From Denial to an Open Book: A Story of Recovery with Mathias John

Today we are rounding out our 3 part series on addiction. We started talking about it from a clinical/therapist perspective, then moved to the perspective of a loved one, and now we have a human who has actually walked through the throes of addiction themselves here to share part of their own story. 

Mathias John is someone I met years ago through his wife–who actually happens to be a therapist. Through his recovery journey he decided to offer the community something that he wished he had, a story he could relate to; a story about a high functioning addict who hid from himself and others really well. So, he took his ACTUAL PERSONAL JOURNALS and created a book out of them. Yep. He is welcoming us into his real mind- his most personal thoughts- and sharing what it was like for him to move through his life as someone struggling with addiction and someone working towards recovery. 

AND to top it off, he actually writes this book alongside his own therapist, Ashley Boyd.

 

In our conversation we talk about a lot. What I hope you hear in this is something we can all relate to, a story about someone who tried their hardest to run from the truth and eventually found out that telling the truth would set them free.  AND a story about that being really freaking hard and possible at the same time. 

Mathias’ book comes out September 14th and you can learn more about it HERE!  

Follow Mathias: @mathiasjohn__

 

Follow Kat on Instagram: @Kat.Defatta

Follow the podcast Instagram: @YouNeedTherapyPodcast

Have a question, concern, guest idea, something else? Reach Kat at: [e-mail]

Heard about Three Cords Therapy but don’t know what it is? Click here!

 

Produced by: @HoustonTilley

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on you need therapy.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Professionally, my career was just like going, you know, taking
off with my mentor, and I mean we're working on
some really really cool projects and nothing suffered work wise.
None of my clients had any idea, didn't miss a deadline.
Work was the only thing that made me happy, like truly,
because I could go there and it felt safe.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Like at home.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It didn't feel safe because I thought I was like
being under a microscope and there's all this pressure on
me to be like this perfect person.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
If we don't know something about ourselves at this point
in our life, it's probably because it's uncomfortable to know.
If you can die before you die, then you can
really live. There's a wisdom at death's door. I thought
I was insane, Yeah, and I didn't know what to
do because there was no internet.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel like everything
is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a
human first and a licensed therapist second. And right now
I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope encourage you
to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,

(01:15):
and the world around you. Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of You
Need Therapy podcast. My name is kat I am the host,
and before we get started, I want to give a
quick reminder to everybody that although this podcast is hosted
by a therapist and it's called You Need Therapy, it

(01:36):
does not serve as a replacement or a substitute for
any actual mental health services, although we always hope that
it can help you wherever you are on whatever journey
you are on. Now today we are rounding out our
three part series on addiction. Tara Booker and I started

(01:57):
talking two weeks ago with the perspective of a clinician
and a therapist, and then we moved the following week
and talked about it from the perspective of a loved
one and loving somebody who struggles with addiction. And now
we have a human who has actually walked through the
throes of addiction themselves and is here to share part

(02:17):
of his own story in that. Our guest's name is
Matthias John and he's somebody I met years ago through
his wife and through a gym I used to go
to all the time. And his wife actually is a
therapist as well, which makes his story a little extra interesting,
I think. And today he is here to share his story,

(02:39):
one that includes being an alcoholic and through his recovery journey,
he decided that he wanted to offer the community something
that he wished he had, which was a story he
could really relate to, a story that felt like his,
a story about a high functioning addict who hid from
himself and others really really well, hid from his therapist,

(03:01):
really really well, hid from his wife who was a therapist,
really really well. And so what he did is he
took his actual journal entries, somebody who journaled every day
through this process, he took his actual journal entries and
created a book out of them, his own personal entries
through all of the phases of addiction, contemplation, recovery, all

(03:23):
of it. And to top it off, he actually writes
the book alongside his actual therapist. Her name is Ashley Boyd,
which this adds yet another layer of woe to his
story and to this book that he is now getting
ready to share with the world. In our conversation, we
talked about a lot, but what I hope you guys

(03:44):
hear in this is something that we can all relate to.
A story about someone who tried their hardest to run
from the truth and eventually found out that the truth
is what actually would set them free and would give
them what they were really looking for, and a story
about that being really freaking hard and possible at the

(04:07):
same time. If you want to learn more about Matthias,
you can find him on Instagram at Matthias John Underscore
and online at not Yet toofar Gone dot com and
I will also link both of those in the show
notes so you can just click on them to find him. So,
without anymore waiting, here is our conversation. So to start,

(04:32):
can you give everybody who's listening a short fuel on
who you are and why I might be talking to
you today.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
My name is Matthias John. I live in Nashville, Tennessee.
As profession I design recording studios. I am also a
recovering alcoholic sober since April of twenty one, and in
the past year and a half, I've written a book
that explores the journals that I wrote every morning while

(05:06):
I was in active active addiction. So it's kind of
this exploration of basically how I got to where I
got and also in that process, I wrote it with
my therapist, Ashley Boyd, which was very enlightening experience. So
the book itself has like three voices, if you will.

(05:26):
There's attic Matthias, there's sober Matthias, and then there's Ashley
Boyd who can comment on both.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Which is such a crazy concept which we'll get into.
But what is very interesting about this conversation for me,
and I think is kind of cool for you guys
listening to have this in your head too, is that
I knew you before this book. I knew existed, and

(05:55):
I knew your wife way more intimately than I knew you,
and I don't think I would have ever imagined what
I read in the book. I think I texted your
wife Jesse first, and I said, oh my gosh, not
me crying listening to you write about her one just
the things that you were saying that were kind, but

(06:18):
also that there is this story happening behind what I
was seeing, and I think a lot of it happened
later when I hadn't been as close to Jesse. So
I think that's a little different. Yeah, But I think
that's important for a couple reasons to mention, one being
that this is a glaring example of how we really

(06:43):
cannot be so sure about what people are going through,
what's going on. I mean, it seems so cliche that
I get annoyed with it, But like the Instagram, the
whole Instagram's not real thing. It's like we can make
up whole stories about what people are working through or
struggling with or fill in the blank, and everybody has

(07:04):
a story. We just have to be curious enough to
ask us questions and lean in in our relationships to
learn what the story is. So I just wanted to
say that because, like I said, I just think it's
important that there can be people in our lives and
also with our bias and our judgments, which I talked
about two weeks ago, because two weeks ago we talked

(07:25):
from the perception of the clinician when it comes to addiction,
and I shared some of you guys, this might be redundant,
but I shared how my judgment and prejudice and thoughts
about how people who were addicts were so different than me,
and then when I actually realized I'm in relationship with

