Episode 68 - Adam Burg

Adam Burg lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and their dog, Ruby. 

His sobriety date (May 20, 2022) marks a turning point that came after more than a decade spent cycling through alcoholism, stuck in the all-too-familiar limbo between wanting change and not knowing how to reach it. 

Eventually, something shifted. Adam made the decision to confront his illness head-on. He asked for help, committed to recovery, and began the hard, daily work of rebuilding his life with honesty and intention. 

Today, that same journey has become a source of purpose. What once held him back now fuels his ability to connect with and support others facing similar struggles. His story is one of resilience, accountability, and the belief that change is possible for anyone, one day at a time.

You can find Adam on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/sober__traveler?igsh=MW41bjFvczd2cnBlaA==

Unexpected joy of being sober - Catherine Grey
https://amzn.eu/d/03SBYaMG

Recovery Elevator - Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/recovery-elevator/id971959728

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to After Hours with me, Jimmy Thistle. Today we've got Adam Berg. Adam Berg, you know, he lives uh grew up in Boulder, Colorado. No major trauma growing up, but I think anxiety played a huge part in moulding his his kind of drinking career, if you want to call it a career. It became a huge social construct and he would seek people out who would drink so he could, you know, drink with them. That was that was kind of his thing. He would like find different people that that were into drinking. Um he loved it and and you know wanted to do it all the time, um, and he was using it as a solution. That's the word that comes up quite a lot in the in the podcast. Um bit of secret drinking in his early 20s, hiding it in his car, hiding it from his partner at the time. Um yeah, so you know, it's a it's a it's a really good episode. Adam kind of does talk about it being an illness. Um, you know, there are you know, there's a time when he gets into, you know, quite a number of scrapes with it. Um so it's just kind of it was a lovely chat with Adam, but I just think you know, you've gotta you've gotta not judge a book by its cover. Um I don't know why I've said that, but like, you know, like myself and and like Adam, you know, I meet people all the time and I'm just like, man, like how were you a drinker? How were you doing these things that we all did, you know, and just thinking, because you know, he's he's he's a he's a lovely guy, and you just think, man, that's not the type of person that you're portraying to be here. Now I'm not saying he's lying, of course I'm not saying that at all, but like this is the thing that alcohol does, and it's just it's just madness, you know. I mean, people that don't know me as a drinker would be like, I can't imagine you doing all these nefarious things that you did. Again, I'm not saying that, you know, Adam did nefarious things, but you know, there was a time when he got um, you know, he was unresponsive and and an ambulance had to be called, so it is a it's a difficult listening places. Um there are a few technical issues. Um Adam and I will uh it cut us out a couple of times. We don't miss anything in the episode because we we you know we kind of went back, but um the if you're watching a video, well if you're watching a video, you're seeing Poppy right now. Um the um he he changed his mobile uh after the first two cutouts and then it and then it went plain sailing for the rest of it. So apologies on the on the technical issues, but you know, we're still just working stuff out here. I can't really say that anymore. It's been over a year now, I should have everything ironed out. But you know what? I think it's time maybe for a new camera soon. I'm working on 2K at the moment, so maybe I'll update to 4K. Is that the tops, Poppy? Um, so yeah, uh great episode. Um, and uh as always, guys, listen for the similarities and not the differences. Here's Adam. Adam, welcome to After Hours, mate. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

I'm doing great. How are you doing? Thanks for adding me on.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Well, no, it's an absolute pleasure. I've been you know been following you for a while. So I love your your Instagram and your and your um your page and just you know everything that you're doing in the sober community. So it was definitely you know a no-brainer to get you on. And it was the same, we're just being talking off air. Tell the tell the listeners and viewers where where you're from, where you're where you're living.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, so I'm from Denver, Colorado, uh, obviously in the US. I was born and raised here. Um, you know, and this this is the place I've called home my my entire life. Uh, and so tuning in from here, I know you're obviously overseas, and uh it's cool that we can make this connection. You know, the virtual world is is fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

I was I was saying to my wife the other day, I was like, we were watching something and someone was doing like a Skype. I think it was like Ted Lasso, don't know if you've watched that, and he was Skyping back to the US and it was just on his laptop and he was talking with his kid on I don't know, Skype or whatever it was. I don't think people use Skype now, I'm sure my age, but I was like, Don't you think it's amazing? Because we used to I used to watch these science programs when I was younger, and they were like, you know, doing video conferencing and all that, and I was like, that's in the future, and now this is like where we are, you know. You're you're gonna tell us your story about you know your recovery and all that. And I'm on the Isle of Man from Scotland originally, but and we can do this like online, it's amazing. I love it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's one of those I don't I think COVID sort of changed the world in that way, you know, where all of a sudden we're all virtual all the time, and we kind of still are, but it can be used for stuff like this, which is two people connecting thousands of miles away, you know?

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Absolutely. I mean, I found obviously Zoom came in really I mean, I'm sure it was out before, but definitely with COVID. And I found when I started, you know, starting my journey, and I could go to meetings like AA NA all around the world, you know. I was going, I did have a bit of a home group in Ohio for a bit, you know, that was where I would just go and check in because I was doing it daily, so it was like, yeah, like if there's not a home group meeting in my town, I can go online. And for a lot of the time at the beginning, we were in lockdown and all this, so it was like this this was my kind of saving grace, you know, being able to do it from my bedroom, from from the studio, you know, just chilling and and and hearing people's stories. So that's exactly why I kind of set up the podcast. And I know, I know there's hundreds of if not probably thousands of recovery sober, you know, addiction podcasts out there. But for me, it's just I want to hear people's stories because it helps keep me grounded and it helps, you know, I'm sure it's helping other people as well. In fact, I know it is, so yeah. So Adam, tell us tell us, you know, what was your childhood like and when kind of did alcohol or substances kind of first rear their head with you?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, I um so like I said, I grew up in Denver, uh just south of the city. Um, you know, with my mom and dad, they've they're still married. Uh I have one older brother, and really it was a kind of a picturesque childhood in a lot of ways. Um you know, used to play late at night with neighborhood friends like street hockey or basketball or soccer, and um you know, didn't have a lot of trauma, didn't have anything that necessarily was a major trigger. But in looking back, I think as I got toward adolescence, um, I just started to feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. And fear was such a primary driver for me. Uh and it was really like as a little kid, it was those things like monsters and ghosts and murderers, you know, and then as you get older, you're like, oh, death, death is out there, sickness is out there. Um, you know, you have a pet dial.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

There are there are bad people in the world. So like as soon as we start learning that, like monsters are monsters scare us when we're little, but then we're like, actually, there are real monsters out there, and there's diseases and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, man. It's yeah, it's a scary world.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah, and it's I think it can be when you don't have coping mechanisms or you can't, you know, base those fears in reality. Once once you learn about drugs and alcohol, I mean it's a pretty easy path. And so for me, it was you know, first drink was probably 14 years old uh with a buddy of mine, and of course it was you know schnapps that we stole from my my parents' liquor cabinet. And you know, I I didn't know it was the solution right away, but I I loved it from the get-go. I I loved being out of myself, and that transpired, you know, in in high school here. Uh weed and booze became big drivers of my weekend. Um I found out, uh, you know, I sought out people who wanted to drink because I I wanted to drink. And I really, you know, I kept it together when I was younger, uh, but it it became apparent to me, you know, my mom has a long history of addiction on her side of the family. I lost an aunt to opioid addiction. Um, you know, my uncle ended up in rehab, all these things, and I was I was just not aware that I had any of those early early signs of this.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah. And how so sorry, sorry, what age were you when you had your first kind of drink and started kind of enjoying it, I guess, with with kind of babies or whatnot?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah, so first drink was was around 14, and I would say by 16, 17, I was trying to drink every single weekend. Um, you know, and it was it was binge drinking. It was I've never been someone who one or two drinks has got me to where I needed to go.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Um I mean, does it with anyone? I think I mean, and this is you're probably the same as me. I think when you have this kind of disease or affliction, whatever you want to call it, like I don't understand people that just have one or two because for me, the purpose of alcohol, if you want to call it a purpose, like its end result is getting you drunk, inebriated, smashed, pissed, whatever. That's its end result. So having one or two, like for me, I'm like, well, what what are you getting from that? You might as well just be drinking water. I know, like obviously, some people that are very slight and small, maybe one or two drinks is they get that little slight buzz, and that's enough for them, and then they can kind of you know finish for the night. But for me, I was like, you know, I if I'm drinking, I'm I'm drinking, I'm drinking until and and I guess when I started drinking at 14, like same as you, yeah, like it didn't take us a lot to get drunk, you know, and we enjoyed that buzz. I love that buzz. So what you know, what did that first drink feel like for you at the time?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

You know, was it something that you were like yeah, I I mean it's drinkers drink primarily because we like the effect of alcohol, right? I yeah, um, you know, I remember we were in my basement and I sort of snuck up to snatch the schnapp bottle from the liquor cabinet and and bring it down. And I, you know, I just remember laugh laughing a ton. I felt cool. Um, I felt like this is, you know, I'm a badass, like I'm doing something supposed to be doing. Yeah. You know, and and and that, yeah, I loved it. I I don't think I hear some alcoholics be like, I knew right away, like this was my solution. I would say I just knew I wanted to do it more. I just was like, I want more of this, I want to do this all the time.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

