From Crack Cocaine & Homelessness to Coaching Others :Mike’s Sobriety Journey

Mike B's powerful recovery story is proof that it’s never too late to change. From smoking crack on East Hastings to building a coaching business helping others get sober, Mike opens up about the lowest points of his addiction, his spiritual awakening, and the mindset shift that helped him take action.

We talk about:

• Surviving addiction, trauma, and relapse

• Letting go of ego, fear, and people-pleasing

• Discovering purpose through sobriety and service

• How social media helped him connect with others in recovery

• Tools for confidence, consistency, and healing

If you’re struggling with alcohol, drugs, anxiety, or low self-worth, this episode will speak directly to you.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

Follow Mike here:

https://www.instagram.com/trueyou_mike?igsh=MXU5MmR5azBnOHloZA==

addiction recovery podcast, sobriety journey, recovery coach, how to get sober, quit drinking, life after addiction, crack addiction story, rock bottom recovery, mental health podcast, overcoming substance abuse

Episode Transcript

(00:24):
Are you? Yeah, Cecilia.
Nice fucking southern half and. Half man Yeah, we just got back.
Yeah, I saw you were in there. Where did you go?
So. This is wild man.
My biological dad was adopted and he had left when I was like
two or three. We met him a handful of times.
We always talk to him like on birthdays, Christmases and

(00:46):
stuff. He ended up passing away but my
grandparents that adopted him would not give him any
information they really like. Took it like to heart for him.
Even asking like I I kind of need to know where I'm from
'cause he had health issues right?
And he wanted to make sure it didn't.
It wasn't like a genetic thing to pass down on my sister and I.

(01:07):
Anyways, Long story short, I dida a pretty intense DNA test and
it came back and it was like, you're Sicilian bro.
Like this is basically where your family's from an area in
Sicily called Syracusa. Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah, man, like right, right on the water.
And it was like, damn. So it was pretty profound, man.
I mean, we're kind of always looking for that answer right in

(01:29):
recovery. I think of like, you know, who
am I? So for me it was, it was a cool
experience, man. And and my dad, biological dad
had passed away. So it was a good feeling to like
be able to go down there and just like touch the soil on
where, where are some of the familias.
From where it all started. Yeah, Yeah, bro.
Yeah. I went to, we went to Sardania.
Have you ever been to Sardania? It's like that.

(01:50):
It's one of my. Dream spots.
You got to go there. The beaches are beautiful.
Unbelievable. We, yeah.
On my, on our honeymoon, my wifeand I went to Sicily and
Sardania. And, you know, they're both
beautiful in their own ways. But Sardania had these clear,
beautiful beaches where it's just like, and you know, you
wanna find, in my opinion, you wanna find God, spirituality,

(02:14):
you know, that's a good place tostart, right?
Just being in nature and you know.
Yeah, it's, it's definitely it'sa different lifestyle over there
too, right? Like I, I understand we're
looking through a tourist or a vacation eyes lens.
Sure. Excuse me, but at the same time,
it's like, like we were there for over 2 weeks.

(02:34):
Like we got acquainted, like we spent quite a bit of time in an
area called Catania and we did acouple days in Palermo.
It was a little too fast-paced for us just coming from Toronto,
right? And it's just, yeah, man, I
mean, it is what it is. It was still a good experience.
Beautiful spot. We just preferred Catania.
And it was like, we like befriended it like a lot of

(02:56):
like, you know, the people, the servers and, and everything,
man. And they're great.
Like it was, it was such an amazing experience.
But you're absolutely right to say find God, higher power
spirituality. I mean, when you're sober, when
you're clear minded to take in that culture and that that
architecture, like, I don't knowhow many churches we went into.

(03:19):
I don't know how many times we just stopped and like looked at
a building. It was like there were some
very, very, very profound aha moments.
One of like, bro, I was smoking out of a pop.
Can you know years ago I had done buck and blow for 20 years.
Like I've seen some stuff, right?

(03:40):
And to be able to be there with my fiance, she's experiencing it
as well too. It's like it's indescribable.
It's just like a postcard moment.
It's just like seriously man, like and it's, it's, you know, I
suffered with massive self esteem issues.
Like I never pictured that I could do something like that,

(04:01):
right? I was scared shitless bro, to go
and get my passport renewed. I was scared.
Of what was going to come up. Yeah, like I did what?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and it's just like I,
it's just that fear of judgement, you know, they work
for the government, like, oh, blah, blah, blah.
And it's just like, it's like anything else, bro.
You make shit up in your head and it's these crazy scenarios

(04:22):
and it's like, oh, and then you go in and it's like, yeah, you
got your paperwork done. Here you go, Mike.
Yeah, yeah, I do. OK, cool.
And it's like, wait, what? That's it.
You're. Not gonna cuff me, yeah.
Yeah. And then you pay for it and it
comes express. And it's like, oh, like, hey,
wow, I'm a person on paper again.
Like I ran so many years with what's called, like, an NFA,
like, no fixed address. Like, you know, that that was

(04:45):
just a stage in my life. I was just a couch surfer and I
couldn't hold jobs down. And I was just, to be very
blunt, I was, I was fucked. I was hurting, man.
Yeah, yeah. And it, it becomes this new
baseline, this new reality whereyou're like, well, I guess this
is my life now, you know, and. It's it's very difficult man, to
explain. And again, like, you know, my
dad, when I say my dad, he's like, he came into my life when

(05:07):
I was free. Just three story quick back
story. Like he's my father, you know,
so he used to say to me like doesn't doesn't a bell go off in
your head, man? Like, and when I tried to
explain to them like my normalcyis survival mode, that's what it
is man. I don't feel comfortable if

(05:29):
things are going right. I'm purposely like, well, I
don't want to say purposely, butI guess like subconsciously,
like I'm going to step on a landmine, bro, and I'm going to
blow shit up because that's where I feel comfortable.
If there's money in the bank, it's like we got to fucking
spend this. If things are going well at
work, I'm already thinking in myhead like, oh, they're going to
fire me for something. Like it's madness.

(05:51):
So hence the solution for me wasbooze because it slowed me down.
And then I did the complete opposite and fucking did massive
key bumps. And not to glorify it, but and I
just. You know, because you're always
looking for that next thing, alcohol stops working, the
cocaine stops working. But in my scenario, I started
smoking meth because it was there.
And you mean I'm gonna feel different than I feel right now.

(06:13):
OK, I'll try that, you know. Yeah, and, and again, I talk
about it very openly. You know, I went through a three
month period where I was a a a binger on, you know, rock crack
and it led to a very, very scaryspot.
And you know, it was E Hastings and it was like, I would go out

(06:35):
and I would grab some beers and I would be shit, dude.
I'd be in like Yale town sometimes, which is like an
upper, like a Yorkville. Vancouver.
Vancouver, yeah. And then I would go down to like
Gas Town and everything was cool, but like the monster woke
up after, you know, 3 pints and two shots of tequila.
I knew where to go, I knew wherethe guy would be.
And I'd go to my alleyway by myself and just fucking crank it

(06:59):
for as long as I could, as long as the money lasted.
And then literally call in sick for work like 4 days in a row,
man, on repeat. And it was just like holy shit,
dude. Like, like I gotta get out of
here, man. Yeah, yeah.
So before I ask you this question, I I do want to say,
you know, you mentioned the power of social media.

(07:19):
It's a cool thing. You know, there's a lot of
negativity in social. You know, there's also a lot of
positivity. Yeah, absolutely.
And I reached out to you online because I love what you're
doing, man. I love your videos.
I appreciate it. Yeah, and I don't think, you
know, I think a lot of people can relate to what you've been
through and and, you know, seeing somebody come through it,
get through it and be on the other side, living happy, joyous

(07:39):
and free. Going to Italy.
Yeah. What a fucking miracle, right?
Like, yeah. And somebody, you know, people
are watching that. And I know for for me, it's
like, Oh yeah, you know, anything is possible, right?
I can be sober and have fun, youknow?
Yeah, Yeah. I don't need to live, you know,
paycheck to paycheck and you know, smoking my life away or
doing whatever to have fun and and find happiness, you know?

