party poker, full till, all that shit?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we had for me.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_08: Party poker and uh remember Paradise Poker?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so we played we played a lot of online poker.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_08: I'd say my sophomore year.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_08: So that was like 2002, 2003.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_08: Um, definitely played a lot of online poker.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_08: Um but that's the thing too, it's that it was the early stages of my gambling, so I could only gamble what I had.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_08: So like I wasn't losing a lot of money then because I was a college student with no job.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_08: So, you know, it was just like kind of what I had saved through high school, or you know, I worked a part-time job at UMass and I would, you know, maybe make you know, 50 bucks a night doing event staff at the Mullins Center, or I also worked in the dining hall at one point.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_08: But it wasn't until I left school and I started working in the casinos because I decided to take a year off of college and I said, Well, you know, I love gambling, I love poker.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_08: Like, why don't I, you know, try to become a dealer?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_08: And I became a poker dealer, and that is when like you would think that like you see how the sausage is made, you see how all the miserable people in that poker room, all the miserable people losing all the time, you would think it would make me be like up be like, oh, okay, well, yeah, this is this is not for me.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_08: But it was the opposite, like it just because for every hundred losses I saw, that one win, that one guy that hit that river card and and wins a huge pot, I was like, oof, yep, I want to do that.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_08: Like just ignored the other hundred times where people got sucked out and lost.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_08: But like, yeah, so like no matter what I did or where I went, the gambling, the disease was forming within me.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_08: Like, yeah, so there was nothing I could do to stop it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Were you allowed to gamble at the casino, or did you have to go to another casino after work?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_08: No, I had to go to another casino, but um, you know, unfortunately for me and my addiction, it was only 10 minutes down the road.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_08: So, and that's where kind of my gambling took the first step um up because this other casino in Connecticut, they didn't have poker.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_08: So I couldn't just go with a hundred bucks and play poker.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_08: But what I could do is like go play slot machines and craps and roulette and blackjack.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_08: But once again, you know, I was making decent money um dealing poker, but it was, you know, not not a ton.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_08: But so one night my uh one of my co-workers was like, Oh, let's go to the casino.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_08: I was like, I have no money.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_08: He's like, ah, just do a cash advance and just pay it back in the end of the month.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_08: I'm like, what's a cash advance?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_08: They're like, you don't do you have a credit card?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, no.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_08: It's like, dude, if you get a credit card, you can do a cash advance.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_08: You pay it off at the end of the month.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_08: Like, it's it's like free money.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_08: And I was like, Oh, great.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_08: And then uh fast forward like three years later, four years later, I maxed out like three five thousand dollar credit cards, all from cash advances from gambling.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_08: And this is like pre-2008, so like anybody with a pulse and was 18 could get like any credit that they wanted.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_08: It was pre-recession, and so um, yeah, like I I just I my mid-20s, I just went completely nuts with gambling with the casinos, and then you know, I started working in the restaurant industry, so I would be playing kino all the time while I worked, um, you know, scratch tickets, poker, but but like anytime I could go to those Connecticut casinos from where I lived in Central Mass, like it was just and it got to the point um around 2010, about halfway through my 20 years, I had a conversation with my dad.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_08: I was like, Dad, I'm like two months behind on my car.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_08: I got all these credit cards I can't pay for.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_08: Like, what do I do?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_08: And he's like, you know, he's kind of looking at the numbers and he's like, I cannot believe I'm saying this to my son, because my dad is great with money.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_08: He's a retired firefighter, he's you know, did very well for himself.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_08: And um he's like, I can't believe I'm saying this to my son, but I think you need to declare bankruptcy.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_08: Like, there's no other way out of this.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_08: You're never gonna be able to pay these off, the interest alone, blah, blah, blah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_08: And so I was like, Well, what's the catch?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_08: He's like, So I went and met with a bankruptcy lawyer, and they're like, Yeah, you pay like three grand to wipe away like this$40,000 worth of debt.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, uh, where do I sign?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_08: You know, because at that point I'm like 28, and I'm like, and my dad's like, Well, you're not gonna be able to buy anything for seven years.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_08: I'm like, I wasn't gonna buy anything anyways.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_08: You know, like I just at this point, like I was very kind of it was a combination of having low self-esteem and also just like being delusional and very immature and not understanding that like you know, this this was a really big deal, and this was but all all I saw was like wiping that slate clean, you know.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_08: But I also had like a lot of embarrassment and I was ashamed once it all went down, like once my car got repossessed, like once the dust settled, I didn't gamble for like three or four months because and I and I really did think I was gonna stop because I you know I I declared bankruptcy and then and then I got the itch again.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, and I don't want you to be alone in this.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I had an episode, long story short, I lost um three grand one night over at my I'm divorced now, but over at my um brother-in-law's house and he and I woke up the mor next morning and he had to write me a check to bail me out, and it's you lost three grand in a house, like at a house game?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it was online.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was playing online at his house.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, okay.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_08: And uh it's a high-stakes house game.
