May 17, 2025 • 24 mins
Damien shares his transformative journey from battling addiction and bipolar disorder to founding the Coffee Foundation, showing how embracing vulnerability became his path to purpose. His story reveals how our inner voices can either destroy or rebuild us, and why creating spaces for authentic mental health conversations saves lives.
• Finding ourselves on the other side of the world with the same internal issues
• The battle with our inner voice when it becomes destructive
• How mental health stigma and vocabulary prevents open conversation
• Young people struggling to discuss mental health when adults can't model it
• Damien's rock-bottom moment through intestinal surgery and alcohol detox
• Creating the Coffee Foundation to promote mental health conversations
• The power of vulnerability as a superpower that connects us
• Embracing our unique "craziness" as potential strength rather than weakness
• Breaking down the facades we create that prevent authentic connection
Damien O'Brien
- Tel: +41 79 777 0489
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damien-o-596032b/
- Website: https://www.coffeefoundation.com/
- Email: hello@coffeefoundation.com
If you're struggling with mental health issues, reach out for help. As Damien discovered, sometimes our greatest challenges can become the source of our purpose when we learn to work with our inner voice rather than against it.
Join us as we support The Coffee Foundation this month!
Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREE
Shireen's Bookkeeping Services LLC
Outsourcing your bookkeeping to Shireen’s Bookkeeping Services can save you time and money.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Stay Wild!
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@friendsfromwildplaces
- Website: https://friendsfromwildplaces.buzzsprout.com/
- Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/friends-from-wild-places/id1619076023
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/FFWP_podcast
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/friendsfromwildplacespodcast
Leave a review!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Voiceover (00:03):
Tales from the wild, stories from the heart.
A journey into the mind andsoul of fired-up business
professionals, where they sharetheir vision for the future and
hear from a different non-profitorganization every month as
they create awareness of theirgoals and their needs.
Dive into a world of untamedpassion.
(00:26):
As we join our host, ShireenBotha, for this month's episode
of Friends from Wild Places.
Tanya Scotece (00:36):
Wow, what a journey.
What a journey.
First of all, damien, thank youso much just for you know being
your authentic self and sharingyou are and how we come to be
with you today here in 2025.
But I mean, the many facets ofyou are just so enlightening and
inspiring.
(00:56):
I will say A couple of thingsthat you touched on that really
just resonated is, I think, somany of us you know over the
years think that you know if weget a new whatever, fill in the
blank new home, new car, new job, new person, and but yet we are
still taking ourselves to that,whatever that may be, and
(01:18):
sometime, you know, you findyourself literally across the
world with the same issues thatyou started with, on the other
side of the world.
So it's yeah, and I thinkthat's so true for our listeners
because everyone can relate tothat right.
They may not have had, you know, quite the journey, or maybe
some people have.
I always Shireen has known mefor quite a few years now.
I always like to say you know,we can always look to the left
(01:41):
and see somebody worse off thanus in any situation emotional,
finances, anything and then youcould always look to the right
and see somebody you know morein, whatever that capacity may
be, but we all are on our ownjourney.
So I think the message is to youknow when you come into your
own light as you had shared thequote and to really, you know,
(02:02):
embrace what that is and sharethat journey and give that hope
to other people that are outthere that may not know what to
do.
I mean we all know where we'vecome from, right, I mean that's
a fact, but I mean you knowtrying to identify and address
okay, what do we do now?
And for you, the consistenttheme that I heard from you
sharing your story was thatlittle voice.
(02:23):
That little voice never leftyou.
So that part from you sharingyour story was that little voice
.
That little voice never leftyou.
So that part of you was yourguiding light throughout your
whole journey and it seems thatstill is your voice today.
Damien O'Brien (02:32):
It is.
But what had happened six yearsago is that inner voice had
become, it had taken over, ithad basically become it's my
worst enemy, in a way, that saidit had basically become my
worst enemy, in a way that saidthat, okay, we're going to drink
, we're going to self-abuseourselves, we're going to
mistreat my wife, we're going totalk.
(02:52):
You know, we've become theworst version of myself and I
used to tell that inner voice,but now I can't do that.
And then the inner voice wouldsay to me but Damien, hey, let
me remind you where I took youfrom.
And you have that.
And of course, people today feeluncomfortable because, oh, this
sounds a bit crazy, but a lotof people have that inner head
noise, that battle.
(03:13):
Let let's be honest about it.
Let's be honest that I don'tthink most people take their
life because they're uh, theywant to.
They're in a such a dark place.
At that time and my mother wasincluded in that and you know,
and I was probably there as wellI was in such an internal
battle in my mind and whenyou're a strong-minded person
(03:34):
and most of us, you know, mightsay we are or we don't, but when
you start to have a fight withyour greatest asset, which is
your mind, and you know both ofyou are very strong-willed women
and you know what I mean.
That mind can take you so farwhen it's working with you.
It's your greatest strength andaway you go.
But then sometimes we don'tknow, it decides to play the
(03:57):
other game and say, no, I wantto take you down a path of
self-destruction.
And basically we have thatfight for so long to say is this
really happening?
Am I and you?
You know millions of people arehaving this internal battle
through depression and thisstruggle.
Is this really happening to me?
Is this going to get betterafter two days, three days, and
(04:19):
and we always fight with thestigma of but I can't reach out
for help because I'm going tolook like I'm a, I'm a broken,
uh, I'm a broken commodity anduh, that's kind of what which I
struggled for many years.
