Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
Welcome to Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart—the podcast dedicated to empowering men to break through barriers and achieve their full potential.
Hosted by Lachlan Stuart, this show dives deep into the challenges men face, offering actionable insights, real-life stories, and expert advice. Whether you're focused on fitness, business, personal growth, or fatherhood, you'll find inspiration and tools here to help you rise above any challenge and become the man that can.
New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Tune in, get inspired, and start living the life you’ve always wanted.
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Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
The Impact of Addiction on Family and Relationships | Jackson Rowden #593
What does it take to overcome heroin addiction and rebuild your life from the ground up? Hear Jackson Rowden's transformative journey as he shares personal stories and hard-earned wisdom about battling addiction. With almost 11 years of sobriety, Jackson opens up about his early exposure to drugs, the allure of heroin, and the pivotal moments that led him to a 12-step program. His candid reflections reveal the significance of honesty, community support, and a disciplined lifestyle in achieving long-term sobriety.
You'll also learn about the broader societal context of addiction as Jackson recounts his tumultuous teenage years, grappling with identity and seeking validation through destructive behaviors. He describes the harsh realities of losing friends to overdoses and the internal conflicts that fueled his addiction. Through these powerful narratives, we highlight the importance of self-discovery and the role of professional help in overcoming life's darkest challenges.
Finally, Jackson shares his professional journey, from setbacks in the film industry to finding purpose in addiction treatment. Discover how his work with CounterPoint Recovery and as a sober coach underscores the need for genuine care and high standards in the treatment industry. This episode is a profound exploration of resilience, community, and the shared mission of helping others live their best lives. Join us for an inspiring conversation that sheds light on the complexities of addiction and the path to recovery.
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Do Something Today To Be Better For Tomorrow
Welcome back, team. Another brilliant episode is about to happen. Now, before we dive in, as I have been saying the last couple of weeks, I would love you to take a moment to recognize something great that you've done over the last seven days, or since the last episode. You know, a little humble brag, something for myself. For those who read the newsletter, you will have seen down the bottom I always document the personal progress and upcoming things. But last week I managed to hit. I wrote a 38.2 kilometer run, which is correct on Friday, so every 45 minutes on the hour. I ran for five hours. So essentially I had a 15-minute break every hour hour for a five hour run, which was a cool experience. It was definitely more challenging than I was expecting but gave me a high amount of confidence in the condition of my legs, as the next day I pulled up completely fine, went for another run, so very happy with that. Next thing that happened is the workshop. So I fly back to Australia in two days. I'm so excited to get back to catch up with everyone run this workshop, see my family. I've got to check out our rental property and a few other things. And finally, from the marriage standpoint, we went on a date night last night to a restaurant called Bad Idea and you sort of look at a name like that and you're like I hope this isn't a bad idea, but it was incredible food. It was like a French slash, asian inspired kind of meal and it was unlike anything I've ever had before, so I really enjoyed that. I ate way too much, but hey, that's the benefit of running a lot.
Speaker 1:What's coming up? The rebrand you may have seen on social media. I'm testing new names. I'll do a whole episode about this, but I do feel I have reached a point where I'm evolving. From the man that Can Project, I want to step out under my own name and I'm just at a different chapter in life. So, while I've had the man that Can Project for seven years, this podcast since 2017, I still keep this podcast where it is. However, the name will change and I'm hoping to have it ready by episode 600. So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:The Academy that is also changing. It's going to be more specific on the outcome that it delivers. I've just noticed that I've lost my way with it in regards to the clarity around what results members who come in, so I'll share more about that. So that's very exciting Today's episode. So I want to put a warning on here.
Speaker 1:I'm talking with Jackson Rowden, who is my related right, funnily enough, and we met six weeks prior to the recording of this, and Jackson shares his journey of recovery from heroin and prescription opioids and an addiction that he had. So if you're struggling with addiction or conversations like this may trigger you, you may want to skip it, as he does talk a lot about personal experience, but on the I guess, the most empowering line of results, he has now gone through 12-step and actually is a business owner in the space of helping people recover. So he owns Counterpoint Recovery with a few business partners and they aim to raise the standard of addiction treatment and inspire other facilities to improve and raise the standard. So you can expect to hear about how addiction can have a profound impact on an individual's life and the lives of their loved ones. Recovery from addiction often requires a combination of personal willingness, professional health and community support and we get very vulnerable, honest, and you need to have a willingness to change. So I'm very proud of this episode just because I feel like it's 30 years in the making, as you'll you'll hear, and I'm also very. It's very cool to meet a family member that you'd never met and have so many commonalities and, I guess, be in a similar line of work where you're really wanting to help men live the best or be the best version of themselves. So that's enough from me. Let's dive into this episode and, if you do enjoy it, make sure you share it on social media and tag me and leave a rating and review. Thank you.
Speaker 1:This conversation kind of feels surreal, jackson. We only met about six weeks really, but, as you said before, it's kind of a conversation that's probably been about 30 years in the making. Our parents are cousins and we dropped in to visit your mom and you guys when we were cruising through Atlanta and recognize that we had a fair bit in common. Obviously, you and I are trying, or have a similar passion, to help men improve their lives. I'm doing that through carving out better lives, through goal setting, productivity, tips and community, and you have co-founded Counterpoint Recovery, which has one goal, which is to provide lasting and effective solutions to those who are suffering, and that goal manifests from experiencing renewed hope and recovering through your own journey. So it's pretty cool to be having this conversation, to see that we're in a similar line of work as well, even though it is, I guess, different in how we go about doing it. So thanks for jumping on, man.
Speaker 2:Right on, brother. Happy to be here. Yeah, 30 years in the making. I don't know how I was trying to think back on, like, wasn't there at least a Christmas or Thanksgiving or something where I met you along the way? But you know here we are right.
Speaker 1:It is wild. Hey, like that's one thing. As I've gotten older I've been really trying to make an effort to spend time and connect with extended family, especially like cousins. And obviously now I don't even know, does that make us like triple? Because I don't even know what it makes us probably.
Speaker 2:Second cousins, I think if they fact checked us. But like your last name's stewart, my middle name's stewart, we got, you know, a lot of connected. We're connected, man, we're thoroughly connected and and we should have met. I'm sorry we haven't, probably because I've been living on the other side of the world from you, but for most of it. But yeah, man, I'm really excited to hear about how our lives are kind of, in a way, parallel, but we never have had a conversation until now, man.
