EP 90: Sabyn Mayfield: Recovery, Purpose & The Bridge Forward | 2 Addicts & A Moron

It's worked out great. Yeah, this is awesome. And thank you so much. I know you probably got to be tired from travel and all of that. I mean, it's always something. Yeah, for you and your world, for sure. I mean, everybody's world. You know, like my least favorite thing that people say is, I'm so busy. It's like, well, you have time for what's important. What's more important than talking about recovery? Talking about this journey and this work that we all do. Yeah, I heard some. I used to always say, man, I just don't have time. And then I heard Elon Musk talking one day, talking about how he makes time. And I'm like, he's surely way busier than what I am. He's probably got so much more shit going on, but he figures out how to make time. So if I got to wake up earlier, that's how I got to make more time. Yeah, I don't like to do that. So I just try to be more efficient throughout the day. A buddy of mine, he's newly sober. And he's kind of struggling. He's beating himself up a little bit, trying to get things up to speed. He's like, yeah, man, I wish I had your drive and focus. And I was like, you do. You just don't use it on the right things yet. I've always had it. I've just shifted it to something that's more fulfilling and more productive, because I realize the two most valuable things that I have are my time and my energy. So what and whom am I going to spend them on? Yeah, sure. And so it's like, I'd rather, I want to work hard, but I also want to work smart, so that things are just better. But I mean, you know how it is, man. It's like when you're young or you're newly sober or whatever, it's like none of it makes sense. And then one day, it kind of all makes sense. Yeah. Well, and watching him go through his journey, it was like, it looks like it's you. I was I mean, he says that all the time on here, but it's like watching a toddler learn how to do things for the first time when they're sober. Right? Like what? Yeah. Watching a toddler learn how to walk there. Like, holy shit, I just learned how to do that. Like you would see it on the face. I just learned how to put my finger in my nose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You sure did. Yeah. I remember when I was in rehab when I first got some clarity. And I was like, I wanted to leave and go in like, now that I know what I'm supposed to be doing, let me go save my daughter and do this and do this and do this. And the guys in rehab that ran it, they were like, you just need to sit in it. You just need to sit in it. And you're going to have plenty of time to fix all that. But once I got sober, I was like, shit, I got to go make up this and I got to make up for this and this and this. And like, no, you're going to have plenty of time to do all that. You just need to find yourself first. Yeah. I'm still like that. Like I still want to do it now. I want to do it right now. I want to do it the quickest, most efficient way. And I've really had to surrender to the fact that most things that are worth doing are a process. I have to give it some time. I have to wait for the person to respond to the email. I have to sit and reflect about the decisions I want. It's like, because when I get too big of a hurry, I make mistakes. Speeding up is sometimes the way to do that is by slowing down. I mean, and that's very counterintuitive, especially when you're doing something that's a passion. Especially for addicts. Let's go. Like, I mean, he, I was telling Lauren in here, it was, you know, when he signed up to do that, or he signed us up to do this, this is all him just like, go, right? And my expectation was like, dodge, like it's not going to work. I mean, it's not going to work like he thinks it's going to work, but he's like, we're going to be the next Rogan. And I'm like, hold on. I mean, you might as well. Yeah. But you know what, man? Like I got another buddy who, you know, he wants to do this. Yeah. But he's been talking about it for two years. Dude, that's where we were. Like we were talking about this thing for a whole solid 18 months. Yeah. But then eventually you're just like, all right, let's let's just do it. And then when you do it, you're going to find out, like, you know, is this something that we like doing? Or is it something that we just tried that we move on from? And then that leads us to the next right thing we're supposed to do. Yeah. I've been doing the same thing about talking about. I've been talking about writing a book since I got sober before. And I've got all the material to do it. It's just literally me sitting down and doing it. And my therapist, when I went to my therapist, she was the one that kind of like, she's like, man, you've been talking about this podcast for a few sessions. It's like, why haven't you started it? And I was like, well, I mean, this could go wrong and this could go wrong. And she's like, well, let's write down everything that could go wrong right now. Yeah. Now, literally we wrote down, like, guess doesn't show up. Or the microphone stopped working or the camera stopped working or you get canceled or whatever. Now let's act as if all of those things happen. Now, how are we going to overcome it? And we're writing out plans on how to overcome it. She's like, all right, so now there's no excuse anymore. Well, you know, we literally start at the next weekend. What's ironic about that is that happens to major media conglomerates. The actor doesn't show up. The camera starts working. Every day. The show gets canceled. You know, you know, a hurricane hits. You know, like that happens to the best of the best. So it's like, sometimes you got to roll the dice. But I was I was waffling for a really long time about I wrote a lot of short form content and I wanted to write a long form piece. And I had a buddy who he's one of us and he's a television writer. And I asked him, I'm like, man, I'm just really struggling to get over the hump or like sitting down and writing the screenplay and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, you want to know the secret to writing? I'm thinking this dude's got like this inside. He's trying to give it to you. Yeah. Like, oh my God, like this is like some Illuminati shit right now. Right. And he's like, he's like, Hey, I see. And I'm like, oh my God, what is this? And he's like, ass in chair. I was like, there you go. I said, right. You just have to sit down. But you know what I would do and it might be helpful for you is I would. I would sit down and I would set a timer for 30 minutes. And I would just I was like, I can do anything. Or sometimes sometimes I do it for 15. Yeah. Just to like get in the habit of sitting down and doing it. And then typically I'd end up writing for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour. And then, you know, it just it became like muscle memory. You know, then the next thing you know, you you've got a screenplay. You've got a book. You've got a podcast. You've got a business plan, like whatever it is. Because it's not like it's not like everybody's out there just like being brilliant all the time. Right. You know, like sometimes it's just the people who like put their nose to the grindstone and say, look, I'm going to I'm going to put this together. And by doing that work, like, you know, forces of the universe usually come to conspire for our benefit. Right. You know, by just doing the footwork. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I'll start. I'm going to start doing that 15 minutes a day. I should probably do an introduction for this podcast. It's already started off so great, but welcome back to another episode of Two Addicts and a Moron. Yeah. And all the way from Nashville. Saving everybody. Thank you. We were riding out here and I was like, man, does this mean I'm the moron? You know what? You know what's super funny about that? We had a comedian on and he was like, so who's the moron here? And I like I had to explain everything to him and he was like, dude, it'd be sick if the guest was the moron. If they like, I was like, I guess I'm like humble enough to know to be like, yeah, I guess I don't really know anything. So I'll be the moron. That's that's far from true. The truth is the guy sitting in the middle here is the moron and I own that. Well, what I've heard is you're not a moron. You're just a normie. Well, I'm a normie, but you two addicts and a normie doesn't sound as cool as moron. So like it was like two addicts and a guy who didn't do drugs a lot. You know, like you can't it just didn't ring roll off the tongue. That's not going to fit on a shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it was moron is what we leaned into and it's worked out. I mean, I couldn't be more proud at work. I don't even call him by his name anymore. I call him moron. Okay. And my daughter is like, Mr. Moron. She doesn't know what his first name is. I don't think. Yeah, probably not. Mr. Moron. Yeah, it is what it is now. But dude, thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. You got straight off a plane and right over here into that seat. Straight off the plane over to Hertz and on the confusing Texas highways. Yeah, absolutely. And the toll roads. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and Austin, Texas is just like that should not be a toll road. It should just be a needed road for the rest of everybody. Yeah. It's so it's so wild. I agree with you. We might have taken just one or two wrong turns, but we got here. Yeah, good. Well, there we are. Yeah. Well, look, man, how long have you been sober? Six years. Let's go, man. We're 417 2020. That's awesome. That's awesome. And not my first. So during COVID got. Yeah, most people got drunk during COVID. Yeah. I got sober during. Wow. Um, and not my first sobriety. I got sober the first time when I was 21. And I stayed sober for about seven years. And I love telling the story because I was I was doing all the like all the things that you do. Yeah. You know, but I was really unwell. You know, I was I was a dry drunk. I was riddled with alcoholism and I went out after after almost seven years. And I stayed out for seven. And, you know, it didn't get bad right away, but it got bad. It progressed over time until I really hit hit a bottom and came crawling back. And the really hard part about it is when I came back, I couldn't get it. You know, and I and I had really taken for granted the fact that. You know, I was kind of struck sober at 21. And so it was really easy, but I was very I struggled a lot in the room. You know, I didn't have the desire to drink and use. And, you know, being young, I really compared myself to other people's using history and all these drunkologs that they were sharing about. And I was like, you know, I'm not drinking. I don't want to drink. Why do I feel crazy? Why am I hypersensitive? Why am I entitled? Why am I intolerant? Why am I struggling with a big ego? Why am I struggling with low self-esteem? And no one really had the answer. You know, it was it was many, many years into my recovery till I found myself in a fellowship of men that was like that are the other remaining symptoms of alcoholism addiction that you're using the 12 steps to treat. You're using that. You need to treat that peculiar mental twist that like filters everything through this really wounded lens. And then, you know, I struggled for another, you know, six years until I got sober. Again, I guess it was 38 at the time. And I was very unwell, you know, and had made some life decisions like right on the cusp of getting sober that then kind of blew up at two years. And this was my pattern, you know, like it says in the book, I would build a bright outlook and I would tear it down, you know, and this quote unquote bright outlook that I built in sobriety, you know, or in my active addiction came crashing down and I didn't want to drink and I didn't want to use. I just wasn't sure that I wanted to keep living, you know, and I was at a real fork in the road and and I love to tell the story, you know, at that time, you know, I had done all the therapy. I had done all the 12 step stuff. I had sponsored, been sponsored and a couple people that I knew who had decades of sobriety is like, look, I think what you're I think what you're suffering from is unresolved trauma. And I think it would be a good idea for you to call this place called The Bridge to Recovery. And it's a, you know, and I called and I went there and, you know, and it was it was a complete we were talking earlier. It changed the trajectory of my life. It saved my life and it also changed the trajectory of my sobriety, you know, because I had done this emotional healing, right? And then I could then work on my alcoholism and my addiction, you know, and basically see where the two were feeding off one another. And now today, you know, many years past, I knew when I left there that I wanted to be involved forever. And then I got the opportunity to serve on the board of directors. And now I'm approaching like a year and a half of being the CEO there. Nice. Dude, that's awesome. And so explain The Bridge to Recovery. Yeah. Like explain, explain that in a little bit more detail for the people out there, because from what I understand, it's unique. It's it's insanely unique. We are in my, so first of all, we've been there since 1972. Oh, man, man. Which is, you know, like outside of Betty Ford and maybe a couple other, you know, places here and there. It's like we've been operating doing what we do is long, if not longer than most anybody. And, you know, we're a nonprofit. We've always been set up as a nonprofit. We consider ourselves a trauma residential workshop. And why that designation is so important is because we're a non-medical model. Right. We're not in the business of trying to tell somebody what's wrong with you or to to give you a diagnosis. We're trying to figure out what happened to you. Right. And where that starts typically for most of us is family of origin trauma. Yeah. You know, and getting to the root of where these, where these wounds occurred. And we have a three phase program or a program can range from two to six weeks and beyond, depending on clinical recommendation. But first phase, phase one is two weeks. And then based on clinical recommendation, we go to phase two, which is additional two weeks and then phase three and so on. Typically our length of stay is about four weeks. For me, when I was a client, I was a six week client. No questions asked. Yeah. Yeah. Like paid in full upfront was not leaving. Would have stayed. Had they let you? If they had let me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because, you know, it was the first place that I felt safe and maybe ever or at least in a very long time. And I realized that the environment that was created there was actually very, very healthy. Yeah. Yeah. To be able to communicate. Like, you know, I always like in, in, in 12 step work, like one of my defects, I always thought was like fear of confrontation. What I really feel feared was healthy confrontation. You know, I really feared just saying, Hey, like when you did such and such, I feel, you know, and just being able to have an adult, healthy, like whole conversation with somebody. Yeah. Be heard and hear them back and just, and consider each other's feelings. Cause that's not, that wasn't my experience growing up. Yeah. My experience was I tell you how you, how I feel you tell me that's not right or you just ignore it and do what you're going to do anyway. Right. I still have a problem with that sometimes. Yeah. I, I really get in, you know, a lot of times I still, if something's bothering me, I'll just keep it to myself. Yeah. Dude. Because I have, I get really activated when I, you know, genuinely trying to share something with somebody that's upsetting to me. Yeah. And then they get defensive or try to excuse it. See, I get defensive. I'm on the other end of it. So. Yeah. I mean, I do that too. You know, but luckily, you know, I get very defensive. Yeah. Luckily I have people in my life who I can hear it from. Yeah. Yeah. And they allow me the space to maybe get a little defensive and blow off some steam only to be like, yes, you're right. I hear you. Sheer is one of the people she's sitting over here. She's shaking her head. Yeah. She's just smiling. But yeah, I mean, you know, the bridge is just a really special place because we, we deal with one thing and one thing always trauma. Did you, did you know that you had trauma that you needed to deal with? No. Or no. Okay. No. Because we've had people come in and I'm glad that you brought up the trauma because a lot of people think, well, that happened before like trauma stays with you. Yeah. And we've had people come in that get sober and then they had blocked off trauma that they had in their life. And then as they've worked through steps or through program or go to a therapist or whatever it was, they realize, holy shit, like I've been hanging onto something that's really been holding me down. And they almost forgot about it until it was brought back to their attention. And then they had to go back and deal with the thing is, is it's like, it's like, you know, it's like the invisible puppet master. You know, it's it's so often it's pulling these strings in your life. And it's very hard for you to connect the dots of like, what's happening right here and right now and what the origin point of that is. And that was really difficult for me is, you know, and trauma can be kind of like a hot button word, you know, and people use the term like big tea or little tea, like, you know, kind of comparing the two. And I think for me, I kind of have a problem with that because I think trauma is just relative. Like what what you experienced, it was traumatic, was traumatic for you. What you for you and everybody's a little different. Yeah. Yeah. But it's still it affects you the same way, you know, and a couple of definitions that we've used, you know, one for trauma is moments of perceived helplessness, which is really great. And for me, sometimes I just prefer the term woundedness. Yeah, we can all relate to that of being wounded and, you know, having to heal from those wounds and, you know, even when a wound heals, it's still scarred over. It leaves a mark and it may be it may be impacted, you know, it may be impacting you in a lot of other ways. So I didn't really, you know, and I I'm from Nashville originally, but I grew up in LA. And so not that LA is kind of a magical place. But the thing that's great about LA is you have the best of anything available to you at any given time. The best of the best lives there. There's also an underbelly, too. But I had very severe. Yeah. But I had access to great doctors, great psychiatrists, great psychologists, you know, all of these different modalities that one could try. And in all the years that I've been in therapy, not one time, and I say this all the time, and I work with some amazing therapists, one time that any of them mentioned and they knew my they knew my story. They never mentioned trauma, abandonment, neglect, abuse or a measurement. Wow. I didn't hear any of those terms until I went to the bridge. Wow. And then got clarity on how these things had happened or occurred or transpired in my life. Now, not necessarily because these people were intentionally trying to do these things to me, but, you know, we hear so often like hurt people hurt people. Right. Or, you know, sometimes people are just doing the best they can. Well, you know, I'll be the first to say sometimes my best just isn't good enough. And, and that can affect people unintentionally, but it still leaves an imprint. It still leaves a mark on somebody. Yeah. You know, and for me and for most people, like you said, you're carrying that with you and you don't really know how it's impacting you. Well, was it impacting me to the point to where I didn't have a lot of self esteem or I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin or I was stuck in a free state or fight or flight and yeah, very much so, you know, moving around a lot, doing it, you know, we all