#110 - Scott Brearley - Journey of Trauma, Addiction, & Redemption

Hello Friends,

In this episode, Scott shares his profound journey from a traumatic childhood accident to a life riddled with addiction and eventual recovery. He discusses the impact of his early experiences, including bullying, family dynamics, and time spent in juvenile detention and prison.

Scott reflects on the challenges of maintaining sobriety, the role of relationships in his life, and the turning points that led him to seek a better path. His story is one of resilience, personal growth, and the ongoing struggle for recovery.

In this conversation, Scott shares his journey through addiction, recovery, and personal growth. He discusses the challenges he faced in relationships, the impact of health issues, and the transformative experiences that led him to a healthier mindset. Scott emphasizes the importance of self-discovery, love, and investing in oneself, ultimately finding happiness and purpose in life after overcoming significant obstacles.

Subscribe and Comment at all our links below.

https://www.youtube.com/@chrisandmikeshow

https://www.facebook.com/chrisandmikeshow

https://www.instagram.com/chrisandmikeshow

Episode Transcript

(00:24):
Everybody, you're listening to me.
I'm going to tell you that was supposed to be.
What's up the boys and girls listen to Chris and Mike show.
I'm Chris, he's Mike. And with a special guest today,
Scott barely from Canada A and he's going to chime in here and

(00:45):
tell us what he's all about and what we're going to talk about.
We're going to have a nice little fun episode for you.
So Scott, welcome to the show. Please entertain us.
Welcome, Scott. Thanks for coming.
I'm from Canada, I've lived from, I grew up close to Toronto
and now I live just outside of Vancouver.
Cool. I've spent my life.

(01:06):
It started out with a start. I almost got killed at 7 by a
car. I got dragged 40 yards, OK.
And from there, it kind of went downhill for years and.
How did that happen? Yeah, How'd that happen?
Well, I was one street over fromwhere I lived and I stole the
girl skip and rope and she went to tell her mom and I dropped

(01:30):
the skip and rope and ran into the car.
Apparently that's how the and then I got hung up on the car
somehow and drag and two broken legs, broken arm, fractured
skull, my lung collapsed and a lot of head damage.
And you know, I spent years of my life riddled with addiction
and anger and I could never figure out what was wrong with

(01:54):
me. And I always stemmed it back to
the accident and thought maybe it's just head damage and I'll
never get over it. And right, his anger was pretty
prominent. And I know a lot of people with
head injuries. Anger becomes a problem and.
Right. So I was around 12 step programs
for the better part of 40 years and I I've currently got 23

(02:18):
years in this year clean and so.I just, I just passed 20
February. Yeah, nice.
Yeah. And and Mike, we decided was
about 15 or so. Yeah, yeah, probably closer to
17 now, yeah. Nice so about I was at 11 years
again and not again should say it.

(02:40):
I was 11 years and I got divorced from my wife, which was
pretty. Traumatic and sorry of course
now was was was that kind of stemmed from the trauma you
experienced as a child because obviously a little.
Bit yeah, a little bit of both, right?
A little bit of her because she was in recovery and she stuck
from her own stuff and I and then together we just were
toxic. OK, let's let's go back a little

(03:02):
bit with with your your incidentthat happened when you're 7, how
long did it take to recover fromthat?
I'm going to say probably a year.
Like I remember I even had to at7.
I had to or eight. I think I was by then.
I had the humiliation of going from a 2 Wheeler back to a trike
hanging out with kids were younger than me because they.

(03:23):
Wouldn't me the other? Yeah, OK.
And then I got you're in OK, so with that with with that post
accident trauma and stuff did how does how does that turn into
you becoming an addict? Was there something that you
started at a young age start experience with painkillers or
what? Get a pain or picture so people
can understand bud. I think what happened was, of

(03:46):
course, in the hospital they hadme wired on some sort of drug to
keep the pain wrong. Sure.
And then by the time I was 11, OK, I had made my first
geographical cure, not knowing it was a geographical cure, in
grade five, I was having so muchtrouble in the school I was in.
I came up with this idea. Oh, it might be better at a
different school. So I got my parents to transfer

(04:09):
me to a different school, and their age limit went up a little
higher than what they went from.Instead of grade 6, it went to
grade 8. OK, well I went over there in
grade 6 and of course that's where I've Grade 6 is where I
found marijuana. OK, that's what I that's why I
was leading to this, because youwent from from 7 year olds

(04:30):
accident and all of a sudden I'm23 years sober.
We had, yeah, we we had the job,buddy.
Good point. Were you?
Diagnosed with like any kind of traumatic brain injury because I
know that's pretty recent. Back then, they didn't know
about. That back then they didn't do
anything. They just let you wild.
And so anyways, the last day of grade 6 in this new school, it

(04:51):
had lots of problems. I was the kid that the teacher
would go write lines or go to the office.
I would stand up and go to the office and refuse to write the
lines. Oh, OK.
So you definitely. Had a neighbor neighbor, like
actually next door neighbor where I grew up.
He was the science teacher and all my life I called him Bruce

(05:15):
and all he called me Scotty. So I get to his class and I
didn't like being called Scotty in front of my friends because
back then it was kind of gay or whatever.
My brother used me or I don't even know what doesn't even make
sense today because I think bodysounds cool, right?
Yeah. But so I get in his class and
he's calling me Scotty. So I kept calling him Bruce.
And he goes, you've got up here.And he wouldn't, he wouldn't

(05:39):
stop calling me Scotty. So anyways, I was kicked out of
the class. That's how they dealt with stuff
back then. And this is in Canada.
In in Canada anyways. OK, Yeah.
So Fast forward to the day before sports day.
I don't know if they have sportsday and public school and.
Explain what sports day is, because we know this is a
worldwide thing. Here we're in 19 countries.

(05:59):
So you got to, you got to when you, when you drop some, when
you drop. Yeah, usually 1/2 day to a three
quarter game school and all you do is go to school and have fun.
Like there's a little bit of track, there's balloons rolling,
there's what, like tug of war? I think we, yeah, we had that in
Arizona when I was in grade school.
We called it field day. Yeah, yeah.

(06:21):
So they might have. Called it.
I'm just, I just remembered his sports day.
It was a long time ago. Very.
Similar. Yeah, it's OK.
Now we got to we understand whatthat is cool.
So anyways the day before that me and a friend were down at
this little Creek and we had to hold each other by the shoulders
like this and we were spinning each other around trying to get
each other wet so we'd get trapped when we went to school.

(06:43):
Well no, it was pretty tragic. He fell down and landed on
either a sharp rock glass and they ended up having to bring
stuff like tenons and stuff fromhere to get his hand working
again. Oh wow.
Well, that started one of the big catastrophic another
catastrophic. I was expelled from school.

(07:04):
So even though. So you were you're.
So you're playing with your buddy.
Yeah. And it was a pure accident.
Yep. And then they blame you and
expel you. Yes, wow.
So then they sent me. Here starts the story of the
shrinks and all this who was getting me too.
And of course, I was a rebellious kid, so I went in and

(07:25):
tried to shove the square peg into the.
Round bowl and. Was disobedient because I
thought it was all BS. Yeah.
So the next year they let me back in school and in Canada
grade 7 is the first year you get to go in shop class.
Oh, right on. However, I didn't get to go, so

(07:48):
they put me in special Ed. I was the only kid in the
classroom with one teacher and I, I don't recollection, I don't
really know how long I was in this class for eventually got up
and walked to the door. And as I've said before, I'm
rebellious and I've been smokinglots of dope.

(08:08):
And right from the gate I, I think the first week I was
smoking marijuana, I was stealing money out of my mom's
purse. That's how desperate I was for
it. Oh.
OK. So I get up and walk to the door
and Miss Fraser, I don't even know how I remember her name
because she's the only teacher'sname I remember.

(08:30):
And she gets up and stands in myway and she goes, where are you
going? I'm like, I'm going home.
She's like, no, you're not. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going
home. I go, you can call my dad.
Just call him. And so I left.
He called my, she called my dad and my dad just calls the house.

(08:50):
15 I was at home for 5 minutes because he knew how long it took
to walk there and he, I guess you're going to work tomorrow,
get your work boots. So he took me to work and it was
great. I need to actually backtrack a
little bit on the story. The day the accident happened,
OK, with Steve, I remember goinghome and I was terrified.

