Rebuilding from Ashes: Brad McCoy's Journey

On this episode, we welcome Brad McCoy, a top real estate agent in Los Angeles, to share his deeply moving journey of overcoming addiction and rebuilding his life. Brad opens up about his tumultuous childhood with an alcoholic father, his battles with addiction that led him to near-death experiences and strained relationships, and his eventual path to sobriety and career success. He also touches on personal tragedies, including losing his home in the LA Fires, and how he transformed his approach to life, family, and career through recovery.

 

Keep in Touch With:

Instagram: @Seanovenice

Website: https://www.shellvenice.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I brought an eight ball to the hospital with me.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
So I have a feeding tube on one side of
my nose and I'm throwing away to your analysis that
they're giving me, and I'm putting water in it in
the hospital, and I'm doing what blow I have left
on the side of my nose that I still have
access to in the hospital in between surgeries. While they're
trying to save my life, my wife is watching me

(00:22):
become more and more self absorbed and selfish. I'm living
in a little guest house that we have. I'm rarely
coming around, and I remember at one point I said
to her, at least I don't cheat on you, and
it was it was such a punch of the stomach

(00:43):
because she said, I wish you would, if it would
make you more available. I get home while the kids
are still there, and it turns into one of those
scenes that I.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Remember when I was a little kid.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I remember my young son saying, why do you have
to be like this, you know, like screaming, I mean,
leave her alone. And I'm telling my wife, you are
not taking my children out of here, and I'm basically
too drunk to stop her, and she leaves, and now
I'm alone in my house and I'm writing suicide notes.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Welcome back to the SINO Show. I'm your host, Sean mcfaun.
Today's guest is someone who knows a thing or two
about rebuilding, literally and figurely. Brad McCoy is a top
real estate agent Los Angeles Now, but his journey here
has been anything but easy. From battling addiction to losing
his home the LA Fires, He's faced some of life's

(01:46):
hardest resets, but his perspective on loss, recovery and starting
over is something you need to hear. Let's get into it. Brad,
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to shell at your
second home. Good to have your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Man, it's an honor to be here. Thank you, Sina.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, this is really special, man, special place for me,
special place for me.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah yeah right, Oh my god, man, this is good.
Listen because we got to go back a little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Let the folks know a little bit where you came
from and kind of what you've been. You know, your
family history a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah yeah, I'll take it all the way back.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I I was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, and uh
was a little guy there and born to an alcoholic
father and basically a whole family of alcoholics. I had
what I always believe was a pretty garden variety life,

(02:42):
but our garden variety childhood.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
But it wasn't so much that now that I think
about it. It was just full of.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Fear and violence and insecurity. But I was a precocious
I was a precocia little kid. But yeah, my father
died at thirty three of cirrhosis of the liver, and
I thought that was a sort of family legend. And
then once I got into a little bit, I thought,

(03:13):
is that even Is that even possible? So I had
to google it, and it is possible. You just have
to be really, really good at it. And so he
was thirty three when he died.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Out for you, I was five or six when when
he died. I actually thought he died when I was three.
So part of what happened my mother and father divorced
and remarried once and then he disappeared, and so my
grandparents told me he was dead, and the truth was

(03:47):
he just was out of my life at that point.
And then and so it was, it was it was strange,
you know, to be a little kid someone asked me
the other day if I have any memories of my father,
and I really only have two. I remember being chased
through the house, not that I remember being beat. I

(04:08):
just remember how afraid of him I was. And then
I remember being.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Told like little kids, to go say good night to
your to your dad, and uh, and I went to
say good night to him, and I was hugging him,
and I just remember the stubble on his face and
the smell of cigarettes and alcohol.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I swore I would never be like my father, and uh,
we'll get to that.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Well. Yeah, so, yeah, you felt unsafe.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, very very I didn't have, you know, truthfully, until
I got in here and started doing work with you.
I didn't have a vocabulary for stuff like this. I
didn't know how much feeling unsafe can just hardwire. You
can fuck you up in a lot of ways. And yeah,

(04:58):
I felt very unsafe, and and there would be I
remember like violence was such a part of our family
deal that I had two older brothers, both of whom
have passed away. Now, I mean that this thing is
the disease of alcoholism and addiction is just ripped through
my family. I mean they're all gone, and but I

(05:18):
remember there was another family on our street two doors away,
and I mean we had family brawls, like full blown
and I'm a little kid standing on the porch listening
to like, you know, my family cheer it on, like
get him, get him, you know, like well like hillbilly
white trash, like whatever you can throw at it it.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Uh, yeah, that's what I That's what I had.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
And and so you know, I sort of escaped into
books and really fantasy in some ways.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I remember walking home from school.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Someone asked me one time I went to church, and
I said, yeah, They're like was your family religious? I
was like no, Like how did you find your way
into any And I go I was walking home from
school one day like a little guy, you know, like kindergarten,
first grade, whatever, and I was walking past the church
and some lady was nice to me, and I felt,
you know, I realized the thing that I felt was safe,

(06:16):
Like they had a.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Sunday school deal.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
They gave you snacks, but more than anything, there was
no drama, and it was just I felt safe, and
I just I felt drawn to it because of that kind.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Of goes a long way. Yeah, Deesk, you had an
angel that day.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
We talked about this on the show a lot, right,
and so BT walk walk through grade school, high school
and kind of when you.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Started chipping away a little bit.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
It's funny.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I used to ride my bike around neighborhoods when I
was a little older, like ten, eleven, twelve. Because I
didn't have a curfew. I could just roam the streets
and I would stop at houses and look through the
windows and see normal families having dinner. And I'd hear
kids talk about getting put on restriction, and I used
to like, wish someone would put me on restriction. As

(07:03):
crazy as it sounds, you know, most kids want they
think their parents are assholes, like oh my mom. You know.
I was like, I wish someone would put me on restriction,
and I was riding. I would ride my bike around
like on you know, on any given evening, and I
felt like that that episode of Happy Days where Fonsie
tells everybody like how much he's got going on on Thanksgiving?
It's all thanks here Christmas and they're like, oh wow,

(07:25):
Fonzi's got it going on, And next thing you know,
he's in the garage.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Crack it over to cannon, tune to fish.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Right, and so, you know, but I I stayed pretty
pretty busy.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
I would you tell people when they asked you about
your dad?