(08:01):
Yeah, exactly right. Like happiness, happiness can be
found in chaos as well, too, right?
Like just because I'm sober today, as you are or anybody
that is, doesn't mean that we'reexempt from anything.
Life still happens, bro. I still fall into fears.
I still have moments where like thank God, I have the fiance,

(08:24):
the wife that I do, you know, she checks me.
She she can call me out on stuffand and vice versa, right?
But you know, people ask a, a lot of people will ask me like
in sobriety, are you happy? And I'm like, I, I don't know
what is happiness, bro, I'll tell you this.
I have peace with myself and, and that's it, right?

(08:45):
Happiness, I find is like you hit a goal, you're happy about
it, but it, it goes away, right?Oh, you went to Italy.
That was unbelievable, man. But I'm back here in Toronto
now, right? So it's like, I try not to put
any, what's the word that I'm looking for?
Like dependency on something I identified for so many years

(09:08):
with the address. I had the car that I drove, a
watch that I was wearing, you know, and it was just like, it
was a mask, bro. Like I, I was considered a, a
lot of my life, a high functioning fucking drunk dude
is what I was just a party animal, right?
So, yeah, dude, it's, it's sobriety is it's, it's

(09:29):
unbelievable. You know, I don't think to me,
at least in my experience, Anthony, there's no greater gift
than just loving who you are as a person.
And for a man to admit that, trust me dude, I work with a lot
of people and that's a very difficult thing for us to
establish. Yeah, there's a lot of cultural,

(09:49):
social norms. Don't.
You're not supposed to show fear.
You know you're not supposed to cry, right?
You just rub some dirt on it andyou move on.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, guys like you areare reversing that.
I don't think it'll ever go away.
But, you know, that stigma is it's lessening every day, right?
Yeah. So what was there a moment for
you? What what was that moment where
you kind of found yourself like,I got to do something.

(10:12):
I got to change my life. I got to change.
I got to get better. I mean, it was a long journey
dude, like over 20 years. I started, you know, my first
alcoholic drink was when I was like 14.
You know, I I went into my parents liquor cabinet and like
back in the day we used to have what was called Bush bashes.

(10:34):
We literally just go drink in the forest with like fucking
fifty of us. And you know, from there it was,
I was at a party once and I was 17 years old and I got
introduced to cocaine and I was never big into like smoking weed
or doing mushrooms. I don't, I don't know.
I just didn't like it. And it took a, a little bit of
convincing from a couple of my buddies, but I did it.

(10:56):
And like, dude fell in love. I'm not gonna lie.
But the, you know, there was a lot of moments, man, of like, I
think there's a big difference of like, I need help and I want
help. I knew I needed help.
Like everything was being destroyed around me numerous,
numerous, numerous times. I still to this day do not know,

(11:20):
you know, I kind of get choked up over this is like how my
family stuck by, you know, like I can't even fathom what that's
like to witness somebody that you know, is your son, your
brother of just like kid. But the last time was I was
working in the restaurant industry.

(11:41):
It was a very predominant place that I was at.
It was very, very busy. It was, you know, located around
Queen and Ossington. And I was making really good
money. And, you know, every everything
on the outside seemed amazing. I had a nice condo downtown.
You know, I had my dog. People see me around, but

(12:03):
Anthony, honestly, like I was fucking dying inside, man.
I use this term of like, I was sleepwalking while totally
awake, man. Like I was just spiritually dead
inside, man. Nothing made me anything.
I was just like, anyways, I was a friend of mine.

(12:24):
We went in that, Long story short, a couple people were down
from Italy. So we went and showed them
around. So I always say this, we took
them down to King Street. We did the King Street shuffle.
I love that 'cause I call it, orwe call it in the industry down
here. And I, I, you know, we went into
a club and my buddy was the bar manager there and we always got
taken care of. You know, the, the Goodfellas in

(12:45):
here, you don't wait in line, you don't pay cover.
You know, I mean, you're basically walked right to the
spot where you want to go, You know, you don't have to fight
crowds. Bam, you don't even ask. 2-3
bottles are put in a bucket for you.
Have a good night. You know, and at that time I was
single, you know, there was women around.
I had a bag on me and something I, I still don't even know how

(13:08):
to explain it, bro. I, I like, it's like the music.
The room stopped at one point and I looked around and I was
like, there's got to be 300 people in here.
And I have everything that I thought I ever wanted.
And I've never been so lonely, man.
I've never been so lonely. I can't explain it, dude.
I looked around, my feet literally just started moving.

(13:31):
I just walked out of the bar andI was like, I'm fucking done,
bro. Like I can't do this any.
I'm in my 40s, dude. And I'm I'm like there's a
physical death. I was dead as a person man.
Like I had no meaning and purpose.
I got up hungover every fucking day, dragged my ass into work,
worked let's say 8 to 10 to 12 hours, collected a paycheck,

(13:55):
went and did the same thing. I said there's got to be more to
life than this man. There has to be bro.
And that was it. I took my dog for a huge walk
and went ghost didn't tell a single soul because I knew if I
did, I'd be doing it for the wrong reasons.
I, I had, I suffered with ego too, right?
So I, I, I thrived off that validation man, right?

(14:18):
It, it was like a drug to me as well.
Like I hated myself. So I needed to get it from
somewhere and, and that was it. And I said I'm going to do 6
months, 6. I can't A-75 hard, dude.
Like I could do it, but it's notsorry.
It's not long enough for me bro.Like none of that is.
And this can't be a challenge. This has to be a complete

(14:39):
lifestyle change. And that was it dude.
And I set up like a, you know, kind of thing, A lot of things
that I learnt over the the time put together.
I guess you just call it my program.
It's what I use with individualstoday.
And I just said fuck it bro, I am dialing in on this.
No social media, no women, no booze, no nothing.

(15:01):
Early wake up times, everything was set, boom boom boom boom
boom boom. And I stuck to it man.
And yeah, life has molested me today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's beautiful.
I can I can relate to that moment where it you you don't,
it doesn't really make sense. Looking back, you're like, why?

(15:23):
I had no real reason or push or anything to for me, it was, it
was similar, but a little bit different.
But I mean, the feelings are allthe same.
And that's what I find when I come into recovery.
It's like, even though, you know, buddy lived under a bridge
for 10 years, we're the same person because I can relate to
that despair that that hate of myself.

(15:44):
And so for me, it was, you know,I was hotel hopping, my wife had
kicked me out and I was at the Fairmont Royal York, right near
my place. And I run.
I had run out of money, but not drugs.
I had, I had as much cocaine as I wanted because I was buying it
off the dark web and I had it like it was a whole thing.
Wow, Yeah, I, I learned how to operate on the dark web like

(16:08):
we're, we're fucking, you know, we're, we're very functional.
People, you know, I, I always say like, we're resourceful.
Yeah, if you own a car lot and you need to hit your sales quote
at the end of the month, put three people in there that are
in recovery, dude, we'll have that fucking lot cleared in in a
day. With new strategies.
And yeah, it's so true, man. And so, like, I, you know, I say

(16:29):
that today because back then it wasn't a big deal, but like, it
was a difficult thing to, to, tonavigate, right?
Yeah. And I'm breaking so, you know,
anyways, so I'm in the hotel. I ran out of money and I must
have spent, I'm like, not even kidding you, Mike, probably 5
hours on my phone trying to like, maybe you can relate to
this, transfer funds around and like make money available and

(16:51):
like find some miracle where I was able to stay at the hotel
another night And it just, it wasn't happening.
It just, you know, I every, all these things were going wrong
that day. To your point, it's like I was
pushed into, I was like kind of guided into stopping and I had
known where to go. I had known that I need to go to
rehab. I knew which one I was going to
like, it was all in the cards, but I wasn't ready yet.
And it wasn't ready yet. And so there's that final

(17:12):
moment, You know, I ordered my Uber Eats like I typically do
because that was my only meal ofthe day was like that breakfast
waking up, not breakfast. I wasn't up in the morning, But
yeah, no. And it got delivered like four
blocks away to the wrong build. It's just all these things.
And like, I was trudging to go get that and I had no money.
And it just like boom, boom, boom, all these hits were
coming. And I'm but we still keep trying