And you're saying, I mean, obviously that you know you want to do this all the time because you're enjoying the buzz and all that, but you're using that word solution. So was this like a solution to this kind of anxiety, this fear that you were feeling?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. It became over time, my only coping mechanism became booze. Um, and that was happiness, sadness, fear, anger, resentment, excitement. Like I you couldn't give me a reason that I wouldn't drink for. You know, I I and along with like physical, emotional, spiritual dependence. Like I alcohol was my my son, and I just kind of orbited around it for years and years. You know, it dictated my life.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

And so what was your kind of like your teenage years like? Was that just kind of parties, or were you doing it at all on your own at that point?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Or I it was mostly uh parties and then like small group, you know, we all have those couple buddies who are like our drinking buddies, and we, you know, we get together and spend the weekend like drinking in our parents' basement and yeah, you know, playing video games. Uh I would say more when I got to college, um, and I went to school up in Boulder, Colorado, which is like big party school. Um all of a sudden I, you know, I was out of the house. I had access to you know, alcohol and drugs and kind of whatever I wanted. And it was a little bit of wheels, wheels off. It was still mostly social. Um, but slowly over time it really became a you know, it it dawned on me like I could drink to fall asleep, I could drink in the morning and like go to school, I could like take a muscle relaxer and go to class, and you know, and it um I still managed, I don't think there's a such thing as like a functioning addict or a functioning alcoholic, but to me it appeared like I was functioning because the consequences weren't bad at the time, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

And what so like obviously in the US, you know, 21 is the kind of legal age for drinking, and you know like what are the ramifications if you're getting caught in things like that under age, you know. I'm sure it's just your parents that are kind of catching you, whatnot, but like what is the kind of you know fallout from that?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, I will tell you a quick story, which is I was when I was 18 and I was in my dorm room, uh, me and my roommate got real um well, I would say less cautious about mostly smoking weed. And so we were, you know, smoking in our dorm room, and sure enough, security officers come, the police come, um, you know, they write us an MIP, a minor in possession ticket. And my punishment was I had to do like 20 hours of community service, uh baking cookies at the student union, um, which was perfect, like the best. I mean, you know, it did not change my behavior.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

I mean, there's a slight kind of I don't know if it's irony, but like baking cookies, like what can you put in cookies? Do you know what I mean? It's like yeah, you make some high brownies there, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, you know, others I know a lot of lot of guys in college who got MIPs for booze, and you know, kind of similar punishment. It's it's mostly a fine, you get some community service, um, so long as you know you're just not you're not driving, you're not hurting anyone. Like it's yeah, not a huge disincentive. I would say it's pretty common, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Which, you know, they don't want to kind of maybe throw the book at you if you've not done like a DUI or anything like that. You're literally just underage drinking. Like obviously over here it's 18, so I think I don't think people even got like community service if they were caught. Like, say I had buddies at school that were maybe you know drank too much and then they were taken to hospital to get their stomach pumped or so or something ridiculous like that. Never happened to me, but like something like that. And I think the police would have to be called in that situation to see what was going on, but they would just be sent home with like you know, like an wrap on their knuckles or whatever, and the parents would probably be the one that deals with them. Yeah, yeah. Because you're not you're not doing DUIs and all of that kind of stuff. But at that age, oh I mean, I suppose it's from seeing all the American films, you just you just get booze, don't you? There's not really this like you know, kind of outlaw thing, it's it's it's always uh available, isn't it, for for kind of underage people.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

So yeah, you always you always know someone or you know, it it calls. Yeah, find a party, yeah, older brother, older cousin. Um it's it's super prevalent. It's you know, it's a just like in Europe and the UK, like it's a pretty big drinking culture here. Um a lot of binge a lot of binge drinking.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah, yeah, weekend and and this, that, and the other. And that's do you know what? Like, I I talked to a few people on on the podcast from like the UK or whatever. So 18's the drinking age here. People generally go to college, university at 18, they leave school, blah, blah, blah. And we have a thing over here called Freshers Week. Now, Freshers Week is intended to show you all the new clubs and political kind of organizations that you can join up to, sports, whatever, chess club, I don't know. But what it's known for is for basically binge drinking. So, like Freshers Week is basically there's guys there, women there that'll hand you out flyers that will be like, you know, uh coupons for like money off drinks or two for one drinks at this bar or get in free at this nightclub and all of that. So these kids have just literally left home, they're 18, and they can legally drink, so they're they're they're off to college, university, and then they're being told to like basically get smashed for a week. And it's like, so how does that work when you guys go to university college in America at 18 and can't drink for three years? It's like your whole university career, you know, like you're not allowed to drink. That's yeah, but surely they know that you're gonna do that. It's it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, they you know, you kind of go if you if you didn't drink in high school, which I'm sure there are people who don't. Not my experience.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Um very, very minimal. They're in the minority, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

You know, I think young people that age, you know, they like to experiment. They find a house party, they find an older classmate who's 21, who will buy them alcohol. Um, you know, prescription drugs were a big thing when I was in college. So people would have Adderall or Xanax or whatever, you know, and they would they would try and sell that on the dorm floors. And so it was it was very common. And I think, you know, nobody's a fool. Like I the university knows it happens, the the parents, I assume, know it happens. But you just, you know, we've kind of accepted like, well, that's what young people do. They're going to go experiment and they might drink too much, and then they won't do it again, or they'll kind of learn their lesson.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Um, you know, as long it's like as long as you don't screw up your life too much, you're probably gonna feel like you're still making if you're still making classes and you know, going get you know and getting good grades or whatever, then then what's the problem? But I would love to know the stats and figures of like you know, university dropout because of you know partying too much, because it's gotta be massive. Because I went back to university at I think it was what 31. So all the they were just they were just fresh out home, and I was seeing kids there that were literally taking ease and all that within within a couple of weeks or months of starting at university and just getting smashed, working in bars, drinking all night, and it was like loads of them were just dropping out, and it was like it's because you're not you're not focusing on what you're there for, you know? And it's like, but we're in college, this is time to soar wild oats, and you know, and then we've got the rest of our life, and it's like, yeah, but if you fuck it up now, then that's gonna that's gonna have ramifications for the rest of your life, you know. Yeah, so yeah, Adam, what did you do at university and then you know, subsequent kind of career job after you left?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, yeah. So I I was a political science major, um, so government affairs, you know, that sort of thing. And I graduated and went into working campaigns. So I was a campaign staffer um here in Colorado, and then uh proceeded to go back to school to get a master's in public policy. Um, so I do uh government affairs and local and state lobbying issues uh for all sorts of different clients and companies. Um and I've had a couple different jobs. I've been a mayoral appointee for the mayor of Denver. Um I've worked with U.S. senators, I've you know, now I'm currently in-house with a law firm building out their government affairs practice. So yeah, somehow I ended up here. I almost screwed it up a couple times. Um, but you know, yeah, life has a way of working.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah, so so so going back, was university okay? I mean, how was the drinking through your kind of time there? And obviously there was the partying, but did you get your grades and do what you were doing? It wasn't a case of ah, I don't know if I'm gonna pass this.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Um, you know, freshman year was rough, um, just that transition. Uh, but I really sort of got it got it together. Like the the parting didn't subside. I kept going. And I happened to have a roommate who, you know, he would he was alcoholic, and I watched him when I was around 20, 21, really what we talked about. He stopped going to class, he was lying to his teachers, he failed out. And you know, I was it's very easy meet for me to sit and judge him while I'm you know smoking my bong and taking like just because you've been morning before class. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm like this guy, this guy.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Like, what? He's not got it together. He's and this is right. This is the thing that I see all the time. It's like that whole problem. If if you think that there's someone's an alcoholic or whatever, the the general consensus is they're not. Doing it right. They've not got a hold on their they're they're drinking. They're not they're they're they don't have it done right. And it's like, no, that's not the case, man. You know, they've they've not they're not not doing it right, they're just alcoholics, so yeah. Um but you you managed to get it together, get through uni, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah, get get through university. I would say my drinking really picked up um my junior year. I went and I studied abroad in Italy for about four months. And you know, I it was I was stressed, it was unfamiliar terrain, there was lots of partying available, and I started to drink much more on my own and sneaking alcohol from my my roomies, and uh, you know, I thought it was a bad habit, and I operated under the assumption that I would somehow kick it, you know, when I got back to the US and everything would be great. And that was sort of one of the turning points where this drinking alone and being secretive and hiding it really became a standard in my life from then until I got sober. You know, it was um and it was it was bad, it was bad after college for a while.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I mean, I I I totally see the similarities there because with me solo drinking became quite a thing for me quite early on. Like I had no problem, you know, if if we were if we were meeting down a bar or something like that, I had no problem getting like if I wasn't if I was free, I'd go down like maybe an hour before, sit in the bar, you know, start up some conversation with your local bar fly, sitting at the bar, you know, smoking fags because you could in those days, cigarettes, and yeah, and like but I had friends that were like, What time are you getting there? You know, like I I need to make sure that you're in there before I get in because I can't go in the place on my own. And I'm like, What are you talking about? Like, this is this is like my second home. Right, yeah, exactly. And I and I know that's not solo drinking because I'm with people in the bar that I don't know, but they're strangers. But then I didn't also have a problem, like, you know, sinking a bottle of wine before I would be going out on my own. And it's like, and it's almost like thinking back, and I'm I'm racking my brain, and I don't know if you're the same. But for me, it was like a kind of comforting thing, you know. It wasn't like I and I guess I needed it for confidence or whatever, but but what I mean by com comforting thing is it's like when I go out, I don't know the pace that everyone's gonna be drinking at. You know, they're we're all gonna be kind of doing rounds or whatever. Whereas if I'm drinking on my own, it's under my control, and I know how much I'm drinking and what I'm not not that I'm monitoring it, but I know how much and when I can go and get another drink and then I can get another drink. Whereas if you're in a bar and we're doing rounds, you've got to wait for everyone else to finish. And so that was kind of yeah, I didn't, I don't think I saw it as a problem, maybe that you did, but maybe it was like later on, and I thought, yeah, but this is something that I'm gonna deal with later on in life because I'm in my twenties, it's not a big issue now, like it's not stopping me doing my day-to-day, my job, whatever. I'm just having fun. I'll sort it out later on if it becomes a problem. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, I mean, mine was very much the same. I started, you know, there were times I was I was drinking it, wasn't even to to party, it was just to get out of my own head and feel different than how I was feeling. And I mean, I used to same thing. I would pre-game by myself and get me to where I wanted to be before I met up with friends because I knew they wouldn't want to drink like I wanted to drink. Yeah. Um, you know, so I had to come in five or six drinks deep just to look like I was normal and keeping pace with them. And even then, the amount of times I was like, man, these guys, I can't wait till I get home and I can just like drink like I want to drink. I, you know, this is what are we doing? Two beers at the pub? It's like, yeah, it's nothing.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