Speaker 1:It's pretty interesting, man. I got drawn into your story. Obviously your mom gave us, tina, gave us a bit of an insight before you rocked up and then we had a bit more of a yarn and you've been sober for 10 plus years since, recovering from heroin and obviously prescription opioids, addiction and all of that sort of stuff, and you came from working in the film and TV industry and now obviously you've moved into the space that you're working in now. I'd love to hear more about what it was like in those earlier years when you, I guess, first tried heroin and all that sort of stuff, and how that addiction really took over and the impacts that it had took over and the impacts that it had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I got sober in August of 2013. So I'm not fronting myself anytime because no one would front me drugs, but if I make it to this August, I'll be 11 years sober.
Speaker 1:That's unreal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, it's a trip. I remember sitting in a rehab in 2013. And I wouldn't have even been there for 30 days at that time and they used to bring guys in from this program called HNI, right Hospitals and Institutions, and they were kind of a. They weren't kind of, they were a technical representative of Alcoholics Anonymous communities in the area, right. So guys can volunteer for this kind of stuff and they get sent out to places. And they came to do an H&I talk at the rehab I was in and I'd never been to AA, I'd never even tried to get sober at the time.
Speaker 2:So I was a 23-year-old kid sitting in there listening to these guys and I remember one of them had 10 years and I sat there and I listened to him for a few minutes and then I honestly kind of spaced out but I was thinking, if I'm 23 now, if I had 10 years sober, I'd be 33. And the life I imagined that I'd have sitting there. I can kind of remember what I was into back then and what I was thinking a little bit and my life looks nothing like what I imagined it would. It's completely surpassed any possible understanding or imaginative expression of what I had. This whole process has completely shot me into a life that I never even knew I could have or expected or even wanted. So it's really cool, man.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so heroin, I love heroin. I can say that with transparency at almost 11 years sober. It's like breaking up with a girl that you just had to break up with. She went and married another guy and she had kids and she's happy and he's got a lot of money and you've got no shot. It's never going to work for you.
Speaker 1:That's kind of my relationship with that drug Puts it into perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I, you know my mouth still waters when someone says the word. I still can remember vividly the feeling of some of my best highs, but I can also still very tangentially kind of contextualize the pain it caused me. I can remember some of the worst moments that I felt as a heroin addict, the pain that I felt getting off of it and struggling to live as an active heroin user. And it's like a Lieber scale, you know. Every day you're kind of balancing between those two feelings, like a Libra scale. Every day you're kind of balancing between those two feelings and I'd be lying if I said that I never think about it or I don't have an emotional kind of reminiscence about it every once in a while. But I have lived thoroughly clean and abstinent from all drugs and alcohol for over a decade now and it is possible.
Speaker 1:So going through. Obviously you still think about it and you have the emotional connection to it, Like you can still remember some of the highest highs and those moments, but you also remember some of the pain that it caused you as well. And how do you go about balancing that? Do you have moments where you feel you want to use again, or have you got a belief within you that you'll? It's not part of who you are anymore?
Speaker 2:it's the latter, but that takes time, right like very early on in my recovery, you know, uh, there was a lot of times where I thought I might get high again. There was a lot of times where I felt tempted might get high again. There was a lot of times where I felt tempted to get high again, and what I really what I had back then and what I really needed and what I'm really grateful that I was either provided with or intervened upon by, was, you know, a solution that worked for me, that I felt, I felt aspiration and attractiveness to go and chase it and try it, and that was, um, you know, I got sober using the 12 steps. Uh, I went to AA a lot, I still go. Uh, like I said, I went to treatment.
Speaker 2:You know there were solutions that were put in front of me that I was willing and open and, uh, you know, honest with myself and I knew where I was at and I and I just pursued that. And when times came up where I felt tempted, I just, you know, I did what, um, nancy Reagan said just say no. You know what I mean, and that was really hard, but uh, yeah, I wouldn't have been able to do it alone. I definitely didn't do it alone, wouldn't have been able to do it alone, and I wouldn't have been able to do it with some sort of foundation of principled way of living, discipline, community accountability and, yeah, a deep willingness to want to change, to get something different.
Speaker 1:What was it that made you want to change, because obviously we've sort of jumped to coming out the other side. Obviously, 2013 was your sober date. If we were to backtrack to when it all began, like what was going on in your life, then what was the introduction to it, and was it something that you, I guess, had always wanted to experience? Or was there a lack of meaning in your life? Or yeah, I guess?
Speaker 1:You want to hear some war stories huh yeah, I want to hear some war stories. Let's hear some war stories Right on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, yeah, I mean you know my family. I mean shit, we are family. My mom is the best. You know, my dad's a great, great guy man. He's a great, great guy man, he's a lovely guy.
Speaker 2:There they split when I was really young. So right after we moved to america I think in the process of moving to america, they were like really just in the shitter, yeah, and wasn't long after we moved here that they split and he was in corporate business. So he was always, you know, he supported us so he was going wherever he could go to get a job to support us. I don't think he necessarily wanted to leave. In fact, I know he didn't want to leave, but there were a lot of things that happened, that kind of causality of it. He had to leave. So he went on to just keep bouncing around job to job, state to state. He actually ended up moving back to Australia for a while there.
Speaker 2:But you know I didn't have a bad life. I come from good stock, I come from, you know, upper middle class and we were never like filthy rich and just spend, do whatever you want, jackson. But it was always like if I needed or wanted something, I got it Like I had great family and, um, I just got like once I was exposed to drugs and I realized like, oh, these exist, um, man, I loved them. I just wanted to get right in. Like I, I started drinking and smoking when I was smoking, you know, reefer and smoking cigarettes and shit when I was like 13 or 14. And by the time I was 16, I was doing a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 2:And I remember when I was around 16 or 17 years old that was in the States at least that was kind of the real peak of the OxyContin epidemic and I mean, you could get these things anywhere, everywhere, and back then they were seriously cool. Shit, you know they were. That was peak oxycon and, um, a lot of people were dying, a lot of people were having a good time and it just was this whirlwind of kind of not knowing what. You didn't even know what you were doing. You know, there was all this stuff now, these great shows and all this information epidemic right back then. None of that, there was none of that. There was no talk of that. There's all this stuff now, these great shows and all this information epidemic, right Back then, none of that.
Speaker 2:There was none of that. There was no talk of that. You could find these things in every pill cabinet in every house in America that you went into for a party or hanging out at your friend's house. Everybody had them and no one knew what they had. They had like a loaded gun in the cabinet and you could find these things relatively easy and I got hooked on them really quick, just like anyone else that did them.
