Latest / Finding New Waters / From the NBA to Recovery, Community, and Purpose | Patrick Balsley & Mike Gminski

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From the NBA to Recovery, Community, and Purpose | Patrick Balsley & Mike Gminski · Finding New Waters

• 0:00
  But I basically went off the grid for almost 3 years I
• 0:02
  because I didn't want to hear that phone call again.
• 0:05
  I didn't want to talk to anybody and it just continued to spiral
• 0:10
  for me. COVID comes, if you remember,
• 0:14
  they shut down the ACC tournament that year, the NCAA
• 0:17
  tournament. Nobody knew what the future was
• 0:19
  going to look like as far as sports were concerned.
• 0:22
  We were we were isolated in place and I was drinking all day
• 0:27
  every day. All right.
• 0:28
  Welcome back everybody to another edition of Finding New
• 0:30
  Waters. My name is Bea Reeves.
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  I'm the director of business development here at New Waters
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  Recovery in Raleigh. Very psyched to have two special
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  guests today. One is one of two people to ever
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  be on the podcast twice, Mr. Patrick Balsley of Sauna.
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  I'm going to let him talk more about Sonic because it's
• 0:50
  multifaceted now. And then Mr. Mike Jeminski I've
• 0:54
  gotten to know over the last few years.
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  So welcome, you guys. Thank you for being here.
• 0:57
  Yeah, thanks for having us, man. Our pleasure.
• 1:00
  Absolutely. It's great to have you back and
• 1:02
  last time you were here we were in a little bit of a different
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  studio and now we've been upgraded.
• 1:07
  This is this is pretty sick, Yeah.
• 1:10
  I want to come back solo so I can catch him.
• 1:14
  I feel like I'm always going to be behind him one episode if
• 1:17
  we're together all the time. That's fair.
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  Well, that can be arranged. That can be arranged.
• 1:21
  Yeah, absolutely. So Patrick, I want we since
• 1:24
  you've been on, we want to sort of touch on a brief history of
• 1:29
  time with you. And then I want to we want to
• 1:32
  hear about what Sauna is doing and we also want to learn a lot
• 1:35
  about Mike. So start with tell us everything
• 1:37
  that Sauna is doing, especially since three years ago almost,
• 1:41
  you know, you were sort of new and now you've got a lot going
• 1:44
  on. Sure.
• 1:44
  So Sonic Counseling actually started in Delray Beach in 2017.
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  That's where I started my private practice and moved back
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  to Charlotte in 2019 and, and carried my practice with me and
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  kind of grew that a little bit into a, a, a small group
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  counseling practice primarily focusing on teens and adults
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  struggling with addiction issues, working with family
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  members of, of people struggling with addiction.
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  We, we do counseling, some coaching, some intervention
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  services and out of sauna counseling.
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  It, it grew sauna House, which we started at the end of 2022,
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  which is an extended care program for men usually coming
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  out of primary residential treatment, adult men, 18 and up.
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  And it started originally with only six beds and it was, it was
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  pretty much just like a, a smaller sober living with a
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  little bit of outpatient clinical services.
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  And that's grown over the last three years.
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  Now we have 3 phases to our program.
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  We have 20 guys in our program at a time.
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  We still try to keep it small and also have integrated
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  clinical services. Now we have intensive outpatient
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  programming and outpatient programming that's, that's
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  integrated in into the into the into sauna house.
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  So most guys end up staying with us from anywhere from six months
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  to a year typically and they kind of phase down through our,
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  through our programs. And you know, we, we do a lot of
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  fun stuff, a lot of, you know, pretty robust clinical.
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  We have been doing a lot of psychodrama recently.
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  I've been been doing a lot of psychodrama trainings and we
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  fired some clinicians and specialize in psychodrama.
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  So we're doing some really good work with that.
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  And yeah, since sauna house is growing, it's evolving.
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  We're, we're probably going to get a little bit bigger, but we,
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  we don't want to, I don't want to probably get over over 30
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  guys at a time. And we're going to keep our
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  intensive outpatient program specifically for the sauna house
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  guys. We haven't opened that up to the
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  community, but we do provide, we do provide counseling and
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  coaching and intervention services for the community
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  through sauna counseling. And then what I'm probably the
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  most excited about is kind of the third leg, it's our, it's
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  our non profit part of our brand and, and it's called Sauna
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  Recovery Foundation. And really I created this in
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  order to fill in some gaps in the community, in the Charlotte
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  community specifically, and to be able to help families
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  navigate the process of recovery.
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  One of the things, you know, my, I needed to go to treatment when
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  I was 16. I didn't end up, you know, in
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  getting what I needed until I was about 28.
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  And the primary reason for that is because my family didn't know
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  what to do. They didn't know what to do.
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  They didn't know who to turn to. They didn't know who to call.
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  They didn't understand addiction, they didn't
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  understand the treatment process.
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  So we created Sound of Recovery Foundation to fill in that gap
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  in the Charlotte community. And we provide three things.
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  The first is we provide a triage service for, for our community
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  to where people can call and, and get navigate and get
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  navigation services and connected to the appropriate
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  resources in our community. And then we also have free
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  family support groups that we do virtually for the, for the
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  community. And anybody really nationally
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  can, can join those groups. But we did create those for the
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  Charlotte community. They're led by licensed
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  clinicians that I've worked with.
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  We vetted, you know, we actually have some really, really good
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  clinicians running these groups and we'll be rolling those out.
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  We actually started our first group last night and we'll be
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  rolling those out and adding groups hopefully to create kind
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  of a buffet of different support.
