Relapse After 19 Years: Mike Bayer on What Recovery Taught Him

I have a bit of a dysfunctional relationship with my family and my parents and such. And after Friday, I fly to Portland to see my mom. I need wisdom of how to navigate this relationship. I want to show up as the best version of myself. All these things, my head just starts going on it. And so having a sponsor that I can be like, tell me how to be, like, I meet with them Thursday. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call One Call Placement. That's 888-831-1581. And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. One Call Placement is affiliated with Carrera Treatment Wellness and Spa and One Method Treatment Centers. So you own cast treatment centers, but tell me, tell the viewers about yourself. Well, I mean, I grew up in Laguna Hills, California. I'm tall, as you know, but I'm the shortest male in the family. So I grew up playing basketball, went to this high school called Mater Dei. Wow. You went to Mater Dei. I did. That's a football school. Football, basketball, captain of the basketball team, drove 30 minutes just to get to high school. Right. um but was um if you're an athlete you'll drive any amount of time to get to that school yeah it's like playing in college basically exactly uh so they've got the red helmets with the w on it yep love that yeah yeah monarchs um is that an m or w it's one of those but i um yeah i grew up in orange county youngest of three and then like as i was in high school started using drugs and struggling with my mental health and um and then i ended up uh going to new york to play basketball fordham in the bronx but then i ended up just in nightclubs and partying and in treatment at 22 you know so yeah what brought you into treatment by the way what brought you into working in treatment that's a great question you know when i was getting loaded everybody said i needed treatment and so I called Promises and I was telling them about my cocaine use and then I had a cocaine problem and she said well it's going to be 20 grand Patricia? Whoever it was and I said but I called the poor one I called the West LA because I wasn't greedy. I want a private room on the ocean and I have $50 right. Okay it wasn't one of those I was grateful to go anywhere. But I called her and I said, you know, this is my problem. And when she asked me for $20,000, I said to her, lady, if I had $20,000, I wouldn't have a cocaine problem. And she said, excuse me? And I said, you don't understand what I just said to you? And she said, no. And I said, then you can't help me. Hmm. And so, you know, I was getting sober and at the log cabin. Yeah. Right. And so every day there would be guys raising their hands, the newcomer, and I'd always take them to breakfast. And then right next door was a little place to get your nails done. And then I go, man, I need my nails done. Come on. Nails done. Yeah. Come on. Let's live like elegant people. Come on. And so we get the nails done. And then right next door to that's a haircut. So I'd get my haircut when I had hair and they'd get their haircut. And then I'd say, hey, man, before I take you back to the car, I need to run and grab a couple of things here at the Gap. You don't mind, right? No, no, no, no. And then I'd buy him all sorts of shit, five pairs of jeans, five shirts, you know, whatever, right? All the stuff. And then he thinks I'm taking him home and I take him right to Genesis House where I went to sober living, right? And I always had someone, even when I couldn't stay sober, I always had someone in sober living because I've always um I've always cared more about your sobriety than mine okay uh I knew I knew right from wrong and when I finally got sober I had no intention of doing a treatment center because I'd never been to a treatment center right I'd been to sober living so I went ahead and I opened up a men's sober living and the state came down and they said you're operating illegally so what are you talking about you're giving treatment no i'm not well there's a therapist here well i said of course there's a therapist here people need need a therapy well therapy's treatment and i'm like shut up and they're like oh it is because i didn't know so then i just had my lawyer get my uh uh get my license and uh that place was born that's how i did it wow it was a mistake and then i was because you sold cliffside and then what made you get back into treatment because Because it's just, was it out of like boredom? No. I wasn't really bored, but I didn't have the purpose that I should have, right? Well, first of all, I missed my friends. I missed all of my friends and I left them all behind. Okay. Because that's what you do when somebody buys your business. Right. They're not buying your business. They're buying the people. All the relationships, everything. That's right. If you're one of the best in the world at giving people back their loved ones and you don't do it, you're a dick. You're just a dick. So I had to do it. People are dying all over the place. That's what this thing's for. I've never seen a podcast. I've never listened to a podcast. I don't even know if I'm any good at it. I have no clue. All I'm doing is creating awareness around the f***ing all issue and letting people