I'd go up to the bar, and I mean, this is not even counting the times where there was people still with beers in their hand, and I'd be like nearly finished mine. I'd be like, right, I'm gonna go and get us a round of shots or whatever. And while I'm up at the bar getting my round, I would probably go round the other side of the bar so that they couldn't see what I was ordering. Because in my head, I was like, Well, I must have known, it must must have been a bit of shame. Like, why am I and I would be getting myself an extra drink up at the bar, you know, or if we were doing like mix or vodkas or whatever, I would get a double, triple, whatever, give them all singles, you know. But it was like, but I had that kind of secretive drinking from an early age.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

So did you have any kind of secretive drinking apart from like pregaming or yeah, I would um I mean there were there were times I would morning drink, you know, just a just a shot or two before work or an internship when I was really young in my early 20s, um, just because I I don't know, I liked it. And then uh there were times as I got you know more into my 20s and I would go through something with life, right? Like a a a breakup, a job that didn't work out, something stressful, and my solution was uh to to binge drink, and I would end up just binge drinking, you know, to the point of blackout. There was some solo morning drinking. Um I vively remember, you know, an internship, my senior year of college, and there were times I'd take a couple shooters and then drive to Denver from Boulder like 40 minutes, you know, uh, and then there were moments, there was a lot of secretive drinking, but there were several times throughout my life, probably the first and foremost was after college, where you know, I graduate, uh, me and my college girlfriend break up, uh, she moves back to California, I stay here, and I feel totally lost in in life and unsure what to do. And so my solution was like, I'm gonna lock myself in my room uh and just drink. And so I would stay in there and I would you know binge drink um kind of kind of nonstop for days until you know until I couldn't do it anymore, or um, you know, my my parents or my brother would intervene, and I didn't think a ton about it at the time. Um but looking back, like that's some serious, you know, problem drinking. That's that's you know, most people don't do that. Um and I was able to kind of brush it off as you know, just uh going through something.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah. Yeah, like this is something that people do, and it's it's it's when you've thought that like for me, I I didn't need an excuse to drink, but when I had an excuse to drink, it was like here we go, nobody can you know tell me that you know because I'm miserable or this has happened. Like breakups were a big thing for me as well. Like if I broke up, even if I was the one that did the breakup, I was like, Well, right, this is my turn to kind of you know, you know, pour me, pour me, pour me a drink type thing. And it's like, you know, that that it's so easy to kind of fall into that mentality of using it as a as a coping mechanism. So when do you think it kind of um so yeah, I mean you're saying so your family were intervening at that point? You know, I think I was really disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

I um you know, I it was easy for me. I I wouldn't tell them that you know that I'm also drinking every night and that I'm miserable and uh, you know, this is how I'm coping. I I would pinpoint it to, well, you know, I just feel really stuck, I feel really lost, and this is not a thing. You know, I'm just look at me now. I'm I'm not drinking anymore. I'm out of that vendor and I'm back getting my life together. And I think there was a lot of denial all around about where things were headed, and it would, you know, I wouldn't hit a head in my drinking for another almost eight years, nine years of of doing that. And you know, eventually, as they say, like the consequences get so painful that I think that is really when people begin to try and and figure out if they can get sober, is when they're in enough pain and enough misery that drinking no longer is fixing that for them.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Yeah, I like I think for me it was um it was easy to kind of with the solo drinking as well and doing what I was doing in my 20s and early 30s, uh it was easy for like me to deny the actual extent of my drinking because when I was going out with buddies and things, and like to be honest, my buddies didn't really care. Like I've spoken to a lot of them now, and they're like, Yeah, we knew you were a heavy drinker, but we didn't know. Well, we they kind of thought they they knew there was an issue, but they didn't know it was affecting my life. Whereas my family would sometimes intervene and go, Oh, you know, you're drinking too much and this has happened and all that. But I would deny it because they didn't know the extent of how much I was drinking on my own in my apartment. Like, yeah, I had some housemates, but they weren't really interfering with or or or seeing what I was drinking in my room every night, you know. And we're talking like three bottles of wine a night from about 25 up to about 30, you know, it was just and that's not including the weekends. This is like you know, through the week. So yeah. So when did it kind of stop? Like, so going back, you you finished uni and then like got a job pretty quickly in your kind of chosen career?

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Yeah, I um well, I finished university and I went immediately into campaign work um on a couple races, and I gotta be honest, I I hated it. I was working, you know, 60 plus hour weeks. Uh, we got one day off a month, including weekends. So we had to work through the weekends.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Are you getting paid for that or is that voluntary?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Is that like kind of internship or I was I was getting paid, but it was not not a lot of money. You know, it's it's an industry that's like, well, this is what you do. We do just you're young and you grind and you smoke zigs and you, you know, you drink. Like we would drink every night doing call time with people. And I was miserable. I was drinking every night still. Um, I I hated it. And so that's when I decided, you know, I'm gonna go back to school. Um, I started working at the Colorado State Capitol and like really loved the policy work. And somehow, you know, this whole period of my life, I'm still drinking every night. I'm binging on the weekends, I'm somehow in grad school, graduating classes and working and in a new relationship. And it my life was together enough, kind of like you said, that I was, I didn't realize how much trouble I was in and how much of a problem it was. And the whole time, you know, my I have this secret, I have this like shadow hanging over me of of my drinking. And nobody knew, including my my now ex-wife, um how bad it was. I was I was really good at keeping it hidden, uh, including bottles in my car, bottles in the closet, sneaking drinks, and then refilling the bottle so it looks like I wasn't drinking.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

And uh what age were you thinking at from from when when you're kind of doing this kind of secret drinking and hiding it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Probably 23 to 31 when I got sober. Um, and it was all for a long time I was able to write it off as not being, you know, I was appearing to function, I was still showing up to work. I thought I was showing up in the people's lives who were in mine, who cared about me, and never really had consequences deep enough until I did um to force me to rip the band-aid off. It was kind of forcibly ripped off. I, you know, it it happened outside of my willingness um to have it kind of come to the surface.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Um but I think time time is a funny thing as well, and we we become I think a bit more acutely aware of it as we as we get older, how quickly it goes past. And it's like, you know, when I was in my twenties and then 30s, and I was doing, you know, a bit of kind of well, I didn't start car drinking until until much later on, and that would be like when I'd go park up. Say I was going to work and then phone in sick and then sit in my car and drink. But yeah, even in my twenties, I would be like when we're talking about when I was doing like the three bottles of wine a night, that became a thing, and I don't know when like obviously it probably started a bottle and then it was like three three bottles for a tenner. So I probably did that and thought, well, I'll just put some of them in the fridge, and then you know, that second one got opened, and then the third one, and then it was like that was what I drank every night. But before I knew it, I remember thinking, like, oh wow, you've been drinking solidly now for a month, and then it would be like uh two months, three months, six months, and I'd be like, Shit, you've been drinking solidly now for six months, but you don't notice it because it's like this time just kind of disappears in front of you, and then suddenly you've been drinking solidly for six months, and then I was like, Oh, well, I guess this is just me because I feel fine, you know. I knew that if I if I went to four bottles on a night, I was rubbish in work the next day, like, and I'm in my 20s, so hangovers weren't really a major thing, you know. Like if I went out on a whole weekend bender where I wasn't sleeping, Sunday was rough, yeah. And I knew if I drank four bottles of wine, nah, I was right off the next day. But three was fine, so I could function, and I was like, I mean, I never used the word function alcoholic or anything like that at that point, but I knew that this was where I was at. I didn't know the dangers that come with alcohol at that point. So, but as I said, this time thing just kind of disappeared in front of me, and then it was like, before you know it, you're 30, and then you're 35, and yeah, it's it's it's bonkers. But so when did you think the kind of fun fell out of it? Like, yeah, I've read a book, I read a few books of Hunter S. Thompson because I used to absolutely adore him as a as an author. He's a great author, but obviously his kind of uh you know uh vibe doesn't kind of sit well with my my kind of align with me anymore, you know. Uh and I'm sure he's not bothered about that, even though he's dead. But he did a book called uh Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, which is a fantastic book. But like from his point of view, it was just debauchery and just madness. So I like you're saying you were kind of drinking every night when you were doing calls and sting stuff like that. So was it a bit of a party time on the on the campaign trail?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah, it was it was a party time, it was dealing with the stress, you know, of of being when you're like, yeah, coping. You're you know, you're at work till 10 p.m. wrapping up stuff, and you realize you have to be back at work at 7:30. Yeah and uh, you know, I I was able to tow the line, kind of like you were, where it was like I I kind of knew I might what would get me where I wouldn't feel like total shit tomorrow and I could function through it just enough to get to the point where I could start drinking again um to kind of taper it. And it it really stopped becoming, you know, I I love I heard the speaker once talk about like a roulette wheel. And you know, when you first start drinking, you're spinning it and like all the fun stuff pops up, you know? Yeah, and then as you start to get older and your drinking picks up, you keep spinning it, assuming the fun will continue, and more and more bad stuff starts creeping into your life, the hangovers get worse, the consequences get worse, your work performance gets worse. Your my mental health was in the tank for a long time. And uh, I would say towards even years before my drinking ended, you know, when I was able to get sober, I wasn't really having fun anymore. There were fun moments, there were fun nights out, um, but the majority of it was just kind of miserable, you know, it was it was not what I wanted my life to be. But like you said, I was I remember Googling, you know, how how long do you have to drink and how much do you have to drink to get cirrhosis? And you know, it was like eight to 12 years. And I was like, all right, I can do this for a period, right? And then something, somehow, somehow, I'm gonna learn to manage my drinking and enjoy it. And I'll tell you, it never, it never came. It just, you know, that moderation was the the I was like a dog chasing his tail, you know, trying to learn how to moderate. And I I could never do it. No matter what I tried, it it seemed to fail every time.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