(17:34):
to go a. 100% you're like, well,there's, it's, it's this
insanity of doing things differently, expecting a
different result. You know, I'm, I'm, you're
looking forward to whatever fun you have in that bag later
tonight. But there's no fun, right?
There's the fun was done a whileago, you know, And so I'm at
this hotel. The lady is telling me to my
face, you know, I'm trying to wiggle out a deal with her or
something. She's straight up telling me I'm

(17:56):
getting kicked out of the hotel and my stuff, all my drugs are
scattered all over the table in my room.
She goes, the security guards coming down to escort you out
and I'm standing in the lobby. It's like, you know, 1:00 in the
afternoon. No, it's like 5:00 in the
afternoon, way past my check outtime.
He's coming to keep me. All these fears just I'm going
to jail. I'm this that I'm getting how
embarrassing. I need to fucking go to rehab,

(18:16):
right? Oh my God, I'm waiting in the
lobby for this guy to come down.Felt like 3 hours for him to
come downstairs, right? Because I'm just paralyzed.
Everyone in the hotel in my mindis looking at me and judging me,
right? I know I'm painting a picture
here because you could probably.Relate.
This is my life, yeah. And this guy comes down, he
looks like a James Bond. You know, he looks like a a
character in James Bond suit. He's got the earpiece in.

(18:39):
I'm. I'm going to jail 100%.
This guy comes up. You Anthony?
Yeah. OK, let's go to your room.
We share the elevator up. It's me and him in the elevator.
Just the the longest elevator ride in my real life, even
though it's like fucking six floors.
We get up, I get out of the elevator and I'm just like I
look at the guy and and I must have looked so broken.
I just go, dude, can you just like, give me a few minutes to

(19:00):
like, pack my stuff up and, like, leave me alone?
And I think he could just tell that I was having a rough time.
He just looked at me. He goes, oh, yeah, no, of course
you're good. I'll come back in like 20
minutes and probably seen it. This is probably nothing, right?
It's just a Tuesday. And so I pack up all my stuff
and I call my wife. And you know, you to your point,
my, you know, my, my wife came and saved the day.

(19:21):
I don't know how she stuck by me, but I said I'm done.
I'm ready to come home. Yeah, I went home.
I gave her all my drugs and I said let's let's go to, to rehab
and I detox for the next couple days.
But yeah, I, I, I look at that as a spiritual experience today
because I had every reason to just go and use drugs under a
bridge somewhere because I had them all right.
But I was done, you know? I mean, rock bottoms have trap

(19:41):
doors and I, I think everybody has a different rock bottom.
You don't have to burn your lifeto the ground.
You know, I did multiple times over and over.
It became literally like an art to me.
I could find a job within 2-3 days and unfortunately, you know
that that kept me, as we say, kept me out there.

(20:04):
You know, my, my rock bottom. Honestly, it, it had to be like
you. It sounds like just an emotional
state of complete fucking disaster bro like.
It, it was just like I, I, I don't even care about work right
now. Nothing.
I just, I need to fix me. And then that was the profound

(20:25):
moment, as you said, right? And, and I think those moments
are the biggest gifts, like you said, the spiritual awakening,
however you want to look at it, it's like it is such a gift that
that happened to me. So I think it's it's not funny.
It's just it's the way we look at our worst circumstance is our

(20:47):
greatest, you know, gift. Absolutely right.
And it's yeah, man, it's cool tosee people emerge from that and,
and come out. It's, you know, it's kind of a
corny cliche saying, but it's like the cocoon to butterfly
moment, man, It's amazing. And you get to do that now.
So do you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing now
and what your, you know your passion is with, with helping

(21:08):
others? Yeah, like I, I was involved in
the restaurant industry. I was actually, I went back to a
restaurant. They're they're amazing.
Love the guys there. They were fucking, you know,
I'll just say this. They were like minded and it
was, it was awesome, man. Excuse me.

(21:30):
So I, I was working there. I had hired a coach maybe six
months to a year before that. He's walked the same life as me.
But I knew that I wanted to be able to share my story.
And, and I'll be honest with you, it was a very difficult
thing for me to say. I want to do this for a living,

(21:55):
but I can't pay rent with, you know what I mean?
Good gestures and answering phone calls like I need to make
money and, and it, it was hard for me to to accept that
anyways, we worked through that.My coach and I big dog Dave
shout out brother, He's, he's the fucking man, dude.
Yeah. And, and that was it, dude.

(22:16):
So what I'm doing now is I run essentially a coaching business,
right? I personally don't like to put a
title on it. You know, there I, I work with
individuals that hey man, they party on the weekends.
They're just take alcohol and take drugs away, Anthony.
Most people from my experience that I speak with, they're stuck

(22:40):
under one category, let's call it.
And it's limited beliefs, man. That's what it comes down to.
It's change. Change, sorry.
The cycle that they're in is just a normalcy and a comfort
zone and they don't know how to break out of it, right?
And the fear is greater than looking even at change, right?

(23:01):
So for us, I had to separate from everybody.
Like I, I don't fuck with anybody from my past.
I'm not saying they're bad people.
It's just hey, bro, you're goingthis way, no problem.
I'm going this way. And that's it for me.
I've seen it time and time againwhere I end up, right?
And if you ever want to like look at something different in

(23:24):
your life, I'm over here and I'll answer the phone for you,
bro. But yeah, man, I do.
I do one-on-one coaching right now.
It's, it's been a blessing. You know, I had to answer 3
simple questions to myself, Anthony, when I decided to do
this and as, as, as my coach andI call it like, you got to go
all in bro, right? Like anything in life, I find if

(23:44):
you're walking along a fence, you're going to fall one way or
the other, right? So I had to face those fears.
I had to go up against it. I had to believe in myself.
I knew I had a lot of value. I knew I wanted to help people,
but the three things was am I passionate about it?
And, and yeah, I, I, I wake up and like, I love what I do, man.

(24:04):
I absolutely fucking love it, dude.
There is no bonus. There is no big paycheck.
There is no anything to me compared to when you witness
somebody else the light bulb. Goes off.
That sparkle goes off in their eye.
They call you and they're just like holy fuck bro.

(24:25):
Like, I just went to a big baseball game, brother Silver
man, and it was amazing. And it's like, yeah, small to
some people, but to an individual that's just been
fucking dependent on alcohol forhow many years and doing key
bumps in the bathroom to go and eat a bag of popcorn and slam a
2 liter of pop. Like that's a miracle, bro.

(24:46):
So yeah. And then so that's one passion.
The other thing is is obsession.And I had to be OK with that
because I'll turn anything into cocaine, bro.
It better be a healthy thing, man, right?
I don't know balance, dude, to say like, I just don't.
And, and nor do I think any entrepreneur.
Like we talked earlier and you said like, I'm obsessed with

(25:07):
this. I'm shooting this many things a
day, right? And it's like, yeah, there's
that. And then my coach asked me, you
know, and, and I said, like the third thing I I need to do,
nobody else can do this for me is its action.
My coach can give me every single recipe.
I can read every Alex Hermozi book.
I can read Atomic Habits 12, sorry, whatever.

(25:29):
And it's like a podcast, a book,nothing, nothing.
I can literally know everything there is about Stoism and Marcus
Aurelius and Epictetus or whatever.
And it's just like, Nah, bro, can you show up every single day
for yourself? And that's what I do, man, you
know, and there's days where I'mjust like, oh fuck, dude, like I

(25:51):
don't want to face the camera today.
But hey, you know what, guess what, bro?
I share about that. I don't hide anything.
Like I'm not out here to say I'mbetter than I'm perfect.
I make X amount of money in my life.
Is this sure, I'm proud of myself of where I've got to.
And I want to highlight not the materialism, the mindset, the
person that you can build and become in order to get to that

(26:14):
in your life, man. And, and it's, it's amazing.
So it's going really, really well, man.
You know, there's a formula withsocial media.
Yeah, I'm learning that there's the algorithm.
And trust me, like my coach worked with me for six months
and I was probably his hardest client.
Like, I just, I'm fucking stubborn.

