Zac Clark – The Unfiltered Truth About Addiction and Sobriety

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of substance use, addiction, and suicide. Please take care while listening. If you or someone you know is struggling, resources are available below.

Zac Clark’s story is not just one of survival — it’s one of transformation, honesty, and hope. From battling a brain tumor that led to addiction, to becoming a drug addict, and now the founder of Release Recovery, Zac shares his raw, powerful journey through addiction, rehab, and rediscovering his purpose. In this episode, Zac opens up about the moment that brought him to his knees, the bank teller who changed his life, and what sobriety truly means to him. We talk about the realities of addiction, the stigma around drug use, and the power of community in healing. It’s one of the most human conversations we’ve had on the show — and one that might just change the way you think about recovery.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please seek help. Contact a local support service or the SAMHSA hotline [phone]-HELP in the U.S.).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What is Up? Runner Gang. Welcome back to Post run High.
Today's guest is Zach Clark, whose story is all about
second chances, resilience, and turning pain into purpose. This podcast
is all about inspiring conversations that start with movement, because
we believe movement opens people up in ways nothing else does,
and today we ran a mile through the streets of
Brooklyn before sitting down to talk. You might know Zach

(00:24):
from the Bachelorette, but what we focus on today is
his struggle with addiction and the life he's built since.
Zach is the founder of Release Recovery and the Release
Recovery Foundation, where he's helping people find their way back
to themselves after addiction. His own recovery journey is nothing
short of extraordinary, and what makes it even more impactful
is how open and real he is about it all.

(00:44):
In this conversation, Zach and I talk about the moment
everything changed for him, how he rebuilt his life from
the ground up, and the actionable steps he recommends for
anyone struggling with addiction or for those who love someone
who is. We also get into the daily habits that
keep him centered, how he leads with compassion and why
he believes in giving people hope even when they can't
see it yet for themselves. We have great episodes coming up,

(01:07):
so please make sure you follow the show wherever you
get your podcast. All right, let's get our Post Run
High going, Zach Clark, Welcome to Post Run High.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
What's up, Kate.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I'm so excited to have you.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, this is nice. It's very comfortable in here.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know Creighton Barrels where we got our set. We
just went for a very rainy run in Brooklyn. I
think this is the first run we've done in the
rain and then sat down for a podcast after a voyage.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, I want to get something out of the way.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I have. I have.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
We had to take our shoes off and I have
a hole in my sock. So you know, I didn't
know that the socks would be on display.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, well you know what, but here we are. That
shows that you're getting good wear out of your socks. Also,
socks are the one thing going into the show my
whole life, like, I was never one of those people
that had like matching socks. I don't know what it was.
I think it was just like the way my mom
did launch growing up. She was like if they look
close enough, they're getting put together and they're going in
the bedroom like drawer. You know. So even as an adult,

(02:11):
like having matching socks was never a priority. But now
come on there you go.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
We've got a shock game is better than mine today,
but it's not a competition.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, Well, how was the run for you?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Run was great? I'm very impressed.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I was telling Grace's with me and works for Release
Recovery on the way over that. I just I'm rooting
so hard for you guys here because you really it's
built from scratch truly, and I root for people that
kind of go all into something and content creation is
not easy.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
So to be out there with you, I've been a
fan of you for a long time. It was cool.
It was cool to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Thank you. I love that. Also coming from you, that
means so much because you've built something from scratch as
well many things from scratch.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Really, I like building. It's fun.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
And you've got a podcast. As we were sitting down,
you started saying that you recently had your dad on
your show. I want to hear what he said and
then we can get into learning all that.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's hilarious because you know, I go on TV.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
You never I never knew how to like when I
was on The Master and coming off of that and
then going to some events and have a I never
knew how to deal with my family in that It's
it's a very tough thing because do they want to
be involved?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Do they not?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
But naturally I tell my story a lot. My family's
a part of my story. So this week in his
Father's Day, I'm having my I interviewed my dad. He's
going to be on the podcast, and I was down
at the shore this weekend. He goes, son, I need
to sit you down and talk to you. I figure
he's going to tell me that like him and my
mom are getting a divorce. Like I don't know what
he's like. He like made it so serious and he
sits me down and he said it's only going to

(03:38):
take fifteen minutes. He goes, I sent him the link.
He goes, I listened to the podcast, and first is
it's a little long artistically, I.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Think it's a little sweet.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Starts giving me all his like critiques of the guy
who's never listened to a podcast in his life, you know,
So he's like and then he just goes on this
loop about now do you think I'm gonna be helpful?
Do you think I'm gonna be like help other dads?
And I think it was really just his nerves coming up.
It was very cute, but he was so nervous to
have this conversation with me because to him it probably

(04:10):
feels like a really big deal that his story's going
to kind of be out there and people can listen
to it. And I don't know if I gave that
enough like TLC and really health space for that for
many of my guests, because for some of these people
it's their first time really having a mic put in
front of them, So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
It was a cute father son moment.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Cute is such an understatement because your dad's story with
you and in relation to you is so powerful for
so many parents that have kids that struggled with what
you struggled with. So I can't wait to listen to
that episode.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Thank you, Yeah for all the phones and cameras are
so much a part of our lives today. But I
will say having that conversation on tape filmed with my father, who,
like I said, is eighty three years old, and being
able to have that for forever and ever is going
to be special.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Did you guys tap into things that you haven't maybe
talked about before.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, yeah we did. I mean we look, my story
was a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
But then just I'm very fascinated by by by by
old people who have lived a long life and hearing
from them what their regrets are, right and trying to
learn from their experience. And he shared some of those
things and the moral of the stories money doesn't matter,
you know, And you know, we talked a lot about
this idea that there's like real friends and deal friends,

(05:32):
you know, and like the real friends are the people
that I want to be around, not these people that
are kind of pulling on strings for whatever reason. But
it was I hope there's some wisdom in there for.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
For the masses.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Maybe give us one tidbit that you guys kind of
uncovered through your conversation.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
I don't want to make assumptions that people, you know,
listening to this podcast know who I am, but like
a big part of my story is I am someone
that's in long term recovery from substance abuse. You know,
I was, I had a brain tumor, which turned in
to a pill addiction, which ultimately led me to a
heroin addiction. And not that I didn't know this, but
hearing my dad retell and replay my story and feeling

