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MATT BELL - Corn, Consequences, and Comebacks · Eating While Broke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Coleen Wait, and today I have a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: very special guest and this with all parts of me.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Author CEO Matt Bell is in the building all the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: way from Ohio. Got you to come out here. I
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here. Thank you. It's awesome.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is awesome. And before we get into Mad's story,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I have to ask the ultimate question, what are you
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: going to have me eating today?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We're we are going to eat corn on the cob.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We're gonna eat corn on the cob. I gave some options.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: You asked what I used to eat when I was broke,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: and gave you a little variety of what it used
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: to be like. And here we are. We're going to
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: do this and I have a really impactful story on why.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Just so you guys know the I chose corn on
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the because the other options was like trash.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to eat out of the trash cans.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah you're not. We're not gonna do that on the show.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I used to obviously like a break. I'd make a
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: break all the time at home. You know, break is,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: you know what break?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Is no. Is that one of the options we gave me.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like in jail, you mix everything together. They're called
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I think they're called different things everywhere.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I've had that on the show, by the.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Way, like I saw it, and it's I should clarify,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: not corn on the cob, but like raw corn.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was gonna get into the next guys.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I love corn on the cob, so you know I
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: love out here in LA they call it, I think
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a low tastes like corn on the cob sweet corn.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: They put like mao and cheese and have you had it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I've had it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It's so amazing. But unfortunately we're not eating that today.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna have corn on the cob, but the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: raw version.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Raw straight off the rawky out of the field.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: And before we get into this story, Matches celebrated his
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: ten years of SOET and I guess backtrack it. I said,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you're the CEO, a CEO and author. Why don't you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: talk about what you're the CEO of and the books?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the CEO of Team Recovery Addiction treatment center. I started.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: We have two sides of it. We have the limited
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: liability side, which actually provides the healthcare services, and then
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: we have a foundation side as well, which is more
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: so wrap round services of in addiction treatment. You can
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: provide all these different levels of care and services, but
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: it's all build through insurance. There's a lot of other
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: stuff that needs to be done, like conversations with families,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: like prevention in schools. There's just so much and you
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: can't bill insurance for that, and so there's no money
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to pay for those sorts of things, and so we
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: started a foundation and we raise funds throughout the ear
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: in a lot of different ways to still be able
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to do those things to go, like teach kids that
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: choices have consequences. Bad choices have bad consequences, and good
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: choices have good consequences. But we're so reactive to everything
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: in the world, like we need to get proactive with
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: addiction treatment and mental illness and things like that. And
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: then family support. We know that if somebody is struggling
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: with addiction, they've got ten to twenty loved ones around
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: them that need support too, and so if those ten
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: to twenty people can receive support, the success rate of
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the individual actually goes up. So again that's what the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: foundation does. Started all that stuff about ten years ago
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: when I was in detox. Actually, I was going.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: To say ten years and ten years.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it lined up perfectly. I was two days clean
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: when I started it. It was two days.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Clean, and you were like, already think about helping somebody else.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, it wasn't really, So I had no clue what
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: it was going to turn into, and I wasn't thinking
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: about it the way that it turned into. I just
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: knew that the way that it was being offered wasn't perfect.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I knew that. And because I'd been to treatment twenty
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: eight times. I went to treatment twenty eight times all
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: over the country, and so I had seen a lot
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: of different kinds of treatment, and I never really experienced anything.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It just felt like a very aniquated delivery service delivery
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: of healthcare. So why is like all healthcare is evolving
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and getting significantly better. I've been going to treatment for
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: ten years and it feels the same as I did
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: ten years ago. The twenty eighth time feels like the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: first time.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: What was this like habitual way they were trying to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: treat you? Because you said twenty eight times, so I'm
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: guessing they were all going the same route every time.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for the most part. And I'll say this too
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: that I think someone can get sober wherever they want to.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: You can get sober in the nicest treatment center in
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the world. You can get sober in a barn if
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: you want to. You get sober at home, you can
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: get sober in prison. You can get sober wherever you
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: want to and want it bad enough. But so I'm
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: not like blaming it on the treatment centers. I just
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: wasn't ready, is really what it came down to. But
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: what I noticed, and what I hear people say all
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the time, is that they felt like a number. They
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: just felt like a number and a process. That is
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: just it's a medical model, and addiction treatment is very philosophical, right,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's just very we need to get to the core
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of what's going on. But it's very okay, come in,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: do your assessment. If your assessment says this, then go
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: to this room and then go to that room. It's
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: like you go into an er with a broken bone,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you go into surgery, you get a cast on. It's
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: very process driven, and addiction treatment just shouldn't have to
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: be that way, but it's that's the way healthcare is
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: in our countries. I felt like a number. I felt
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: like I was being like herded through a process instead
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: of being seen as a human being. The buildings that
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I went to treatment in were run down buildings. It
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: was probably all donated furniture and parts of town where
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: certain people in other parts of town would say, no,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: we're not allowed, We're not allowed to have treatment centers
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: here because we don't have those problems, and so all
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: the treatment centers, because these are individuals that make bad choices,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: You're going to go to this part of town in
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: these types of buildings with That's how treatment has been.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: It's how treatment has been. It's a marginalized, oppressed population
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: that are seene is less than desirables.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then would you say, I'm going to be
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: all over the place with this, But would you say
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: that from your experience with addiction that a lot of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: it is trauma. I think with your story, your addiction
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: came from a different background. We'll get into that. Would
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you say that a lot of addiction starts from like
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: unhealed trauma.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's one of the biggest things. Yes, I
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: think that there's some sort of pain there, regardless of
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: if it's an actual physical pain. See a lot of
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: physical pain turning into the opioid epidemic and pain pills,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: but of emotional pain and whether that's trauma or PTSD
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: or some sort of underlying unaddressed mental health issue. People
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: don't just decide to use substances to the point where
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: they need treatment, whatever the substance is, because their life
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: is going well, because life is perfect. People don't do that.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: That's not normal. So if someone's struggling with addiction and
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: they've gotten to that point where there's a diagnosable like
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: severity there, and sometimes I don't even know it, but
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: there's something there. In my case, I didn't know it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Oh so there was something there, but yours. Okay, Okay,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: we got to get into your story. We got to
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: get in Okay, Okay, First let's I want to experience this.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So we're going to go. I wanted to read this,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: but you touched on it. But there was this post
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Matt made this week, and I wanted to read it
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to you. Guys said ten years ago, I was the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: guy in the mugshots, the guy in the hospital bed
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: who had people coming to say they're goodbyes. I was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that guy thirteen arrests, twenty eight rehabs, three overdoses, homelessness,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: no hope left. I called the police on myself that day,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: thinking I'd spend the rest of my life in prison.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: But God had another plan for me. This was ten
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: years ago. That's crazy. It's nuts that you called, but
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you even I guess where. I was a little confused too,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: is man, what was going on where he called the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: police on himself? And then why did you think you're
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: going to spend the rest of your life in prison?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You have an answer this, Yeah, I called the police
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: on myself because so it gets cold in Ohio. It
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: gets very cold in Ohio. Remember the second question, because
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna forget it, Okay, I got It gets cold
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: in Ohio. This October specifically, it was dropping down below
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: freezing and I was homeless. I would sleep wherever I could,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: and I went to my mom's house one night, and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: at this point my mom was not letting me in
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the house anymore, like those days were over. She was
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: starting to get some help from like family support groups
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: about enabling and things like that. So I asked her,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I said, Mom, can I just come in the garage tonight?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: She had an unattached garage. I said, can I just
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: sleep in the garage so I can find shelter tonight
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: with a space heater. I just want to it's gonna
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want to freeze. I want to survive the night.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And she looked at me. She said, Matt, you will
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: always be my son, but you're no longer my child.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: If you don't get off my property, I'm calling the police.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Holy cow, your mom.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: My mom. Yeah, my mom said that, and then she
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: just shut the door slowly, and that I knew that
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I was hurting my family and not making good decisions.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: That was obviously apparent. My life was unmanageable. But to
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: hear her say what I heard her say is I
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: love you to death and you'll always be my son,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: but whether you live or die tonight is not my problem.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And the way that I interpreted that hit something inside
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: that had like never just it had never been hit,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and so I was actually I had given up on
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the fact that I could be sober, like sobriety is
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: not I see that people do it, but it's not
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: for somebody like me. Everything good that I'd done in
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: my life, all the sports and the grades and all
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: the sort of stuff like that was a thing of
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the past. I didn't I didn't know what to do.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And I got to this like really scary moment where
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I thought maybe I shouldn't be here anymore. And that
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: thought I had never ever thought of that ever in
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: my life. I'm talking about ending my life. And I
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: love life. I love everything about life. I can like,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I'll have fun eating this corn today. And the fact
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: that I was thinking about that absolutely scared me to death.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And so I was like, I can't get sober. I
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: don't have the courage to end my life. I just
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: need to go to prison. And I thought that I
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: was going to go to prison because I had a
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: fugitive warrant in the state of Michigan. I had a
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: felony warrant in the state of Warrants for Michigan was
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: for a second degree home invasion. And so I went
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: into somebody's house. I didn't know that they were home,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: but I went into somebody's house to steal something to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: feed my addiction, and they were home. And so in
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the state of Michigan, if someone's home when you break
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: into to do some sort of theft, they classified it
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: as a home invasion in Pennsylvania it was grand theft
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: or grand larceny if I don't remember exactly what. It's
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: a different state by state. And then I also had