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  You know, some for families of, of, of teens that are struggling
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  with addiction, some that, you know, adults who have spouses in
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  recovery, young adults in recovery, stuff like that and
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  really be able to kind of meet people where they're at and in
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  those different demographics. And then, and then the third leg
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  is going to be the community education side where we're going
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  to do clinical trainings for local clinicians.
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  We'll do community speaking engagements to kind of reduce
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  stigma and raise awareness around certain, certain trending
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  topics in the clinical world that we want to pass on to the
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  community and kind of keep everybody up to speed on, on
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  what's going on and, and how they can support their loved
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  ones and support their community.
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  And, and really try to get stakeholders educated on how to
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  navigate this process. If they know somebody's
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  struggling or, or they're struggling themselves, how to
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  reach out for help and get what they need.
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  So yeah, I'm, I'm really excited about that.
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  That's going to be growing, hopefully pretty rapidly in the
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  Charlotte community over the next couple years.
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  Nice. Well, you know, we've been
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  friends now for since I've been in the field and we kind of a
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  lot of mutual friends from, you know, I'm a little bit older,
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  but people I grew up with in Raleigh and vice versa.
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  But you know, being a trusted friend and colleague in the
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  field and being friends in real life, so to speak to, you know,
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  I've followed what you've been up to and you're always
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  passionate, knowledgeable, and one of those people that just,
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  you know, we're lucky to, to I'm lucky to know you.
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  We're lucky to know you, but The thing is, I remember when you
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  were telling me about the foundation, that was the thing.
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  You're always an excited, enthusiastic guy, but that was
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  the thing that I could tell. I mean, it's funny because I was
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  going to, you said it anyway just now the thing I'm most
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  excited about. But if you hadn't, I was going
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  to say, you know, the one thing that I seems like you're most
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  excited about is the foundations.
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  That's really cool. And that brings us over to Mike
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  the G Man. So how did y'all get connected?
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  Kind of an interesting story. I my well, first one, my sober
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  date is July 14th, 2020. So the place that I went to down
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  in Florida, I went back to for two more summers to work as a, a
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  counselor, peer mentor. And after being down there in
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  2022, I wanted to come back and find something in the Charlotte
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  North and in the North Carolina area, try to make an impact here
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  in the state. And I had the broadcast season.
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  So I was sitting in a restaurant and a mutual friend came up.
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  And she was, she was very instrumental, very supportive in
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  my recovery. And I told her about what I
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  wanted to do. And without missing a beat, she
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  says you need to have lunch with Patrick Palsley now.
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  I'd known as family through Arthur's and through the wine
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  shop. I was one of his uncle's better
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  customers in the prior life, but I never knew Patrick when he was
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  growing up, except for one. We can tell that story a little
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  bit later, but so we got in touch, we had lunch and that was
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  in April, I think of 2023 and I've been a part of the Sana
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  family ever since. That's awesome.
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  And so for those who are listening or watching don't
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  know, I mean, Mike, I'm going to let you tell, but you know, you
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  played basketball at Duke in the NBA.
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  So tell us about like, you know, what happened.
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  You know what you were like, what happened and what you're
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  like now a little bit. Yeah, I, well, I grew up in
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  Connecticut and it's kind of a small town and really loved
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  baseball early on, but kept going vertically and basketball
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  kind of shows itself, you know, for me.
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  And, you know, I got very good in a very short period of time.
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  Made all state my sophomore year when I was 15.
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  And that's when I first started drinking beer.
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  Had, you know, one half, one side of my family, you know,
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  drank the other half didn't. Kind of was kind of a weird
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  deal, but I was around it a lot growing up.
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  Never saw any really adverse consequences.
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  And you know, as I tell people, I'm from another century and
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  back then ex athletes were doing beer commercials.
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  So I'm like, all right, this is cool.
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  You know, beer, you know, I'm I'm not into I'm not doing any
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  drugs, no hard liquor or anything.
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  And that continued through high school in the college at Duke.
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  You know, I, I graduated with three, four never missed
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  classes, never affected my playing.
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  Never, you know, I never, I didn't miss many parties.
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  I had a very active social life when I was at Duke, but
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  everything else was really buttoned up pretty tight and
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  graduate in 1980, go to the NBA and kind of the same thing now.
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  Early in the 70's the NBA really had a bad drug problem,
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  specifically cocaine, and that really started to clean up.
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  The year before I got into the league, Magic Johnson and Larry
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  Bird were drafted and that really propelled the league
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  going forward. Michael Jordan came in and in
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  1984 Charles Barkley and you know the league and our
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  commissioner David Stern really made it a a point to clean the
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  league up as far as the the drugs were concerned.
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  So it was still all the way through my playing days.
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  Beer I got, I retired in 94 after 14 years and I started my
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  broadcast career with the Hornets.
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  That's the team I finished with in Charlotte and I was doing
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  their radio and TV now. That's when I started to have
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  some cocktails and it was a it was a weird existence because we
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  as a broadcast team travelled with the team, but we weren't a
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  part of the team. Yeah, we were our own little
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  group and we would get together and go down to the bar and have
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  some drinks and, you know, go out, have a bite to eat, have
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  some wine, come back, have some more drinks and go to bed.
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  But I did fall in from that point.
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  Going forward, if I hit a rough patch, I would tend to self
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  medicate a little bit. Nothing extraordinary. 2000
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  comes, I've got a 2 year old son, my ex wife's business goes
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  bankrupt in the in the Internet bubble and in the 2000 lot of
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  stress, lot of tension at home. Things were really going
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  sideways. So I take the self medicating up
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  to a different level. Eventually wind up separating
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  and getting divorced. I found I found love again.
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  A woman who was quite a few years younger than me.
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  She was 23 years younger than me.
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  We got engaged in 2013 and she has some health issues with we
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  thought we were addressing. Well.