Speaker 2 (07:39):
You know, I used to say he was a general contractor,
because best I knew he was a laborer, you know,
like he laid pipe and stuff. And I certainly didn't
talk about the drinking or the violence. And I just
said he wasn't he was wasn't around, or eventually I
got around to saying he was dead. But then the

(08:00):
other part of it was I never told anybody died
uh from being an alcoholic, because that seemed so shameful.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
And did your mom make sure you didn't tell that
story too? Was she like, you know, daddy just struggle
or what was her thing?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
You know what's funny is that my mom I didn't
know until right before she died that my dad had
tried to be an aa. You know, he was just
one of the guys revolving door. I had no idea,
and I had no idea like because you just, yeah,
I guess I forget how long this thing's been around.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
My mom was an alan.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
On, which I was shocked when she told me that,
And no.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
Folks would ellan On's about so allan.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
On is for really was like Lois Wilson started alan
On because all the all the men would be in
there dealing with their drinking. Lovel Leis Wilson was Bill Wilson,
founder of Alcoholics Anonymous along with doctor Bob's wife, and
she started a program really for the for the families
who were affected, who are left to clean up the
wreckage and how to deal with Well, there was three

(09:01):
season alan On, right like they you learn that you
didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't
cure it, and it's funny. I was just having an
exchange this morning with a friend about this because they
were asking what do we do? And I'm like, well,
here's the good news of the bad news. There's really
not much you can do. But for families who have
to live with the disease, they need to know that,

(09:23):
you know, they need to understand that there's no shame
in having an alcoholic, Like you can do everything right
and you can still have the craziest alcoholic for a
child or for a Husband's.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
All right, So when'd you start, Carlo swog through your
when do you start shipping away?

Speaker 1 (09:37):
So when you say chipping away, you mean, would you start,
would you start drinking? And oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
So so that was always like a through line with
my family, Like everybody partied pretty hard. My mom was
such a young mom. My mom had had her first child,
my oldest brother, when she was seventeen. So by the
time she had me, you know, she was twenty two
having her third child, and so I sometimes, you know,

(10:02):
it's funny you think about the things your parents were doing.
My mom was really young, you know, and so even
by the time I'm like twelve, you know, my mom's
still really young. And I remember my friends would tell
me that my mom was hot, and I thought it
was so weird. But she was young, you know, So
she was just kind of out there doing her thing,

(10:24):
and so we would have she'd have crazy parties with people.
There would be half drunk beers, Margarita's whatever around and
so by the time I was twelve, twelve years old,
clearly was the first time that I smoked weed. Friend
gets some weed and everybody's out of their mind and
turns out there's there was something called sure you know,

(10:45):
there was PCP in it, and so everybody's just out
there running. By the time I'm twelve, and my mom
had no idea at that point because I had two
older brothers that were kind.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Of running and going and.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
A couple things about that, and it kind of it
never really stopped the way our family went. My I,
it turned out to be a pretty decent had decent
hand eye coordination, so I was a good baseball player,
like Little League baseball. But my brothers were so crazy
that I was standing on a pitcher's mound at one
point and I hear like a helicopter and I hear

(11:22):
the whining of like a motorcycle, but it was a
souped up moped, and the whole baseball field turns around
and it's my middle brother coming through center field being
chased by a police helicopter with all these police cars
chasing him, and he goes right through my baseball game,
through this gate down by a river, you know, escapes
and that.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
That's a typical date of mcoy.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, typical date of McCoy company.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
That McCoy company family, and that kind of stuff happened
all the time, you know, until he ended up in
California Youth Authority anyway, so they everybody partied. It wasn't
my main thing yet until I got to be in
junior high and then like weed and you know, everybody
would sneak into someone's garage or someone knew there was

(12:09):
there was alcohol, and I went straight from trying it
to going into like blackouts, being found in bushes and vomiting,
and you know that that pretty much stayed like full
on through through high school. And then something happened when
I was a junior where I had this crazy depression

(12:31):
and I couldn't go to school like I U I
should mention that when I was a sophomore. So by
then I was about fourteen, maybe fifteen. I was fifteen
years old, and my family it was so violent in
my house and I never felt safe ever. I discovered

(12:56):
at the end of high school, I discovered meth. And
I spent about a year because my oldest brother introduced
me to meth. And I spent about a year MeV
six months like seriously doing meth. And I mean it
was the greatest thing I ever experienced.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
I mean, you don't have to sleep. I was a
heavy kid, as we know.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
And what it happened just before my senior year is
I played football and so I had one of these
experiences where you know, I kind of turned went from a.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Caterpillar to a little bit of a butterfly.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Like when I went to this new school, I looked
a lot better than I had in a long time.
And so, you know, the new guy thing lasted pretty well.
Then when I found meth, I lost a bunch of
weight and felt like, boy, this is really great. But
I got really really strung out. And so my brother,
who had gone to California Youth Authority, had gotten out

(13:54):
of California Youth Authority and saw how strong.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Out I was.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
And there's a lot about the violence of my family,
but the one thing that I have to say is
like I had a middle brother that really loved me,
Like he was gnarly physically, he could whoop anybody like
I mean, he was. He was an MMA fighter before
there was such a thing, and he would do anything,

(14:19):
you know, to protect me. And he goes, I want
to go to Hawaii. You want to go, Let's go.
And it was really his way of like getting me
out of a scene that I was really caught up in.
So we've got one way plane tickets, pack bags, and
we moved to Hawaii and.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
And I got cut off.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
I had no supply when I got to Hawaii, and uh,
so I spent I spent a year in Hawaii, uh,
you know, drying out, trying new stuff, learning to serve,
doing things like that, and then uh and then from there,
my brother stayed for seven more years, and then I
I went. I got off the meth because I was

(14:59):
there because I couldn't I couldn't get it, and you know,
I still drank and uh and then I moved back
to California and moved to Santa Barbara where I started
at Santa Barbara City College. I started going to college,
and then Merritt, who became my wife. She went to
Westmont originally. And by the way, I fell in love

(15:22):
with this girl the first time I saw her.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
But like most good like most good insecure.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Boys like me, there was no way I was going
to tell her how much I was smitten by her.
And you know, so I kind of went out into
the world and did my thing and always had kind
of alcohol and like they know here in AA, you know,
fun fun with problems and then just problems. I hadn't
even had the problems part of it yet.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I mean, I I.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Just had that thing where I would get out of trouble,
like trouble would try to find me. And other people
got in trouble, but but I never really never really
got in too much trouble. Then, you know, we fast
forward from there by then, you know, most of my
friends were graduating from UCSB and getting jobs, and Merret
and I get engaged, and so I she's finishing school.