(07:47):
those people, and when I got to know them working
as a therapist, I was like, wait a second, I'm
learning more about me from you than I'm helping you
learn about you. And so it's just another example of
how we just need to be more curious and open
caring towards people and realize that what we're seeing on
the surface isn't always the case, even in ourselves. Your
whole book is wild because you get to see the

(08:10):
like bullshit kind of that you tell yourself, and then
later you get to go back and be like, yeah,
I was lying, So like even like questioning ourselves and
being open to what's behind the image that we portray ourselves. Anyway,
I just mentioned this, but we are having this conversation
two weeks after we talked about addiction from the lens
of the therapist. Addiction when it comes to loving somebody

(08:32):
who struggles with addiction. And now I'm sitting here with
somebody who's going to share their story about what it's
like to actually decide or admit that they do have
an addiction and then work through. I mean, we get
the before, the during, and the after and.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
The forever with you, right it's a full picture, and
that's why I thought it was important to share. Yeah,
it's just you don't see a lot of that middle
ground unless it's like bottom bottom rights, it's a spectacular bottom,
like flipping a hotel room like these rockstar bottoms. You
hear that, but that's not very applicable to your neighbor,

(09:09):
right to someone that you know, someone you're passing on
the street, like their bottom. Everyone's bottom looks different and
you just never know who's hit it or.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Who's going through it.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And the relatability of the story is what I wanted
to share is and I think I mentioned this as
part of the book. When I started writing it, I'd
realized this was a book I wish I had, Like
this was a book I was looking for when I
was struggling. I read thirty forty books on addiction, like
clinical books from you know PhDs, you know, Understanding a

(09:41):
high function alcoholic to just memoirs of people. But most
of the people that write memoirs are relatively famous, and
so like they I want to rehab eight times, Like okay,
not everyone has money to throw to rehab or to
just take a break like you have life and so
like that gets in the way of a lot of
people doing that.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, when you can sit there and say, well, that's not.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Me, oh one hundred percent, right, Yeah, you've looked for
the whole, right, you look for what's not you and
what you can set yourself a part in.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I hear so often the defense of well I still
do this, and I still go to work, and I
still had this on time, and I still was able
to do that, and da da da, and I have
friends and I've never gotten this, And I think that's
that comparison that this only is a thing and I

(10:32):
only am in this category if all of these boxes
are checked. But what you're saying is the box is
that a lot of us have to look at. Are
these extreme boxes right? And there is a lot of
middle ground and a question that I ask people a lot,
which depends if they're ready to admit that is, regardless
of what has happened or what hasn't happened, is what's

(10:55):
going on right now working for you? Like is this
the life that you want to live? Regardless of If
it doesn't matter if you drink once a year, Yeah,
you can still be an alcoholic, right on what that
drinking experience is like and how you feel and all
of that. So you kind of answered an important question

(11:16):
is what before we get into some of your story,
like what is it that really drove me to want
to because this is intimate what you're sharing.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Right, Oh, it's literally my journals.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
So what drove you and sharing that is that? Like
I really wish I had an example of this, I
could wish I could have read this book.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, the whole book was a process.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
So I started journaling like six years ago, and every
time I finished a journal, I would before I started
writing my next one, I just read through it, floop
back and be like, all right, what.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Would improve on? Where am I going? What did I
struggle with?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
So I did that let's say pre addiction too, So
that was in place the whole way through this, and
then I guess six months into recovery is when I
started thinking, I really don't want to repeat this again.
Let's go back and read and look for patterns and
see what made me tick here and what kind of
would set me off and that kind of thing. So

(12:12):
it started as like a learning experience. Let's not repeat
the past, right, like, let's let's grow from this. And
then it started to morph into I would write on
you know, my journal entries that I saw, you know,
I started sharing that with my therapist Ashley, and then
it started snowballing into I think there's something here, like
I think there's something that could help people with it.

(12:33):
And initially I just asked Ashley to write the forward
to see if she would write, you know, introduction, and
she was like, I'd be happy to do you.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I think it's a great idea. And then she actually
came up with the idea.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
She's like, well, you know, if you're open to it,
I can share notes from sessions or if there's something
you get stuck on, like I could kind of you know,
pipe in here and there, And that snowballed into her
chiming in whenever she felt like it right. So, and
the way we wrote it together was I wrote my
entire thing, like everything I wanted to say, in six

(13:05):
to seven months, and then she wanted to wait until
I was done because I knew what would happen if
she started pitch like piping in was I'd play some
recovery and be.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Like, well, this was like what was going I try
to make myself look good?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
And there would be rebuttals, which is not the point,
and the point is to get it out there and
be honest and open and vulnerable and raw with a
lot of the writing. So she waited till I was
completely done, and then she went back and you know,
there were key dates in her session notes, which you
know I signed off on. Yes, you can share whatever
you want, you know, in case I was worried about

(13:40):
legal implications on the yeah, there was definitely a release.
And also I was the one who said please share this,
so not a big deal. And she pulled some really
interesting stuff. And as she started sending me bits and
pieces of it, I'm like, I think this, I really
do think this can help some people. And then the
turning point for me taking it like really seriously it

(14:01):
was probably December of just last year, is when I
started to look at it like a right, I think
this is like something I want to put together and
look at it like as a professional manner. I gave
the book to someone I knew who was going to
a seven day detox for alcohol. A friend of mine
connected me with him and said, I think you two

(14:23):
should talk basically just kind of connecting the dots, and
so I printed them off what I had at the time,
so it looked like a like a film manuscript, right
because it was not eight and a half by eleven,
just like a thick wat of paper. And I gave
it to him just like, hey, amn, no pressure. But
it seems like we may have struggled with the same
things along the way. So I mean, all you could
bring into that type of thing is reading material, no phones,

(14:46):
no emails on computers.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
So the first you know.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Four days were very hazy for him because it was
medically like overseen by professionals and all that, and so
he said he read it in about two days, like
the whole thing. Everyone and else was like, what are
you reading? Like sharing it? He started sharing pages with them,
and everyone was like, I need to get my hands
on this thing, like this resonating. And there were two
things that really struck me that came away from it.

(15:11):
The first was he had a friend of someone he
met there read a couple pages and then that sparked
this friend who was struggling with addiction and his relationship
was after his marriage was suffering. He wrote his wife
a letter that he's never written his wife a letter before,
but he was so inspired and felt so emotional because

(15:33):
of I don't even know what chapter it was, but
whatever I wrote spoke to him in a way where
he wrote his wife like pages upon pages, just like
I finally see my role. I'm so sorry, like just
you know, all of it came out towards the end
of his treatment, which I thought was very It was,
I mean, it was very touching for me to hear that.