(09:15):
Like I went right to my room, laid in my bed and they called
my dad. And my dad came home from work
early and he came in and talked to me and asked me what
happened. So I told him and this is new
for me because my dad would usually just lash out and.
Beat your ass. Bank me or beat me or whatever
the term was back then and. Right.

(09:37):
So he didn't, he would just be afather back then, because you
could be a father without any repercussions as long as you
didn't. Well, no limit, right?
I would say he was a little bit further than a father.
It stemmed up abuse so. Well, that's what, yeah.
OK, good. That's why I wanted to go with
that. So, OK, so he crossed that line.
So he took it too far. Me, it was a little, I'm the
youngest of 5 S With me. He was a little less than the

(09:58):
rest, OK. And by then he was kind of
relinquishing control. OK, so I'm laying, he leaves.
I'm laying in bed terrified because I'm going to get an ass
whipper, right? And so he comes back later and
goes, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, aren't I in
trouble? And he goes, it was an accident,
right? And I'm like, yeah, so and that

(10:19):
was the end of it. So I went to work.
That's cool. So I worked for the rest of what
the semester is, and I'm sure inthe States and other countries
they have different terms in school.
And so the school decided to take me from grade 6, partly
grade like just that smidge of grade 7 in the special Ed.
Well, at Christmas time I was ingrade 9.

(10:41):
Oh wow. In a special school where there
was only 12 students, here I am 13 years old in grade 9.
Right. I the closest person of my age
was 16. Then there was a 17 year old and
18 year old. I think there was only 13 of us.
OK, question. So from from a from a

(11:01):
development standpoint, are you the same height as these kids?
No, I'm smaller. OK, you're smaller, small,
chronic kid or what? No, I was fairly chunky, OK.
But significant but significant height difference.
And then obviously the intellectual part was off a
couple years. OK.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're all street
smart because they've been doingwhat I've been doing for another

(11:21):
six years or three years, right?OK, OK.
So I was there for that semesterand then the following year they
put me in regular high school inthe shit disturber school in
grade 10. Wow.
Wow. So that's crazy.
I know. So how do you fit in?
You don't. And how do you learn how to make

(11:42):
friends? And you don't and don't.
Yeah. I was picked on severely that
first year in grade 10. And I remember there was this
guy, Phil Henry. He was the key tormentor.
Well, it's funny how you remember the the bullies, right?
Oh yeah, and now do we know whatPhil's doing now?
No, no clue. I have no action with really
anybody in the past anymore. My wife has, my wife had one

(12:05):
that used to always kind of likelooks down on her and shit and
then so she found her on Facebook and this chick legit
looks like a horse now and it's just just really hit every
branch down the ugly tree in herlife just kind of seem to be all
chaotic. Where isn't karma great?
It's just fucking fantastic. You know, it's like she used to
just tease the hell out of my wife and know my wife's like 10
times more, probably 100 times more beautiful than this chick

(12:26):
ever will be or was. And it's more successful.
Yeah. It's just, it's it's that's
that's why I ask because you always, you always want to know,
like did you, you know, randomlyjust.
Oh yeah, I ran into him and he's, you know, he's working in
an Ace Hardware shoveling, you know, screams and shit.
Well, I spent, I did spend a lotof my life being a bully.

(12:47):
OK, well that's because you werebullied, right?
That's the whole. Thing I didn't know any better.
Yeah, yeah. And.
I did what I was taught so. That's it.
You emulate your environment, right?
Fast forward a little bit, like I bounced around from schools at
15. My older brother used to beat me
a lot and I'll get into that a little later.
How much older? He's five years older than me.

(13:09):
Is that your only? Is that your only brother?
My only sibling. No, I got three other brothers
or yeah, 3 three brothers and one sister.
So five of us all together. And where do you fall on that in
the? I'm the baby.
Oh wow, you got sorry I'm the. Youngest, sorry.
Four older siblings I was. Voted in my family, the most

(13:33):
likely to spend the rest of my life in prison.
Oh no. No.
Anyways, at 15 the brother that beat me I'm having a party at
the house and my sister comes over and threatens to call the
cops if the underage people don't stop drinking in the
house. Well I lost my shit.
Me and my brother get into a fight and OK like a fist fight

(13:55):
brought out and. He's like a fist, like a fist
fight, drop down. Barney is a fist fight and then
wound to weapons. OK, why?
He was like, this guy has never beaten me again and that's cool.
So I ended up in juvie hall. So I'm the first kid he's ever
kicked me out of the house. Now I'm in juvie hall for
getting even right and my brain still can't function.

(14:17):
It's still. I know I went overboard but it
still can't. You're not, you're not
rationalizing the fact that you went overboard, like your brain
recognize the fact that, OK, I went too far, even though you
know, you went too far. Yeah, you didn't realize you
went too far, so there was no empathy afterwards.
Yeah, even today I still have a hard time with it because it's

(14:38):
like and then. This and this is all stemming
back to your the trauma you've experienced when you were 7.
Yep. Yeah, that's crazy, man.
And, well, there's a bit more than the trauma, because, I
mean, trauma is even a new thingtoo.
Sure. I mean, it's not a new thing,
but they're actually. People pay attention to it now,
right? Where before they didn't.

(15:00):
Right. So as we go forward, I'm a drunk
like it. And then when I mean a drunk, I
would the guy at the party that you might have seen that sat in
the corner with one guy on beer cases and shared dope and shared
booze and just got yeah, yeah. And then I found acid.

(15:22):
So you could actually do more, because of course more is always
better. Oh yeah, Mr. Brownstone, I got
to do a little condended little and a little ACMO.
Wow. Yeah.
So at 15, at 15, I was court ordered to go to a A and of
course I went to one meeting andwent because yeah.
Because court ordering to a A works every single time of.

(15:44):
Course it does. Especially at 15 when you go
there and the first meeting you go to, it's a father speaking
like a pastor, father of Britain.
It's like, Oh yeah, that's you want to send me to church?
Nope. Well, by the time I was 17, I
was in for the first time for myself.
OK. Didn't I stuck around for about

(16:06):
3 months at 21? Oh actually I'll backtrack.
Just after that little stint, I ended up in jail for the first
time for Robin, 11. So how long are you and juvie
for? On juvie I was in and out within
a month or so. OK.
So that was in year 15. Yeah.
And I lived in a group home for a bit and then after I got sick,

(16:28):
like I told you, I did what I wanted then, right, Right when I
got tired of the group home. Actually, I shouldn't say when I
got tired of the group home. When weed caught up with me
again, I knew I couldn't drink, but I could smoke weed, right?
When you finally caught up with me, I told the group home to jam
it because I was at legal age bythen.
I was 16. I could do what I wanted.

(16:49):
So in Canada, the legal age of 16.
Yes. I don't know about today, but
back then it was. Yeah.
See, in America it's 18's legal age.
It's always been legal age. Now as far as.
Drinking what goes Not to drink,not to drink.
Right. No, I know.
Decision where you're living. Right, right.
Listen, I'm saying in America it's 18.
You're legally an adult, not 16.So there's that gap, 2 year gap
there, right? That's why I asked that because

(17:11):
again, you know, we're 16, but OK, gotcha.
So then I ended up back at home,OK, and back to normal.
And then by then I was drinking and we all know where that goes
when you're like. And that was my drug of choice
was booze. OK.
So beer, just beer or hard liquor, everything.

(17:33):
You put it in front of me, I drink it.
I remember I went over to a friend's house one night.
I was hammered when I got there,and she had this stuff she had
made-up. OK.
I don't even know what it was, but yeah.
And I loved it. So I went back over one time and
I'm like, you made that stuff again.
So she told me what to get. I got it and it was like, Oh my
God, this stuff's gross. Kind of like a jungle juice.

(17:56):
No, it was. It might have been called a
Black Russian because it was black and she had it on the
stove and he drank it warm. I'm not weird.
I don't really remember. It was a long time.
It was just tasty. Yeah, yeah.
So 19 I ended up in prison for robbing a 711.
OK, so back up. Tell let's, let's, let's what?