I was suffering and I was likeand I'm today, I'm like why
would you put someone you loveor yourself through so much
sufferance?
Uh, that sometimes you justneed to take a pause and you
(04:43):
need to reset and what I realizeis the power of surrender.
I was never going to beat thisenemy inside me.
This inner voice is still withme today, but I was never going
to beat it and I'm still notgoing to beat it.
It's still sitting there withme today and we've done a deal.
We've said how about we dosomething constructive instead
(05:05):
of self-destructive?
And this is what I said theinner craziness with everybody.
You know so many people havegot that talent.
Sometimes it's misconsumed ascrazy or a crazy idea or a crazy
quality that we have or we takethings too far.
And finding that balance aboutwhat's inside us, that sometimes
(05:26):
can be the double-edged swordand in my case it's bipolar
disorder.
I had to have someoneprofessionally explain that to
me for the last six years and Istill are.
And that's the name of yourmonkey inside.
That's what we call it and myinner voice says, excuse me, I
won't be called bipolar, becausethere's my bipolar.
He doesn't want to be comparedto another bipolar, he wants to
(05:48):
be unique.
Voiceover (05:50):
And that's it.
Damien O'Brien (05:51):
And now I realize this sounds crazy for a
lot of people, but I try to dothis in a way now where I can
communicate to young people andthey come and they radiate to me
.
I'm like the Willy Wonka ofcraziness, because they're like
I kind of tell them the thelittle voice inside you is
(06:11):
trying to kind of isolate youand keep you away from the pack.
It wants to separate you.
It wants to, it wants to takeyou down a path of maybe drugs
and alcohol to say to say, well,you're going to feel better for
10 minutes or an hour a day,but then you know, and that's
that's kind of a differentcommunication style that I'm
looking at to try to radiate toa different, younger audience.
You know, because youngeraudience today they don't want
to hear a PhD lesson on neuronsof the brain, they want to
(06:36):
actually understand why am Ifeeling shit, why am I feeling
terrible?
This doesn't make sense, why amI alone?
And then they see this crazyAustralian guy with a Willy
Wonka tuxedo on and I say, hey,this is OK, you don't have to,
you don't have to feel likeyou're alone and you should be
talking about these things withthe people around you.
Tanya Scotece (07:00):
Right, I want to interject one moment, damien.
So, and again, I think you knowa lot of our listeners.
I personally have done a lot inthe female sense as far as
around what they call women'swork and that's a lot of like
carpet work, workshops.
And so for our listeners outthere that you know in hearing
your story, damien, if they, forexample, are not maybe
(07:22):
diagnosed or actually clinicallydiagnosed, with a mental
disorder or disease or whateverthe quota of the word is today,
but some of us can definitelyidentify, growing up with the
good voice or the bad voice orthe parts of us that you know,
whatever resonates.
You know, I teach mortuaryscience atami-dade college and I
(07:44):
see my students the first weekof class.
Everybody is so enthused theywant to be here, they share
their why, they share their,what they share, what they're
doing.
And then about four weeks, insome of them just the voice of
one of the voices is too loudand it's like we can't do this
right now and that takes over.
So the spectrum of the voicescan be from very minute to major
(08:08):
in all different facets, andsometimes it's the younger self,
right the child, sometimes theteenager, and sometimes it's
just the good versus the evil.
You know as far as you know,kind of directing us.
So I appreciate youhighlighting, you know, your
story as far as the extreme partof what you personally have and
(08:28):
experienced, yeah, absolutely.
Damien O'Brien (08:31):
And again, thank you for giving me that space to
talk about it, because for alot of people this is terribly
uncomfortable and you knowpeople what voices Well, and we
can go around and around andpretend that that doesn't happen
.
But let's be honest, you knowthere's 700, 900, 1,000 to a
(08:52):
million suicides per year.
Don't tell me that those peoplein those last moments aren't
having an extreme to the worstexperience with head noise and
they take a decision that underthe right circumstances come on,
let's be honest majority wouldthink again.
And you know we don't needexperts constantly telling us
(09:15):
that everything is taboo and ithas to be, you know, classified
right, the right I'll get introuble for this the right word,
the right mental illness,neurodiversity.
We're so now caught in a vocabof words that it's paralyzed us
to even have this conversation,because I've said some things on
(09:36):
this podcast already that aretechnically not correct, but
that's, we're having aconversation.
That are technically notcorrect, but we're having a
conversation.
It's the intention, how I speak.
I'm not trying to portray toknow more than someone that's
academically smarter than me,but the majority of us don't
live in an academic world.
We live in general population,with people that are around us,
(10:00):
and all of us, a lot of us, areparalysed because we don't
actually know how to have aconversation with people,
because it's impeded, as itmight be perceived as rude, to
ask someone hey, Tanya, how'sthings going with your mental
health, you know?
(10:21):
Have we ever lost a friendbecause we care too much?
I haven't, but that's kind ofhow I look at it.
And if this is happening withadults, as I've seen here in
Switzerland and around the world, what chance have young people
got to speak about mental healthif we can't talk about it?
Do you think teenagers aregoing to be able to do it?
Absolutely not, and we all, asparents I'm a parent of two
(10:43):
teenage daughters I fell intothis perception oh, my children
will reach out to me if theyneed me.
A lot of parents have got this.