(15:54):
And then my friend who finished it, and I like
to call him patient zero because he's like the first
one to read it, covered it cover that. Didn't you
know love me like objective completely. You have to like
you need, Yeah, you need someone that you know has
no tide in that. He called me when he got
out and we had like this forty five minute, hour
long conversation. He's like, you put into words things I've

(16:15):
been feeling for five years and I had no idea
how to say it. And you literally made me want
to just walk a better path as a man because
of the way that you owned it and what you
did to go forward and sharing it. And he's he's
been sober since. I mean, we were still in touch.
We get coughee all the time and not saying that
this is this is by no means of how to

(16:36):
get sober book. This is very much a this is
what I went through, and if it resonates and things change, wonderful.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
One. That's incredible As you're talking, and I'm like, when
I worked in a treatment center, there was a book
that every client got when they walked in. It was
The Four Agreements. I don't know if they still get that.
There great book, but if this was the book that
every client got, how cool would that be? Where it's
almost like a you're not alone and you can go
somewhere by yourself and read this. You don't have to

(17:05):
sit in group therapy and spill your guts right now
if you're not ready to do it, but you're not alone.
That is one. So cool that he is going to exist,
and also really cool that you gave this book to
this stranger before you were probably even really completely done
with like the finishing touches and making.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Sure Yeah it was it was pretty raw.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, And that's also interesting. I was going to ask you,
how did you get your therapist to agree to do this?
But it was her idea.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, she knows me better than I know myself.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
In a lot of ways, and so I think one
she was probably really curious to what I was putting
on paper because she was able to go back and
read and be like, Okay, Matt just binged for the
past week and he came in on a Tuesday and
said everything's fine, oh my, and we didn't talk about
alcohol because he just he put on the attic face

(17:57):
and you just you know, and she was very you know,
once once I fully accepted. Once I said to her,
I'm an alcoholic, and she wrote it down. She's like,
all right, just so you know, you said this, and
I could read it back to you right in the future, right,
because that's something you need to come to on your own.
And so as soon as you know, we had that conversation,
then she would start to let me in on certain things,

(18:19):
like how skilled I was at navigating sober Matt versus
attict Matt and like flipping that switch mid session like
she oh yeah, and just trying to smooth things over.
And she's like, you were a very tough study in
that regard because your addiction was so strong and you
were still holding everything together well.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
And you know what is fascinating from a clinician perspective,
is when you work in a treatment center, this is
a different ball game because you were there. There's usually
if it's not you that are that you're like, oh,
I want to come and get help. There's family members
that are giving you some information. You have a lot

(18:58):
of information before you even meet the client, so you
know what you're going to face when you're working out
patient with the client. We only know what you bring us.
When you're working out patient with the client, we only
know what you bring us. And so it takes a

(19:19):
little bit of time to figure out and put these
pieces together. I think there was one point that Ashley
wrote in there that was like at this point I
was a little confused or like this started to not
make any sense to me, something like that, and it's like, yeah,
eventually you start being like, wait a second, you said this,
but then you said this, but then everything's fine. Then
everything's not fine. Then this is happening. Something's not adding up,

(19:40):
and you're not telling me the whole story, which is
a journey that yeah, and we can't as a therapist
force somebody in to the journey. So I'm really curious
what was your perception about addiction and addicts and did
you know, any were you in relationship with any that

(20:01):
talked about it? So what was that before you were
in the space to be like, yeah, I think this
fits for me. And then what flipped for you where
you're like, I'm ready to kind of admit this.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
I think part of this feels like karma because of
the way that I viewed addicts before, which was very
much the stereotype. I don't know, however, no one looks
at a successful person and be like, you know, they
might have a problem, or it might it's always the
other way, And I just know I can say how
many times to be like I wouldn't trust anyone that
doesn't drink, you know, or just why can't ADICX just

(20:36):
stop or something like that, you know, like just not
knowing what it was like until I started feeling a
poll and making and doing you just irrational things and
not being able to stop. And really most of my
life have been a fairly honest person. I like to
think that I was, And man, did it turn me

(20:57):
into a liar in just so many ways, like a
bold face liar. I'm not a good liar. So it
was very clear to my wife when it was lying.
I mean, like it was obvious, but there was just
a lot of things that started adding up. The only
person that knew the whole time was my wife, really,
Jesse and I hit it from family. We're sitting at

(21:18):
my mentor studio.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
He didn't know.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And how often were you with?

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I mean every day? I would drink here every day?

Speaker 1 (21:25):
So how did your wife? How did she find out
about it? Was it just a progressive thing that started
being a conversation.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, there were just signs here and there where. I mean,
I would always I typically used to stay up later
than her, and that's when I would drink. She'd go
to bed, and then I'd be like, all right, now
I could have like a couple more drinks.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
So it was always me coming to bed a little
bit later.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
And she didn't hear like the ice cubes getting poored
like downstairs type of thing. And so a lot of
things just didn't add up, you know, Like she'd come
home from work and I'd be buzzed and be like, well,
what'd you do? Like nothing, I just came home from work,
and you know, no big deal. But you know, the
buzz has turned more into just being drunk when she
got home, and eventually and it's in this is in

(22:08):
the book, which I jokingly trademarked. She found what I
called the vodka graveyard, Like I had bottles hidden in
my closet, and so I'd go upstairs and come downstairs
and be more off than I was prior. Right, And
she started to pick up on these things and one
day she's like, this doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Right, She's like, I'm starting.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Right because he's gas lighting.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, also in the book, so all those things. Eventually
she dug through my closet because something wasn't off, and
she's like, it was the worst I've ever felt as
a wife to have to do that, and that was,
you know, that was a very fun day. But that
was exactly a year before my bottom. So she found

(22:52):
bottles in the closet and then I started doing the
little brief stints of sobriety, and then it like it
really ramped up for a couple of months into I
decided to call it quits.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
So tell me the conversation in your head that you're having.
And again a lot of this is in the book.
Because the conversations in your head are coming out on
the paper, I imagine there's people listening and being like, how
do you not know you have a problem if you're
hiding alcohol from your wife? So what's the conversation in
your head when that's happening, is it I know I
have a problem, but I don't want to admit it,

(23:22):
or I'm still able to maintain all this stuff. It's fine.
My wife is just dramatic or whatever. Well she won't understand.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Right, Yeah, I think I hit all of them, you know,
like there's probably a progression of that. There were days
where I'd be like, man, you are such an alcoholic,
you know, like to myself, but not do anything about it.
For a long time, it was still fun, like it
was still life giving to me because it would just
be like, yeah, I mean I had a buzz all day.