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: one in Ohio. It's the same thing, grand larceny in
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the state of Ohio. So I had three felony warrants
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: in three different states. If the police caught me. These
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: were extrable offenses to where I would went, oh yeah, yes,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: that's real time. Absolutely, they were looking for me, they
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: wanted me, and it was just a matter.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Of were able to charge you, but they were like
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: charging you and releasing you or the cat and then
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they release you.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I had been charged and bonded.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Out, okay, And I, like your mom or something.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Always had somebody to bond me out. And these were
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: two or three year old cases that I was just
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: hiding every single day on the run, bonded out and
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: was supposed to go back for a court date, and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: then just never went back for the court date, and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: so the warrant was out for me, and so I
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: was like, you know what, maybe I should just stop running.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call the police on myself and at least
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I'll be safe. At least in prison, I won't be
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: able to use drugs. That's what I thought. At least
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: my mom will be like semi feel comfortable knowing that
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like not in an alley, completely thrown away after
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: an overdose or something. All these thoughts, Prison's the best
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: option for me, That's what I thought. I really believe
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that there.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Was no part of you in that when your mom
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: is playing devil's advocate, When your mom is being firm
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: in those boundaries and she's that like freezing outside, she
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: knows it. I can't imagine what she's feeling to be
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: able to say that, But is there a part of
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you that she doesn't love me? That's it. She's done
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I thought that for sure. I thought that I
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: believe that there was no hope. I didn't think that
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: we were going to have a relationship or that was
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: going to heal or anything like that. I thought that
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: she had given up on me completely, and I was
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: mad at her, as if it was like her fault,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: as if she was being mean or something along those lines.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The end of the day, she had to do it
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: was best for her. She had gotten to a point
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: through my addiction. She'd never touched those drugs, and she
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: didn't have drugs to cope. Every time I messed up,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I could just get high and not out and not
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: think about it. She had to deal with it, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: like her life, she became depressed. She gained a bunch
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of weight, her work performance completely just diminished. She had
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: to get put on medications, like she stopped cleaning the house.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Like her life, she was addicted to my addiction, obsessed
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: with it. She was completely codependent, and especially for the
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: first I would say seven years, she would do anything
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: to save her baby, to help me out, anything, because
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I was an adult, but I was still her baby.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And she just.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Whether it was food, if it was a place to stay,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: if it was a ride, if it was pay my rent,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: if it was fond me out, pay for the attorney. Whatever.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Mom was always there until she wasn't.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And she eventually saw the pattern in someone she started
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: going to like an alanon or exactly is it alan He?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Is it all the same for? Is that the okay?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: All right? Yeah, my second question, I guess you answered it.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Did I think I spent spend the rest of my
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: life in prison? You answered that? All right? All right? Man?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Let's get into this. We're going to go back to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the corn day. What are we doing and describe you
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: were telling us and telling me earlier, like you would
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: be ashamed of this.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I remember there was a point when
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I guess I was like crashing at this other person's
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: house that I would use with. We commit crimes, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: we were just partners in crime, so to speak. We
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: were both addicted to heroin and no electricity in the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: like nothing there was. It was just a place. It
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: was just shelter really, but there was a church around
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: the corner from his house that was I think it
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: was like Tuesdays and Sunday or Saturdays. They would do
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: like a I forget what you call it, like a
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: place where people could go get food that didn't have food,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and like a food pantry. And I remember I woke
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: up late because I was really high. The food pantries
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: from five am to eight am or something like that.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Woke up at seven fifty so I'm like, oh my gosh,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I haven't eaten in four days. I need to like hurry,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I need to hurry and get to the food pantry
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: because I have to get some food today. They would
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: give you like a little box. You could take some
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: stuff and you'd have enough food for a.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Week or so, and you knew you had to eat
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and for four days.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But like food means nothing when inactive addiction, you're.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Are you still drinking water and stuff.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Still drink water? Yeah? And food, shelter, law, love, None
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: of those things mean anything when your brain is hijacked
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: by a substance like heroin. Like I would if I
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: had twenty dollars, I'm spending twenty dollars on heroin. I
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: am not saving a dollar for anything gas in a
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: like nothing. All the money is going on heroin. So
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I just wouldn't eat. And so I get there, and
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I get there late. They had already shut the doors,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and there's a couple boxes of canned goods and things
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: like that that required cooking. But there's some ears of corn,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: and I was like, I'm so hungry right now. I
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: have to eat these. I have to eat. So I'm
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: going to take a couple of ears of corn and
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: went until an alley because I was embarrassed. I was like,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I can't eat this corn in front of a shirt.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I can't let anybody see me eating a raw ear
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: of corn, and I'm like ducked in this alley, like
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: between a garage and a car, as if I'm doing
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: something really bad eating a raw ear of corn, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I remember I like almost, I feel like I maybe
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: chipped the tooth. I hope, we don't.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Hope today it's crazy, though, to think that you're eating this,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that you were ashamed, right, but now you're going to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: eat this, and I'm going to eat this with you,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and it's an honor to eat this with you. I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: sent you a Lincoln Post. She thought it was hilarious,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but I was like, I can't wait to eat corn.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I've never been told that by any.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Corn with you, and you're really good at that. I
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: love corn, By the way, I'm the cop. But how
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: does it feel to know ten years ago you were
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: ashamed of it? But ten years now later it seems
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: like you're crowd that you came from this air to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: now you're successful, family, married, author, CEO helping other people
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: treating addiction, saving families because what I have learned about addiction,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it does affect everybody. How does it feel like to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: know that you're about to eat this but instead of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it being like a shameful moment. It's like a proud
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: moment on camera, on camera, like people are going to
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: be watching this now, You're proud, You're proud.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: It feels amazing, it's almost It happens a lot. I'm
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: getting goosebumps right now just thinking about it. And it's
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: hot in here, You're still getting goosebumps.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: You are literally getting bumps like crazy.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: There's I don't even know how to put it into words, sometimes,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: but it happens probably once a week, right, sometimes more,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: sometimes multiple times a day, that I'm not even supposed
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to be here. I'm not I'm talking about on this earth.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not supposed to be here anymore. Like the things
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: that I went through injecting heroin for ten years straight.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It was the last couple of years of it. It
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: was fetanyl. The amount of people that are dying from this,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: The amount of people that I watched die. People I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: was using the same substances from the same dealer.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Did your buddy that you were in the house with
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: did he make it?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: No? No? Tim, Yeah no, Tim's not here anymore. There's
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I appreciate there's so many though I would say I
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: don't even know. Probably five hundred people that I know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: like relatively close with I don't want to say, like
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: really good friends, but cross paths with out there. In
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the ten years that I was out there and then
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: and then just working in addiction treatment and being in
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the recovery community, thousands Like every day I wake up
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: to somebody that I know is no longer here.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: So it's a very why goes while they were like
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: on the recovery, they relapsed.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: You see, it happens quite all. I did it myself
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: the first twenty seven times of getting sober, went back
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: out there, and that's when people are very prone to
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: overdose because your your tolerance goes down.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Overdose three overdose is pretty hot.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is scary. So yeah, very, I'm
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: just I'm lucky to be here, grateful.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And you don't like no shade, But you don't look
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: like what I would imagine even someone that survived hair
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: when drug addiction for that long would look like.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I get that all the time. Yeah, you know, I
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: get that all the time. But what is an addict
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: look like?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I would imagine bad skin, definitely scarring, like bad teeth.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Your teeth look like not bad at all?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: My teeth, Yeah, they look I don't know how I'm lucky.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I have no adverse health effects. I'm as healthy as
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: can be, and I still have my teeth, So I'm
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: very lucky. I did not look like this ten years
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: ago when I got sober. I'll tell you that you
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: wouldn't let me in.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I saw some pictures of you, like keeled over in
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a bathroom, and I was like, it's crazy to look
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: at you and those that and all you're standing.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Here, and that was like decent times. Like I'm telling you,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I was. Those pictures are nothing. When I was on
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the streets, I didn't shower for weeks, I didn't brush
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: my teeth, I didn't eat hair just grown out everywhere,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: just wealthy clothes. It was bad. It was bad, Like
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I am a.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: In the first seven years. Your mom would just take
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you back and forgive you and all that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was again, she was just obsessed with it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: She was just scared. She wanted to protect me.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, you ready to ready to get into this.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: This is my first time ever.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Doing trying to get all these little things off so
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I don't get them in my teeth.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: At first, when you said, hey, we may need toothpicks,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, well, we need toothpicks, and I'm
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: like yes, And let me just tell you, I am
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: one of those people that have to floss every day.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: My teeth are like really close together, they're like yours.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: If we don't floss, did you know we would get
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: cavities in between teeth?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I think I got this. Here we go, cheers, cheers,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: there we go. I've never done this.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's not as bad as you think. Yoh.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: This literally tastes like it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Tastes like it tastes just like corn.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It actually doesn't. I thought it was gonna be a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: lot harder. Man, This is not a bad meal.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I thought this was edible.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: You know what it is? I keep thinking of like
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the Indian corn where it's all hard.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: We're just gonna say that, like the decorative corn that
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: you put up during Thanksgiving and stuff.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Guys, I'm not gonna lie.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: It tastes pretty good. It's fresh.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Why does this taste good? Am I chipping?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: It's corn? It's fresh corn.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But honestly, is it because I imagine the hard corn?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Because it's not. It literally tastes like a regular corn.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: It's sweet. Are we can we get sick from eating it?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Wraw loy do people? Is it supposed to be this soft?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Going to be hard?