Speaker 2:And then very abruptly, I remember it kind of there near the end of high school when I was going off to university, I went to college here in the States and there was this big crackdown.
Speaker 2:That's kind of when the conversation shifted right and either the government or the alphabet guys whoever was I think it might have been the DEA or whatever put a big kibosh on it right and they started changing the molecular makeup of them and restricting them and taking them off the streets and shuttering all these you know dirty doctors and these guys who were getting all these kickbacks for writing the scriptures for them, and that really everybody just kind of pivoted from there and I remember being a part of a group of people that, like one day all my friends were using Oxy and the next day all these normal kids were like no, we're doing heroin now and that kind of scary word that was you know the guy under the bridge begging for money.
Speaker 2:Your whole life kind of just became your casual like Friday night drug and I just didn't like the feeling that I felt when I wasn't on this stuff and kind of threw away all of my predispositions or my belief systems or my judgment and just dove right in and that lasted for, like I said, 17 or 18 years old until I was 23 when I stopped. So it was a good five or six years at least where I was just hooked.
Speaker 1:So the opioid or the oxycodone was like the gateway drug into heroin for you personally.
Speaker 2:For me, yes, and for a lot of people that I knew, who, if they're still with us today, who we grew up together and ran around together, would tell you the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's scary how there is the gateways Like. I remember thinking about it a lot when I was growing up around weed and everything like that and I started smoking weed at about 14 at the skate park and didn't try ecstasy until I think I was in grade 11 or 12. So 16, 17, and then it led to cocaine and MDMA and all that sort of stuff and it was always like what I ended up on was scary in the beginning.
Speaker 1:But then, once you sort of get used to one specific drug and then you hang out with someone else who introduces you to something else and you say no for a little bit, and then you see that they seem to be having a what seems to be a better time and they're still, you know, kicking around, you're like, oh okay, maybe it's not as bad as all the warning signs and then you crack on to the next one and you find yourself in a pretty bad position doing some things that maybe you don't want to be doing. But, as you said earlier in the conversation, if I think about cocaine I can still feel that metallic taste in my mouth and that instant high and you feel bulletproof and you're like, and I love that.
Speaker 1:I could do with that in some moments in life, especially when I'm trying to close business deals and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:There's also the flip side of that, of how it unraveled in life, and the consequences of that as well.
Speaker 2:Yep, I was faced with those really quick.
Speaker 1:What was the moment when you realized you had a problem with it? It went from, I guess, recreational to fuck. I'm, like, addicted to this.
Speaker 2:I need this well, yeah, I mean it not to sound patronizing, but if you, if you know anything about them I mean they're opiates and things of that nature they don't. They don't really let you forget about them when you get off them, right. So once you get a little tolerance built up and your body acclimates to it, you're using them with some degree of frequency. You're not just going to put that remote down and walk away. You know it's a physical, biological, neuropathical reaction that you notice and they call it the kick. You know people say they're dope sick, all that stuff Like you can call it whatever you want.
Speaker 2:It hurts, you notice it and it really hijacks you. Man, I mean there ain't much you can do until you get well. There isn't many responsibilities or relationships or consequences that'll at least for me that I came up against, that were going to get in the way of me doing that stuff. And as that reliance and that chemical dependency grew and grew and grew to such a level that pain was so immense, so did the consequences and the delusional, irrational thinking and the choices I made to get it. And it's a very progressive, very compounding thing.
Speaker 1:What were some of the things that you did do to get it that maybe, looking back, you not regret, but weren't displaying who you wanted to be as an individual? I guess?
Speaker 2:I had a. I had a big problem with the law authority, right. So I got arrested quite a few times, never did any serious time down, but I was going in and out of jails. A lot was, and it was getting worse and worse every time. It went from oh, you got a handful of pot in your pocket and pipe to okay, now you're in the car with some scary shit, scary people, and now you're getting into altercations with police. You're getting into you know, big trouble where time's starting to look like a thing that's going to happen next. Right, this isn't just going to be, oh, you're a good young kid who just needs his parents anymore, it's. You know, you're a detriment to society. And yeah, that was bad. I mean, I definitely.
Speaker 2:You know, I just wouldn't call myself like a highbrow criminal, but I was. You know I wouldn't call myself like a highbrow criminal, but I was. You know I would rob and steal and didn't really care who it was from and, like I said, there was nothing I wasn't doing. Man, I wasn't really like a guy that laid myself out bare sexually or anything. That wasn't my thing.
Speaker 2:I just I really there was an element of the thrill and the danger and growing up in this in Atlanta, Georgia, it's kind of. Back then it was just kind of a. There was a cool part of the city that was exciting and dangerous, but then there was like suburbs where I lived, which was just like fucking boring, you know, and I needed to get out of there. I was just like I'd rather be downtown doing some shady shit and you know, running with people that I thought were interesting and just all deadbeats. I was just chasing some sort of escape, some sort of excitement that I wasn't getting, that I wasn't feeling and that I, you know, I didn't want to feel the things that I wasn't getting, that I wasn't feeling and that I didn't want to feel the things that I was feeling.
Speaker 1:Do you feel had you been exposed to or presented the opportunity of more exciting things, things that engaged you, you potentially wouldn't have gone down that path? I guess knocking around with the wrong people doing shady shit looking for the excitement.
Speaker 2:I mean you never know, right, like you don't know what you don't know, and that definitely wasn't a thing. What was really big for me, dude, was like it wasn't that I didn't have access to stuff that's what I'm saying. It's like it wasn't that that was my nature. That wasn't my nature. You know, my nature was fine. I had opportunity. I could really. If I said, hey, ma Dad, I want to go do this, I think it'll be good for me because I'm really excited and passionate about doing it, I probably would have had a chance to go do it or they would have helped me find a way. The problem was I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I wanted. I was young, I was, you know, just very emotional and very reactive, and you know it's hard for you to even. I mean, like I said, the majority of the kind of the decision was made when I was, you know, barely a teenager, and then, by the time I got to, like my late teens, I was already fully down the drain, you know. So there wasn't much choice I had after that. That just can't. That became my nature.