(23:51):
It was great, Like there was no consequence yet, So
like on that level, you look at that and you think, Okay,
well maybe maybe she's just like a little little maybe
she doesn't want to have as much fun as I
want to have. And I'm I'm in the music industry
and like, look around, everyone's doing this.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Not on that.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Level, but you're comparing myself, which is not great for
any sort of recovery. Sovariety or in general.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
But yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
There were stages some days where I would be like, ah,
she's just a little a little tight. I mean, none
of these things are true, but it was just depending
on the day, I would say different things to myself
to try to reason it. I think, you know, that's
like you know, in your gut at some point, if
you're really hiding it and you know, sneaking alcohol in
your gym bag kind of thing, like you know, like

(24:40):
deep down, you know, but your brain is very skilled
at manipulating the thoughts to say, no, you're still good.
Because professionally, my career was just like going, you know,
taking off with my mentor and I mean we're working
on some really really cool projects and nothing suffered work wise.

(25:01):
None of my clients had any idea, didn't miss a deadline.
Work was the only thing that made me happy, like truly,
because I could go there and it felt safe. Like
at home, it didn't feel safe because I thought I
was like being under a microscope and there's all this
pressure on me to be like this perfect person.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
From where from Jesse?

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Was she giving you that pressure in.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
My mind at the time, Yeah, but no, I mean
she never said that yeah, she never said that. And
I also I kind of put that pressure on myself
on some level too, where you know, I was always
kind of the easy going one in the family, like
easy to get along with. I never really stirred the pot,
and so I was just that fun loving, easy, easygoing guy,

(25:42):
easy to travel with, and I just that persona to me.
I wanted to keep that and hold on to that,
and so I was like, well, you can still keep
that going. This is just a little problem over here.
It'll go away. No one knows about it, not a
big deal.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's almost I mean, this leads into something else, but
the drinking, it's like a solution to that. I want
to keep being. It's a double edged sword, right, So
it's keeping me from being able to be this easygoing
guides making it difficult because like, oh there's a problem,
but also it's helping me maintain the feelings I have
about having to always be the easygoing, fun loving guy. Yeah.

(26:18):
What people might find very interesting that I have not
said yet is I don't think you've said it is.
Your wife's a therapist.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
Your wife was a therapist, and she was like had
already been.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
She probably was already licensed and working as a therapist
when you guys met or when you got.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Married's just starting in private practice when we met.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
So what is that experience? Because when you said, like
the microscope, a fear of mine used to always be like,
people are going to think that I'm always working when
I'm in relationship with people. Now I know that to
be different from my experience, but people do wonder that. Yeah,
and so did it feel like part of that microso
scope was because your wife works with this all day

(27:03):
long and her job is to question and her job
is to wonder and be curious.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
I never felt like I was, let's say, therapized. I
was never being therapized at home. I just think that
with her being a therapist, we've always had a very
open line of communication and we talk like we talk
about things, nothing truly festers. So I think that was
just that was always there, that was there before, and
so now we're just talking about harder stuff. And I

(27:30):
never felt that pressure, which I think goes that says
a lot about her to know that she's too close
And I started therapy because she knew that she was
too close to help. I mean I started therapy because
it was drinking a little too much. It wasn't crazy,
it was definitely excessive. And there's a chapter in the

(27:51):
book where I have to fact check myself mid book
because I say the problem starts in this year, and
it was like, no, it.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Started two years later.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, And so it's an interesting thing to as your
cause you add a brain, there's still there, right.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
So that's why we go to meetings.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
That's why we work on this rest of our life
because if we don't, it's gonna flip a switch and
all of a sudden we're back to where we were.
So I'm trying to write this book on honesty and
like open up and tell my story, and I'm already
lying to the audience and saying, well, this started in
twenty eighteen, Like okay, now let's back up a little.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Bit, start a little prior.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
But that all to say, like I started therapy because
I was basically self medicating at home for a few
different reasons. And so that was kind of a point
where it's she kind of you know, let it go
to our you're seeing somebody, you're taking that step. I
know I can't be your therapist as your husband, that's impossible.

(28:46):
So let's, you know, let's start to work on that
level instead of her. She never tried to fix me,
And let's say that.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
When she wants to be your wife in that scenario,
like I want to be your partner, I don't want
to be your not that a therapist will to be
this either, but I'm not going to be your rescue
or your savior. Yeah, it is such a different role.
And I think that's also important to note if anybody
has friends that are therapists or anybody, the role of
therapist is very different than all these other things. And yeah,

(29:13):
our personality is going to come out. You guys have
probably stronger communication skills because that's what she does all
day and she probably enjoys that to an extent. But
we don't want to work on our While I can
speak for myself, I don't want to work on my
family members as patients of mine.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
That feels icky, Yeah, and it's and what I've realized
with Jesse is I mean she does that all day. Yeah,
so like she want to come home and keep it
going probably No, Like I know how exhausting it is
for you guys, Like you're emotionally invested in so many
people that you just want some stability, yeah, you know
when you're done and so and that's what she was
looking for, and you know that wasn't clearly giving it.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
To What would you say because you mentioned self medicating,
and this answer can shift as the versions of you
come out. What was the problem you were medicating?

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Initially where we went with it was I was losing
my sense.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Of self in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
So you know, justin now we're married a little over
a year when I started going to therapy, and I
wasn't doing as much that I was doing when I
moved to Nashville. Like when I moved here, I moved
here to be in the music industry, go to shows,
meat artists, record bands produced.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
That was like my new path.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
And prior to jests that I did that for a
couple of years, I was out five days a week.
And then you start to get in a relationship and honestly,
I've never been in a long term relationship before Jesse
was it. So I didn't know what balance was and
I just went head head into whatever she wanted and
so and not she was asking, but what I perceived
the perfect boyfriend or and or husband to be, which

(30:53):
was all right, she worked a little.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Later, and she still works a little later then me.
She comes home a little later.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
So I cooked dinner every night, and so I kept
doing that, but I stopped going to shows and I
stopped doing all the things that I moved here for.
So initially the self medicating was, all right, you're sad
because you're proud, you're a little bored, or you're like
losing that drive or something.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
But it's also like confusing because you're like, wait, this
is what everybody wants is to have this partnership and
then you have this life together and yeah, you not
everybody wants that, but you know the American dream kind
of story. Yeah, and you can't all the time. It's
like the zero two one hundred. It's black and it's white.
I'm in this relationship or I'm working on my career.