(18:17):
What got you the point of robbing a 711?
Desperate, out of work, nowhere to really live.
OK, I wasn't quite on the street.
I was My parents had split up. My mom wasn't living in downtown
Hamilton and I was staying at her place.
OK. We've always had a volatile
relationship and. So even your even even the

(18:38):
relationship with your mom was fractured like it was your dad.
Oh yeah, no, my dad's. No, we weren't.
It was never really fractured. For some reason I could accept
the violence. From him, OK.
It kind of stopped from, I thinkit was grade 10.
I got drunk in school and I got caught for drinking and he

(18:59):
showed up and he backhanded me and I think that was the last
time he hit me. OK.
Yeah, he backhanded me and I told.
Him to fuck off yeah OK so fuck off I walked the.
Other. Direction so so pain is a
picture of your dad and and so abig man short man, you know
what? He's a bit taller than me.

(19:20):
I'd say he's probably was 6 foot.
He was a guy that his he had a, he had short legs and longer
arms. So he was kind of, he had a good
reach when he back. And how tall are you?
Just 5-9. OK, OK.
He worked in a welding shop, so he worked hard all his life and

(19:44):
OK, he came from a rough background, like growing up.
Gotcha. OK, so you're 19, your world's
kind of just there chaotic. You're you're an alcoholic,
you're kind of bouncing around and you decide it's a good idea
to go rob a 711. Yeah, so I added reasonable.
I keep based on my motorcycle and of course.

(20:07):
When I got in Ontario, they I think it's the toughest province
for jail sentences. They gave me that like a deuce
less and that provincial here where you got federal and
provincial, I'm not sure what it's like in the states.
We kind of know we had it because we've had a couple.
Canadians like before, Yeah. Yeah.

(20:27):
So I did most of that and then Igot paroled at, I think I was
inside for 13 months and I got paroled and.
What was president like in Canada?
Yeah. What was president like in
Canada? You got to paint.
You got to paint the picture, Scott.
That's why you're here, man. You leave us hanging.
Stop leaving us hanging. Man, at first it was really

(20:52):
scary. Yeah.
And then of course, after you adapt and the new habit becomes,
it's not really scary. It's like habits even today.
They're all messy at the beginning, and by the end
they're normal. So was anybody, anybody try to
intimidate your stuff, being that you were what, 19 years old
or were you? Not so much there because it was

(21:14):
pretty, it was medium security, it wasn't maximum.
I got into a few fights and. Did you go find the biggest guy
and try to beat him up? So you said everybody would
leave with so everybody would leave you alone?
No, no. But I will backtrack to the Phil
Henry because I kind of got off track with him.

(21:35):
Right, right squirrel. We're in a Body Shop in school
because it was a trade school and yeah, yeah, my, I'm working
on a door and I put it on the bench.
He comes over and takes my door off the bench and puts his door
on the bench because of course he's my bully, right?
Right. So I take his door off the bench
and put mine back up because I'mdone with this bullshit.

(21:56):
Yeah, we end up in a fight in auto body.
Yeah. The first thing he does because
I'm winning is he sticks a finger in my eye.
So it's like, oh, you want to stick your finger in my eye?
So I jam mine it. Like don't even, not even gently
jam it. So anyways, after that, of
course it gets broke up because we're and.

(22:17):
Then is it your fault you get blamed again?
Nope, no I didn't get you're just.
I mean I did get blamed a lot for fights because I fought and
I'm sure I can't remember his name.
The auto body teacher was a pretty cool dude.
Right. On SO anyways, for the next
week, Phil's going you're dead, Berly, you're dead.

(22:39):
And of course I got this fear inme because he's bullied me and I
haven't. Then all of a sudden Monday I'm
in the cafeteria, I think it wasFriday and there's Thursday and
I'm dead on Friday, right? And he's got his tray of food on
him and I'm just walking over and he's being mouthy and I
walked over to him and I just I # the tray out of his hands and

(23:00):
go. If I'm dead on Friday, let's do
it right now, you coward. Nice or?
Whatever I said. So we ended up in a fight.
But what happened is all the friends are his right?
I got I'm the youngest, he's grown up with these guys.
So we end up wrestling around outside and all of a sudden his
friends are stepping on my feet.So I can't do what I needed to

(23:22):
do. But I still he never bothered me
after. That is the point.
That's good. And I learned a valuable lesson.
It's like nobody's going to fuckwith me again.
And that's how I lived my life and.
That's the that's the truth. If nobody's going to fuck with
you. Yeah.
You have no freedom. Right, And and that's one thing
that that I think I I wasn't super bully.

(23:44):
There was a couple moments I went like, but nothing to your
extreme. I don't know about Mike, but I
think that. Oh yeah.
I think on a whole, I think on awhole, once you stand up to the
bully and and they realize that you're not going to be their
little pawn anymore, that's thatshift in life, right?
Because now you got that ownership of it.
You got a little more self-confidence because you
stood up somebody that was fucking with you for so long.

(24:05):
I did the opposite of what you said.
Obviously I was never in prison,but I always made friends with
the biggest guys I could find. And if you're friends with the
biggest guy, nobody in between is going to mess with you,
right? Oh, that's a good idea.
Like, hey, that dude's my, I know I can't kick your ass, but
he can. And he's rather fond of me, you

(24:28):
know? That's how I dealt with shit in
life. That's fantastic.
I don't know how old I was but Iremember this guy was bullying
me and my brother. My family would do nothing to
protect you. And my buddy Lenny's brother
seen this guy bully me and already stops it and actually
let me told the guy to stand there while I punched him in the

(24:51):
face a few times. And I remember thinking, yeah,
somebody's protecting me becauseI didn't get that other than
from him. So yeah.
So Fast forward to jail. Yeah, I got into a few fights
and it wasn't very traumatic. And by the time I ended up back

(25:13):
again the second time, right when I was getting ready to
leave, you kind of acquire stuffin jail that makes you stay a
little bit comfortable. OK.
Like, and this is the intimidityof my thinking, I'm actually
looking at spots there that I can stash all my stuff.

(25:34):
OK. So when I go back, I'll have all
my stuff ready to go. All I got to do is get it.
Yeah. So previous to this though, I'd
been working before I went in. The second time I'd been working
for these family, they were kindof the top of the food chain of

(25:55):
the drug, drug, drug people in Hamilton, ON.
And I won't mention any names, but I was just framing houses
for him and I end up in with theoldest brother.
So he was really experienced in prison and he had brought in
lots of goodies for us to kind of spread out and make some

(26:19):
money on and. Like what kind of goodies?
What kind of drugs? Just smokeables like pie and a
few pills and stuff. OK, Nothing.
OK. And he just before he got out,
he got out before me. He's like Scotty, I want you to
call me when you get out and come work for me.
And I'm like, well, I was working for you before I came
in. He goes, no, no work for me.

(26:40):
Not doing that flunky stuff. And this lady, I was going to a
meetings to look good so I couldget out easier.
And. Right, this lady I'd remembered
from one of my stints in AAI remembered her.
She was batshit crazy. And she came in to put a meeting

(27:02):
on. And all of a sudden she's like
in a a meeting. And this lady's not bat shit
crazy anymore. She making sense.
Yeah. And whatever she did or whatever
she said, I don't know what it was, but it inspired that maybe
there's a chance for different for me.

(27:24):
OK. And how old were you when this
happened? I was 19 ish.
OK, and this is and This is why you're in prison still?
Yeah, well, for formatory, it's in Ontario.
OK, OK, OK. Not existence anymore.
But so when I got out, she was from Hamilton too.
So when I got out, I'm in Hamilton and I started going to

(27:44):
meetings and OK, you know, but there was things I didn't know.
Like I didn't know you weren't supposed to sell dope.
Nobody. Nobody told me that was illegal.
Told me that I missed that memo.Well, that happened life up to
that point. So here I am.
That's the greatest light ever. Nobody told me.

(28:06):
I'm framing houses for my buddy,and he wanted me to be his
foreman. And I go to him more like if I'm
going to be your foreman, I got to have a car.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he bought me a car, but he wouldn't put insurance on it.
So I went and stole a license plate so I could drive.
So here I am on parole, selling dope.
And it gets funnier. There was a meeting in Buffalo,
NY in a, a meeting. He's on the reserve.

(28:30):
And it was a wicked meeting and I'm taking car loads of people
in this car with no insurance from Hamilton, ON to Buffalo,
NY. It was probably an hour drive,
OK. Going to a a mind you listener.
So he's he's, he's doing a positive thing in his life in a,
in a very creative, illegal way.Baby stuff, baby stuff.