(26:34):
Yeah. I'm like, fuck this, I'm
algorithm, blah, blah, blah. But hey man, here's here, here,
here's here's where things really started to escalate for
me is when I started speaking mytruth.
Authentic. Authenticity wins every single
time. I stayed away from this bullshit
of edits and fancy, you know, voice overs from somebody else.

(26:57):
I mean, yo, Dana White, David Goggins, they got amazing shit
to save. But that's not me, bro.
And I just said fuck it. And the first video that I came
out with, he was like, what haveyou done, Mike?
I was like, dude, I've done somefucking really crazy stuff.
I was like, I was like, bro, I dude, I used to smoke crack on
East Hastings and I drank puddlewater once and he was like, bam,

(27:19):
that's it, dude. And that went, that video went
viral. But it's not the video going
viral, Anthony. It's the connections that I got
to speak with people. That's what I was going.
To ask you and like that's social media today isn't for me
to validate. I look at value.
Can I put out value so somebody else doesn't feel alone, maybe

(27:41):
watching this video or someone else can identify with it and go
like, holy shit, dude, come again?
I I'm not crazy. Yeah, yeah, man.
Yeah, me too, right? Yeah, the me toos.
Yeah, the me. Toos, I did that too.
Fuck, you know, or I felt like that.
I'm not alone, you know? Yeah, you know.
Have you gotten any messages recently that really stuck out

(28:01):
to you? I get a lot, dude.
That's awesome. You know, I, I truly do, you
know, not not to like score brownie points.
Stuff like this means the world to me, man.
You know, like I was part of a agroup.
I don't know if you know what school is school is an app where
Alex Hermosi started and they build communities.
Anyways, I was part of this thing and and you know, one of

(28:24):
my goals was one day I would love to be able to be on like a
podcast. This doesn't need to be Joe
Rogan. This is just like, yo, man, I,
I, I love it. I think that it would be
amazing. So yeah, things like this, I
mean, I get messages of like some are very, very hard to hear
and some are very, very hard to read because I personally find

(28:44):
it so difficult dealing with theindividual that's not in the
situation. So it's a wife, right?
Or it's a husband. And it's like, what do I do?
So how do you? I'm always truthful and I'm
always honest. But there's a delivery I find
where it's just like you can't do anything.
You didn't, you know, you, you didn't create it, you didn't
'cause it or what is? It can't cure.

(29:05):
It can't cure it. You can't control it, right?
And it's like you have to take care of yourself and, you know,
but yeah, man, I mean, I'll be honest.
Today I got a text, an individual that I'm working
with, and it simply said this 10weeks sober those are.
The best, yeah. Bro, like I get goosebumps, man,

(29:27):
and it's it's not me. Like I simply lay things out and
say here's what we're going to do.
You have to do it though, right?Like I can't, I'll hold you
accountable. Absolutely, man.
I call it tough love, call it whatever the fuck you want, man.
It's like, yo, I want to see youlive the best version of
yourself and there's gonna don'tfucking kid yourself.

(29:48):
There's more hard days than there is fucking good days in
the beginning, right, Yep, Yep. But yeah, absolutely man, just
just ones like that, like I got a message just the other day and
do you want me to read 1? Sure.
It was like. Yeah, this, this makes my day.
I'm starting to get a little bitmore too.
Yeah, absolutely. Where is this individual?

(30:13):
Give me one second here, buddy. Here it is.
I don't have my glasses on but it says I have never had a
substance issue. But I find your message
resonates regardless. So I'm here for the good vibes
and that you can do it. Inspiration and then she
mentioned something about talk about expanding your target
audience. Go Mike, keep going.

(30:35):
So you know, like that's that's amazing, man.
Like again, it's we take away the substance.
We take away the blow, all the pain that we went through
Anthony. The only thing is is we went
down that road. Other people use booze.
Other people. Social media.
Social media bro, there is so. Many.

(30:57):
Places to hide in plain sight inthis world.
Again, I, I, I'm not putting anyone on blast.
I know individuals that fucking have more money than they know
what to do with. They travel, they're fucking
they're, they're, they're lost man.
They, they the, the emotional thing for men.
I find the maturity to catch up to where we are, I find takes a

(31:19):
lot longer than than women. I was Peter Pan, bro.
I was a 19 year old night actinglike I was 19 years old, 40
years old, running around on kinks.
Invincible. Yeah, manchild, bro.
Like, you know, stomping becauseevery.
It was everybody else's fault, man.
Oh fuck. Damn dude, just.
This victim mentality. Victim mentality, self pity.

(31:40):
Poor Mikey. And hey bro, like I had to
fucking rip that Band-Aid off. And I'll tell you man, I've I've
been through some very, very scary situations in my life.
Again, not to glorify them. I've been on some rock bottoms.
There is nothing in the world that was more difficult than
facing myself alone. I was for in my 40s, bro,

(32:02):
bawling my eyes out on the floorin my condo because I was just
fucking broken, dude. I didn't know what the fuck was
going to happen with my life, man, right.
And, and when you as a, as an addict, even as a person like
you, you want some sense of control.
And I had to just throw it all and be like, I, I don't know,

(32:22):
I'm going to get up. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm
going to do XYZ and that's it. And I got to let the rest fall
where it's going to fall, man. And it was fucking scary, bro.
It was very scary. I, I always say it's like I was
taught to let go of the outcomes.
And you just said that perfectly.
It's like I'm gonna do what I have to do and to me today, I'm
gonna do the next right thing, you know, or what is the next

(32:43):
right thing? Well, you know, how about
starting withholding the fuckingdoor for somebody, you know,
something simple as that. You know, as we were walking
over here, you were, you know, and I, I love him.
I love this about you already. But just saying like, hey, how's
it going, man? You know, to, to the guy behind
the desk or the guy at the gas station or yeah, you know, I, I
forget that sometimes. That's love in of itself, you

(33:04):
know, just be kind to people. Yeah, I mean, I was a people
pleaser before. I definitely have my my
boundaries today. And I am not afraid to say no.
And I I'm proud of myself for that.
But no, man, like I look it, I was, I was taught this by a very
important person that came into my life early, early, early in

(33:26):
in recovery. He was a sponsor of mine and he
said once you get this, your life doesn't belong to you
anymore. Bro it.
We were selfish and self-centered for so many years.
We are now here to be on as whathe called kind of the front
lines. We're here to help people and in
whatever aspect that looks like,whether that's saying good

(33:47):
morning, like there's people that have messaged me before and
be like, bro, Are you sure you're not fucking still using
blow or like I'm like, no, dude,like I have a lot of energy.
Absolutely, but. That's why I love the blow.
Yeah, it's like, I, I don't know, man.
I just, I, I love what I do likeit's, I have pinched me moments
all the time and it's just I'm an empath and I don't want this

(34:11):
to sound again. People take things certain ways
I can. I have a good judge of character
and a good sense. I believe I've worked in the
restaurant industry for 20 years, bro.
I've been around people my wholelife and I can see when you walk
around the city sometimes, man, and you can almost feel the
energy of the tension that an individual, you can almost, you

(34:34):
know what they're going through financial burden, fucking
burnout, man. Here we go again.
I got to go drink fucking margaritas.
And I don't necessarily want to,but I don't know what to do.
I've got rent to pay. I've got this to do.
I got a car payment, you know, my credit card has got, you
know, whatever. It's almost maxed out because of

(34:54):
trips that I've been taking, right?
So here's the hard truth, man. Eventually life catches up to
you. It is inevitable.
Every single human has to face themselves at one point in their
life, and that looks different for everybody, right?
Yeah. So.
Well said. When you were in the restaurant

(35:15):
industry, the bar industry, US addicts, I find that I'm really
good at noticing other addicts like in addiction, in recovery
too, but mainly in addiction. What was that like?
Kind of like noticing people come in, you know, did you have
regulars that you were kind of like, fuck this guy's like
really going through it right now?
What was that like? Like when I was still in it or

(35:35):
like it. I mean Harding or just in
general? And how did that change too?
Yeah, both like. The thing is, is the restaurant
that I ended up, the last place that I worked at had no as, as I
call it, party vibe in it. It was what's called a fast
casual. Again, I always keep the names
out of it and, and it was super cool.