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  I came home from a road trip on Valentine's Day of 2014 and she
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  died that night in my arms of a massive internal hemorrhage and
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  I just completely short circuited.
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  It was the last thing I ever thought would happen.
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  I was always concerned about predeceasing her at a when she
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  was still relatively young and so I just hit the bottle and
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  people around me in my life gave me about a two year haul pass in
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  2017. My Duke teammates who are like
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  brothers to me tried. They saw where I was headed and
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  it was straight down and they tried to have an intervention
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  for me. It was a profanity lace no on my
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  end and I basically went off the grid for almost 3 years.
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  I because I didn't want to hear that phone call again.
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  I didn't want to talk to anybody and it just continued the spiral
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  for me. COVID comes.
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  If you remember, they shut down the ACC tournament that year,
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  the NCAA tournament. Nobody knew what the future was
• 14:08
  going to look like as far as sports were concerned.
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  We were, we were isolated in place and I was drinking all day
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  every day. I was probably 1 to 2 bottles of
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  vodka a day. My son was living with me.
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  He was witnessing all of this. So one day in in June, middle of
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  June, late June, I went out to go up to the ABC store, get my
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  supplies, go to Harris Teeter, get something to eat.
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  And then to preface this, we're living at close quarters, so I'm
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  trying to be sly and I'm throwing some empty bottles in
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  the woods back behind our house. Flaw in the plan was I was
• 14:51
  throwing them all in the same place and my my son was out
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  walking his dog, saw this growing pile.
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  And so I come back from that trip out to the store and
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  there's a bunch of dirty vodka bottles on the kitchen table
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  with a note that said, Dad, I love you, I want to help you.
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  That spurred, you know, a few tearful conversations.
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  He had an intervention for me on July 10th, video or Zoom
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  intervention of the two guys from the place I went to down in
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  Florida and a woman who is actually the maid of honor in
• 15:30
  our wedding, who had, who is in recovery herself.
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  And I just, I, you know, within 1/2 an hour I was like, I'm in,
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  you know, when can I come down? And so they said, well, we don't
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  have any room and we, there's nothing open in detox until the
• 15:47
  13th. And, you know, but come down
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  then and you're going to, but we need you to keep drinking.
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  And I was like, all right, yeah, I can, I'm, I'm OK with that
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  program. And so, but the one thing I did
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  being in the interim that from that intervention to the 13th, I
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  called about 30 people that I had had no contact with who are
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  really close, really dear friends and told them what I was
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  doing. Now, I had no idea about
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  accountability and, and the steps in the a a, but that's
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  what I was. I was setting the accountability
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  clock on myself saying, you know, I'm going down this day
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  and starting my treatment. And everybody was fabulous.
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  My son drove me down. I got down there a hot mess.
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  I'm in the back seat drinking on the way down to Florida and my,
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  you know, as I said earlier, my sober date is that next day on
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  the 14th and it's been a fabulous 5 plus years.
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  Man, that I knew a little bit of your story, but thank you that
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  that's so amazing. And I mean, and thank you for
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  it's sad and sweet and everything and thank you.
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  And, you know, I always relate to everybody in recovery on some
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  level, but there were three things that you just said that,
• 17:05
  you know, I didn't know about that were just so you had the
• 17:08
  situation with your wife died in your arms and, you know, a
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  little bit different, but my dad was diagnosed with cancer in
• 17:14
  June of 2017. I was so sad about it, but the
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  overriding emotion was I can get away with this now.
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  Like nobody can question me, you know, and I can.
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  And I, you know, I've never referred to it as a hall pass,
• 17:27
  but that's what I was expecting. And people did give it to me for
• 17:29
  a little while. But what it did, and it sounds
• 17:31
  like it did for you too, was just completely rocket ship
• 17:34
  exacerbate and accelerate was already happening.
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  And then the other thing is or the second thing is, is when I
• 17:41
  was going to treatment they it wasn't a matter of days.
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  It was just kind of the next day that they had the bed at 2:00
• 17:47
  and I said, can I sleep on it? Let me think about it.
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  My mom said, OK, called her the next day said hey, my bags are
• 17:53
  packed and it was 10 in the morning.
• 17:54
  And she said, I can't believe I have to ask this, but can you
• 17:57
  take one of those pills you were taking?
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  And I was like, no problem. And me too.
• 18:05
  But then the third thing is what, and I've never really
• 18:07
  heard anybody else say this the way you did, is that
• 18:10
  accountability thing before we knew anything about it.
• 18:12
  Like I knew nothing about sobriety, recovery, treatment
• 18:16
  steps, nothing. But on the way to treatment, I
• 18:20
  emailed at least one person. My mom's driving I'm and I got
• 18:23
  my phone, emailing from my phone at least one person in every
• 18:28
  kind of pocket of friend groups and family member.
• 18:30
  You know, somebody in Charleston, in New York, in
• 18:32
  Athens, in Atlanta, Raleigh, you know, places I'd lived where I
• 18:35
  had friends and sent them the link to where I was going to
• 18:38
  treatment. And I just said something to the
• 18:40
  effect of it. It's been a rough year and I
• 18:42
  want you to know where I'm where I'm going and I'll see you on
• 18:44
  the other side. And I think part of it
• 18:47
  subconsciously or consciously sounds like the same with you,
• 18:49
  but more consciously maybe is I wanted that accountability with
• 18:53
  before I even knew that was such a big part of what we now do,
• 18:57
  because I just didn't want to disappear for 30 days and hope
• 19:00
  nobody noticed. And then I get home and, you
• 19:02
  know, can go back to my old ways and people, you know, I wanted
• 19:05
  people to say, wait, aren't you like then you just go to rehab,
• 19:09
  you know, So that thank you for sharing all that and I and it's
• 19:13
  really cool to hear somebody with such similarities, you
• 19:15
  know. Well, and and again, I knew
• 19:18
  nothing about making amends, but that's it was part of
• 19:22
  accountability part saying I'm really sorry that I turned my
• 19:27
  back on you for all this time and I never lost everybody stay
• 19:32
  with me. As a matter of fact, when I was
• 19:34
  when I was down in my impatient for two months, they used to
• 19:39
  they would joke with me that they said nobody had ever gotten
• 19:43
  as much mail as you did in your in my time down there are people
• 19:49
  writing me letters of encouragement and just checking
• 19:51
  in on me. And you know, it was just just
• 19:55
  a, a very blessed time for me to reunite with my life.