(06:10):
that pain that he was in when I was kind
of at my bottom, it was just a good reminder,
you know.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
It was just a good reminder for me.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
So I don't know if it was something that was
newly uncovered, but it just brought me back to that
time in my life where where I was such a mess,
and I just have a lot of gratitude for him
and then the rest of my family for hanging in
there with me.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
And also.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
It reminds me that the family members in the recovery
process are oftentimes left behind, and my dad was My
dad was alone, you know, he was alone.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
So sometimes growing up, it's hard to remember that your
parents are doing life for the first time too. It's
like sometimes we expect our parents to have all the answers.
But it really must have been very therapeutic to sit
down with your dad and understand that, you know, he's
human too, and even though it was a very new
experience for you and what you were going through was
the same thing for him in a different way and
in a different role.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
So wow, I mean, look, I I that perspective that
you just gave. I think everyone should probably could benefit.
I got my post run high toele here.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Keep that organized, ye, keep care of it. Taking care
of it Nowac.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Is folding his post run high towel very neatly on
his way, like.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I come back from the rainy run and they have
the towel.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
This is an operation here, No, but I think that's right,
you know, And in my work we explain to our
patients and our clients all the time who are trying
to sober, working on their mental health at hey, like
you know, your parents are doing the best they can too,
and it's not always.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Going to be great, right, They're human beings.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Right, So well, I'm excited to get into everything you
guys are doing with release recovery and the system that
you put your clients and patients through. So I would
love it, though, if we could start at the beginning
of your journey. Let's walk people back and tell them
a little bit about who Zach is. Where did you
grow up? What was your childhood?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Like, yeah, I mean the short I'm one of five kids.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Wow, yeah, where do you fall?

Speaker 3 (08:06):
I'm second youngest. I have a younger sister and then
three older siblings. And I love my family, like my
parents are my best friends to this day.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
I I feel.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Like family wasn't grained in me at a at a
young age. That you just respect family and you respect
what that means and and kind of like the generational
sacrifice that's been made for you to be able to
live this life. And so I would tell you that
I grew up in a to the outside world like
what was a pretty normal home. But behind the white

(08:39):
picket fence, there's always there's always crap, there's always garbage,
you know, Like my sister's been very open about an
eating disorder. You know, obviously my mental health and selfstance
pute struggles have been broadcast pretty widely. You know, mom
and dad don't always get along, you know, like you know,
so like it's it was a it was a what
I would clas like, what is actually a pretty normal upbringing.

(09:03):
And I was, you know, three sport athletes in high school,
played college baseball.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
And I would tell you that, So I'm forty one.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I grew up at a time when cell phones weren't
at the center of our center of our lives. And
so in high school, I loved playing sports and I
loved partying. You know, so as long as I had
those two things, I was I was good. I don't know,
you ever seen the movie Dasing Confused? Seen you gotta
watch Dason Confuse.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
It's it's do you relate to one of the characters?

Speaker 2 (09:33):
They just like the.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Way that they drink in that movie, where they're just
you know, in the woods and driving around like maniacs.
That was very much kind of my high school experience
to a certain degree. At least we thought we thought
we were reliving that. We probably weren't as cool as
the characters.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
In that movie, but you had a true out of
a movie or out of like a sitcom kind of
high school experience.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
We thought.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
So, you know, like we thought, so I probably wasn't
you know, it probably wasn't as.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Cool, But no, I think it could be. You know,
it's funny that you say that, because my fiance Jeremy.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Shout out, Jeremy that this dude is like grinding. He's
out there on the run and the rain like twenty
feet ahead of us, with like the gimbal right, I'm
learning all the names for these tools. But the magic
maker behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was literally going to say that he's the mastermind
behind everything that we've got going on. So everybody say
thank you to Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, there's no Kate Max Show without Kate Max.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, but there's no Kate Max Show also without Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
True.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Since the beginning, it.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Was, he's agreed. He's not in the background, not heads.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Like, thank god. She finally says that he always talks
about his high school experience, and I'm like, I was
not like this in high school. Like in high school,
I was kind of shy. I was also an athlete,
but I wasn't. I mean, I definitely went out and
lived in New Jersey and had a great group of friends.
Glen Rock, I'm from Bergen County, Okay, where did you
grow up in Jersey?

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Haddenfield so South Jersey. Yeah, live in Ramsey though.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah that's Burton County.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
We played against Ramsey and sports and runner. I was
a runner, but I was really a lacrosse player and
then I tore my ACL twice and then I couldn't
play lacrosse anymore. But I have two brothers that went
to school for lacrosse and won a national championship. Like,
we were lacrosse family.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
So like Maryland John Hopkins or they went to Yale. Yeah,
real underachievers in your family.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I know.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
And then there's me. My parents were like, what are
we going to do with her? She's running with a
tripod with people on the streets of New York. What's
going on? My brothers are like working in finance. But
I love knowing that you had a true high school
experience because it's always so cool. No, I didn't hate
high school at all. I just it's so funny when
I hear from like based on what you just said,

(11:46):
and also having Jeremy that always talks about his high
school experience, like it just reminds me of One Tree
Hill or those kind of iconic shows that we watched
growing up where.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
It was my best friends are the guys went to
high school with. Like still to this day, there's the
text chain of the fresh Cha merch commons.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Soon now it goes the text chain goes off all
day all day.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'm the same way. I mean, Jersey people are just
the best. Yeah, I'm biased, but it's the truth. We
were at the Jersey Shore recently for Memorial Day weekend,
and it was fun being able to introduce Jeremy to
some of the parents even that we grew up with.
And it's just a really great support system there.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I'm curious for you growing up, what did success look
like in your family? Like, how did your parents kind
of define it for you guys and all of your siblings.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, I mean I think I got lucky with that.
My parents were not Like I was never grounded. I
was never in trouble. I would, you know, I would
throw parties at the house and my parents would come
home the next day or later in the week and
the house.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Would be a mess, and they would talk to me
about it.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Rather than yell and scream and send me to my room,
they would sit me down and have the conversation. I
would feel really bad, so I wouldn't do it again.
But I was never, you know, grounded or sent to
my room or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
So so for me, I.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Feel like my parents did a really good job of
instilling in me what like kindness and compassion and like
really rooting for someone looks like like I root for
people really hard because I want other people to succeed, right,
And I feel like I got that from my parents.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Because of the way they rooted for me.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
So success was doing the best that you possibly can
in all situations. And I didn't always do that.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
I mean I was.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
A C plus at best student, you know, and a
lot of my energy was poured into you know what
took place on the athletics field, and they and they
and they loved me kind of like no matter what.
And they've done that, I think with all their children.
So it definitely was not you know, go to school,
get the job in finance and make a million dollars.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
That was not what success looked like in my in
my home, and I'm I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
On the flip side, when I told them I was
moving to New York City, they wanted to come and
you know, put me in handcuffs and not let me come,
you know, because like they're just small town that's what
they want, and that's what they wanted for me. I
will say, my father and I did have someone like
so there was an epic story where in the middle
of a like a state playoff game, my father was
on the sidelines yelling at me to throw, just throw strikes.