(31:40):
I'm working my career, or I'm in this relationship, I'm
starting a family, or I'm giving up my I'm giving
up Do you have to have one or the other?
And did it feel like you couldn't have both or
it feel like you weren't supposed to have both, or
just was it was it a lot of pressure again?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Most of the pressure came from myself. I thought on
some lovel I couldn't have both, or I thought she'd
be more up she would be like upset if I
did more things like you know, so I made up
a story in my head like, oh man, she's she's
gonna be pissed if I go to another show or
something like that. And you know, one thing Ashley has
worked with, she's like, you're really assuming you know what's

(32:16):
going on in your wife's head. And one thing that
I would I used to be really proud of, like, oh, yeah,
we never we never fight because we just get along
in and like we kind of like on the same wavelength,
we kind of know what each other's thinking.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
And then and then through therapy in.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Addiction, that's incredibly arrogant to be that as a partner
you don't know what's going on. And so she never
said any of those things, but in my head I
would just I went, I twisted it real quick to oh, no,
you have to be home or she won't be happy,
which is just not was so far from the truth.
But that's the pressure that I instilled on myself, which

(32:52):
you know eventually led to other things.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Obviously, so yeah, it's well, this is what would make
me a good husband. Backfire, because who can live that way.
What you're saying is like, I'm behaving and choosing things
that I think will make this person happy even though
I haven't asked them, And then they're like, huh, I
never said that. Yeah, there's a lot of moments in

(33:22):
this book that I feel that must have been incredibly
difficult to go back through, also difficult to put on
paper for people to read. Also, a lot of parts
of the book that would just were like shocking, not
jawdrop you.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Guys couldn't hear that, but.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Shocking in the way of like, oh, yes, like a
light bulb kind of moment. There's one in particular that
I want to bring up. And there is a moment
that you said, this is the journal part that you
write an entry, this is just the end of it.
You said, why is it that after every good session,
bad things happen? And then in your response to that,

(34:05):
I'm sitting here being like, do you remember that? You're like, yes,
I've been through this fifty.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Times by now.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
But in your response you said, it was an extremely
common occurrence for me to drink the night after a
good therapy session. Therapy made me feel better about myself,
or at least that's what I was taking away from
it at the time. Yet again I was missing the point.
Actually scratch that, I wasn't really missing the point. I

(34:30):
was getting what I wanted. This feels, like I said,
like the light bulb, like so real. And we kind
of touched on this earlier. But people ask me a lot.
Friends and people are like, oh, what do you do
And they'll ask me, what do you do if your
clients are lying to you? Or what do you do
like if you don't have all the information? And often

(34:52):
my response is similar to, well, that's not really my problem.
I used to want to make it my problem as
an early fare, but it's not really my problem. And
I can't really help somebody if they don't want the
help and if they aren't ready for the help. And
I also think of that space between they people start
to get honest as necessary. We say so often like

(35:15):
oh I wish I would have done this sooner, or
I wish I would have gone back and just been
on it. But there's usually something that we need in
that space, and I want you to talk about that
kind of space. Because I think it's so interesting. You
weren't missing the point. I was getting what I wanted.
You were getting what you want out of therapy, which
is to just feel better about yourself, not to change

(35:37):
your behavior. That's what I took from that. Yeah, so
what was that like? And then like how did you
move to a place where you were thinking, Wait a second,
it might be getting what I want, but this isn't working.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
When I was saying like I was getting what I
wanted out of it, I would come back and like
kind of debrief with Jesse. That's a choice that we
made as a couple, Like it's not for every buddy,
but obviously she's a therapist, and so it was a
thing that I thought was important to share what I
wanted to share, and she was very upfront like talk
about what do you want to but you know, how

(36:10):
did it go?

Speaker 3 (36:11):
And we talked, but I would get out of it.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
It was just enough space to keep going, you know,
like I'd hear enough good things to continue to do
what I was doing. And so I would basically pete
like just take the pieces of and glance over.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Take what took it I wanted.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
I left the rest and then when you're unfortunate, like
the hardest one of the hardest things is realizing how
manipulative I was throughout those years, and even with Ashley,
and I know that she saw through a lot of it,
but there's some points in the book where she's like,
this is all shocking to me. And so as I
was being manipulative through that, I was being able to

(36:51):
relive therapy in those conversations and think, you know what,
I'm not that bad.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
I'm doing okay, I'm working on this.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
That's a famous line, Yeah, I'm not that.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Not that bad.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, yeah, And that's something that I said very very often,
but that's kind of what I would get out of it.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Was just Okay, we have this to work on. Cool,
I'm going to work on that.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
We didn't talk about this, And why didn't we talk
about well, because I didn't bring it up.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I think this is so common. I've done this before.
I'm going to therapy to confirm that I'm okay, versus
I'm going to therapy to figure out what's going on, yeah,
and then making adjustments when needed.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Therapy actually started out to make the adjustments as needed.
I think the whole realization of Okay, you're losing yourself,
your sense of self and what you were doing that
brought you joy, Like got it that those are all
true things, and okay, I could work on that. So
I did work on that and started doing more things,
and like just and I had a little more space
from each other, which was all good.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
So I went the reverse route. So I initially went.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
And it's probably when the added brain took over, and
then I started hearing what I'm getting out of it
when I need to get out of it in order
to keep drinking.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, your addict's like, wait, no, you are getting too close.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, this is good work.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
We got to do something to get that out of
the way.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
I often will describe addiction, I mean not often. I
always describe it as a solution to a problem that
then stops working right. And so when we get to
those spaces where we have to make a decision do
I keep doing this or do I try something else.
What I don't think a lot of people can understand

(38:29):
unless they're close to it is that when you talk
about your story, and it's a different experience because you've
worked through this so much, but when you talk about
this story, there can be this air of people who
are either living that or experiencing it or have gone
through before, where there's this shame aspect. I mean, addiction

(38:50):
is thriving on shame, right, Yeah, So what is so helpful,
I think is realizing that way. Second, I'm not using
this thing, and we're talking about alcohol, but fill in
the blank with literally anything. I'm not doing this because
I want to hurt people. I'm not looking for a

(39:12):
way to skirt past this or bypass this or ignore
this or just get what I want out of this
because I'm a bad person. I want to hurt people.
I don't care about people. I don't care about myself.
It's often that I care a lot. And if I
pay attention to this thing, how am I going to suffer?
Not like how am I going to get better? It's like,

(39:34):
how am I going to suffer? Was there a breaking
point for you where you realized not cognitively, oh this
thing is hurting me and not helping me. Because I
think we can look on paper and say, oh, all
of these things are lining up, but emotionally, where oh
my gosh, this actually isn't helping me feel better. It's

(39:55):
actually feeding the part of me that feels really shitty. Yeah,
there a where that spoke to you or did it
come out over time?