(16:18):
I'm still working for this guy. And one of my
best friends goes graduates from UCSB and he gets a
job at Wells Fargo and and I and he goes,
this is perfect for you because it's this new group
called the Business Banking Group. And uh, and I said, man,
I haven't. I haven't graduated from school yet, you know,

(16:40):
but I'm engaged now to be married to Merritt. We
get engaged super fast, and uh, because close the deal.
And and so he goes, no, no, just put your
resume together, put your resume together, send it up here,
and uh, and I do, and and so I go
up and I interview with Wells Fargo.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
This is on the moner Rape Eninsula in Monterey. And
I go up.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
To interview, and Marrett and I get married in this
nineteen ninety two we get married on June twentieth, I
better remember that date of nineteen ninety two. We go
off on our honeymoon, and on our honeymoon, I get
offered a job from Wells Fargo. So really, in the
span of a couple of weeks, I get married, I

(17:25):
get a job at Wells Fargo. We move up to
Pacific Grove, which is, you know, we're living right outside
the seventeen mile drive gate at Wells Fargo. And I'm
basically hired for a commercial banking sales position. But one
of my best friends is the most competitive person I've
ever met in my life, and he and I are
just we're so competitive with each other. We're in a

(17:49):
brand new group and we just get after it and
we go on this crazy run where we are we
don't even know what, we don't know, and we're willing
to do whatever it takes, and we're advancing super fast
and Wells Fargo. But all of a sudden, we get
in this group where they drink hard and they party,

(18:12):
and I find that I'm really good at drinking and partying,
and we performed well, and my career is advancing like crazy,
and I keep getting promoted and I'm trying to go
back to school and I'm not going back to school.
And pretty soon I'm like the youngest guy in the
room and I'm the boss. I'm twenty nine years old,

(18:33):
I'm the I'm the youngest senior vice president division manager
that the bank has ever had. And I feel like
a complete imposter. And I'm and I'm and I'm thinking
that guy's got an MBA, that guy went to Harvard,
that guy, that guy, and and the faster my career

(18:54):
is progressing. And I remember asking my boss, do you
do you think that you're running in your career? You're
running from something or towards something, And my boss looked
at me like I was, like I was crazy, But
I didn't really know the word imposter syndrome, the phrase
imposter syndrome. Yet I just didn't have the courage to say, like,

(19:16):
I just feel totally like I was scared, like I was.
I was afraid I was going to get found out,
you know, And that was incredibly motivating for a while.
I kept having like these amazing things happening to me
in that career, but I was still scared to death
that I was going to get found out. And I

(19:36):
even had people tell me like, you know the road
you're on, You're never going to have to work again,
You're your children won't have to work again, and and
I just didn't believe it because I just didn't believe
in myself enough that And I, by the way, and
I had situations at work where I would vomit down stairways,

(19:57):
like from being too drunk the night before. I hadn't
I started like drinking. I hadn't started drinking during the
job that came later. So I resigned from Wells Fargo.
I got invited to join to start a company, this
tech company. It was really a venture capital fund, and
I thought, this is the perfect opportunity to get out

(20:20):
of here and kind of trade on who I believed
I was before I got found out. And so I
went out and we started a company. That company got
got acquired by a software company. And I'm only cutting
two because I just this whole time, I feel like
I'm I'm I'm a fraud, you know, And and yet

(20:43):
you know, I I'm I have a wife who loves me.
But by the way, I never trusted my wife, and
I never trusted anybody who loved me because I didn't
believe why would someone love me like I am? You know,
just like I didn't want little kids to find out
that I had a father who was dead from alcoholism.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
And you get married, you have kids, you're rising in
the ranks.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, you're partying. We got to get to your bottom,
work our way through it, so right, so let's talk
to people about you get through some nasty stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
So two thousand and five, I rediscover my one of
my first loves, which is cocaine. This time it wasn't
meth because I really couldn't get it, and and I
start doing it, but I'm being very secretive about it.
I'm drinking like crazy, and I'm going to get fired

(21:38):
by this bank, and I resign and I start another
company because usually, you know, when you've blown something up,
you become you become an entrepreneur. And so I do that,
and the Great Financial Crisis happens by two thousand and seven,
and I've done one thing in between, and that's also

(21:59):
not working very well, largely because I've become a complete
cocaine addict and an alcoholic. By this point, I am
living underground. This is all I'm doing. Nobody really knows
it except all they can probably see I don't have
many pictures of myself during that time is I'm just
getting I'm sweaty all the time, I'm physically failing, I

(22:22):
am spiritually decaying. But I'm just I'm running out of moves.
I just don't know it yet. And so two thousand
and seven I start the process of starting a bank.
The Great Financial Crisis happens. So by two thousand and
nine nothing is working. We give back the money that
we've raised to start the bank, and now I'm in

(22:46):
such deep trouble that I don't know how to get
out of this. I have children, my wife is watching
me become more and more, you know, self absorbed and selfish.
I'm living in a little guest how that we have.
I'm rarely coming around. And I remember at one point
I said to her, at least I don't cheat on you.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
And it was.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
It was such a punch in the stomach because she said,
I wish you would, if it would make you more
available to me and to us, and I was, and
of course I'm a smart ass, and so I go.
So you're saying, it is okay if I get a girlfriend,
you know, And by the way at that point, if
you had seen me, it wasn't It wasn't. It wasn't

(23:33):
because of virtue that I wasn't really uh acting out
that much. It was lack of opportunity because nobody really
wanted much to do with me at that point. Stinky
blow funny thing because my wife said that she could
always smell me. I smelled like like diesel fuel and stuff.
And I think it was because I had so much

(23:54):
of the drugs and everything. I mean, we don't talk
a lot about drugs, as I mentioned, because it really
hurts my wife because she felt like I really got
over on her because she just doesn't know the warning
signs because she was never a drug user. But by
then I was developing something called I had sores, Like
I had sores coming out of my face. And this
is going to be disgusting for a minute, but it's