It's it's well, like I've I don't know if you've ever read of a uh heard of a book called Alcohol Explained by William Porter.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Fascinating book, and it's got all the science in it, and it's like, you know, because some of us are like, Well, I don't know why I've got the addiction, and people that I went to school with that we were all drinking at the same level don't have that problem. And I think what he says in the book that once you start, because alcohol's a poison, and you know, and it's the anaesthetizing effect that makes us think, well, while we're because it's it's harming us straight away, and it's it's it's kind of you know dehydrating us and doing all of these things and messing up our metabolism while we're drinking it straight away, but because of the anesthetizing effects of it, we don't get that illness, that that the the side effects, the pain and whatever, the hangover until the following day, when the effects of the anaesthetizing alcohol has worn off. So when we start doing the kind of ah, I know what will make me feel better when I'm hungover, or you know, my mental health's in the in the in the in the pan and I'm like struggling or whatever, I know what will make me feel better. So the drink and we drink and we drink. And so I think what he was trying to say, William Porter, was saying that once people make that connection, once our subconscious makes that connection, that because you there's people that are like, oh my god, I'm so hungover, the thought of a drink would make me feel absolutely sick. So they don't do that hair of the dog next day drinking. But there's some of us, like yourself and like me, that do that, and once our subconscious starts to know that we have this cure almost, this cure inverted commas for this pain, this hangover, whatever withdrawal that we're going through. So once our subconscious knows that, it's like, right, and it makes us not gag at the thought of having a drink the next day. So once we've once we've crossed that line for the for the hair of the dog, I think it's it's just a slippery slope until we start using it to because it's it's not our fault, it's our subconscious is telling us this is what's gonna make you feel better, even though that's the thing that is putting our mental health and our and our physical health and our uh you know our yeah, just everything in the pan. And it's like, but this is the one thing that's gonna make us feel better. And so like we're not to blame for being, you know, alcoholic or or you know, um problematic drinkers. It's it's it's this thing, once you step over that line, yeah, it's so easy to do. Like I was doing here with a dog from college, and it was like I remember once we went we went drinking in a bar that was open at 6 a.m. because we had like all the dockers and the oil rig workers coming in early. So we were like, yeah, we'll go down there for a couple of drinks, you know. And then it was like, Oh, I feel like it's so rough. We went out last night. Let's go and go to the schooner and we can get a few pints in, you know, because I think in those days you couldn't even buy alcohol before 11 o'clock in the shop, but you could go here and get yourself a drink. And I crossed that line very early on, but I didn't see the alcohol like yeah, there were instances through my life that was like, Oh, I did this, and yeah, I got a DUI and all these, but I didn't, I didn't pinpoint it down to the alcohol because I didn't want to say this is because I couldn't imagine life without it, you know, because I was so steeped in it. So when did you think that you know, when was your kind of did you have like a rock bottom or like you're saying when did you get married? At what point did you get married to your your now ex-wife?

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah, we um we got married in well, we were supposed to get married in the mar March of 2020. Oh in England, yeah. Her family was from Manchester, yeah. And so uh, you know, we were how old, sorry, sorry, Adam, how old were you at this point? I was just about 30, just about 30, 2930. And uh, you know, we had built up kind of this wedding plan. And, you know, looking back, I I was just I was a passenger in my own life for years and years, um, you know, just going through the motions. And, you know, of course, COVID happens, and so we have to, you know, we get married at a courthouse. In in the US, and we have to cancel the big wedding festivities and the trip. And you know, the pandemic, I was someone who the pandemic for me just was fuel on my drinking. Um, it led me to drink earlier, it led me to drink more. Um, you know, I was working from home for for months on end. And so that that was really where it really ramped up, um, where more problems started happening for me. I had uh, you know, a fall probably in 2021, where I uh was stumbled, stumbling drunk, going to the bathroom, fell and pulled the shower rod down um and right into my eye.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

And so I had a nice shiner. And I remember thinking, you know, in typical alcoholic, thinking, I'm gonna have to come up with like a really elaborate story about how this happened.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

So, you know, I told people, well, I was I was playing soccer and I was I was in goal, and the player, you know, kicked me in the face instead of what a normal human would explain is like, oh, I slipped, I slipped and I fell. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

I got boot, I got a football boot in the face. Yeah. You know, and this is this is to tell your colleagues because obviously you're meeting them on Zoom and they're gonna see your face and all of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

To to explain to them this, you know, this elaborate hoax of how I got a black eye. And so that, you know, that was a consequence for me, but it wasn't enough to get me to stop. Um, and I kept going, and I would say uh July of 21, I was um, you know, pandemic's sort of winding down, the offices are back open. I had gone on a trip to Washington, DC for work, um, proceeded to drink all week with colleagues, and you know, and uh, you know, an important part of this story is I remember one of my colleagues just looking at me, and we're sitting in a hotel room with a group of people drinking, and he just says, like, are you okay? And I looked at him and I was like, What what do you mean? Yeah, I'm fine. And he's like, You just don't seem well, like you just don't seem good. And did he mean that specific night, or did he mean like on a whole just on the whole? Like, I think he could just see in my eyes, in my face, this just deep misery. Yeah, and we we get I get home from the trip, you know, it just happens I have friends coming into town. We proceed to, of course, drink all weekend, binge drinking. We got to the Sunday of that week, and I I don't really have a ton of memory of this, but I didn't want things, I didn't want the party to stop. I knew as soon as I stopped drinking, the consequences would come to light, and I'd have to, you know, suffer for days with anxiety and all this. So I started drinking in the morning um while my my ex was out doing stuff. And at some point she came home in the early afternoon and I was sort of on the couch, essentially non-responsive. Um they called, she called my parents who lived up the road, you know, 15 minutes. They come over. They can't really get me to wake up, so they call paramedics and emergency service, and they come. And I have bits and pieces of this where, you know, they take me in an ambulance to the hospital. I was apparently combative. I wake up sort of strapped to the gurney in the hallway, my leg is shaved with monitors on it and IVs. And, you know, they run my blood alcohol, and I had a 0.4 plus. Jeez. Um, and the doctor, the emergency room doctor, at some point said to my parents and my ex, like, look, I think he's alcoholic. I think he he drinks a lot regularly, just based on what I'm seeing. And I, you know, I'm eventually allowed to go home. I obviously take some time away from work to recoup. And my gut reaction to what the doctor said and the experience was I was pissed. I thought he was making a judgment call on who I was, not a medical diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

And from there, I I was able to, I white knuckled 150 days. Um, you know, started with the intent of, of course, never drinking again. Obviously, you know, I had another six months of of drinking in me before I eventually got sober. But that was for me the first time, like I was saying, where the band-aid was ripped off. Yeah I mean, I I couldn't hide this from my parents anymore. I couldn't hide it from my ex. I felt really exposed. Um, but did you for this?

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Yeah, did you so with with your ex and your family, did you kind of say to them at the time did you kind of admit defeat that you were like what the doctor had said, alcoholic or or you know, problem drinker, and think, yeah, I need to do something about this, or were you just doing it to kind of appease them and thought I can I can you know I'll I'll show them, I'll stay sober for 150 days and then whatever, but like I'll show them type thing. What was your yeah, your thought process?