have different stories and it makes up this kind of experience of our lives. Yeah. And for me and for you and, you know, for most people, well, the first time I had that drink or drug, all of that stuff. Yeah. Oh, no way. Help you out. Yeah. I've. I've learned so much just from talking to y'all on this two years that we've been doing it and one of the things that I picked up probably six months in was like a lot of this stuff is based in some sort of traumatic event as far as addiction, you know, and I've said it on here a million times, but trauma is trauma. Right. We have a young lady who came in here that was sex traffic since she was five years old. That's traumatic. That's crazy traumatic. Then we had another guy who sat there and he said, my addiction stemmed from my grandfather dying. And it was like, they felt the same, you know, their road to recovery might look a whole lot different in the way that they're going to get healed. But in those moments, they felt you can't judge somebody's trauma. Like you can't because it all feels bad and it feels the same way whenever it happens to you. Exactly. Everybody's entitled to their own experience and how things impact them. Right. Sometimes. Yeah. The irony of it is sometimes, you know, the people who've been, you know, the people who you would think have been through the most traumatic things. Sometimes in a lot of ways, they're able to, they're able to compartmentalize that better than people who the outside world would say, well, that wasn't that big of a deal. Well, who's to say? Right. You know, everybody deals with things differently. Yeah. Right. And yeah, death, loss, abuse, you know, neglect, abandonment, you know, moving around, you know, absent parent, you know, divorce, you know, bullying, you know, a car accident, a medical episode, you know, I start to think back about all of these things. And I recently had a health thing come up, you know, and it was, I'm on the other side of it, and I'm better. But, you know, a friend of mine was reminding me what you experienced was a traumatic event. You had a traumatic internal injury, you know, and it was in a lot of ways, it was really scary, it makes you very vulnerable. And, you know, people have to give themselves a lot of grace about what they've experienced and what they're experiencing now, what they might experience in the future. Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, there's the trauma unit at an emergency room for a reason, right? Because that's a traumatic injury. Right. So it makes all the sense in the world that you guys would be a trauma center for what's going on inside of someone. It's the most important thing, you know, and it's like, you know, family of origin is probably the big ticket item that we lead off with, but also, you know, how that presents, you know, how that presents or causes presentations of anxiety and depression, as well as codependency, you know, that outward reach for inter security. You know, a lot of people think codependency is just, you know, a really toxic and uncomfortable relationship, you know, an intimate relationship. That's not always what it is, you know, it's that outward reach for inter security. Yeah. Another term that I love that we use is too sick people getting worse. Yeah, man. Yeah. You know, and then also, you know, taking that a step further with the trauma, the codependency and the process addiction, which, you know, you all may know what that is, but most people don't. It's a process addiction is anything that's not substance related. Sex, love, food, money, gambling, you know, self-harming, but all these other things that are, you know, manifestations of this unresolved wilderness, you know, that people are trying to use to cope with that, you know, the same way we use substances. Yeah. I was one who, you know, when I was able to put the substances down, I realized that I had a lot of codependent tendencies and that caused a lot of, you know, maybe not bad decision making, but less than ideal decision making in my relationship, you know, because I was, I was, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Yeah. Yeah. To me, facing. That's easy to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So your drug of choice was alcohol. Uh, my drug of choice was more. Yeah. You know, and people were like, what was your drug of choice? And I was like, what do you have? Yeah. I heard that a lot. You know, like I was, I was a garbage can just mostly because of the age I was at prior to getting sober. You know, it was like, of course, alcohol was the first thing we got. Then it was weed. Then it was like, you know, you do a little code, then you're doing ecstasy, then you're doing mushrooms, then you're doing acid, then you're doing some ketamine. All right, maybe you're smoking a little crack. Yeah. Why not? You know, at that point, like anything that, that presented itself, you were going to do. And, and once I've, you know, for me, once I've had like two or three drinks, like it's green light go. Yeah. You know, yeah. And it's like whatever presented itself, I was going to take, but in the years later, um, the thing that, that became my drug of choice and really, you know, expedited me hitting bottom was, was opiates. Okay. Yeah. And that pills was it shooting or, or were you? No, no, no, no, I was just taking pills. Taking pills. And that all started as the result of, you know, cause that was like corny to me. I was like, that's some like old people business. Like who takes pain pills? Like that is the lamest thing you can possibly do. A lot of people do it. A lot of people. Yeah. And then I started having some surgeries. Like I had my wisdom tea taken out and then they gave me more pills. And I had like a knock the tooth out playing ball. And then it's like, I had to get an implant to give me more pills. And I had my septum redone because I busted my nose so much. And then, you know, then they gave me more pills. And then next thing I knew, I was like, well, this is how I always want to feel. And no one's the wiser. Like I'm not sitting here coming in like reek and like weed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, my eyes aren't all bloodshot. Or booze. Smell like booze. Like I, I mean, you know, I mean, to me, I thought I was functioning, but the thing that was like so shocking to me and most people experience is my tolerance built so quick. My tolerance, you know, got so high, so quick, you know, that I had to start taking so much. And then I started to get so sick so quick. Yeah. And then it completely altered my personality. You know, and it was like, it got real like it got real scary. And it got real dark like real quick. Yeah, I know I've been around people that do everything. Right. And the pill, the pills was always the one that I stayed away from. Yeah. Because I never, I didn't like being around the people that were always on Xanax because they were like, yeah, I never liked Xanax. Yeah, I didn't like that. And then when I thank God, I got sober before like Perkisettes and like fentanyl and stuff. That's what really fentanyl was coming, like making a big splash. And I'm pretty sure that some of the meth I did at one time had some fentanyl in it. And I got really sick from it. And I'm kind of grateful for it because I was like, man, something I got to start changing something because I knew I didn't want to die. So I just want to get high. I just want to get high and for I didn't want to die. I love look, I love getting high. Yeah, me too. My batting average getting high is a thousand percent. Yeah. Like that's like I always achieve. I might not have achieved it to the degree that I wanted. But I always got the desired effect. Yeah. Right. And so like I was all in. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, I'm really glad that I got sober before social media is the way it is now. Yeah. You know, I'm really glad I'm not like a 20 year old person in the world right now. Man, the guys that I was in rehab with that were coming off of fentanyl. Perkisettes. It like it was measurable for them and I felt terrible for them. Like not being able to sleep, tossing and turning all night, not being able to go to the bathroom. Like it was it looked like the worst thing that you could come off of. Yeah. Batten, there was a guy in there for alcohol that was coming pretty bad. It was crazy to me. Like when I first started working back in treatment after, you know, I spent many, many years working in film and music. And then I just was like, I don't even know if I'd like doing this. You know, I mean, I love I love creating and doing stuff. But I want to be of service and I want to help people. Yeah. But it was so it was so wild to me. How many young people were coming in and their DOC was just straight. That straight. Yeah. I was like, that is not even laced with fentanyl. They're doing fentanyl. Yeah, not like I got hooked on it because my so and so was being cut with. Yeah, I'm going straight. Just doing it for the Russian roulette. Yeah, no question. That was like that just blew my mind. I didn't know people actually just went out and did fentanyl. Yeah, I thought it was like a mistake. It was laced with. Yeah, and y'all were y'all are ex addicts. Imagine me talking to somebody. I was like, wait, you did fentanyl like only do you like time out? Yeah, you can't even like recreationally get high anymore. Right. Yeah, dude. Like when I was young, like if I had found a bag on the ground, yeah, I would have for sure done it. Yeah. For sure done it now. Like you can't like you have to have a chemistry set. Yeah. Right. And I have a little fat. So like get high, you know, which I mean, talk about a buzzkill and I'm not trying to. Like, I mean, there's no I'm not trying to glorify getting high. But like, look, man, like there's a lot of people in the world who didn't become addicts who had a great time rocking and rolling and trying things. Yeah. Like those days are gone. Yeah, like even some of my I can't smoke weed at all. It makes me super weird. I get super paranoid. And like it's for