Speaker 2 (40:03):
I think that was kind of a gradual thing because
when I was like drinking a lot and abusing, I
wasn't very aware of how it was affecting Jesse, which
is hard well for myrored reasons, but since no one
else knew, it wasn't hurting anybody else, right, so it
was only hurting the most important person in my life.

(40:25):
But I didn't realize know that, I didn't realize how
much it was. I mean, she was very and we
got to a point where she was very forward about
you need to like take some steps and do something.
This is not manageable. It was probably a slow build
in my mind, but probably not for her. And then
one instance that that really kind of drove it home
for me is like whenever I traveled for work, it

(40:47):
was like a break right because I was I wasn't
with her. I can do whatever I want, so I
could drink as much as I want when I travel
for work, like I would do all my work things first,
did everything taken care of, and then go drink a
hotel room or something like that. And that was my
way of like letting off steam or something, or in
an airport bar kind of thing, and then I'd be like,

(41:08):
cause I got no one looking at me, I'm good
kind of which was very probably really sad. But we
Jesse and I share a playlist like on Spotify, and
the playlist titles December eighth, that was the day of
our first date, and so we used to just add
songs to it that like reminded each other, and so
I would send her screenshots of what I was listening

(41:31):
to from that playlist, and I think one thing that
still just like tears at me was I sent her
one and her response was, I hope this brings you
back to me. And so that was a point where
I'm like, I mean, I just started crying right I
was on a plane and I was just like this now.

(41:52):
I like that showed some depth of you know, what
I was doing to her, and so that was a
really strong point in the journey. That was probably a
month before my car accident, which.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
We haven't talked about, but that even, oh my god,
that pretty good. I can't even process my emotions that
I'm having about that, because I think knowing and experiencing
and seeing you guys in relationship and how much you
both love each other, which like it's like palpable you
can I mean, I met you guys at a gym,

(42:26):
which is where you met Jesse. You could feel how
much they loved each other in a workout class with
that like it.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Was it is it?

Speaker 4 (42:36):
No, it's not annoying at all.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
And I love some of the stuff you said in
the book about that. It's like I was this. I
couldn't relate to these other couples that were annoyed by
this or this, like this was the almost fairy tale,
but it wasn't annoying because what it actually was is
I wouldn't call it like a role model, but it
was like proof that like that stuff exists and it's

(42:57):
not a fairy tale. And so I guess this is
me processing this moment for you guys listening that, like
you make no sense because this probably doesn't make sense
hearing that. And I wonder if that's why I was
so emotional reading some of the stuff you wrote. Is
because in that sentence, well, let me ask you what
you heard in that sentence?

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Oh, that I was going away? You know that I
was drifting away.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
That's kind of what it felt of, Yeah, she's home
and I'm not.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Even when you're home, even when I'm home, And that's
such an interesting because I'm not in that relationship. And
when I heard in that sentence was I love you
so much? Yeah, I love you and I miss you
so much. And oh my god, I don't even know
where I'm going with that. But if that that didn't
do it for you, that wasn't the bottom. No, what

(43:50):
was the bottom.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
The bottom was a car accident. So I was way
too brave and I'm not proud of it. But I
drove drunk a lot, you know, and I think a
lot of people do, and it's unfortunate. And I'm really
glad now that that happened when it did, because another
couple months and I'm not confident I would have walked
away from a vehicle like I was.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
It was everywhere for me. It was a day.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
It was frindy golf fans out there. It was Master's weekend,
which is one of my favorite weekends of the year.
And I write in the book like I celebrate it
with or without company, like I don't care. I'm watching
every every shot. And it used to be a very
big drinking weekend of the year for me. So it
was the Thursday of the Master's Golf tournament, and I'd

(44:35):
got a real early start by myself. And the phrase
that I would use is, and I use this for years,
I'm gonna go home before it all hits me, right, Yeah,
so let's uh, let's let's drive home.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Before all this start drunk, before get drunk.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
You're already drunk if you're saying that, most likely, but
that was my thought process on that day.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And I didn't make it home.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
I got an off off exit, I think, to my recollection,
I was playing on my phone looking for some music,
not paying attention, and I rear ended the car in
front of me on the off ramp, and I was
going pretty fast because they hit the person in front
of them, which hit the person in front of them.

(45:17):
So there was four cars involved in this accident, and
I don't remember the actual impact because well, vodka won
and then two my airbag went off, so I was
like jacked in the face while also not sober, so.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
I don't really remember it.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
What I remember was being in handcuffs in a police
car and going to the hospital to get my blood
dren like you know for blood alcohol content.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
That was it.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
That day was it. I'm so grateful what happened. I
could have hurt a lot of people. Luckily no one
got hurt, and which is just such a blessing. It
could have been bad.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
But that was it.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
That was That was my first consequence, which is a well,
that's not true. My relationship I heard greatly. It was
my first outward yeah, legal consequence from this.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Which is so important to note because that goes back
to what you said in the very beginning, is like
I didn't have a lot of stories that I related to,
and there were consequences everywhere, but they weren't the ones
that you have on the boxes that you know that
emotional wounds. They're the things that you can bury and hide,
and this you can't can't hide anymore.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
No. Yeah, So the next day I wrote, which Ashley
put in the book, Thank you, Ashley. I wrote an
email to my extended family and I called my blood
like my parents and my family. I talked to them,
but jesse Side and her best friends, they none of
them really knew what was going on, so or they

(46:46):
knew very lightly and they thought I was probably doing okay.
So I wrote them an email the next day, just
airing it out, saying I got in a car wreck yesterday.
I was not sober, you know, basically asking for forgiveness
and saying it's time to like work a program, take
the things seriously. And Ashley eloquently put that in the
book for everyone to read. So that's something to look

(47:08):
forward to. Yeah, yeah, but that was it. I mean,
that was April ninth of twenty twenty one.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
What was that day after, like for you, day after
the car accident? What was that day after, like for you,
day after the car accident?