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Like any good alcoholic, I was in deep denial. Um and so I yeah, it was one of those like you know, big ego um shame management. Like, I'm I'm gonna just I'm not willing to get help, I'm not willing to ask for help, I'm just gonna stop. And those 150 days, I was I was kind of miserable, you know, not even from obviously got through withdrawal. And you know, should have known when my doctor put me on anti-seizure meds and benzos, yeah, that there was a problem there. Um, but I was able to white knuckle 150 days before it became so unbearable that I found a good reason to start drinking again and assumed, hey, I I look, I took time off. I'm gonna go moderate. And from the get-go, there was there was no moderation, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

I mean, the thing with that 150 days is you're not doing it for you, you're not, you're not, you're doing it to show them, and you're like, I'll I'll show them. You're you're not doing it for yourself, so of course you're gonna be miserable because you're like you feel like you've had to stop drinking because other people have told you this, it's not your choice, and it and and you yeah, yeah, you're gonna be bloody-minded and show them that you can do 150 days, and then yeah, but then I guess we start thinking, well, of course I can drink normally again because I've done 150 days, but you know, like William Porter says again, it's like that you know, subconscious never goes, it's there for life, and as soon as it finds that pathway back to drinking, once you've had that taste. So, how was that first drink back after the 150 days?

SPEAKER_00 51:41

It was, yeah, those neural pathways, they're there forever, you know, once they're formed. And so, you know, it it's when I realized it's not the the fifth drink or the tenth drink, it's the first drink, yeah, that is that triggers my my disease. You know, I I constantly have it, it's what feeds it. So I um December, I believe it was like December 15th or something, right? Of 21. I had gotten a new job, I had gotten my divorce finalized and decided, well, this is a great reason to go out, you know, with colleagues, that everything was kind of lining up. And I went out that night with the intent of having maybe two drinks. Um and I ended up out till probably three in the morning with like champagne and martinis and um you know, and I vi I vively remember waking up the next day and thinking, like I should feel like shit, but I actually don't feel that that bad. And then by Christmas, um, so you know, 10 days later, I was drunk at 9 a.m. in the morning when my parents picked me up to go to my aunt and uncle's house. Like it was like that. I just was right back, right back to where I was, and then I would spend the next six months um just on and off benders and consequences and the drinking being the worst it's ever been, where you're lining up at the liquor store in the morning and you're missing work, and uh, you know, I eventually hit a deep enough bottom that it it, you know, the idea it's that tipping point, right? The idea of going on drinking was unbearable, but the idea of getting sober was so daunting. But I I just wanted sobriety slightly more than I wanted to keep being miserable.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

And I think that relapse kind of taught you that because did you know when you went out in that 15th of December, did you initially think I'm just gonna have a couple and not go, yeah. So it's like, you know, you go out with those intentions and then suddenly you're 3 a.m. drinking champagne, whatever, I wake up. Oh, I feel okay. So again, the neuropathways they tell you you're okay, you're cured, you're fixed, you don't feel like but then the more it kind of takes hold of us again, I guess you start thinking, actually, do you know what that doctor was right? I I I do have you know, alcohol use disorder or misuse disorder. I've I am alcoholic, and it's like once we start realizing that we keep well for for me, my relapses, I had many, many relapses before I didn't, and it was like almost like I wanted to keep testing it, and I don't know why that wanted to keep testing it, going, maybe that time was just a blip. Maybe I can drink normally again, and I'll just have this little quarter bottle of vodka. By four o'clock that afternoon, I'm already getting a liter bottle because it wasn't enough, you know. And it's like it's inbuilt this thing, this neural pathways that we've we've we've kind of honed our whole life by doing that early morning drinking and drinking for coping and drink drinking for uh stave off the hangover, whatever. It's there, it's locked in. There's no getting away from that. So, you know, this moderation thing in my mind, and it sounds like yours as well. It doesn't work, it doesn't work. So, what did you kind of you know? I guess you were still kind of out for six months. Was there any points in that where you would maybe stay off for you know a week or two, or was it just kind of drink, drink, drink?

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Yeah, it was it was mostly drink, drink, drink. There were times um, you know, I was getting in trouble at work for not showing, I would not show up. Yeah, I mean, no, even put in though. No, I would I got placed on disability leave. Um, you know, I I kept getting in trouble, and so we we get to a point. This was in my last drink was on May 19th of 22, and I had come off finishing a busy period of work where we're in legislative session here in Colorado, and I'd been dry for probably 30 days, you know, as a repercussion from work. I was able to kind of wrangle it, and I was I was doing everything but trying to get sober, you know. I was getting my chakras aligned, I was going to see a therapist, I was, you know, just trying to figure out how moderation could be a thing. Yeah. And me and my now, my now wife, I I got married this year, um, but we were obviously thank you. Yeah, we were just dating at the time, and I'm I'm walking out of this chakra place, and my wife and I are planning like an in-state vacation for a couple days, and there just happened to be a liquor store next to the place I was at. And I thought, you know, I'll get I'm gonna get myself a tree. I deserve a good weekend away. I'm gonna get a bottle of whiskey for me, I'll get her wine, we're gonna go have a great weekend. And I'll tell you, I started drinking on the Friday and I didn't sober up till the following Friday, and I had missed work again, and I was placed on leave till the rest of the month where I'd have to report to HR. And I was sitting on my bed and I was baffled that I I let this happen again. I couldn't understand how I did this to myself again, and it just sort of dawned on me of being like, I need help. I need, I don't know how to get sober, but I can't I can't continue this. And thankfully I had a friend in the 12-step program um who just said there's a Tuesday night meeting. Um, he's like, You should come. And I was like, at the point where I I it's either that or rehab, and I have nothing else to lose. Yeah, and that's when I saw people in recovery who seemed to be happy. Um, you know, I I thought they were all miserable because they couldn't drink, and it turns out they were happy.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yeah, it's it's bonkers. Uh so 22nd of May 22?

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Yeah, uh 20th. So my sobriety date is May 20, 2022.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Wow, awesome. Well done, man. Well done. Thank you. Yeah, and and just going back, what do you think it was that well? So, first of all, and don't answer this if you don't want to, but your your previous marriage, was that did that kind of fall apart because of your drinking? Was that a kind of major factor in that?

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Yeah. You know what's interesting is as I've looked back, I actually think my drinking led us to be together longer than we both probably should, we should have been.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Um, I don't think either of us were happy for a long time. We had a really pretty amicable divorce because I think both of us were just like, this isn't this isn't working. This hasn't been working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, the booze allowed me to ignore the problems in our relationship and to just go day by day of ignoring things. And so, you know, I think it played a factor in my sort of disassociation from the relationship and not being present, but also played a factor in an unwillingness to address what were clearly issues that we we should have probably never gotten married, you know, and uh booze has a way of putting those blinders on, you know, and we just park along.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Yeah, we're numb, we're not present, and we're just like, yeah, this sounds like a good idea, and you know, blah blah blah. We kind of go along with it. And your new well, your new girlfriend at the time, did did she was she aware of your because obviously you got sober into your relationship with her. Yeah, was she aware of your drinking at that point? Had you said, or you know, like she she got to see it at its worst.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

Um, she got to see me morning drinking, missing work, you know, stealing her booze when we'd stay at her place. And I think it slowly dawned on her of like, oh, this is not just you know him being hungover. This is not, he's he has a real problem. Yeah. Um, and I was terrified. I don't think I could have ever gotten sober in my my prior relationship because it was such it was a a secret that would have blown the whole thing up, you know, when you're like, hey, by the way, I'm not the person you think I am. I've been drinking every night for years and years on end. Yeah. Um, and with with Jill, who's my wife, it was she was there for me when I most needed just someone to support me when I couldn't support myself and to encourage me. And you know, I I think we it's so critical to have that, you know, and I'm really thankful because she has seen how bad it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

Um, you know, there's no there's no wool over her eyes about why I'm sober and what it looks like when I drink.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

But also she's seen the real you when you have been maybe at your lowest, but you're sober, and it's like this is not who you are, the drinker. Do you know what I mean? Whereas with your other partner, maybe you were just both kind of drinking. I don't know if she was a drinker, but like kind of just to mask everything, whereas Jill's seen you at your worst, but she's also seen the true you that wants to she wants you to be that person, and it's yeah, it's interesting what you were saying about uh you know going round to her place and you were stealing her drinks, like that just unlocked a memory for me. I was I was dating this girl for a short while, but we were going, we were staying at her parents' house, they were away, and we were going to a wedding, and I think we had like we got a couple of beers, and she wasn't a big drinker, but she was upstairs getting changed, and I was like, I was like, Oh, there's a drinks cabinet there. So I was over and I was just like, I don't know what it was, it was like sherry or maybe some whiskey or whatever. But she walked into the room at one point and I'm in this cupboard. Like I've got a beer on the table, you know. We're having a couple of drinks before we go out. But she comes in the room and I'm just like swigging from this bottle of whiskey from you know the bottle, and she was just like I mean, she didn't go off on one, she was just like, Oh, you know, uh, but in her head, she must have thought, What the hell am I getting involved in here? Like, suffice to say, we didn't we didn't last much longer after that. It wasn't to do with that, but you know, there was other things as well. But yeah, it's just like what am I doing? Because obviously I needed those drinks to go to this wedding where I was gonna be, you know, maybe a bit more confidence in the beers wasn't doing it for me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