(35:56):
Like I said, the people that I worked with were fucking dialed
in, man. We we spoke the same.
Land just working on themselves.Yeah, exactly, man.
And it wasn't it, it didn't havethat that energy, that community
of sit down after work, drink 5 beers, then go to the next bar,
spend your tip money that night,you know what I mean?
But yeah, I saw a lot of people that came in man AB absolutely,

(36:20):
dude. And that was a big thing, man,
for my value system was I'm sober, right?
But still, you know, if I'm because that opportunity at that
one restaurant, unfortunately just it wasn't anything I did.
It was just there was an expansion on the horizon and

(36:43):
it's been delayed because of permits, right?
So I sat down with some amazing fucking guys and and I love
these guys. They're huge restaurant tours in
in the city of Toronto. And here's the fucking crazy
thing, man, I was let go from two of the restaurants before
and I came back and I had an amazing talk with two of them
and they were like, bro, like you're killing it, man.

(37:05):
Like we always said, like you straighten this out, come back
right. And essentially they were going
to kind of create a position forme and I was super excited about
it. And it was again, another aha
moment in my life. It was nothing against them,
nothing against any. This was me.
And I was like, I, how can I even do coaching part time?
But then I have to go into not have to, but I go into a

(37:28):
restaurant and part of the gig is you take care of people, you
give them shots. You know what I mean, right.
So I was just like, nothing against them.
And what I was doing was reverting back to what I know,
the comfort zone. So when I talked to my coach, he
was like, no, no fucking way, bro.
That that was the moment that I said I'm going all in on
coaching, right? But yeah, it's, it's difficult,

(37:50):
man. It's hard to see people.
I live in an area where there's there's bars everywhere.
I walk past the patios. I see some of my old homies.
I see what they're up to, man. I'm not an idiot, dude.
You know, they can admit it to them to they don't have to admit
it to me. I know what they're going
through and I don't judge them, but I can see right through it.

(38:10):
Dude, like you're fucking dying.Dude, you, you can't.
This is not fun anymore. Bro.
Like it's just not like it's, it's not bro.
And yeah, man. And it's I just really, I really
just said that old life is like that.
That person that I was is dead, bro.
It's gone, doesn't exist anymore.

(38:33):
So, you know, in the recovery world you could say like, I'm
two years old today, right? Like everything that I'm
experiencing now, I try to have a new experience and it's new.
Even Toronto, bro, fuck Toronto,Toronto, King Street, this that.
I got to get the fuck out of here.
No, bro, you're going to take yourself with you.
You're just going to bro. I remember I moved to Jasper

(38:53):
once, Alberta in the middle of the mountains.
I worked for the Fairmont, bro. I was fucking snorting blow and
cutting through 20 elk at 7:00 in the morning, man.
Like fuck, dude. Like shit doesn't change or shit
doesn't change, man. So hey, man, I'm I'm very,
here's the word that I use. I'm very empathetic towards
people, but I'm not necessarily sympathetic because you know

(39:14):
what you're doing. You know what you're doing, and
I know it's fucking bugging. You and and to me, it's a good
point there. I try to lean towards empathy
too, because to me empathy is like, dude, I know what you're
going through and I'm here to help if you need help.
And I'm not judging you. And to me, sympathy is like,
fuck, you're struggling right now, buddy.
Like good luck with that. You know, fuck, you know, it's

(39:36):
like this kind of judgement thing, right?
So I try to, I try to lean on this and I'm not perfect, but I
try to. No, man.
And and again, like I have to protect myself, my energy, I
call it that healthy selfishnessstill, because I find a lot of
people as well. Let's be honest, bro, the
circles that I used to run with,we enable each other, we're
cosigning each other's bullshit.Everything is normal because

(39:59):
we're all doing the exact same fucking thing, man.
And and nobody, as I always say,I say it very bluntly as nobody
has the fucking balls to step out of that right.
And again, I'm not better because I did, but I don't know
what your circumstance is. I knew mine.
And I had to face that and I hadto face the honesty of myself
and look in the fucking mirror and say like, I'm crushed, dude.

(40:21):
I am crushed. This isn't for my mom, as much
as I love her, my dad, my nephews, to get a girl back, to
get a job back, this time for fucking real was for Mike.
And I made this personal, like always say like, you know, like
I made this comeback fucking personal.
I'm not like I am not just getting sober to just not drink.

(40:45):
I'm going after a fucking life that I've always been afraid to
go after and I don't care what it takes man.
I don't even fucking care if I hit it.
The point is is I'm going to show up every day and I'm going
to try because I never had the self esteem to do that man.
Right? Dude I used to cancel hair
appointments in the morning because I was like oh shit I'm

(41:07):
off that night I I can't go to my hair planter.
What the fuck bro? Booze and blow became
everything. God, yeah.
It was, it was, it was. I served that first.
And then if I can manage anything else, I'll see if I can
get into it. Can fit you in yeah.
Fit you into my schedule. Yeah.
Oh man yeah. I mean you're heading home a lot

(41:27):
For me it's Yeah, it's great andthat's why I love doing this
stuff because I'm meeting so many like minded individuals
that. And every time I do an episode,
man, every single time, I learn more than one thing.
But there's always something where I can kind of, yeah, like.
Yeah, I call those Nuggets. Yeah, those little Nuggets that
you can just take with the rest of you.
But to your point, you could guide me to water, but you can't

(41:51):
drink for me, you know, you can't, you know, maybe that's a
bad analogy in this situation, but you can take a horse to
water. You can't make them drink,
right? And no, exactly, that's, that
was my scenario. I had to show up.
I had to do the work. I had to sit in rehab for 60
days and fucking do the work, you know, and listen, you know,
because my way wasn't working right.
I tried everything my way and mySO maybe maybe I'm wrong.

(42:14):
That's that's another one that, you know, Yeah, I try to use
that every day as like I'm rightis my biggest problem today, you
know? Yeah, I'm talking to someone and
this guys fucking out to lunch. I'm right.
That's my biggest problem. I can learn something in every
situation. Maybe I'm wrong.
That helps me a lot today and you mentioned a lot of that in
what you said so. No, I, I agree.
It's, I believe everything is a learning opportunity, right?

(42:36):
Everything man. And when, when you remain
teachable and you remain open, it's the individuals that I find
that come to me and say, Hey, what does your coaching look
like? And I explain it and they say,
OK, I'm down and that's it. They say, what do I have to do?
That's it not, you know, like the ones I'm not saying they're

(42:59):
bad, but the ones like we I knowright off the hop just from a
discovery call of the questions that they're having, not to say
that they're not ready. It's like, OK, we got to smash
this fucking. Ego, right?
Right. Because again, you're not going
to come in here, you know, sorryand do it your way.
Your best thinking has got you where you.

(43:20):
Are to this conversation. Now, so do you want to try this?
Right? It's not I'm not an asshole, but
again, I'm not going to enable you, bro.
You hired me to be honest with you and to hold you accountable
and that's what I'm going to do.And I'm I'm I'm different,
right? Like people are like, well, do I
like, you know, and they have questions and that's OK.