Speaker 2:And before I knew it, like you asked me earlier, what was it, the thing that I realized like that was the moment where I needed to get out of this was I realized really quickly, obviously all this shit's bad. I could rationalize and justify how cool or this is why I'm doing it it is, but once I started I couldn't stop. And once I started I kind of didn't want to stop, and that's when I could. You know, even though I didn't want to admit it when I was alone in my room asleep or trying to go to sleep in the middle of the night, sitting there staring at the ceiling, sick, the same thought always came up You're toast here, man, you've got no more control over this than anyone. So eventually I had to get brave and I had to make a shift, and I'm really grateful I got the opportunity to do that. A lot of people I know didn't.
Speaker 1:And when you say they didn't, was that because their life they didn't make it through or they didn't have the support systems?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. No, a lot of people's lives were cut short. I lost a lot of friends who died very young from overdoses. At least a dozen very close to me who I was sitting in class with and hung out on the weekends with, you know, are gone forever. Um, a lot of the guys I was running around with are still sitting down. You know they're, they're, they're somewhere. I don't even keep tabs on them anymore, but they, they went away for a long time and they aren't coming out for a while.
Speaker 1:And if they're out now, they've missed the best part of their life because of this stuff. So, yeah, I dodged a bullet for real. It's interesting how you were mentioning before obviously young dumb didn't really know who you were or what you wanted, and I can relate to when you were saying that. Yeah, made me start thinking about, like when I used to hang out at the skate park or play rugby or anything that I did, like there was this inferior complex where I just never felt good enough.
Speaker 1:And so anything that I did, regardless of the environment. I wanted to be the best and I guess the idea around what being the best was was getting the validation. So I was hanging around the skate park. That meant smoking bongs and trying to be a good skateboarder and chasing girls and getting the validation. So I was hanging around the skate park. That meant smoking bongs and trying to be a good skateboarder and chasing girls and getting into fights, and then if I was in the rugby scene, it was doing all the things that I needed to do to really elevate myself there and some of them, I guess, were beneficial to my life and a lot of them necessarily weren't. And I think, because I was chasing that and I wasn't even aware of that, it confused me more as an individual around who I was and what I actually valued and the value that I had to offer, because I was never taught to, I guess, care for myself and appreciate who I was and value who I was. So I was always seeking that from other people care for myself and appreciate who I was and value who I was. So I was always seeking that from other people and I guess the advice I wish I gave myself or was given when I was younger was just lean into the things that you love and you are good enough, and I think there's so many things that influence that. But that just sort of sprung to mind when you were saying that they're obviously young, dumb, and I think a lot of blokes who listen to this will be nodding their head as well, feeling like they've done a lot of things when they were younger or maybe are still doing things now because they don't have clarity around who they are and what they want to stand for and who they need to surround themselves with. To surround themselves with.
Speaker 1:You, said Jackson, you were given an opportunity to sort your, I guess, problem out and walk through the addiction. What was that like? And, I guess as well, what was the toll it was taking on your family as well? Were they supporting you? Had they sort of got to the point where they had to cut ties? What was all that looking like? Sort of got to the point where they had to cut ties, what was all that looking like, yeah, no, it went all the way to zero for me.
Speaker 2:So I guess what I took away from that was I felt very misunderstood. I was waiting around for the people, places and things around me to change so that I could step into them and things would be better. And you know, the truth was I just didn't understand myself. And, like you said, who does when you're that young, when we're all kids, like we're supposed to fuck up? We're not, we are, we're supposed to be dumb. Our brain hasn't finished developing, so that the expectation that, oh, I should be able to figure this out, and yada, yada, yada, that's bullshit. And then I looked back for a long time, dude, thinking, oh, if only I'd been taught, you know. Oh, it's my dad's fault, or it's my mom's fault, or it's this coach's fault, or this guy, this, this cop, whoever it's like. You know, nobody knows what they're doing, especially parents. And by like so to segue into what're asking, by the end of the time that I put them through putting myself through it first, but putting them through kind of as a ripple effect my parents were lost for cause. They didn't even know what was going on. I think they were probably ready to write me off as much as they would say no, they should have. And in the end they did, in a pseudo kind of way.
Speaker 2:I was living in California when I got sober, so I'd moved.
Speaker 2:I hadn't been there but maybe a year and a half or two years at most I don't even think so and things got so bad out there that you know, because you're a new fish in an even bigger pond and you got to fight even harder.
Speaker 2:It just became even more of a drudge that I wasn't even really enjoying this kind of aspirational goal of growing up and moving to California and making it big. I felt very defeated and I felt very alone and lost and I was living with my dad out there. He was kinder or manipulated enough to let me sleep in a room in his house and I remember him being really I could tell he was really at the end of his wits and he didn't know what to do and my mom, who was back here in atlanta, still had been put through so much shit at close range collateral damage for the last decade was kind of like you just call me when you want help, otherwise I don't know what to do for you. Man like I'm here for you, I love you, but I mean the well's dry. There's no more.
Speaker 2:I had taken so much from her and kept her up so many nights that I think she was just like she was running on fumes you know, and I remember calling her one morning and just saying the gig's up, I can't do it anymore, I don't want to do it, and I didn't even know what I wanted to do. But she called me back and she said I'll help you one time. And she called a friend of a friend who knew a guy who went to rehab in California, kind of thing. And she said these guys are going to call you and if you can get up there they'll take you. They take your insurance.
Speaker 1:She had checked and she said they'll take your insurance and I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:I had insurance, you know. And she said, if they answer and you want to go, you go. If you don't, you know it is what it is. And uh, they called me and I did a pre-assessment kind of thing. If anyone's ever been to rehab. They ask you a bunch of questions and, you know, kind of lure you in, and uh, because you know you got to reel us in, us drug addicts. We're like big fish and um, we run. But yeah, they said, if you can get up here, you're ready to go. We got a bed for you and I, so I packed my shit and hopped in the car and I was my dad lived in orange county, so I had to get to la and that's like a two and a half hour drive at. You know, in traffic you get there an hour if you didn't have traffic. But it took me eight hours to get up there because I had to fucking stop and this and that talk myself out of it. Over here stopped in long beach to change my mind, you know.
Speaker 2:Yada, yada that would have been an interesting conversation oh fuck, if anyone could have been a fly on the wall that day, man, I would love to see that person. But I remember I got there. I sat at the end of the driveway in my car and I finished the bag I had and I was just kind of Did you really? Yeah, oh yeah, dude, I just Almost I can't believe I got there. I cannot believe it, dude. And no one had to drag me. But so I finally stumbled up the driveway just completely off my ass and I sat down in there and I did everything they said. And here I am. That was 10 plus years ago today.