(14:25):
And I stepped off the rubber and I held up
the ball and I was like, you want to come
out here and try to throw strikes, tough guy, you know,
like in the middle of the game.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
And we got into this. So maybe it wasn't all
how I remember it.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
You but you ended up playing baseball in college, so
you got to have a little bit of the competitive
parents to push you into that. When you think back
on high school and knowing that you had this super
normal child, like good family, played sports the whole nine,
when did alcohol and drugs become not comparable to how
your peers were using them?

Speaker 3 (14:57):
I think so for me, I started drinking at a
young age, probably like eighth grade was the first time
I had a drink and kind of carry that out
throughout high school and and through high school it was
very much. So I laughed today at the kids because
when I was in high school, we used to drink
a can of Budweiser and actually roll joints and smoke them.

(15:19):
Now they have these white claw or like hard cell,
Like there's a million different options. I'm like, drink a
Budweiser and smoke a cigarette, you know, like that's you
know now they're like they huff on these jewels and
so like it was a different landscape, right, Like it
was a different landscape for what I think drinking and
drugging looked like back then. And so throughout high school

(15:41):
it was kind of getting in when you could, right,
as long as it wasn't interfering with with with sports,
it was it was fair game. And so high school, yeah,
like drinking, smoking pot, and then really when I went
to college was when I started to experiment with you know,
you get your hands on like an adderall and you realize, okay,
like I can stay up all night, and like, what's

(16:01):
the next level of that? Oh, now I know the
guy that's like selling cocaine from in town, and you
just it always found me, right, And I was someone
who was always willing to take the risk. I was
always willing to try new things. And that was just
kind of my personality. And so if someone puts something
in front of me, like I was not saying no,
and that's just the way that I would roll. And
I had other friends that were like that. They also

(16:24):
knew how to stop, Like on Sunday night, they could
put it down and go to class all week and
kind of perform their life. For me, I was Tuesday,
you know, at six o'clock, I got some free time,
like let's get blackout, you know. So it started to
kind of take shape in college and really become a
part of my identity. And baseball. Playing baseball saved my

(16:45):
life because it was some structure. If I didn't have
that structure, I would have burnt it to the ground
in college. And so baseball and then I met, you know,
a girl that I dated and al married at a
young age. And she's not my wife now, but I'm
very grateful for her.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
And so those two.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Things, like having this relationship and having baseball kind of
kept it together for me in college.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
And then the.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Real like penultimate moment or the moment that brought me
to my knees is after college I got diagnosed with
brain tumor. So it was like the summer or two
after college, I was packing my car to go to
the Jersey Shore. We were gonna have this awesome weekend
with all my college friends and high school friends. We
had rented these houses, and I was feeling like garbage,

(17:34):
Like I just was not feeling good. And I remember
my family assuming that it was just hangovers, because at
this point I was young, I was drinking, I was
going out every night, and I looked at them, I said,
this is not a hangover, and no one believe me.
So I took it upon myself to go to this
kind of side of the room, like you know in Jersey.
It's kind of like one of these like shopping malls

(17:56):
that says like X rays or like you know, like whatever.
It was like imaging place, and they did a scan
and within you know, an hour of that scan, there's
an ambulance picking me up, taking me to the hospital.
And the next day I'm in surgery at University of
Penn Hospital getting this thing cut.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Out of the back of my head.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
And I just remember thinking to myself, like I'm in
trouble because everyone in my life is telling me how
I'm a hero and how this is such great news
and you're going to come back some strong, you know,
like that tiger mom energy, like go Zach.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
You know, like so proud of me.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
And I just remember thinking, I'm going to use this
so that I can drink more and drug more and
do the things that I want to do, because no
one can say shit about it now.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
When you say that you're going to use it to
drug more and drink more. Did that start with painkillers?

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Well, it was just it was a mentality at the time,
which was no one, Hey, I just went through this thing.
I just had this surgery. You're not going to question
the way that I'm drinking. You're not going to question
the way that I'm living my life. I'm a miracle, right,
So it was almost this caper, this badge of honor
that I wore. But to your question, like, okay, so,

(19:15):
like where are the painkillers come in? This is pre
opioid epidemic. This is pre painkillers as we know them today.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Our society has done a decent job of bringing this
issue to the forefront, and overdose numbers are going down
and you know, we're starting to see some progress. But
at the time, they would send you home with a
script of pills and I didn't know what they were.
So I started eating them like skittles, and next thing
you know, I ran out and I started to feel
like garbage. Right, you start detoxing and I said, oh,

(19:46):
I need more of those drugs, and that's when you start,
you know, eventually going to the street, you find a
drug dealer, you start paying money for them, and then
it becomes this cycle of Okay, you get your script
for the month, but once you blow through them, you
got to go out and live the last five to
ten days because you're gonna get sick otherwise. And that's
how the addiction really started for me. And then it's

(20:09):
just a progression, right, and you.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Start chasing the high. I think what's really interesting though,
is using the traumatic experience of having a brain tumor
having to undergo surgery, and a lot of people undergo
brain tumor surgeries and don't come back the same way
you came back okay, and you know, and then using
that experience almost as a mask to be able to

(20:32):
go out and party more and kind of use it
as an excuse. I'm curious, like, if you think back
to then, did you know in your mind and in
your heart that you were using it as an excuse
to kind of party and be like, I'm a miracle,
so I can you gotta let me do my thing.
I want to have fun and yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
So there's a thing that exists in everyone who So
I'm proudly an alcoholic and a drug addict. And I
say those things because I think someone else out there
that's listening to this may be questioning that side of themselves.
Is just not that dramatic. It's just a fact of
my existence and something I'm very proud of. And so
I think, you know, for me, the great obsession, like

(21:11):
the obsession, is that I can drink and drug like
a normal person. Right, So for someone like you or
remain in college or whoever, it is like I watch
people go out and have two glasses of wine and
go home and go to bed. That is not possible
for me. As much as I tried, that's never going
to happen. So when this is going on, I am

(21:32):
convinced that at some point in my life I'm gonna
be able to just stop circumstances, the job, the wife,
the family, thing, the opportunity.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
When I really need to put it down, I will.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
And what I learned about myself is that that's just
not possible. There's no life circumstance or thing that is
going to prevent me from getting high.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's just a fact.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's a sickness.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, well it's my superpower now, but it is sickness.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, it is your superpower now and it's we talked
about this on the run, but it's so beautiful how
vulnerable you are and how open you've been with your story,
because there are so many people that go through what
you went through and are still going through it, and
maybe some of them are listening to this episode now,
but there's so many people that have experienced with what
you experienced but almost kind of hide themselves because of it.