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: This is how it's supposed to be, guys. Maybe I
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: don't know. I hope.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie, but this cord is actually not
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: that bad.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: It's really good.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Man, you were eating it's really good.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, it got me through a couple more days at
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Look, I got gonna take one bite and done. It's
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: not bad. And I don't know if it's because I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: love corn, but it's not that bad.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Are we supposed to eat the whole thing?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: No, you can quit. I take one More'm gonna take
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: one more way too. I don't even know you can
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: eat corn raw like that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of people don't know that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: But you want to know something. If you're struggling, like
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: out there for real and this is what you gotta
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: do to survive, I would say it's actually not that bad.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: If you love corn, find a cornfield, Yeah that's good.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You know what, though I heard corn has no nutritional value, guys,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: but I will rate this as if in all honestly,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's because I like corns.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I would give this like an eight. It does not
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: taste bad.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Corn on the cop right, boiled butter, salt, all that
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: sort of stuff. This literally tastes like that, obviously without
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the butter and the salt, but cold and it's not
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: that hard. It's the same texture as corn on the
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: cop Yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Except for like when you boil, it's a little bit
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: more like juicier. But honestly, this is fine. I thought
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it was gonna be a lot worse. Who knew.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I feel like I'm made a mess.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That's what we're here for. Yeah, you're good. Yeah, that's
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the only reason I'm not killing it because I know
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: my teeth. Well, it's a rep I'm.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Going to have to by the way, you're good.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: So take me back ten all the way back to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: home life, and we're going to gradually get to the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: dish point. So we're going to go backwards to like,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: single mom, married, middle class poor. What was the home
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: environment when I.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Was a kid. I had to thank you. I had
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: a great life. I had a great childhood. Mom and
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: dad were both there, went to private schools, got straight a's,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: played three sports, went to church twice a week. Yep,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: never saw drugs or alcohol. I would see people have
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: drinks at a barbecue or something like that, but like
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: addictively never saw it. It never happened in my home.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: No trauma or abuse or anything like that on paper,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: like the perfect upbringing, I broke up with a girl
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: in seventh grade for smoking a cigarette. Okay, Like I
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: was obsessed with doing things the right way.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, So you were like a good kid, like.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: The really good, literally perfect, like best athlete, smartest kid
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: in the school, straight edges, straight edge gets and then.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Your master's Now, yeah, I was like, how did he
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: go from that? Super smart? I was wondering.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I went back to school when I got sober,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: but I always enjoyed. I still do. I don't think
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: i'll ever stop. I love learning. But I went to
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: high school, and when I got to high school, it
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: was culture shock for me. It was the first time
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: ever in my life that I was uncomfortable ever, because like,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: up until fourteen years old, it was it was just
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the same thing. And I was never like taught that
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: at some point you're gonna you're gonna meet the real
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: world and it's not just this like really comfortable, yeah
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: upbringing that you've had.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: What happened, they did it in private and put you
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in public or something.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I stayed in private school, but the private school that
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I was in was like twenty kids. It was a
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: very small school. So then when I get to high
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: school and there's a thousand kids at this school. It
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: was an all boys, Catholic college prep, extremely competitive school.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: No longer the smartest kid, no longer the best athlete.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Just felt uncomfortable for the first time ever in my life.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: My father, who I was like, he's the best. If
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I can be half as good as him, or even
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: a quarter, I'll consider my entire life of success. My
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: father passed away on Father's Day my freshman year, and
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: it was quick. It was diagnosed with cancer. I lived
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: with him. My parents separated very close to me going
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to high school, and I wanted to live with my dad,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: and so the last couple of years of his life
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it was just him and I. We got even closer
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: than we already were, and then all of a sudden,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: you've got cancer. And then a couple months later he
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: was gone. So that coupled with all these feelings of
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: insecurity from school, it was just the perfect storm where
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I just wanted I wanted to be accepted. I wasn't
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: okay with what was happening inside me, and I wasn't okay.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how to identify all these feelings. I
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: certainly didn't know how to address them or cope with
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: them in a healthy Well.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like or assessing that there could be a because
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: your mom seems like a very active did she see
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like a possible tornado could potentially happen because of like
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the trauma it was like your parents separating, you now
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: being very close to your dad, losing your dad and
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: going to a new school. That's a lesson. Yeah, I
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: don't know. I think from an outside that does look
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: like a lot for your kids.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I think my mom at the time my mom was
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: dealing with me, she was with my dad instead of her,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and so she was already I think she felt like
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: she was behind the relationship and she wanted to like
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: she wanted to work to get that back then. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: then I lose my dad, and so now my mom
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: even more is okay, now I'm the parent by default?
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Yeah, respectfully.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so I think at that time she
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: wanted to be my friend more than my mom Okay,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: if that makes any sense.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because she's trying to earn that like exactly the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: points that he had, which makes sense.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Like a lot exactly. And it's not that she was
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: doing like I love my mom, She's an amazing mom,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: but like the things that I was doing when she
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: did find out about them, drinking, I got a DUI
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: other day I turned sixteen, like the very first.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: That was going to be my next question. So when
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: did alcohol and outcohol or possibly drugs entered the picture.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: It started with smoking cigarettes. It's funny because I well
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: a girl for smoking cigarettes. So like the kids at
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the table at the lunch table that I knew smoked
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: before my dad died, I wanted to I didn't even
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: want to look at them. I just wanted to avoid them,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: like those are the bad kids. And after he died,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I found myself like I need to go sit with
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: them because I need to be accepted. I was a
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: new kid in a huge school and I just needed
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: to be accepted. The only thing I had to do
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: was inhale.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm curious now, if you're why did you not
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: feel that you would be accepted sitting at a table
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of people that weren't doing drugs versus approach of kids
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that were.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I played sports in high school too, and so I
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: already had that crew. But when my dad died, it
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: left a hole in my heart like just a I
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: don't know how to explain it other than there was
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: just a huge void and a huge vacance, and I
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: just needed more. I needed to fill it with something.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And I tried to fill it with anything that I
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: possibly could to take my mind off of it and
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: bring on some sort of feel good chemical, anything, any
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: short shot of dopamine in my brain. And so I
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: just I wanted the rebel. I felt like rebellious for
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the first time in my life.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So I started with suthing and where you feeling your
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: mom like from that perspective, because now at this point,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you know that they separated right than you lose your dad.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Your dad probably, i'm guessing, didn't show any animosity towards
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: your mom. Did you know why they separated?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I think no, nothing crazy bad happened. I just like
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: grew apart. Yeah, I grew apart. Okay, that's a great
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: way to put it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just wondering where the rebellion. Just trying to curious.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: But I don't know. Okay, I don't know. I really
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: don't know. I think I saw. I think I saw
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: there was something that was attractive about it, and I
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: saw these even though originally I had seen these guys
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: and I thought that they were like not cool kids.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I saw going to a football game. They had the
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: girls around them, you know, and like upperclassmen. I would
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: see doing certain things, and I was like, that's cool.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: It come if you do it, was copeler. It comes
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: with something. Yea. It's not just like socially acceptable, it's expected,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and so I might as well get into it now
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: and be the younger kid that is the cool kid,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: because I saw apperclassmen doing it. So started with cigarettes,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: but you hang out in a barbershop long enough, you'll
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: get a haircut, and these kids were. These kids were
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: drinking and they were smoked. So it just very quickly
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: freshman year, all of it started happening. But I never
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: at that age went absolutely crazy with it, like I
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: would push it and I would do it more than
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: anybody else would do. Like I was the wild guy
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: in high school, that's for sure.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So even amongst that pack, you became like the leader issue.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of that pack real fast.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Everything I've ever done in my life always taken to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: an extreme. Everything doesn't matter if it's like good things
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: or not good things.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I guess you could see, like maybe early on that
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: maybe you had some kind of like leadership power, but
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: maybe at that point you or it was probably hard
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to recognize because even to hear that you jumped into
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a different background and you became the leader, or you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: were like, I'm going to be the if they're drinking two,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to drink three, I'm going to be your
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: competitive leadership.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Speor everything in everything.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, which I guess in that case, I guess a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: leader in the wrong swimming pool could be very dangerous.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Right it can. Yeah, And I'll tell you what do
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I learned a lot. I learned so many different things
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: about people, just about human beings and like what at
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: that point to tell you any specific thing, just just
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: watching people, just listening to people, seeing how they see,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: watching what other mistakes people made. Truly, that's been one
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: of the biggest things in my life in recovery, in
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: business and an active addiction is watching other people make mistakes,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: not just my own mistakes, but I learned from other
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: people more than I do for myself. Okay, so just
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: watching how other people move and I listen, you know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and I just I listened to you. I continue to
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: this day. Just focus on what everybody else is doing.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I think about what everybody else is doing, watch, and
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I'm watching the landscape of how everything is happening in
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: the world and constantly processing things in my mind. So
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's can't put an exact answer on it,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: but I did learn a lot from people.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I would imagine there's a lot of vulnerability in that space, really,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: because at that point when people are drinking and doing drugs,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: are they talking about real things? Are they talking about
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: just fun times? I don't know, because I've never really
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: been in those groups.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I can't say that it was ever really like deep conversations.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It was probably mostly just fun times, meaningless conversations.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So how does your mom respond to your first DUI?