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Just awful.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
I didn't know what comes with a potential to UI
and what you need to do for all that. I
also didn't know the extreme of the accident because I
didn't remember it. So in my mind, I could still
drive my car and I rear ended somebody. And then
I get on a phone with an attorney and he's like, oh,
the police report just came through, and he's like, how

(47:53):
many cars are in the accident. I'm like, oh, I
just hit another person in front of me. He's like,
there were actually four cars involved. I didn't know that.
So my stomach just sunk because then another call of
fin attorney was like, yeah, someone went to the hospital too.
They weren't seriously hurt, but they were giving me the
worst case scenario, which is assault with the deadly weapon,

(48:14):
which is a vehicle. If you're drunk in a vehicle,
that can be construed that way. So, I mean that
could have been years of jail time, not just I
mean I got a couple of weekends in there, but
that day after was just like awful, just so drained,
and I'd never felt like more of a shell of
a person I think in my life than that.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
You can't pretend. I can't pretend anymore.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Yeah, I mean they always say bottoms when you stop digging, right, Yeah,
And I didn't want to dig anymore.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
I mean I didn't need any more. I didn't need
to gain any more information. I think Ashley said this often,
maybe not in these words, but I need to do
some more research or I need to get some more information.
That's something that often will say to somebody who doesn't
have enough proof yet that they're something here, and you're.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Like, yeah, I got all.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
I did all the research I needed to do at
that point, Yeah, I had to now look at what
the research was telling me, you said, and we touched
on this before, but you said that therapy is better
when you tell the truth. What would you say to
somebody because you know that there are so many people
like this, and I know that there are people and
I've been one of these people too, that can feel

(49:23):
so untrue. What do you mean it's it can be
better if I acknowledge this thing that is so scary
and terrifying and shame provoking and all that. What would
you say to somebody who says, I don't believe you.
How can telling the truth about this thing that I
think is horrendous help me?

Speaker 3 (49:44):
I Mean, the biggest cliche is that is like there is.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Such freedom in doing it when you when you're completely
honest with yourself, and especially in that environment, it's so safe,
you know, Like I mean, you walk in and I'm
like I was, like I even like I wanted her
to like me, like I wanted I want to be
one of her favorite clients, you know, like I wanted
to win therapy, but that's not the point. And so

(50:09):
just being able to go in and just be honest
about things and just get them off your chest. And
the best thing about having therapy to do it is
you get to do that in a room and you
don't have to do it in front of everybody else. Yeah,
Like you can work through some stuff and then realize
what you want to share with others. What you don't
have to have therapy with everyone you meet, right, And

(50:31):
that's something that I think is interesting with when you
start to get in recovery, is you start to want
to have these conversations with everyone you meet, and so
it's like.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Hey, how's it going. I'm like, oh man, this is
going on? Like oh no, no, they.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Just just say good walk away, like they don't want
to know about your wife and like you know how
you just hit eighteen months without a drink, Like they
don't want to know that. But you just get so open,
which is great for a lot of people. When I
think in therapy, it's just like yeah, because you don't
realize what your manipulation until probably later, or if you

(51:02):
are manipulating, like you just said, like there's probably a
reason for it. Like if you're uncomfortable with it, it's
another reason to air it out. And the safe space
of it is just like a huge thing. So let's
figure that out here.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
When you started to get honest, what was one thing
that was You can say more than one thing, but
what is one thing that was really hard to learn
and accept about your either yourself, life, other people, God
that you had to accept once you started to get.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
I mean, the hardest one was to say the word
alcoholic and say the word addict like the A word
like that to me is and it's still not the
most comfortable thing in the world. So that was tough.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Was because you still think I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
But there's I think in that I don't know this
If this is true for you, I think that happens
often because it's so hard to remove the fact that
this is not a not a choice you made. Yeah,
I can't say for sure that this is true for
all people, but rarely do people feel shame about saying
things like I have cancer or I don't know a

(52:12):
lot of diseases. I had my appendix removed, I happendicitis.
There's not like, oh, it's so hard to admit. It's
because we don't assume that, I mean, I have some cancers.
You can make an argument for it, but we don't
assume that somebody has appendicitis because they are making choices
to do that. Yeah, do you think that's part of it? Is?
I still there's this part in my brain that.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Still thinks it's my fault. Yeah, yeah, like why did
you do this to yourself? Why did you let this
get that far? And in the reality of it's like
no if. And the weird thing about being an alcoholic
and alcoholism is like there's no medical cure for it.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
So I wrestled with that forever.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Because I'm like, how is this even a disease? I
know there's disease without cures, but I'm like, this one
people are technically cured in a way with no doctor
intervention or medication.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
This can't be a disease. So if it's not a disease,
I'm in control, right.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
So that's how I would go through it and pick
it apart, because you know, my addict reasoned brain would
do that with everything. Yeah, And so that was probably
the heart one of the hardest things to face. It's like, no,
I do not have any control over it. And there's
a lot of proof to tell me.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
This, and that's scary to admit.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
And that's yeah, because you want to, you know, be
the good person that can go out and have a
good time and like be put together, but no, if
I have one that's going to snowball and do a
lot of different things.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
And what Tara, the therapist I did the episodes before
this talked about is addiction is a brain disease, and
a lot of mental health disorders and diseases. There are
things that you cannot see unless you do a scan
on somebody's brain, And so it's hard to have a

(54:01):
human sitting in front of you, especially if it's yourself.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
And you're looking in a mirror and you're like, I
look healthy.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, I don't look like something is there's no swelling here,
or there's no this or whatever. I look healthy. I mean,
depending on where your addiction takes you, that can we
can argue that yeah, yeah, but it is hard to
remember that it's because I'm not looking at the organ
that's affected my brain. So going back to my original question,

(54:31):
because I kind of cut you off, were you were
you saying that one of the hardest things to learn
about yourself is that you couldn't control this.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, that I have an addiction?

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yeah, like blank, Like that's it? Were there any Because
I find you to be from your writing a little existential.
Were there any truths about the world and life that
were hard to wrestle with without the medication of alcohol.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
I think what it was difficult about that was a
twelve step or so alcoholic like aa, like, that's what
I do. And you need to acknowledge that there's a
higher power and there's something greater than you. Right, That's
not something that I was really thinking about or wanted to.
And so I struggled with that because you always look

(55:21):
at I mean, there's like magic and there's belief in it,
and there's stuff you can't see, and I wasn't seeing
any of that. I was just like, no, that doesn't
make any sense. And then a lot of addicts think
they are in control. And so I like, no, I
got this. And what I tell everyone when I you know,
if I share, I'm speaking to somebody new. I'm like,
what I stopped doing when I got sober is I

(55:42):
stopped playing God.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
So I was trying to manipulate, move all the pieces,
thinking I can control all these aspects of my life
to keep drinking. So I was playing God in a sense.
So when I got sober, I stopped playing God and
I started looking for one, and then that's when things Actually,
that's when the change happens, I think, because when you
have you acknowledge, no, this is I'm not it and
I'm not saying it doesn't have to be religious, doesn't

(56:06):
have to do it could be whatever. Like I've met
some people like, yeah, my God is love. I'm like,
that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Well what you're saying is I acknowledge my humanness?