(22:23):
And I think it's awesome that you're able to live
your life loudly and be proud of it and also
build this company around helping other people because of what
you went through.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it's really it's
really about giving people permission to be honest and be
curious about the life that they want to live.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
No one, why do we lie?

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Right?

Speaker 3 (22:45):
We lie because we're scared someone that's going to judge me.
I'm not going to get the outcome that I want.
It's not going to go my way. I'm not enough, right, Like,
That's why I would lie, And so being able to
be on the other side of that kind of fearlessly
tell the truth whether or not the outcome is going
to be to my liking, is a really freeing experience

(23:08):
and one that I don't think a lot of humans
truly get to get to have because.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Everyone's trying to be something.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
And I think a lot of people don't realize that
they deserve to feel free right of even if the
worst crap you could have possibly done. And I want
to get to some of the things that you've come
forward about, even just like in your family life. I
know one of them was your dad's class ring, but
let's get to it.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
You did your resource, Kay, let's go.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
But that's a big story to come forward to that.
I probably would have kept that in my back pocket
for a while, but let's let's talk about that in
a second. So you go from prescription drugs, alcohol drugs
that are now recreational like marijuana, to heroin. When did
you dabble with heroin for the first time and was
it a conscious decision for you?

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (23:58):
So I have a lot of thoughts on what you
just said, so I'll just answer the question. I end
up my timeline is two thousand and I get married
by twenty ten, So June to two thousand and I
get married by by October of twenty ten. I'm in
rehab for the first time for alcohol and prescription drugs.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I leave rehab.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Within two ish weeks of leaving rehab, my wife catches
me for with drugs, and so what happened in rehab?
And I don't want to scare people, but I read
a book which was a memoir of someone that was
a heroin addict. And when I was reading the book,

(24:47):
I said, this sounds amazing, like I had this internal
thought right as I'm sitting there trying to get sober.
And so I left rehab very curious, which is probably
not how you should be leaving rehab and went right
back to the environment that I was living in. And
so I was two weeks sober. I woke up in
the house me and my wife were living in. It

(25:09):
was like a Tuesday morning. I had this thought that
I'm going to go drink. I went to the local
liquor store. I drank one of those tall flask of
vodka and that kind of gave me the moxie or
the bravado to drive into Camden, New Jersey, which which
I knew there was an open air kind of drug
market there and bought heroin for the first time. Didn't

(25:35):
think twice about it drove back to the house for
me and my wife were living. I put it kind
of in my glove box, the drugs, and when she
went to bed that night, I went and got it.
And before I even did it, she caught me because
she heard me kind of in the car and came
back down. And so what happened that night is there

(25:57):
was obviously tears and it was very sad and you're done,
You're You're gone, like I can't. And this is where
this is where I think people who are struggling with
someone in your life, who's who's who has a substance
abuse or mental health issue.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
She was.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
She did it in a way she said, I'm gonna
ask you to leave because I need to take care
of myself.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
This Like I still love you, I.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Still know that you're a good person, but this whole
thing that's going on here I can't continue to be
a part of. And that was it for that relationship,
Like she held that boundary, and in a lot of ways,
I believe that she saved my life.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
And so I went.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
For the next eight months, I was I was off
on a run. I mean, it was an epic kind
of using everything I possibly could this is when I
start pawning jewelry and stealing and just becoming a monster
of a human being.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
And the entire time.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
I'm I'm you know, using heroin and smoking crack and
it's my my drug habits probably ndred bucks a day,
you know, like trying to manage all the things while
continuing to work a desk job. You know, it was
like this double life. That's incredibly fascinating to me.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
It is incredibly fascinating to think about that. Yeah, you
were able to be an active drug user on heroin
and show up for your nine to five every day.
But in a way you did, and can correct me
if I'm wrong. You did have the finances to fund
this lifestyle, although five hundred dollars a day is steep
for anybody.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, I mean till till I didn't, you know, till
I didn't. And that's when I I mean, like when
you when I got out of college and you're making
fifty sixty seventy thousand dollars a year, you feel like
you're on top of the world. I mean, that's a
shitload of cash for someone coming out of like eating
ramen noodles and you know, drinking natural light, you know.
So I felt like I was on top of the world,
and I started to save some money.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
But and then you learn to kind of beg borrow
and steel. So there was nothing that was going to
stop me from, you know, from getting high.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
And I think the one thing that I that I
do want to comment on, Kate, is is heroin in
our in our world is a very dirty word. But
the truth about heroin is that it is really just
the street form of painkillers, you know. And so like

(28:20):
when I when I was in the hospital and they
were they were pumping to laud it into my veins,
Like that's a very similar exercise as like when someone's
shooting up. Right, Like, there's people being shot up in
hospitals all over the world right now because they are
in so much pain and they need that medication, right
and so intravenous drug use and and it's it's a

(28:40):
very scary thing because you're doing it yourself.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I don't I guess I don't need to be like,
you know, showing you guys.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
But and so like part of what I do is
I try to normalize some of these words because I
don't I don't want a mother or a wife out
there finding out that their loved one is doing heroin
and and and and and judging them anymore than they
need to be judged, right, Like, It's just it's just
where it got to for.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Me, right, And that is so interesting to learn. I
didn't know that. Yeah, that it's comparable.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
To painkillers OUs, Like, it's all the same, they're all
the same class, right. So you're hearing a lot about
fentanyl right now in the world. So fentanyl is basically
a painkiller that is fifty times stronger than your classic
kind of you know, morphine or hydro Like I could
go into all the stuff, which I don't need to,
but it's just it's a really, really really strong painkiller.

(29:27):
And when people use that intraveniously or they don't have
the tolerance, that's why you overdose. I mean, if you
think about that word, you're taking too much.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
The thing that I find so interesting about the story too,
is this eight months for you really spiraled after going
through something so traumatic in your personal life with your wife,
and it was almost an emotional reaction. Right when you're
spending five hundred dollars a day on heroin, How much
of that drug are you getting how long? Just five

(29:59):
hundred dollars of heroin?

Speaker 3 (30:00):
And last, yeah, it's a great question no one's ever had.
You're good at this, so I can break it down.
So a shot of dope, A shot of dope is
ten dollars, right, Like that was like like a bag.
So a bundle is really like it would be like
one hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I think, I mean this is so long. I think
my math is right here.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
So if I would go out and get a bundle
of heroin, it would be kind of like ten bags
wrapped in a rubber band, and that would be one
hundred dollars. The bulk of that five hundred dollars was
being smoked in a crack pipe. So crack is is cocaine, right,
It's cocaine that you cook and then you put into it.