• 20:01
  I hear you. It's it's refreshing to find out
• 20:03
  that, you know, people still love us.
• 20:05
  You know, I mean, we, I mean, I certainly did my best to drive
• 20:07
  people away without ever I didn't even have to say anything
• 20:10
  nasty to somebody or do something I really regretted or
• 20:13
  would eventually need to make an amends for.
• 20:15
  But still, I mean, I was just so isolative, you know, And so now
• 20:21
  you're you know, you're now you're five years and change
• 20:24
  sober. It's amazing and you're working
• 20:27
  with Patrick. What is your like?
• 20:28
  What's your day-to-day like working with Patrick?
• 20:30
  Well, the the great thing to back up before that, but I was
• 20:36
  nine months into recovery. It was my and I'd never missed
• 20:41
  the broadcast season. I started that with, you know,
• 20:43
  the year picked up and, and I my broadcast family embraced me and
• 20:49
  what I was, you know, the journey that I was on.
• 20:52
  And so the season it was season was ending in February and HBO
• 20:59
  Real Sports of Bryant Gumbel's show was doing a feature on the
• 21:04
  place where I did my work and then went back and mentored at
• 21:09
  who's it was owned by Jason Williams, former net player who
• 21:13
  had life went really sideways. He went through treatment down
• 21:17
  in Florida and decided to open his own little small boutique
• 21:20
  place. They found out the producer and
• 21:24
  the woman who was doing it, Mary Carrillo, found out that I had
• 21:27
  just gone through the program. They asked me or they asked
• 21:32
  Jason to put them in contact. And.
• 21:34
  And so they reached out to me and said, would you be willing
• 21:37
  to go on camera? And I thought about it for just
• 21:40
  a little bit and I said, yeah, I think I I would like to tell my
• 21:43
  story. And that's the first time that I
• 21:45
  really I went public with my recovery and what I was going my
• 21:51
  journey. Talk about accountability.
• 21:54
  I came out hot on HBO, you know, I didn't just tell a couple
• 21:58
  people, but but you know, to and that really set the tone for me
• 22:04
  in what I'm doing now. I've been, you know, doing
• 22:08
  podcasts, speaking. I want to be very transparent
• 22:15
  and open about where I am and you know, I, I made the decision
• 22:19
  be that I wasn't going to let somebody else tell the story for
• 22:23
  me chit chatting on social media.
• 22:25
  You know, I was. If you want to know what I'm
• 22:27
  going through, I'm going to tell you it's.
• 22:29
  A great way to look at it. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 22:32
  And thank you for being so public about it because, you
• 22:35
  know, we talk about this a lot on here and in general just, you
• 22:39
  know, the stigma, it's been so destigmatized.
• 22:42
  And I'm just speaking for me. But even though I know I'm in
• 22:45
  recovery, I work at a treatment center.
• 22:48
  I'm friends with all these people in recovery.
• 22:50
  Everybody knows. Everybody but but but still,
• 22:53
  when I hear addict alcoholic, my mind still goes to that
• 22:57
  stereotype of like the guy with the paper bag or the like
• 23:00
  sketchy addict in the alley, even though all day every day
• 23:02
  I'm around people who, you know, break that stereotype.
• 23:05
  But I'm but it's so it's still a work in progress.
• 23:07
  And the more we see people from every walk of life and, you
• 23:11
  know, athletes and celebrities being open about it, you know,
• 23:14
  the better, you know, the better the newcomer's chances are.
• 23:17
  You know, when I was brand new, I mean, it was such a big deal
• 23:20
  for me to know that celebrities like Trey Anastasio, Robert
• 23:24
  Downey Junior, all these people were sober because I was like,
• 23:27
  wait a minute. So like these guys, they, they
• 23:28
  got everything and they still want to live like this.
• 23:31
  They still choose to live like this.
• 23:32
  That's powerful, you know. And, and I really feel too, that
• 23:39
  where I am now that that my faith has been a huge part of my
• 23:45
  recovery. And I feel like everything up to
• 23:49
  this point in my life has been preparing me to do what I'm
• 23:52
  doing now. The platform that basketball
• 23:56
  gave me, the communication skills that the broadcasting has
• 24:00
  given me now to have a purpose behind it and to use that
• 24:05
  effectively. When I was going through that
• 24:08
  five year mess of, you know, all the pain and suffering, I didn't
• 24:12
  understand it and I cursed God every night.
• 24:16
  But now I see what the plan was. That's so cool because I.
• 24:20
  Mean, let me you've had this, you know, you played for Duke,
• 24:22
  you played in the NBA for 14 years and, you know,
• 24:25
  broadcaster, you know, I didn't have anything like that.
• 24:28
  You know, I had a sort of a life before sobriety.