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: A slap on the wrist. Flap on the wrist. Man,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not happy about this, but you're better than this, essentially,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: is you know how the conversation went?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Did she was it her first time finding out about
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you and alcohol?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: She may have known that I had a few drinks
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: here and there, but she didn't know that I was
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: drinking every weekend at this point. She didn't know that
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I was smoking weed every day. I started the deal
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: with cocaine.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: A little bit too in high school.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, very early. So I remember getting
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: picked up from the police station, went to court. She
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: paid for the attorney. They gave me a like driving privileges.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: You can go to school and practice and work and
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: then you have to come home. And I'm like, okay,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: that's I get high and drunk before and after school,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: like on property, same with practice.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So this is property. This is a private school.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: It's an amazing school.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Too, and it's Catholic. But these kids are doing this
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: on property.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, OK. And it wasn't just that school. It's
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: kids nowadays. Yeah, And that was in two thousand and
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: two when I was on.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Do you think that the kids that originally do this
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: is it because they grow up in a home where
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: they see drugs and alcohol, Because in your case, it
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: didn't seem like you saw a lot of it. Did
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you see your parents smoke or drink?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: No? I never saw them smoke.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Especially if you broke with your girlfriend in seventh grade,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I'd say the bar was pretty high. But for your
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: peers at that time, were they were they do you
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: know if they were exposed to like parents that drink
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: or smoke or turbulence, because if they're going to private
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: school too, I'd imagine they come from decent home.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there was. I think again, I think I
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: don't think I should say this. I think that there's
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: probably some people that had some things going on that
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I had no clue about to this day, still don't
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: know about, and maybe that's why they did what they did.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: But I think for the most part, at that age,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: it was because that's just what you do. And I
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: and this is like why it's so important for me
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: to speak at schools is because I've been there. I've
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: felt that, I know the pressure that comes with being
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: a young person in our world today, and it's only
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: gotten worse since I was in school twenty years ago,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: so much worse than it is today. The first, the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: average age of people using substances is getting younger and
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: younger every single year. The average age of people using
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: like dangerous illicit substances is younger and younger. The average
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: age of people having sex for the first time is
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: getting people. People are there's this message that you have
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: to look a certain way, act a certain way, have
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a certain hairstyle, close whatever it might be, say certain things,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: listen to certain music and if you don't, then you're
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: not going to be part of our crew.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And in a world today where everything is social media,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: so the need for approval is higher than it's ever been.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And I love doing the primary prevention in schools to
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: tell kids like, you don't need anybody's approval, You're perfect
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: exactly because if I would have been okay, everybody goes
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: through things in life, right, but I would have been
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: okay with that stress, high school, peer pressure, grades, performance
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: on the court or on the field, whatever it is,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: losing loved ones. If I would have known how to
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: deal with that the right way, I wouldn't have felt
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: the need to seek another sub to seek something else
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: or other people. It wasn't even substances at first, it
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: was just approval. I always say my first addiction was
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: your approval had nothing to do with substances. I just
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: wanted to be accepted because I couldn't at myself. So
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I always try to tell kids like, you're accept yourself.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: You're fine, and find the friends that accept you for
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: who you are.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: When you say accept yourself, I would imagine for a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: kid that's even a tough it's simple as But as
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: simple as that sounds like, what would they even look like? Okay,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I accept myself? What do you mean? I accept that?
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I like corn On the cop is that? But if
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I was a teenager, how would you relay that to me?
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I would talk about a who are you surrounding yourself with?
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Because if your friends around you are trying to tell
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: you you need to do certain things to be you,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: to change yourself from the way that you wake up
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: in the morning, if you need to do something different
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: than that to alter your mood, your mind, or your appearance,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: if your friends are telling you that those are very
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: good friends. Like my friends today, they love me for
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: exactly who I am, the way that I am, how
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I am, I don't they don't. It doesn't matter if
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I bring a bottle to the party or not bring
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: a bottle or wear a certain like. My friends love
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: me for me. Yeah, you don't see that very often
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: in high school.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In your case though, playing Devil's there's a couple
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of things. My mom used to say this when I
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was younger, all the time, show me your friends and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I tell you who you are. That was my most
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: favorite thing. Let's go see your friends. I'll tell you
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: exactly who you are. That's one true. But I think
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: acceptance is tricky because when you have people I know
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you just said, oh, my friends right now, they accept you.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: But now, when you have friends that really care about you,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: they're holding you to a certain standard. Absolutely, So if
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you went right now home and you pulled out a
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: bottle with your whole cruel friends, what's going to happen.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: They're not going to accept you. Do you get what
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I'm saying?
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: I do. I do.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So that's where it gets tricky when you say that.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: But that was the second thing. I was going to
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: say that not only accept me for who I am,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: but hold me accountable. That was going to be. That
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: was literally you said it. You said it now, it's
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: a one minute but it's the truth because my friend
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: my friends do hold me me accountable to a certain standard,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and I do the same thing for my friends too.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's part of what being a good
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: friend is is accept accepting, but with accountability to be
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: your high self.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I think that's a responsibility of a friend. I think
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: that's I think that's one of the greatest responsibility of
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: a true friend, a good friend. The people that i'm
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: and it's not I went from having hundreds and hundreds
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: of people in early recovery that I would associate with
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: and be around, and I would say, I always say
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: four quarters is better than one hundred pennies. I have
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: a few, really, some people are in different countries, some
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: people are in different states, but really close friends that
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I see and I don't really hang out socially. I
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: don't do that a lot. I'm with my family and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I'm at work, and.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: You go to bed early. I saw his LinkedIn profile. Guys,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: if you want to know even more stuff about Matt,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: go on Matt Bell on LinkedIn. I don't know if
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: you have social media, yeah, yeah, all of them. Well
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you can follow us, follow me everywhere Matt Bell. But but yeah,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I do stalk his his LinkedIn. But I'd be learning
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: a lot. You talk about also making sure that you're
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: in bed by a certain time. Because I saw this,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you said this, and I told my homeboy this the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: other day. Nothing good happens outside after ten and I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: was like, actually, he's totally right. If you're trying to
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: be productive, nothing good is probably going to happen. It's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: just distraction hours.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Show me something transformational that happens after ten pm. Yeah
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: outside outside of ten yeah outside yeah outside yeah, absolutely,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: outside and find some good things.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: It's just always, it's just it's chaos my home.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: My I was talking to my friend and he's very productive,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and he goes, I think I'm going to try Adderall
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and I go to him. I was like Adderall No,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and he'say, I think I'm going to try Adderall again.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, no, I saw this post by this
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: guy that I watch a lot, and he says, you
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: should just get more sleep, and nothing good happens after
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: ten pm. He's I don't think you get what I'm
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: using adderall for. I'm like, no, I totally get it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: You're trying to be more focused. You could be more
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: focused if you get at an adequate amount of sleep.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: If he gets up at four am, I said, you
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: should definitely be in bed by eight pm. And that
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: was my response, and it was because it's.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Like he gets up at four he's got to go
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to sleep eight.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're getting up at four that is why, because
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: you cannot get up at four am. And I get it.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: We would push ourselves, but thinking that adderall is the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: solution for something that your body can actually give you.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And that's what I swear a true story. This was
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: like two days ago, very productive. But I was just like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: but I used your LinkedIn posts.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. I appreciate that makes me. That makes me
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: feel really good because that's why I make those posts.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And I hope that other people see that sort of
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: stuff too. I remember a probation office, actually a probation
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: officer gave me all these when I was on probation
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: got out of jail. All these certain be in the
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: house by ten, don't go to bars, don't hang out
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: with anybody else that's committing crimes, all these rules. At
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: the time, it felt like an absolute punishment. I was like,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: this is terrible. I don't want to do any of
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: this stuff. This is absolutely this is if I had
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: to live by these rules, this will be the worst
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: life ever.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: And did you in your brain say, okay, this is
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: what a lame person? Yes for Peray, No, I see
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: people do this if you're straight up. They're like, oh,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: you're straight, you're corny, you don't have a life, you're lame.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: But look at what a corny, lame life looks like.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You're a CEO, you own multiple properties. I'd imagine you
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: have a staff, you provide and protect for your family,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: and you're being held accountable and you hold other people accountable.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And if that's what lame or corny looks like, I
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I love it. Call me lamb. I don't care. I
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: adhere to all those rules today.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, without probabi, no probation.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I'm still living by And I looked at that. I'm
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: like and every other successful person that I know, every
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: other successful person or just like happy person that's like
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: truly happy their core like at peace and they're serene.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: They adhere to these rules too. Like I didn't really
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: think about that, And I'm like, man, that's wild, it's
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: really wi. He wasn't giving me a punishment, he was
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: giving me a recipe for success.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But I like that. You can in a non healthy
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: state look at that list and go, oh, corny, what
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: kind of life is this? And then in a healthy steak,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: oh, oh my god, this is a beautiful. It's all perspective,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: like eating this corn and shame and now eating it
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: in this like I've survival and I've what's the word thrived. Yeah,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: It's nuts.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nuts. It is okay, going back. So your
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: mom gives you the slap on the wrist for you drinking.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So you're doing the weed, you're doing cocaine. You now
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: have your first du wife. But it doesn't seem like
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: you got your I'm Jamaican. My mom would have been
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: like annihilated. I would you would be going to my funeral,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Like what IMMI? Grandparents are hilarious. If you're a child
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of any type of immigrant, you already know that you're
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: just not you're not even returning home police like just
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: keep me here, do't let me go back to them.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: But no, okay, so she's she's earning your your cold points.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: It seemed though, like growing up she probably was a
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: little stricter. So but maybe there is also a little
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: leniency because she knows in the back of her mind
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: that you lost your father.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she doesn't want to be too hard.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Too hard, Okay, So life prevails. You're going through high school,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: where does the harder drugs get in.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Went to college graduates. So I graduated that that school
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: with a four point zero.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Even as a little ALKI person, I.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Never had any consequences, That's what I'm.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: But you were also addicted either then.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't addicted, but I was like the part
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: You go talk to anybody I went to school with
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: that knew me back then, They'll be like, yeah, Matt
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: was wild. He was the part, the partier in the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: school and not just my school, like my whole town.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: But how are you four point zero? And I'm guessing
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: this is a small town.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: It's not a it's the fourth biggest town in Ohio.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, but you were the you were the most.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know, nothing, nothing compared to La to them.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so it's Ohio. But you were the king
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of the scene. But I'm a little confused. So how
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: are you able to maintain a four point Oh? Is
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: your mom holding some kind of I'm just really.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Good at balance, at managing chaos. I always have been.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I've been really good in my life at managing chaos.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: I think that's why I survived my addiction.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I think you have natural equalities of a leader. Thank you,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: because I think that to be an entrepreneur, or to
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: be a leader, you have to be able to be
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the calm in the storm. You can't show those emotions.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: If you were to panic right now in front of
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: your team, the entire team would question everything. Right, So,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: say you found out bank accounts are clai, payrolls do
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: on Friday? Right, whatever reasons, cash flow mount everest hits.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: You could never turn to your staff and be like,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: so that's what I mean by there's this throughout your
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: whole life. You could see that there's this natural born leader, right?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Do you see it? Am I just pointing it out? Okay?