Speaker 1:What was it? Was there anything that stood out to you during your time in rehab that had a significant impact?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that program I don't know if they're around anymore. They were in California and that program was 12-step based, I guess. So they'd take you to meetings and they wanted you to be doing the steps and they wanted you to be involved and showing up. If they took you out, you know you got to go out, right. So I just wanted to get out, because you're in this rehab with 20 other people and you don't like 95 of them and uh, you know it's groups and therapy and this, and so when you get to go out, you're like, okay, and where are we going? They're just going a meeting, right, and you're or you're staying here. And so I just wanted to get out and I would go to these meetings with them and I was always open-minded to it.
Speaker 2:I'd never tried it before that. So I wasn't like, I was like, oh, I can't go to a meeting, I'm not going to do that. But I was just skeptical, you know. I was like, probably anybody else Isn't that like a God thing and a bunch of weirdos and a church thing. And they're like, just come, you want to get out of the house or not? And I was like, fine, let's go.
Speaker 2:And uh, yeah, I just started going and immediately heard some things that made sense and realized that I probably should have read that stuff a lot sooner, and then finally sat quietly with the reality that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and all I know is I I don't know what I want. I don't even know if I'm willing to do all this shit, but I know for a fact at this point that I don't want to be doing the same thing I was doing. I need something different. Um, because I can't go back to that. That's how I felt, and AA was the hand that reached out to help me when I was down, and that's the hand that picked me up.
Speaker 1:That's it. It's crazy and it's awesome that you were at a point where that hand was, I guess, put out for you at the right time, when you were ready to make change, because I think I know for people when they ask, like what's my rock bottom?
Speaker 1:And I talk about it, but then when I reflect on it, there were so many moments where I could have I guess would have been considered rock bottom before the main rock bottom. I just wasn't ready to change or accepting responsibility to change. I was always still blaming people or things outside of myself, but once I kept messing up I was like fuck, it's got to be me. I can't be the issue here.
Speaker 2:Eventually, you're the asshole with all the fingers pointing at you.
Speaker 1:Eventually, and it's so confronting. But at the same time I I personally use social media to start talking about a lot of the stuff, and every time I was going to talk about something that I struggled with or something that I did that I needed to talk about, I was so anxious. But then when I spoke about it, it was like this weight had been lifted and I felt free and I felt more comfortable in who I was. And I felt free and I felt more comfortable in who I was and I could acknowledge that I'd fucked up and yeah, all of that sort of stuff. And now that's put me in a position I'm in today where it's like, well, similar to you, like we all make mistakes.
Speaker 1:Some of us have better guidance and mentorship in our younger years and we avoid that and some of us don't and some of us find ourselves in situations which I guess pull us away, like drugs or, I guess, who we hang out with in our social circles, and it's hard to get back to where we want, because a lot of us want to fit in and if the people we're trying to fit in with are doing stuff that maybe isn't the best, we'll still eventually do that, because that whole cliche saying of some of the people you spend the most time around it's true. The influence of people really rubs off on you.
Speaker 2:It's huge man and especially with something like addiction, which I came to learn is such an existential kind of human thing, no matter how many times they try to throw a medication or a one-shot solution kind of thing at it, there's layers to addiction that in hindsight it was so clear to me I was like dude, I just had it all wrong. I was like dude, I just had it all wrong, and that's okay. Like the vulnerability and the honesty of that was so relieving and that's why when I said you know, aa was the hand that reached out, I couldn't make sense of the steps or any of that shit and I definitely was just as weirded out at that time by God the word God as anybody else. But I heard experiences abound in every meeting I went to that not only relieved pressure from me but also inspired hope in me in such a way that I really I just felt like, oh yeah, this is deeper than I thought it was and it's okay. You know, that was the first time I felt kind of, like you said, like a mentorship, community type based thing and it could have really been anything.
Speaker 2:It just happened to be that for me, right, but I've I've seen many people find solutions to very similar things that I was dealing with. You know, addiction like we just talked about through, through these types of outlets, the kind of lone wolf. I'm going to get this figured out and I'm going to suffer in silence and white knuckle it. You know those guys. I've been around long enough. I'm not trying to be, you know, the arbiter and the dictator of how someone gets sober, but it's very, very, very hard and I've seen a lot of people fail, trying to do it on their own I think it's.
Speaker 1:I was doing some research before and it's like nine percent, or approximately 22 million americans are in recovery from some form of substance abuse disorder which is nine percent, and it's almost the same population as australia, right?
Speaker 2:so if that's the amount of people who are in recovery, you can only imagine the people who aren't like the number that aren't in, and I see a lot of those, you know, I see a lot of those in my field and, yeah, I mean we're. We're talking about a deeply like I said, deeply existential crisis in america, not just with addiction, with a lot of things, but it it's so reflective of where America is as a culture, because these types of things can be caused by many. America's always had a very kind of liberal drug problem. There's always just been access to that kind of shit here. You know, maybe that's Mexico's fault, I don't know. Right, it's who cares. The point. Know, right, it's who cares. The point is it's gotten progressively worse, dramatically worse now, and I think it reflects a much bigger problem. Is that we're, you know we got something a lot bigger here to tackle than just okay, how do we get the right shot for these? Because we're talking about you're saying 22 million are in recovery.
Speaker 2:Yep, half that stuff's polled on a program that's called Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics. A lot of these people aren't polling because it's an anonymous program. How are you getting the information? So you can look at rehabs, you can look at treatment centers, you can look at success rates, like you know CounterPoint and places like that, and you know these types of things have very low success rates, not because they don't help people and not because they can't be effective, but because they're. You know they're migratory, they're transitory, they're small windows in people's lives and a lot of people don't continue, you know they fall off, they don't get the right information, they don't get connected to the right place and they go awry and they're right back in again in a couple months.
Speaker 2:And there's something really, really, really, really profound in the reality that we're looking at probably closer to 40 to 50 million people in this country right now, not just with addiction, with mental health problems, but lots of times they're co-occurring. So you'll have people with mental health problems that are drug addicts and vice versa. You know you're talking about probably upwards of, like I said, 30 or 50 million, 40, 50 million of those people who aren't getting help. They don't know how to get it, they don't know where to go, they don't know where to go, they can't.