(43:40):
Do do I like have to do like fill out, you know, like
paperwork, like I've worked withlike, you know, psychiatrists,
they're like, oh, you have to dothis.
You have to do this. I'm like, no, bro.
Like I'm here with you right beside you, bro.
There's nothing that I'm not going to ask you to do that I
haven't done or don't do myself,right?
This is it. And I always unfortunately break

(44:01):
the coach rule. Whereas it's like, hey, this is
the 90 days. This is what you get, right?
And it's always fucking broken. Not broken in a bad way.
It's just like I only take on somany clients too.
I'm not in this to drive a fucking Lamborghini, dude.
You know, Hey, has finances changed?
Yeah, 100% man, absolutely. For my wife and I, she's doing

(44:22):
her thing. I'm doing mine abso fucking
lutely. But again, if I'm not going to
come to a moment a where I burn myself out and now I'm giving
you a shit service. And then the other part of it
is, is, you know, that's that story.
That is the whole part is like, I want to make sure that
everybody gets the best result that they can.
Now they have to put that in. But people always ask just like,

(44:46):
well, is there a guarantee? No, man, fuck, dude.
Even when you take a job at 9:00to 5:00 and they're paying you X
amount, dude, look at the world.The stock market could flip
again, bro. And then your job does cutbacks.
That's nothing's guaranteed, bro.
So all I can guarantee is a service that I provide for you.
And I'm the mother fucker that'sgoing to show up every single

(45:06):
day. I'll be up before you.
I'll work twice as fucking not hard as you, but I'm a big
believer is don't listen to whatI say.
Watch what I do, man. That's why I show up on
Instagram every day. That's why I post every day,
right? It's consistency, it's
commitment. I'm not showing up for me, man.
I'm showing up for that individual that maybe just came
across my page. Like, sorry, just thinking of

(45:27):
that. I got a fucking really profound
DM that I was just thinking of. It was in my request box and
that person needed to hear that today and that stopped them of
like, I just talked to my wife and I'm going to go get some
help and that that's not me personally, but at the very
least we can make someone think right.
I always say it's like you planted a seed that. 100% and

(45:49):
then that's the. Power like of people's voices
and again, like we do another thing as as well too.
And I'm not pitching this, but like my coach and I have teamed
up. So we we help individuals build
what's called a personal brand and monetize on social media,
right? We have a recipe.
It works. It's worked for him for years.
He's a very, very profound coach.

(46:11):
And that's amazing. He's made a big impact.
And he's been very, you know, it's been great that he said
like, hey, I kind of want to teach you how to do this now
too. But it's like people are like,
yeah, but what do people, what are, what are they going to
think of me? And it's like, OK, let's reverse
that pattern of thinking and let's say, what about the people
that need to hear it, bro? Right, like it's once you take

(46:35):
the ego out and it's not about you anymore bro, it's going to
land where it's going to land. I trust me bro.
I get a lot of hate now, yeah. I mean with good comes.
The the fuck you right because you pissed them off or whatever,
or you made them realize something about themselves that
they sure it's it's not for me to say.
It's just, it is what it is and no disrespect bro, I'm not

(46:57):
fucking going to sit there and have an argument with somebody.
I'll call people out in my comments sometimes, but that's
just me. I speak my truth, man.
And it's like I hid for so many years, dude.
I'm not being rude. It's just like, Nah bro, you're
not going to come and piss on myside of the street.
I'm not that fucking dude. I'm going to tell you my
honesty. I'm not rude, but it's just

(47:18):
going to be like Nah bro, like Nah.
Thank you. Yeah, 'cause I mean the.
Negativity doesn't go anywhere, right?
Like it never ends up well for anybody.
Nobody wins. No, and and I always say this.
Again, a lot of this language, Ialways say, Anthony, that we use
can be foreign to some people. So when I say like, why are you
giving them the your power? They're like, what do you what
do you mean? I'm like, well, your energy,

(47:40):
Why? Why are you even investing time
in this individual? But when we're addicted to
gossip and talking shit about people, man, we don't know how
that that's all we're around, right?
It'd be like, you know, US goingto another country where we
don't speak the language. We're like, what the hell is
going on? Right?
So it's like, you know, I don't let individuals rent space in my

(48:00):
house. It's a good way to look at it
like get. Out man, and again I'm.
I'm too busy. Like I'm, I'm still working on
myself everyday, man. I don't think it ever stops.
Different levels, different devils, right?
Like we always go through growthspurts or we become complacent,
right? Different levels.
Different devils. I like that.

(48:21):
I've never heard that one before.
It's. Yeah, Yeah.
You know, my attic brain comes out in different mediums, right?
And different forms. And, you know, it's always just
kind of chirping in the background.
Some days it's louder than others, Right.
Yeah. I can really relate to that.
What's something today that you're, you're really working on
with yourself? Like something that you're,
you're trying to either improve or, or work on for yourself?

(48:45):
It's still a limited belief. Bro to.
To. Here I'll say this, I was never
afraid of failure. I knew how to fail, bro.
I was a fucking pro. I can write a course on how to
fail. I, I was afraid of success,
right? So the big thing that I have to

(49:06):
do today is like I journal everyday.
I write a gratitude list still, right?
I do a nightly reflection where it's like, OK, was I in fear
today? Did I react at someone today,
you know, and that just keeps mein check, right?
Because I can't let that shit build up over time.
I have a saying where is it's like every day is day one.
I can't, I can't rely on yesterday's wins because today

(49:26):
is going to bring a new set of something, whether it's
problems, whether it's anything,I got to navigate the day here
today, bro. And I need to be the best
version of myself. So one thing that I'm very
conscious of and that I'm is I was fear based for so long that
fear ruled my fucking life, bro.There is no if ands anything
about it, dude. Fear of what people would think

(49:47):
of me. The negative self talk of I'm
not good enough of you don't deserve this.
So what I really work on today is like my life has changed
dramatically, right? Do we live in a nicer condo?
Yeah, absolutely. Was I able to go on a trip?
Yeah, absolutely. Is Is there let's say finances

(50:08):
coming in and and and I get to work for myself?
Absolutely. But it comes down to I also have
to allow myself to accept that. Does that make sense?
Because I couldn't before, bro, I just.
I, I don't know. I couldn't.
I felt uncomfortable. I was like, I don't deserve
this. Yeah, it's like this imposter
syndrome. That's what I.
Mean is like imposter syndrome. Absolutely bro.

(50:30):
So this is what I mean by different levels, different
devils. So are you the individual that
can even handle the life that you want today, right.
So a lot of people are like, oh,like they come in and all they
want to do is fix themselves to make money, but they want.
To make money, right and I'm. Like, OK, but if we were to give

(50:52):
you $1,000,000 right now, could you handle that?
Yeah. No, you couldn't.
No, you fucking can't even handle 100 grand a year.
Yeah. What evidence do you have
exactly? Like show me.
Your habits and I'll show you your future and it's it.
That's just it, man. Like it's, it's you got to quit
lying to yourself, bro. So you know, I also had a coach
before this coach and his big saying is, you know, it's, it's

(51:16):
not how I got here. It's who it's who I created,
right? So a lot of people put the cart
before the horse, right? And it's like they want to get
here, but they don't have the belief system to get them there.
So that's constantly what I'm personally working on every
single day is the belief system,right?

(51:38):
Because there there could come amoment where it's like, holy
shit, dude, in in three years from now, all of a sudden you're
like the, the Joe Rogan in the addiction world, bro.
Like that's going to come with everybody thinks like, oh, I get
what I want and everything's good.
Nah, bro, you have to now learn how to navigate that.

(51:58):
And that comes with, you know, so many more obstacles.
Now you got a crew. Now you got fucking way more
guests. Now you've got a green room or
whatever. You know, it's like you.
Get to where you want. To be sometimes I feel and
sometimes you think like shit, dude, like I kind of wish some
days I was just doing this, man,right?

(52:21):
And it's, it's a lot, dude. That's why I have a coach still.
It's you can scale a business you, but in order to scale the
business, you have to scale yourlife.
You have to sorry, you have to be able to again, grow into that
individual that can handle that.So yeah, bro, every single day
there's moments of frustration, right?

(52:42):
There's moments of doubt, of fear.
But guess what, bro? I think we really need to
normalize, especially as men. Is this.
I need help. I need some help, bro.
There's nothing wrong with that.Kobe had a coach.
He's the greatest fucking basketball player.
So did Jordan. So does Tiger Woods.
So does fucking everybody, man. That's how the greats get to

(53:03):
where they want to be, dude. Because I truly believe that
they still tell themselves that I don't know everything.
I don't got this yet. The humility.
Yeah, there's there's. Some humility in there, right?
So yeah, I call my coach and I'mlike, hey bro, like I'm fucking
going through this dude, you know?
And he's like, he always says like, Yep, that's going to

(53:24):
happen, that's going to happen. Been there, bro.
But guess what? You just keep like it's always
the inevitable answer is keep showing up.
Consistency. That's it.
That's it. And it sounds so like dumb,
cliche, whatever, but it's just like the mother fuckers get to
where they want to get to, bro. They don't tap.