• 24:30
  But, and, and, but, and now that I'm in, you know, in recovery
• 24:33
  and working in treatment, I can't imagine this is 100% my
• 24:39
  purpose, you know, And it, I think it, it's so refreshing to
• 24:43
  hear people say that and mean it and know, you mean it because it
• 24:48
  could look like, even if even for me who didn't have a, you
• 24:51
  know, wasn't famous, didn't have a, you know, ACC basketball
• 24:55
  career, NBA basketball career, But you know, I to, it could
• 24:58
  seem like, oh, he's just, you know, kind of the same way I was
• 25:01
  so cynical before I got sober. I thought everybody, because I
• 25:04
  knew a handful of people who were sober who were like kind of
• 25:07
  wild, like I was a little bit older and I was like, they're
• 25:11
  just so ashamed they had to get sober.
• 25:13
  They just go around pretending to be happy, you know, but like,
• 25:16
  I'm sitting here talking to you. I mean, I know it's genuine in
• 25:18
  me. Know it's genuine, you and you,
• 25:19
  of course. It's just wild how we all have
• 25:23
  these different lives. Then we end up it's just like
• 25:25
  we've heard it said that it's the greatest club nobody ever
• 25:27
  wanted to join, you know? I mean, so true, you know?
• 25:31
  Yeah. One of my favorite quotes, and I
• 25:33
  don't know who said it, was that addiction's the only disease
• 25:36
  that'll leave you in a better place having and had it than
• 25:38
  ever having it at all. Love it.
• 25:40
  Yeah, that's so true for. Me, yeah.
• 25:44
  And I'm, you know, I just though I, I think back on all the
• 25:51
  things that I would have missed had I not made that decision 5
• 25:58
  plus years ago. I've, I've got a grandson who's
• 26:01
  18 months old now, another one on the way that's been watching
• 26:05
  my son become a father. All the things that I've been
• 26:11
  able to the people who by my being transparent, who have
• 26:16
  reached out to me to ask the same quest that what we're
• 26:20
  trying to do it at the, you know, at at sauna.
• 26:24
  You know, then that's the biggest question that I get is I
• 26:28
  don't know, you know, somebody comes and says, I don't know
• 26:29
  what to do. Here's the situation.
• 26:31
  What and and I think that is what we're going to be able to
• 26:36
  answer for people and as you do over at New Waters.
• 26:40
  Yeah, I mean with that. Exactly.
• 26:41
  And that's the beauty of, you know, having, being, knowing
• 26:44
  people like Patrick, you know, is most people who do reach out
• 26:48
  to me, whether it's a personal thing or work related, like for
• 26:51
  whatever reason, they're we're not going to be the right answer
• 26:54
  or fit, but, you know, depending on all sorts of factors.
• 26:58
  But The thing is, we, we know who to ask and what to do
• 27:01
  because you know, it, it's, it's easy to say there is no playbook
• 27:06
  for this stuff because there kind of is.
• 27:08
  I mean, there are all kinds of books on what to do, but there
• 27:10
  when it comes to a family member or a loved one, people still
• 27:14
  just don't quite know what to do.
• 27:16
  And that's why it's so great to have resources like, you know,
• 27:18
  like sauna and new waters and the people we all work with
• 27:21
  because, you know, it's, it's, it's impossible for somebody to
• 27:25
  kind of in those situations to kind of pull back and be
• 27:29
  objective and listen for you. They're like, they're so scared
• 27:32
  and rightfully so, you know? And we're still so far.
• 27:34
  Off from like, actually figuring out what the hell is going on
• 27:38
  and to be able to make accurate, you know, assessment,
• 27:41
  diagnostics. I mean, it's so hard.
• 27:45
  And and and. One of the things that I really
• 27:47
  appreciate about about Mike and about a lot of the people that
• 27:52
  we associate with, they, they operate out of that level of
• 27:55
  humility. Yeah.
• 27:57
  We know that there is no like perfect fit for everybody.
• 28:00
  We know that there's not a specific playbook that's going
• 28:03
  to fit every certain situation. You know, family dynamics are
• 28:07
  different, people's financial situations are different.
• 28:12
  You know, it, there's just so many different variables that go
• 28:16
  into somebody getting what they need.
• 28:19
  Yeah, I mean, and it's, and it's fluid too, you know, I mean,
• 28:21
  what somebody may need on one day may not be what they need on
• 28:25
  the next day. And that's why we have to have
• 28:28
  resources in our community and relationships that people can
• 28:32
  build and stick with to be able to kind of have somebody guide
• 28:36
  them throughout the whole thing, somebody that they can trust.
• 28:39
  It's not going to say, Oh, well, you're, you know, get your kid
• 28:42
  on the plane tomorrow or he's going to die and, you know, put
• 28:45
  a mortgage on your house because because this is this is going to
• 28:49
  work, you know, but you know. And to that word.
• 28:55
  And there's another one that for me that became poor in the
• 28:59
  humility and in in so many ways that kept me out of treatment.
• 29:05
  And you know, when Sarah died and I didn't seek grief
• 29:09
  counseling, I didn't seek any kind of therapy at all.
• 29:12
  I didn't seek God. I didn't seek my pastor's help.
• 29:15
  You know, I, my, my athletes ego said, no, I, I got this, you
• 29:20
  know, I can take care of this. And it wasn't until I
• 29:24
  surrendered to that completely that that when things really
• 29:29
  changed that night of the, of the intervention and that that
• 29:34
  surrender has gone into my, my faith as well.
• 29:37
  That kind of really dovetails well, But you know, if, if, if
• 29:42
  you are going through treatment and you have still any kind of
• 29:46
  ego or trying to hold on to a little bit of control, it's not
• 29:50
  going to last a whole lot. You know, I've seen anyway, you
• 29:53
  got you. You have to submit and give in
• 29:56
  and, and really partake of your recovery.