Speaker 2:Uh, in the addiction treatment industry in america, I believe and I'm open to being corrected here, but I think the last piece of data I saw was around four million people got treatment last year. Four million, four million people got just went right because we can pull the intake data, we can see that right, um, we can see how many people went, but what they did with it after, who knows? Um, and then of of that 22 million, of that 50 million, like what, what are we looking at here? We're looking at a huge, huge percentage of the country that's, you said it's the population of Australia that's recovered. Yeah, throw in Europe, throw in a lot of South America and before you know it, we've got a real serious problem, man.
Speaker 2:So I was very grateful. I'm still very grateful. I was very grateful for the opportunity I got and I feel very grateful every day that I'm one of the few that are able to consider and feel recovered. I got and I feel very grateful every day that I'm one of the few that are able to consider and feel recovered and then to have my purpose in life, which I thought or wanted to be so many other things as a kid to now. My purpose and my goals in life align with serving other people and helping other people. It's a very, very profound and very fortunate place to land and wind up after everything I went through.
Speaker 1:So how did you get there? Because I remember one of the things that we were speaking about at your mom's place was how you became a sober coach and then you were sort of following high-profile individuals around for five plus years or whatever. It was, working one-on-one with, like celebrities and athletes and high net worth people, and I just find it found that fascinating because I didn't even know that was a thing I was like wow, so can you like how'd that come about? And then, I guess, to transition into what you do now yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think we went over it a little bit, but if we didn't just for people that are listening, I was along that whole time when I was struggling.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I was in high school and college for a lot of it. But right out of college I dropped out actually and, uh, I went into the film business my mom's in it, some of my other family members are in it now, my extended family as well and got going right away, had connections in it. That was kind of what I was going to do. It's what I wanted to do and was running around in the film business and by the time I got sober I'd really kind of burned a lot of bridges there and just you know, you make an ass of yourself and you lose some jobs and you fuck some shit up. And I just wanted to change everything about my life and I got out and, like I said, kind of went on to halfway house and was staying sober and was thinking about getting back into the film business. And then, not long after, I've been sober for over a year then, definitely, but not long into my recovery, considering how long it is now.
Speaker 2:I got some work back at the treatment center. I went through to, you know, just be an employee and be someone that helps people getting sober in there, and it was really cool experience. But when you're working in treatment you're working towards licenses right and accreditation. So I was in that treatment center with the goal of crewing enough hours of qualified work to be able to get a counseling cert right, something like that and it's a long process but it was fun and I enjoyed it and I learned a lot and I had a lot of really great mentors in my life at the time and I had a budding life, nice young life. I was making some money, I had my own apartment, going to meetings. It just felt great.
Speaker 2:California had finally worked out and some of those guys I knew who were mentors of mine did the stuff we're going to talk about and they, I guess, saw something in me that I didn't even know I had or thought I could have and they honestly kind of threw me to the wolves like probably way too soon you are supposed to have. I think most people will require you to have at least five years or so to do this kind of work, but I did not have that. I had some friends who had friends who were starting businesses and doing it and they kind of said, hey, try this kid out, he's cool and he can do it. And I got thrown onto a gig. I'll give him a shout out because I think he's a great guy. His name is Richie Blair. He owns A-List Recovery in Los Angeles. It's a fantastic company and everyone that works there is awesome. I love Richie to death. He's an old friend of mine and he gave me a shot and I started working for him and went on for many years and I worked also by myself and I worked with other people along the way too, but I loved working with Richie. I worked the majority of the time. I did this job with him and, yeah, really weirdly and quickly found myself in a niche where I was going out on cool gigs with celebrities and athletes and musicians and tours and movie sets you know, big businessmen with big, high paying jobs on private jets and all the cool stuff, man and with the goal of these people.
Speaker 2:In most instances, either for some reason or another, they can't go to treatment for 30 days or even longer. If they shut their life down, they might lose their job or they might get found out by the press, deal with publicity problems, so they try to bring services like those that are found in treatment into these people's lives and then you, they kind of you go with them, right, and I was like this is the weirdest shit I've ever heard of in my life. So probably definitely shouldn't be me. But you know, it's a very high paying job, it's a very high perk, not that we're getting gifts or anything, but you're just getting to be a fly on the wall of a very cool life, right, and I was single and young and it was fucking awesome, you know, and fortunately I developed skills and had learned a lot in my own experience that I was able to really have like a good effect with people.
Speaker 2:These people were getting clean, or at least staying clean while I was with them.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they're getting sober, because we'll talk about that in the end, but there's a big difference between the two.
Speaker 2:But things were going well and I felt a deep sense of purpose and, uh, just pride and being a part of helping people find the solution that works for them and not get in trouble or not get found out or not get you know, not lose the job, because a lot of times you're going out to people who are you know they're they're on the last leg of some very big consequences. If you can't get this right, this tour can't go. If you can't get this right, this tour can't go. If you don't get this right, we can't finance this movie. And you're the person who's got to be kind of the liaison between therapists and psychiatrists and case managers and also managers and agents, and you're really kind of a hostage negotiator on one side and also like a mentor on the other. And thank God we got paid a lot, because there were a lot of times where I was stressed out of my fucking mind but man did I have a fun time doing that job. A lot of good memories.
Speaker 1:It would have been such an incredible experience, as you said, to be a bit of a such an incredible experience like, as you said, to be a bit of a fly on the wall to some of those, those lifestyles and how they live. And I think one of the interesting things for me is to know that, regardless of how successful people are and how much money, they have, or whether they're doing the big movies.
Speaker 1:they're still human at the end of the day and they can be having their own battles and absolutely struggling with stuff, and they still need support and, unfortunately, because of their position of power, they maybe do need ways to keep it quiet, but they've still got the same goal and intent that we all do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of them don't. There were a lot of conversations I had to have where it's like, hey, man, the microscope's on you, you're not going to move this thing, you're going to have to wait till it moves on. And if you want to keep this, you know $3 million contract. And you know, not wind up on the back page of you know fucking the Daily Sun or whatever shit smear magazine there is that's going to tattoo you all over their cover. You know, just, let's just keep this cool right. And that's like I said.
Speaker 2:You got to really know how to approach people and you got to know how to just feel the whole room out, feel the look around, be observant and really identify where the trigger points are and the problems are and start to. It was a very problem-solving oriented job that it really just took me over, man, I really enjoyed it. And then you get this like I thought it was cool that I get to do that and make a lot of money, and then I'm gone nine months of the year and then you start to add a couple of years together and you know, like I said, you know you get to help people and texts start coming in from family members of people you've been a part of their recovery. And hey, it's Christmas and just wanted to thank you again for giving me my son back or helping my brother or helping my dad, and it just blows your mind. Just blows your mind.
