Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 073 - Non-Alcoholic Money: Greg Downs on Jail, Recovery, and the 12 Steps of Financial Sobriety

Transcript

Episode 073 - Non-Alcoholic Money: Greg Downs on Jail, Recovery, and the 12 Steps of Financial Sobriety · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, officially live.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Chris is joining us.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Florence.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Florence.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Mary Beth.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, everybody.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll get started here in just a second.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll pull up my script.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: OK.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome everyone to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Every guest has done some version of the same hard thing.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: They got honest about what alcohol was costing them.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some quit, some cut back, some don't use a word for it at all.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: What they share is that they're creating from a space that's actually theirs.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Josh Wall, and I'm excited to bring you today's guest.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Greg Downs grew up on a dirt road in the middle of Florida.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't much money, but the family got by.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Years later,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: he was working in Palm Beach,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: advising ultra-wealthy families, and he fell out of place in every room.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't go to boarding school and no grandfather of his built railways,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: so he spent like the people around him,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: and he drank until he was funny enough to belong.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: He did that work for 14 years.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: From the outside, he had it figured out.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: On the inside, he says he was falling apart.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Greg got sober, and he says sobriety saved his life.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: In countless hours and 12-step meetings and on therapy couches,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: he started to see what he had spent money for the exact same reasons he drank,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: to change how he felt, to avoid something he didn't want to look at.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: A late-night order on Amazon, a credit card statement left unopened.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: That realization led him to start ClearPath Financial Coaching and
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: a newsletter called Financial Sobriety.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where he writes about money, shame, and recovery.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: He also runs The Sober Money Club, a weekly peer-led accountability group.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: His book, 12 Steps to Financial Sobriety, is coming from FedBooks in early 2027.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Greg Downs, welcome to the show.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Josh.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was a really good kind of summary of my life.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you did a great job there.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what else to add.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, everybody.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll see you later.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: That was the quickest podcast we've ever done.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good to have you, man.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for being here.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: as I do with my guests,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: walk us back into what our young Greg days look like for you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like you said,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a small town in the middle of Florida,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: a town called Eustace, about an hour north of Orlando or so.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we lived on a dirt road, even kind of remotely outside of Eustace.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Childhood was great.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Despite us living on the lower part of the economic spectrum, my parents were fantastic.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: They did a great job of keeping us busy with a lot of activities.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: They did a great job of supporting us.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were amazing.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Childhood was fun.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was a good time.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was into sports.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Boy Scouts.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did all of that stuff.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was good.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds very similar to me.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just, I'm going to ask a little request.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe on your speaker, I'm hearing the feedback of me speaking.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if the audio you could turn down on the computer mic might help.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is that any better?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Check, check, check, check.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Check, check, check.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Any better?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a little bit better.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we're good.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so...
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: When did drinking start?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: What did that look like?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was really like 16,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: 17 years old,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: something like that was when I really first started drinking pretty heavily.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it was for Early on in school, I had skipped a grade.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did second and third grade in the same year.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was always younger than everybody in my class.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I just always felt out of place.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: being one living in like kind of that remote part of the town and then being
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: so young, like I just always didn't feel like I quite fit in.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was never...
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Funny enough to hang out with the funny crowd.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't good enough as an athlete to hang out with the athletes.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't smart enough to hang out with the nerds.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't have a place or a group of people.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: But as soon as I started getting a little bit of alcohol in me,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: all of a sudden I could become who I wanted to be, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I become a little bit funnier.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I become a little more confident in myself and Being able to talk to people.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was from a very early stage, it was the solution to a lot of my problems.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, yeah,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: because I mean,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: it's it's like you have all these experiences that,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: that age is kind of like shaping your identity,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and it's it's it's not easy during that time to have of.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like trusting yourself and your capabilities.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, hey, here's this magical liquid that unleashes.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The imposter syndrome, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's so real.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And even to this day, I still struggle with a lot of imposter syndrome.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I don't know where it came from, but it's just always been there.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so...