What do you think kind of scared you the most if if you want to say scared about about getting sober? Do you think there was like a fear of getting sober?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it was um having to well, first it was just having to get honest with all these people in my life and get honest with myself, and then the biggest fear was how am I gonna live without alcohol? Um, you know, big life events, um, celebrations and all those things. And I I had no coping tools at the time, but you know, alcohol had been my coping tool. And you know, I I had this idea forever in my head that was just too massive, and it was eye-opening for me to meet people who are like, well, just don't drink today. Like, don't drink today, and then we'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. Yeah, you know, and and that attitude change for me was immensely helpful because it it took forever off the table, you know, and made it approachable in the way that one foot in front of the other, yeah, one day at a time. I made me do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:02

Yeah, and I were at the time at the beginning. So, how was that first uh 12-step meeting for you when you went in with your buddy?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Um I I yeah, I was I remember driving. Uh, of course, it was you know, up in Golden, Colorado, which is kind of in the foothills, 40 minutes from Denver. Um, you know, I I went because I was invited, I did I was invited, and it was the first meeting I anyone ever really told me about. And I was pretty anxious driving up um about what this would be like. And I remember getting there, and it's this beautiful, you know, uh community building cabin in the foothills, and there's people outside, you know, smoking cigarettes but laughing and you know, talking to each other. And I sat in there and uh an old timer looked at me and he said, You're the most important person at this meeting. Um and people came up to me, they hugged me, they gave me their phone numbers, they I heard all I thought I was gonna be around these people who are like, Man, I wish I could drink, but I got come to this meeting and you know, this is the worst. Instead, it was like I I'm so thankful to be sober. I am, you know, I get to live my life, I get to have purpose. And so from there, like I got my my first sponsor probably at my second meeting. Um, you know, people were like, Get a sponsor, work the steps, yeah, don't drink between meetings. And I was like, I'll give this a shot. I'll give it a shot. Yeah, you know, and see, and I'll do what I'm told. And sure enough, you know, it it's worked so far.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

Yeah, do what's suggested, and and you know what? Like, I mean, I did it militantly. Well, I did any instead of 80. Um our home group for any was just you know amazing. And I did it, I did it militantly for the first year, maybe. Two, but it definitely the first year, and it was like did my steps, got a sponsor, and it was the best thing I could ever done. Like, I know it's not for everyone, and they sometimes hear the word God and it puts them off. But for me, like I'm not religious, but it was the universe and all of that stuff. But you know, the 12 steps was great and all that, but for me, it was hearing the people's stories, hearing that they weren't miserable, like what you say, they weren't coming in there and going, Oh, I've got to go to this meeting again today. They were they were we were all wanted to be there. We loved going in there and we were catching up, and we do stuff outside as well. Like I remember my first Christmas, so it would have been 2020, yeah, 2020. We're all still kind of COVID and all that, and we were like, Well, let's go out for a Christmas dinner because everyone else else is like works, we're doing big pissed up things and all that. Yeah, I just went out to pizza and it was like one of the best nights I've ever had. There was about 12 of us, it wasn't a huge group, and it was one of the cheapest nights I've had as well, because obviously there was no alcohol, yeah. It's just it's just absolute madness. But for me, it was it was just hearing people's stories, hearing main shares, all the rest of it, and just thinking which is the weird thing with with like alcoholism, if you want to call it that. We know there's other alcoholics out there, we know there's other people that have problems with drinking, but when we're in it, we think we're the only one that is feeling the way we're feeling until we get into those rooms or wherever you get support and know that you're not alone, you're like, Oh shit, these people get me. These are this is my tribe, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I was about to say the same thing, which you know, when you're in it, you're like no one else in the world can possibly feel what I'm feeling or have these experiences. I'm isolated, I'm alone, and then you, you know, I I always thought, you know, my own story was unique. And then it's you end up in the rooms, you end up listening to podcasts like this, and you hear bits and pieces of your own story reflected back at you. And something about that was really an entryway into being like, well, I'm not alone, I've never been alone. Um, you know, I just I it allowed me to start to talk about my experience without shame and without guilt, uh, in a way that helped me to heal, where you know, people explain to me, well, you don't have to be ashamed, you're sick, you're you're sick, you know. And and I agree on on AA, there's a lot of dogma. I think God is a big I'm not a religious guy either. So people are like, God, and I'm like, I don't, I don't want to do that. Um, and I've come to learn like you stay for the community and you stay for the people, yeah. And yeah, it's just I, you know, there's no right way to get sober. There just there isn't. But having community is key.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:02

Yeah, and there's so many different ways now, you know, there's smart recovery, there's a N A C A, whatever, there's all these different support networks, there's there's rehabs, obviously, as well. But I think like listening to all the kind of you know, stories from the big book and the the kind of revelations that you hear from that, and just the wording of everything, you know, listen like I say on the podcast at the beginning of every episode, listen for the similarities and not the differences, because I did AA a couple of times before it actually started working for me. And it was like I would go in there and think there was a guy, and I've told this story before, he was in there and he was he was an old timer, he was ravaged. I mean, he didn't look like he was probably long for this earth, but he had drank boot polish, so he'd found this way of like getting because he had nothing else in the house, didn't have any money, but he'd boot polished and he knew there was alcohol in it, and he managed to do some weird concoction, which I don't even know why, to basically distill the alcohol out of this or or siphon it out of it, liquefy it and drink it. And it like he went straight into hospital, you know. It like kind of ruined the lining of his stomach and all of that. But I was like listening to this story, and I was like, Well, that's not me, so I'm not one of these guys. But it took me a wee while before I got back in another room, and then I was like, Oh no, listen for the similarity. So I wasn't hearing the big stories of what they did and do that, I was just listening to the little things like you know that they they you know messed up some birthday party that they were at, uh, or you know, they they they drank too much at a wedding, or they got a DUI, or this and that. And I was like, Yeah, man, this is this is my tribe, you know. And that's that's where I started kind of realizing this is who I am. And I know there's some people out there that get sober and that's great, and they do, however, and then they don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But for me, for part of my recovery, I want to sh I want to scream it from the rooftops and say, you know what, if anyone's out there that's struggling, there is help, you know, and and like we're we're living proof of that, you know. Um, so who do you do you think like without the alcohol, have you started to kind of realign yourself? And who who are you now with without the alcohol in your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:16

Yeah, I mean, I'm I feel like I'm the most me, you know, I've been since I was a kid, since before I started down the road of drugs and alcohol. I have reconnected with writing, um, I've reconnected with, you know, drawing, uh, with just reading literature and being really vulnerable and being authentic. I think I was living my life to please other people for a long time, you know, and I've I've come to learn what it means to kind of live gently and to show up in the world the way I want to show up, which is who I am. I lived in secret for you know years. Like once you I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to having to feel like I have to hide who I am as a person. And and what you said, I've made recovery such a pillar of my life. Um, I talk about it obviously on Instagram, I talk about it on LinkedIn, on Facebook. My colleagues know I'm sober. Because I part of it obviously is to process my own shame, to reduce the shame around it for myself and for others. And then there is a part that's also accountability because it's alcohol is just waiting, right? That addictive voice is but in the back of our heads sometimes. And the more I can put between me and the drink or me and secrecy, the more likely I am to continue to stay sober and do what's required to stay sober. Um, it it remains the best thing I've ever is the keystone to my entire life is is being sober.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Ah, without a doubt. And like like what I said, there are people out there that that don't scream it from the rooftops or whatever. And like that's fine, but I always worry that you know, if you don't tell people, then if they see you at a bar with a drink, they're not gonna say, Oh my god, what are you doing, Paul or or Steven? Do you know what I mean? You know, Jeanette. You you they don't know that you're sober, so they're not gonna say what's going on here, you know, what's what's the angle here, and that's the thing, it's it's it's just um yeah, yeah, it's it's bonkers. And I think, like each to their own. For me, yeah, a friend of mine once said to me way back at the beginning. So I had my Instagram and you know, before I started doing the podcast, and she said to me, Make sure this doesn't define you. And I was like, What do you mean? She goes, like this whole persona that you've created, you know, Recovery Jimmy and all and all of that. She's like, make sure this doesn't define who you are. And I was like, at the time, I was kind of like, I think it was taken aback a bit, but I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah. And then the more and more I thought about it over the years, I was like, No, screw that. Do you know what I mean? This does define me. It's not my only thing that defines me, but it's definitely one of the main things. And you know what? I'm all right with that because if it helps keep me sober, then I'm fine with it defining me. You know, I like I like recovery, Jimmy. I like who I am now, and that's that's a that's a cool thing to be. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:26

I same. I I think it's right. You, you know, we have other jobs, we have, you know, other relationships, but I'm also recovery, is it's part of who I am, it's a major part of who I am. It's a big part of how I show up in the world. And I always used to think, you know, those awkward conversations when someone's like, let's grab a drink. You want a drink? Let's do and you're like, Oh, I'm not drinking now. Oh, I'm you know, I'm doing a cleanse. And now, if you really want to nip it, it's pretty easy to be like, Oh, I'm in recovery. Like no one's no one's gonna press and be like, just have one. Like, you know, there you're when you're like, Yeah, if I have one, I'll probably have 50. You know, I you know, and and I just retired early. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's and it it shows people there are people out there who are open about this, who are like, I don't feel shame or guilt about my drinking, you know. I I'm comfortable with who I am. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