know that we're out of time. and at the slightest hint now of an issue, kids got to go to treatment. That's it. Otherwise, you're burying your kid. So that's why I'm doing this, but that's also why I came back. But I really missed my friends. I really missed my friends. Yeah, I took off a few years and just was like traveling and thinking that that was going to set me up to like have this. And at first, it's amazing because you're like, wow, meeting all these strangers and spiritually like, oh, this is life. and then after a while you're like where's my purpose like what am I doing I'm that's right I'm not fulfilled I'm a little running on empty um and so I'm with you that it's always good to kind of dig into a project or something to like you know get back and feel connected especially if you're good at this because so many people aren't and there are so many bad actors in our business right so if you're one of the good ones and you can actually like help people and you don't do it and at the peak how many treatment centers were there in malibu do you think at the peak 26 26 treatments yeah and we were the last one so we were when i got into it there were 26 24 26 and i remember do you remember renaissance of course that house like what the hell was that that was um well it was impressive it was an impressive house it was impressive house but they did but nobody knew who they were and they were mismanaged and they went away but when i got here there were 24 of them and it was promises and then all the way down but promises was number one yeah and then i think uh summit had just opened seasons uh was opening at the same time i was right and um and i would just you know i was at the bottom and i would just take my marker every time i pass somebody up and i would just cross people off the list until all right let's let me ask you some questions all right all right how'd you get sober i uh give me the give me the give me the um drunkalog first give me the greatest hits the greatest hits now i was living in new york and um i was bartending a place called the roxy which is a big nightclub dropped out of school and uh and and up until that point i'd never done crystal meth so the thing is if you drink if you just drink usually it takes 20 to 25 years before you really unless you're just It's just so severe. So when you do harder drugs as you know it like it expedites your bottom And so especially especially meth And so the thing for me is I always had this like desire like be better do better And I, I couldn't stop using it. So like I'd throw it away. I would buy it a week later. I'd throw it away again. I'd go to a harm reduction group. I'd like have a therapist coming to my house in my apartment that my dad sent me. Like, I didn't even know. The thing is, until, like, you get good treatment, you don't even understand sobriety. I ended up going through Hazelden and became an alcohol and drug abuse counselor. And then I did interventions for this company called the AIR. It was a big intervention company back in the day. And they needed someone to open their West Coast office. So I moved in with my mom in Orange County. I borrowed my suits from my dad. And then after about a year and a half, I had a lot of clients. I've always been, like, hungry. It's similar to you. Hold on one second. that's the greatest thing you moved back home with your mother and you wore your dad's suits how old were you 24 wow yeah and and then i positioned myself as like the guy you want to intervene on your son or daughter who's in their 20s so you had these guys earl hightower you had john southworth you had these interventionists and i was like yeah you could go with them or you can go with me i'm a little more relatable and that's right and i'm gonna be half the price I have a bit of a dysfunctional relationship with my family and my parents and such. And after Friday, I fly to Portland to see my mom, who I haven't seen in several years. So I'm going to see my sponsor who lives in L.A. on Thursday. I need wisdom from someone who knows me of how to navigate this relationship because I'm going to be with my mother for two days. And there's a very long history with her. So I want to show up as the best version of myself. And sometimes in situations, we don't know, like, am I supposed to show up just being other centered? Am I supposed to spend all my time with her? Am I supposed to like all these things, my head just starts going on. And so having a sponsor that I can be like, tell me how to be like, how I should show up. Did he tell you to show up with the heart of a servant and that there was nothing to get only to give? I meet with them Thursday. Such a dramatic. Just be of service to this woman. It's going to be two days. You can do anything for two days. And I'm intentionally going there to see her. And then I fly to see my dad. I'm doing kind of the family trip. With the heart of a servant. Yeah. Joyfully. I wrote a few books, right? Right. Which, by the way, I'm going to order right after this. because in doing my research on you beforehand, look at this, right? You're a big shot, okay? No, you are. And look, if you weren't, I'd tell you, okay, you're a big shot in this industry. You've been in it for 20 years. You've helped a lot