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I guess then, like,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: did you,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: was it pretty,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: it was like, it was, was it normal throughout high school and college?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like the amount that you drank?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was normal in the sense that I always drank a lot.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was a normal amount.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I, you know,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: once I got to college,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I joined a fraternity,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was president of the fraternity and,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: you You know,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: that obviously turns into a totally different lifestyle where every day,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know, was something related to alcohol and some sort of party.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I even remember at one point,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: like Saturday nights,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: where it's like, like date night, it was like the calm night of the week.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, theoretically, it should have been right.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so bizarre.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: This should have been the night that it was crazy,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: and that was the night that no one did anything.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of bizarre looking back on it now.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, from the time I was 16 until a little over two years ago, alcohol was there always.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, okay.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's been two years.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I saw 800 days?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: August 5th, 2024.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So did you gradually wean off?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Did it take time or how did that look?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I had left the job, my career that I was working in in 2023, right at the end of the year.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was going to take a year off.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: my wife and I were having some difficulties and I was living in an apartment
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: by myself.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Um,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: it ended up being like the worst thing for me was having nothing to do all day,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: um, living by myself.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So no accountability and enough money in the bank to do whatever I wanted to do.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: for the first six months of 2024,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was just drinking every day from the time I woke up until the time I,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: uh, until the time I passed out essentially.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so It had gotten really dark.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had some really dark, depressive moments.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up doing a couple of stints in a psych ward for some of the depression
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: that I was dealing with.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I did go to treatment in June of 24.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, within 24 hours of leaving, I was back to drinking again.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so on August 5th,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I actually I got I got arrested and I Uh,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: in our, at the front driveway of our house.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like the wake up moment I needed.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was, um,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I remember going down to the,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: to the County jail and just sitting in the back of that car.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's thinking like,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: here I was like this successful business person,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: financial advisor in the ultra wealthy space.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden I'm in this County jail, a place I never thought I'd be.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I could very clearly see where life was going to go if I didn't make changes.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I'd had drinking problems before.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had tried to stop, but I didn't really give it a real effort.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that was the wake up I needed.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's powerful, man.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: So then did you start AA after that?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it actually kind of started in jail.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I, um, you know, I'll never forget.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I, they had put me in the like max security side of the jail.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was 32 of us in there and, um, they had moved us into a new block.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking into, um,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: The cell,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: it was a two-man cell,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: and there was a little card sitting on the table,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: and it had a Bible verse on it,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 29, 11,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: and says,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know the plans I have for you,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: plans not to harm you, but to give you hope and a future.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not a religious person.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't certainly growing up,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: but something about that card at that moment was very comforting
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: and something I took a lot of
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It really meant a lot to pick that up.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how it got placed there, but it was there.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of started a little bit of a spiritual journey for me.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple of months, maybe a month or two later, I ended up spending six months in jail.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so another month or two later, I got transferred to another cell.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I walk in, a new cellmate, and he had on his desk the little AA Grapevine magazine.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he had been sober 10 years, I think.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so he had encouraged me to go to an AA meeting in jail.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so we went and the guy that was sharing that day, it was like my story.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was a financial advisor.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about all the times he was traveling and couldn't walk past
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: the hotel bar without stopping and then waking up the next morning
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: and being hungover or missing client meetings.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was...
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was just wild.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so after he spoke, I went to talk to him and I asked him, I said, hey, where do you go?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I need to go to meetings when I get out of here.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he shared he goes to this clubhouse,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: which happens to be less than five minutes from my house.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I remember running back to the dorm and I called my wife and I said,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I got to go to this meeting when I get out.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says he goes to the 530 meeting and So eventually,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: a few months later when I got out,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the meeting and that was really what started, like,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think my sobriety journey was walking into that room and raising my hand
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: and asking for help.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good, man.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so powerful.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just, yeah, I mean, I really think that, you know, for all of us that, you know, it's
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever's happening out there, it's all working for us.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: It might not be right now.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: It might not be tomorrow.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: It might be years from now.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: But there are things that along the way are kind of giving us clues on what our next steps are.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really believe in coincidences anymore.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think things happen for a reason.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, that was what I needed to go through.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I did.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like looking back on it, I have no desire to go back to jail.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was not a particularly fun experience.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm glad I did.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have like fluffy pillows and heavy blankets in there and all that for you.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I lost a lot of weight.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to deal with noise a lot better.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I...