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: I love the pressure.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I thrive in pressure, maintain a four point Oh that's geez.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: But you must be really good at school too.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Are you excelled? Yes? And yes, yes, I've always learned
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: very quickly. I enjoy learning.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, And you're a big reader.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: I don't really know. I like audiobooks more than actually reading.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I don't enjoy reading. Yeah, I listened to audio more
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: than reading.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I do both now, guys, But I have photographic micro photographic.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: When I read, I'm the opposite.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, I can't if I'll read a page because
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: my mind is in so many places I think about.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I'm constantly thinking. So if I read, I'll get done
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: with the page and be like, what did I just read?
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I don't even remember what I just read.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But if I listen, the book is not great yet
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: that I'll have. Yeah, there's some people like C. S.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Lewis can be a little bit of a runner on
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a page. All right, No, that that's a book I
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend for you if you would be in lou
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: gotcha gone, Okay.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: See what you're saying. You know what I like about audiobooks?
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: So seriously, is I can speed it up? I have
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: the control. Like reading, I'm I can only read so fast,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: regardless of how good of a reader I am, I
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: can only read so fast. But if I can turn
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: an audiobook on two x or three X and get
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: a book done in.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: An hour, see my So we're opposites in the sense
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that if I read a book on audio, and like
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I said, it depends how the person writes. Right. There's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: some really great writers and there's some people that like
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: some of the psychology books. I feel like sometimes those guys,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: some of the words they use. I'm like, bro, let's
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: get through this chapter. Those I would probably have to
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: do two x but at this point I've semi checked
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: out and I'm scared I'm going to miss miss like
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the meat and potatoes. That makes sense, But I do
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a mix of audio now because it makes sense because
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: it's easier. But good to know about Youah, all right,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: So back to you. When do you get to the exlicit?
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Exlicit?
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Illicita college happened in college, full ride to the university's
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: leado to Division one college in our city playing baseball,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: which was my dream. And I hurt my shoulder in college,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: and so I had a minor surgery, just an outpatient surgery,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: and that was the first time. I left that surgery
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: in and out two hours with ninety percocets. Now they
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: don't do that anymore. They don't prescribe that many pills
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: at once, but at that time they did, and that
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: was my first time doing opiates.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I had taken pills. Are opiates?
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, okay, yep, So I had taken pills.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: They do they tell you that, Yeah, they do. I
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: think they say, hey, this is percocets, it is an opiate.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they say those exact words, but
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: like on the discharge paperwork, it says all that sort
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: of stuff at that time, I certainly don't remember them saying,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: hey be careful with this, this is an addictive substance.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: This is all during the opioid epidemic, when it was
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: being marketed as a non addictive description pain killer. So
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think that there was a ton of drug education,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: and truthfully, I think even in our world today, there's
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: more that they can do with that.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So yeah, because they talk about pop songs, I did
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: not even opiate.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so they give molecularly on a molecular level,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: if we were to break down a percocet and heroin
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: are essentially the same thing.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Are you serious opioids?
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Yes? Wow, yep, Okay, fetanyl carpetanyl heroin, percocets, oxycotton morphine, deluded.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: These are all of the opioid class, and so they
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: all attached the same receptors in the brain and cause
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: the same reactions. Yeah.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: When I was in Upstate New York the senior year
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of my high school, I remember them lacing weed with
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: this brown substance and I forgot what they called it,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but it was a derivative of the opioid, and that
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: was like the first time I remember saying something around
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: my dad, and my dad was like, opioids is heroin
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: if you grow up in New York, but like heroin
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: addiction is. My parents used to scare straight. They'd be
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like doing the lean, yeah, be like yo, that person
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: was a doctor and they gave they lost their whole
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: family and one night, for sure smoked a cigarette and
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: then they went on heroin like okay crett, yeah, okay,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: never smoked a cigarette. They would love to do that.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: You see someone in the lead, they'd be like that person.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: They was living in a mansion somewhere and they give
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: this whole speech.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: And you that was it opium stuff.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: It was probably it was some kind of maybe it
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: was opium. I don't remember. I am the polar opposite.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I'm one of those. If I have a cocktail, I
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: take three SIPs and I'm like, eh, that my think.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Good for you, Yeah, good for you.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I'm very, very lucky, very I.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Can't understand that. My wife's the same way.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's I was with my dad and this
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: lady and they're like, oh, you order drink and I like,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: ordered the fruity one and yeah they knew. And my
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: dad was like, I was like, yeah, I didn't feel
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: too good. He's oh, your whole drink was still there.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Would you drink two SIPs? I was like, yeah, still
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: didn't feel good.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But that's where it started. It started in college
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: after the I remember taking the first one and falling
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: in love with it. I liked substances, I liked being
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: under the influence and having fun socially. But when I
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: experienced percocets for the first time, I wanted to feel
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: that way every day for the rest of my life.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Did your mom have any idea of the severity of
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: what percosetes were at the.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Time, No, nobody did.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: So you were responsible doling it out to yourself. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: at this point you're in your twenties, right, Yeah.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: I'm playing baseball. I'm nineteen at the time.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Well, are you in your dorms?
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I'm in I had my own house, I have my
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: own college house, I have my own party house.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Of course you're mad.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, I'm doing the thing, same thing. Two
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: beers is good, five must be great. If one percoset
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: is this good, then I wonder what three or four does,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: and that that prescription was supposed to last for I
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: think like forty five days. It was gone in a week.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I saw on your LinkedIn. Yeah yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I saw that. I was like, damn, like one week
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that was it? Yeah, And I think you said like
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the whole bottle was gone. I was like, oh yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: oh snap. And then at that point did you know
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: you had a problem?
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: So I woke up the next I actually didn't even
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: fall asleep when I took the last one. I started
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: to go through withdraws like I was physically dependent, not
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: like anything crazy, but I was starting to experience some
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: minor withdrawal symptoms, like what sleeplessness like restless, leg tossing
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: and turning hot and cold sweats, some nausea. Just laid
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: up all night feeling like that, and I was like,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: I've never felt like this before. So I'm looking online.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: What are these symptoms and everything? It's opioid addiction, chemical dependency, substance.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Like all the results, I'm like, no, let me go
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: to page two of Google. How often do you go
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: to page two of Google? You find your results right there.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to page.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Three on to page four page five, it's all addiction.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I am not an addict. I'm a d
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: one athlete with a full ride. I'm gonna go pro someday.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: I was being watched by pro scouts as a freshman.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: I'm not an addict, not an addict. I don't look
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: like an addict.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: And you're not. You're looking up answers, but you're nowhere
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and you're going, hey, can I get another purposet?
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: So that's what I did. I called a friend and
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, I feel this way. What do I do?