• 14:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's one I think the worst thing that ever happened to me was winning.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because there would be time like I remember hitting a big parlay one time for a few thousand, and you know, my losses certainly oversized my whatever type of wins I had over the years.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but yeah, the the the bailout was um you would think we would be like, okay, what the fuck am I doing?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just like after a while that demon on your shoulder just like starts talking to you again.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, totally.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_08: And and you know, at this point, you know, after the bankruptcy was declared, and you know, not only was I getting the itch, but to your point, like I had won before, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_08: Like I had definitely won in Keno where I had to go to the state to get paid because it was over the amount.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_08: I I had won poker tournaments, I had had good craps rolls, I had hit, you know, uh some slot machine wins.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_08: So it's like there that all of that definitely fueled my fire.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_08: But I had no idea that like this was a problem or an addiction or a disease.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_08: Like I was just like, I just want to keep gambling.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_08: But like I'm gonna be normal about it this time.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I'm not gonna declare bankruptcy again.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna have limits, you know, all the justifications that we tell ourselves.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_08: But with all that being said, I knew I couldn't stay around where I grew up.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_08: I knew I couldn't stay around there because everybody knew that I declared bankruptcy, and every and they knew it was because of gambling.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_08: So I was just like, I gotta, I gotta get out of Dodge.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_08: So I ran.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_08: So the last 10 years of my gambling, I lived in six different cities, 25 different jobs over those 10 years, 12 different addresses.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_08: I lived in Vegas twice.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_08: I lived in New York City, and it was just me constantly always looking for that fresh start, always looking for that magic combination of job and city and apartment.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_08: And not once did I take a step back and say, you know what?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_08: Like maybe it's not my boss, maybe it's not my job, maybe I'm just an addict and I need help.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_08: You know, and I just uh yeah, it just and in those in those 10 years, you know, I always had good jobs.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_08: I I was living the double life.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_08: Like I always had good jobs.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_08: It was usually a manager, and and I always had money, but and I always paid my bills, but every penny extra I had went to gambling.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_08: And then when that wasn't enough, I started borrowing from people.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_08: And that's where things really kind of like got into the final stages and really got into some really sketchy situations and just put myself in a corner, basically.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you you've done a you've obviously I w I later we'll talk about the modern meeting and how it came about, what it's designed to do, but I have read a little bit.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You I'm hoping that I know that you're more educated on the topic um and the science behind gambling addiction.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the recent topics at one of the modern meetings, which is on Mondays, if anybody wants to join, we'll put put it in the notes.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: But um what is it about what can you tell me about the disease?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do we do this to ourselves over and over and over again?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the dope is it the dopamine rush?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is it I mean it's far.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how much how much time do you have to do?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_08: I know No, I mean, listen, I I think that like any like mental illness, like we don't 100% know for sure.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I I can't I'll I'll never forget like when I had when I had a a rough year of my life back when I was 19, 20 years old, and I was going to psychotherapists and I was on medication and stuff, and no matter how articulate my thoughts were, nobody could put a finger on like exactly what it was or what I had, or you know, so when people say when people ask me something like this, it's it's it's hard because I I truly think it's different for everyone.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_08: But yes, of course, you know, the the the seeking the dopamine rush is a big thing.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_08: I I think a big part of it is genetics.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_08: I really do.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_08: I I think that you know, I use the analogy of we're all born with certain switches in our heads that are either turned on or never turned on.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that my uncle flipped that switch at nine years old, and you know, it took me 29 years to to shut it off.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that gambling is no different than drugs or alcohol.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_08: I think that the way we feel in the middle of a gambling session, especially one that we're losing, is exactly how a heroin addict feels like coming down from a high knowing they need another fix.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_08: Like it's the same, it's the same thing.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, there's there's been studies where the parts of the brain that are activated when someone is playing a slot machine are the same parts of the brain that are activated when someone does cocaine.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_08: So, you know, there there's all kinds of I mean I I know some stuff, I I don't know a ton of stuff.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_08: I can only speak on my experience, but it's it's make no mistake, like we don't have much control over this thing.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_08: Like it's we we can arrest it once we get help and once we find you know our tribe and once we go to meetings and once we educate ourselves.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_08: But I mean it took me 20 years, Ariel.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_08: Like I I I gambled for 20 years.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_08: I realized I had a problem around like year 12, and it took me like eight years to surrender.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_08: And in those final five years, I was telling everybody I had a problem because I was pulling at people's heartstrings in order to try to get them to loan me money.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you know, so like but yeah, I mean to answer your question, I think it's genetics, I think it's the dopamine, I think it is, you know, I I'm I'm not an anti-industry guy.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_08: I'm I'm not someone who's gonna say that like you know, the bells and whistles of the casino add to it.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, obviously it adds to it to a certain extent, but you know, they were compulsive gamblers long before Buffalo Machines.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_08: You know what I mean?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_08: Like they were compulsive gamblers at the turn of the century, like they were compulsive gamblers probably before that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_08: And uh I I think it's very much a I think it's very much a mental thing, and it's very much a genetic thing.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, Gamblers Anonymous Anonymous has been around for coming up on 70 years.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_08: It's yeah, 1957.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: One of the um going back to what you were talking about with uh and I I won't ask you to relive everything, but there was a story you told that like I said, I love a good story, and um I think you were on your way out to Vegas and you had stopped at a casino and almost blew all the cash that you had on your way out.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was from what I gathered from the way you retold that story, that that was I don't want to say that was a turning point for you, but it was a it was a close call for how your life was gonna play out.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you uh first of all, do I have that right where you headed out to Vegas and could you briefly can you tell that story?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, totally.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_08: And I I think you you struck a chord because you gave me chills as you were describing it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_08: So as you can tell, it's still something that uh affects me.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um But yeah, so it was 20, it was May of 2017, and I had decided, I had the bright idea of going back into the casino industry to work, and I had accepted a job offer from Aria in Vegas to deal there for the summer during the World Series.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_08: And, you know, I was going out there hoping to turn it into a full-time or a year-round position.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_08: But I was also prepared to just go out there and deal for the 60 days of the World Series and then come home.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_08: And so, you know, as a compulsive gambler, living paycheck to paycheck, you know, I managed to like work a few extra shifts bartending before I left.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_08: And I was going out there with like$1,600 to my name as like a cushion.