Oh, my kids know that I'm therefor them.
Really, when I was a youngteenager, I wasn't going to be
reaching out to no adult.
You know what I mean Children.
Children are like, they readthe land better than us.
(11:05):
They, they look for the peoplethey can trust and they
definitely don't come next tothe ones that they can't feel
that they can, uh, open up to.
Shireen Botha (11:13):
Yeah, no, I agree , but I've got to say one thing
though.
Um, I find that the the newergenerations find it easier to
talk about mental health thanthe older generation.
So, from our generation andolder, we actually are the ones
that struggle to talk about it.
I find the youngsters.
(11:33):
They tend to be able to talkmore freely about all the
different mental struggles andillnesses, and when I was a
young girl, that was taboo, likeyou said.
Now, before we continue, I wantto talk a little bit more about
the Coffee Foundation with you,damien, but before we continue,
I just want to pop in with abuzzsprout ad here.
(11:56):
So Friends from Wild Places isa place to share stories from
other business owners andprofessionals like Damien, a
safe space to show support forother business owners and
entrepreneurs all over the world.
We feature non-profits like theCoffee Foundation every month
to try and make a difference andgive a helpline to someone in
(12:17):
need.
Now do you have a message youwant to share with the world?
Or maybe you just think it'llbe fun to have your own talk
show?
Podcasting is an easy,inexpensive and fun way to
expand your reach online.
To start your own podcast,please follow the link in the
show notes.
This lets Buzzsprout know thatwe sent you and it helps support
(12:40):
the show.
Remember, the team atBuzzsprout is passionate about
helping you succeed.
Now, damien, you spoke about anintervention.
You also spoke about how youwere diagnosed with bipolar and
how you got into alcohol as yourdrug of choice.
When you speak aboutintervention, what was your
(13:04):
intervention?
When, finally, you realized, ohmy gosh, there is a need here
that needs to be filled inSwitzerland, and I want to fill
that need.
When did that?
Damien O'Brien (13:17):
happen.
That's a yeah.
The intervention for a lot ofsilly men like me comes from
pain.
You know us men, we'repussycats in many aspects.
We can't.
And I'm too.
I'm the big my wife calls methe biggest pussy.
I get the.
I had the man flu the other day, a few coughs and my, my wife,
you know she's like get over it.
(13:37):
And I said, oh, I'm dying, I'vegot the man flu.
For me, pain physical pain andemotional pain is something that
I'm like a horse that getswhipped.
If I have that pain, I react.
And six years ago, in the heightof my addiction, drinking one
afternoon, I felt a little bitof a twitch in the left side of
(13:59):
my stomach and within, probablywithin an hour, I was on my
knees praying to God in theemergency ward.
I'd had a, let's say,intestinal twitch where all my
testines had started to rollover on each other, and for six
(14:20):
days we tried to let thoseintestines unwrap themselves
before we needed to have anintervention.
So I didn't realize that fullblown alcoholic, that the minute
I could stop drinking I wasstarting to go into detox while
I was going through, I'm sureplenty of people have had
intestinal surgery.
There's something aboutintestines.
(14:41):
They don't like.
They don't like rolling over oneach other.
And I started expanding likeyou would say, like a balloon,
and for six days we we thoughtthat this would untangle.
So I was in the grip of a detoxmorphine cocktail.
And on day seven, the theprofessor came in and said we've
(15:03):
got to get you into surgery now.
This is not working.
And I signed all the papersPlease, doc, you know, get me in
there and we're going to dokeyhole surgery.
It's going to be all good.
And so I got in there, kissedthe nurses as you do, I love
nurses and went under the magicgas.
And then, as soon as I come out, I put my hand in my t-shirt
(15:24):
and I felt the first stitch of37 straight down the middle.
There was no keyhole surgery.
The professor came in and saidwhat I saw inside was horrific.
I had to take out 15, 16centimeter intestine bowel had
to be removed.
If I didn't do do it, you wouldhave, uh, you would have had a
full hemorrhage and uh, that wasit.
(15:45):
And I've again played rugby,had other surgeries.
I went into the pain zone that Ican even today, I just could
never describe, and thendetoxing, uh, nurses trying to
cool me down, trying to saywhat's going on.
And I was hiding my alcohol, ofcourse do you.
You know I was not telling thepoor nurses that are there to
(16:07):
try and look after me.
I'm a full-blown alcoholic andthey're like something else is
wrong with you and I'm like Idon't know, maybe it's this, and
they're like this is bad, butsomething else is happening to
you.
And then the beautiful africannurse came at 2 am, know,
putting wet towels on me.
And again we got the wholesuperpowers wrong.
Superheroes in the world, youknow, they're around us
(16:29):
everywhere nurses, paramedics,when you're at your bottom,
these people, and the nurse atthree in the morning.
She's like Damien, you can tellme.
And I said, yeah, I drink a lot.
And finally she got the alcoholteam in to support me and okay,
well, you know, we don't careif you drink, we're here to get
you better.
And 30 days in intensive care,looking at the ceiling and you
(16:51):
know, people have religion.
It's always that moment whenyou're at your rock bottom.
You're looking for any God.
It doesn't matter which God itis.
You want someone to connectwith, to try and make sense of
where you go.
I had two young daughters at thetime looking at their father,
my wife and she was going toleave me.
I'd become the worst version ofmyself and the hallucination
(17:13):
from the morphine I startedseeing cats walk around the
hospital.