(28:53):
I don't. I didn't.
Grow up with. I just did what I wanted.
So anyways, Long story short, I got drunk again.
Yeah, yeah, a couple months intothis.
Maybe three months. As long as it wasn't when you
were driving to a a meeting crossing, you know, borders,
that's a. Good.
No, no, no, no. OK, just going.
To clarify. So I got drunk again, just one

(29:15):
day, and sheree, this girl that I'd met, that she was really
cute, but she was quite a bit older than me.
And I was at a level of backtrack before I got drunk.
This is where my brain was. It's like I was dropping her and
a friend of mine, Marlene, off at Sheree's apartment in the car
with no insurance and no plates.And, and Sheree goes, you want

(29:39):
to come up for a tea? And I remember thinking, you
want somebody as ugly as me to come up for coffee?
Here's this cute girl, right? Like my brain was OK.
So anyways, I'll Fast forward tothe day of getting drunk.
Well, Sheree was out on a bend or two, OK.
And so I ended up over at her house later and we were drinking

(30:03):
together. And here's a girl that, and
don't get me wrong, I'm not putting her down, but she was
just a street girl. Like she did what you do on the
street, women do on the street. Like she sold her.
Life she was in, she was in survival mode.
Yeah, OK, survival mode and yeah, yeah, yeah.
We've had we had a guy on, we had a guy on that that has kind

(30:24):
of a similar story and and he actually evolved into being a
male escort for a while. So yeah, it's believe me, we've
heard the stories, man. We understand, right.
Yeah, Mike and I are both again they.
Covered. Yeah, because she was.
No, no, no, no, she was a great lady.
So anyways, yeah, it's just we're just call us so she can do
her thing. And so I leave and I'm going to

(30:46):
my buddy Lenny's house in Burlington.
Well, I get pulled over for an apparent.
OK. And you got to remember, I'm on
parole again still, right? So this is this is now an error
in America. If you get pulled over on
parole, you're just you're smacked up going back to jail.
Well. I was supposed to be.
Somehow the system didn't line up and I think it was all the
computer system wasn't as good as it is today.

(31:07):
Technicality, yeah. Yeah, so they let me out.
OK. I take a cab back to Cherie's
house and she's got a John there, which is a guy paying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it.
So I make him pay for the calf, and then she goes.
Scott, you got to go, though. So I leave and I go back to my

(31:28):
mom's house where I was staying,and next thing I know, my
sponsor's kicking me off. And a sponsor in a A is somebody
that kind of helps you along, right?
Yeah. And guides you.
Yep. Understood.
Oh, I wake up to him kicking me on the kitchen floor and
dragging me up and throwing me in the shower.
Nice. That's a good sponsor.
Yep, and. Then I come out of the shower

(31:50):
and go to bed and he's like soaking wet in my clothes still.
And he drags me back and throws me in the shower.
And he wouldn't let me go to sleep and drags me to the noon
meeting and then drags me to a night meeting.
And I remember even the night meeting I was, I spent most of
it in the bathroom throwing up. And really, I think I had
alcohol poisoning. So we end up at the coffee shop

(32:13):
later where everybody goes. Post meeting, yeah.
Cherie had OD that night. That's too bad.
Sorry with. This first experience of death
around the program. Oh, so she died.
Oh, died. Yeah.
Oh, died. Oh, yeah.
Because. Because we know people can OD
without dying. So she actually just died.
Yeah. That sucks.

(32:34):
I'm sorry. And it was pretty traumatic back
then and my determination to stay clean and sober.
And I was going to work and I would decide I'm getting drunk
and I would come home from work.And my friend Derek or Warren,

(32:55):
one of them were on the steps ofmy house where my mom at my
mom's house or still running on the couch waiting for me to come
home from work. Or I'd come home from work and
get in the shower and it's like I'm getting drunk tonight.
And I would go downstairs and one of them would be on the
couch. You do a meeting it.
We were all about the same and same recovery time.
And so I managed to get a year in.

(33:19):
And then my older brother that I'd worked for in the past, he
ran a framing business. He lived in British Columbia and
one that beat me and. Yeah, yeah.
I was going to ask that. And he asked me if I wanted to
come to work for him in BC. So I kind of dropped everything.
And because I was working in a grocery store, playing with
fruits and vegetables, making minimum wage.

(33:41):
Right. And you know, looking back at
it, it was one of the best jobs I had ever had.
I wish I had a stayed in that industry because the people like
the people are more positive than on a construction site.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, most.
Definitely, and I believe you'rea lot about what your
environment is today. Agreed.
Yep. So I get into the working for my

(34:03):
brother again. Of course I'm still angry and
the working for him is toxic like it's always been like our
relationship and it only lasted a short time and.
So he never changed. No, and I hadn't changed much
either. I hadn't done the steps.
They didn't push the steps back then like they do today.
Yeah, see, when I when I when I,when I, yeah, when I went, they

(34:26):
had the steps and stuff on the wall.
I wasn't. I never read the book.
Like, you know, everybody reallygot to read the book, read the
book. And I just, and you, you've just
met us, but I've, I've preached every time we've talked about my
sobriety, as, you know, God didn't make me drink.
So God didn't make me stop. And, and everybody in my a, a
meeting at some way when they would introduce themselves, you
know, Hey, I'm Scott, by the grace of God, I've been sober

(34:46):
for, you know, 10 years and I just kind of like, well, you
know, and I believe, you know, and everybody has their own
version of higher power and stuff, but I just never was the
mindset of I, I'm the one that made myself drink.
So I'm the one that needs to make myself stop.
Yeah. Do they really believe that or
are they just saying those words?
You, you and I can't be people who just say words, right?

(35:08):
They have. We have to mean what we say.
Exactly. I struggled with that for years,
for years and decades. So but when I by now I've got a
little bit of self esteem, I think, and I'm not even sure if
it was self esteem now or if it was just growing up.

(35:29):
So I'm in Maple Ridge, BC and I,I'm at this one way club.
It's kind of like an Orlando club.
It's a sober club. And OK, there's this girl
working behind the counter and she's freaking smoking.
Oh yeah. So for the first time in my
life, I decide I want her. OK.

(35:51):
And of course, she's the sickestone in the room.
But so by the time we were together, maybe three or four
months, and by the time it splitup, I was devastated when it
split up because it was so good.And the 6th grade and yadda,
yadda, yadda. And so I got drunk for a day
after a year and a half sober, and ended up in a recovery

(36:15):
house, which was insane. Like I look back at it and it's
like I didn't really belong there.
I don't function well in that kind of environment.
I don't think anybody does, man.No, I mean, I believe a good
safe house, but I think people need to kind of have a leash a
little bit so they can screw up or excel or.

(36:36):
You need to have a little bit ofa boundary, a little bit of a
structure for it to be successful.
Absolutely. So I managed to get 2 1/2 years
clean after that. OK.
Before I got loaded and once again it was at the end of a
relationship. Right.
So now you've been sober and clean three times.
Yes, OK. So you're so typical, typical

(36:57):
alcoholic. Yeah, Yeah.
So this time I, instead of just going right back, it's like,
fuck, I'm taking this to the end.
And in that journey, there was another couple that were out on
a Bender and of course, I ended up sleeping with her.

(37:19):
And the buddy catches me and some, I don't remember really
much of it, but I remember when they caught us.
I went to a friend. I only hit him four times.
And my buddy's like what you were doing.
Nice masses on his face on the concrete.
Oh no. Like I busted him bad.
So anyways. And this was a friend.

(37:40):
Apparently I don't remember any of it, but like I remember this
well, the reason that he backhanded her.
OK. Me off.
Yeah, OK. So I got clean and sober again,
OK and. 4th time. 4th time I get6 half years yet.

(38:02):
Oh, that's, yeah, you're making progress.
Yeah, you make. Every time you do it, you're
making progress. So like was one half, two or
half? Yeah.
Good, good. So and once again at the end of
a relationship. Yeah.
Got loaded. No.
OK, go. Ahead.
OK, go ahead. No, I was, I was going to ask
about your you had mentioned youwere divorced, but I I'm sure
you'll. Bring it up later, I haven't got

(38:23):
to her yet. Baby steps.
I have no track record with women at all, apparently, until
they'd be like 2 years was Max. OK.
And I feel like 6 1/2 years clean.
I got loaded and I stayed out for a bit and I just, it was

(38:45):
smoking weed and that's all it was.
Yeah. And but I couldn't go back to
meetings. So I went a year and a bit
without going to meetings. OK.
And then I fell off some scaffolding at work and the girl
I was dating drank a little bit and smoked some weed.
And so you know where this story's going.
Yeah, you went back to. Smoking pain.