(30:41):
And so it's a very quick, very intense high. And
when you say someone's a crackhead, what they're saying is
there someone that just is like chasing that high over
and over and over again. And so for me, yes,
was I spending probably a couple hundred dollars a day
on heroin?

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (31:03):
But really what took me to my knees was the
crack cocaine addiction, because that shit is once you start,
you absolutely do not stop. And if you just you know,
picture your brain, it's just a it's a day full
of Okay, I'm up here and then I'm crashing. It's
like the highest high from hitting the crack pipe and

(31:23):
then you immediately crash, right, And so then what do
you need to do? You need to get that high,
and you're on this journey all day long, and that
life is a is a scary one.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I mean, that's a scary life. I mean I was
completely entrenched in it.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
So what would your advice be to people just recreational
doing it where maybe it is just a Friday and
a Saturday, good for you?

Speaker 2 (31:59):
I mean, if you can really go out and just
do coke on a Friday and Saturday night.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Because I would say it's a slippery slow yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
I mean, look, here's the reality of it is. I
don't judge anyone's drug use.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
I really don't.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Like there are people in my life that that do
drugs like and I don't. That's it's not my place
in this world to judge the way that someone else
is going to choose to live their life. My duty
is to be here when someone's ready to get help
or to be curious about what it looks like to
slow down or change. And I've seen I've seen it

(32:31):
happen in a lot of different ways. My advice today
is very, very very clear, and this is for.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Anyone.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
I mean, I would say, like age is fourteen, fifteen
and up, because the our youth is experimenting at a
much younger age. Test your drugs, Like, there are ways
to test your drugs. You can get strips to test
for fetanol. They're getting better and better with it. And

(33:01):
if you're gonna go out and do drugs, like don't
do them alone, and do them safely, and know where
you're getting your drugs from. Like, there are some basic
things that we can do to stay alive. Because what's
happening is, and I'm sure you've read the horror stories,
is you know, these delivery services in New York City
are sending out batches. These batches are laced with fentanyl,

(33:23):
and all of a sudden, you know, NYPD's getting ten
calls in the course of an hour, people overdosing. And
you know they didn't have to die. Those people didn't
have to die. I mean, like Carrie narcam, which is
an overdose reversal drug. And so it's one thing to
say like, Okay, are you are you overshooting the mark?

(33:43):
Are you doing too much cocaine? You want to talk
to me about it? You want to reach out to me, Like,
I'm here to talk to anyone about that, And I'm
not going to hit you over the head with the hey,
you need to stop, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask questions.
But then on the flip side of that, I would
say there is a sophistication and like a way to
go about using drugs that doesn't have to end in overdose.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
I love that you say that. The way you just
said it is, you know, not hitting somebody over the
head by being like you need to stop. So, for
people out there that have loved ones or friends that
they think are experimenting too heavily with drugs, what is
your advice to them? What are the questions that you
should ask?

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, one is don't tell them to stop and don't
judge them. The last thing a drug addict or alcoholic
once a year is like you need to stop drinking,
Like well, internally, no shit, but like, it's not that easy, right.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
You know how many times people told me.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
To slow down or stop drinking or stop doing like
I know all I need to know, right, And so
what I say to people is if you are in
their shoes for me. When I was struggling, all I
wanted someone to say to me is like, hey, you know,
I really love you, Zach, Like I really care about you,

(34:57):
and I'm noticing some behaviors and something things that are
a little bit concerning, and I just want you to
know that if you ever want to talk about it, like,
I'm here for you and as someone who cares about you,
it didn't feel right to not say something. So many
of us walk through this life and we're scared to
even have that initial conversation. If this is someone you
love and you care about and you can't sit them

(35:20):
down and have an open dialogue around what's going on,
then then is.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
That really love? Is that really what we're doing here?
And so you know people think that hitting people over the.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Head and saying you need to stop or you're in
a like like that, that point of the finger never works.
It's like it's got to be hey, I'm here, I'm here,
for you, and then if it progresses to a level
where it's dangerous, obviously you know, getting a professional involved,
calling someone a therapist, a doctor, getting evaluations, getting some

(35:57):
counsel on how to approach it, because there are situations,
especially now with our youth, where it's almost impossible to
walk through without a professional.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, and there's stats that do show that, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
It's getting worse.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
I mean, the weed thing is it's probably a conversation
for another day.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
But it's so bad.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
The weed is just so strong, and young people are
literally losing their minds. Like I don't give a shit
if you're forty and you want to go to smoke
a joint rather than drink, or if you're thirty and
your brain is fully developed and smoke away, have a
pot farm in your backyard, I don't give a shit.
But to give a fifteen year old the weed that
is being produced and manufactured in our world today and

(36:43):
saying hey, this is a safer alternative to drinking or
anything else, is fucking It's crazy because that person is
going to smoke that and they're good, their mental health
is going to potentially go to a place where they
can never recover from that.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I mean the number one thing we're seeing at release
is marijuana and do psychosis, which is basically someone who's
smoking so much weed that they're going into crisis mental
health situations and ending up in hospitals.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I actually just heard a story over the weekend. My
mom was sharing with me with a family friend that
just went through that experience with their son where.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Great k growing up. I don't understand it. The college athlete,
you know, I've heard the story of million tizing.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Ivy League school exactly. I liked one of the things
that you said, when it comes to a certain point,
you need to get professional help. But I think getting
professional help, at least from from the experience that I've
had with like loved ones in my life, I think
there's a lot of embarrassment and shame that comes with
knowing that you need help. Right, So from your experience,

(37:53):
when did it get to the point where you decided, oh,
I'm going to go back to rehab and I'm going
to take this seriously, Like, was there a turning point
story for me?

Speaker 3 (38:00):
It was a great story of when I went to rehab,
which I've told it a lot, but I think it's
you know, worth you hearing. So my last couple of
days using was it was a survival game, right. It
was a survival game at that at that point. So
basically what it looked like was waking up and figuring
out how I was going to get enough money to
go get high again. And so what had happened is

(38:22):
I had been arrested for a duy and I had
been taken to jail obviously, and they said, you know,
you can make a phone call. I said no, thank you,
and I ended up kind of wandering back into the
neighborhood where I was buying drugs to see if I

(38:43):
could cop, which is to go out and get the
drugs that I needed to not feel sick. And so
the decision I made was to break into my dad's
office and steal a check and write it out to
myself for the check and go down to the panc
bank in that neighborhood. And I had drug dealers with
me at this moment. My parents had kind of filed

(39:05):
a missing person's report, like no one really knew what was.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Going on with me.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
I think they were just kind of like waiting for
the moment they were going to get the call that I.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Was for how long did they know?