of people. I know who the fuck you are, okay? So my third book, so thank you. So the first two, they made New York Times bestsellers, which is like- The best. One in every 10,000 books. That's right. That's what ChatGPT told me. And I feel like, I mean, it all is timing. And I was on a TV show for four years. What TV show? Dr. Phil. Every other week for four years. I want to talk to you about that. I love Dr. Phil. Yeah, I was on a change. He shared a dressing room. He was my mentor for a few years. Writing a book is a very tedious thing. It's like, have you written a book? Yeah, I wrote a book with my addiction research fellow called Ending Addiction for Good. And I've got a new one now called Transcendence. Yeah. It's about thriving. If I had to put a caption to it, it would be sobriety isn't its own gift. Sobriety isn't its own gift. That's right. It isn't. Thriving is a gift of sobriety. Okay? Living a life that you can be proud of is a gift of sobriety. But being sober is not a gift. I didn't let you get through the monologue. Oh, so then I went through treatment, lived with my mom, did interventions. And then I started cast in my apartment in Venice with like three groups. And then I met this guy who did this sober companion gig for me. His name was Jose Hernandez. Do you know Jose? Everybody knows Jose Hernandez. So Jose, he was my first sober companion. and then crazy case crazy Russian the guy was a he didn't drink vodka did he no but there's a gay Russian who had a hooker who was straight and they were in a relationship and the hooker was male both okay and so it was the craziest dynamic and Jose was incredible and then I mean I'm now in my third office I've been here for 12 years the one before that had no windows the one before that was just so ghetto but somehow I managed to do this thing you know it's like and then you know I started working my thing is I ended up in the entertainment space so it went from doing interventions you know with like people in crises to then doing crises work So public affairs, bands breaking up. So I ended up going much more into the crisis coaching world, which I liked because it got me out of working with treatment centers. And then I threw a charity event and that's when I met Dr. Phil. And then Dr. Phil said, do you want to go on a show tomorrow? This is a crazy story. So he says to me, do you want to go on a show tomorrow? I said, sure. I went on the show. Like, no freaking idea what I was doing. Like, never had on my vision board to do television or anything. And then he was like, you were pretty good. And then they put me on another episode two days later. And then he sat me in his office and he goes, you know what you need? I said, well, he goes, you need a New York Times bestseller. I said, okay. He goes, what are you doing today? I'm like, I'm at home. He's like, hop on my jet. Let's go meet your agent. Flew me to Dallas. This is all true. met my agent I didn't even really have Instagram or anything at the time got me a huge uh deal book advance um um and then uh the book just crushed it's in 23 languages he went ahead and pumped it on a show pumped not just sold pumped it pumped it I'm talking had the book out I love him saying turn to page 36 where you talk about such and such shut up he promoted he promoted the book so heavy that it just kept selling I mean I've sold half a million copies right of a book books are impulse buys I think I I think I sold 50 copies it's hard I don't know no but it's really hard to sell books because you got to figure out how to get through the market and so and then it was like he wrote the foreword and then Jennifer Lopez gave me the endorsement on the back of the book um and so it just kind of and then I had other entertainers support it so that's amazing yeah it was good that's amazing but what was interesting is the more I did television so I was on I did probably 40 episodes and like it was interesting because the the less treatment centers like fuck with me like it was like I was you would have thought they would want someone out in media who does interventions or addiction who's like and i found that like um people were like not that loving and accepting of me in the industry when i started going and doing television that's just they're jealous but it was so weird like it's not because they didn't have the stones to show up see you lucked into it but you showed up 40 times and then you hit it out then you you hit a rope okay and you know you made it yeah okay you know nobody does that nobody shows up and then executes yeah every time i showed up on an episode it was like a job interview that's i knew that if i didn't deliver you're gone i remember one time i sat down with them because they send you a hundred page document before about the the guest who's on the show and i was in his and he's getting his hair done, which is literally, he's bald, so it's not much hair to do. And I remember he said to me, he goes, there was a guy on the show who hadn't left his house in a long time, he had long shaggy hair, and he asked me what we should do. I'm like, well, I think we should do such and such. He like that all you got Who said that Dr Phil That all you got And you said It the number one television show on daytime tv that all