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Everything's saying addiction, what and I do? I gotta go
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: to class, I gotta go to practice. And my friend
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: was like, go buy a pill for the first time. Now,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: go buy know somebody who can buy a pill from.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Take the pill, and if you feel better, then you
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: are addicted. And I was like, that's actually really genius.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Let me go. That's a good idea. Let me go
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: buy drugs illegally now. And that was the first time
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I did it. And that was the first time I
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: was introduced to like a pill.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Like a pill, it does sound like a good idea.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Makes sense, like the process of elimination.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: It does, But then you think if you are an addict,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: then you just literally lit.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you just kept it going. Yeah, I just kept
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: it going.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: But I liked that it was like youth and youth
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: trying to solve a problem. I would have totally given
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: you like not me now, but I could see someone
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: like being like, we'll solve this problem right now. Okay,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: it does make sense. Okay, so I can't even hate
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: on the friend there. That was logic. But then it's okay.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: So then you find out, you find out, but even
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: just pursuing the illegal route.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I found out. I was like, because I
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: took it and feelings went away right, well better, I
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: felt fine again very quickly, and I was like, oh
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: my gosh, I am like reliant on these. I wasn't.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: It wasn't addiction yet. I wouldn't call it addiction yet,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: but physically dependent on them to wear it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: And you were smarter, not smart enough at the time.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: But that's weird that you like knew in that moment.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: You were like, I need this to feel good, that's.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: How So there are certain substances that cause withdrawals, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: there's certain substances where it's just mental obsession with opioids.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: It's the mental obsession, but it's also physical with draws,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and if you don't have them every single day, you're
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: deathly sick. The withdrawals from opioids are terrible. The same
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: thing that I did that day to feel better to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: go to practice and go to school, I had to
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: do the next day too, And then I had to
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: do it the next day or else I was going
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: to be sick feeling those feelings of shaking hot. I
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: couldn't go to practice that way. It's like you're throwing up,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: you're vomiting.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: What drugs can you take that don't give you a
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: physical withdrawal?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: So every substance, even sugar, I mean like everything, nicotine, alcohol,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: every substance, if you use it enough for long enough,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: it's going to cause it's going you're there's withdrawal scales
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: for all substances. Some are obviously more significant than others,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: but I would say the least physical withdrawals are going
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: to be like marijuana and cocaine and.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Sugar, right because now you're gonna be a little paranoid. Sugars.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know when I eat a lot of sugar,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: if I'm like on a bad, like stretch for three,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: four or five months of just eating sugar all day
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: every day, and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna stop.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Have you ever done that? Just like cut off sugar.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: No, I've.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Cut off carbs. Oh my gosh. The next day after that,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: terrible headache, can't sleep. Sugar is wild, Sugar is Sugar
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: is crazy. Go down a deep dive of how like
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: bad sugar is for our bodies and for our brains.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Now now I'm thinking that I give my kid like
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: skittles to teach her how to learn how to read.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: So I do this thing like yeah, I do this
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: like tutoring every morning, but after they eat breakfast, I'll
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: be like, hey you can have skit how much candy
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: do you earn? But now I'm thinking like, could I
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: be creating an addiction?
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: No, in moderation, I think most things.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Five skitlls every day.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she's fine.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, let's go back to your story. Okay, I'm learning. Okay,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: this this has my brain working. Okay, So now you're
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: one perpose at a day, you're spending your harder money,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: but you're getting this illegally at what point do you
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: start to say this is not good.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: When I really started to notice, like my behavior and
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: performance slipping, like I lost like when I was when
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: I went to college, I put on so much lean
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: muscles in the best shape ever. All my muscles started
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: to fall off. I was late to practice, not doing
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the extra work outside of practice. Late my grade started slipping.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, this is this. And then I
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: had to go from percocets to oxy because percocets didn't
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: do it for me anymore.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: When you say do it for you, your body withdraws
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: or it just didn't feel like a good high.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: It both If I your tolerance goes up, and so
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: you either need more or you need something stronger to
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: produce the same effect. And so to get high anymore,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I had to do more, and to do three or
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: four percocets. That that's expensive. Let me just get one
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: oxy cotton to get that. Because oxyctins, depending on the milligram,
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: is stronger than at the time oxyconton was stronger. I'm
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: talking about OxyContin not oxy content, which are like a
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: completely different like back in the day. And people will
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: know if they know five O six the real oxies,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: those things were like the purest form of any sort
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: of opioid. You could you could snort it, you could
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: swallow it, you could inject it. What I started to do.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: I started to do that with oxycotton and then yeah.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Because I was going to say at some point I
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: would imagine when you get to the needle part, like okay,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: go yeah.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I watched how to my friends and I because we
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: all started doing it together. We started we watched how
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: to inject on YouTube at the time. There was a
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: video that would show you how to do that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: What would lead you to guys to want to inject
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: versus like just swallowing it.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: We're always trying to to get a better hide because
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: the hide after a certain amount of time isn't as good,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: and so it's like, how can we level this up?
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: And it sounds so crazy, but when you're once you
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: cross that invisible line, it's that's just the way that
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: the brain thing just doesn't make sense to for us,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: like talking now, it makes no sense, and for many
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: listeners it won't make any sense. But when you're in it,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: it makes nothing but sense. So we watched a video
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: and these are.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Friends that are going to college with you, you.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Know, some of them probably in college at the time,
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: you know, and the rest of them were just like
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: friends from high school. A lot of my friends got
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: hooked on oxy conton at that time. It was like
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: it was a very common thing. We were all parties.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Weren't like beer pong anymore. Parties were snorting lines of
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: oxy conton off.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: It elevated.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of us are doing it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: So this is but you're out there in Ohio.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: I'm in Toledo, Ohio. I'm in my hometown. I'm still
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: in my hometown.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I heard like, when you're dealing with addiction and stuff
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: like that, you got to get away from where it is.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: I don't I think that. I think that can help
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: for some people. But everywhere you go, you take yourself
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: with you, and there are drugs everywhere in the world,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: and so just there's no geographical care to addiction. You
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: can't just I'm going to go to Hawaii for six months,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: not do drugs and then return or not return. You
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: can stay in Hawaii the whole time. And if you
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: don't work on yourself and why you started doing things
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: in the first place, you're going to continue to do
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: those things in Hawaii.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: But in your case, your stuff was No, it wasn't.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say yours was accidental, but no, it wasn't.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Not really because had had you the whole situation with
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: your not if if you go further back, right, you
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: were that whole transition from high school losing your dad
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: to switch off to your mom. Like I guess, if
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: that whole story kind of didn't unravel, maybe none of
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: this would.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Have Probably not right.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Probably not because I was going to blame it on
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: like that whole surgery, but not because at that point
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: you were already used to trying different things.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it goes back to my dad
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: for sure. And I didn't realize that. I didn't realize
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: that until my twenty eighth treatment center that I went to.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: So how did you discover it?
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I know I'm getting a very good therapist, so pill Mills,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I'll close the loop there really quick. Oxy cotton took
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: off after percocets. I dropped out of college, started getting arrested,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: working like meaningless jobs, went back to mom's house, in
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: and out of rehab. Arrests started happening. Just like the
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: real chaos of this is no longer dabbling. This is
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: no longer just dependency, full blown addiction, and everybody knew it.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: You knew it, Oh yeah, absolutely. I was like you
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: not a rehabit and but.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: You knew it after that first pill, right, that little
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: pill test. That's when you knew it.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: I knew that I was dependent on it, like addiction
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: for me, so physical dependency on something. It doesn't progress
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: to like actual diagnosable severe addiction like opioid use dependence
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: until you continue to use despite consequences. There was no
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: consequences after those seven pills. I was still like, no
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: consequences once I started getting in trouble, once I started stealing,
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: once I started getting into debt, once I had dropped
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: out of school, and I still do those things. Now.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: Now it's addiction. You look at how is my life?
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: What are all these factors happening around? That's full blown addiction.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: That's sounds like you do it despite the consequences.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Correct, And I had every reason in the world to stop.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Like on paper, Matt, what are you doing? What are
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you doing? It's denial. It's all these sorts of things.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: But that's addiction. It just does not make sense, just
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. At all.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting. So now where did we were.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: We were got to heroin because oxy cotton they shut
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: down all the pill mills. They all got raided at
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: the same time. In northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. They
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: all got raided and that's when the cartels brought in.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: It was actually real heroin at the time. Now it's not,
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: it's all fentanyl. So then I started shooting harrow and
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: that was like, that was actually a relief because I
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: was spending three four hundred dollars a day on oxy cotton.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: How are you making how much money?
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: You just I inherited money from my dad and I
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: spent it all gone, mag I spent it all in
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: nine months.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: But wait, your dad left when you were like fifteen
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: or sixteen, so I didn't inherit it till later correct
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: at what time, like twenty two, fifteen and a half?
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Oh my, And it was gone by nineteen and a half,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: so that it was a wild run while I had
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: that money. But once it was gone, then I had
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: to start committing crimes and doing all sorts stuff to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: feed my addiction. But four hundred dollars on oxy cotton
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: versus thirty dollars forty dollars a day on heroin. It's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: a no brainer. Yeah, and it's the same thing, so yes,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: switch to heroin and then just start Stuff started getting
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: really bad when I started using heroin. It was so
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: much stronger. The physical withdrawals were worse. So that's when,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: like rehabs really started to happen overdoses, the arrest.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: The rehabs happened because withdraws were really bad.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: No, because I was getting in trouble. Everybody else wanted
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: me to go.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, everybody wanted you to go.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: It was always a judge or a probation officer, or
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: my mom or a girlfriend. I never wanted to go.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Somebody else always wanted me to go.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: At what point, why is it that you wouldn't want
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: to go?