And there is that stigma, and you know, and like AA is still that anonymous word to me, is like, you know, they shouldn't, you shouldn't be hiding anymore. You should be like out because it's still I know it's an old, you know, um institution that's been around since the 30s, but it's like we're we're in this new age now where it's not actually that it's not a shame thing anymore. You know, I think back in the 50s and 60s or even 40s, it was like, you know, if you were to go into your office job and say you're an alcoholic, they'd be like, well, you know, your pay slips on the way out or you would don't come back. Kind of thing. Yeah, but now it's like, you know what? So many people are going sober for many reasons other than you know being alcoholic. So it's like this is this is kind of where we're at, and it's like let people know and don't be scared about being being you know, having a having a problem, problematic like um having a problematic kind of relationship with alcohol. Um, Adam, what what kind of role do you think that alcohol plays in society now?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:24

I you know, I I think we're seeing younger people drinking less, um, certainly in the US. I still think it it's so prominent. It just you go to an event, you know, my world, politics, it's everywhere. Yeah. Um, which also means, statistically speaking, there's a lot of people out there who are struggling with their drinking, um, but don't know how to ask for help. They haven't come to terms with kind of what alcohol is is doing to their life. And it's all the more reason for people to talk about it openly and to kind of rip that anonymity off. And you know, talk about it. Yeah, the shame will keep you. I mean, our secrets keep us sick, right? It's oh it's it's just the truth of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

And I think, like what you're saying, you know, in politics and campaign trails and things like that, you're out there trying to schmooze and kind of entice the people with the big bank role, you know, the deep pockets and all of that. And the way in doing that, like I see a lot of charity events over here, some are for cancer charities, and it's like a free bar because they want people to come in with the deep pockets and pledge lots of money to it. But it's like you're you're doing a charity for cancer and you're you're offering out free alcohol, which is like seven types of cancers. Yeah, it's it's madness. But I get where you're coming from because in your in your job, like if you're you know, again, we've still got this shame in society where it's like, oh my god, but we're getting better. So, you know, hopefully doing like with conversations that we're having, it's making people think, well, do you know what I want to quit alcohol and I feel okay to do that now? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

I mean that the barrier to entry to getting sober is still really big. Um, you know, it's just it is there's a certain amount of usually, if you're people like us, misery and pain that you have to go through to get to that point, but it's also important to tell people like you also don't have to. Yeah, you know, you you don't have to suffer endlessly. You it's okay to quit drinking if you just feel like it's not serving you a purpose anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:40

Yeah, um, you know, and then as we know, I mean it doesn't matter if you're having like four or five beers, it's not it's not doing you any good at all, you know. Well, it's poison, it's yeah, it's it's horrible for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:54

And do you think there's any conversations that we should be having more of, or that that you know the governments or whatever aren't having yet?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

Or I think the you know, when you look at the statistics here, a majority of hospital beds are taken up by um individuals with some relation to alcohol, um, usually being an underlying factor, whether it's heart disease or cancer or cirrhosis. And there's no or abuse, domestic abuse, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:22

Yeah, domestic abuse and not getting kind of documented, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:26

Yeah, car accidents. I mean, the there is a huge social societal factor that alcohol has created negatively. And I'm not here, you know, I I don't think it, you know, we don't need prohibition, we don't need to outlaw it. But like any other drug, you know, if you were if you were a a cocaine addict or uh, you know, morphine or heroin, people don't blame the individual always as much. Like I think the addict still has a huge stigma, but people are like, well, those are really powerful drugs. You know, you try meth once and you're hooked. People talk about alcohol like it's not uh this really addictive substance. You know, we treat it like it's like drinking water or soda. And the reality is like it's it's highly addictive, it's very habit forming. Like, you know, we shouldn't ignore that as society that like this is a drug that we are selling to people, yeah, you know, and making it look fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:27

It's going back to what I said at the beginning. It's like if you're if you do become alcoholic, then you're not doing it right. You're the one that slipped off the wagon and you can't do it right, and and it's not society's problem, it's not the alcohol's problem, it's your problem. And like over here, we've got on the bottles drink responsibly. That's all it says. You know, whereas all the cigarette packets and all that, they've got like, oh, pictures, horror, horrific pictures and smoking kills and all of this. Now, as I say, I'm not saying prohibition, you know, I'm just saying put on the bottles what it what it does, give people the actual the fact that it is a carcinogen, you know, that it that it is that it is damaging to your health, and it's like put that on. Like it's a poison, it should have the little skull and crossbones that like you know a lot of medicines and things have on them, yeah, but it doesn't, and it's it's it's baffling, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:17

Yeah, it's it's one of the few drugs, you know. If if you're hanging out with someone and they told you, like, I'm just gonna go do like a little keybump in the bathroom, like you might look at them sideways, but if someone's like, I'm gonna go, you know, have some wine or have a beer or a shot, that people don't think twice. It's just so normalized. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, great.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:38

Yeah, yeah. But also, but also it's the one that when you tell people that you're giving up and you're stopping, they don't congratulate you. They're like, What? Really? You what like why are you doing that? That's stupid, you know? Whereas like you give up smoking, yeah, well done you, you give up caffeine, well done you, I'm gonna give up heroin, well done you, I'm gonna give up boozing. What for? Like, why?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:58

Yeah, it's yeah, people I think there's a lot of societal denial of what alcohol is doing, what it does to people broadly speaking. And I always, you know, when you look at the statistics, if you're in the room of 24 people, there's probably a couple people in that room who fall on the substance abuse disorder spectrum. But it is, you know, it's just not something we want to talk about. I think alcohol and alcohol companies have done a really, you know, well-done job of of trying to sell us that this is the key to success and happiness and celebration. And it was the key to misery for me. No, you know, that's what it ended up being.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:43

The whole, the whole glamorizing thing on advertising with alcohol involved, it's such a lie, you know, these bikini clad and and washboard stomach guys on the beach drinking Bacardi and Cours Light or whatever. That's not the reality. You know, you look at you look at these kind of, I don't know, like let's say spring break weekends or Ibiza weekends, it's like it's absolute carnage of people just drinking and drinking and drinking, passing out, being sick. It's not it's not the glamour that they're showing you on TV, but we all fall into that, we all fall into that trap because our brain is telling us, yeah, this is what I'll look like if I drink Bicardi or if I do this, and this is what the weekend's gonna be like. No, it's it's it's never really like that. Don't get me wrong, Adam. I had some great times, I really did, but you know, when the when the when the bad times started outweighing the good times, it was like, you know what, this is this is not for me anymore. Is there anything you regret about sorry, is there anything about your old life that you sometimes miss?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:45

I mean, there was alcohol served a purpose, right? There were times it helped me get through difficult things in my life. And you know, there is a part of when you end your relationship with alcohol that you're you're ending your relationship with a friend, you know, or someone you loved, and maybe that relationship's gone sour. Um but it it, you know, there of course are times we romanticize our our drinking lives. Um, but then you know, when you zoom out and you look at the cumulative total, there was way more destruction than there was joy. And just like any relationship, it's all it can get bad and it's allowed to be broken, you know, and you're allowed to move on in your life and seek out real joy and real meaning that's not that cheap dopamine, you know, that we all crave, whether it's social media or booze or other substances, you know, our brains are hooked on cheap hits. Yeah. And, you know, it's hard to escape that cycle.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:53

Well, we have that faded effect bias as well, that we we kind of we remember the the the really kind of rose-tinted side of it all, and we're like, oh yeah, that time was amazing. Actually, it probably wasn't that good, you know what? And and and we forget about the next day that never comes up in those, you know, we're thinking, oh, that night was great. We never remember like the next day and how miserable we felt Monday, Tuesday at work. You know, we don't we don't remember that side of it. We just remember like maybe half an hour at the beginning of the night when we were all having a really good time and then it was like downhill.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:25

Yeah, yeah. I I I always think of the Ted Lasso, you know, it's like alcoholics are like goldfish. We're you know, we have really short memories for the misery, you know, yet we retain like the positives for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:41

Oh, forever, forever. Um yeah, what what did sobriety give you that you didn't expect, if anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:48

Uh man, my my life is so different. It it's given me um true joy, it's given me purpose, it's given me balance. You know, I was I was a workaholic as much as I was an alcoholic for a long time to counterbalance. Um, it's given me the ability to connect with people in a real genuine way. Um and without it, I just don't I don't know where I would be. I don't know if I'd be alive, to be honest, the way I was drinking and acting. And it's it's brought me back to the core of who I am and who I was before any of this this stuff in my life kind of took me away from myself. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:39

When it started going in a kind of nosedive. Um one piece of advice for someone at day one, Adam.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:48

Yeah, but focus, I would say focus on the now. Um you know, don't get caught up on is this forever, you know. Um and the biggest one is get honest. Getting honest, it's really, really hard. It's it's hard because we're we're so dishonest with ourselves about where we are. Um you know, be willing to ask for help. I it it's so much better than you could imagine, you know. If it wasn't, we'd probably go back to drinking, you know. Like if our lives weren't significantly better, we'd probably just go back to the bar.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:29