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_08: And I had, you know, four or five days to get out for I was leaving from Brooklyn to get to Vegas.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_08: And my friend, shout out to Norris, he was in the car with me from Brooklyn to Chicago.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_08: We went to a Cubs game.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_08: He flew home the next morning, and then I was on my own.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_08: I did not make it more than an hour in the car on my own before I typed into the GPS nearest casino.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_08: And I found one in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_08: And I walked in there with the mindset of like, all right, you know, 1600 is fine.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_08: That's plenty to get us to through the first few days before we start working.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_08: But like, how awesome would like five grand be?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, oh, I could go out there and I could go to the Bellagio and play 1020, or I could, you know, so like let's let's do it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_08: Let's let's go run it, let's go, let's take 200 bucks and go to a slot and go to a keyno slot.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_08: That was my thing.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_08: If it wasn't craps, it was a keyno slot.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_08: And so I go and I lose the 200 in the keyno slot pretty quick.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_08: And so I was like, okay, well, and and this is the mindset, this is the mindset of any gambler, and this is definitely the mindset of like how I always was.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_08: It was like, okay, the plan was 200, but as long as I have a dollar in my wallet, like that thing is burning a hole in my pocket.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_08: So, you know, I I lose, I think I might have put in another hundred, and then once I lost that, I skipped like three phases.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_08: Like, usually you go from like, okay, uh one more, and then ah, screw it.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_08: And then once you get to the fuck it phase, that's when you just have blinders on.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_08: That's when you are the equivalent of like being super drunk, where you just don't care about you don't care about consequences you're seeing red absolutely.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_08: So I think I had like 1200 bucks left, and I'm like, screw it.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_08: And I go over to the craps table and I buy in for the full 1200.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_08: Now, part of the reason why I do that is because of the way that they rated me, and I wanted to make sure that I got my full comps and blah, blah, blah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, yeah.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_08: But in but in my mind, I'm obviously thinking, this is all the money you have.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_08: You're in the middle of Iowa, you're like three days away from Vegas, you gotta, you need hotel rooms, you need to get there, like you need gas, you need food, like you cannot lose this money.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_08: As I'm like putting five bucks on the pass line and like five bucks on each hardways.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_08: And then, you know, very quickly, as happens in craps, okay, the guy establishes the point.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_08: I do 52 across, seven out, 52 across, seven out.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_08: Next thing I know, now I'm like under 600 bucks.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_08: I'm like, now I'm just like, I need to get that money back.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_08: I cannot survive.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_08: I'll barely make it to Vegas with 600.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_08: At one point, Ariel, I had no money in front of me on the craps table.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_08: All of the money was on the table.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_08: And I was down, and and now I'm thinking, like, all right, well, I uh I gotta call my dad.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_08: He has to bail me out.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I cannot believe this.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I this is insane.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I can't even make it to Vegas.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_08: How do I think I can work there if I can't even make it there?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_08: And then I had like a hundred bucks on a hard six, and the guy hit it, and then he hit something else, hit something else.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_08: Finally, he's he seven out.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_08: I had a bunch of chips in front of me again.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_08: I went to the cage and the lady counted out like sixteen hundred and ten dollars.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_08: I after all that craziness, I made 10 bucks and I like took the money.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_08: I went to my car, and you know, spoiler alert, if if you're a listener of the modern meeting, you know I'm a crier.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_08: I just started bawling my eyes out in the car.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_08: And and and in my head, internally, like my I was screaming to myself, like, turn around.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_08: Don't you dare think that you can make it out in Vegas.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_08: Turn around and and go get help.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_08: Go to GA.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_08: This is 2017, so this is still five years from when I surrendered, but I was so I was so scared.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I was I how could I have put my net worth on the table in the middle of the country with with nothing?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_08: It just scared the shit out of me.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_08: And and as I'm sitting there, like in the car, and it was pouring rain, and I'm just weeping, and then all of a sudden I remember just like you know, I catch my breath, and I'm just like, okay, but you made 10 bucks.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_08: That wasn't me.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_08: That wasn't me.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_08: That was the disease.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_08: Now the disease swoops in, and they say, Hey, you made 10 bucks.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_08: All right, that was crazy.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_08: We're not going to another casino until we get to Vegas.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_08: Can you do that?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_08: You can do that, right?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_08: And I was like, Yeah, I can do that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_08: Like literally, that's what it feels like.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_08: You're literally talking to yourself, you're having a conversation with yourself, but it's you and the disease.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_08: And um, you know, I turned the car on, put it in drive, and and I made it to Vegas and I didn't go to another casino.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_08: And, you know, I as I was driving there though, I can remember just thinking, like, you know, I I think at first I didn't even tell anyone that story because it was just so awful.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_08: But eventually I can remember telling that story to my parents and my friends, and you know, thinking that they were gonna laugh, or I don't know, just trying to, I was trying to make light of it, and everyone was just like, they all reacted the same way.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I mean, that's that's insane.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_08: Like, that's awful.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_08: Like to put yourself through that.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_08: What would you have done?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_08: What would you have done if that guy doesn't hit the hard six?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_08: And I was if you know, I was like, uh, I probably would have called you and asked you for money.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_08: Like, just so, so awful.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I've I've I've been there.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd I had uh I don't know about you guys up there, but we the Georgia Lottery uh it's been happening here for at least a year.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: But the in every bar you go in, every gas station you go in, just about there's these uh slot machines in there.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's got the buffalo shit, all the bullshit.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: But they're the they're the big uh slot machines with the curved screen, LED screen that goes all the way up, six feet high.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it and it's run by the Georgia Lottery Association, um, kind of like the lotto here funds uh the Hope Scholarship, which is you know, if you make if you're A B student, you can get your your school paid for, go to college for free.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just there's just so many ways.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and uh we'll get to you know the the um prediction markets here in a little bit, but just everywhere you turn, every ad on my phone, every it's just you're just constantly just inundated with it.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's been a challenge for me, like just ignoring the um constant bombardment on social media and everything.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: So do you guys have that up there?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_08: Those the lottery-funded um so okay.