(24:14):
where you go. And so I end up in the
hospital because I've lost the ability to swallow water. I
can't get water down, I can't get food down. I
have something called dysphasia. I go see any in t
friend who's a plastic surgeon. He puts an endoscope in
my face and He's like, man, you got a lot

(24:36):
of scar tissue. And my wife is sitting with me,
and so I think, out of kindness to me, he's
not saying, dude, what is going on with you? But
he goes, I'm going to admit you because not being
able to drink or drink water or eat is not
consistent with life. And so he checks me into UCLA.
They determined that I have of just my entire soft

(25:00):
palette between my sinus cavity and my brain is covered
in abscesses called retro retrofare andngeal abscesses, and they're having
to do microsurgeries to drain the pus that's happening. And
by the way, they put a feeding tube in one
side of my nose and uh, sorry, Mark, because she's
about to hear this probably, And I brought an eight

(25:21):
ball to the hospital with me. So I have a
feeding tube on one side of my nose and I'm
throwing away to your analysis that they're giving me, and
I'm putting water in it in the hospital and I'm
doing what blow I have left on the side of
my nose that I still have access to in the
hospital in between surgeries while they're trying to save my life.
I've got arthritis so bad that all of my joints

(25:46):
feel like glass because I also have this viral they
other call it viral or reactive arthritis. So I'm being
told by friends who are visiting me, who are so kind,
who are doctors in the hospital, like you know, you
present as they say, a very very complicated, a very
complicated case of symptoms because I've got abscesses. I can't

(26:08):
drink water or food, I can't swallow. I have arthritis.
I'm I'm just I'm just a mess. And and so
you know, they have me on ivy fluids. They drain
the abscesses all of a sudden, you know, I'm able
to get a little bit of food down, you know,

(26:28):
but I'm well hydrated, and I start to look pretty good,
and I think, man, I look a lot better.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Okay, So I take my gurney and.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Because i still have like fluids ivy fluids, and I've
got a hospital gown on, and I go over to
In and out Burger across the parking lot at UCLA
to see if I can get a little bit of
an out Burger down, And I look a lot better.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
And this is two thousand and nine.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
And I get out of the hospital and and I
go right back to it. You know, I think that
my life has been saved. You would have thought that.
And then I have this crazy car crash where I
ripped three or four wheels off my car, and I
go right back to where I was. I'm not showing

(27:09):
up for anything. My wife has just had it with me.
I am now unemployed. I'm unemployable. And and then and
so I'm you know, interviewing for jobs. I am drinking
like a complete fish. I have a cocaine dealer on
speed dial, and I'm trying to trade on my reputation

(27:30):
as a banker.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
And so at one point, I uh, and I've mentioned
this before. I'm calling people that used to work for me,
and I'm I'm basically telling him to give me a job.
And I I say something to one of the guys
who's now one of the heads of I'll just say
the name of the well it's gone.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I think a union bank.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
And he's like the guy running the bank, and he
was he was a good friend. And I basically call
him out and I tell him, you owe me a job.
And I say something very unkind to him, and I
get a call from the head of security of Union
Bank and he says, you do know that he's one
of the top executives of the entire bank and we
monitor all their communications. And I suggest to you he

(28:14):
goes because you were his friend. He's given me permission
to give you one warning and if you make another
phone call, we're going to prosecute you. And my ears
were hot, and I'm so embarrassed, and I essentially I'm
all I do now is drinking, and it's just so
bad that I say, well, I've known him a lot longer,

(28:34):
and I'm just trying to get off the phone, and
I'm embarrassed and I'm so My last day before rehab,
I interview for a job and I get so blackout
drunk that I can't I can't find the place where
I'm supposed to interview. And my wife asked me how
the interview went, and I send her. At that point

(28:57):
there were texts by now I send her a tech
it's unintelligible, and she sends me a message that says,
I know you didn't go to your interview. Don't come home.
I'm taking the kids and basically, you need to get
your shit together, you need to figure something out. And
at that point I thought I was out of moose,

(29:19):
because it's you know, it's now early twenty ten, and
I am by the way, I'm broke. I am broken
on every level. And my wife has just taken the kids.
And so I go home that night because she says,

(29:40):
you can come home and get some stuff.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
But I won't be here when you get here, neither
were the kids.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
I get home while the kids are still there, and
it turns into one of those scenes that I remember
when I was a little kid. I remember my young
son saying, why do you have to be like this,
you know, like screaming, I mean for a loan. And
I'm telling my wife you are not taking my children
out of here, and I'm basically too drunk to stop her,

(30:09):
and she leaves, and now I'm alone in my house
and I'm writing suicide notes. I take two pistols, I
put him in a backpack, and I have a friend
come by who had just gotten sober, and he stops
by to see me, and I promise him that I'm
not going to do any harm to myself, and he

(30:32):
can tell I think at that point there's nothing he
can do to really help me, and I just want
him to leave, and he leaves. I take a backpack
with two pistols, and I leave my wife a note.
I leave my kids notes under their pillows. And by
the way, I hide and cried since I was twelve
years old, So you know, I'm I'm crying as I'm
writing all this stuff, and I now know looking back

(30:54):
that I'm crying out of self pity. I'm crying because
I'm pathetic, not crying because.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
I've loved your surrender.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, this is not surrender.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
And I I, uh, you know, you would have thought
the crashing cars and having the surgeries, with the with
the with the absesses would have been enough that that
that having a situation in a scene that was so
ugly with my wife, you know, with my son yelling
at me like I was like when I was a
little guy that I swore I would never be like
my father. And I remember that night looking in the

(31:26):
mirror thinking I am way worse than my father ever was.
And uh so I I end up down in Culver
City in a hotel room with a plan, and through
a series of events, I make the mistake because I
turned my phone off. I thought I had turned my
phone off, and I get a message because Merritt sees
the note and she begs me, I think I turned

(31:49):
my phone on right before because I was committed, because
I just I didn't know. I was out of money,
I was out of moves, I you know. And I
just look back now and I think, God, I'm still
so selfish and pathetic that I would that that killing
myself was my best plan. That I was gonna leave
Merit holding the bag and my kids, you know, with

(32:10):
a legacy of a father who was such a.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Such a failure that he would leave them like that,
you know. And uh and and I.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Had turned my phone on it and I got a
text for my wife, who was on the ground saying, please,
you know, don't do this. We we can. She gave
she gave me another chance. So I took that chance.