You know, you're losingeverything and the elevator has
basically come at the bottom.
We're at basement now and a lotof people say, you know what?
I'd like the elevator to golower, I'd like to check out
here now and whatever.
My elevator was at rock bottomand I had 30 days to look at the
(17:37):
ceiling and say you know, I'vegot two daughters and don't let
any alcoholic tell you that youcan do it for someone else.
You can't, you know.
I'll do it for the kids, I'mgoing to do it for the wife, I'm
going to do it for other people.
No, you've got to decide.
You're going to do it foryourself.
And I kind of I just said tomyself, damien, that inner voice
.
I said, really, is this what wesurvived?
Is this what we came from?
(17:58):
I've become my father, I'vebecome this.
And I said, nah, nah, I'm awinner, I'm going to do, I'm
going to fight back here.
And from that moment, nevertouched another drop of alcohol.
I had to sign a deal, bart,with whatever God there was that
day and I don't know if it'sjesus, allah, whoever, whatever
(18:20):
god was there something camedown to me and said okay, you
touch one more drop of alcohol,I'll kill you.
And I remember that it justradiated through me touch one
more drop of alcohol, I'll killyou, you're dead.
And I was signing now in thebed in my mind, signed, I'm
doing the deal, let's go.
And I remember, are you sure?
And I said I'm sure, sign thatdeal.
(18:40):
And then, step by step, day bydays, you know, I get get better
, get out.
Uh, diagnosed mentally ill, uh,bipolar, my job had finished, no
more company, no company.
He's going to hire me.
Society doesn't want anythingto do with me.
We We'll talk about that in asecond.
There's also there's theparallel world of coming out of
(19:01):
hospital that you're diagnosedas mentally ill, your career is
finished and I kind of like farout.
This is going to be tough tocome back.
And from that moment there it'sbeen six years of a journey.
It was probably two years ofgetting sober and getting stable
, just to realize okay, I needto see the psychiatrist, I need
(19:21):
to go to AA, I've got toactually invest in my health
here.
I've got to invest in thisrebuild.
This is not just going to be anovernight success.
And then, uh, yeah, two orthree years my wife's such an
incredible supporter of me.
Uh, damien, you're too good.
You're too good to waste yourtalent.
You've got something and I'mlike but the answer to my future
(19:42):
is in the past.
And I kept saying to my wife Isaid how can I find the answers
to my future, my purpose, indarkness?
That doesn't make sense.
And I grappled with that fortwo or three years.
I'm like, I'm not an expert inmental health, I haven't got a
PhD.
And then everyone around me,they're like but, damien, you
are the expert.
You talk about the real voicesand I'm like, yeah, that's right
(20:06):
, mental health is all thesevoices of people that you know
around here in Switzerland.
They're all experts and I saidtheir stories aren't radiating
to me.
So, yeah, about three years agoI was walking through the forest
and I said what do Swiss peoplelove doing in this country?
They don't drink alcohol likeAustralia.
They're all drinking coffee.
And I kind of realised that'sthe only, sometimes last, ritual
(20:30):
of people, that they have aconnection with people.
They sit for that traditionalfive to ten minutes to share a
coffee and some type ofconversation.
And I and that was like bingo Isaid Switzerland's got 16,
17,000 foundations.
I said imagine if there was aWilly Wonka coffee foundation
that did one sole thing, whichwas to try to cause, create
(20:53):
conversation around mentalhealth.
And that was it.
I did it back to front.
I had the Coffee Foundation andthen I built the branding and
the logo and I said I want ourassociation to have a
world-class brand, like we havearound the world great brands,
but they're all actually nodisrespect, they're in a
business mechanism.
I said I want this to be asocial brand that actually does
(21:16):
a great cause with branding forits cause.
And that's how I come about it.
Tanya Scotece (21:22):
Beautiful Call.
Damien O'Brien (21:23):
Us.
Crazy is the hashtag and that'skind of what it all is.
Yeah, everything about it wasbased on crazy.
So, yeah, that's what we do andthat's the essence of what we
do.
We embrace craziness becauseit's not something that's for
too many years and too manydecades it's been something to
be feared of.
Too many tears, too manyheartaches, too many stopping
(21:46):
people from communicating andspeaking because we all wear
this mask in society.
Uh, that we have to hide ourvulnerabilities.
It's another thing that I hadto learn to learn the superpower
of vulnerability, because whenI'm vulnerable, it allows you to
to be vulnerable, and sometimeswe realize, wow, we've got so
much more in common than we everwould have imagined and we're
(22:08):
not such alone as we think weare, and that gives the other
person the opportunity to make adeeper connection with you, and
sometimes you stop smallproblems becoming big ones
wonderful yeah and uh, I do alot of funerals for suicide and
it's no disrespect that a lot ofpeople stand around because
they're terribly in mourning andthey're saying I wish I I
(22:32):
didn't see anything wrong withjohn.
I didn't see anything wrong withJohn, I didn't see anything
wrong.
He had a perfect wife.
And I always say, did you ask?
No, I didn't ask.
And that's the thing we allhave.
Some people have the amazingmask and we see this in the
media the perfect life.
And then something happens andthe mask falls off and then, oh,
(22:53):
hold on this whole facade thatwe sometimes spend a lifetime to
create.