me. But even like pro smokers are like this shit now takes you into cartoon land. Like you're it's not like it's not like just eat a pizza and like have a couple. It's like fucking like. Like, wow. It's like get under a table. Like it's like an earthquake drill. Everything's shaking. I'm hiding. I'm covering my head and just waiting this out. Yeah. And people who walk through just I went all the time. That's crazy. That one when I got loaded like the first time. No, maybe it wasn't the first time. But when I was struggling, I had convinced myself, I was like, listen, like I'm just going to I'm going to go fully holistic here. And, you know, I don't want to do any pharmaceuticals, but it's like, I got to kind of figure out this anxiety and depression. I was like, I'm going to go to this pharmacy or not pharmacy. The what are they called dispensary? And I'm going to explain to this gentleman that I'm a former heavy duty smoker. Yeah. Right. So long since retired. But listen, I've smoked my fair share of the old weed. And but I'm just trying to dip my toe back in the water, you know, just trying to take a little bit of the little edge off, take a little bit of the edge off and, you know, if you could steer me in the right direction, he totally didn't steer me in the right direction. And I was like, listen, I don't want to freak out. Like, because last time I smoked, I freaked out. He's like, listen, you're not going to freak out. Needless to say, I freaked out. Right. I turned my phone off. Close the blinds, lock the doors, barricaded myself in my room with a carton of ice cream and just had to thug it out for like 90 minutes. Yeah, dude, dude. And it was weird. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah. And I don't trust the dispensaries either. It's like, man, they got some dude in a grateful dead T-shirt back there doing whatever. And then he forgot he did something. So he adds more to it. And you're like, what, like, you don't fucking know what you're getting in there either. Like, you cannot convince me. Science, man. Yeah. Science. Yeah, those are not science. I don't see one lab coat in there, man. I see a lot of grateful dead T-shirts. I see a lot of dreadlocks and like, hey, man, what's going on? Like, I don't trust you either. But not only am I a client, but I'm also the president. I've smoked weed probably 10 times in my life. And I've never had a good experience with it. Never. Like it literally like I used to go to strip club a lot. Sure. And a lot of the girls, they'd say, hey, you want to go? And I'm not going to say no to smoking with a stripper. I mean, not in my addiction. Yeah. So, yeah. But I wouldn't know immediately there's no possible way this thing's going any further because I'm going to get so fucking weird on this. She's probably going to tell me, hey, can you just go ahead and leave? And it happened every time because I would just be like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And she'd be like, hold on. I just say shit. I'm like, no, I just heard you talking about pigeons. Yeah. And she's like, I didn't talk about pigeons. I'm like, you talked about a blue pigeon. Where did you see a blue? Like it just fucking it's the only drug that I've ever done that literally just fucking put me somewhere. And I didn't know where I was. And like when I snapped out of it, I was like, how did I get here? Like it's a weed and just something. And then they had the dabs come out that dude crazy. Yeah, that wax stuff. Yeah. And I missed all this crazy, like, you know, high five stuff. Yeah. You know, I just, you know, I mean, that was cool and everything, but I was just like, like I wanted that diesel. Yeah. I mean, I like being mellow and like, you know, honestly, I kind of joke, but like kind of being a stoner when I was younger probably kept me out of like more trouble than I might have been in because it's like sometimes I just get stoned and like video games, hang out at the house. But it's like if I was going to if I was going to get high, like I wanted to get high and go like I wanted to be up, I wanted to be 100 miles an hour. But I couldn't ever I couldn't turn it off. Yeah. And the thing that was always funny is like, you know, when I was getting sober, I always like I always really struggled in a because I wasn't like a Bill W. Drinker. I just didn't drink handles a day and real the clock and, you know, bang on the bar like, no, not again, you know, every relapse I've ever had started with a drink. That makes sense. I mean, that makes perfect sense to me because you can get it anywhere. Yeah. I was like, no, I can just I can I can just have one. Yeah. And I could. Yeah. For a couple of weeks. Yeah. And then it would be to. We were talking about that at work the other day. Someone was like, could they ask if I could still do math? I said, absolutely not. There's no possible way. What kind of question is that? Yeah. Like, could you still could you do it recreationally? It's like, I've never been able to do it. It's like I've never been able to do that whenever I was doing it. Like, why would I be? I was, I. Yeah, this isn't pickleball. But you know, the thing that I told him was the good thing is, is I wouldn't even know where to find it these days. That's a good problem. That's a great problem to have. Whereas if I was an alcoholic, which alcohol doesn't do anything, it doesn't send me off to a tangent, but any drug will. But if I was an alcoholic, that would be a scary, scary situation because I literally can find it. I don't have to have a drug dealer. I can find that right. I could go to 7-Eleven. Got a Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah. Well, it was never, I mean, it's not, you know, again, like alcohol, I never liked the taste of alcohol. I was never a connoisseur of alcohol. I, you know, I never drank for taste, drank merely for effect, you know, because, you know, that, that, that for me became the gateway to other things. You know, I never, I never went out and went straight for a bag. Yeah. I, you know, that was, that was like the ramp for me. And, you know, and I, I needed it. Like I guess I needed that kind of social lubricant, so to speak, to like lower my inhibitions and then give me the ability to go partake in the stronger, harder, wilder, whatever stuff, you know, but, you know, I'm an equal opportunity, fucking the addict dude. It's like my friend Tommy, he was my first sponsor. He said, I'm a, I'm an alcoholic. What did he always used to say? He said, I'm a, he said, I'm an alcoholic and I hope to die dope. All right. You know? Yeah. And then he'd be like, I'm a liar, cheating the thief. And I'm like, dude, you literally just described an alcoholic. You could have stopped it. Yeah. Because it's not like the drug of choice doesn't matter to me, whether it's in a bottle, whether it's in a bag, whether it's in a pill, whether it's in a syringe, it doesn't matter. Like it's, it's that ism. You know, I like the term addiction more because it's a more blanket term and it applies to more things. Yeah. You could be sex, love, drugs, alcohol, food, like I'm addicted. Yeah. You know, and, but I have the same, once I consume a substance. Once I put it in me. Once that substance enter my, enters my body, I lose the power of choice. Yeah. You know, that's that allergy of the body that I have. That's that obsession of the mind. That's that phenomenon of craving. You know, once I start, you know, and three is the magic number. You know, I have three cocktails. Forget about it. Yeah. Out of there. And I can't control and enjoy my, it's like, I don't want to control and enjoy my drink. I, I, I love the illusion that I could just have one, have one, or just have a couple, like puffs off a joint. Like, no, I don't, I never wanted to do that. I want to, you know, but the thing I realized with like substances and it became a huge surrender for me is there's no, there's no substance strong enough to get me out of self as far as I need to be. Feel really, you know, it may be temporary, but the backside of that decline is so intense and so severe. Yeah. That it just loops me back into that cycle where then I have to consume more to try to get higher to try to overcompensate for that depression, that loneliness and that isolation and that low self esteem that I'm feeling. Yeah. You know, there's, there's not, it has to be, you know, not to get all corny, but it has to be, you know, some sort of spiritual or more wholesome solution. You know, it can't be this, this manufactured thing. Yeah. I ran into the problem where, like in the beginning, the drugs did it for me. And then as I got deep in my addiction, I was getting high just to get high, but it didn't have that same fulfillment. Yeah. Does that make sense? Of course. And it's like, what do you do when, when the drugs stop working? Like they're still getting me high, but I'm still feeling, I'm not feeling that the, the, you know, the abandonment and the trauma and all that wasn't going away like it used to. Yeah. It was, it was actually coming to the forefront now and I'm like, shit, I can't even get high enough to get rid of it anymore. Yeah. I could, I cannot get high enough to get me outside of self. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. I can't do it. Yeah. It just, it doesn't work. And I'm still sitting in the mirror telling myself I'm a piece of shit. Yeah. And the thing that's, the thing that sucks, man, is like, you get sober and you're sober long enough and then you realize that like, like everything stops working, you know, the drugs stop working, the alcohol stops working, the sex stops working, the porn stops working, the nicotine stops working, caffeine stops working, the food stops working. It's like, how far, how far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go to to rule out all these external forces to try to make you feel the way you want to feel. And my sponsor always does this to me, man. It pisses me off, but I can hear it from him, you know, because it's, it's so simple, but it's still, you know, I still have my own things around it is he's like, look, dude, like this is between you and God, you know, or you and your higher power or you and the universe. Like this has to be rooted in something bigger than bigger than you. You know, this has to be rooted in something that's. Immature immaterial, you know, yeah. And sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow, but in other times it makes perfect sense. Yeah. You know, and I don't have that figured out, you know, what that means, you know, but I, but I understand the idea of like, you know, having an inner piece. It's connected to something internal rather than external. Right. I was in a meeting this morning. This dude went on a rant about like, questioning how God thinks about him. And don't get me wrong, I'm not like a huge God person, per se, but it just like hit me all of a sudden. I was like, man, if I'm ever like wondering like what my higher power thinks about me, I have to like look no further than how I think about my son. You know, and like I was joking. I was like, whether my son was like a, you know, an axe murder or like a fortune 500 CEO, I would love him just the same. You know, if he's, you know, doing things that I don't particularly think are right, you know, I love him enough to give him the opportunity to have his own experience, you know, or if he's going through an awkward phase, which young people do, you know, it's like you, you don't judge them. You don't shame them. You love them and support them and encourage them and just treat them the same. Like no matter what season that they're in, you know, and I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of cool. Thinking that like, you know, there's like a higher being who's like down for you like that. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's something that I used to struggle with in my addiction is, and I've said it on here before, like I felt like God walked away from me a long time ago. Sure. There in no way he's still here. Right. Right. And then when I got sober, like I used to think when I got pulled over and I had drugs on me, but I hit it and they didn't find it. I was like, man, I just got lucky. And then I realized like, no, somebody had their hand in that, right? God had his hand in that. And then when I got sober and I started going to church, I went to these different churches to find out, find one that I liked. And the one that I end up staying with the pastures, had I say it? Pastor? Sure. Pastor, pastor. I always say it like it's a cow. Yeah. I was messing both up. Is where the couch hangs out. He was saying that an L pastor. Yeah. It's a great taco. That's the only taco that I actually like. Love that taco. The the pastor. Okay. Okay, we're going to go with we know what you're saying. Yeah. He said one time that the disciples that Jesus had, they weren't like schoolboys in like, they were the worst of the worst in a lot of ways. They weren't good people. And he said that Jesus and God, they don't look for, they want someone whose backyard is just fucking messy. Your backyard's clean. That's, there's not a whole lot of work for them to do here. So if your backyard is trashed, that's actually who they probably gravitate to even more because man, I'm fucking needed here. I got a work here. I've got a project. Whereas, you know, it's like Tom Brady, how much can a coach really tell Tom Brady? He already knows pretty much everything about football. But if you're just starting out, a coach can teach somebody a hell of a lot more. And they said, that's what that's what God is. That's what Jesus is. They look and your backyard is trashed. And then they also said that it's like what you were saying about your son. Even no matter how bad your backyard is, if God had a refrigerator, your picture would still be on there. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Picture still on there somewhere. Yeah, I don't know why that hit me like it did today, but I was like, oh, that just like, it just made perfect sense. Yeah. And I think like, you know, I tried to be very mindful as a father, just, you know, by no means was I perfect. At all. Yeah. I think I made a really good impact on letting my son know that I was always there for him and loved him no matter what. And just had his back and was present. And you can see the difference. Yeah. You know, he has a different way about him than I had. I had a different upbringing, you know, and there was a lot more moving parts to it. For sure. You know, and so that that impacts a young person. He had a lot more stability, so to speak. You know, again, nobody's perfect, but it's different. You know, yeah. Yeah. I was, I was having a conversation with his grandmother. They're very, they're very religious. Yeah. We were talking. We were talking, we were having a God talk, which always really starts with sobriety and I was like, yeah, man, I was like, you're talking about like thinking like, oh, it's just coincidence, you know, when you didn't get busted. I'm like, man, God's with this dude nailed to the cross. Like he probably been here with me the whole time. Yeah, he was there with him. Like he was definitely with me in jail. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like so. All right, cool. I mean, I don't know. Like I said, like, you know, people are like, you know, what are you, your, your understanding of God or, or spiritual spirituality or spiritual principles? I don't understand it. You know, I, I believe that there's something greater than me because I believe that something greater than me was required to restore me to sanity. 100% restored to the sanity was the only way that I was going to get better. And I love talking about the steps. And, you know, everybody talks about like step one and like alcohol, powerlessness. Yeah. They're like, they always say their powers over alcohol. No one's ever mentioned how powerless they are of their alcoholism. Right. It's like this thing's alive and well and you're treating it on a daily basis. We have a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Right. Right. Not we have a daily reprieve by not going to the liquor store. Yeah. Or it's the big dreaded four step like, okay, or the ninth step. Yeah. The ninth step was great. And that was, that was very healing for me. But the real shift for me, I had a, and I was talking to a buddy of mine today about I had a profound step to experience. I truly believe that I was insane, not like certifiable, like Looney been insane. But I was doing the same thing, expecting different results. You know, and I was, I was incapable of seeing it any different. And the way that I was living was going to kill me. Right. In some way shape or form. And that had not occurred yet. And I wanted to do something different. And that gave me the mustard seed of faith to know that there was something better. There was something greater than my life working that, that I could rely on to to perform essentially a miracle. Yeah. You know, the way that I think and live and feel today is not the same as I used to. And that was not something I did. I mean, I, I did a lot of work, you know, but I also, I also had to be willing to accept that like someone else was in charge of the outcome. Right. You know, and a big thing for me in sobriety is I always, you know, they're like, God's got a plan for you. And I was like, man, but what if God sucks? Like, I know that I got this like trash heap of stuff that I'm pulling behind a like tricycle bike with California. But, but what if nothing is on the other side? Yeah. Right. That's how crazy I was. Like there's going to be nothing. Right. But I got to the point to where nothing was better than this. Yeah. And I was, I was willing to surrender all this for nothing because at least there, there was like a blank canvas that maybe I had the opportunity to paint and build off of. Yeah. You know, and that, that was fine because I just, I no longer wanted what I had. I didn't want, I was out of ideas. My best thinking had gotten me exactly where I was in my life. And it wasn't about how the outside of my life looked, you know, even though it wasn't, that really wasn't a big deal for you. Right. Necessarily, you know, but it was the way I felt internally, you know, and I could not, I could not continue to live the way I was living emotionally and psychologically. Yeah. You know, and I was like, yeah, dude, like I'm, I'm out on this whole thing. And, and, you know, and that's like, that's been really helpful because that's like my story to other guys that I work with, you know, and, and so like my, when I'm working with guys, like my, my story goes well beyond just not drinking and using because that's just, that's just the entry point into the amusement park of recovery. Yeah. Like when you get your tickets. Yeah. That's it. Look man, underneath every masterpiece ever painted is a blank canvas. Yeah. Right. It all starts there. Yeah. And that's kind of cool that you said that was like, you'd rather have that blank canvas and paint whatever I want on it. Yeah. Even if it'd been a damn empty canvas and just the frame, I'd have been like whatever, do better. Yeah. You know, better than that one. I used to always say, I like the canvas thing too. Like, you know, you always hear people say, you got to hit rock bottom. And I always say, like rock bottom, it doesn't have to be a scary place because you can literally learn from everything that you did and build yourself into whatever you want it to be. Just like your canvas, you can paint whatever picture you want to. Once you got through all of it, you can, you can sculpt anything that you want to sculpt once in like, I'm a huge believer that we had to go through all that shit to get to where we are now. And we had to go through all that so you can be a vessel for other people to show them like, Hey, there is, you know, it's crazy. There's a guy, I won't say any names. There's a new guy. They just sat next to me at work. And normally they don't put new people by me because I'm a fucking wreck. I'm a HR nightmare. Right. I say whatever comes to my mind. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I say whatever comes. They definitely don't put, they don't put women next to me. Yeah. Because I just say whatever pops off. And, but they put a new guy beside me. And I was, you know, first thing I asked him was, have you ever slept with another man? So out of boy. I was like, that was like the first thing. Actually, I asked him, have you ever slept with a trainee? That was the first. I had to pop the break the ice and he's like, no, why would you ask that? Just asking. I'm not no judgment. So, um, just asking. So welcome to work. He found out he's only sat by me for about four days now and he found out about the podcast and he heard my story. Like I'm very open about my story. And yesterday he said something. He said, uh, man, can I ask you something about meth? And I said, absolutely. He said, how long were you on it? And like, you started asking me questions. And I'm like, have you ever done? And he's like, no, no, no. And he said, I said, okay. So I answered the questions and he says, um, I noticed he was from Colleen, which is where I used to party a lot. Like it's another, it's where Fort Hood is, but a lot of partying over there. And he said, man, he said, I started watching y'all's podcast. I said, that's awesome. I said, for what? He said, well, to support you. And he said, and my brother is going, he's been battling meth for about 10 years now. And he said, I don't really mention that to many people. He said, but meeting you and hearing your story and stuff. It gave me hope that my brother's not a lost cause anymore. No, man. You know, and it was like, it was awesome because I would have, you would have never thought, right? And, but he was like, man, he said, I heard hearing you talk and hearing like some of the podcast already and hearing how open you are about it. He's like, man, maybe my brother's not a lost cause. He's like, my brother's only 32. He said, you didn't get sober to use 42. And I said, yeah, I said, he's got fucking 10 more years to, you know, they, I got people all the time, like people in my life who, you know, in the peripheral, who, you know, aren't in a good place. And it's very easy for people to judge them. It's like, oh, they're just a piece of whatever. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, yeah, I mean, that's, that's like easy to say. You know, I think it's harder to say, like, this is a very sick person. Yeah. And like have compassion for them. Like, yeah, okay, maybe their behavior is egregious, but there's something fueling that bit. Yeah, the amount of, and, you know, this one person in particular, I know some very specific details about the amount of trauma that they've experienced and they're like, and it is heuristic. Right. And then, you know, yeah. And then to treat that with alcohol and the cycle that ensues. It's like, well, of course, like it's very easy to just say, yeah, this, you know, write this person off. And, you know, and I, you know, and I was that way in a lot of ways. And, you know, it would be very easy for me to look back and say, you know, it, you know, coming up on, I'm going to be 45 next week. And, you know, if I'd stayed sober, I'd have 24 years sober. Like that'd be cool. You know, I'd be an old timer now. Yeah. And like, I guess maybe that's a cool bumper sticker. Maybe, you know, maybe in a room of people who drank so hard that they have to sit in a circle for the rest of their lives. You have to say, yeah. Like, and that's cool. Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make is that, like, I don't regret the pastor wishes at the door on it. Right. You know, all of those relapses and all of those experiences were necessary to get me to where I am now. You know, all those relapses were necessary to get me to the bridge. 100% right. You know, like how, like, how does that happen? Like that, that's the most incredible rags to riches. Like, you know, treatment, healing, success story ever. You were a client and now you're the CEO. That's some hair club for men's shit. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's crazy. But again, it's like, but I had a profound experience. You know, and because of everything that I, I went through, I became uniquely qualified to carry this message, you know, with depth and weight, you know, and, and it makes me, it makes you, makes me uniquely qualified to help the men that come into my life, you know, whose stories are very similar to my life. And my grand sponsor used to say that to me all the time and say, but when you get this, you were going to help so many people. 100%. And that was like, I was like, I don't know, because it's like, I've been around a long time. I didn't really have any sponsor. You know, like all the, all the like, kind of like jerk off talking head guys. Yeah. The podium, we're getting all the sponsors. I'm like, what about me? You know, and, uh, but like, A, I hadn't had a spiritual awakening. That's right. As a result of the steps. B, I didn't have what anybody wanted, you know, but when, when that shift occurs, then it's like people came out of the woodwork. Yeah. And now I'm helping, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people a year and maybe beyond, you know, based on the ripple effect. I was just about to say you have a ultimate, like positive pyramid scheme. Like, yeah, pyramid scheme has a negative. I can sign you guys up. But yeah, the buy-ins. Let's go. Do we have the supplements in the car? So I wanted, are you still in movies and music? Do you still? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so what's that like? It's like the best hot. So I grew up in it, right? Yeah. I'm from Nashville and I grew up, you know, I, I move in my mom, um, to LA the first time when I was five and my mom, um, a, uh, a very close friend of hers, uh, was a director at the time and he was a big, you know, music video director in Nashville. And he kind of outgrew that and went to LA and he's like, do you want to go? And she's like, absolutely. And she went out there and set up shop. And anyway, she, uh, you know, she found herself working, working in the industry. So, you know, I grew up around that. So that was really, you know, all I knew, like my mom's, you know, does really well in film and my dad's side of the family was really, um, did really well in music, you know. And, um, and so that was just kind of the norm for me. Now I didn't, I, I was like a very shy, kind of insecure kid for many, many reasons, you know, but, um, I always wanted to pursue that stuff. But, you know, there's like a level of vulnerability that you have to have to do that. And I never felt like I was, you know, tall enough or cool enough or pretty enough or thin enough or this enough. Yeah. You know, whatever and everything. So, you know, I just tried to like, you know, gravitate towards things that were a little easier, which for me, that was sports, you know, but as that kind of wane, you know, in my later teens, you know, I, I, I wasn't really sure what to do, you know, but, but in all my time, you know, I had always written, I always drew, I always wrote, I wrote short stories, I wrote poems, I was encouraged to read a lot. I was exposed to a lot of great music. I was exposed to a lot of great films. I was exposed to a lot of really amazing creative people who were down to earth. And, um, you know, and I had, I'd been around it and I'd worked in it, you know. And so I went to film school and, um, you know, that was, that was really amazing. I had a great kind of blueprint for how to maximize that opportunity, you know, to get out of school, to have something, like have a resume at the time. It was just a reel of work to show. And, uh, you know, I got out of school with the best reel and the worst attitude and I proceeded to start right from the bottom, you know, and, uh, but, but, you know, I got a foot in the door and I climbed the proverbial ladder and, um, and, um, you know, I did it all really the wrong way. You know, I had, I had a lot of opportunity to probably succeed in a lot of information that probably made it a little easier for me than the average person, but I didn't have any handouts and I made it really hard on myself because I was, you know, I had a big ego, a lot of entitlement and terribly low self-esteem. So, you know, I kind of, you know, I was kind of driving with my, the gas and the break on at the same time, you know, um, but I, but I kept doing it, you know, and I always wanted to direct and I wanted to write and I wanted to produce and, you know, I was thinking about that, you know, and, and I'd always kind of worked in music, but, you know, when I was like kind of in my early twenties, I just bought like a little setup and started, you know, recording things at my house and then, you know, then I figured out, you know, an engineer who had a little studio at his house and then, you know, the production got a little better and then, you know, that turned into another opportunity and, you know, I mean, I don't have any platinum records or, you know, fat ass royalty checks, but it's like, I, you know, I know a lot of people, I know a lot of artists who maybe are biggest artists, bigger artists, so to speak, or have a bigger social media platform. I have humongous catalog of music for an independent artist, you know, because it was a passion and it was something that I could do by myself for myself. And, you know, I got an opportunity like during COVID with a record label, Sonoblast, shout out to Sonoblast and Louisville, right? Louisville, sorry. Louisville. Yeah, not Louisville, Louisville. Yeah. And they put out my first EP and I, you know, I sampled and did some collaborations with some family members of mine on those, on those records and that kind of turned into a thing and, and yeah, and so I've worked in these two worlds simultaneously, but you know, I felt like I was supposed to be doing it just because I was supposed to do it. Yeah. But I didn't know if like I really enjoyed it, you know, and, you know, after I went to the bridge, I had a total career change, but