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: In a serious note,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: like it did bring me,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: it helped teach me gratitude because I did not have a lot of gratitude for anything
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: in my life.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: we had been pretty successfully financially and,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: we have nice cars and we would travel a lot and we did all this nice stuff
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: and I just took it for granted.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: having all of that taken away and,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: but also like having it taken away,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: but then like, Still being able to live and survive.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: All the material stuff was gone, but I was still there.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, okay, I can live like this.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not like that, but you know what I mean?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can live without all that other stuff.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes me,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: when I got home,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciated all of the things we have a lot more than I did before.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Cause I meant like I mentioned to you in the comments,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: about like, you know, I think we can like jump into the money, money situation.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did you feel, I don't know if this is like the right word.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did you feel like invincible at all?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like throughout, like through that process.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I go from this kid on a dirt road who has no idea like about himself to sitting
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: in boardrooms and Across from the ocean in Palm Beach,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: managing, at one point I managed $4 billion.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you're meeting with executives,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: entrepreneurs, very wealthy billionaires and hundreds of millionaires.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our minimum account size was 25 million.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: we were working with the wealthiest families in the country and they're asking me
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: for advice.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And taking my advice.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I felt a sense of like how smart I am.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like my ego was was really through the roof.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much like externally, but internally, it definitely was.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had at that point.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see, I was 30, it was in my mid-30s, early 30s, and, you know, was very, very successful.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, yeah, I felt invincible.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a perfect way of describing it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is so mind-blowing.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's so, like...
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they say like love is blind,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know, but it's like, I think it's true in like so many different ways.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we like aware,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: like I talk about awareness quite a bit,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: with like recovery and such,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I think it's,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: we just don't, we don't have it when it's, it's, it's not there until we see it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's like people could be saying stuff and be telling us what to do
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: and giving us advice and such until we're like ready to hear it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Until that moment happens when you're back in the police car,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's like, okay, that shit's real.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remember at one point my dad telling me,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: my dad passed away in 2017,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: but I remember before he passed away telling me,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember exactly when it was, but he said, he goes, watch out for the booze.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, it'll get you.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it might have been 2015 or 16 when he said it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, so it was...
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Seven,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: eight years of me not watching out for it and not paying attention and not listening
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: to what the people that loved me were telling me and sharing with me.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Did your parents have a relationship with it too?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol was always around growing up.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our house was like the entertainment house.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime we had holidays or parties and It was always at our place.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad was a good cook.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was always tasked with putting together the family meals.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, alcohol was always around.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I struggled to put a label on them.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But my dad would drink and drive with us into the car.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a good example to set.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that in a bad way.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like my dad is a great dad, but,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: so I noticed things like that now that I didn't really think of,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know, 30 years ago.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I definitely have my instances of doing that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not something I'm proud of for sure.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: it's what sucks because I mean,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: it's like you're,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: especially too,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: like you do it so much and Well, I mean,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: it makes you feel like you're capable of doing things when you're on it, you know?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and too, and then, yeah, you're just not realizing it when you're in that state.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me, like, well, I'm so curious.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this book sounds really fascinating and, like, your experience with AA.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: What drove you to start writing this book?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I...