And when you get, as you know,when you get to the hospital,
they don't care about yoursalary, what your car you're
driving, the nurse treats you on, how you treat her.
And you know, I get to thehospital and the big smart guy
(23:15):
next to me at the last vision hewas wondering why she wasn't
coming when he's talking to herwith disrespect and I said, mate
, here at the hospital we're allthe same bare bum, like when we
came out at birth.
It's just an amazing way,hospital death it recalibrates
you to how we came in this worldand that's how we're judged.
(23:35):
We're judged on how we treatother people, and when you're at
your most vulnerable, you kindof would love to see that people
will give you the samecompassion that we do for
physical health.
Shireen Botha (23:47):
Tune in next week for part three of Friends from
Wild Places.
Voiceover (23:53):
You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places
with Shireen Botha.
Be sure to subscribe to thepodcast from the links to catch
every episode and unleash yourpassion.
Tales from the wild, stories from the heart.
A journey into the mind andsoul of fired-up business
professionals, where they sharetheir vision for the future and
hear from a different non-profitorganization every month as
they create awareness of theirgoals and their needs.
Dive into a world of untamedpassion.
(00:26):
As we join our host, ShireenBotha, for this month's episode
of Friends from Wild Places.
Tanya Scotece (00:36):
Wow, what a journey.
What a journey.
First of all, damien, thank youso much just for you know being
your authentic self and sharingyou are and how we come to be
with you today here in 2025.
But I mean, the many facets ofyou are just so enlightening and
inspiring.
(00:56):
I will say A couple of thingsthat you touched on that really
just resonated is, I think, somany of us you know over the
years think that you know if weget a new whatever, fill in the
blank new home, new car, new job, new person, and but yet we are
still taking ourselves to that,whatever that may be, and
(01:18):
sometime, you know, you findyourself literally across the
world with the same issues thatyou started with, on the other
side of the world.
So it's yeah, and I thinkthat's so true for our listeners
because everyone can relate tothat right.
They may not have had, you know, quite the journey, or maybe
some people have.
I always Shireen has known mefor quite a few years now.
I always like to say you know,we can always look to the left
(01:41):
and see somebody worse off thanus in any situation emotional,
finances, anything and then youcould always look to the right
and see somebody you know morein, whatever that capacity may
be, but we all are on our ownjourney.
So I think the message is to youknow when you come into your
own light as you had shared thequote and to really, you know,
(02:02):
embrace what that is and sharethat journey and give that hope
to other people that are outthere that may not know what to
do.
I mean we all know where we'vecome from, right, I mean that's
a fact, but I mean you knowtrying to identify and address
okay, what do we do now?
And for you, the consistenttheme that I heard from you
sharing your story was thatlittle voice.
(02:23):
That little voice never leftyou.
So that part from you sharingyour story was that little voice
.
That little voice never leftyou.
So that part of you was yourguiding light throughout your
whole journey and it seems thatstill is your voice today.
Damien O'Brien (02:32):
It is.
But what had happened six yearsago is that inner voice had
become, it had taken over, ithad basically become it's my
worst enemy, in a way, that saidit had basically become my
worst enemy, in a way that saidthat, okay, we're going to drink
, we're going to self-abuseourselves, we're going to
mistreat my wife, we're going totalk.
(02:52):
You know, we've become theworst version of myself and I
used to tell that inner voice,but now I can't do that.
And then the inner voice wouldsay to me but Damien, hey, let
me remind you where I took youfrom.
And you have that.
And of course, people today feeluncomfortable because, oh, this
sounds a bit crazy, but a lotof people have that inner head
noise, that battle.
(03:13):
Let let's be honest about it.
Let's be honest that I don'tthink most people take their
life because they're uh, theywant to.
They're in a such a dark place.
At that time and my mother wasincluded in that and you know,
and I was probably there as wellI was in such an internal
battle in my mind and whenyou're a strong-minded person
(03:34):
and most of us, you know, mightsay we are or we don't, but when
you start to have a fight withyour greatest asset, which is
your mind, and you know both ofyou are very strong-willed women
and you know what I mean.
That mind can take you so farwhen it's working with you.
It's your greatest strength andaway you go.
But then sometimes we don'tknow, it decides to play the
(03:57):
other game and say, no, I wantto take you down a path of
self-destruction.
And basically we have thatfight for so long to say is this
really happening?
Am I and you?
You know millions of people arehaving this internal battle
through depression and thisstruggle.
Is this really happening to me?
Is this going to get betterafter two days, three days, and
(04:19):
and we always fight with thestigma of but I can't reach out
for help because I'm going tolook like I'm a, I'm a broken,
uh, I'm a broken commodity anduh, that's kind of what which I
struggled for many years.
I was suffering and I was likeand I'm today, I'm like why
would you put someone you loveor yourself through so much
sufferance?
Uh, that sometimes you justneed to take a pause and you
(04:43):
need to reset and what I realizeis the power of surrender.
I was never going to beat thisenemy inside me.
This inner voice is still withme today, but I was never going
to beat it and I'm still notgoing to beat it.
It's still sitting there withme today and we've done a deal.
We've said how about we dosomething constructive instead
(05:05):
of self-destructive?
And this is what I said theinner craziness with everybody.
You know so many people havegot that talent.
Sometimes it's misconsumed ascrazy or a crazy idea or a crazy
quality that we have or we takethings too far.