Speaker 1:The ripple effect of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, like I said, existential human thing. You know the ripple effect of that. Yes, like I said, existential human thing you know for sure.
Speaker 1:How did you then get into co-founding counterpoint recovery and what like? What's the intention with that? It's it's a bit more location-based. You're not traveling around with people as much, yeah, yeah. So how did that opportunity present itself?
Speaker 2:counterpoint was a materialization of an experience like the one I just described. You know, helped somebody and they, their family and their friends, saw the effect I was able to have and not that it's a me thing, but it's a I. I got to be the messenger of a solution and, you know, piqued the interest of a large group of people, the family of someone who I helped and they approached me to help them, to help other people. You know, again, the ripple right and counterpoint happened mainly because I have two kids. Now that's how good my life is. I have two beautiful children, a son and a daughter. I'm married happily and that job I was just describing was not the job for a father of two young kids. If you wanted to stay married, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Try to be nine months a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I wanted to be around my children more and the opportunity got put in front of me at the right time and the right people were putting it there. Um, you know, the people who co-founded CounterPoint as well are people that I know well, who I like and respect and, um feel like, want to want to genuinely help people. So I just I mean, and CounterPoint is a is a labor of to want to genuinely help people. So I just I mean encounter point is a is a labor of love for a lot of people. It's not. It's not anything that's exclusive to my mind. Um, I had a part in it, I'm grateful and I'm proud of the part I have in it.
Speaker 2:But these types of organizations and facilities have a. You know, they have a tradition of kind of some ways being a bit sideways and some of them are sketchy. Some of them are just bad actors looking for a quick buck. You know, the treatment industry in america is a big business and, um, I felt like it was the right group of people.
Speaker 2:I felt like it was time to start to really try to raise the water level on some of these places, and the only way you do that is you either go through regulation and go through laws and, just you know, try to hit these treatment providers with more hurdles to jump to get better, or you just put your own dog in the fight and go. We're going to play our way and we're going to do our thing the way we know to do it, and hopefully it'll inspire people to change their lives in the facility and then, transversely, also inspire the people in your community or your city to raise the water level on a competitive level. Get better if you want to compete with better programs that are better run, with better people who care more.
Speaker 1:It's a good way to look at it, right, I'd never even thought about that. Obviously, a lot of people try to change regulations, but you've gone the other approach and just put your dog in the fight, as you said, and just doing things better, introducing your own standards and producing results that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know a lot of counterpoint. Like I said, it served a purpose for me. It was the right group of people, but I've learned so much being a part of it and I've learned things that I didn't learn all those years. Um, you know, business is hard. Small businesses are even harder. Um, I'm both good at things and bad at things, and you have to mess stuff up and fuck up to learn about not only yourself, but about how to do this stuff business right, and the only way you're going to get in there and figure it out is you got to just get in there and figure it out. So I looked at this and I still do as a massive learning experience for me, one that I've never had in my life, and also an opportunity to whether you whether you win, lose or draw with your approach or your goal. You know we want to do this. I'd love to raise the water level and I mean that, but sometimes shit just doesn't work out right and I don't know.
Speaker 1:I can't see into the future.
Speaker 2:But I know what I, what my intention was, and I know what I put on paper is good and it'll work, and I also know that, even if it doesn't, you'll learn what to do next. You know everything kind of just. I've gone to a very quiet, uh steady place of letting the world show me, indicate to me, the next right action, not trying to willfully, ragefully control and bend it to fit my will, and a lot of times I'm just following signs. Man, that's been a lot of my recovery. I'm just following the signs. I try to slow myself down to a degree where I can hear the trees moving around me. And, you know, listen to my son when he talks to me and look at what people are trying to tell me through, what they're doing and what's being presented to me, instead of just what I want and what I'm not getting and what's going on in between my two ears. It's just a scary place to be, man, you know.
Speaker 1:It's just a scary place to be man. I can relate to listening to what you feel is the right thing and then, obviously, letting the market or the world to present the next opportunities and lessons for you. Because, very similar to you, where I started the man that Can project back in 2017 was very heavily focused on mental health, because that was the biggest problem I was. You know, I had been working on since about 2014 like how do I improve my self-esteem, my confidence? You know various things around that, so I felt I could talk about that and I wanted to learn from a lot of people and over the years, it's evolved into what it is now and my intent was very different back then to as it is now, but I guess, from a big picture, it's like it's still just trying to create what I believe is a better life. So, talking about things, even talking about addiction with you, I never went to rehab or I never had you know, I would consider hectic addiction.
Speaker 1:I love drugs and I love smoking and stuff, but I wouldn't say-.
Speaker 1:You were like experimental, yeah, you were experimental Correct, but I still love learning about it and I still think it's something that I should talk about and learn about, because, you mentioned earlier, there's definitely even scales of addiction, right yeah, so everyone's different on that scale or pendulum. So having the conversations allows me to connect with and resonate with, or not even resonate, but understand people a little bit more, and by having you on here with your conversation and your experience opens that up to other people who are, you know, know whether they are struggling still or they're in recovery or they have never experienced.
Speaker 2:It just gives you insight to be more empathetic with people yeah, I mean, dude, listening to yourself and then also being able to be honest about what you're hearing and then vulnerable enough to ask for help or just say it out loud, is a thing that I think a lot of people could.
Speaker 2:If they don't already know it and they're not already trying it, they could probably benefit from doing it you know, and what you sounds like what you found was you found that, hey, there's things I don't like about myself and I'm tired of waiting for somebody else to fix it or hoping that this other thing is going to change it. I just want to do it myself, and that's a brave thing, man.
Speaker 1:Definitely. I'd love to ask you would there be anything anyone could have done to stop you going down the path you went down? And if that's a no, like that just was the course that it had to be, what advice would you have wished you or you wished you would have listened to earlier?
Speaker 2:I don't know, man, just I think I don't spend a lot of time in the past, right. I find that I'm plagued. I spend too much time in the future, right, and I and I, if I'm not in the present, which is where I'm at my best, I'm thinking too much about the future. That's what keeps me up at night. Yeah, past very, very, very, very infrequently, if at all ever, is anything that has to do with what I think about anymore, which is a really great place to be. But if I had to think back on what could have happened, I don't even necessarily know if it's worth it, as much as it's probably not the answer you want it's. It's not the. It's not worth it to even think about, because if it could have or would have, it should have, it would have right. Um, I think if anybody out there is arrogant enough to think that heroin won't get them addicted, it'll be, different for me.