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: when I had gotten out of jail and I started going to meetings and
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: the first six months I got out,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had an ankle monitor on and really the only things I could do or go to AA,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: the grocery store and church.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, um, so AA was a big part of that first six months.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And actually another, like,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's a coincidence,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: but the day I got the ankle monitor cut off was also
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: the day I picked up my one year sobriety chip.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is like that morning the monitor got cut off that night.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I picked up the chip and,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: and my wife and I and my sponsor and a bunch of guys,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: we all went out for dinner and it was a really wild celebration.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: but so I started attending meetings regularly and I was going to a bunch of meetings
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: and,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: in the rooms they talk about,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: people share this phrase that the, um, steps are designed for living.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what I've heard that phrase hundreds of times probably.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And one morning,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: something that the guy was sharing just kind of hit me and it said,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: or I said in my head, well,
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: we're talking about all these emotions like shame and fear and guilt and denial
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: and avoidance.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what a lot of what drove my drinking habits.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I happened to see Think like this is so similar to even my financial clients
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: and how they interacted with money and the heavy emotions around it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had this idea, well,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: if the 12 steps could help me with my drinking,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: could I like put an adapted version to apply to finance?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was kind of where the idea came from.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's, I think it's brilliant.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's, I mean.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, for me, I'll share some about my financial history.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I grew up and my dad especially was like,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: make sure you save, make sure you save, save, save, save.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it started out well.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I got a credit card.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was good with that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I got an IRA.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was good with that for a number of years.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's like I started my own business and went down the path
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: that was like 0% credit cards.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see where this is going.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So 20 plus cards, 20 plus cards, six figures in debt.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I just kept thinking in my head like, okay, I've got enough time to pay this off.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually, thank God they stopped me.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Me from getting more credit cards to actually be like,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: okay, this is, I'm in a hole that's very difficult to get out of.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it,
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: and I've tried like,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: fortunately I've paid so much of that off and there's not a whole lot left
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: of what's out there.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been incredible to get to that point.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: it's not been easy and it's,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's really,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's really challenging, like the relationship that you can have with money.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just curious, like, how do you feel like the supply?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think money is a lot like addiction in a way, right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where in the sense that it doesn't discriminate, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Money is, Challenges can apply whether you make $60,000 a year or you make $600,000 a year.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: More of it doesn't necessarily solve all of the problems.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: But money is not like alcohol in the sense that alcohol you can live without,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: but money you have to interact with every day.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just go abstinent on money.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that makes it harder in a lot of ways where you have to deal
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: with it essentially every day.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, no matter what you're doing, money is going to come up throughout your day.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where like the emotional side of it to me is so interesting
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: because at the end of the day.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Money is just math, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to save more, you have to spend less than you make.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's only two things you can play with.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: You either spend less or you make more, right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really do much else to save more money.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what makes that hard is how we either spend or try to make more.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes from the emotional side of it.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: You gave the example earlier of
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us go on Amazon late at night because we had a bad day or we're lonely
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: or we see something on Instagram and it makes us feel like it's going
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: to change our lives.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we buy it and we feel better in that moment.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then the package shows up the next morning and we immediately regret it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds a lot like my drinking habits, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I drank because I was lonely, tired.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted something better.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I woke up the next morning and I regretted it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I, that was kind of like the connection I saw.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then for me,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: just my own personal idea was that the 12 steps are a lot about self-forgiveness
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: and recognizing that I've made mistakes, but that I'm not a mistake.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's really what my book is about,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: too, is about self-forgiveness around money and that you are not your credit score.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are not your bank balance.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the Yeah, it sounds really valuable.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm just like,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing what Chris wrote and says, I try not to spend more if I make more.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing the same thing, Chris.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hard, right?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because you make more and you want to enjoy that too.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where personal finance is personal, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a million books that will tell you budgeting,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Templates to use and there's a million apps and I didn't want to do another one
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: of those because I think it's different for everyone, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: We all have different values.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: We all have different things that are important to us in life.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: We all have different ways of spending money.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us want shoes and clothes and cars and some of us want vacations and some
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: of us want experiences, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So how you spend your money is up to you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what's your relationship with money like?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing it from a healthy place?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And are you able to enjoy it?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's so much more of the interesting topic.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would say just keep going.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: How does a person develop a healthy relationship to money?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I...