Speaker 3 (39:13):
I mean it was it was probably three or four days.
I mean, but like still, that's an eternity for your family.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
And they knew you were using oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
I mean yeah, I mean at this point, like by
you know, the longer version of the story is like
my dad's living in Jersey, my mom's living in Florida.
Like the whole family is completely separated over this thing.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
No one knows what to do. Like, you know, it
was a mess.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
And I walked into this bank and I handed the
bank teller the check. And this bank teller, her name
is Randa Jackson. She is my angel.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
I just got chills, said Ronda Jackson, not getting like
on my legs and stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, she's the best.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
She took one look at me and at the time,
just to paint the picture, I am two hundred and
fifty pounds. I'm like not showered, I probably don't smell great.
And and she just knew, like she knew something was wrong.
And instead of calling the cops or telling the manager,
she called my dad. You know, she did the kind thing,

(40:12):
she did the nice thing, and my dad happened to
be It was a Saturday morning. I believe it was
either Saturday Saturday morning. He was in his office. He
answered the phone from an unknown number, like he was
just doing anything to try and get away, and he
got down to that bank within like fifteen minutes of

(40:32):
talking to Ronda.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
She said, I'm gonna try and.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Hold your I'm gonna try and hold your son here
as long as I possibly can. And he walked into
the bank. White is a ghost. I'll never forget it.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Like white. White is this rug? Maybe this is cream white?
He was, white is a ghost. That was good.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
And he put his arm on my arm and he said, son,
we're going home, and I'll never forget like he like
with the second he grabbed my arm, I had a
spiritual experience, like something something left my soul and I
knew you.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
That my life was about to change.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
I was going to catch my break and the next day,
so that was probably August twenty eight, twenty nine, like
it kind of gets a little blurry of twenty eleven,
and by August thirtieth of twenty eleven, I'm going out
to rehab in Pennsylvania for the second time, which was
ultimate and hopefully the last time.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Stay sober. One day at a time.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
But I stayed there for four and a half months
from August until like early twenty twelve January, and my
counselor was like, where are you going to go? I
had no idea, and I ended up moving to New
York City. I knew zero people like I knew no
one here and started building a life like started building

(41:45):
a life here that today I'm just really proud I
never left.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
I'm still here, so I can't get rid of me.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Now. Well, you have so much to be proud of,
and we have to say, thirteen plus years sober, right, Yeah, congratulations.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
August will be fourteen, twenty eleven, twenty twenty five, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Fourteen, almost fourteen years. I mean, it's I want to
read this stat that I wrote down. According to long
term studies, twenty to thirty percent of people addicted to
heroin achieve long term abstinence after treatment. Seventy to eighty
percent of people relapse within the first year after the
detox if they don't receive treatment or support. The stats

(42:23):
are brutal when it comes to being an addict. But
you are somebody that has beaten the odds, and you know,
I want to know what did your early treatment plan
look like. And what does your treatment plan look like today?

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, it's a great question. Thank you for those stats.
And I just will say, like, I'm so grateful to
be sober, and I really feel like it's important for
me to say the way that I define my sobriety

(43:03):
because it really is defined on an individual basis is
I don't drink and I don't do drugs, and for me,
like I don't really even like cooking food or eating
food cooked with wine because I'm not willing to kind of,
you know, toe that line, oh it's cooked off, Well
what if it's not? And it activates that part of
my brain that you know, tells me to go drink.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Here's the reality, and it's.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
It's very It's very true with running, it's very true
with recovery. It's very true with life. When people die
by suicide or die by overdose, they die alone. They
are not dying with people around them. Alternatively, when people

(43:47):
heal right from a mental health disorder, from a substance
use disorder, from a heroin addiction, most likely you're going
to see them surrounded by a community. You're going to
see them surrounded by a group of people who are
who are taking similar steps as they are. And so
for me, my treatment plan when I got out of

(44:07):
rehab was to, you know, go to twelve step meetings,
get a sponsor, go to therapy and find community, find people,
make friends.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
I get twenty seven years old, go make friends, which
was terrifying, you know, terrifying.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
And that's what I did, you know, I didn't fight
what they told me to do, and that was really
refreshing because I tried to figure it out and do
it my own way for many, many years and it
didn't work. And so I had the humility to say,
I'm going to try it someone else's way. And so

(44:48):
thirteen plus years later, what is my It's the same.
It's the same, you know, I it's not a struggle.
People say, oh, it's probably still so hard. Like I
can be around drug, I can be around alcohol.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
I can go out to the bar, I can you know,
I can do all those things.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
And I can choose when I leave, and I can
choose if I want to stay, because I've taken that
power back in my life. But my treatment plan, like
the things I do today are very similar to the
things I did in my first you know year, which is.
You know, I try to take a holistic approach, which
is like physical fitness is very important to me for

(45:27):
my mental health. That run we just went on, Like,
I feel calm right now, I feel in touch with you.
I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be
because my mind got that little boost from the run
that we just went on.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
And I know that.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
So for my mental health, I try to say physically fit.
I try to surround myself with people that I like
and care about and continue to make friends and connect,
you know. And I and I still take my recovery
very seriously, which means which for me means like I
still do the things that they asked me to do

(46:00):
in those first ninety days because I know that if
I put anything in front of my recovery, I will
become more likely to go get high again. So that's
like the job, the opportunity, the money, the girl, the
house like whatever it is, the car, Like, I start
to put that shit in front of my recovery, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
To lose it all.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I love. One of the things that you said with community.
You know, finding community is so important in those early days.
And not only have you found community, but you've built
a community right with release recovery.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
YEP.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
One of the quotes that you've said before is sobriety
isn't about giving up, It's about what you take back.
I want to dive into that through the context also
of what you guys do at release recovery.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
It's not a punishment. I love that quote because it's true.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Oh, society for the longest time has taught us and
told us that getting sober means you're gonna go You're
gonna be shoved into a church basement, You're gonna have
to go to shitty AA meetings with people that are
twice your age, and there's no hope. And I've had
the exact opposite experience, literally, the exact opposite experience. I've
gotten to do things in my sobriety that I never

(47:20):
would have gotten to do had I still been drinking
and drugging. I mean, like the Phillies, so I'm a
diehard Philly sportsman. The Phillies won the World Series in
two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
I was there. I was at the game. I couldn't
tell you a thing that happened. Right.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Eagles wanted the Super Bowl in twenty eighteen Eagles want
the Super Bowl this year. I was at both those games.
I was present, I was with my father. We were
like crying tears of you know, like I remember these
like it's living this existence that is.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
I never thought was possible. And so.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
You know, when when someone is getting sober, I think
the fear is that how am I going to socialize?
How am I gonna date? How am I going to
be around other people? How am I going to make friends?
Those are all lies that we tell ourselves because we
don't actually want to do the hard work. And what
I have found is that by putting in a little

(48:12):
effort and surrendering a little bit, it truly is not
about what I'm giving up, the drugs and the alcohol.
It's about me, like what I'm getting right, It's taking
my power back and jurisdiction over my life that I didn't.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Know was available to me.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
A big part of your recovery journey seemed to be
going on the Bachelorette, right, and you made it to
the end of the show, you got engaged. Was it
hard for you to feel like you could find love
again and be loved?