And finding that balance aboutwhat's inside us, that sometimes
(05:26):
can be the double-edged swordand in my case it's bipolar
disorder.
I had to have someoneprofessionally explain that to
me for the last six years and Istill are.
And that's the name of yourmonkey inside.
That's what we call it and myinner voice says, excuse me, I
won't be called bipolar, becausethere's my bipolar.
He doesn't want to be comparedto another bipolar, he wants to
(05:48):
be unique.
Voiceover (05:50):
And that's it.
Damien O'Brien (05:51):
And now I realize this sounds crazy for a
lot of people, but I try to dothis in a way now where I can
communicate to young people andthey come and they radiate to me
.
I'm like the Willy Wonka ofcraziness, because they're like
I kind of tell them the thelittle voice inside you is
(06:11):
trying to kind of isolate youand keep you away from the pack.
It wants to separate you.
It wants to, it wants to takeyou down a path of maybe drugs
and alcohol to say to say, well,you're going to feel better for
10 minutes or an hour a day,but then you know, and that's
that's kind of a differentcommunication style that I'm
looking at to try to radiate toa different, younger audience.
You know, because youngeraudience today they don't want
to hear a PhD lesson on neuronsof the brain, they want to
(06:36):
actually understand why am Ifeeling shit, why am I feeling
terrible?
This doesn't make sense, why amI alone?
And then they see this crazyAustralian guy with a Willy
Wonka tuxedo on and I say, hey,this is OK, you don't have to,
you don't have to feel likeyou're alone and you should be
talking about these things withthe people around you.
Tanya Scotece (07:00):
Right, I want to interject one moment, damien.
So, and again, I think you knowa lot of our listeners.
I personally have done a lot inthe female sense as far as
around what they call women'swork and that's a lot of like
carpet work, workshops.
And so for our listeners outthere that you know in hearing
your story, damien, if they, forexample, are not maybe
(07:22):
diagnosed or actually clinicallydiagnosed, with a mental
disorder or disease or whateverthe quota of the word is today,
but some of us can definitelyidentify, growing up with the
good voice or the bad voice orthe parts of us that you know,
whatever resonates.
You know, I teach mortuaryscience atami-dade college and I
(07:44):
see my students the first weekof class.
Everybody is so enthused theywant to be here, they share
their why, they share their,what they share, what they're
doing.
And then about four weeks, insome of them just the voice of
one of the voices is too loudand it's like we can't do this
right now and that takes over.
So the spectrum of the voicescan be from very minute to major
(08:08):
in all different facets, andsometimes it's the younger self,
right the child, sometimes theteenager, and sometimes it's
just the good versus the evil.
You know as far as you know,kind of directing us.
So I appreciate youhighlighting, you know, your
story as far as the extreme partof what you personally have and
(08:28):
experienced, yeah, absolutely.
Damien O'Brien (08:31):
And again, thank you for giving me that space to
talk about it, because for alot of people this is terribly
uncomfortable and you knowpeople what voices Well, and we
can go around and around andpretend that that doesn't happen
.
But let's be honest, you knowthere's 700, 900, 1,000 to a
(08:52):
million suicides per year.
Don't tell me that those peoplein those last moments aren't
having an extreme to the worstexperience with head noise and
they take a decision that underthe right circumstances come on,
let's be honest majority wouldthink again.
And you know we don't needexperts constantly telling us
(09:15):
that everything is taboo and ithas to be, you know, classified
right, the right I'll get introuble for this the right word,
the right mental illness,neurodiversity.
We're so now caught in a vocabof words that it's paralyzed us
to even have this conversation,because I've said some things on
(09:36):
this podcast already that aretechnically not correct, but
that's, we're having aconversation.
That are technically notcorrect, but we're having a
conversation.
It's the intention, how I speak.
I'm not trying to portray toknow more than someone that's
academically smarter than me,but the majority of us don't
live in an academic world.
We live in general population,with people that are around us,
(10:00):
and all of us, a lot of us, areparalysed because we don't
actually know how to have aconversation with people,
because it's impeded, as itmight be perceived as rude, to
ask someone hey, Tanya, how'sthings going with your mental
health, you know?
(10:21):
Have we ever lost a friendbecause we care too much?
I haven't, but that's kind ofhow I look at it.
And if this is happening withadults, as I've seen here in
Switzerland and around the world, what chance have young people
got to speak about mental healthif we can't talk about it?
Do you think teenagers aregoing to be able to do it?
Absolutely not, and we all, asparents I'm a parent of two
(10:43):
teenage daughters I fell intothis perception oh, my children
will reach out to me if theyneed me.
A lot of parents have got this.
Oh, my kids know that I'm therefor them.
Really, when I was a youngteenager, I wasn't going to be
reaching out to no adult.
You know what I mean Children.
Children are like, they readthe land better than us.
(11:05):
They, they look for the peoplethey can trust and they
definitely don't come next tothe ones that they can't feel
that they can, uh, open up to.
Shireen Botha (11:13):
Yeah, no, I agree , but I've got to say one thing
though.
Um, I find that the the newergenerations find it easier to
talk about mental health thanthe older generation.
So, from our generation andolder, we actually are the ones
that struggle to talk about it.
I find the youngsters.
(11:33):
They tend to be able to talkmore freely about all the
different mental struggles andillnesses, and when I was a
young girl, that was taboo, likeyou said.