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did this little thing on my email list.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: So for Sober October,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I called it Financially Sober October,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: where I said, just go in, open up your account, and look at it, and then close it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just once a day, just look at the bank account and the numbers in it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that after an extended period of time,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: You start to realize it's just a number, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: especially helpful for people that are avoidant and don't look
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: at their bank accounts.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: So just start to look.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Take a small step and see how it feels to just be knowledgeable about what's going
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: in and what's going out.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do anything other than that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have been taking screenshots and writing journals every day
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: about how they feel when they open it up.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are just looking.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: I also had another someone else had reached out to me and said that they look too often.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so for them, what they were going to do was look just once a week.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I mean in the sense that it's so different for everyone, but it's what is
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: How is the relationship with money, right?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So step one in AA is recognizing that the financial life has become unmanageable.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So how is it unmanageable?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are the behaviors, the patterns that you're doing that are not healthy?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then what can we do to recognize and fix those?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the book, we just literally, we go through the same 12 steps.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've worded them slightly differently, but we do an inventory.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Look at everything you have.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do you have?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do you owe?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: What comes in?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: What comes out?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also look at the financial documents, like the will, the insurance.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have those things set up in place?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll do a fifth step.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to someone about it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Shame thrives off of secrecy.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And money is one of those few remaining topics that people don't want to talk about.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was always politics, religion, and money.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You don't talk about those things.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like money should be talked about more often because we all see the...
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Social media and we feel like people are just so much more successful than we are
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: and we feel behind.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is over 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we're much more alike than we are not alike.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't talk about it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I created the Sober Money Club, the support group.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like the more we talk about it,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like a community is what saved my life, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like AA, the rooms, the men that I go to meetings with.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it can really help people with their financial lives too.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think community is such a big aspect of,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, just recovery and just life, life in general.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're like the most connected generation ever, but we're the loneliest generation ever.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of wild.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think that's a big part, I think, is just sharing and being open.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I probably shared too much of my story,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it's just getting that stuff out from us that helps us heal.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go through,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: we do a step six and seven where we look at the behaviors,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: we look at bringing in outside help if it makes sense.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: We do an eight and nine is about making an amends to people
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: that have been harmed financially in your life,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: but also to yourself, you know, going back to the idea of self-forgiveness.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: step 10 is really about,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: and step 10 and 11 are really about aligning your spending with your values.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said earlier, like I don't want to I love Aaron's, Aaron's.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hearing your stories heals my stories.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so good.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: My sponsor had told me, he said, your story is your superpower.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved that because I always hid behind my story.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: When things had happened in life, I didn't reach out for help.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't talk to anybody.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just tried to drink it away.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've, I've really come to appreciate what real connections with other people are.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes from, from sharing and being vulnerable.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I do it,
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: the more other people are vulnerable with me and that becomes
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: a really good connection.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's why I've,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've really,
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: really enjoyed doing this series because I mean,
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: there is a, it's like, yeah, I mean, everybody's sharing their superpower.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, I just gotta listen to their story each week and it's so, so, so good.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Radical honesty, right?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: it, it's so hard to, yeah, the shame part, the shame part around money.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Be honest with yourself and
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm going to be judged, and that's why I don't share, or why I didn't share.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: But every time I share, I've been met with empathy more than judgment.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, every now and then there's people that judge,
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: but more often than not, it's empathy, it's a recognition.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Other people have said, I've done the same thing or I felt the same way.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that starts to break down that shame barrier so much quickly.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's the same thing financially, right?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you sharing your story about the credit card debt.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many of us have done that, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's so common.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's I just think it's so important to healing is sharing.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think I'll mind,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: like my dad had to file for bankruptcy, like,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: but they didn't know, they didn't know that bankruptcy was an option, you know?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, You live in this constant stress of like, I have to pay this off.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I'm going to pay this.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's like, you just don't know that there are other options available for you.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's wild to think like if they didn't do that, how much harder life would be right now.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And bankruptcy...
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: It has this stigma to it, right?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: But for some people, it's a really good solution.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: some of the laws have changed more recently where it's a lot easier than it used to be, too.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can still,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: in some cases,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: get loans and get some of the things that typically you wouldn't have been able to.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's...