We'd go back to the bar and we'd be like, Do you know what? If I've only got like another 10 years of doing this, I'm doing that because that sobriety was just a piece of crap. I'm not doing that anymore, you know. Yeah, yeah. But that's not the case. That's not the case. Uh, one habit that keeps you steady in your sobriety.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:47

I do something every day to connect with sobriety. I used to think about drinking every day. Now I think about sobriety every day. Yeah, and that could be doing a daily reader, it could be listening to a podcast. Podcast. It could be meditating and just finding gratitude. Um, it doesn't have to be a meeting, it doesn't, you know, those things are important, but connecting, trying to find that connection with yourself every day and that balance is is what's helped me.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:16

No, I love that. I mean, that's it. I still do, you know, well, I try and do a post on on Instagram or whatever, but it's just even these little things, just reminding myself that yeah, I'm sober again, you know, and this is this is the way my life is now. And I and I and I just absolutely love it. And I, you know, I I still listen to podcasts like because I'm a gardener, so I'm out there with my earbuds in, and I'm just like listening to podcasts. I read a lot of well, listen on Audible to a lot of um uh you know, recovery books as well. So have you got any like a podcast, a film, or a book about recovery or hope?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:53

I've I mean, I'm similar, I've read so much Whitlet, you know, over the years. Um, Unexpected Joy of Being Sober was the first book I ever read. Love it um for recovery, which was immensely helpful. Um that would be one I think if you're looking to sort of get into thinking about your drinking. Um, and then Recovery Elevator um is a is another recovery podcast that just has a lot to and it's very similar, it's people telling their story. Um, that's all it is, you know, and and finding that connection, those are are things for me that changed this whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:36

Yeah, I love it. I love it because it's just there's a plethora of them out there now, and uh, you know, I I love doing the podcast because also I get new great reads from from you know my guests saying like, well, this or that and it's like new podcasts and things as well. So yeah, I love that. Uh lastly, Adam, one word that describes your life now.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:59

I would honestly probably say calm. Um, like life still life still happens. I mean, that's the dirty secret in recovery, right? Is you're like shit still can go sideways. Um and we still have stress, but I also I know a drink is never going to solve my problem. Um and I just I have a lot more calm in my daily life than I ever could have imagined when I was in the chaos of drinking.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

Yeah, no, I'd absolutely love that, and that's calm, yeah. It's it it is because that's how I feel as well, you know. Everything was just chaotic, hectic, you know, madness, insanity, and now it's calm. Yeah, like you say, there's ups and downs, of course there is. I got married last year as well. We got married on the year. Oh, congrats, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:52

Yeah, when did you get married? Uh August 31st of uh 25.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

Okay, we were we got married on the 1st of August, and when we had a celebration down on the beach on the 2nd, which was just awesome, yeah. Yeah, which you know, I say on the beach, it's summertime over here, but it's the Isle of Man. We were we were like watching the weather on the on the lead up to it. We were like, even the couple of days before, we were like, oh my god, it's gonna be absolutely torrential. But on the day, it was just beautiful, like the sun came out and it was just amazing. Uh so you're coming up on four years, brother. That is amazing, man. Well done, you yeah, congrats. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:29

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, for it it goes by. I mean, as you know, yeah, it's like the first year felt like a trek, and all of a sudden it's like, I can't, yeah, I can't believe it. It'll be four years. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:40

Yeah, well, it's the thing, like you know what you say in what they said to you in the meeting, like you know, you were the the most important person in that room when you went in that day, and that's it. The people that are out there that are listening to this, that they're on like day one or first week or whatever, they're the most important people. Whenever I see on Instagram and they're like, Oh, day one, I'm like, you know, I I always make sure I put a comment on that because I'm like, they're the people that need the support. Obviously, we need support, but we're like four years, I'm five and a half years. Like the first year was was, you know, it was like ah, then you get to second year, then third year, and then you're like, oh my god, this is it. Like, I I don't even think about alcohol anymore, you know. Like I know that if I did have a drink, then all those neural pathways, blah, blah, blah, they take over. All I need to do is not drink today and I'll be okay, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:29

Yeah, I really think about it now. It gets easier, and I always think of like, you know, they say one day is harder than one week, one week is harder than a month, you know, and so on. And you know, I I always live by the the motto of, you know, whoever has the most sobriety today is whoever got up earliest. Um, you know, we're all we're all in the same boat together. Um you know, and I think sometimes people need to hear like it it does get better, it gets better. It you know, you learn the tools, it it can work out.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:02

I don't know if you've heard of uh the sober awkwards uh podcast with Vic and Hamish. No, um English, but she lives in Australia. He's he's an Aussie, I believe. Um it's a great podcast. Um, I was on it last week. That's not a plug. Oh clue, but Hamish a couple of uh months ago now, well, it was beginning of the year, he was on it and he said that he had this revelation when he was staring the middle, uh staring in the mirror, and I think he was like, I think it was maybe his first day sober, and he was looking at himself in the mirror and he was going and he thought I'm just as sober as a person that's got a year or 10 years or 20 years, because even though we've got that longevity behind us, we're no more sober than we were on our first day because no alcohol went in us that day, and no alcohol's gonna use today. So as much as it seems like if you're if you're on day one and you're looking at someone like with a year or 18 months or 10 years, and you think, oh my god, it's so unfathomable to get to that level, it's like they're just as sober as you are today. So that's all you just need to get through that one day and you'll be okay. And before you know it, 10 years will have got there, and you'll be 10 years older. So let's not wish that too soon. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's no day like the present, right? Nobody, nobody who's sober says, I wish I got sober later. Um, you know, I think we're all most people are like, Man, I should had I known, had I known, I would have done, you know, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready, so I don't feel guilt. But if I knew it could be like this, I think I would have had a different attitude.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:38

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But then, you know, you wouldn't have been the person that you are. We might not have yeah, you know, our paths might not have crossed. And and this is what I love about sobriety, you know, meeting new people like yourself. So, Adam, it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you, hearing your story, and we appreciate your sobriety, man. So, you know, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:56

Yeah, thank you. It's this has been awesome. Appreciate the conversation, and I'll be, you know, uh one day at a time, just like you, and one foot in front of the other. But you know, today's a great day to stay sober.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:10

Oh, absolutely, and we keep trudging.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:12

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:14

Right, cheers, Adam. Speak to you soon, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:16

All right, all right, appreciate it, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:18

Bye. Hey guys, thank you, Adam. Um, as you can see, we've still got Poppy here. Uh thank you, Adam, uh, for for just you know giving up your time to to come on on the podcast and uh share your story with us. So we all we all really really do appreciate it. And um sorry, this is difficult with the cat here. Um but I think my take from this episode is you know, it's all about the shame and the stigma and still connect that it's still connected to the problematic drinking that we have, you know. Um like like a lot of people want to shout about it, shout about it from the rooftops, like myself and Adam, and you know, set up an Instagram. And I understand that a lot of people don't want to do that because of the stigma and the shame that is still surrounding it. Now, Adam, like me, you know, he he wants to help people and he wants to shout about it and say, Do you know what? Like this is this is my life now, and I'm having a much better time of it. So you don't have to be still stuck in that, you know, kind of shame and you know, defiance that, oh, I don't want to be called an alcoholic or or or this, that, and the other. So I think finding out who you are as a person and then focusing in on that and then becoming the person that you were always supposed to be, and shout it from the fucking rooftops because that's what it's all about. The more and more people that are outspoken about this disease, illness, addiction, whatever you want to call it, the more people that are shouting it from the rooftops, then the better. So it's it's it's really it's really a no-brainer, you know. I think if you are even just a gray area drinker and you've got sober, shout about it because this is gonna help one person and that person's gonna help two, and then four, and whatever. So let's just keep shouting about it. So thank you again, Adam, for coming on the podcast and um sharing your story. Uh, we appreciate you, we appreciate your sobriety, and we salute you. Um yeah, gearing up, guys. This is I can't believe we're on episode 68, I think it is now. So we're really kind of you know smashing through them, um, which I'm loving. Um I am possibly having a think about season four, and it might be shorter, it might not be as many episodes, but more longer, in-depth episodes. I don't know what people think, so let me know in the comments or DM me just to say no, we love the format the way it is, you know, an hour, hour and a half, sometimes two hours, but you know, we love it, the format. Um I don't know, I don't know. That's the thing. I'm I'm playing about with a few ideas at the moment. Um so you know, I know I'm already for forward thinking into season four because that's what we've got to do, um, which will be we'll finish this season in around June. So we've still got a while to go, and then I I won't have a massive break, um, but I'm got I've got some amazing names lined up for um season four and and for the end of the rest of this season, so you know don't worry about that. But uh season four is gonna be a masterpiece, I think. You know, it's gonna be one of those things because this season's just been phenomenal so far, and I know we're only just over halfway through, but I just uh you know want to thank all my guests that we've had so far, and uh it's just been amazing, amazing uh season three. So thank you, and thank you to all my guests, and thank you to everyone that's listening. If you are enjoying it, then you know give us a five-star review uh or one if you if you think it's shit, then let me know why. Um, but these these these comments and ratings and all of that, it helps people find the podcast, and you know, and if this podcast is helping one person, then I'm doing my job. So um, yeah, thanks guys. Have an amazing uh day, and until next time, stay safe, stay sober, and stay supportive. Love you all, peace.