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_08: So we don't have the machines.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I think like some like you know, VFWs or Knights of Columbus, like they might have like old school, completely illegal, off the book slot machines, like in the back, but we don't have um like these pokies or these VGTs that middle America has, and apparently you guys have.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_08: But what we do have now is like I know in Massachusetts, you can literally do anything that you can do in a convenience store, scratch tickets, kino, numbers, lottery, mega millions, powerball, you can do that on your phone.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_08: So, like you can literally play kino on your phone now, like you can buy a bunch of tickets and watch the ball come every three minutes.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_08: Like, it's it's awful.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I got out just in time.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_08: Like, if I didn't get out when I got out and I could play craps or play kino on my phone, I don't know where I'd be.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I might not even be here, honestly.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_08: But and to your other point, Ariel, like, you know, I understand that it is in our faces, it is, you are inundated with it, but you know, I truly believe in my heart that once you surrender and once you commit to recovery, and once you do the necessary things, like scrubbing your phone and unsubscribing from everything.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, yeah, do I still see certain ads on TV and stuff and hear it on the radio?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_08: Sure.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_08: And every once in a while something sneaks into my algorithm.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_08: But like, I truly think that once you once you get into that path of recovery and once you start thinking differently and wanting more for your life, like I think it gets easier and easier to just kind of like brush those off.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_08: But I I totally hear you though.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_08: Like when you're in the early stages, especially right now, yeah, it's tough to, you know, it's tough to try to watch your favorite team play and you can't go, you know, 30 seconds without seeing the updated, you know, live in-game betting bullshit, you know.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: But well, good transition.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you so when did you first go to GA and and um why was that organization so meaningful to you?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like what made that organization um or or what what about that organization made you want to change?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_08: Sure, yeah.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_08: No, so I um so January 30th, 2022 was my last night in a casino.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_08: Um, unfortunately, it lasted like 36 hours, and I lost everything that I had saved in the previous six months living in Texas.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_08: Don't ask me how I ended up in Texas, but that is the last city I lived in in my six city tour, those last 10 years.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_08: But, you know, when the dust settled, I had what I have come to realize in recovery was a bit of a spiritual awakening where after 20 years of gambling, I I had this moment wash over me, this feeling, this overwhelming feeling of like, okay, like I'm ready.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_08: I can't do this anymore.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I can't.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_08: I I didn't want to end my life, but I knew that I could not live this life anymore.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_08: I I I can't win, I can't, I can't play normally, and I can't, I can't lie anymore, I can't cheat, I can't steal.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_08: I I mean, I committed illegal acts to fund my gambling.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_08: I did all kinds of fucked up shit to fund my gambling, and I can't do it anymore.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_08: And so I had been telling people for years that I was gonna go to GA.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_08: You know, every time I had someone on the ropes where I said, listen, I just need 500 bucks or I'm gonna get evicted, and I promise I'm going to GA next week, I'd be sending them that text message sitting in a casino, you know.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_08: But I finally, once I had this spiritual awakening, I looked up uh GA in Texas, and there was a a Tuesday night meeting in Austin six days later.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_08: So I walked in and on my way to the meeting, you know, the the the overwhelming feeling I had six days prior was starting to wear off, and the disease had like one last fight in them.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_08: And as I was driving to the meeting, I was thinking, like, ah, you know, I'm definitely going to the meeting.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna see what it's like, but like the gambling is not the issue.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I just I just need to lose weight, or I just I just need a girlfriend, or I just you know, I just need to I need to move back home or I need to get out of the gambling industry.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_08: Like, it's it's not the gambling.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_08: And, you know, walking into that first meeting, February 8th, 2022, 7 p.m.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_08: meeting, I was expecting to see, you know, what I would see in the casino at 5 a.m., right?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_08: Like a bunch of quote unquote degenerates, a bunch of losers.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_08: And I walk in and I'll never forget, like the first person I see is this like beautiful woman in her 30s.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_08: And then I look to my left and I see like two young guys, like Abercrombie models.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm just like, I look down at myself, I'm like, I'm like the schlubbiest person in here.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_08: Like, and and and even no matter how like shallow and vain that sounds, like right away that made me think, like, wait a minute, like these are all compulsive gamblers too?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_08: Like, not only am I not alone, but like these people look like they have their shit together and they're in this room.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_08: Like, let's let's okay, okay, let's let's see what they got to say.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_08: And then they all start coming up to me and shaking my hand and smiling, congratulating me.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, you realize, am I in the right place?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_08: What do you congratulate me for for being a piece of shit, for being a loser?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_08: And and you know, they're like, this is the hardest step.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_08: Like, this is this is amazing.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_08: Welcome.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_08: And so then I'm just getting this overwhelming feeling of love and support, and and I'm like, okay, and then and then we open up the literature, we open up the yellow book of GA, and I swear to God, I thought Ashton Kutcher was gonna jump out of the wall and say I'm being punked, because I thought that book was written about my life, because in this book that was written 70 years ago, it described my inner feelings like to a T.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_08: And so I can remember I started getting emotional before I even spoke, before I could even introduce myself.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_08: I was I was tearing up.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_08: I was get and then forget it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_08: If when I tried to share and when I answered the 20 questions, like, but it was just it was just beautiful, it was amazing.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_08: I I tell everybody that, you know, I walked in that meeting at seven o'clock, by like 7:15, I had completed step one.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_08: I had surrendered.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_08: I it was the it was a perfect storm of the the way that all these people looked, um, just completely breaking my you know, misconception of what it was gonna look like, the way that they were so welcoming, hearing their stories, but then just the literature.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, I remember like two days later, I got a text message from one of them because I had left my phone number on the phone list.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_08: And some guy is just like, hey Adam, it's so and so from GA.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_08: Hope you're having a good week, brother, and looking forward to seeing you next Tuesday.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_08: And I can remember, I can remember crying then too.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I mean, I had been living so long just with this negativity and this cesspool of gambling addiction.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_08: It's like this room, this fellowship of people, it just gave me not only hope that I could stop gambling, but like hope and humanity.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_08: Like, like, who are these people?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_08: Like, this guy's just texting me to text me to be nice.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_08: Like, what are we talking about?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_08: And so I remember reaching out to someone, shout out to Leah.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_08: I think she's on episode three of the modern meeting.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_08: And I said, you know, because I'm still a gambler, I'm three days in, and I'm thinking, you know, I'm looking for the quick fix, I'm looking for the instant gratification.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_08: What's the key to this thing, Leah?