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: but like you said,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: not knowing that that's an option and then feeling the shame around choosing that as
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: an option is so much harder.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it's why it's like the shame like around it was probably why I was avoided
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: for so long to even just question it or learn about it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the same thing I'm,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: with, If I want to change my relationship with drinking,
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's like, yeah.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: So.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's,
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love that because there's, um,
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: the AA clubhouse I go to has a little plaque behind where the speaker sits
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: and it says, you are not alone.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And, and I didn't realize how much I needed to hear that.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have a brother who's in prison for DUI manslaughter,
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't know anybody who had had a sibling who had gone through something like
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I shared it one day at an AA meeting,
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: and this young woman came up to me afterwards and said,
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have a sister who's doing the same thing.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Their accidents were within a couple weeks of each other,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: and they're serving almost the exact same sentence.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like,
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: how wild is that,
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: that we're both sitting there in that room that day sharing that story,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: and we happen to connect, like, that you really are not alone.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the odds of that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Your ankle bracelet being cut off on the day of your one year.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, come on.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's wild.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: This has been so good, Greg.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody has any questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, let's talk about creativity.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do for that?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Writing has been my creative outlet.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize how much I enjoy writing until the last year.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's really been a lot of fun.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the book and it's coming and I've been working on it for a while.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my uncle recently was in town and he brought,
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I had it, but a book I had written for him when I was seven years old.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And like on the inside,
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had like Downs Publishing Company and like,
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: it was very like, tried to put it together.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: This would have been early nineties.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, maybe this is what I meant to do all along.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: just now,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: like I remember even in high school,
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be a journalist, you know, a sports journalist.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted to do.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got to college and I realized sports journalists probably don't make much money.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to go chase the money.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now getting back to writing has been a lot of fun.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it has brought,
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: I used to always say I'm not creative and it has brought out
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: a much more creative side in me.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's so great.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron says, money ain't a thing.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's an agreement about what is about you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Make more.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love the topic.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think creativity is so important.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Even outside of sobriety,
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: but I think it's a practice that You know,
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: it gives so much when we're in it,
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: and in that state,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure when you're writing,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: you feel it like this is like,
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: oh, this idea is coming to the page and it's just flowing.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I never fully appreciated like the flow state people talk about until recently
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: where I really,
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: oh, like I can kind of feel it happening where it's like, I'm in a groove.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let me go.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let me get this.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I did want to bring up the topic of non-alcoholic money
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: because it's something I've kind of learned about recently that's been super fun
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: to dive into.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I just heard about this a couple, maybe two weeks ago.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are...
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: The New York Times has called them dopamine sites.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they are fake websites that you go to.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's one in the U.S. called fakehaul.com, H-A-U-L. And it looks like a real shopping site.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has clothes, it has electronics, it has toys, it's got furniture.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: You go on, you shop, you find whatever it is you want to do, stick it in your basket.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you hit buy, you don't get anything.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing comes.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's just all fake.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there to get like the dopamine hit of hitting the buy button or
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: the dopamine of like shopping.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's wild.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's one in.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it works like
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you feel like, oh, I'm not getting this thing now.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the thing, right?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's another one in South Korea where it's a food delivery and it's the same thing.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's all fake.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when you hit purchase,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: it tells you like, here's how much you saved by not buying something.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the food one will also tell you how much calories you didn't eat by getting the fake one.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I've jokingly called it non-alcoholic money just because I think it's kind of
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: a cool way of describing it because we're reaching for that same sort of relief and
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: the dopamine that comes from it.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it has worked from what I've read for a number of people.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these sites get hundreds of thousands of clicks a month.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it'll be interesting to see if they take off long term because...