Now, before we continue, I wantto talk a little bit more about
the Coffee Foundation with you,damien, but before we continue,
I just want to pop in with abuzzsprout ad here.
(11:56):
So Friends from Wild Places isa place to share stories from
other business owners andprofessionals like Damien, a
safe space to show support forother business owners and
entrepreneurs all over the world.
We feature non-profits like theCoffee Foundation every month
to try and make a difference andgive a helpline to someone in
(12:17):
need.
Now do you have a message youwant to share with the world?
Or maybe you just think it'llbe fun to have your own talk
show?
Podcasting is an easy,inexpensive and fun way to
expand your reach online.
To start your own podcast,please follow the link in the
show notes.
This lets Buzzsprout know thatwe sent you and it helps support
(12:40):
the show.
Remember, the team atBuzzsprout is passionate about
helping you succeed.
Now, damien, you spoke about anintervention.
You also spoke about how youwere diagnosed with bipolar and
how you got into alcohol as yourdrug of choice.
When you speak aboutintervention, what was your
(13:04):
intervention?
When, finally, you realized, ohmy gosh, there is a need here
that needs to be filled inSwitzerland, and I want to fill
that need.
When did that?
Damien O'Brien (13:17):
happen.
That's a yeah.
The intervention for a lot ofsilly men like me comes from
pain.
You know us men, we'repussycats in many aspects.
We can't.
And I'm too.
I'm the big my wife calls methe biggest pussy.
I get the.
I had the man flu the other day, a few coughs and my, my wife,
you know she's like get over it.
(13:37):
And I said, oh, I'm dying, I'vegot the man flu.
For me, pain physical pain andemotional pain is something that
I'm like a horse that getswhipped.
If I have that pain, I react.
And six years ago, in the heightof my addiction, drinking one
afternoon, I felt a little bitof a twitch in the left side of
(13:59):
my stomach and within, probablywithin an hour, I was on my
knees praying to God in theemergency ward.
I'd had a, let's say,intestinal twitch where all my
testines had started to rollover on each other, and for six
(14:20):
days we tried to let thoseintestines unwrap themselves
before we needed to have anintervention.
So I didn't realize that fullblown alcoholic, that the minute
I could stop drinking I wasstarting to go into detox while
I was going through, I'm sureplenty of people have had
intestinal surgery.
There's something aboutintestines.
(14:41):
They don't like.
They don't like rolling over oneach other.
And I started expanding likeyou would say, like a balloon,
and for six days we we thoughtthat this would untangle.
So I was in the grip of a detoxmorphine cocktail.
And on day seven, the theprofessor came in and said we've
(15:03):
got to get you into surgery now.
This is not working.
And I signed all the papersPlease, doc, you know, get me in
there and we're going to dokeyhole surgery.
It's going to be all good.
And so I got in there, kissedthe nurses as you do, I love
nurses and went under the magicgas.
And then, as soon as I come out, I put my hand in my t-shirt
(15:24):
and I felt the first stitch of37 straight down the middle.
There was no keyhole surgery.
The professor came in and saidwhat I saw inside was horrific.
I had to take out 15, 16centimeter intestine bowel had
to be removed.
If I didn't do do it, you wouldhave, uh, you would have had a
full hemorrhage and uh, that wasit.
(15:45):
And I've again played rugby,had other surgeries.
I went into the pain zone that Ican even today, I just could
never describe, and thendetoxing, uh, nurses trying to
cool me down, trying to saywhat's going on.
And I was hiding my alcohol, ofcourse do you.
You know I was not telling thepoor nurses that are there to
(16:07):
try and look after me.
I'm a full-blown alcoholic andthey're like something else is
wrong with you and I'm like Idon't know, maybe it's this, and
they're like this is bad, butsomething else is happening to
you.
And then the beautiful africannurse came at 2 am, know,
putting wet towels on me.
And again we got the wholesuperpowers wrong.
Superheroes in the world, youknow, they're around us
(16:29):
everywhere nurses, paramedics,when you're at your bottom,
these people, and the nurse atthree in the morning.
She's like Damien, you can tellme.
And I said, yeah, I drink a lot.
And finally she got the alcoholteam in to support me and okay,
well, you know, we don't careif you drink, we're here to get
you better.
And 30 days in intensive care,looking at the ceiling and you
(16:51):
know, people have religion.
It's always that moment whenyou're at your rock bottom.
You're looking for any God.
It doesn't matter which God itis.
You want someone to connectwith, to try and make sense of
where you go.
I had two young daughters at thetime looking at their father,
my wife and she was going toleave me.
I'd become the worst version ofmyself and the hallucination
(17:13):
from the morphine I startedseeing cats walk around the
hospital.
You know, you're losingeverything and the elevator has
basically come at the bottom.
We're at basement now and a lotof people say, you know what?
I'd like the elevator to golower, I'd like to check out
here now and whatever.
My elevator was at rock bottomand I had 30 days to look at the
(17:37):
ceiling and say you know, I'vegot two daughters and don't let
any alcoholic tell you that youcan do it for someone else.
You can't, you know.
I'll do it for the kids, I'mgoing to do it for the wife, I'm
going to do it for other people.
No, you've got to decide.
You're going to do it foryourself.
And I kind of I just said tomyself, damien, that inner voice
.
I said, really, is this what wesurvived?
Is this what we came from?
(17:58):
I've become my father, I'vebecome this.
And I said, nah, nah, I'm awinner, I'm going to do, I'm
going to fight back here.