you got and so i said well what if we cut his hair on stage he like that's it the barber comes out on stage and like to help him with a reinvention but like that's how it felt every time i mean it was good because it forced me to keep raising my bar you know you can't coast with him he's he's gnarly like he's he's got like i mean i don't even know who or who doesn't have photographic memories, but he does not forget anything. Right. And he just kind of like looks over at you and you're just, you know. So now I'm, I send you the sizzle for my next show that I'm working on. So that show hopefully will happen. It'll be like my own, which would be really exciting for me. Good. If it hits, so. Why'd you get sober? Pain, self-esteem issues. I had a very difficult time being gay. Like. You're gay? Yeah. Oh, you got to leave. Yeah, I know. that's upsetting I know that's not why I did drugs but it was definitely when you go out in the gay world there's so many drugs like what's the hardest truth about yourself that you've had to face the hardest truth about myself that I've had to face oh god oof there's a few uh No filter. This is all real. Give it to me. No, I get it. The hardest truth about me that I've had to face. I would say I relapsed after 19 years. Wow. On a medication. Right. Writing my second book by a doctor who kept pushing me to take a drug called Focalin. It's Adderall and Ritalin. And basically I abused it. Well, of course you did. It's your drug of choice. I know. I know. You know those people in your life that you like them, they show up, and then you feel like you may be overshared, and you're like, I shouldn't have said certain. Maybe you don't have that because you have no filter. But sometimes there's people in our lives that I feel like they don't deserve to get certain knowledge. Right. And when we share it, it can become gossip, or they can twist it. And afterwards, you're like, fuck, I shouldn't have said that. That's one of those types of people. So it was exceedingly difficult because I had, my next book is going to be about relapse. Now I have three and a half years, but it was really difficult because- How much time you got now? Three and a half. Let me ask you a question. How long were you abusing that? Meth? No. Oh. The medication that the doctor gave you. Probably about eight months. Did you create any wreckage? A little bit. Not horrible. as a result of the drugs like you can be no psychologically it i was twacked for like the first don't care about that i care about the wreckage did you create any wreckage that you have had to in that in that eight months that you have that you've had to deal with still for the next three and a half years or any part of it because you were loaded and you fucked up no okay no it's more a uh uh like people say time doesn't matter and it's one day at a time and it sounds good on theory but we celebrate birthdays we hug at one day at a time some bitches are saying their sobriety date when it's i've been sober 1300 you know and yeah i hate and and it's and so i was going to meetings here and like in these means they would go around the room and everyone would say they're clean time i don't believe that's actually about the newcomer i believe that's about some of these people with long-term sobriety to say like, I have this one. Well, of course it is because the newcomer can't even imagine a week. I know. So then I had my company, it was trying to give me, Cass was trying to give me a 20-year cake. I didn't have 20 years. I was like, I had clients with more time than me because I abused it. So it's all fine now, but that was a fucking horrible psychological. How'd you stop? uh i was so i had an ex-boyfriend who lived in brazil i think that was part of the wreckage is i had the grand idea that i should be with a guy who lives in jacife brazil which is about 30 hours from la and so we so my judgment was a little lacking okay that's the only mistake you made um i now like i sponsor a lot of guys who have long-term sobriety like i love working with people at long-term and went out because there is all that you relapse oh yeah my next book is going to be about relapse or reinvention or something along those lines and yeah it's a crazy thing that I didn't understand before when you relapse after long term recovery I did not get why you can't just like get back on it and everything's okay you did get back on it it was a messy messy road Fine. Yeah, but it was tougher than I would have ever. Sure, sure. How much time do you have? But hold on a second. But the fact that you had 19 years. 19 years. Yeah. I always tell people the best medically assisted treatment is top notch care, top notch treatment, right? Because you can't unring a bell. And you had, you were locked in for 19 years. 