• 30:00
  I'm sitting here kind of. Giggling about the word
• 30:03
  surrender because it seems so anathema, you know, to being to
• 30:10
  doing it ourselves, you know, and you're a, you know, a
• 30:13
  professional, former professional athlete, you know
• 30:16
  who you know or you're trained and you want to win.
• 30:20
  Well, I had. I had how?
• 30:21
  Did surrendering you winning but they but it.
• 30:23
  Is I had a guard Kareem. You know, I had to go on guard,
• 30:27
  Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I can't go out there with an
• 30:30
  attitude of surrender. You know, I got to.
• 30:32
  I got to think pretty highly of myself saying, all right, let's
• 30:35
  go, let's let's jump it up, big fella.
• 30:39
  And yeah, but then so your greatest strength becomes your
• 30:43
  greatest weakness at some point in time, right?
• 30:46
  Yeah. I.
• 30:46
  Mean this the concept of surrendering to win it just it
• 30:49
  makes sense to me now but it was it took a second and I I've
• 30:52
  talked about this recently on this podcast or hadn't hadn't
• 30:55
  thought about this while but when I was in treatment when
• 30:58
  somebody made the analogy that think about Japan at the end of
• 31:01
  World War 2 they complete surrender white flag but Japan
• 31:05
  came back stronger and better than ever but they had to fully
• 31:08
  surrender before that could happen and that really helped me
• 31:10
  a lot and it's and it's so. Hard and this is one of the
• 31:13
  things that that we really try to create with everything we're
• 31:17
  doing at sauna house specifically right now and and
• 31:20
  creating like a really safe space is one of the reasons that
• 31:25
  people don't surrender is because they don't feel safe.
• 31:28
  They don't, they don't feel like when they do surrender, they're
• 31:31
  actually going to get what they need because for most people,
• 31:34
  they've really never gotten what they've needed emotionally,
• 31:37
  psychologically, physically. And, and one of the things that
• 31:41
  I'm kind of been obsessed with is really how we talk about
• 31:45
  addiction. And, and that's one of the
• 31:47
  things that I really want to change in our own community in
• 31:51
  Charlotte. And that's one of the reasons
• 31:53
  that we started sound Recovery Foundation was to educate people
• 31:56
  about what addiction really is. Because when we focus too much
• 31:59
  on the substances, Oh no, that's scary.
• 32:01
  That's not, you know, that's not me.
• 32:04
  It's really hard. I don't want to surrender that
• 32:05
  stuff. But if we can talk about
• 32:07
  addiction from like an energetic standpoint to where everybody
• 32:12
  can identify with it, you know, hey, it's the way that we relate
• 32:15
  to food, It's the way we relate to ourselves.
• 32:17
  It's the way we relate to money, power, work, all these things in
• 32:22
  our lives that we do from like this obsessive and compulsive
• 32:26
  lens. If everybody can identify with
• 32:30
  that, it's going to be way easier for people that actually,
• 32:35
  you know, are really struggling with the substance stuff to like
• 32:38
  get the help that they need in the community.
• 32:41
  Because everybody's going to be like, Oh yeah, I kind of, I get
• 32:43
  that, you know what I mean? So we can kind of normalize that
• 32:46
  energy and if if we can talk about addiction to where
• 32:51
  everybody can kind of identify with it, there's not this US
• 32:55
  versus them mentality or if this it's like, Oh, well, that's not
• 32:59
  me because I'm not that bad. You know what I'm saying?
• 33:03
  I do, yeah. And then the.
• 33:04
  Other thing too, on that note is and when I look back when I was
• 33:07
  doing my, you know, first step drunk a log and all that, you
• 33:12
  know, I mean, I was, you know, I got trouble, like arrested and
• 33:15
  DUII mean like there were some obvious stuff, but I I but it
• 33:18
  took a while before I was like that.
• 33:19
  I got to have it kind of to function, you know, but but what
• 33:23
  I, I say this to people a lot is, you know, it doesn't really
• 33:26
  matter how much or how often, but it, what it does to us.
• 33:30
  And what's more importantly, sometimes, in my case,
• 33:31
  especially what it kept me from doing, you know, like it was
• 33:35
  just always in the way of actually growing up, you know,
• 33:39
  put it simply, you know, And so if it's keeping somebody from
• 33:42
  I'm not, so you don't have to be some kind of, you know, be rich
• 33:45
  and famous, but just from succeeding as a, as a human
• 33:48
  being, then it's a problem and you know.
• 33:51
  I have, I have an ambitious approach in what we're doing in
• 33:54
  that by the broadcasting. I laugh when I tell, when I go
• 34:00
  speak at high schools or middle schools that I've played in the
• 34:02
  last century, which is not a lie.
• 34:05
  And it's funny that most of the, most of the groups that I speak
• 34:09
  to will go on YouTube after I leave to figure out who I was
• 34:13
  and they'll see highlights and everything.
• 34:15
  And but I, I want to be relevant to a broad spectrum of ages
• 34:20
  because I was 60 when I went into treatment.
• 34:24
  So the reinforcing the not, it's never too late to take that step
• 34:30
  and then try to do as much preventative work on the front
• 34:33
  end as we can. And on the other side really
• 34:37
  come, you know, be there on the recovery side as well.
• 34:40
  Yeah. I hear you.
• 34:42
  And so kind of back to what you all do on a day-to-day.
• 34:46
  I mean, you're, you know, you're, you're help your, your
• 34:50
  focus is kind of the foundation and you're doing fundraising,
• 34:53
  but you're also kind of like a, you know, a, a you tell me, man,
• 34:56
  I don't I'm I'm. More of an ambassador, well,
• 35:00
  breaking down stigmas. And I, I consider my, in my
• 35:04
  faith, I consider myself a fisherman.