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Interesting question.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
And Timeline was timeline wise as soon was that.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah, So I it was well, I mean like I
was thirty six, forty one, I'm forty one now. I
was thirty six when I went on the show, So
I was eight years sober when I was there, And
you know, you alluded to this on the run like
was it real and and for me, It's.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Like, yes, it was real life. You know, for me,
it was very real.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I approached that just like I would approach anything else
in my life, which is like I am going here,
I am going to try to be myself. I'm going
to you know, like give it my all, and I'm
going to try and have like a really authentic experience.
And I feel like I did those things right.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
And so.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I'm forgetting a little bit what the question was. But
like timeline wise, like I was at a place where
I feel like I was pretty well adjusted.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
I knew who I was.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
I wasn't going there to try and be someone or
try to like like, I was just going to be
me right, which is like what I've learned to do
in my sobriety. And I get a lot of people
and I don't know if it's real or not, but
like I feel like these people DM me all the time, like, hey,
I'm I'm in sobriety and like I'm being cast for
the show, Like should I do it?

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Like I can't make that decision for you, you know, like
I can't.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
I can't tell you whether or not this is a
good decision for you. I know, for me, it was
the middle of COVID. There was nothing going on in
the world, so like it was either go on TV
or sit in my apartment on the you know, in
New York City.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
And so I was like, let's do it. And I
ended up having, you know, for the most part, pretty
positive experience.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
And you know, we talked about this on the run,
but it is amazing that through being on that show,
with the platform and reach that they have, you were
able to without even trying, raise awareness for something that
so many people struggle with, and also bring hope to
so many people. And it's cool knowing that, you know,
now you're getting recognized on the street and people are
literally saying to you, you saved my life.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yeah, it's a lot, and it's even more reason to
take care of myself. You know, I can't take I
can't afford to take on everyone else's story, right, and
so for me, I try really hard, and we try
really hard at.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Release to just.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Answer the bell, you know, like when it rings and
let people know that there is a way out.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
And that's something that.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
I've seen happen time and time again since you know,
kind of being on the show. And I'm I'm a
realistic I'm not going to be the guy out there
with my shirt off like flexing for the you know,
like whatever the thing is. Like like, I'm like my passion,
my purpose is to try to help people, you know,
make positive change.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
In their life.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
And you have you know, it's funny. I was listening
to a podcast that you did back in twenty twenty four.
You said in this podcast you had forty five people
working for you. You now have one hundred, maybe a
little over a hundred. You guys are growing massively at
Release Recovery. Let's talk about when did you start Release
rect Recovery and give us a little bit of insight

(52:02):
into the business and how it operates.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Yeah, so founded in late sixteen, early seventeen. It's funny
we just did we just did like this little you
know people people are.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Like, hey, there's new followers here. Let me reintroduce.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Myself, Like, we just kind of did that for a release,
and I hope a little bit.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
More of a Hey, you have to always be reintroducing yourself, right,
that's what people say.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
I just kind of went through this and so like
what we do in a nutshell is yeah. So we
were founded in late sixteen, early seventeen as a kind
of higher at We bought a house in Yorktown Heights,
Westchester County, which is about forty minutes north of New
York City. And my career in behavioral healthcare started in
New York. I worked for some other people here in
the city, and I, like, you decided to go on

(52:44):
the entrepreneur journey, and I'm very grateful that I did.
And we Yeah, we started with a house up in
Westchester County, thirteen beds, kind of higher end, highly structured
transitional living for men and so at the time, and
it's really like I'll I don't tell my entrepreneur story
a lot, but what I did there is I moved

(53:04):
out of New York City. I moved into this house.
The relationship that I was in, you know, burnt to
the ground. So it was all in on this business,
on this idea of release. And I always joke like,
in that first year, I was doing everything. I was
running the program, I was cooking the breakfast, I was
running the groups like I was.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
I was.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
I was doing it all, you know, like it was
my entire life. And I really sacrificed a lot early on,
and I think for any entrepreneur, anyone starting a business,
that's what is needed to succeed, right, And I loved it, so.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
It didn't it didn't bother me.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
And from there we've just, you know, we we've grown
to today where we have seventy beds throughout New York
City and Westchester County. We have a treatment center up
in Westchester where we have a chief medical officer and
a bunch of clinicians, so we're really focused on the
medical and clinical supports.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Out of that location.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
We do a bunch of prevention and education work on
college campuses. I acquired a company last year that really
focused on men's mental health on college campuses, and we've
since added women to those services, and so we're really
proud of some of that work. Because we've talked a
lot about my substance abuse today, but the mental health

(54:21):
stuff for me has also been a struggle from time
to time, and so we're really grateful to be providing
those services. And so that's kind of like the for
profit and we have an office in flat Iron and
you can find us.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Release Recovery dot com.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
And then in late right before I went on the show,
actually we got the five to zho one to do
a nonprofit, which is the Release Foundation. And it gets
a little confusing because they're both Released, and so that
organization is a separate entity. And what we do there
is we raise money so that we can send people

(54:58):
to treatment, not at our programs, but the programs who
otherwise couldn't afford mental health and substance abuse treatment. And
so we'll probably raise I don't know somewhere around two
million dollars this year and give away a ton of
care and a ton of treatments so that people like
me who were struggling and maybe can't afford.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Those services get to go and do that.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
And that's how I fell in love with running, right,
That's how I've run all these marathons and the wild,
wild world of.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Running.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
I know I always see people or hear about people
running through Release Recovery for the marathon, so it must
be so cool for you to see. You know, I
think what's beautiful about successful communities is when a community
can run itself without the person that started it, right,
And that's the cool thing about Release recovery is it
operates on its own because you really have this powerful

(55:52):
community of people that wants to show up for the cause.
So that must also be so cool for you, is
knowing that you've built something that started with your story
but really is bigger than yourself.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Yeah, I forget.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
I mean like even this morning when we were when
we were on our run and those girls recognize you
and they kind of gave you what's up? Like those
moments that we take for granted now, you know, like
people weren't recognizing you three before.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I mean, I don't know how long ago you.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Start, you know, And so like for me, it's the
same thing, right, Like I I was at High Rocks
this past weekend watching some friends and someone I did
not know, never seen this person in my life wearing
a Release shirt.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
All right? Cool? You know?