(32:43):
And I and she she had found a rehab, because I,
you know, I get home like a giant baby, right like,
like she's found a rehab. And I get to there,
you know, and I get home. She loads me in
the car, she drives me up the malib She spends money.
We don't have to put me in adult daycare. And

(33:05):
I go to rehab. They put me on tons of
like anti anxiety and drugs to make me feel good.
And I think I got this. You know this is
gonna be so, you know, because I feel great. And
at one point they take me off the anti psychotic
medications and I think, what has just happened, you know?

(33:27):
And I get a hold of the therapist there and
I say, something is seriously wrong. I felt great yesterday.
Today I don't want to get out of bed, and
she goes, hang on. I interrupt her session, and she
sits and she goes hey, and she and she comes
outside and she's trying not to laugh basically, and she says,
I just checked your chart, and welcome back to reality,
Welcome back to life. We've taken you off the anti

(33:49):
the anti anxiety medications, and you're starting to feel like
what's left, you know. And what's funny about that is like,
right before they took me off the medication, I was
so sure that I had this thing licked and that
the problem was my wife putting pressure on me that
I I asked if they had a fax machine, and
I've had a photocopy and I photocopied the chapter to

(34:10):
wives in the in the Big Book, and I faxed
it to my wife so that she would understand how
to deal with me, so that you know how to
how to help her addict husband not feel so much pressure.
And h So I go to I go to treatment,
and by the way, I I relapse in treatment and
I got twenty one days and and and.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
I'm not sober. So I make it to thirty days.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
It was a mistake to get a day pass, by
the way, because I went and spent a day with
my family, and I got to go to my house,
which is a terrible idea. And so I'm going home
from rehab on day thirty and I stopped at a
liquor store in Malibu. My relapse, by the way, was
on drugs and but but so I stopped at a
liquor store in Malibu. I get a pint of vodka

(34:59):
and I mix it with some cranberry juice and I
chug it on the way home. So now I'm, you know,
get my levels right. And I get home and my
children are there and who are young still, and my
wife and they have a ceremony for me, and they
said we have something for you, daddy, And they present

(35:20):
me with these beautiful dog tags with my sobriety date,
which was a date I went to rehab, and some
really beautiful AA sayings and a chain beautiful that they
had made it a jeweler and engraved for me with
all their love and their names, and I just start crying,
and the kids come over and they're hugging me, and

(35:41):
it's a real family moment, you know where they're They're saying,
it's okay, daddy, you're better now, and they don't know
the reason that I'm bawling my eyes out is I'm
such a piece of shit that I'm a fraud and
I'm I don't have a sobriety date.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
And this is now twenty ten and.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm back out there until twenty twelve August thirtieth of
twenty twelve. And if anybody knows what it feels like
to take fake chips and fake cakes and do fake shares.
And then I got a job, by the way, I
got shortly after I got a rehab. I went to

(36:24):
work for a bank that it was a really great
job for me. I didn't deserve the job, and I
did that job mostly in a blackout, and I walked
into a conference room after being in that job for
almost two years, and I hired everybody. I had a

(36:44):
really good friend take a chance on me because he
kind of I think he knew. He even knew about
my incident with Union Bank security because that kind of
got out there. But because I had just been to rehab,
because a lot of people think rehab fixes you, you know,
at best, rehab opens up a c so that sometimes
people can get a spiritual experience that there's a shift
inside of them. And so I walk into a conference

(37:09):
room in a by the way, there was a person
who worked for me during that two years who I
hadn't The hr person had a complaint that he always
smelled like alcohol because the guy looked like an alcoholic,
that he got fired. And turns out the reason he
got fired was I'm the one that smelled like alcohol
all the time, because I would walk around with a

(37:30):
bottle of grapefruit juice that was usually half grapefruit juice
in half vodka, and I would start drinking. I would
stop at a liquor store at six o'clock in the
morning to start my day, and I would leave one
mixed in the trunk of my car so that I
was never out, you know. And so I walked into
a conference room after two years at this bank, and

(37:51):
I flip off everybody and I make you know, i'b
seeing jokes and it's a meeting that you know, there's
other people from the bank out from North Carolina. And
my buddy finally called me and he said, I warned you, man,
one of these days you were just going to be
too funny for your own good. And I'm gonna have
to let you go. And you know, you can resign

(38:12):
and we'll give you We'll give you a couple of months.
And I and so I basically got fired and I
had traded on my last bit of career equity, if
you want to call it that. And I still, by
the way, didn't get the message because I got fired
in oh, that was probably February of twenty twelve. I

(38:35):
got a little bit of money in and I continued
to try to interview with banks because I thought, well,
they'll they'll learn. And by August of twenty twelve, I
had just one of those family meltdown events like you
read about, where once again I had done it and

(38:57):
I bailed. I left my wife alone to you know,
I would disappear at this point even during then, and
she sent me a message or I went home and uh,
she said I want to talk to you. And I
got home and she said, I know you've been drinking.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
I know you still drink. She essentially called me on
all my bullshit. And she said, essentially, I think you
really because that rehab they said they had recommended I
go into sober living and I didn't have time for that.
I you know, I had I had a life to live,
I had bills to.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Pay and and I they said, you know then, you
know you need to go. You need to need more
time than this. And my wife said, I think you
need to do what they suggested. And it was like
the heavens opened up, because I thought there was no
way I could, first of all, admit that i'd been drinking,
even though it was so obvious. But she threw me

(39:50):
a bone, and she said, I want you to finish
what they you know, if you.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Don't, there is there is no us.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
And and I took that moment and I went driving
around looking for sober livings and I pulled up at
a sober living in Culver City, the only one that
I could even think to afford. And it's called Herbert House.
And I chugged a pine of vodka. I walked in
to meet the intake person and she asked me when
was the last time he had a drink? And I