(39:05):
And I'm standing there, she's smoking dope with her 18 year
old daughter. And today, in today's world is
kind of acceptable. But back then it was kind.
Of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.So I was like, oh, that'll fix
the pain up running again, right?
But it fixed it. But it did fix the pain.
Oh, it did 100% absolutely rightin a way.

(39:28):
And this was what year? What year was this?
Well, it would have been 24 years ago.
OK. So 2020 or 2000, 2002.
Yeah, 2000 ish Somewhere in there.
Yeah, yeah, 'cause Mike and I, we're, we're, we're big
proponents on how the, the, the use of marijuana nowadays

(39:51):
because of all the things that'sgood for depression and anxiety
and pain and all that kind of jazz.
But back then, like, oh, taboo, taboo, taboo.
Which is why I asked the question.
It did take the pain away. Yeah, the only people that knew
that it worked back then were. The however though for.
Me, right. Only the people.
Yeah. Only people that used it.
What Mike said. Yeah, yeah.
Well, no, for me smoking it. You know what that goes to in my

(40:14):
brain? Yeehaw, let's fucking party.
Because his brain. Broke brain goes.
Right, because your brain's broken.
Yeah, well, no, my brain's not broken.
I disagree with that statement today.
I used to think I was broken foryears, just misaligned.
And it's. Like, oh, that's a better way to
look at it, OK. Because I think if we keep

(40:34):
telling ourselves negative stuff, we're only believing
negativity and we're only going to go down that rabbit hole.
I agree with you, Yeah, I don't mean broken the.
Years going down the negativity of rabbit hole.
Yeah. So Fast forward a year or no, I
get loaded after being a years clean again.

(40:56):
And I think it was about 3 months.
And within three months I went from smoking that one joint to
smoke and 1/4 ounce a day. And so then I, I go get my
haircut by this girl that's in recovery and she's like, and
she, she, she's, it's, I watchedher walk in and she's six years

(41:16):
clean now, right? And she's smoking hot too.
But she goes, how's it going? I'm like, yeah, she goes, well,
maybe you should get a sponsee. And I start laughing and I'm
like, maybe I should get some clean time first.
Well, of course she's cute and smoking hot.
She's talking to going to a meeting that night.
Sure. So I went to the meeting and I

(41:38):
decided I was going to try and stay clean again.
This is Narcotics Anonymous now,and I'm going to stay clean.
And I made it a week and I had abig yell and match with somebody
on the phone and I hadn't cleaned the paraphernalia out.
I had a pipe sitting on my desk.And I get stoned and then I go

(41:59):
to the meeting and I see Leslie.And I haven't seen her since the
night of the hair, like the meeting after the haircut.
And she's. Oh.
So how long you been clean now? So I'm sarcastically look at my
watch and I went 45 minutes. Aren't you embarrassed?
You should like. And I'm like, no, because I
don't know if I want to be here or don't want to be here.

(42:23):
Yeah, that was the last time I used Wow 2003.
So what was what was the what was the epiphany there?
Desperation. OK Pitiful demoralization.
I had bought and lost my first house and she kept it.

(42:43):
And right, everything, like I had lost everything.
And so I went to meetings and when I would ask to get Cher
asked to share, I wouldn't go. I don't even know what I'm doing
or this shit just won't work forme.
Yeah, I've been here, done that.And I just kept coming.

(43:05):
And the area I lived in had a couple of recovery houses that
I've been through. So I was already banished from
them, right? And, and because if you don't do
it their way, Oh yeah, not welcome.
Yeah. So I go to this ball tournament.
It's a clean and sober ball tournament in Penticton, BC.

(43:27):
And I think I was a year and a half clean, not really wanting
to be clean, really going to getloaded.
And sure, fact that trip I did make.
I went for a ride on the bike and was going to get loaded and
somehow decided to go back to the event and I drive up to my

(43:48):
buddy's big RV and there's this hot chick there that works.
There is. My suit to be wife and you know,
we spent 11 long years together and at first it was fantastic
and from her trauma background and my trauma background, we our

(44:11):
friends could set their calendarYep, they'll get along for these
three months and they'll be fighting for these three months
and that's how pretty much our relationship went and.
For the whole 11 years. Pretty much.
Wow. And even when we got married, it
was like, by the time we got married, I knew we were making a
mistake, but I still went forward with it.

(44:34):
You know, we had bought a house together with her mom and it
went S pretty fast with her mom,her mom's boyfriend, because he
was a drinker. And we ended up buying them out.
And my wife became, ironically enough, she had was the
program's manager and the Mission Federal Institution.

(44:57):
Wow. So, you know, we kept attempting
to do all the right things and we went to counselors and we
went to coaches and made a few side trips.
Like I went to Mexico once for amonth and a half because I
didn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
And. But the but the whole time

(45:18):
you're not drinking, which is good, which is good.
As we know from your story so far, you like hot chicks and
when the relationship gets fractured then you start
drinking. So the fact that you haven't,
when it ends, yeah, I look back and I had no multiple stability.
Right, right. Whoever.

(45:39):
When I first got clean again, yeah, I had this sponsor and I
started dating first day and usually I would wait two years
or a year and living in that pain of the last relationship
before I would even step out. Yeah, and a big thing with a, A
and a, I'm sure both are the same, is your sponsors don't
want you in a relationship for at least a year of being sober

(46:01):
and clean. Which doesn't make sense.
Well, it doesn't, but think about it, though, it does,
because every time your relationships ended, you went
back to drinking, you relapsed. So if you have a full solid year
of sobriety underneath your belt, which is now your mind's
clear your your thinking property, you have new habits in
place right then. But then you then you can

(46:23):
venture into that because you should be strong enough and
grounded enough to pursue a relationship.
However, though, when you've done that cycle right or five
times, you need to work a different like the same lock
doesn't open, or an old key doesn't open up a new lock.
True. SO and the friends that had
known me for years supported what I was doing.

(46:43):
I started dating right away and I made a decision.
Every lady that I dated I was going to treat better and learn
from my previous. Which, yeah, which is how you
should do it, I agree. With that, so Fast forward with
Shannon and it was pretty toxic and it was actually at a point
towards the end she was like, I want a baby.

(47:05):
And we're seeing this counsellorcoach and daddy gets up to go to
the bathroom and the counsellor goes, don't get her pregnant.
And I'm like, I'm not. So eventually seeing this lady
Shannon brings up I want a separation and I'm like by the

(47:29):
now we're both 11 years clean and so I'm angry, been angry for
a long time and I'm like we'll get the fuck out of my house
then. Yeah.
And Shannon's like, and looks atthe coach or Diane and Dan's
like, well, you want the relationship over, so yeah,
leave. So Shannon leaves and the house,

(47:53):
we didn't really have much into the houses and like value wise,
right? So we couldn't sell it.
So I ended up with the house andI'm a stone Mason and I've been
a stone Mason for years. I ran my own business and
traffic was getting really bad. So I decided to get out of it
and get a, get the Band-Aid ticket like an EMR, emergency

(48:16):
medical responder and go to workin the oil fields.
And that lasted for a little while.
But of course, Scott showed up right.
And when Scott shows up, chaos shows up, right.
And so I ended up coming back and I get a phone call from a
buddy of mine and he's a Teamster in the movie 155 movie
division. And I ended up in the movie

(48:39):
division and it was pretty cool.I was making better money than
I've ever made. Like one year I made freaking
$234,000. Nice.
What? I'm pretty much a high school
dropout. I have my, yeah, grade 12.
But so somewhere in there duringCOVID, I had finally got myself

(49:00):
out of debt and I wasn't struggling.
And then COVID hit. And by the time COVID was over,
actually, I'll backtrack A smidge.
I'm in the movie business and I decide I'm going to stretch my
comfort zone and I want to go to, it's called GF Strong.
It's a hospital in Vancouver. It's they're back, back and

(49:21):
spine and head injury stuff. Because now new stuff's coming
out about head injuries, right? Right.
But I need a family doctor to refer me.
So I get this family doctor and I go to the family doctor and
the first thing he says is I start every patient off with a
physical so I know where we stand.
That makes sense. So he calls me up and goes, you

(49:50):
need to come in. I think you got prostate cancer.
Oh, Oh my. God.
So I'm 50 years old out of a relationship for a couple years
and I go see him and he does thecheck and he goes and he refer
you to a specialist and I go to the specialist and she's a

(50:11):
female and it's like great, at least she's got small fingers.
And so she does another test andI go.
So what do you think? And she goes well from looking
at the results from your doctor,I'm pretty sure you got cancer.