And from that moment, nevertouched another drop of alcohol.
I had to sign a deal, bart,with whatever God there was that
day and I don't know if it'sjesus, allah, whoever, whatever
(18:20):
god was there something camedown to me and said okay, you
touch one more drop of alcohol,I'll kill you.
And I remember that it justradiated through me touch one
more drop of alcohol, I'll killyou, you're dead.
And I was signing now in thebed in my mind, signed, I'm
doing the deal, let's go.
And I remember, are you sure?
And I said I'm sure, sign thatdeal.
(18:40):
And then, step by step, day bydays, you know, I get get better
, get out.
Uh, diagnosed mentally ill, uh,bipolar, my job had finished, no
more company, no company.
He's going to hire me.
Society doesn't want anythingto do with me.
We We'll talk about that in asecond.
There's also there's theparallel world of coming out of
(19:01):
hospital that you're diagnosedas mentally ill, your career is
finished and I kind of like farout.
This is going to be tough tocome back.
And from that moment there it'sbeen six years of a journey.
It was probably two years ofgetting sober and getting stable
, just to realize okay, I needto see the psychiatrist, I need
(19:21):
to go to AA, I've got toactually invest in my health
here.
I've got to invest in thisrebuild.
This is not just going to be anovernight success.
And then, uh, yeah, two orthree years my wife's such an
incredible supporter of me.
Uh, damien, you're too good.
You're too good to waste yourtalent.
You've got something and I'mlike but the answer to my future
(19:42):
is in the past.
And I kept saying to my wife Isaid how can I find the answers
to my future, my purpose, indarkness?
That doesn't make sense.
And I grappled with that fortwo or three years.
I'm like, I'm not an expert inmental health, I haven't got a
PhD.
And then everyone around me,they're like but, damien, you
are the expert.
You talk about the real voicesand I'm like, yeah, that's right
(20:06):
, mental health is all thesevoices of people that you know
around here in Switzerland.
They're all experts and I saidtheir stories aren't radiating
to me.
So, yeah, about three years agoI was walking through the forest
and I said what do Swiss peoplelove doing in this country?
They don't drink alcohol likeAustralia.
They're all drinking coffee.
And I kind of realised that'sthe only, sometimes last, ritual
(20:30):
of people, that they have aconnection with people.
They sit for that traditionalfive to ten minutes to share a
coffee and some type ofconversation.
And I and that was like bingo Isaid Switzerland's got 16,
17,000 foundations.
I said imagine if there was aWilly Wonka coffee foundation
that did one sole thing, whichwas to try to cause, create
(20:53):
conversation around mentalhealth.
And that was it.
I did it back to front.
I had the Coffee Foundation andthen I built the branding and
the logo and I said I want ourassociation to have a
world-class brand, like we havearound the world great brands,
but they're all actually nodisrespect, they're in a
business mechanism.
I said I want this to be asocial brand that actually does
(21:16):
a great cause with branding forits cause.
And that's how I come about it.
Tanya Scotece (21:22):
Beautiful Call.
Damien O'Brien (21:23):
Us.
Crazy is the hashtag and that'skind of what it all is.
Yeah, everything about it wasbased on crazy.
So, yeah, that's what we do andthat's the essence of what we
do.
We embrace craziness becauseit's not something that's for
too many years and too manydecades it's been something to
be feared of.
Too many tears, too manyheartaches, too many stopping
(21:46):
people from communicating andspeaking because we all wear
this mask in society.
Uh, that we have to hide ourvulnerabilities.
It's another thing that I hadto learn to learn the superpower
of vulnerability, because whenI'm vulnerable, it allows you to
to be vulnerable, and sometimeswe realize, wow, we've got so
much more in common than we everwould have imagined and we're
(22:08):
not such alone as we think weare, and that gives the other
person the opportunity to make adeeper connection with you, and
sometimes you stop smallproblems becoming big ones
wonderful yeah and uh, I do alot of funerals for suicide and
it's no disrespect that a lot ofpeople stand around because
they're terribly in mourning andthey're saying I wish I I
(22:32):
didn't see anything wrong withjohn.
I didn't see anything wrong withJohn, I didn't see anything
wrong.
He had a perfect wife.
And I always say, did you ask?
No, I didn't ask.
And that's the thing we allhave.
Some people have the amazingmask and we see this in the
media the perfect life.
And then something happens andthe mask falls off and then, oh,
(22:53):
hold on this whole facade thatwe sometimes spend a lifetime to
create.
And when you get, as you know,when you get to the hospital,
they don't care about yoursalary, what your car you're
driving, the nurse treats you on, how you treat her.
And you know, I get to thehospital and the big smart guy
(23:15):
next to me at the last vision hewas wondering why she wasn't
coming when he's talking to herwith disrespect and I said, mate
, here at the hospital we're allthe same bare bum, like when we
came out at birth.
It's just an amazing way,hospital death it recalibrates
you to how we came in this worldand that's how we're judged.
(23:35):
We're judged on how we treatother people, and when you're at
your most vulnerable, you kindof would love to see that people
will give you the samecompassion that we do for
physical health.
Shireen Botha (23:47):
Tune in next week for part three of Friends from
Wild Places.
Voiceover (23:53):
You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places
with Shireen Botha.
Be sure to subscribe to thepodcast from the links to catch
every episode and unleash yourpassion.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.