(40:19):
said about five minutes ago in front of this place
in my car, And she said, I thought, so I
could smell it on you, and and you know, so.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
You know that it was the first time that, in
real time, I had been honest about who I was.
Like I it was the first time I realized like
I'd lost the power of jigs over this gig. The
gig is so completely up and and I she let
me said, Okay, come back tomorrow, you can.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
You can come back here. And I moved into that
sober living. I was forty four years old. I was
the oldest guy.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
At the sober living.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
I at that point it was willing to go to
any links I And by the way, I used to
go to meetings and stuff and share and cry about
my work situation. I'd be wearing a suit and and
I'm sure what people thought is that dude is so
full of shit and us But I go to this
sober living and I'm ready, man. I'm making the bed,
I'm mowing the lawn, I'm asking what I should do.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
I'm going to the Marina Center three times a day.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
I'm I'm hearing the voice of angels come out, come
out of faces with tattoos all over them. And I
found my people, like I you know, I lived in
the Palisades, but I just I was so focused and
committed to fitting in and having the right answer that
I just I was just so ready that uh. And
then everybody in the sober living relapsed, like because everyone

(41:46):
was so in a hurry to get back to.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Making a living.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
And and and I just for the first time was
like like ready to just be who I was and
do the inventory and listen to suggestions. And I went
to a meeting like right when I got sober, and
a friend who would watched me be so full of
shit for two and a half years while I was
going to meetings. I was trying to tell him that
I need to talk to somebody. And the guy didn't

(42:09):
even let me get the question out because he knew
me well enough. He tears a piece of paper, writes
the phone number on it, and goes call this guy
and I I it was your number, and he goes
calls to call this guy and it said Sino on it.
And I called you. I'm over there at Herbert House.
And I said, I you know, it's like asking for response.
I didn't know how to ask. I just do you
have time? And you called me and you said, come

(42:31):
on over, and you give me a time to come,
and I'm I ride a bike. I borrow a bike
with a flat tire out of the garage at this place,
and I ride over here and I have a meeting
with you, and I'm sitting on this couch and you
listen to my story. And I remember I cried here
and it was one of the first times that I cried.

(42:54):
Not so much self pity, but I just realized, like
I'm so out of moves. I don't know what to do.
I just I'm willing to listen to anything. I'm just
I'm just I'm just I'm.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Just ready, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
And and I don't want to blow it, but I
don't know how not to blow it. And uh, and
you said, you know you got a disease, right, And
I said, yeah, yeah, I think so, I think so.
And uh, and you go and it's moving in for
the kill, buddy. And I that's when I cried. I
it was the first time that somebody, without shame or blame.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Just called it like it was. And you didn't say.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
It in a way like like and here's what's going
to happen to you know, you just said, look, it's
moving in for the kill. And and you had a
way about you that made me willing, you know, to
to just listen.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
I'm trying to learn how to tell the truth. And
I just don't want to carry baggage of untruth. And
and and my wife is living over there. We really
don't have any money, but I we're footing the expense
to live in sober living because our insurances and pay
for any of this. And my wife calls me and she.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Says, Brad, I go, well, yeah, yeah, And I could
tell she's crying and she's upset, and she's walking on
eggshells trying to like, let me be sober and grow.
And I'm going to meetings and she said, I just
had to walk out of Ralphs because none of the
cards work. And you have to understand, my wife is
like the mayor of the palisade. She knows everybody, and
like if she goes to get a you know, quart

(44:24):
of milk, it takes her forty five minutes because she
can't get out of the grocery store because everyone's.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
To chat her up.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
And she was the school nurse and so it's always
like hi merrit or, Hello missus McCoy. And so she's
got a you know, conveyor belt full of groceries and
all of a sudden, you know, the debit card doesn't work,
the credit cards don't work, and she has to basically
do the walk of shame out of Ralphs because she
can't pay for the groceries. And I'm trying to be sober,
and she calls me in tears and says, Brad, we

(44:53):
we don't have any money. Are we going to be
all right? And everything in me wants to go, yeah,
We're going to be all right. And I have to say,
I don't know, you know, I I I think so,
I hope so. But I'm at this point, by the way,
I'm just about to start a new career because I
have to come to the realization that commercial real estate

(45:13):
is similar to what I did, but you're working for
yourself like it's all commissioned. There is no base salary.
No one is hiring me, and I've got to go
out and make a living on Buffalo.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
And by the way, my firstlie competitive market, unbelievably competitive.
There's other everybody, you know, five people want the same client.
I believe that I can do it, I think, but
I'm on your count almost every single week. I'm scared
to death and I'm trying to do this and I
have really no money. I've got to I've got to
hit this quickly. And in my first year, it's it

(45:49):
should be noted I made fifty dollars, and in that
making fifty dollars, I was scared to death. I couldn't
answer the phone. I couldn't answer the mail. And we
would get to basic things in here, like you would
tell me, Okay, here's what we're gonna do, Brad.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
You're just gonna answer the phone.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
You don't let it go to voicemail before that way,
you know, your mind can't start running the tape on
what that person you think they want to say it. Basically,
you were teaching me I don't know shit. I need
to just show up and let and I would be
scared to go and go into a meeting, and you
would say, let God go first. Here's what we're gonna do.
You're just gonna let God go first. You taught me
about being of service. You're gonna use every opportunity to

(46:27):
be of service. See how I can add something to
this situation, not see what I can get out of it. Now,
that's hard to do when you have no money, and
every situation is also an opportunity to extract money from it.
But what I wasn't yet, and I came to learn
it because I didn't have any choice. I would go
to meetings and I would sit on my hands because
I was so uncomfortable and there was no middle ground,

(46:48):
like I was either gonna stay sober or I was
going to go out, you know hard.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
When I was.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Learning things in here, like like not just in AA,
but in this room on this couch, like you'd be
like you got to know me so well so fast.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
You'd be like, what's going on with you today, buddy?

Speaker 2 (47:03):
You're not You're not even in your body right now.
And I'd be like, a's gonna sound dumb. You're like, no,
hit me with it?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (47:08):
I go, well, you know, in a meeting when there's
a timer and and they say it's two minutes to share,
and the beeper starts going off and the person won't
shut up, and uh, I go, what do you do
about that? And you go, oh, that's super easy. You
know what the answer is? Right, no, And you go,
it's none of your fucking business.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Go to a different meeting. Cut too.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
I was about five years into this and I'm doing
pretty well, but not that well, and you're you asked
me the exact same question, like, what's going on with
you today? You seem you seem kind of out of
jumpy and not not in your body. In your body,
you know, learn to breathe. And I said, it's gonna

(47:47):
sound dumb, but I thought i'd be retired by the
time I was thirty five, and with the financial wreckage,
I did, I'm gonna die at my desk. And you go, oh,
that's really easy. You know what the answer to that is, buddy? Right?
I go, no, you go, it's none of your busines
this because if you take this whole thing and what
we're about here, you know, we're on a spiritual journey
to bring as much love and light into situations as