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: I just wasn't I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I did like you knew the consequences were bad, but
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you just didn't care. And I guess that there was
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: a definition of addiction is right. Yeah, it's just a
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: vicious cycle.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: It's a cunning, baffling, powerful, insidious brain disease that you'll
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: never understand until you have to understand it. Like for
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: me to explain it to you or to anybody. If
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I've never tasted chocolate before, tell me what chocolate tastes like.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: It's the greatest thing on earth.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: I think corn on the cob is the greatest thing
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: on earth. So if you're telling me it's the greatest
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: thing on earth, my mind goes to I love chocolate.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I should be able to answer this question. But I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: love that you're proposal of this because I honestly other
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: than chocolate. Like if I always say, like if someone said,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: go the rest of your life without chocolate.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I always hear people say it's sweet, it's sweet, it's creamy, creamy.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Dark chocolate can have a bitter taste to it. So
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I hear these things, I'm like, okay, sweet strawberries, bitter lemons,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: creamy mashed potatoes. Do am I am? I thinking about
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: an accurate depiction of chocolate. So if the only way
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: that I will ever fully understand is to put these
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: chocolate in my mouth and taste it for myself, And
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: it's the same thing with addiction, it just doesn't make sense.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: But the only difference is that say, you and I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: both like chocolate, right, but I'm the one that. Let's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: just say I was addicted to chocolate, but it doesn't
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: have the same effect. Say you're a vanilla person, right,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: then would you even still understand it?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I might understand a little bit more. I think I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: might understand it a little bit more because I would say,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: that's like someone who is addicted to alcohol versus someone
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: who's addicted to another substance. The addiction is the same,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: but I'll never really understand. There's a common denominator of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: what it's like to be addicted to something there, I think.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: So, do you think people that aren't addicts have a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: lack of I think from my experience that there is
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: a lack of empathy.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: I think some people.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from my experience, I lack empathy because it doesn't
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: make logical sense.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: But then I have to go, according to the world,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: it's a disease. And then you hear people that were
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: addicts the way they describe it in music. I like
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: the way people describe in music or testimonials like yourself,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: because you get an idea if they can explain it
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: well enough, like how you describe chocolate, right, Yeah, then
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: you get an idea. But there is a little bit
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: of a lack of empathy. I don't know, because logically,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: you're like, you're losing everything.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why would you do that?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Why would you do that?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: And then it goes into you you love this thing
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: more than you love this thing. So that's where the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: logic and the lack of empathy.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, if I told you, if I offered you a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: million dollars to not blink for the rest of this show,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: would you be able to do it?
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: No, for the rest of the show. Yeah, which I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: really hard.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: You try, right, you try really hard. So that I
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: always do this in schools and I'll ask, I'll always
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: bring in somebody a couple hundred hours, I'll say in schools,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: i'll say, if you guys don't blink for the whole presentation,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I'll give you this money. And it's never happened. In
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: ten years. I probably spoken to a million students in
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: ten years, and obviously it's never happened. I've had some
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: kids like try to hold their eyes open. One kid
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: taped his eyes open, but nobody's been able to keep
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: their eyes open. There's a reason for that is because
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: the brain controls it. The brain controls blinking, it controls breathing, swallowing, heartbeat,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: all these things that just automatically happen that we don't
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: think about. And to think about addiction as a chronic
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: brain disease, that it if you were to look at
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: somebody who's struggling with addiction versus your brain right now,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: they're different physiologically. This is science, This is not Matt's opinion.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: The brain changes from substance use, from chemical dependency. The
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: brain changes and the ability to make good decisions is
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: impacted by that. And so for me to say I'll
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: give you a million dollars if you don't blink is
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: the same as society to say why can't they just stop?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: It's not that simple. Their brain is telling them they
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: have to have more. And so for us to say
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: that addicts are like bad people and they just need
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: to become good, it has nothing to do with that.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: They've maybe made some bad choices and they've used a substance,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: probably not great choices, but at some point it changes
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: and it's no longer these are choices anymore. This is
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: a I have to do this to survive, and this
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: person is sick now. And to understand addiction in that
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: way as the diagnosable condition of the disease concept of it.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: This is a sick person that needs treatment. They're not
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: a bad person that needs to become good. But people
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: don't understand that.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: No, but I think the way you explained it is
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: very helpful. I think it's very easy to understand a
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: physical withdrawal from an outside perspective. I'm the devil's advocate,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: met I love it. At what point everyone's pleading with
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: you to go and get help. At what point do
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: you and I guess you told me this, But at
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: what point do you say, I really want to help?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Shun a debate, should I go for this question or
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: do I go for At what point does the therapist
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: find the magic button? Which one goes first? The therapist
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: finding the magic button, they go.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Along at the same time. To be honest with you,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: my therapist was able to help me identify that me
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: losing my father was that was my trauma. That was
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: trauma for me. I viewed as a completely normal occurrence.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: People died. I viewed it as that way. Oh and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: by the way, I got to go back to this
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: place where I already feel uncomfortable. I gotta go fit.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: I can't go walk into an all guys college prep
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: high school as a freshman and be like, I'm really
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: sad that my dad's dead. I have to go take
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: an exam tomorrow. I have to go make the team.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: It's try it's tryouts right now. I have to go compete.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: I have to step in. I can't think about this.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: So I never dealt with it. I never even recognized
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: that it was trauma. I put on the back burner
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: and just never processed it. And for up until that
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: twenty eighth time, it just remained unprocessed. It was unprocessed
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: grief and trauma.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Now, when you say unprocessed, does that mean that because
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you didn't find a way to cope through it? Is
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: that what that means?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Yes? And I found ways to cope. They were just
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: very unhealthy ways to cope. But what it was She
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: asked me a question. She said, if drugs are answer,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: what's your question? I was like, that's very deep. I
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: don't really know how to respond to that, but you're right,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: drugs have been my answer. What is my question? I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't able to answer right that. What I got to,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: through like recurring sessions with her, my question was what
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: is it about? Myself that I hate so much that
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: I have to alter who I am to have a
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: relationship with the world. I can't just wake up and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: be mad. I have to do something. I have to
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: change who I am to be a friend, to be
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: a partner, to be the funny guy at the part
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: I have to I can't just be natural. And she
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: helped me realize that from my dad leaving. At that time,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: I viewed that as abandonment, Like my fourteen year old
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: brain thought that my best friend abandoned me. And so
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: how do I control things to make sure I never
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: get abandoned again? How do I settle in relationships for
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: rather than shooting for the excellence of my dad? How
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: do I maybe settle for something that's less than because
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: I can control it and make sure that it or she,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: or a friend or anybody never leaves me. How can
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: I always bring something to the table that's not Matt
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: that makes me so good that nobody will ever want
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: to get rid of me. It was like all these
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: like deep, profound things that I had to really get to,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: and it was all abandonment that led to I need
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: to control everything. I need to control every and substances
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: were my way to do that in relationships, in fun
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: and social settings. Substances were my way to do that.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: That's a lot, that's a lot. I still don't understand
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: how substance was your way of controlling other things though.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: So if I walk into a party without substances, they
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: might not accept me.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: If I walk in with a bottle, we're having a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: good time.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: If you walk in as yourself, who.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: Knows if they'll invite me back.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean that's just I was. I had to
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: get to a point where I was okay walking into
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: that room as myself with nothing else and to be
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: able to work on what was it? It was fear,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: it was insecurities, it was just all these basically fear.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Is what the Twelve Steps helped me realize, is that
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: I was afraid of so many different things, hundreds of
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: forms of fear. And so the opposite of that is
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: building courage and self esteem and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: And that's what that's what stepwork does. It's an ego
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: deflating process that helps you be okay with yourself.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I went to one with a girl.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, and it was.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: It felt like they I don't want to judge, but
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: I was in the room and it felt like everyone
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: was like there was a humility and a respect was
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: a greater being, like a God or whatever. Yeah, but
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: it was interesting.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: Twelve step programs are they're spiritual in nature. You don't
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: have to believe in God. You don't have to believe
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: in a specific God. But the whole goal of the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: twelve steps is help you find something greater than yourself.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Because my way got me into that program. If my
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: way was good enough, I wouldn't need that program. Well,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: I have to find something bigger than me.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Then that would also mean that you're not in control.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: So do you think that most addicts think that is
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: their way of controlling the environment versus I don't.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Think everybody's different. Oh, I think everybody's different, A.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Learned less all right, what I know, we're definitely over
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the time. What advice do you give to families who
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: deal with addicts?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: Love? Tough love. I think tough love is the most
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: underutil lot because it's tough. I mean it's tough on
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: the it's tough on the person receiving it and the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: people giving it. But tough love is my short answer.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Generalized answer, tough love. Find ways to get to a
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: point where you can give tough love boundaries. Families have
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: so much control and leverage that they don't realize that
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: they have that. If I say, if you do this again,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: if you come back home again drunk, if gamble the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: money away again, if you do this again, these things
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: are going to happen. Do that and stick to those
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: boundaries because the consequences that people can remember how I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: said in high school, I'd never had any consequences like
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: the DUI that this, that cops come to the party, Matt,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: you got to play this Friday, get out of here,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: never any consequence. We have to have consequences to change.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: We have to, and families can implement those consequences for people.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Rather than allowing people to just go out and dig
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: deep down to a rock bottom that they find themselves,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: families can bring that rock bottom to the loved ones.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: I think I can understand, though, where families are in
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: a battle with themselves, because if you're from a family's perspective,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, Okay, my boundary doesn't mean anything, because
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: guess what, the only thing they care about is that
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: drug or that substance or whatever they're hooked to. So
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: why my boundary doesn't mean anything? It's easy to say that, right.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd have to be tough love for a
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: very strong time, a long time.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: It might be some families that have to do it
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: for a long time. Some people can do it for
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: the very first time. They hold that conversation and the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: person changes. So addictions is just weird. It's you can
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: make a pizza and put it in an oven and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: it comes out how it's supposed to every single time,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: as long as you follow the instructions. There's no one
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: size fits all. Why did this happen to this person?