(53:46):
They just don't, no matter what.So in our terms, I guess in our
language, I do everything so I can handle life on life's terms
today. That's it.
And the rest is a bonus first. Things first, I'm not an idiot.
My sobriety comes first before my wife bro, because if I don't
put that before her, like I get up before her on purpose because

(54:11):
I know that I can wake up groggy.
I know that I can fucking wake up and my head spin and
sometimes so I create the best version of myself.
So guess what? Now I can deliver that to her.
Now I can be a fucking you know,calm with my dog and not fucking
yanking him on a walk and being like let's go like he can sit
there and fucking sniff and pee on whatever he wants bro.

(54:32):
We can be out for an hour if he wants to be.
It's not about me, dude. So that's very important for me
today, dude. And the rest, like I said again,
letting go. It's it's it's it's easier said
than fucking done, as you know, man.
But yeah, yeah, I. Love that no.
It's so true. Or, you know, the, the, OR

(54:55):
reacting to the world, you know,you mentioned like waking up and
reacting to your, your dog not doing things the way you know,
you scripted him to do or her todo, right.
And it's like the same thing with the guy that doesn't obey
the, the traffic light. And you know, or in my scenario,
and I was just talking about this before today, earlier today
with, with the last guy I had on.
But my thing is, when people arelike holding their horn in the

(55:18):
city of Toronto, drives me nuts.It's like that that guy is just
not living according to my script, you know?
And that's OK, right? But it's hard.
It's hard to get the horn doing anyways.
Traffics not moving thank you. The horns not like this ain't a
traffic problem again like I feel like opening the door and
being like bro like you need to talk yeah I've man I've.

(55:39):
Said way too much to those individuals.
I need to. My wife reminds me she's like
what did you what'd you get? Do you feel better now?
And I'm like, no, no, I yelled at him and I don't feel better
now. And we're not perfect bro.
Like my thing is. How do I?
Say this without I love. How everyone has a thing though.
Yeah, so mine is. And I'm not being rude by any

(56:01):
means, it's just people that jogon the sidewalks and Ubereats
drivers on the bikes they say this is not a fucking culture.
Racist has nothing to do with this bro.
It's just there's no awareness like I don't know how many times
like and hey, I'm emotionally attached.

(56:21):
My wife is a fucking 5 foot, youknow what I mean?
Little Filipino, she's gangster as fuck.
But you know, and I got a dog and it's like I'm not even lying
bro. The other like this is like 3
weeks ago man. Or before we went to Italy, a
lady, young lady was waiting like on the side in Liberty
Village, kind of like just doingthis, you know, her friend.

(56:44):
I could see a guy bombing down the sidewalk.
He ripped right through my friend and I and the two dogs.
She jumped over and ended up kneing my dog.
Oh my God. And.
Every part of. Me just wanted to drop my dog
and run after them because that's old behavior, right?
It's like, motherfucker, dude, like I'm going to smash this
guy, bro. So I saw that they went into a

(57:05):
variety store. I calmly went and I just said,
hey guys, do you have a moment? Yeah, what's up?
And I said, I'm going to ask yousomething.
We were just up here. I, I kind of said, I said what
they said XY and ZI said, do youlike, are you, are you aware of
this? Did you notice that you did you
notice? This like do you you.
Have to understand how selfish this is.

(57:26):
If you're going to run a fuckingPR man, maybe you don't do it in
the middle of fucking Liberty Village.
Sorry. I swear a lot bro.
Go to a park like this ain't a fucking relay camp, man, You
know, and look at I can be good with words sometimes I almost
made them feel stupid because I knew I couldn't fucking punch
the guy out today. And I was just like, listen,

(57:48):
like, just please be aware next time.
What if there's a child and thatlittle kid goes down?
Like there's going to be a you're going to run across
somebody that actually is going to fucking throw somewhere.
But yeah, it's just, again, I have to just be like, my wife's
a lot better at this than I she's.
Just like. Mikey And I'm just like because

(58:12):
my emotion that I can still go to today and I believe I've
always gone to is anger. And it's this like like you
said? You wronged me.
Mother fucker. And it's like, no, you can't,
can't be like that today, right?So hey, if my worst problem
today is there's an Uber Eats driver that's weaving all over

(58:33):
the place or a jogger kind of Cospy on the sidewalk, that's not
a bad day. Yeah, it's not talk man 100
especially. Talking to you know, Mike of of
old, right or or Anthony of old,he would have taken that any day
you know no 100% and. And again, that's ego that came
down to me trying to fucking prove something.

(58:54):
And you know, I'll fucking show this guy.
And and that's just, hey, man, that's not who I am today, nor
do I condone that behavior today.
I get it. But at the same time, it's like,
how can I let these individuals know?
Like before, too, I I wouldn't have been able to say anything
at some point too. I would have just been like, I
was, I was Mr. Passive at one point.

(59:16):
We'll just let it go. Yeah.
Doormat. Yeah, and it was just like.
No, man. No, I got like, people don't
know if they're not told or explained right.
And it's just like, bro, you need my dog.
That's enough for me to say hey bro, yeah.
Yeah, so, but you're right, there's a way of going about it.
And yeah, in my experience, all my anger usually is, is a mask

(59:38):
of fear, right? There's some kind of fear.
And it's hard for me to notice that and accept that sometimes.
But it is, it's a secondary emotion I was taught.
And it's like there's some fear here of my wife getting hurt, my
dog getting hurt, whatever the, you know, whatever or, or be
embarrassed. You know, like I don't, I don't
like to be wrong. I don't like to be embarrassed.
But you know, you learn some days that, like I said, maybe

(59:58):
I'm wrong. That's OK, absolutely.
And like. The thing that I respect the
most about Elaine, that's my fiance and I's relationship, is
the communication. We're not naive.
We know we're going to have headbutts.
We know we're going to have fucking bangers sometimes, but
we both know we have a code word.

(01:00:19):
It's called paper clip and it's like, if it's getting a little
too heated, it's like paper clip.
Then we separate. We come back because our
emotions cloud the truth. We're both in a reactive state.
There's no solution to that. We sit down and guess what, bro,
it's not even the issue that we're arguing about.
I'm going through something. I haven't talked about it.

(01:00:40):
Like you said, like humans are like an onion, man.
You got to peel it back. Or we have a saying of like
what? Like what's fucking really going
on? Like the dude honking the horn,
Billy, what's really going on here?
It's like, do you hate? Your job, Yeah, No, it's like
whatever it is exactly like is it the.
World's fault that you woke up late, is it?
You know, maybe you went out last night and had one too many
fucking beers and you're late for your big presentation.

(01:01:03):
Well, hey, bro, but you can't admit that to yourself, right?
So I always say too as well. I don't know if this is right or
wrong, Anthony, but I'm just like, everything is my fault,
man. I I can only take responsibility
for myself, right? Well, yeah, it's, it's it's it's
it's cool, man. Like I said, it's to have that

(01:01:25):
tool of communication with everyone.
I try to have with right. Not everybody's open to it, but
no. And and awareness and.
I, I like, you know, it's, I have a part in everything.
You know, there's a part in everything, right?
I have a part and maybe I'm justas simple as I'm not accepting
this right, or I'm not letting this go, or I'm not turning this
over or no, whatever it may be. I.

(01:01:48):
Believe like I went through a. Recovery home once and it was
fucking very intense man, but atthe same time it was like
here's. Here's this is.
Going to sound really strange topeople.
There's people that went throughthis, this recovery program,
like a spiritual program they call it, that never had a

(01:02:08):
problem with drinking or drugs. They're basically, they have all
the, we'll call them character defects that in like they just,
they're angry as fuck, man. Nothing makes them happy.
They have all the money. They have no gratitude, bro.
And they learn this language andthey learn these actionable

(01:02:28):
steps to do and bro, they come out.
It's just like they're a fuckingbrand.
It's like a weight's been liftedoff them and it's like they go
back to work or their wife is like, what the fuck happened?
Who's this guy? Yeah, yeah, man.
And. That's what I mean is like if
you keep an open mind to anything in life bro, I believe

(01:02:49):
that's where change starts because here's how I look at it
when I get hate, People hate what they don't understand and
they're the ignorance in them doesn't want to learn.
Well, I'm not arguing with that.You'll never win and and it's
not. About winning.
Yeah, exactly. It's not about winning, but it's
no one wins. Go like I don't go fucking.