(48:08):
we can your It's not up to you how long
you work. If you work, you let God take care
of that. You just we're in the show up business now,
like you say, you know, having a triple black belt
and showing up. And there were so many lessons that
I learned in here about what I didn't know, like
I always thought I knew what people wanted and in
what a situation needed. So I was fishing for a

(48:30):
compliment from my wife and I said, I was maybe
six months sober and things in our relationship were sort
of coming back together, and I said, can I ask
you a question? She goes, yeah. I said, do you
think that all the drinking I did gave me brain damage?
And I'm really fishing for a compliment because I wanted

(48:51):
to go, no, Brad, You're still so smart. And she goes, yeah, yeah,
I think you probably did damnage your brain.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
And I was so like said, I was like, oh man,
you know really.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
And she goes, but I like you better this way,
she goes, because you used to just try to make
me feel dumb at other people, and and she goes,
you just seem like you know, And I realized, like
sometimes just showing up and being kind and and and
there was another thing that happened in there around the

(49:24):
same time, so you know, and it connected to you know,
my house burned down recently. And I was also sober
just a few months and and I wanted to parade.
You know, by then, I'm doing everything right. By the way,
I'd been fired by a sponsor, like I really was sober,
and I got burned by people.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
In AA I had.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
I had a sponsor for a minute that tried to
borrow money from me. I mean, and and you know,
I had that principles before personalities moment. And but now
you know, I'm doing everything right. And and my wife's nervous.
She's nervous about me and where I am, and you know,
and and I'm like gonna work and I'm in here, compla.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
On your couch.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
He said, Hey, let me ask you a question, which
is always I know I'm in trouble when you ask me.
That's how long do you think you made Merit feel unsafe?
And I I said it, And I knew exactly what
you meant as soon as you asked the question, But
I said a long time. He said, maybe we should
give her, give her a little bit of time. And uh,

(50:24):
and so when my house burned down for whatever reason,
that that like like like when you gave me that book,
Father Boyle's, you know, Tattoos of the Heart that tattooed
on my heart, you know about about you know, giving
her more time to let her feel safe. Because as

(50:44):
somebody who never felt safe, I never saw it as
my job to make people feel safe and to feel loved.
I thought, you know, you're supposed to make me feel safe,
you know, and and uh, that fire happened. I realized
in that moment, like, you know, my job is in
make her and other people feel safe. See what I
can bring to a situation to uplift them, and and

(51:08):
not see what I can extract from it. And something
happened to me, and you know, I don't know why
it happened and how it happened. You know, sometimes it
takes tragedy to kind of test your sobriety and just
like having a child expand your capacity to love. Something
has happened to me lately that you know, I didn't

(51:29):
I was looking for it, but it's sort of expanded
my capacity to be to show up for other people
to know that I'm okay. I think that the like
earning fifty bucks in a year and doing all that
kind of stuff early in sobriety got me to a
place where, you know, I'm okay with I'm okay with

(51:51):
me because so much of the work that we did
together and that I did in the first year or
two of sobriety and continue to do is un learning.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
What I'm not was learning what I'm not not, well,
what I am. I'm not a I'm not a piece
of shit. I'm okay, you know. And and for the
first time in my life, I'm feeling like I know
what it means to be a man. Yeah, to like
to be a husband, to be a father. You know

(52:22):
this about you know, I had a I have two
kids now, and my daughter's almost she'll be twenty seven
next month. He's married, she's pregnant, she's got an awesome husband,
and their life is often going.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
And my son is also just a beautiful, sweet soul.
He got this thing bad when he was seventeen, and
he almost didn't make it through high school.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
You know, the opioids got him, and and I was
I was five years sober.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I'm twelve and a half year sober now, but he
really got it and I was just sober enough. It's funny,
you know in here, like God doesn't give us more
than we can handle. And just like they say in
the book about you know, the beaches of Soleerno and Alaska,
like you know, people can thrive, you know when they're sober.
But in this case, I was just sober enough that

(53:17):
when I saw what was going on with him, and
this was a lot of work with you as well,
I had to let him go.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I had to learn how to how to say goodbye
to someone who's still alive, because I learned, because we
talked about alan on early in this that I had
to learn that I can't control his disease. And then
until he surrenders and he's really ready that I love
this boy more than anything in the.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
In the world, but I can't make him sober. I
can't be sober for him.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I I I learned even the first time I was
in rehab, somebody said to me, like, you know, you
can't be sober for those people. If you if if that,
if that was what it took to get you sober,
you wouldn't be here in the first place, you know.
And so this is his this is his journey. I
had to let him go. He had to live in
his car for months. And you know that that feeling

(54:20):
is a parent that every parent knows, like when you
don't know whether the phone call is going to be
the one that asked you to come and I come
and identify your own kid. But you also know that
like the dollar you give him could be the dollar
that kills him. And uh, and he knows that I'm

(54:41):
sober and I'm ready when he's ready, and and and
so he called us. We got that call that he
was ready, you know. And he went straight to detox,
and he went to rehab, and he worked the steps
and and uh, he had a couple of good years
of sobriety.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
I thought he had five. I was gonna say, yeah,
that hustle is very familiar to me.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
And and then he met a girl he fell in love,
and uh, you know, I think he's got that other
program in here pretty good too. And and I don't
know why, you know, people don't. It's so hard as
a parent, you know, I can't only imagine what my
mom would think here and me talk about how I
felt as a little guy, you know, because as a parent,
you just you want your kids to feel safe and

(55:22):
loved and lovable, and and uh, I don't. I don't
believe he loves himself, you know. And and there's a
question that you always ask you used to always ask
me every time, and it pops up on my phone
every day, like, you know, where am I not trusting
God and all my affairs? But more importantly, where does
Brad not love himself today? And and thankfully you know,

(55:44):
there's not many of those areas. I don't love myself
today And and I think for him, like all I've
ever wanted for him is to love himself, and you
know he's enough. And uh, but it's brutal as a parent,
you know when you learn in here that sometimes to
save your child you gotta let him go. And that
you know, because they say in here, you know, we
end up in one of a few places, you know, jails, institutions,