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_08: I I I I called her, I said, Leah, what's what's the key?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_08: Like, what did you do?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_08: How are you six years away from a bed or whatever she was at the time?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_08: And she started laughing at me.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_08: She said, Adam, there is no key, you know.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_08: But turn to page whatever it is, and you see that thing in bold.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_08: I'm like, Yes, how?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_08: HOW.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_08: She's like, Yep, HOW, how honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_08: And that has literally been my North Star for the last four years, eight months, and 20-something days that I've been in recovery.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_08: Being honest with myself, being honest with others, being open to, you know, suggestions people give to me, and being willing to do whatever it takes to stay away from a bet.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_08: And, you know, over the course of my time in recovery, like it has definitely evolved.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_08: Um, you know, I I still go to a GA meeting online, but you know, I do other things.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_08: Um, you know, I think the podcast is a form of recovery for me.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I facilitate two meetings myself.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but make no mistake, like the first two to three years, like GA absolutely saved my life, and it was the cornerstone of my recovery.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I've had a little bit of trouble getting past is this idea of a of a higher power, you know, humbly asking God of your understanding to remove your shortcomings.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've because I'm not a religious person, I and I don't know that I've identified a higher power beyond myself.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I moved out when I was 18 and I've always done everything for myself.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had to go home.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I've gotten myself hung up on those two points, and I don't know how to proceed.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: What's your take on that?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, I'm so glad you asked me that, Ariel.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_08: Um, because I think that what happened to me and my relationship with higher power, I think, you know, I think it can happen to anybody if you if I mean, I'll just tell you what happened.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_08: So, you know, I grew up Catholic.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_08: Um I was confirmed, and you know, after my confirmation, I never set foot in a church unless it was a wedding or a funeral.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_08: And um, you know, I can remember praying to God when I was younger.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_08: And then, you know, once like I, you know, once I got into like my twenties, you know, I think I definitely started, you know, I think like, you know, it's a combination of like, you know, the Catholic Church stuff, like you're like, why would I want to like be Catholic when all that awful stuff's going on?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_08: And then it's like, you know, you you you meet your first atheist or you meet your first person that doesn't believe in God, and they're like, how you know, what's the proof?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_08: What's this?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_08: And then you're you know, I start thinking like science versus faith.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_08: And then, like, you know, there's a show like Lost that's all about like science versus faith.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_08: And then, and then as I get into the gambling addiction and like bad things start happening to me, all self-inflicted, I start questioning, like, of course there's no God, like, why would God put me through this?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_08: Like, why would God have me do all these things and this and that, but so and the only time I prayed to God or talked to God was when I needed something, right?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_08: When I wanted something.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_08: And so when I entered GA February 8th, 2022, I am not going to lie to you, it was in Texas, and they they liked God at that meeting, and they were praying to Jesus Christ, and they were praying to God and all kinds of different things.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_08: And I was that was the one part about the meeting where I was just like, uh, okay.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_08: Like I, you know, everything else was like amazing, but the God stuff I could not get on board with because I I did not consider myself religious.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_08: Like I did not, I, you know, I I tell people the same thing.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I'm Catholic, but like, yeah, no, I don't really believe in God.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_08: I might have even, I might have even told a few people around that time that I was an atheist.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_08: And I can remember maybe after the second meeting, I had a conversation with this guy, Rocky, who also came on the podcast.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_08: And I told him, I said, Listen, I'm in, I love this, but I don't really believe in God.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_08: So, like, what am I supposed to do?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_08: And and he's like, Listen, did you actually read what that says?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_08: It says God of your under of your own understanding.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_08: Like, you know, and and I'm like, okay, but so like what?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_08: And he's like, Well, I mean, what what's you know, what's something that you you think is bigger than yourself, or you know, however he worded it, but right away I thought, like, well, I mean, just G A or like you guys, like the fellowship.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_08: And and and and I think someone had mentioned that in a meeting, and that's where I I didn't just come up with that myself, but I said, I think I want the fellowship, I want you guys to be my higher power because you know, just the love I get from you guys and the power of connection.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I when I see the word God in these in this literature, I'm I I just picture all of you.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_08: I picture the fellowship, I picture GA, I picture the fellow gambler, the group of gamblers.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_08: And he's like, Okay.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, cool.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_08: And then maybe a week or two later, when once I went moved back to the Northeast and we were still kind of texting, me and Rocky, one of the last things he ever said to me before we reconnected this past year, he said, when it comes to your higher power, Adam, all I ask, keep an open mind, keep an open heart, and just kind of, you know, start to consider it.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_08: Consider letting God back into your life.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_08: And even then I can remember him thinking, like, I can remember thinking, like, you know, Rocky, I love you, brother, but like it ain't happening.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_08: You know.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_08: But I did keep an open mind and open heart.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_08: And I just, you know, I had this feeling every day of like whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_08: I I was always the guy who said, like, I believe in signs and I believe in the universe, and I believe in, you know, I believe in karma, right?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_08: And so, but for the first, for the for the three or four months after that conversation with Rocky, I still would talk in meetings and say the fellowship was my higher power.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_08: And then on my six months anniversary, it was my first time I was telling my entire story at a GA meeting.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_08: And up until that point, I would say 99% of every single share I made.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_08: In a GA meeting up to that point, I cried.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_08: And it was starting to get me like I was starting to get annoyed because there were certain days where I just wanted to talk and say things, but I couldn't because I was so emotional.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the same way.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_08: And of and of course, everybody, you know, they're throwing the tissue box at me at that point and like kind of making a joke of it, and I'm laughing or whatever.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_08: But, you know, I so I I I warned people at the beginning, I'm like, you know, I'm you know, you guys know me, so just bear with me.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_08: And then I spoke for 25, 30 minutes, and I didn't shed a tear.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_08: And it's ironic because I'm getting emotional right now, but I didn't shed a tear for 30 minutes.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_08: I told my whole story.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_08: And about halfway through, I had that same feeling that I had in that parking lot in Oklahoma six months earlier.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_08: That that feeling of something washing over me, and something being there.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_08: And after that meeting, I talked to my sponsor about it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_08: And I talked to I think I I think I might have texted Rocky the next day, and I was like, I did not do that myself.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_08: Someone or something, how else can you explain?