after about a year of doing something completely different than they're working in this field now, I, you know, I went back to it. I started writing and recording music and releasing through my own label and then that presented an opportunity with a, you know, a compilation album and then another label and then, you know, then that was a bunch of singles and a full length album and then, you know, mine and my own business and then this production company asked me to write a feature script for them and that's something that's into Ether and so. Nice. I'm always like, like it's, it's like the coolest, like hobby, you know. Yeah. That seems to be working out well. Yeah. And being supported. Yeah. Well, it's like, create creative work is cool. It's like, it's cool to be doing it because I want to not because I have to. Yeah. 100% because when I have to, when I had to, it was like, I just, I had a really unhealthy relationship to it. Like I had a whole addict mentality and it was just not, it was not cool. And, you know, I could, you know, I can venture into a little more of a self reflection with that. And, you know, but again, like if that had popped off and, you know, done what I thought it should do, like I wouldn't be where I am now. Yeah. I wouldn't be doing what I am now. And who knows what the hell that would have been like, you know, during COVID and the writer strike. And you know, I know a ton of people who are really successful in that field who were like, I don't know what I'm gonna do about it. Right. Yeah. So what? My business is always busy. Yeah. But genre of music. I mean, hip hop records. Nice. All right. Well, and so I'm, I'm gonna ask you and we're gonna go into the movie thing here in a minute, but what's best rapper of all time? Who is the best rapper? Yeah, who's the best rapper? The best rapper of all time. No questions asked is Eminem. Okay. My favorite rapper of all time. Let's go there. That's a different story. Yeah. Who's that? Man, I don't know. Like that's, that's a really hard one. That's a really hard one. Me? No. That's a really hard one to, you know, I don't, I don't have just like one person that I'm just like, die hard, you know. Yeah, it would be, it would probably be like an obscure answer for me, honestly, you know, that I can't even, I can't even think about. You know, like when people ask you like, what's the best movie of all time? What's your favorite movie? That's objective. I was gonna ask you that here in a minute. Well, I have a stock answer for that. Yeah. That no one's gonna argue. Shawshank Redemption. Oh, yeah. 100%. But I don't have, I don't have the stock answer for, but your favorite movie of all time is, Talladega night. It's something like that. Yeah. But that's why I asked that of everybody that I ever meet. I own one DVD. Yeah. My son bought it for me for Christmas. We watch it all the time. Great movie, dude. Who's your favorite rapper? My favorite rapper is Method Man. Method Man. That's a solid choice. Yeah. Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan is my favorite rapper. I saw Method Man and Red Man at the Hard Knock Life Tour in like 2001 at TSU in Nashville. Yeah. Method Man, Red Man, then DMX, then it was the bananas. Yeah. That's awesome. Was that? I saw DMX one time. He was definitely on something. Yeah. I got him in his peak. Yeah. I watched on the Bronze podcast, the Barber Shop. You ever see the Barber Shop talk? And it was, was it not tree? It was Jay-Z when he was talking about when he went on that tour with DMX and Method Man. Oh, how he just, like, he had to go on after. DMX had women screaming. Yeah. He had people crying. He said DMX just fucking wrecked it. He's barking like a dog. And they were like, all right, you're up. And he was like, I got to fucking go on after that. Yeah. You know, it's funny is I remember being there and, you know, Method Man and Red Man were like, wow, they were on like wires flying in the audience. Yeah. And then DMX is just like a force of nature. And then at the time Jay-Z is like hard knock life tour Jay-Z. And he's just standing there in like a football jersey. And it was like, it's like somebody just pulled, I mean, it was great because, you know, he had hit songs. It was like somebody just pulled the emergency break and DJ Clue was DJing in the crowd, like, throughout the whole nice. It was like, it was probably fucking crazy. Yeah, man. So Eminem, I'm not a big fan of him. But I'm a fan of him. In terms of like, in terms of like lyricists, like wordplay, the greatest, the greatest. I do like Little Wayne as far as like a big artist. Rich Homie Kwan, he just died of an overdose. And Young Dolf, y'all's next one. Young Dolf's great. Yeah. I love all the dumb and dumber mix tapes of him. Keeglock. Yeah. Keeglock's great, too. Shout out band play. Band play produces a lot of music. Yeah. Yeah. Dead and does. Yeah. He actually has a new record out with Starleto, who's a natural. Starleto. No, Starleto. He's done some Kevin Gates stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Him and Don Trev out of Memphis have these stepbrothers mix tapes. Yeah. Yeah, we can't sleep on the ghetto boys, too. You can't sleep on the ghetto boys. I mean, anything out of Houston's kind of a hit. Yeah. Yeah. But the ghetto boys were different to me. They were they kind of transcended the south. Yeah. You know, like that. Like no one would have guessed that you if somebody told you they were from Delaware, you'd be like fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love and I love all of them like independently to love Scarface by himself. Yeah. Like, you know, the like, I like I'm obsessing about this question because there's so many like pivotal albums in my life, you know what I mean? Like, like DJ Quicks Rhythmalism album. Yeah. An impeccable album. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Jizzah Legend of the Liquid Sword, an impeccable album. All the Carter ones, like all the all the early, you know, juveniles 400 degrees is a really good album. Production on that album is like, you know, I mean, you could just go on, on, on, on. You can almost go by states with rappers. Yeah. Right. Like Texas, like, I'm a nine. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, like you can almost go like rappers from each state and like it's and it's crazy how they all sound a little different in their own. Yeah. Stuff like still tipping is like probably my favorite. I mean, you know, I grew up in the music video era. So like, well, most kids were watching cartoons. I was watching videos. Yeah. That was the first thing I wanted to do. I wanted to direct videos. I was fortunate to direct a good bit of them. But like those Houston videos and that still tipping video was like, that was just having never been exposed to Texas, to Houston, to screw music, anything like that. I felt like I was transported to this world. Yeah. You know, yeah. And then I was like, I for sure need a neon trunk. I have to have a grill. And I need a Styrofoam cup with whatever they're drinking. I don't know what it is. Maybe they just hold it. But I need that like, you know, it's funny is my wife can play guitar piano and she makes her own music. She sings amazing. And when people hear her sing, they're like, you should do something with it. She doesn't want to. She just I just enjoy doing what I do. I don't said I never want to have to do music. Yeah, because I have to do it. I just enjoy doing it. So whenever you say, man, I just enjoy doing it. Well, and a lot of it too is, you know, because I like we were talking earlier about like talking about the podcast, you know, and I had a friend of mine one time, I was I was going to do a show. It was my first show and I was really nervous. And I was just kind of talking about stage fright. And he said, look, man, do you want to be one of those people who talks about it? Or does it? Right. And because of all my fears and shyness and, you know, things like that, I had talked about it to kind of try to talk myself up or make you think that I was bigger than I was. And then so I really became preoccupied with just doing it. And that meant, you know, doing more work, doing more videos, doing more this, and, you know, and I wasn't as probably as selective and smart as I should. And I certainly didn't have balance. I was like, you know, I'm not going to work a day job and then try to do my creative. I'm just going to do my creative. Well, that's a good way to star. Yeah, I was, you know, I made things more difficult than they should have been by that. But I became so preoccupied with distributing and completing and sharing content that I mean, I was really proud of that. But again, you know, for me, like if I'm not going to share it with people, you know, because I'm not like I don't sing, I don't just play guitar, I don't do it with pleasure. I kind of do it for purpose. Yeah, right. You know, writing is a different thing. Like I do enjoy writing for pleasure. And I hope to write some more scripts. And I hope to potentially direct another movie. But I've been blessed, you know, in my life where I've done, you know, I've done albums that premiered in People Magazine, I've done singles that were written up in Rolling Stone, I've had films that I did written up in Deadline and Variety, I've directed films, produced films, written films that have been distributed, had great actors. You know, I've had the opportunity to travel and do things, you know, have athletic achievements and raise an amazing son, which is greater than anything, and be sober and now lead this amazing company and group of people that I get the pleasure of working with into helping countless people feel in a way that I was able to feel. And I was one of those people who didn't necessarily feel like that was possible. I felt like I was kind of, you know, sentenced to a very unfulfilling life. And that was, that was not true. Well, it definitely wasn't. And man, I can't, I can't thank you enough for coming and sharing. I can't thank you enough for helping people, because that's what we do this for. But you're digging into the roots of what's really causing this. And like we need to step our game up. Yeah, for sure. Maybe we need to maybe we legit need to sign up for a six week program. I mean, I guarantee you, I still have some trauma fucking buried in there. 