19. Okay, so your run, it's shocking to me that your run lasted that long. But it's still only eight months. And you created no wreckage, none. And now you have even a deeper understanding holistically of what this thing is. Because we forget. With 19 years, you forget. Totally. I wrote books about it, I own a treatment center. I'm like, I'm like, and I had such brain fog and my advance was well over seven figures for my second book. So I wanted to give the money back. And then this doctor's like, well, you have ADD. I'm like, yeah, I know. I've been told, no, no, you really need to be on something. Went with me at the pharmacy. I mean, it's kind of creepy. I don't know if there's the devil on earth or not, but the whole experience, I knew better. I should have called somebody and talked to them. And instead I was looking for a quick way out. Well, the reason is because we drink our own Kool-Aid. Yeah. right we're the best we're the man we've done this you know and i had this therapist i remember i had this therapist at one time who was like 25 years sober and she was on i remember she said she takes ritalin to help her with her um and i remember seeing okay she's shown up for work for me for a few years i know she's taking really well yeah maybe maybe it's not such a big deal you know Sobriety sucks if you're not thriving. If you're not happy, forget thriving. If you're not happy, look, if you're not as happy or as contented or if your life isn't as good sober as it is on drugs, you're going back to drugs. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay, so I wanted people to know sober isn't enough. sober gets you all the gifts you want that's the baseline but then it's about what are you going to be what are you going to do right how you want to get there right so that's that yeah what do you think i think everyone's different i don't i haven't been a big believer in disease model even though that's like such a thing i think it it was a good pitch for insurance companies to pay because you had to make it some sort of illness in order to get an insurance company to do it. But I think mental health in general, whether there's substances, like at CAST, we're like majority, I'd say about 60% primary mental health. Right. You got a mental health IOP license? Yeah. Good. That's really helpful. People call for that all the time. We can send those people right to you. Great. Because we don't take them. Right. right talk to Michelle about this yeah I'm gonna meet with her after this I wanted to connect with you because I'm going up there and I'd heard your name for so many years and we'd never connected yours too it's kind of one of those things like where I was like oh I should meet him maybe I could learn from him you know stop it yeah really it's nice it's nice that you're here I've heard about you for years heard about you for years man you're one of the good ones and we're not competition. We're not. That's why I'm here. You are not. I know. I'm well aware. You know anybody who's died of I mean I know that's a crazy question to ask somebody in our business but anybody like that that when you think about it you get choked up hmm interesting hmm um such a blur like light is such a blur working in treatment it's like because I'm trying to think if any friends have died from... Because a ton of clients have. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we have, we've had two instances where someone has made an appointment to come to treatment. I hate that. I'll be there in two weeks. Here's your deposit. Save a bed. Listen to me. It's best that you come now. You're using drugs on the street. 70% of that stuff's laced with fentanyl. Okay? You're not a fentanyl user. Listen to me. Come in now. Everything's okay. I promise. Hey man, let me think about it. Two weeks goes by. Okay? He don't show up. We check. Parents. He died last week. That's happened to us twice. Wow. Already. Who believed in you before you believed in yourself? Oh boy. Who believes in me before I believe in myself? Well, with the TV stuff, Dr. Phil definitely. He like saw it. He like rocket shipped me. That's great. Is he still on? He has his own network now. He does? Yeah. The Dr. Phil network? No, it's called, he had a network called Merit. Then he phased out of that and it's called Envoy, I think. But yeah, they just, I don't understand how to disagree. Does he have a show? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Does he have a podcast? He does. He's got a podcast too? Yeah, it does really well. A ton. Dude, he's such a beast. It's crazy. Yeah, he's got a lot. I mean, when I... Especially when it was just TV was the only thing. TV was the only thing. 19 million people watching. Yeah, that's crazy. But I would see the other person who believes in me. I do jujitsu four days a week. Good. My professor saw him yesterday. That's another person in my life. Good. Compete. Good. Yeah. That's important. Yeah, yeah. Gives you discipline. I told my kids to do that. They should. They didn't. They didn't. They didn't do that. They played the instruments and they speak Spanish. Okay. But I didn't get that. I didn't get the. I got two out of three. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good ones. Those are the only three I asked for, by the way. How do you stay humble when everyone around you calls you coach? Well, I didn't go by coach Mike until I went on Dr. Phil and then they labeled me coach Mike. I still cringe a little bit if people utilize that I don't know I feel like we all have like gifts in life this is my belief we're all artists of some sort and some people can't seem to tap into their art maybe they grew up in a family where their dad pressured them to go be an attorney and they really would have been an amazing teacher or something and um i like their father so i think that we all have these these gifts in life and that um when we lean into them and one of those things that i find that i'm able to help people do is to free themselves to be authentic i feel like i have a gift at when i'm really sitting down with someone and we have chemistry and the dynamic i can really get someone out of their mental chaos and get them into their truth and that's when I feel like I'm like a coach but at the same time I have plenty of issues in my life and I don't think I think it's because I don't think I'm better than people so I you don't no I don't really truthfully you don't think you're better than no no i think i think um me neither no but because because like okay better than i'm not that organized there's someone who's better than me at being organized there's someone better at me than showing up on time there's someone better at me at planning this there's someone better than me at cooking there's someone better than me at understanding medication like what is better even fucking mean like like i i think that well for me better is better I came up with this term when I started doing TV that people have selective kindness. That people will say, oh my God, they're such an amazing person because you interact with so many people. But I found that a lot of these people just select where they put their kindness. But they're really not. They're really not kind. They're kind in spurts. In spurts when it happens to be a dynamic. So you're only kind to people when you have something to gain. or if you yeah whether you want to be liked more respected more or whatever and it's just um that was kind of hard for me in the tv world of it all because it was it was it's very much that in tv okay what does freedom mean to you today it's a great question being in the moment freedom means being in the moment freedom is connecting with who i want to connect with when i want to connect with freedom is a good night's sleep freedom is um love that's a much better answer than i would have given it's the truth though right like not for me love isn't not for me well of course love is the baseline for everything it's basic it's basic you know that's my my whole place is is the baseline of love i call it a love call right i mean that's what we do that's what i hang my handle and that's my brand for treatment but for me freedom is the ability to do whatever you want with your time that is my definition of freedom yeah and i've been so poor that i couldn't pay attention. I mean, I've been homeless, right? That ain't freedom, right? Freedom isn't going to the market and not being able to write a check for eggs or bread because you've got 800 bad checks and check systems. Freedom isn't walking into the market and buying six fake top ramen for a dollar rather than five real top ramen for a dollar because you get another top ramen okay that ain't freedom right okay now during my days i can literally sit and think i can have a friend come to the house okay who just wanted to shoot the shit and talk and hold them hostage for two hours in a in a in a podcast right right yeah i mean my days are mine what do you want to be remembered for the business or the lives changed that's kind of stupid that's easy yeah okay what do you want to be remembered for well i'm not a big guy on legacies you're not no like i think like once i'm dead i'm dead and like i don't know you see someone's brick at a hospital and and you're like, oh, who is this person? Is that because you don't have kids? No, I mean, I would rather be known just as being a good person who helped people, that's it. Like, oh, Mike helped people and does good. Like, I'm similar to you, I help a lot of people in my free time. My assistant right now is in prison for four years because I tried to help him. I got him out of, he was facing 10, but I met this guy in a meeting. You had an assistant that's doing time in jail? Yeah, in South Carolina right now, federal prison. he got caught with three pounds of meth. So I met him at a meeting and then I tried to help him. And then I like gave him a job, you know, like I did everything. It was like this most lovable guy. I made a decision to like, I don't raise my hand to sponsor at all anymore. I choose my sponsors. Yeah. Like I did not like sponsoring people when I used to raise my hand. I just didn't have that like experience. But then when I see someone that I kind of am like, oh, he's in the corner with a court card and I know I can help him turn his life around. I'm like, so I love doing stuff like that, right? Like unexpected, surprised generosity in my personal life. In business, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe one day cast on ourselves. I don't know. You know, it's like someone else picks it up, you know. Thanks for coming by. Richard, thanks for having me. No, I really appreciate it. See you next Tuesday. He said it. We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube, click the thumbs up, and leave a comment. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave a rating and a review. And share the We're Out of Time podcast with others you know who will get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.