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_08: I went six months crying after every share, and now I have to talk for 30 minutes and I didn't cry.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_08: And I felt something.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_08: I felt something during it.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_08: I felt someone, something there with me.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_08: Now, since that day, I started noticing things.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_08: I started, I started feeling things.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_08: I started, and once again, it's not like what we're taught when we're younger.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_08: Like, my God is not like the guy in the sky who's Jesus' dad and like any of that stuff.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I I I don't believe that, but what I do believe is that I believe in the idea of handing over my life to God and who that God is, what that God is, I don't know.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_08: I don't really care.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_08: But it's something, and it's some, it's something that I talk to.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_08: And I don't wish anymore.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_08: I don't ask for anymore.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_08: All I ask when I pray or I talk to God is like, can you just show me the way, bro?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_08: Like, can you just can you help me right now?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_08: Like, don't help me, like, help me with help, show me something.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_08: Like, show me the way, help guide me, and then I'll take the wheel.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I but and and and I swear, Ariel, like if I'm patient enough, things happen.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_08: And and all the time I am I'm looking up at the sky and I'm just thank you.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_08: You know, thank you.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_08: I I appreciate that.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_08: And and I don't know what that means.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know uh, you know, what happens when we die.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know, like, I don't know if any if this is all bullshit, but what I do know is that it gives me strength and it gives me peace, it gives me serenity.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_08: And it it's it's the it's the it's the biggest gift I could have ever received in recovery, is my is my newfound relationship with God.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_08: And once again, if you talked to Adam four years ago, I would be rolling my eyes listening to this right now, or I'd be like, Are you nuts, you religious freak?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_08: Or that that's not how I feel about it.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_08: That's not what it is.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_08: It is just something that I talk to on a daily basis, and I just I what I've been doing lately too is like when I get angry, you know, I don't sit there and get on my knees and say, God, please take away my anger.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_08: But I might be driving in the car, I might be in the shower, and I might be like, God, I'm still can you please help me take away these resentments?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_08: Like help me take away this way of thinking.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_08: Like, please show me a way forward that is not filled with this this anger I'm feeling.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so yeah, I mean Well, you just gave you just gave me a great idea because I have my I have my grandfather, he's not no longer with us, um, but I have his rosary hanging on my wall in my office.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I think I think you gave me a really good idea.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate that.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_08: Hell yeah.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_08: And and listen, I the only thing that I think is like when someone says that like their higher power is like a pet, or like, you know, some I've heard people say like an old ashtray that their grandfather had is their higher power because it makes them think of them, or like, you know, I I know someone who said that like their and this is very morbid and awful, but like someone's saying that like their baby that miscarriaged is their higher power.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I can I get that.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_08: I I I get that a little bit, but I the the thing about a higher power is like something greater than ourselves that we're able to hand our lives over to.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know, I don't know if that applies.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_08: Like it can definitely be like, you know, motivation and and a source for for peace and a source for like reflection, but I do think that eventually a higher power, I think it's a short list, you know, and I and I don't think it can be like an inanimate object, but that's just me.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Well, I I I'm a fucking hypocrite because there's plenty of times I prayed to God to hit my eighth leg of my 18th.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_08: Of course, of course.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, oh my god.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_08: And like the one night I spent in jail, I can remember praying to God and such a hypocrite, like right, you know, praying for me to like get through this night because I was like the one thing they don't talk about with like holding sales in like local police departments, it's basically like solitary confinement if you're by yourself.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_08: Oh yeah, like on a hard bench, it's off topic, but like yeah, I spent 16 hours overnight in there.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_08: It was just awful.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_08: But like I can remember like thinking, like, you know, like God, just help me like not have like 10 consecutive panic attacks in a row because it was just me and my thoughts, and it was it was a very fucked up situation that made me in the jail.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_08: But, anyways, but yeah, I mean you that's that's the thing too.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_08: It's like praying to God when you need something, or praying to God when you need to win something, or you're in trouble.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_08: That ain't praying.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: That that's you know, yeah, you're right about that.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, we'll have to talk about that another time.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna bring it up on our chat, but I've I've suffered from panic attacks since 2001, too.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh we'll that's a story for another time, but yeah.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the date of your last bet was February 8th, 2022.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: You started what what gave you the idea to start the modern meeting, and was that related to step 12 in the recovery program?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I mean, I guess it was definitely like indirectly related for sure, but you know, to this day I haven't formally done the 12 steps.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I've done them in out of order and uh like kind of in, I mean, I I consider my cold opens step four for sure, because I literally wrote out my entire life and then read it.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_08: Um but yeah, I mean it was about two and a half years in uh to my recovery, and I just kind of had one of these moments, like looking around the room of my GA, of like gambling is expanding and exploding out there.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_08: Yet I'm looking at the same 15 faces every week, and I'm the youngest person in the room by 30 years, and I am not that young.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_08: Like, where is everybody?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_08: Like, where are the women?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_08: Where are the young people?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_08: And so I just kind of had this idea of like, you know, this it came from a place of like gratitude, of like, you know, for 20 years, I was walking around failing the same test every night.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_08: And you walk into these rooms, and like, in my opinion, like these are the answers to the test.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_08: So we have the answers to the test in all these church basements, and we're just expecting people to find us.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_08: Like, no, that is not how this should work.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_08: So I need to bring these answers to the people.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I need to bring it to the masses.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_08: And and so I said, I want to start a podcast, I want to tell my story over the course of you know, X amount of episodes, and I want to, you know, talk recovery.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_08: I want to have people on.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_08: I want, I, I, you know, I want to have people on who work in this space.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_08: And, you know, all the GA veterans in the room are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there, cowboy.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_08: Like that, you know, you can't go step one, two, and then write to 12.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_08: Like, you got to watch out about your own recovery, yada, yada, yada.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_08: And so I delayed it for like another like maybe month.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_08: And then I was like, no, I I I gotta do this, like I want to do it.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_08: And so November 11th of 2024, so we're coming up on two years, I uh I decided to launch the modern meeting, uh, the podcast.