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: And what is the right way to deal with this
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: individual like you? It's so complex. It's just so Complex's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: why the success rates are so low, the success rates
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: of people. That's why I said, I'm not supposed to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: be here after that many times in treatment and as
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: long as I was out there, I should not be here.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could imagine there's like a different array of
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: emotions from people looking at your story. For people that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: have lost people to say drugs and see you sit here, man,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: why couldn't my person just couldn't get it? In that
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: right amount of time. But I like that you're using
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: your shouldn't be here to like impact and change the world.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I love what I love what
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: I do today.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: Even though it seems like you're surrounded by trauma.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all day people are coming in to the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: treatment center. Then they're not, they're not.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but even to hear that you say, you have
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to deal with death on more than regular right, because
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: if they leave and they reuse or what have you.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: So it's like you're constantly it's like a firefighter. They're
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: constantly around the trauma. But you've been on the dark side.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you stay strong.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: Success is too, people like get their kids back and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: become productive members of society. And it's to know that
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: we played a small part in that. That that's the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: stuff that keeps us going. For every very sad story,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: there's five really happy stories too. So that's the And
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: then obviously like personal life and whether it's self care
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: or travel or fun or golfing or exercise or just
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: going home to my kids. Yeah, that's work is hard
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: for anybody. Any job first responders, Yeah, but.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Those particular jobs like the nurses the doctors, the what
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: you do firefighters like. Sometimes people say that those can
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: be like the tougher people to be like in a
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: relationship with, because they're constantly exposed to trauma. You could
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: be like, how is your day, honeywoo. Me and Sarah
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: got into it and as oh, yeah, I went to
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: this guy's house he committed suicide, or this young kid.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: That the trauma is like so much that they're almost
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: like numb to it.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you can interview my wife next. She'll
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: tell you all crazy stuff.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: You guys look so good online. Just a day in
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: the life of you. Now.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Wake up at probably five, I'll go to I'll go
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: to the gym, come home, get some desk work done
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: at the house before I go to the office. Probably
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know, one hundred or something emails, go usk,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: getting everything organized, go to the office. Have one hundred
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: and sixty employees. I have one hundred and sixty employees.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: We've got like twenty two locations in northwest Ohio. Now
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy beds right now, we'll have over
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: three hundred here shortly, and I just I run the
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: amith of business every single day. That's What I love
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: about it is you'll see a lot of CEOs or
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: founders in the addiction treatment space that are just investors.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: I don't have partners. I don't have investors that we're
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: not managed by some private equity from a different area
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: that doesn't know about what my city needs. I'm doing
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: it for the city. I'm in recovery ten years sober.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: I own the company myself, I own the real estate myself.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: How did you get the funding to put it all together?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: You don't want me.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: So slowly, but surely. I worked for another agency for
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: a little bit too before I started my own, and
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: I was a minority partner in that company. The majority
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: ownership did sold sell to private equity. And when that happened,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: it just completely changed, and so I sold. It wasn't
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: fun anymore. It wasn't the reason that I got into
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: it. It wasn't anything like bad. Just wasn't the quality that
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: I expect to provide for people. So I left. I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: sold my equity for pennies on the dollar and took
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: that and just reinvested it into my own company. Yeah.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When I left, though, I'll tell you that it
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: was very scary so I didn't get paid it. It
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: was a long term payout, and I went from being
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: paid very well to saying I don't like this and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: I need to leave too. I'm not gonna have a
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: paycheck for about a year. Yeah, but I'm making this
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: jump because I believe it's the right thing to do,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: and it was. It ended up being the best decision
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: I've ever made.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: Now, your first space, when you first started, you started
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: with one, right, or did you buy it take over
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: like another little company or No.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: Everything I've done I've built from scratch, So.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: It was one. So you get that first one your savings,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god, that self doubt a little bit.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: Dealing with cash flow problems I love. I love saying
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: cash flow problems because every business has to deal with
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: it at some point. So you're dealing with that hiring,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: trying to hire the right people and the wrong going
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: through that because I think that's like another whole nother
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: skill set.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So you start to look at HR a
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: whole lot different.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: HR is I believe one of the most unappreciated things
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: in running business human resources, compliance and in ours revenue cycle.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: If you don't know how to submit claims. You don't
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: know how to you can't keep the cash flow coming in.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do. At some point I'll talk about
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: it offline. I want to connect you with this lady,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Nina Linn out here in Orange County. She started a
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: program called wunder Seed. I think you guys would do
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: dynamite together. She uses AI to do preventative treatment on
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: trauma for youth.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Do you guys should connect?
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Connect? I think you guys would do good because you
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: have such passion for it.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it, thank you, I love it. I am. I'm
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: obsessed with it, absolutely obsessed.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, truly, I'm going to I want to connect y'all
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: because I could imagine great things. And then when you
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: do your touring for teaching the youth, is there what
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: do people have to do to get you to get
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: to their school?
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: Just reach out?
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: Some of me a LinkedIn message and ask what we're
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: going to eat on the show.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I was surprised it worked. And then do they have
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: to have certain budgets and stuff or is that all
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: back in you guys figure it all out.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: If it's local for the most part, local like very
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: close to Ohio within an hour or so. I'll speak
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: for free just because because I love doing it. Obviously,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: if I have to travel and take time off work,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: then I want to be compensated.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: For that and or at least not going the whole.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't lose. I can't just want to do
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: I love to do it.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm very flexible.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: In your program. Do you think it's way different from
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: what Deer was?
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: I know Deer, Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so. I don't really
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: talk about drugs that much. When I go speak at schools,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: it's out of a forty five minute presentation. I probably
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: talk about it for five minutes.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: So then what do you talk about?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: Choices and consequences, about real relevant things that young people
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: need to understand. This choice leads to this, and then
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: it's a snowball effect, and it's about who you surround
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: yourself with, Like your mom used to say that. Yeah,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: I literally say that, show me your friends and I'll
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: show you your future. I say that, I say that
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: in the presentations. But on the other end of that,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: good choices lead to good consequences. So social media, what
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: you're posting on social media today is going to stop
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: you from getting into your college of choice or your
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: dream job or whatever it might be. You bully somebody
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: in high school right now, like that person might be
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: interviewing your kid in thirty years. Your kid might not
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: get their dream now because you are a bully to them,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: and they connect the dots. It's thinking about things that
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: I never thought about, going places, get into vehicles that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: have certain things in them, going to a certain party
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: that has certain things going on. It's more just broader
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: conversations around some things that kids need to hear today.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: And it's not smoking. It's vaping. Everybody's all the kids
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: are vaping.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that you do that approach versus the dare.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: I was just, yeah, it's a little bit different. I
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: like to do things different.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: Matt. Thank you so much for taking time to let
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: me just radically pick your brain and your whole life apart.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: You did introduce me to whole corn and it wasn't
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: that bad. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: it was. And I'm so proud of you, and I'm
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: so thankful that you share your story every day. I
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: don't care if it's a hundred times a day. It's
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: always like a breath of fresh air.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it so much. Thank you for messaging me.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that got the chance to come out here
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: spend time with you on a Sunday. I'm going to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: take this to go if you don't mind. It's really good.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: It is right ripping.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: No, it's good.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: It is like floss or something.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, I definitely need floss. I was like this,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: I hope there's nothing there.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: No. Thank you guys for tuning in. You guys keep
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: up with Matt Bell M A T, T, B E
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: L L on all social media platforms. What books have you?
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about the books?
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: I wrote a memoir. Yeah, I wrote it myself. I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: actually recorded it myself on audio audio as well, so
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: it's on Audible and it's on Amazon. But it's called
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: Addiction Alumni, and it is it's my story. It is
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: my story for everything that we just talked about, and
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: way more like stories that I've never told to a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: lot of people. So it's it is.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: It is like a deeper, very.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: Very deep and very accurate and a lot of details
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: about what addiction looks like, but also what recovery looks.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Like to Okay, Yeah, I'll definitely check it out.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: And everything goes to charity. By the way, all the proceeds.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: There's something about people selling stories like that, not saying
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: anything's wrong with it, but I just didn't want to
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: profit off of that, off of my stories. All the
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: sale proceeds go to charity.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, and then that charity helps people in
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: addiction or do you choose.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: We chose a nonprofit to determine where the funds go,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: so they're constantly doing needs assessments and they'll dole it
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: out as the funds come in.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And then Matt Bell Properties,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: that's what is that? Does that somehow tie to Team Recovery?
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: Some of it does, but some of it doesn't. I
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: just love real estate.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: Do you do flips and stuff?
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: I like to buy and hold? I don't like to buy.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: I buy and hold.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: So like residential, like apartment building type.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: Things, apartments, strip malls, commercials.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: Commercial real estate. You don't think that's risky.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: Some of it is, some of it is. You find
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: the right building though with some good credit, strong national tenants.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: Since it's a little bit different.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully soon we'll have them at Bell Like financial
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: literacy book, I feel like you're definitely gonna have some
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: good tips in there too.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's wild and I get
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: to do all sorts of cool stuff because of recovery.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: So because of recovery.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm able to be in recovery because of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: my addiction. So everything happens for a reason.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's an honor to say with you, thank
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: you guys for tuning in. Peace out,