• 35:07
  You know, I'm out there telling my story.
• 35:09
  I can't make anybody go into treatment.
• 35:12
  Like all I can do is start the conversation or get them
• 35:15
  thinking about it and or get them comfortable enough to come
• 35:20
  to me and say, you know what, you know, what do I do?
• 35:24
  So. So yes, also.
• 35:26
  Trying to be helpful here. He, he, he has relationships
• 35:30
  with a lot of the guys at Sauna House and, and spend several
• 35:34
  days a week at the house connecting with the guys,
• 35:36
  mentoring the guys comes to our group.
• 35:39
  But you know, Sunday and Monday nights we do, we do a big
• 35:42
  community dinner on Sunday nights at Sauna House.
• 35:45
  He's there every Sunday, Monday nights too.
• 35:48
  We have a, we have a kind of a all recovery meeting at the
• 35:51
  house with the guys and, and he kind of takes on the head
• 35:55
  coaching role and always drop some wisdom.
• 35:58
  And he's a real, he's a real rock in our, in our sauna
• 36:02
  community, you know, and, and. I don't.
• 36:06
  I don't tell you. This enough, man like you're
• 36:08
  you're your faith speaks when you don't have to, man.
• 36:15
  Well, that was I. Forget who said it, but it was
• 36:19
  spread the gospel, speak if you have to.
• 36:22
  And you know, I, I try to live, but thank you.
• 36:24
  And I kind of view myself in that, in our community as a
• 36:29
  tribal elder, if you will. And but you know, a lot of the
• 36:35
  guys want to know about my playing days that, you know, we,
• 36:37
  we talk basketball, we talk sports, we talk life, we talk.
• 36:41
  I've had, you know, a lot of our guys have come and talk to me
• 36:44
  about faith and that journey. So, you know, from that
• 36:48
  standpoint. And then we, we on Wednesday
• 36:50
  nights, we have a men's meeting that we go to a meeting that's
• 36:54
  like we go have dinner. And the, the, the two things
• 36:59
  that I'm really proud of that Patrick has really set is the
• 37:04
  culture of sauna, which is a very healing, very safe vibe.
• 37:10
  And I got that when he had his first house and two people
• 37:13
  living there. That's when I came on board.
• 37:16
  And here we are. And that's what I sense in the
• 37:20
  room when all of us are together, that people are not
• 37:24
  afraid to bare their souls and to open up and the beast safe
• 37:30
  about how they're really doing at that moment.
• 37:33
  And I I was. I mentioned earlier when I was
• 37:37
  mumbling about what we do at sauna house or what we've been
• 37:40
  doing recently and I talked, touched on a little bit of the,
• 37:43
  the psychodrama stuff that we've been integrating into our, into
• 37:46
  our clinical work. The, the guy that founded
• 37:49
  psychodrama was a guy named Jacob Moreno.
• 37:52
  He was a psychiatrist and A and a psychotherapist.
• 37:55
  He was actually the founder of group psychotherapy.
• 37:58
  And one of his most famous quotes that that, like, probably
• 38:03
  has hit home more for me than in any other statement that I've
• 38:07
  ever heard around addiction and mental health.
• 38:10
  And that is there's no such thing as a resistant client,
• 38:14
  only an inadequate warm up. Yeah, I've heard you say that
• 38:18
  before. And and.
• 38:20
  And that is the culture of Sauna House and everything we do with
• 38:25
  sauna in general, with our counseling practice, with Sauna
• 38:28
  house, with Sauna Recovery Foundation.
• 38:30
  If you can warm people up, they're like the the safety is
• 38:36
  the medicine. And if you can get people safe,
• 38:40
  they feel comfortable enough to lean into that humility, to lean
• 38:44
  into that surrender and actually get to the point where where
• 38:48
  they can open up and become vulnerable and allow themselves
• 38:52
  to heal. And what fosters that?
• 38:54
  Be is that our guys do a great job that ones who have been
• 38:58
  there for a period of time when somebody new comes in, they do a
• 39:02
  really terrific job of mentoring the new guys.
• 39:04
  And so we've it's started to build up this cycle of new, then
• 39:10
  comfortable, then mentorship, then you know, well, the few
• 39:14
  times I've. Been as you've been growing.
• 39:16
  I mean, when I see the guys, I've never sat in a, you know, a
• 39:19
  group proper, but seen the guys interacting and interacting with
• 39:22
  you and they I mean, these don't look like people who are pissed
• 39:26
  off to be in, you know, in treatment in their, you know,
• 39:30
  mom dad or make them. And these guys look like they're
• 39:32
  happy and becoming happy Joyce and free and enjoying life in,
• 39:37
  you know, early, early recovery, which is huge.
• 39:40
  I mean, not, you know, I go to lots of places, whether you
• 39:43
  know, whether it's an inpatient or a sober living or whatever,
• 39:47
  it is all kinds of places. And so often as you know, I see
• 39:50
  people who are in there just like not psyched to be there,
• 39:53
  you know, and it and it's not the case.
• 39:54
  It's sauna. One one of the things that you
• 39:57
  mentioned earlier about like you know you needed to get.
• 40:01
  The things out of the way that were preventing you from
• 40:04
  becoming who you could become. Like Hindsight's 2020, like IA
• 40:09
  lot of the guys that we work with.
• 40:10
  And and you know, I never knew what my potential was because I
• 40:15
  had so much shame inside of me from, you know, from a young age
• 40:19
  and then driven by my 1015 years of active addiction.