100%. Yeah. So how do people find you? Me or the bridge? Both. Well, you go to the bridge. Yeah. www.thebridgederecovery.com. Learn about our core program, which is, you know, two to six weeks and beyond. You can also learn about our professional program, which is for, you know, industry professionals, meaning people working in the treatment industry, whether that's, you know, case managers, counselors, therapists, psychiatrists. Occasionally, we've had clergy types of nurses, doctors, but the people who are working on the front lines with substance abuse and mental health, they can come through our week long professionals program. And we have various short, short term intensives throughout the year. We only do a couple of those. But you can learn all about our program there. You can, you know, use the contact form to send a message to inquire, or call directly to our admissions line. And I always tell people, you know, if you feel like there's just something burning, you weighing, weighing you down, you feel like you might be experiencing some sort of dis-ease or failure to launch, you know, that might be some of this unresolved trauma or woundedness that needs to be worked through, and the bridge to recovery is a place to do it. And then, you know, if it's, you know, personal stuff, you know, like I'm pretty easily located, say, in Mayfield, it's like, you know, so I think I have like Instagram and YouTube and Facebook. And but, you know, all the, you know, all the music stuff, just under-saved on Apple, Spotify, and all these million and one plus streaming services that I didn't even know existed. There's so many. Yeah. There's a bunch. We figured that out too when we started this. Well, people can just hit me up directly, whether it's to ask a question or ask a creative question or ask a recovery question, like, you know, I'm, you know, hollow at me. Yeah, dude. Well, let's get the website put up. Can you do it right here? Can you make it look like I made it neon? Like, yeah, can you make it look like I did it like this? Like, I'm making it fucking happen. Can you do that? Can you do that? Like, all right. Yeah. We can AI it. Yeah. Well, we'll get that done. Man, thank you so much. This was incredible. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for mobbing deep too, man. You brought the whole crew. We brought the whole crew out. Yeah, we got a whole week full of extravaganza networking in Austin and what else are y'all doing here? We are, we have, we're touring a bunch of different facilities that we partner with and we're not partner with but collaborate with. You know, sometimes these facilities will refer clients to us who need our level of care. A lot of times clients who are leaving us and who are local or in this general area, they meet, they may need their resources. So we have a mutually beneficial referral thing. You're doing Frank stuff, right? Doing something with Frank on Friday and then we have a dinner with a bunch of therapists in the area and when I say mutually beneficial, I do like to clarify is like, when we partner with somebody or we collaborate with somebody, the only reason we're doing that is for the client's best interest. A lot of people, you know, in traditional treatment, you know, there's a lot of bad reputation for a lot of pay-to-play stuff and body brokering, which you hear about, which is vile and awful. This is about making a direct referral simply for the client's greater good. Yeah. If a facility feels like the client is in need of intensive trauma work, then they refer them to the bridge and they call us and we figure it out. If we feel that a client that we have who's discharging, which we work very, very hard with them on their aftercare, if we feel that they're coming back to the Austin area and they potentially need an IOP program or they need a, you know, a sober living program or they need a therapist or they need a psychiatrist or whatever the case or some sort of support group, then we're going to make recommendations for them with people that they can contact, you know, prior to leaving us to set up these appointments so that they have the resources that they need. So this is just about the client's greater good. But by coming out here, we meet with a lot of the therapists and referents and facilities. Get to see the first hand and all that. So we can say hello and then see the facilities so we can broaden our network so that we have more resources for when clients are leaving that we can better set them up for success. That's good because there's a lot of places like when you leave, you just fucking good luck to you. Yeah, we worked our best. No, and we don't, you know, we have some kind of in-house things where people stay connected with, you know, weekly alumni meetings and a homecoming celebration that we do once a year, but it's about setting them up with their aftercare program so that they have the resources to continue on the work they're doing after us. Well, it's so important because like I felt like when I went to rehab, I'll say this for me, not for other people. Like when I got my 30-day chip, that was an easy chip, in my opinion, because I was in rehab for fucking 30 days, right? Now, the real chips that mattered for me was my 60 days, 90 days, six months, because now I was out in the fucking real world, and I couldn't depend on my brothers in rehab, in the rehab. And like now, like I got to go home to you're putting it into practice. Yeah, now I gotta put it in practice, like you said. So it's a, I love when rehab is not every rehab does that. A lot of rehab is like, good luck to you when you're, when a lot of them want you to come fucking right back, you know? Yeah, we don't, you know, recidivism is not a thing with us. Yeah, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like, you know, our fucking, we're batting a thousand or batting as high as we possibly can. Yeah. So I love that you guys network, put it out there and help like second base, third base, home base, because that's really where the real work begins, in my opinion. Yeah. So we got a, basically what that looks like for us is a bunch of, a bunch of tours during the day and a bunch of dinners in the evening. But opportunities to meet a lot of new people and see a lot of familiar faces and just connect and get great and just remind, remind each other that we're all in this together just trying to help as many people as possible. Yeah. Let us know whatever. I mean, we'll come support that cause that whatever you guys are doing. Yeah. We're, we're new for it. Kentucky, Tennessee. Hell yeah. We'll go out to Louisville. Hang on. Louisville. Louisville. Bowling Green, I guess. We're in bowling. Yeah. Yeah. 120 acres. Dude. Yeah. Big old spread out there. That's awesome. Well, like you're welcome here anytime you want to come in whenever your record goes triple diamond or whatever that is. I got like 500 Shazams in Turkey. Yeah, dude. Like, I got an alert about that. It's a big deal. They're banging it in Turkey. Yeah, dude. That's a big deal. Hey man. We're going, we're going Peter in Estonia. We always, we always look at, I look at the map to see like where people are listening to us and it always blows my mind when there's like one lonesome person out in Singapore or a person out in Australia. We got a lot of people in Australia and it blows my mind that this little thing got that fucking far. Yeah. You know, it just blows my mind. A comment on YouTube one time was greetings from Norway. Yeah. We were like, what? We have a dude in Norway that's just like 7,700 miles away. We're like, fuck yeah. Whoa, this is crazy. It's incredible. And you never know. Yeah, you never know. And that's the greatest, that's one of the best things about social media now. Yeah. Where with what we're trying to do, help as many people, like we literally can help so many more people now with this, then we've ever like compared to 20 and 30 years ago, they couldn't reach, they don't have the reach that we do now. No, not even close. So I mean, the thing is, is it's a beautiful tool to use to reach as many people possible. The downside of it is, you know, you kind of got to, you got to weed through the muck to find good stuff for sure. Yeah. Good stuff like the bridge, good stuff like this podcast, good stuff like, you know, there's so much, you know, you got to, you know, you got to weed through it to find the thing that really resonates with you and feels like it's resonating. Yeah. Well, you keep resonating, we'll keep resonating. We're all resonating. Let's resonate together. Let's all do it. But again, man. Yeah, some shirts, man. Let's resonate together. Yeah, let's resonate together. Well, we got some shirts for all of you guys. Yeah, and we're going to take some pictures and then we'll get you to bed, man, because you're probably fucking exhausted. You probably got a dinner to go to. Not tonight. Not tonight. No. All right. We're going to love Frank. Have you met Frank yet? Just on the phone. Oh, yeah. Well, Frank's a good dude. Well, he's, have you heard his story? He's a lot, man. It's a high octane. He's a high octane. Oh, he's all the way to the top. That is the way he is, though. Like, I mean, I couldn't have done meth with that guy. No, he's already as high as I was. Yeah. When I met him, when he walked through that door for the first time, and I was like, jeez, holy, is this like, are you a real person or are you like a caricature of a guy from New York? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, after a few minutes, you're just like, oh, this is just the guy. Like this is just who he is, man. And I love him to death. I did his podcast a few months ago. It was a good time. So yeah. Well, let's take some pictures and get you out of here, brother. Hey, thank you very much. We're out of here.