(50:31):
So she does it next test and I'mat work, it's a Friday night and
she calls me and she goes, Yep, you got prostate cancer.
So within, I'm going to say three months, I had the
operation of a radical prostatectomy where they cut the
prostate rate out. Ouch.

(50:52):
And of course it affects every fiber of your manhood.
I was wearing diapers and and ofcourse I'm in debt.
So I got to go to work no matterwhat and I'm angry and I'm.
But still. But still clean and sober.
Still clean and sober. What year was this?

(51:15):
I was 50, I'm 57 now, so that would be. 2018, yeah.
Yeah, something like that. So I'm still clean and sober and
really I want to just kill myself every day.
I could see that. And I have no desire to live so
of course I'm toxic and every show I was on I was toxic and

(51:40):
getting a really bad name and. Now, what were you doing in the
movie business? What was your dig?
Transportation. I was driving big trucks.
I was looking after the * wagonsof worked with Charlize Thorns.
All the behind the scenes stuff basically.
Yeah, all behind the scenes stuff.
It was pretty cool. Good money.

(52:00):
It's a pretty toxic environment because you got a whole bunch of
Neanderthals like me that have basically a high school
graduation and a truck driving license.
And that's where they come from is the driving world.
And so everybody, you go from the driving world and you're
making 200 grand a year, everybody's cutthroat and rotten
on you. And one day I'll go back to work

(52:24):
there. But I want to make to get this
still a little bit more clearer and less reactive than it is.
Sure. So I'm dealing with the pissing
myself. And two years into this, I
finally get to the point I call the doctor and the I go, I need
to talk to the doctor. And in Canada, when you're

(52:44):
referred to a specialist, all they do is your call goes right
to an answering machine. So I just kept calling back and
call him back and call him back and call him back and call him
back. They finally answered the phone
and I said I wanted to talk to the doctor and well, the doctor
doesn't do that. And they hung up.
So I called back, called back and I just so I insisted on

(53:07):
talking to the doctor and I lostit on the doctor about the
condition because she told me I might have some incontinence.
OK. And for those people like me
that didn't really know what incontinence was when she said
some incontinence, it's holding your urine and or picking
yourself. Yeah.
So she goes, well if I had of told you the truth, you wouldn't

(53:31):
have done the operation and it'sso now doctors are lying to me.
Wow. So my trust factor in this world
is like almost those people. And so then she goes, at that
point she goes, this, there's a surgery week, surgery we can do,

(53:51):
they can correct it. And I'm like, well, I'm not
quite ready for that yet becauseI don't trust you.
So it took about six months or seven months to be able to
become OK with the surgery they were going to do.
But in the meantime, I got diagnosed with diabetes.
Oh wow. Because of course, you know what

(54:12):
they preach in a A if you have the obsession, eat junk food,
eat sugar, eat this. And we promote not unhealthy
stuff because that's unhealthy. Yeah, see, mine wasn't so much
that they weren't, we weren't when the ones I went to.
And the way I go is it wasn't like, hey, let's let's shift the
addiction. It's just I found my addiction

(54:34):
from from drinking to working out and exercise and things like
that, but it was never anything.You know, they didn't come out.
I don't, you know, it's could bedifferent in Canada, but here
there was no talk about how to replace your addiction.
It was more just this is like minded people were going to help
you walk, you know, they baby step through your addiction
recovery, things like that and more.
Of an accountability. More of an accountability, Yeah,

(54:56):
yeah, it wasn't like, hey, let'sreplace the addiction with
another addiction because that'snot healthy either.
No, although, although I can see.
Healthy that says that not quiteso much any but right, so I end
up having the operate well, actually when I had the radical
prostatectomy, I'm so terrified of getting loaded because I know

(55:18):
I'm close right. I did it with no medication good
and my opinion on that's changeda little bit today, however, so
Fast forward, I get this new contraption that helps me to
stop peeing and even in there just before the operation.

(55:40):
I'm so desperate. I finally go to this three day
self development class OK and you got to remember I want to go
home and put a gun on my mouth every night right now Canada's
actually even given me the rightto own a gun.
So I have a gun in my closet. So I do this course and Sunday

(56:03):
rolls around and I didn't reallyget much out of it.
They kind of just teach similar stuff as the 12 step teaches,
right? And how dare they try and upsell
me to the next course. So I belligerently walk out
angry, which was my normal state.

(56:23):
And I go to put my leg over my motorcycle and I got a 2015
Harley and I think this was in 2016 and 2017 maybe.
And this light bulb goes on. You want to go home and kill
yourself? If your bike mechanic Chuck told
you you needed to put $5000 intoyour motorcycle tomorrow, your

(56:48):
credit card would be out in a heartbeat.
So you would have your therapy. What is wrong with you investing
in you? This is where the story starts
to get pretty cool. So I walk back in and I pay for,
begrudgingly pay for the course.Yeah.

(57:10):
And for the next few weeks or months, it was like, what did
you do? But the cool part, I work in the
movie business, so I can have any time off that I want.
The courses in San Francisco. I have a waiver now, though, so
I can legally go to the states. OK, the course is in San

(57:34):
Francisco, so it's like I'll go for a week after or a week
before, a week after, make a good holiday of it and have
three weeks to do this one week course and COVID comes along
that all up, I can't go. I was scheduled to go just as
COVID yet. That sucks.
Did they zoom it? Did they go online?

(57:55):
Nope. No online stuff.
Wow, Fast forward into COVID, they shut the movie business
down. I got another truckers or job
and that's when I got the diabetes.
So Fast forward again. They actually bring the course,
they open up the borders a little bit and coaches can get

(58:16):
or the facilitators can come to Canada.
That's cool. So they come to Canada and it's
in Alberta and this ranch, it's way out in the Bush and not
there's Bush and. We get what you mean, yeah.
So I go and by then it was kind of begrudgingly because I'm

(58:39):
leaving a job where I'm making almost $3000 a week to go do
this course and I'm taking weeksoff work.
So I'm losing 6 grand and I go to the course and the day going
there COVID restrictions are still there.
I'm driving from my buddy's house to the course which is

(58:59):
like 4 hours. And you got to remember, I'm
still really angry and. But you're sober and you're
clean. I'm sober and I'm clean and by
now I think I was 16 years clean, 17 years.
Which is, which is good. Pretty sustainable and I know I
just can't I can do anything else, but I just can't use.
I know that that track wreck beaten and right, so I got to go

(59:25):
to the bathroom and not just stand on the road and pee.
I got to go, yeah. I got to go.
Nowhere will let you in to use their bathrooms.
So by the time I get to this rendezvous where they were going
to follow everybody into where the ranch is, sure I'm
belligerent. And so I, we end up at the

(59:51):
course and for some reason afterthis belligerency of the first
day, I freaking show up and we do this one exercise and we're
put on the silent treatment and we're supposed to go back and
write our hopes, dreams and goals and another one of these
big epiphanies. And I wrote this limp Dick stuff

(01:00:15):
down like the PAT stuff that I always written down.
And I. I just had the operation so I
wasn't peeing my pants anymore. And I go to bed night, we're on
silence so we can't talk to anybody.
And I wake up in the morning andI'm like, you fucking ripped

(01:00:38):
yourself off again. Put some shit on that paper that
you really want. And the first thing I want and
for my generation, and I don't know about you guys, but when
you call your wife a partner, itgoes back to the days of only
gay people called their partners, Right?

(01:01:00):
Right. Nothing.
And today I've changed that. Like, I don't.
I could give a rat's ass what you do or who you are or what
we're all. But anyway, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
So that morning I get up and we're doing these high ropes
exercises this day. And there's this guy Felipe.
Changed my life forever. He's at the bottom.
And he asked me a question. He goes, what's your top hope

(01:01:22):
and dream? And I said I want a partner.
And he goes to me. What are you going to say to her
when you wake up in the morning?I said, I'll roll over and say,
hey, babe, I love you. Yeah.
And he goes, well, why don't youone up it?
And in my brain I'm thinking, are you a fucking moron?
How do you one up? I love.