• 40:25
  I had no idea like what was ahead of me, you know, and, and
• 40:30
  that's one of the things that we try to instill in our guys is,
• 40:33
  is like, you know, we're not running away from something like
• 40:38
  we're running towards something and like, let's figure out what
• 40:42
  you want to run towards, man, because once you get that
• 40:44
  momentum going, that's why like on all of our guys that that
• 40:48
  work for us. We have several alumni that work
• 40:50
  work with us now and, and, and being able to model what like
• 40:55
  healthy, like just healthy recovery looks like, but what a
• 40:59
  healthy human being looks like, you know, and being able to
• 41:03
  model that for the guys and be like, we don't give a damn where
• 41:06
  you came from. We don't care what you used.
• 41:08
  We don't care what your diagnosis is like.
• 41:11
  Let's figure out what what you want to become and then let's
• 41:15
  try to give you everything you need in order to get there.
• 41:19
  Yeah. And part of that is just being
• 41:21
  in community long enough. You know, people say that like
• 41:24
  recovery doesn't happen through osmosis.
• 41:26
  Like I don't believe that it does.
• 41:28
  If you got enough positive energy around you and you're in
• 41:32
  a community of really healthy people, like you're, you're
• 41:34
  going to heal. I agree with you.
• 41:37
  And I, I think that when people say that, and they mean you
• 41:39
  can't, people aren't going to, you know, find recovery just
• 41:41
  sitting in a meeting once a day, you know, for an hour.
• 41:44
  But like in a community, you have no choice.
• 41:47
  I mean, unless you just or you're going to leave, probably,
• 41:50
  you know, and you know, everything you just said though
• 41:54
  about that potential just reminds me of that quote.
• 41:57
  It's, I think it's, it's in the 12:00 and 12:00.
• 41:59
  What about the definition of humility?
• 42:01
  One of the definitions of humility being, you know,
• 42:03
  knowing exactly who we are and also who we can be, you know,
• 42:08
  doing everything we can to be who we can.
• 42:09
  I I'm. I'm convinced now that humility
• 42:12
  is the most important spiritual principle like.
• 42:15
  Because we lie to ourselves. Constantly so like we, you know,
• 42:19
  so like honesty can't be you know it's knowing that you lie
• 42:23
  to yourself all the time is the thing that's going to get better
• 42:26
  Well, and I will. Add to that and then the other
• 42:28
  important word in in my daily life is gratitude.
• 42:33
  You know, I am so thankful for my recovery, for my family, for
• 42:39
  sauna, for meeting Patrick, for all the things that have
• 42:43
  happened. You know, we and if you're in
• 42:47
  faith, you complain to God a lot, but you don't spend a whole
• 42:51
  lot of time and gratitude thinking all the great things
• 42:54
  that have happened in your life. And I'm that's I'm really
• 42:58
  grateful for for everything in these last five plus years.
• 43:02
  And also for the things before then that I didn't understand.
• 43:06
  There's this. There's this.
• 43:07
  Older lady, old timer and Raleigh recovery community who
• 43:12
  her sponsor, you know, 40 years ago told, told her every night
• 43:16
  when she says her prayers to say thank you, thank you, thank you,
• 43:20
  thank you for what I was like, thank you for what happened and
• 43:23
  thank you for what I'm like now. And I, you know, I mean, I try
• 43:26
  to remember that because, you know, all that had to happen for
• 43:29
  me to get here. You know, well, this might be a
• 43:35
  pretty good place to wind it. So you told us what y'all are up
• 43:41
  to. How do we find the two of you?
• 43:44
  And how do we find sauna and the foundation and all that kind of
• 43:47
  stuff? What are the particulars?
• 43:48
  Yeah, so the the. Foundation, you can find
• 43:50
  saunarecovery.org, everything's on there.
• 43:53
  You can, you know, there's a, a triage page that you can get to
• 43:56
  if you need any kind of resources and we'll connect with
• 43:59
  you almost immediately if you need anything.
• 44:02
  And then you can sign up directly on the website for the
• 44:05
  fee free family support groups. You have one that just started
• 44:08
  last night and meets weekly on Tuesday nights at 7:00 PM.
• 44:12
  Samantha Schweitzer, who's a clinician out of Charleston that
• 44:15
  was the the third third Co host on champagne problems.
• 44:20
  She's a licensed clinical social worker, licensed clinical
• 44:23
  addiction specialist and a certified at a certified
• 44:26
  clinical supervisor. And she is leading that group on
• 44:31
  Tuesday nights. And then we have a group
• 44:33
  starting in January for parents of teens that are struggling
• 44:38
  that's going to be led by a clinician out of Nashville.
• 44:42
  Awesome. And I mean so.
• 44:43
  Many of our listeners have kids that teen and that's great
• 44:47
  interview if you if. You need other help with
• 44:49
  saunahousesaunahouse.com. Sauna counseling.com and.
• 44:55
  For and for me. I'm, you know, through the
• 44:57
  through that website, but I'm also on all the social media
• 45:01
  platforms on X Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn at Mike
• 45:07
  Jeminski. Awesome.
• 45:09
  And so you can DM me there or, you know, friend me or whatever
• 45:14
  it is. And, and I've had a number of
• 45:16
  contacts that way. I hear you.
• 45:18
  Well man, thank. You both so much for not only
• 45:20
  being here, you being here again and being here in person for
• 45:24
  everything you do. And you know, I always say this,
• 45:28
  we want to work with people and places and providers we like,
• 45:32
  know and trust. And, you know, you fit all
• 45:35
  three. So thanks, guys.
• 45:36
  Thank you both so much for having us.
• 45:38
  If you liked what you heard today or just want to know more,
• 45:40
  give us a call on 9196708119 or visit us at
• 45:46
  newwatersrecovery.com. Thank you.