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think there is some,
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: like some people love to get the actual product,
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: even though they know they're going to return it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, these things are so, it's so fascinating what people are coming up with.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's a really neat idea.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I thought of too is, okay, so it's been a few years and you have community in place.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sobriety isn't easy.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, how Tell me how it's been for you in the past couple of years.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: What are ways that you deal with the difficult stuff?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: What a question.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Save the best one for last.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've gotten better.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: it's another one of these acronyms that I hear all the time for hope,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: H-O-P-E, hang on, pain ends.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's another thing I didn't know or fully appreciate was that pain ends at some point.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so the insanity in my mind,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: the craziness that my thoughts can go to,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more aware now that they will stop at some point.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when that point is,
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: but I know they will and I'll feel better at some point in time.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: And why that was important for me is because normally when I felt that way was
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: when I would go pick up and do something because I didn't want to feel and I wanted
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: that immediate relief and that change of state.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: But now I've gotten better.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said,
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: recognizing that it will end and then finding other ways to change my mood, right?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's going for a walk or,
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: picking up the phone and calling a friend, uh,
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: writing,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: write in a journal, um,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: we'll go to the gym,
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: like just doing something other than sitting and, and wallowing, um,
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And those moments have gotten less and less.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were really hard in the beginning.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: More recently, they're fewer and far between.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they last for a lower duration, shorter duration.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's been a big learning experience these last couple of years.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's...
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: People probably think that quitting drinking is the really hard part.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is hard, no question about it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said,
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: it's really hard to be with emotions and feelings in your body
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: that you're not comfortable with.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's many days and moments that I'm in it.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like,
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: fortunately,
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've built these practices that's,
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: that's, yeah, sustains, sustains me getting through it.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: I also am a big advocate for meditation.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I went to a silent meditation retreat for 10 days earlier this year.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that was, that was an amazing experience.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really, really kind of life changing in a way.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing you made it through the 10 days.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to do that when I first started meditating.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: My friend was like, yeah, go do this.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Go do this silent meditation.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to see stars and stuff after five or six days.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know nothing about meditation, and I go to do this by myself.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody's really nice when you get there,
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: but I give them my car keys, and you just kind of feel a prisoner.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I get through, I think, two days, and then just panic happens.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I gotta go.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have to leave.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta feel safe.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta be around family or friends or something.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was at that time, it was too intense for me to do that.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean, it didn't give up on meditation.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's something I've been doing for 10 years,
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: over 10 years now, and it's a daily practice.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just, yeah,
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: once you're able to practice and you do a minute per day,
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: you do two minutes, I mean, it's really the power of consistency.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter really how Long you sit for, but,
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's that consistency that it's, I mean, man, that it's just yummy, man.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when you're sitting in that stillness and you feel it and it's like,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: it's like there's stuff going on around you,
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: it's not like totally escaping,
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: but it's just, I don't know, there's just that seven piece of, Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: When it's like you can just sit there and just be like, okay, thoughts are happening.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to go down that path.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just breathing and it's just quiet and dark.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's just really, really nice.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're running up on time.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: At one point,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: like day seven or eight into the 10 days,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: like, I know it sounds crazy, but I could feel the blood rushing through my veins.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would start to become that sensitive to like,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: it was, it wasn't for long, but it was a wild experience.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: You could feel it.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: You could feel it moving through
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: my arms.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was really wild.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now I might have to, I think I could, I think I could go do it now.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you go, let me know.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go with you.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do want to do it again.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: I 100% would.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, this has been great.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: It would be probably hard to not talk to you.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, given we're probably on time.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Greg, thanks for this really, really amazing.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, thanks everyone for joining us.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, Greg,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to tell everybody like what's coming up with your book and
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: where they can find you.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've got an early copy of it here, 12 Steps to Financial Sobriety.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, the book is like the cover's done.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: It looks amazing.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it comes out in February.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: It'll go on presale probably next week or so.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're just waiting to finalize a couple of things.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'm super excited to get it out in the world.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'll update the show notes with the link and such, too, whenever.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's exciting, man.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Congrats.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that was really hard to do.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a project, but it was fun.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks, Greg.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everyone.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wish you all a beautiful rest of your week, and we'll see you next week.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.