(01:01:43):
Yeah. And he goes, Why don't you roll
over and go, hey babe, how can Ilove you today?
Oh, that's nice. That's awesome.
It's coming from where I come from.
What the hell? What do I know about love?
Yeah. Yeah.
A lot about hurt and pain. Sure.
A lot about love. That's cool.

(01:02:03):
Then I get up to the top of the ladder and there's this girl
there that had been serving us food when we eat.
And she goes, can I say something to you?
And I'm like, OK, sure, she goes.
She remind me of the elephant inIce Age 2, the father.

(01:02:23):
And I'm like, I've never seen it.
I don't have kids so I've never seen ice.
Oh, the Mastodon. Yeah, OK.
He. Goes well.
There's this part in the movie where the lava fields blowing up
and his family's over there needing help and he's just
barreling through all the lava field to get to his family and
all his friends are going go left, go left and he's going

(01:02:45):
right. Right.
He reminds me of you. And now this lady had.
No, She wasn't in any of the classes we had.
She wasn't in any of that. She just served me food.
Right. That's it.
Yeah. So I tell a few people what
happened that night and I start looking around and it dawns on

(01:03:10):
me this is a religious resort. Oh.
Which and people are like when Istart telling them, I just
realized it was they go, you didn't notice the stuff on the
walls. And it's like, I don't notice
stuff like that. I don't, I don't pay attention
enough. So the, the course was
absolutely amazing and transforming and I stood up and

(01:03:32):
when the coach ripped my shit, II took it.
And yeah, ironically enough, it was kind of funny that there was
39 of us. I think part of the thing was we
they wanted us to all line up and how much we made the year
before. OK.

(01:03:53):
I was the second person to the top.
Nice. And I don't say that arrogantly.
Not much self esteem because I would look at you and go, oh,
you're a lawyer, you must make way more than me.
And it wasn't about humiliation,but it was about so people could

(01:04:14):
change. And so on the last day, this
lady that had been kind of, we'dhad a few dinners together, but
because I'm in the program, it'slike this sort of varies.
You don't touch, you don't go anywhere, you don't.
So she goes to me. I thought this, no, I went to

(01:04:38):
her. I said, I thought this went till
Sunday. And she goes, so did I.
And she goes, I don't have to gobe back to Calgary till Sunday
night. And this is Saturday.
And I said, so I guess we're going out for dinner today.
So we went out for dinner that night and we've been together
ever since. And that was, we've been married

(01:04:59):
for three years this year, married 11 months from the day
we walked out of this course. And we did a few other self
development classes with the company.
And once again, it's like Scott doesn't mesh well with people

(01:05:19):
that aren't quite straight up. And the coaches and the
facilitators were great, but their office politics were
shady. And sure, so I don't have a
whole lot to do with them anymore, but I also don't have
to bash them, which is a cool part.
Yeah, I would have been naming their company and I would have
been bashing them because. But I guarantee anybody could go
do the first two courses and gain huge knowledge about

(01:05:43):
themselves. So on the last course we did
with them, it was a goal settingcourse.
We ended up, I set a goal to go to Thailand for six months and I
just had some friends that go there and it was kind of on the

(01:06:05):
whim, and I'll backtrack just tosmidge during this course.
It was a crazy course and it washeld in Alberta and it was three
months long. I made the decision not to go
back to work and focus on this course for the three months.
And by the end of the course, I decided I wasn't going back to

(01:06:27):
work. And because of the house that I
own close to Vancouver, I sold it and I moved up north where I
live now. And now I own three properties
and that's kind of how I live isoff rental income.
OK, So Lisa and I are getting along great and we are

(01:06:50):
implementing every morning. How can I love you today?
That's cool, I like that. And at first it was
uncomfortable and bashy. And half about four months into
this, it's like, you know what? I don't know if I lived up to my
expectations. So I kind of asked.
We started the thing every night.
Did we live up to our commitmenttoday?

(01:07:11):
Oh. That's cool.
That's cool too. I have one of the my, I can't, I
won't even say one of the best relationships, right?
I have a partnership with somebody that I never knew could
ever exist. That's awesome.
And so now we live together in Ashcroft, BC.

(01:07:35):
And the first trip to Thailand, Lisa decided she was going to
write a book. Nice.
And somehow she's inspired me towrite a book.
Right on. And I wrote my book.
It's called The perfect My Perfect storm.
Congratulations, that's awesome.Man, and it is an Amazon
bestseller. However, somehow through emails,

(01:07:57):
I kind of not screwed up the Amazon bestseller part, but I
got kicked off Amazon. We haven't been able to correct
it yet. That's Amazon, Yeah.
So where can people find your book?
At Scott, Oh well, she changed Scott at Forward Walking Choices
and we can e-mail him a book today.

(01:08:18):
I'm a life coach, crisis recovery coach.
I help people to inspire their lives because I look back at my
track record and AA and I struggled for so many years till
I started finding actual some footing and direction.
And since I wrote my book, I'm doing some of the courses I went

(01:08:41):
down. Have you guys ever heard of
Doctor Amon? No, no, I haven't.
He's one of the leading ADHD experts in the world.
OK. He actually does brain scans
brain and then diagnose you fromyour brain and he's done so many
that he can diagnose pretty well.
And OK, and I skipped actually agood portion of dealing with

(01:09:06):
this. Is all.
Is all this in the book? Yes.
OK. So don't share all.
The stuff, Oh no, the ADHD stuffisn't in the book.
That's going to be in the next. Book.
Yeah. Because we want, we want people
to read your book. That's it.
Yeah. So don't give us all the details
because then there's no reason to buy it.
Yeah. I dealt with my trauma before
that and then now I stepped it up and went and diagnosed with

(01:09:28):
ADHD and you know, that was the one of the clinchers that
changed my life as well. Getting put on some medication
and supplements. I used magic mushrooms for my
trauma therapy. We just had a guy on that did
the same thing he he used magic mushrooms that got him to stop

(01:09:50):
drinking and kind of kept him onthe sober path.
Yeah, I know a few people like that.
I'm an advocate for the new medicines that are out there.
As am I. I don't believe in, I believe in
complete abstinence for use if you're using it to just to dull

(01:10:12):
this down, if you're using it for pain, if you're using it to
help your trauma or your depression.
I. Don't know, I'm in the middle of
writing a different book. This book is fantastic.
However, I want to get more of my healing journey.
This is a little bit of the someof it I look back because of the

(01:10:35):
ADHD stuff and what I've learnedabout it.
Some of it's still the blame game, Sure, of course.
And. When you're telling, when you're
telling your story, I mean, every time you broke up with
somebody, that was your excuse to start drinking.
Yeah. So right there you you have you
had to have a reason to drink and your reason to drink was,
well, that didn't work out. So fucking I'm going to drink.
Yep. Right.
So there was there was those anywindows of blaming going on,

(01:11:00):
right. And today, my life, I can't even
believe I have the life I have today.
That's good. That's awesome.
It's like. I feel the same way.
I think Chris does, too. When you're an addict, you don't
realize that there's this life on the other side.
You just can't imagine it. Well, and sometimes it's not

(01:11:22):
even just drugs or alcohol. We're addicted to the anger and
the chaos and, and not knowing what to do.
Like I spent years, I don't knowwhat to do.
It's just do the steps again, right?
Just haven't done the steps right, right.
And that's kind of why I'm an advocate for this, because it's
like if you got to tell somebodythey haven't done the steps
right, there's something wrong with that.

(01:11:43):
Well, and see, that's that's whyI go back to that too.
Like I never read the big book and did I do the steps?
Yes, but I don't I didn't. I didn't, I didn't wrap my
entire life around that process.Cause to me when I got my chip,
that was the thing that got me through it because I realized,
OK, I got 24 hour chip and I gota 30 day chip.
But if I can't get the 30 days Ihave to give them back with 24
chip. Well, one thing. 60 Yeah, Go

(01:12:05):
ahead, Mike. No, sorry, man.
One thing you and I agree on, and I think you're saying it
right now, is you have to be theone to want to change.
Somebody can't tell you you're an addict.
No, it's kind of like your courtordered a A when you're 15.
Yeah, that's going to work. Yeah, nobody has somebody
standing in front of them going,you're fucking your life up.