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_08: And um, you know, at first I think our mission was to get people to go to meetings, um, and also have this be like a source of like, if you're not ready to go to a meeting, like we're gonna talk about what meetings are like and we're gonna talk about our own recovery.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_08: But it very quickly evolved into something much bigger and broader, and you know, more of a community and more of, you know, eventually I started my own meeting, and but also just having on, you know, at first I had on people of all addictions.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_08: It wasn't just gambling addictions because uh we were finding so many similarities in people's stories.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and and now it's just kind of grown into this thing where, you know, from the YouTube channel to the podcast to, you know, I do one-on-one coaching, and I'm starting to get um, you know, offers to do a lot of speaking engagements, uh, to do my um presentations called Addiction Time Capsule, which I don't know if we have time to talk about, we could talk about another day.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_08: But um, yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's it's kind of growing into this much bigger thing than I had ever expected.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_08: And um, you know, it's just, you know, as the as the weeks go on and the months go on, you know, and the audience is growing, every email and DM I get from people, I mean, literally as we're talking, I just got a message from someone saying that there's 60 days without a bet, and it's entirely thanks to modern meeting content.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, it makes me like I mean, that's just it's just the greatest.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_08: Like to be able to, and it's the greatest.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_08: Like, if you talk to Adam the Gambler, when I say that's the greatest, it's like that just makes that just fuels my ego, but that's not what I'm talking about.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_08: Like, it's just to be able to help others, it's just the greatest feeling ever.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_08: Knowing exactly where that person is and knowing that my content has helped them is just oh, there's nothing better.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know you'd you'd made amends with your folks over the years.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um was it difficult getting them uh or was it a was it difficult emotionally having them on tape, like having that conversation, or or had you kind of already made amends and it was no big deal, or did you feel anything from that?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_08: When I had them on the podcast?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_08: Oh yeah.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_08: No, so I mean, at that point, like I said, we're probably three years in, so we had had our tears and we had had our conversation.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_08: So no, it was it was very much more of a almost kind of a celebration, although both conversations I think got pretty pretty heavy.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, um, I I to this day I say that episode 68 with my mother is my favorite episode, not just because she's my mother, but I mean, I don't want to spoil it for people, but let's just say that we uncovered some things about my mom and her gambling.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but yeah, she's amazing.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, she my parents are the greatest.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they I wouldn't be here without them, literally.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but no, I I think we covered, I mean, I was talking about this in a meeting the other day, you know, one of the first things that I did when I came home.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_08: So I was in Texas.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_08: I stayed there for I went to three meetings in Austin, three consecutive Tuesday nights, and I came home in late February 22 to the Northeast.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_08: And one of the first things I did with my parents was I got them a yellow book of GA, and we read the 17 pages front to back that you read in every GA meeting.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_08: And I'll never forget when we got to the point where it says it a couple times in there, I think.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_08: But it says, you know, for a compulsive gambler, you know, gambling ends one of three ways imprisonment, insanity, or death.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_08: And of course, just randomly, like it was my mom's turn to read.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_08: We were alternating pages, and she read that and just completely broke down.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_08: And I mean, it was so sad, but it was also so powerful and so therapeutic, and it was just such a you know, and I can remember telling her, like, listen, I'm I get it, but like I'm I feel great, I have zero urge, you know, and and you know, I can just um I can only imagine what they were going through in those early days of my recovery.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: You um without saying names, um, and if you don't want to talk about this, I can cut this out, but uh there was an organization that you were involved with and and that ended.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um how did how did you absorb that loss and keep moving forward?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know I knew you were hurt by that.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um whatever you're comfortable saying, um how do you how do you you know it it was it a setback and how did you take that?
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: How did you keep going?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, for the sake of everyone involved, I won't get into the details of you know, but I what I will say is that you know what's today, the 28th, so it happened like a month ago, like a month and two days ago.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_08: So it's still very fresh, and I still find myself, you know, lying awake at night thinking about it, or thinking about the you know the friendships that you know I'd say are put on hold at the moment, or worse.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm doing my best to I mean, when I was talking earlier about God, please let go of my anger and resentments.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, spoiler alert, I'm mostly talking about this situation.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_08: And I also look at it as an opportunity to okay, what could I have done differently?
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_08: And how do I learn from this?
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and that is something that once again, I can say that, but if I don't actually do it, I might as well be fucking gambling because that's all I did when I gambled.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_08: I uh part of the reason why I always got money from people is that I was an amazing salesperson, I was an amazing manipulator.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_08: So, you know, I still have that in my blood.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_08: I still have so so I'm working on the execution, right?
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_08: I'm working on um the action.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_08: But you know, when it comes to like the the positive side of it is that this has almost it's not almost, this has forced me.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_08: This has basically thrown me in the deep end of like let's give the modern meeting an honest shot and let's go for it.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_08: And let's you know, let's not, yeah, you know, okay, that was a great salary and great benefits, but fuck it, like I, you know, I would rather not I would rather, but like I am absolutely happy to go chase my dream than to work for someone else's dream, if that makes sense.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_08: No, it does.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_08: And if go ahead, I'm sorry to make a joke.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_08: No, no, and and I just think so now it's just like, you know, every Zoom call I've been on or every meeting with someone, a potential partner or sponsor, or anything that I've been engaged with for the last month, like after every call, it's like hell yeah, like this is me, and this is the modern meeting, and this is and I I'm I'm gonna try to build this thing.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_08: And because like I was just starting to get it rolling when I took that job, and then for a year, the modern meeting was kind of put on the back burner a little bit.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_08: Like the podcast itself was still getting churned out, but like you know, I was it was it was a it kind of became like a passion project where I am now ramping it back up, where like we're gonna we're gonna try to make this a business, and so in that sense, I almost look at it as like it this was a blessing.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: It well, I tell you, if I said earlier that I love a good story, I love people that can tell a good story, but one thing I love even more than a good story is a is a great comeback story.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I hell yeah, I know you'll do it.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I'm proud of you.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um appreciate it, brother.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, I'm gonna ask you that you know, there's so much we could talk about, but I think we I'm gonna ask you a few random fun questions.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, please do, yeah.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the one of the themes of of my show over the years has been music related.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm big into music.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Tell tell me about your favorite music over the years, you know, high school, college.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um my god.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: And let's go.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and tell me what was the so some of your favorite music over the year years, either acts or genres.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the first concert you ever went to?