(56:05):
or death. You know, we either get it or you know,
the other outcomes or not are not so good.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
They're they're bad.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
And so he's out there, he's out there doing his
doing his thing right now, And uh, you know, we
pray for him.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
You know, we're ready when he is.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
And that is really what I learned too, is that,
you know, my job in everything in my life is
to be as ready as I can be, you know,
whether it's to a newcomer who needs help, to my wife,
to my colleagues, you know, it's it's informed me on
how to be a how to be a better partner,
business partner, life partner, parent. And I had lunch with

(56:47):
a friend the other day and I said to him,
for the first time in my life, I actually feel
like a man, like like what it feels like to be,
you know, and I don't mean that like in the
Marlborough man way. I mean just to you know, to
be handling my affairs and showing up for life and
to be someone who is reliable and dependable. And I've

(57:08):
learned so much in here, you know, in the work
that we've done and in these rooms, and it's it's
really something you know to be to be in a life,
to actually want to be alive, and to get to
be of service and and and have value for people.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Yeah, it's beautiful. Let's just in with this, Okay. Where
were you when the fire started.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
I was in Idaho. So we have a house now in.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Because of your hard work. Yeah yeah, and being at
your desk at six am, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, I'm I'm on the SINO schedule. I get up
at four thirty.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
And so we were at our home in Idaho, and uh,
it looked like the fires were getting getting pretty bad.
But where our houses and the palisades. I thought, there's
no way our house is going to burn. In order
for our house to burn, everything has to burn. And
everything pretty much did burn. But but I didn't know
that my house had burned because the power went out,

(58:08):
the cameras went off, and uh. The next morning, so
this would be Wednesday morning. On the eighth, I got
a call from a good buddy and I and he goes,
what are you doing? And I was joking because I thought, nah,
my house didn't burn. And I go, I'm I'm shopping
for lots in the palisades. I was just joking and
making light of a situation, which is what I do.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
And uh, and he goes, stop joking around.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
And and this is the guy who's pretty lighthearted, who
wouldn't say that. And I go, where are you? And
he goes, I'm I'm in I'm in the I'm in
the Palisades. I go, oh, have you been by my house?
And he goes, yeah, I'm in front of your house.
And I go, how is it?

Speaker 1 (58:46):
And he just starts crying and uh and he goes,
it's gone. And I go, yeah, my house is gone
and he goes, no, Brad, it's all gone. It's all gone.
And uh.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
And I and my wife even I don't think it
totally processed it yet because I looked up at her
and she was in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
She's looking at me.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
She goes our house like she's asking me, like, have
you asked about our house?

Speaker 1 (59:17):
And I go, it's gone. And she just falls in
a pile on the floor crying. And uh.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
You know the thing that the thing that hurt me
the most about that was watching her, you know, go
through the pain.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
I think that's when I I had that moment.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I'm like, I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not gonna
let for a minute, I'm not gonna say something because
all of our passport, our passports and our pink slips
are in the house and we thought to get them
and and I just go, I'm not going to say
anything unkind to her. She doesn't deserve it. She's been
through enough, you know, and this is going to be enough.
And and I thought, I gotta make her. I got
to make her feel safe. And the thing for me

(59:55):
was this was my sober house. Like like I moved
into this house when I was a couple months sober.
We rented it on a lease option and we were
able to buy it and and uh, but this was
like like this place, your your place here is like
an ashrom you know, it's a special place and nobody
messes with it. I mean people, this whole community knows

(01:00:16):
this place as a special cloak around it. And that
home for me was like that, like it was our
for me, it was my special, beautiful sober place where
you know, we raised our kids and we've fought some
battles there, you know, in sobriety. And I watched my
career be reborn into something that it's beautiful that I'm

(01:00:40):
super proud of. And and so you know, now we're
we're in the process of rebuilding.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
What was it like when you guys walked on to
the property for the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
We got to the base of Chautauqua, which is the
road that leads up into the Palisades, and it's the
minute we started seeing the well first, when you're at
the very bottom, you think this isn't so bad, you know,
how bad can it be? And well we got up
to sunset where you know, the real fire, like the
epicenter of where everything just got blown out. Was we

(01:01:15):
stepped on our lot and my wife was bawling. We
got to the National Guard and we didn't have a
pass to get in, and they walked up. They were
getting ready to turn us around, and they took one
look at my wife and and the guy was so
kind and he said, listen, you're supposed to have a
pass here, but I'm going to let you through.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Do me a favorite, get a pass, okay. And my
wife was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Just just trying to say thank you, you know, through
your tears. And we we set foot on that and
and it was it was just all gone. I mean
it was it was just a and for her it
was like like I'm a few clicks from having clothes again,

(01:01:58):
and it was all memories and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
For her, all of her clothes and her community.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
And that's really the thing, like like we don't have
a big house, but it was all of those I mean,
we've been there, we moved there in nineteen ninety five,
to the Palisades, and that community, those friends you could
just be. It was like it was like a terror
in the fabric of it, you know. And I remember

(01:02:27):
sitting there that day because I posted it on Instagram,
because you had always said in here that no one
can blow your light out without your permission. And I
remember sitting there thinking that day, like like, no one
can end can kill this community without our permission. You know,

(01:02:48):
no one can end our family. This was our family home,
and no one can destroy our family without our permission.
No one can take my sobriety without my permission, and
no one can turn me into an asshole without my permission.
And uh, and then that moment, I mean, as gut

(01:03:08):
wrenching as it was, and it's still, you know, not easy.
But I think Merrett and I together you made a
decision that that you know, we don't give this fire
permission to take away what we love about this, you know, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
Right on. And it's I've not seen self pity out you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
I've actually seen you more stronger, calm or reflective, kinder
than ever.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Yeah, it just happened. Yeah, well really huh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
And and yeah, I mean, I that's how I feel.
And I just got to say this. I mean, not
just because it's your show, but you know how I
feel about you. And if you don't, you should hear
it again. All the work that we did and that
and you not let me off easy. I I was
as ready is I needed to be. Maybe not more so,

(01:04:02):
but like that moment, you really helped me be ready
for this.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
That's beautiful. Yeah, thank you, Brad. I love you, Thank you.
This is really a beautiful day of healing from me
with you. Thank you, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
The Sinales Show is a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted
by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod People in twenty
eighth av Our lead producer is Keith Carnlick. Our executive
producer is Lindsay Hoffman. Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver. Thank
you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.