(01:12:26):
And they go, oh, yeah, you know what?
You're right. That rarely happens.
It may be one out of a million people go, OK, you're right.
Most people say, what business is it of yours?
You know, I'm fine. I'm doing OK.
Yeah, and see, I'm I'm kind of an exception because I was told
I had a problem, but I never tried to stop because just
because I was told I had a problem, it took my moment of of
like, oh boy, something's got tochange for me to change that

(01:12:49):
then. But then when?
That's my point exactly. Right.
So it was so significant of a moment for me that the next day,
literally, I woke up. Something's got to.
Change and then I was going to die.
Right. And so never look back, but
there are, like we talked earlier, you're kind of the
stereotypical alcoholic where you can, you're constantly
trying to get stay sober, stay sober, stay sober, fall back 1-2

(01:13:09):
steps forward, one step back two.
You know, so the fact that now you're over 16 years clean and
you have a beautiful life and a beautiful wife and you have
targets and things you're going after, like writing another
book, that's fantastic, man. That's, that's a great turn
around in your life, especially because you were suicidal and
you didn't want to be here. So that's another thing as well,

(01:13:29):
that you, you didn't succumb to that depression because then you
wouldn't be sitting here talkingto us, man.
I've attempted a few times over.There OK, most people you know
in that state of depression at some point time do for sure.
Yeah, we also, my wife and I do a podcast.
It's called Soul Mates and Suitcases.
It can be found on Spotify and YouTube.

(01:13:49):
I think on YouTube it's called the Brewer Leaf.
OK. And we have a coaching business.
Cool. And we travel the world and have
fun. That's awesome, man.
Yeah, that is awesome. So we have all your links.
I shared them with Mike, and from when we drop the episode,
we'll put all that stuff on there as well so people can find

(01:14:11):
you and then we'll go cross, like, subscribe, things like
that and you'll do the same for us.
Now, do you have stuff on Facebook, Instagram as well?
Yeah, mostly Facebook, I deal with that.
I got accounts on Instagram and stuff.
I haven't quite ventured into that.
It's a good gap, but. Yeah, we have one on Facebook.
We we're found Facebook, Instagram, YouTube obviously and

(01:14:34):
all the podcast platforms we're working on putting together
websites so. We'll have, yeah, we got a
website, forwardwalkingchoices.com.
Cool. Yeah.
Did you send me all that I thought you sent?
Oh, I haven't. You know what?
I'm gonna get my. Wife to send you all the stuff
because she's got it all put together and perfect.
Send me your e-mail though. I don't think you sent it.
I will. Yeah.

(01:14:54):
I'll send. Yeah, I'll send you the e-mail.
This has been fantastic guys. Thank you very much for having
me up. Thank you for let us.
Thank you for sharing your storyman.
Yeah, so since we're still live on YouTube, share again how
people can find your book. The My Perfect Storm is what
it's called the author Scott. Rayerjesus.com, Say again.
Forward Walking choices.com. Forwardwalkingchoices.com where

(01:15:15):
you can find his book right on. Man, and invest in yourself,
because nobody else is going to.Great.
Absolutely, absolutely. And one thing that that you'll
you'll probably like this one ofthe things that we do every time
we wrap up a show, because Mike and I both been affected by
someone who's taking their own life and you tried it several
times, is don't let the bad dayswin, right?

(01:15:36):
Somebody's going to miss you. Somebody Loves You.
You don't create that hole in somebody's heart tomorrow
morning because they found out you're gone and they could have
helped, you know, talk you through the chaos you're going
through. Well, and I don't think we've
had a better example on this podcast than Scott right here.
He just said I'm living my best life.
Had he taken his own life, he would have never known this was
a possibility, right? So kudos to you for being happy

(01:16:00):
again. I've been on both sides of life
too, where I was miserable and Iwake up every day and I'm
grateful I'm still here so. Yeah, and the way you wake up in
the morning and the way you go to bed at night.
I love those two things. I do, too.
That those are powerful, dude. Powerful.
And that's why we do this, we, we both do this cold model way
today. Fill probably 3 mornings a week.
We do it and. Yeah, but still.

(01:16:22):
Some nights, sometimes we just go, did we?
Did I fulfill? Did I fulfill my commitment to
you today? Yeah, no, that's cool, dude.
That's really cool. Because how do you, how do you
keep a relationship like you look in this world today at the
track record of relationships now, unless you cherish the
relationship to me, it's going to go away.
Yeah, well, people don't want toput the work in.

(01:16:43):
Like I, I'm, we're my wife and Ihave been together 30 years and
there's, there's little caveats.There's little caveats I dropped
#1 you got to have separate comforters because and you're
not dealing with other Jimmy Lakes.
And then you just know your roles.
Like I load the dishwasher and then load it usually.
And she does the laundry. I do all the outside maintenance
stuff. She takes care of the inside
stuff. So there's the dynamic that you

(01:17:05):
find with, with your, your partner, spouse, whatever you
want to call it. And then obviously you
communicate and you're open and honest with everything you do.
That's. The big one right there.
That's the talk 1. Right.
Talking because you know, and then you tell them you know.
Here's how I'm feeling. Right.
And then you obviously you, I, hey, I love you.
It's not just a random thing. You don't like, we just don't

(01:17:26):
give flowers on, on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
In fact, we don't do shit on Valentine's Day because we don't
feel like we have to because every, I mean, there's flowers
randomly showing up. I came home yesterday.
There's flowers on the island, you know.
And. But that's just how we are, and
that's how I think more and morepeople need to understand
relationships are work, and if you're not willing to put in the
time, then you know what do you?Is it work?

(01:17:51):
Well, you know what I mean. It's like.
I'll use this for an example. The week we had a friend over,
Yeah, and I, we got an espresso machine and a lot of people
don't know how to use it. So I make them a coffee with the
espresso machine. Sure.
Lisa's in having a shower and I know she wants a coffee, but
I've already made 32 coffees in a row and I just want to sit

(01:18:11):
down and enjoy my first coffee. So really, I kind of
begrudgingly made her a coffee, right?
Because I didn't want to do it. But obviously I must have wanted
to do it. My brain was just telling me I
didn't want to do it and I wanted lazy, right?
But I took her the coffee and snuck it into the bathroom, put
it on the couch, not stuck it in.

(01:18:32):
But. Yeah.
I think that's an example of what Chris just said.
It's making the extra effort that you normally wouldn't have
done unless it was that person, right?
And I'm not doing that for anybody else except this person.
Yeah, so so the word work may not have been the right choice
of words. Yeah, I know, but.
It's but it's just engaging in the other person's life, knowing

(01:18:52):
those little nuances that will make their day because you took
the effort to do. So 100% yeah.
But changing it to how you said at that time makes to me makes
it sound so positive, yeah. Yeah, OK, well, I'll make that
middle note too, man, engaging with the other one.
Yeah, yeah, I got. Anyways, gentlemen, I got to get
to work cool that I'm doing in the basement.

(01:19:15):
Right on that. Thank.
You very much and. Yeah, thanks a lot.
Absolutely. Yeah.
When you when you get ready to drop your your next book, reach
out and we'll get you back on. Awesome.
Absolutely. OK Lisa to send you the stuff.
You can probably get her on for a OK podcast too.
Cool. We would like to do that as
well. Yeah, awesome.
All right. You guys have a great day man.

(01:19:37):
All right, have a great day. Thanks, Scott.
See you. The you will go beyond the tail

(01:20:04):
behind your eyes yourself and meet yourself.
Take a moment, look until you see it.
Fight the battle that you must wear.
Fight the battle, but you must wear who is your baby to your.

(01:21:43):
Now you're turning. Come down here.
We haven't found the salad in the exam from fighting.
Wait for the day when it's closer out there.
You put it away. You ain't no quizzes.
We'll play a smile. You should.

(01:22:04):
You quit on the almighty man. You got a dream.
Who in your life? The people.
Soul in every man. Take the trail behind your eyes.
Feel the soul evolution now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:22:32):
yeah. Take a moment.
You see, you see him fight your family.
To you more clear. You

(01:23:06):
gotta, you gotta. You gotta.
You gotta. You gotta.