(01:03:10):
Troll on someone else's page because I know you're going to
do that and like it's whatever bro.
Like, I don't know, man, again, like there's always, there's the
easy thing to do is blame, right?
The fucking politics, man. That's a big one to get into and
I won't. But everybody, I get it, it's
part of it. But it's like, why the fuck am I

(01:03:32):
going to let the whoever the fucking Prime Minister is, dude,
they're not controlling my fucking life.
All the taxes are higher. Guess what, dude, I got an
accountant that can work with that.
Yeah, you know, we're not cheating the system.
But have you gone to a specific accountant that can help you
with HSTGST? Do they know the insurance and
the outs? Do they tell you, hey, you got

(01:03:53):
to spend this much money? If not, it's going to go to the
tax man. No, but so you're just blaming.
You're not looking for everything has a solution is
what I mean. No matter what, bro.
So you live in the problem or you live in the solution.
And I don't wait for life to happen.
I fucking create it today. I mean, that might sound cocky,
but it's like I'm done waiting, bro.

(01:04:14):
Like I'm knocking on doors today.
That's it. That's all Some are going to
answer, some aren't. And then that's OK.
Yeah, so. But if you never knocked in.
The first place you would never no and again it's like.
I love it because I've never hadthis confidence before, right?
And I believe there's a fine line with individuals between
confidence and cocky or an arrogance about it.

(01:04:37):
Whereas it's just like my confidence is showing up every
single day. That's it, man.
And if you misinterpret that forego or arrogance where you don't
even want to have a conversation, it's not my job to
hold whatever opinion you have of me.
Like it is what it is, bro. Like I don't.
So how do you how do you get? Your confidence on the days when

(01:05:00):
you know there's nothing to be confident about, like how do you
go and get that well again, like.
If I. Understand it correctly.
If there's in what regards if ifyou don't get something to be
confident about, right. So maybe you like when you're?
Date when you're lacking confidence or you're just in a
in a headspace, like you said, where you're kind of squirrely

(01:05:22):
and I don't allow myself to do that.
So people, I believe, think confidence comes from an end
result, right? There's a prize at the end of
this, OK? Oh, I was able to buy my G
Wagon. Look at me.
I'm confident. You know, I'll be honest with
you, bro, And this is not again,this can come out cocky or not.

(01:05:46):
Financially. We're very blessed today, bro.
It's just who I am. I'm wearing a fucking $7.00
shirt from Amazon. You know I'll always be wearing
Vans no matter what, dude. So confidence is built.
It's earned. It's not bought and I think
that's a big misconception is people fall into an identity of

(01:06:08):
I'm confident because I have my job and I make a quarter mill a
year. Cool Pete, what happens if the
market crashes and you don't have that job anymore?
Who the fuck are you bro? Right?
And that's where they called it the Great Depression back in the
day. Because so many people, Anthony,
lack meaning and purpose. I'm not naive.
I'm honest with myself. My confidence today is built on

(01:06:31):
on confidence is built on not breaking the promises to
yourself, right? So you confidence is learning to
trust yourself, right? So I commit and when I say I
commit, I'm going to fucking do it bro.
I wake up same time every day I have for the last fucking two
years over. Then I do a workout right.
I do 10,000 steps outside no matter fucking what man, rain

(01:06:54):
shine. You know my my dog Bruno comes
with me and and that's it. I journal.
I know if if I can't give myselfthat hour to two hours in the
morning, then I know I'm gonna be a loose cannon, right?
Me too. Like the?
End result or. Like the Beamer, the we live in
a nice condo, correct? I'm super proud of us.

(01:07:15):
We created an individual that was able to get to that right.
Cool. But if that condo goes away,
man, it's like you can fucking strip me of anything today.
Like here's where confidence is.I know today that I'll show up
everyday. I don't give a fuck what you
take for me today. It doesn't.
I'll still continue to get up and go on social media or
fucking try to get on podcasts or fucking talk to someone on

(01:07:37):
the St. bro. It's just that's it man.
I'm not attached to an outcome bro.
It's it's because once you do that, then you have an
expectation. An expectation that falls
through can now lead to a resentment, can now lead to a
self pity. There, you know, it's again is
emotions for men, we have them and for women it's how do we

(01:08:00):
live with them, right? How do we control them today?
I'm not my emotions, bro. So it's you know, and again, I
don't even want to like like bigger cities.
I find people are are getting things to impress other people

(01:08:22):
and losing themselves in the process.
Does that make any sense when you really look at it?
Bro, you're like, and I admit it, I would Max out my credit
card to be a fucking baller on King Street and I would eat Mr.
Noodles at home for three days 'cause I had no fucking money
until Friday for what I did. Do you think these?

(01:08:43):
Girls remembered who? I was, you know, and it's just,
I'm just very real today, man. And, and that's it.
So to answer your question in a real roundabout way is to me
personally, in my experience is confidence is earned, bro.
Every fucking day, man. Yeah, love that.
Yeah. I want to end with this, and I

(01:09:06):
usually like to end the podcast with this, but you've said a lot
of good stuff and I appreciate you, man.
Yeah. No, I appreciate being on here.
Yeah, just talking with you. Sick love talking recovery,
Yeah. If you could say something to a
struggling addict or alcoholic right now, what would you say?
Bro, it's it's very simple man. It it, it stops when we let go

(01:09:28):
right? You have to realize is.
You're in pain. That's it, man.
I say this all the time is when I look at an individual that's
struggling. I don't see a drug addict, I
don't see a drunk. You know, there's people that
struggle that don't use this stuff.
They just struggle with life treat the pain you treat

(01:09:51):
yourself. That's it man and to the
individual that's going through something right now like it's
it's I don't know man, it's tough to say like this big
hurrah speech right, because youfind the willingness man, I'll
say this dude find your fucking rock bottom because that is the
most beautiful place that you can ever be That's what I'll.

(01:10:14):
Say and. Once you understand that and
once you accept that, your life is gonna fucking change forever,
bro, because that's when you letgo.
It's like, OK, fuck it, bro. This, this shit ain't working
anymore, man. So you know what?
I'm I'm gonna try this that like, and, and that's how simple

(01:10:35):
it is, man. Like it's not like what am I
trying to say here, dude? It's just.
Yeah, you just you need a littlebit of.
Willingness, man and oh, that's what I was going to say is like
what is the worst that's going to happen you commit to 90 days
let's say what if you. Want your old life?

(01:10:57):
It's wait. Like you and I right now
outside, knock on wood if we want tonight, always say this
King Street's right there. It's I.
Could literally probably you toogo back.
I'm still going to know people. I still know people that work
down there and the moment that Iwalk in there and I just say,
yeah, man, what's up, bro? Fucking this is my boy Anthony.
We'll take two fucking beers andfour shots of tequila, man.

(01:11:19):
And then we make the phone call,bro.
No one's going to be like, guys,do you want to stop and think
about this? No, bro, so true.
They're going to fucking be like, yo, fuck, you want
classes? And we're going to be like,
fuck, yeah, boom. Now that's the hustle, bro.
Upsell, make tips and I that's OK, right?
So it's yeah, I went out of tander in there, but rock bottom

(01:11:41):
allow it to be it's it's just it's the greatest place you get.
Yeah. Love it.
Yeah. That was beautiful.
Yeah. Thanks so much, Mike.
Yeah, I this was amazing, bro. Like.
I I honestly love what you're fucking doing, dude.
It's amazing Like to do three ofthese a week.
I think you were saying like that's incredible, dude.
And I see a lot of people that get sober and then they might

(01:12:05):
not be drinking, but they're fucking miserable.
And I'm like, have you ever tried to like give back to
anybody else? Or is it just, again, it's still
about you, right? And and.
This this for. You giving people a platform and
connecting and dude, it's it's fucking amazing.
Thanks bro. Yeah, sick.
Appreciate you man. Yeah.
Listening Please help us grow the channel and like, share and

(01:12:27):
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If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist,
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