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Like that that's the moment that I need to kind
of sit with for a second and say like, hey,
you go pretty hard and you you know, try your
best and you're always pushing for excellence, but maybe you
can take a second and kind of acknowledge that, like,
you're doing some cool shit, right.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
What are some of the things that you implemented into
release recovery that you didn't have when you were getting
treatment in the early days that you were excited to
give to people that you realized maybe through just self discovery,
was really helpful for you.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I can tell I can answer that question in like
where I am today, like what I am focusing on,
because I feel like treatment has changed, and I feel
like in general, behavioral health care kind of stinks. If
you go to a hospital, where are they putting the

(57:40):
psych patients probably in the basement, you know, with the
linoleum floors, and keeping them away from everyone else, because
God forbid someone be around someone that's psychotic, you know,
or having a bipolar episode or addicted to drugs, So
they keep them away. So what we try to do
is it's a little bit of fake it till you made,

(58:00):
like give them really nice environments and really good places
and comfortable places to recover so that they can be
in their mind without even realizing it, working towards that
life and that that life is really available to them,
and so taking a holistic look at we're really looking
at the food right now, like how are we feeding

(58:20):
these people? How are they sleeping? Are they exercising? Are
they moving? Are we paying attention to the things outside
of your traditional talk therapy and your twelve step or
other support groups right like? Are we really looking at
the whole person? Like when I went to treatment, they
didn't give me a physical right. They were just like,
you're addicted to drugs, so you need to do therapy

(58:42):
and so you can stop doing drugs, which okay, works,
But I feel like there is room for us to
kind of pave the way with really giving the traditional
behavioral healthcare patient a better experience, because that's what they deserve.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
You guys are doing a lot. I've heard before that
one of the things that you've also always been interested
in is being a sports coach and going back and
you know, being a coach for high school a high
school baseball team or something like that. But you're doing
a lot right now, five, ten, twenty years from now.
Where do you see your life going, release, recovery going,

(59:24):
Like what are some of the goals that you've set
for yourself that you're like, we are going to accomplish this.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yes, business ownership is a wild ride. It really is.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
And I am fully aware that I have a bullseye
on my back because of some of the public facing
opportunities like here today that I choose to be a
part of. And so for me right now, I continue

(59:56):
to really focus. I don't think people actually I know
how much I work, Like I work fifty sixty seventy
hours a week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I feel like I assumed how much you were right,
just because I know how hard it is to run
a business, and you're running you're managing one hundred employees, so.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
Well, it's very easy to And we talked a little bit,
like see someone on social media like, oh my god,
their life is amazing, like like they get to do
all these fun Yes, I get to do a lot
of really cool things. I get to be here with
you this morning and go into the office a little
bit later. But I am hyper focused on making Release

(01:00:35):
Recovery run and operate so that it doesn't need me,
and that's going to take a little bit of time,
and that's going to take some really smart people like
my father. One of the things he taught me is
always hire people that are smarter than you. And I
feel like I'm starting to really do that. I do
not want to work in behavioral health care forever. That's

(01:00:58):
not it is hard, hard work. It is emotional work.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
It is a lot of weddings, a lot of funerals.
You get it right, like it's just is so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I'm forty one today, I will say at fifty, I
will have hoped to gotten Released to a point where
it doesn't need me. And whether that means.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
I've sold it or like what you know, however that looks.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
I don't not married to the outcome from like the
exit strategy, but that it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Is running.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
With my blood, sweat and tears all over it and
my belief all over it. And yes, I hope to
shut down social media and shut.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Down you know whatever other responsibilities.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I feel like I have to the world and coach
some baseball and play some golf and catch some fish
and hopefully, you know, still be working for Release foundation,
like raising money to help people that can't afford treatment.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
I don't that sounds like a good life.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Definitely. Well, As a fan of you, I hope you
don't ever go off of social media for too long
because I think you have a voice that needs to
be heard, and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
That's why I'm there. I appreciate that, you know, I
appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
So. Our mission with Post Run High and the Running
Interview Show is to get the world moving, not only physically,
but movement has helped me so much mentally and emotionally,
and I know we both share that in common. What's
one thing you've taken back in your life that you
hope helps get the world moving in a better direction.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It's a great question. It may be exactly what you're
talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
I mean for me, right And we didn't talk about
running a lot on this show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
We did our run, but when I was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
At my bottom, which we talked a lot about today,
twenty seven years old, I was a mess, a mess physically,
I was physically a mess. And so by me taking
back my physical health right and really committing to running

(01:03:14):
and lifting weights, I have been able to, I hope,
impact the world in a lot of other different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Because if I'm not physically.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Healthy, right like, if I didn't take back my physical
health and hold on too that tightly, I would not
be sitting in this chair right now, right like I
never would have done the things that I've been able
to do. So I think, honestly, there's a lot of
parallels between the way that you would answer that question
the way that I'm going to answer that question, because

(01:03:47):
the opportunity and the things that have become available to
me as a results of moving and running and just
not being stagnant, like being a shark in the water,
rights has allowed me to be an entrepreneur and be
a good friend, and you know, start some cool initiatives
and build some communities. And so really I put my

(01:04:08):
substance abuse and mental health recovery first, but very very
very closely after that, my physical health is something that
I've taken back and use to hopefully put the world
in a better place.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Let's do one final shout out to for people that
listen to this podcast and are newly learning about release recovery. Yes,
how can they get involved?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean the moral stories.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
If you're listening to this podcast, you don't know who
I am or what release recovery is. I mean, just
and you have someone in your life that is struggling
with a mental health or behavioral healthcare or substance abuse
crises or issue, Please please please call us or look
us up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Release recovery dot com is the website.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
I think it's just Release Recovery on Instagram. You know,
I'm sure Kate's gonna tag me, but you can. You
can DM me. We see the messages right and if
you if you write us asking for help, we're going
to get in touch with you because oftentimes the hardest
thing to do is to ask for help, and so
we want to make that a really wide kind of

(01:05:15):
lane to get in if you if you want to,
health is.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Wealth and we really learned that from this episode today.
Thanks so much for being with me, Zach.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Thank you, kudos to you rooting for you guys. It
was really cool to be with you today and I'm
just if I can help.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
In any way, I'm here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
Thank you guys so much for tuning into today's episode.
Your support means the world to me and helps us
continue bringing you inspiring conversations. If you've been enjoying post
run High, please be sure to follow the show so
you never miss an episode. Leave us a quick rating
and share this episode with a friend. We've got great
conversations coming your way and you won't want to miss them.
I'll see you guys next week. I hope you got

(01:05:52):
your post run high going