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, first concert I ever went to, Dave Matthews band, yes, uh, nine 1997 at the old Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_08: Me and my buddies, it was one of my buddies' birthdays, and it you know, it was 1997.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_08: We were freshmen in high school.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_08: We took a limo there.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, most of us had bleach blonde hair just just to do it.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just the tip, just the tip.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_08: No, I was fully blonde.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_08: I looked like an idiot, but uh so there was that, and then so okay, my music.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_08: So in high school, late high school, early college, my favorite band that I must have saw, I saw Dave Matthews like 10 times in like the late 90s, early 2000s, but the band that I saw the most besides him, and to this day, I will just kind of put them on Spotify and just like it brings me back to the year 2002, 2003 are the bare naked ladies.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_08: I love the bare naked ladies.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and then I would say my my top three bands right now.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_08: Um Foo Fighters are probably my favorite band.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_08: Yes.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_08: Um, I love Chris Stapleton.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_08: I think he's the greatest living vocalist alive.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, I'm big into like, you know, I like Zeppelin, I like um I like Aerosmith.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_08: Uh I'm a big like Billy Joel Elton John guy.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_08: That's probably the best concert I've ever been to, is Billy Joel Elton John when they were touring together.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_08: Oh my god.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_08: But I mean, I love all music.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_08: Um I'm a big karaoke guy.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_08: I was in a couple bands growing up.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_08: Uh we never really actually played in front of every anybody, but we would just jam.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_08: So I sing.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_08: Um, no shit.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I mean, you know, I'm I I'm okay.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_08: Like I, you know, I can I'm like I'm that guy like a karaoke when like I get up on stage and like you know, I'm being funny, and then like I sing and they're like, oh whoa, he can actually like kind of sing a little bit.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_08: I'm that guy.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we went to go see I didn't know who the Foo Fighters were, and we went to go see the Foo Fighters open up for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_08: And I remember that, Tori.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, dude.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: They played in at Lakewood Amphitheater.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I can't remember what year it was.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: I felt bad for the red hot chili peppers having to come on after them because it was the most amazing concert I'd ever seen to that point.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so good.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: Name one screw up you made making an episode of the modern meeting.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_08: Hmm, one screw up, okay.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a Legion.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: Mine was I forgot to hit record once.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yes.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_08: Um, so one I don't really have a screw up, but I have a technical, I had a big technical thing.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_08: So I was I was in New York, I was actually doing Louis Rogero's podcast.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_08: Uh nothing's off the table.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_08: I was in New York.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_08: And I was trying to record um an episode of the Modern Meeting with my Zoom recorder that I had had uh since 2020 when I I was doing another podcast in Vegas, and it completely shit the bed after five years.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_08: And I had to do an episode like through my old Mac and like um in sound recorder, and then put it into, but I'm trying to think of anything else like um I mean I yeah, we I had a couple early on, me and Alex, we had a couple episodes where we didn't hit record.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_08: And we talked and we talked for multiple minutes.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_08: So yeah.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, nothing nothing uh nothing too crazy yet.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how can how can people find you?
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: You you've recently launched the website.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_01: So
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_08: I'm on Instagram at modern meeting.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_08: The YouTube channel is uh at modern meeting.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_08: And um yeah, we're uh available on you know Spotify, Apple, all major podcast platforms, and um don't judge the website too much.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna hire somebody to you know make it better.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_08: That was that's just me and Squarespace right now, but basically I'm just trying to get all the information on there and all the links to get people you know in the right spot.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Can anybody join the modern meeting?
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any prerequisite?
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_08: No, yeah, so so yeah, this is one thing I do want to say.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_08: So you know, I have people sometimes like they'll they'll comment on like the YouTube channel and be like, this is why the modern meeting exists, like what a great meeting.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm like, ooh, like the modern meeting is the podcast.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_08: The modern meeting meeting is the meeting.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_08: You know what I mean?
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_08: Like, so it's like like sometimes people think the podcast is a meeting, and I'm like, no, no, no, like that's just like a podcast episode.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_08: Like, but no, yes, anyone can come to the modern meeting meeting at 8 p.m.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_08: Eastern every Monday night on Zoom.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_08: I don't give out the um you know the link because I don't want bombers.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_08: You obviously know who what bombers are.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_08: We have bombers early on, and I was like, yeah, no, we're not doing that.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_08: So um, but no, anyone who wants to email me, Adam, at the modernmeeting.com, I will give you the link, and yeah, we and everyone is welcome, literally everyone.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_08: So you don't have to be uh you know in recovery or struggling.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_08: You could be uh an affected loved one, you could be someone who works in the space, you could be someone who's just curious, and you know, maybe you're you know, you're showing signs, or someone you know is showing signs, and you just want to see what a recovery meeting is like, and yeah, we would love to have you.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can't overstate the impact.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was really, really, really lost and not really sure what to do, and I still have some more to do, but when I found your podcast, it made me realize that there's a thousand probably more than that of people like me.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: So when I found your podcast, it was very therapeutic for me the way you tell your story.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love you very much.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're gonna be successful, so don't ever stop.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I I know we've only known each other a few weeks, but Well actually you came to a meeting a while ago, right?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: I did, and then I fell back into my shit and had to take a look at it.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_08: But no, so we've known each other, and yeah, you you're awesome, brother, and like you know, every time you share in a meeting, you know, I'm not trying to I I I I'm always a I always do this and I'm not supposed to, but like I think it's good if someone's in a meeting and they share and you know they're genuine and you you just get something from it, I think it's okay to say that like keep it up.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_08: And you're one of those guys, like every time you speak, I'm like, yes, like yes.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_08: Like I you you get me nodding my head.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_08: So like keep coming to meetings, keep doing what you're doing, brother.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_08: And uh yeah, no, it's awesome.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: Adam Lions, you're you're amazing.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you, brother.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: Talk soon.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm coming slow by Sweeting.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_03: Do you wish a dance while I'm in the front of play on time and one?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_03: All about the death.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: I want to make it but it's called to Calm down the ghost, come back Wealing you now.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh why the came down crushing We used to play all the little steps I did not say now Oh bag and slowly.