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:16):
And that is so it's so simple, and it's so
hard to sit in our humility and say, wait, I
can't know all be all, do all understand I can't
understand it all. There's something that can, and I'm going
to release that to them so I don't have to
continue to get myself in this same predicament, which is

(56:36):
so powerful, and I do think one of the hardest things,
especially if you are somebody who has been hurt by
their interpretation of who and what God is. So there's
a lot to that and something that would encourage anybody
to explore whether you want to just like push it
away or just run to it open arms. Both of

(56:59):
them have their own reasons to dig into that. I
want to close with this. I don't know if this
is going to end up making these sense as a closing.
But you mentioned that there's something your wife wants to note.
What is that? Oh right?

Speaker 2 (57:14):
And we told about giving her a chapter in the
book about this, but we thought it would be too
much of a saving face chapter. It's a good thing,
but it also comes with like which what made it
hard is obviously I'm presenting this book that is showing
all the deficiencies of my life the past couple of years,

(57:35):
and I'm trying to get that to, you know, show
some common ground with people so they can resonate something
relate to And so you know, a lot of the
journal entries focus on those bad days, the bad mornings,
this when I'm beating myself up, when I'm placing blame elsewhere,
and all gaslighting, all the stuff that comes with addiction.
One afternoon, she was reading a chapter and she's like,

(57:56):
I want people to know that it wasn't all bad.
She's like, you were still you, but it was just masked,
like there were still great days, Like you were still
doing things and taking care of me, and you didn't
miss certain things that you always do, like we got
married on December second. I've gotten her flowers on the
second of every month since we got married. Oh my god,

(58:18):
even on the worst days of a dick we could
have a like we could not talk the night before
she come home for work the next day, and the
ever flowers on the counter, like those types of things,
which probably made it harder because I'm keeping some stuff
together but also going so far away the other way.
And that was one point that she just wanted to

(58:40):
like tell people, is it wasn't all Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
I don't see that as saving face. I see that
as that is super relatable and goes back to how
you started this as there wasn't a lot of stories
like mine. My life wasn't outwardly chaos every day. There
might have been chaos in every day, sure, but I
think that's one of like, like you said, that's what
makes it so hard is because you, your Unice was

(59:05):
still there the atdict part was just fighting with it
every single day.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Yeah, So that's.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Actually I'm glad that you're able to share that, and
that she's able to say share that and wants people
to know that.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Everyone always asks, you know, what's her take on the
book and the journey, But I mean she's just been
wonderful the whole way through, and she read everything before
anyone else did, and it was like, if there's anything
you don't want to hear, you have to.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Let me know.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
And I'm not going to like there's not going to
be any qualm like you just if this is wrong
or if this is it. And there was one point
where I had to take something out of the book
because I thought at that point in time I had
she didn't know about certain things, and she read it
and she's like she texted me it's like, oh, I
absolutely know about that, or like I mean she called
me out blunt when she needed to.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
She's like, you thought I didn't.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Know I knew?

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Okay, Well, where can people one?

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Thank you for having this conversation, writing the book, Thank
you for having appreciation. Where can people find you? Where
can they find the book? What do you want to
lead them leader with?

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
So the book title not yet too far Gone and
the book website is not yet toofar Gone dot com.
You can find me on Instagram. It's just Matthias John
and I'll pop up. So those are like the two
main places. And then the book comes out September fourteenth
on Amazon. So you'll be able to pre order it

(01:00:30):
on August.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Fourteenth, Okay, so that is today, so people can go
the version. Yeah, pre order. From what I'm learning about
books is it's very important.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
I guess I don't. I have a very I have
a very interesting path for this book marketing thing. I'm
not doing everything to planned because it's kind of for me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
It's a soft launch, like I'm self publishing it, so
I want to I eventually want to hook up with
a publisher that can do cooler things and like get
her to a water audience, and really the publishing versions
so I could.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
It doesn't help anyone sitting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
On my laptop right now, right So I don't care
if it's not perfect. I've said me and Ashley, Ashley
and I have said what we wanted to say. And
then if it starts to get tweaked in a different version,
that's fine. But I wanted a self published version to
get out to people and then that way I could
start sending copies. Because what you mentioned before about having

(01:01:23):
it potentially on people's you know, if they go to
treatment it's on a bookshelf or something like that, is
I'm researching recovery centers in every state I'm researching, you know,
where people are going for what the director of each
center and I'm just going to shift copies out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
I was going to say, that's what you do. You
send this to one person who's struggling, and they relate
to it, and they're going to also want to pass
that on too. So like, I love that idea of
leaving on a bookshelf where somebody can find it, or
on a bed when somebody walks in. The experience of
walking into a treatment center can be so terrifying, and

(01:02:01):
so imagine somebody finding a book that feels like almost
like a friend.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
I didn't think the title was going to be as
impactful as it has been, and from people faith talking
to the book industry, they think that's one of the
biggest I don't want to say selling points, because that's
not really what this is about, but to say like
you are not yet too far gone to someone who
was thinking I'm out, Yeah, I'm down and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Out everyone and everything not true, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
And so like it just happened to come out in
the title, and the longer that it's been with that
and seeing it on a book cover, I'm like, no,
this is really strong, and I'm really proud of that
title and like what it can say to someone without
even really opening it up.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Yeah. I will put all that information in the show notes,
so you can just click on all of that stuff,
and then you can also find us the podcast on
Instagram at you Need Therapy podcast and me at Kat
dot der fada. If you have any questions about this
conversation or any other ones, you can email me at
you Neitherapy podcast dot com. If you have questions for

(01:03:04):
this conversation, I assume you're open. Oh, absolutely right, So
you can send them there and I could have you
on for couch Talks, which is the episode we do
on Wednesdays where I answer questions you will send. So
if you have a question or you relate to something
or anything, please just send it. I read those and
if we can make it work, I'd love to do

(01:03:26):
this again. Those are short, usually ten to fifteen minutes,
unless I get on a soapbox.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Yeah, it's a challenge.

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
I think I told you afore. I want to make
this thirty minutes. This is what is this an hour
and a half? Okay, all right, so it's time to
wrap up. Thank you, and I hope you guys are
having the day you need to have.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
I will talk to you on Wednesday for couch talks