Speaker 2:It's not going to do that to me. Uh, you're wrong. Um, I can say that with a resounding confidence. Uh, I think, like if I could offer anything in hindsight to somebody who might be there or is worried that someone they love might be there. Um, you know, I can say this, man, I the loneliest I've ever felt in my life was when I was struggling.
Speaker 2:At that time Addiction and also at that age I was the loneliest I'd ever felt. I was the most disconnected I've ever felt. Everything's superfluous, everything's surface level. When you're a teenager, everything's you know jockeying and vying for social hierarchy, and you know I'm better than he is and she wants me more than you know it's all bullshit. You know there's an immature place to be, and I think maybe if I had tried some sort of community thing back then more I was involved in sports, though it wasn't like I didn't have a community I think I just if there was something more oriented towards real, kind of just human conversations instead of let's go win this game, right, that might have helped maybe, but I don't think there was anything good. I think I was. This is just supposed to be part of my story and I'm still figuring out where it's going to take me um, but I live with peace with it.
Speaker 1:Now you know yeah, that's awesome man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would, uh would direct people to your socials, but you're not on socials, not second second best decision I ever made after stopping heroin um was to get off social media why, well it's, that's your ballpark man, that's a mental health thing.
Speaker 2:I I felt different. I felt like that stuff, um, you know, it just got in the way of real human connection, it got in the way of my attention, it got in the way of my ability to regulate my sense of direction in life. I think you know I'll go, as here's another little war story. I happen to have a client a few years ago who I was with in South America with some very powerful people not drug people, they were tech people, cryptocurrency and things like that specifically and very interesting people, very intelligent people, and we were down there for some business stuff that my client was doing, and I had a conversation with a guy who happened to work at a big consulting firm in America and consulting firms here in the States they're everywhere, by the way, but here in the States they are behind a lot of really nefarious things. This guy worked at a consulting firm that may or may not have had a huge contribution to the oxycontin epidemic, right, so that's me not naming anyone without naming, but I had a really great conversation with him over a cigar on at a rooftop pool in south america, this beautiful hotel, and, uh, we talked for hours, man, and he was telling me a lot about, you know, the nuances of the technology and the things that these companies are doing with social media platforms and the algorithms they're using, the people who are developing these algorithms and I had already been on social media for a period of time there, and that's actually what inspired the conversation. But this man told me very, very bluntly and clearly and he was very, very qualified that this is not the kind of thing that we should be giving children. It's not the type of thing we should, as adults, be spending a lot of time on, and I think we do.
Speaker 2:And I think, without judging everybody and trying to be some Debbie Downer party pooper, I chose to get off because I felt a way when I was on it that that man confirmed was right, and I've stayed off since. My gut was right, the facts aligned. I said I'm happy, I made the decision right. Um, now do I do? I do? I want to look at hot chicks on instagram? Sure, but I'm married and there's no point. Man, I'm happy, I don't need it for anything. My business doesn't do any worse. I mean it might do better if I had it. I wouldn't know, but I, I do just fine without it, so so same as I do with heroin. You know what I mean. Those two things don't? I don't miss life with them.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people would agree with you there, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was that? Go ahead, Sorry I cut you off.
Speaker 1:I was going to say just finally you mentioned earlier the difference between recovery and sober or being sober. There was like a difference, there was something we were going to touch on.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, being clean and being sober. Yeah, sorry, that's fine. Again, I don't like to be an arbiter or anything, but it was brought to my attention when I was young and I was starting to get you know my recovery journey that being clean and being sober are two different things. And take that as you will Tell me I'm full of shit if you want, but I found in my life that they are two very different things and sobriety is a state of mind, body and spirit to me and I work very hard every day to protect and maintain that stability that I call my sobriety. Being clean is a part of it. That doesn't just mean no heroin, it means what I put in my body, you know, on all fronts, nutrition-wise.
Speaker 2:You know I do like Zins still, but but, yeah, you know you got to have a measure right, but, uh, yeah, I just I take that with a grain of salt, I don't. I think that's not said enough, and I think if there was one thing that I could offer to your community and your listeners is if they haven't heard that a lot of people in this world, um, get sober and or get clean, or whatever they want to call it. They find recovery from their pain in many ways, and there's a lot of ways you can do it. Um, the ultimate goal is do you feel happy? Do you feel fulfilled? Are you of purpose and service to your family, your friends, your community, to the world? If all those things are happening, then all this shit is semantic, right, it doesn't matter how you get to that.
Speaker 2:But as a young guy who was really suffering and struggling and didn't know which way was up, it made a big difference for me to hear there's a difference between clean and sober. If you chase being clean, you're only chasing a percentage of what you could achieve. You're only going to ever achieve something that's only going to give you so much relief, so much solution. And I chased sobriety. I chased, like I said, a state of mind, body and spirit, like I said, a state of mind, body and spirit. And I found it all. Man, I found the gold. What is that place? The El Dorado, the gold city. I found it man.
Speaker 2:Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So I hope that anybody who hears this might decide to change and chase that thing too. I love it, man, definitely you could distinguish that too.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. Definitely good to distinguish that. Yeah, jackson, it's been awesome to catch up, man, I'm sure we'll definitely do it again, and I want to come back down to Atlanta Now we have to just start talking and just be cousins.
Speaker 2:now second cousin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, legit, it has to happen.
Speaker 2:Half our life. We just didn't work. Let's make it work. We've got the next 70 odd years yeah, man, and uh, just let me know how I can help you in your community. Man, we're all here for each other, right?
Speaker 1:I appreciate it and and likewise, once the uh, once this goes live, I'm sure there'll be some questions coming through that I'll be able to send, send through to you. I'll be your uh, your product of social media that can send the feedback down.
Speaker 2:My liaison. Yeah, you want me. You got to find Lockie man. He knows how to get to me.
Speaker 1:For anyone in America who's listening, who is experiencing addiction or anything like that, I'll put the links to Counterpoint Recovery in the show notes there so you can go check it out and see if it may be something that can add some value to your life yeah, and if anyone out there is suffering, there is a solution, there's one that will work for you.
Speaker 2:Go find it, you can. You can change it at any time, anywhere australia, america, whatever it takes us to fix this the government, the companies they're not going to do it for us guys, alright. So hit Locky up, hit whoever you know who's. Sober up, ask for help. People want to help.
