Power Of Recovery Is Back...

Matty and Damon return to the After Show for Part 2 of Matty's Story.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, here we go after show podcast. Yes we
are here. The boys are back and they're already out
of control. Maddie and dam and Paul recovery. Welcome back, buddy.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
How we doing fellas fantastic?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Another day clean?

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Right?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
That's it. All the bullshit that we that you know,
goes on in life at the very least, well the
very most. If we stay clean, then we got a
fucking fighting shot.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We really do. I want to start. You know, I
had a really good friend of mine relapse after nineteen
years clean. Was really a tough thing, and got him
into uh got him into treatment.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
And uh he is out and he already relapsed.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Damn.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
It's a tough thing, man, you know, it's really it's
it's it's tough, especially when you know to see him
in that condition. You know, I know you, I know
you guys working it. You see it every day every
single day. You know, I don't see it that often.
You know, someone that is was so close to you
and relapse and see them in that condition. It was
a really hard thing. But he did relapse. But he's

(01:06):
I think he's trying to to get it together. But
it's hard man, it really is. It's you wake up
that monkey. You know, we all have that monkey. Tomorrow's
my clean date.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, man, eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
We're all on the same kind of length of time, though.
I mean, okay, it's not about that.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
No, no, no, you and I are close. He's you know,
he's a little behind.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's all, you know, I'm like six months behind.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, it's not that much, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm like six months behind him.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
No. Actually, we'll go, well you're no, you're two thousand
and nine.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, yeah, oh go, let me just point out he's
twenty ten and on two thousand and eight. Okay, there
it is early two. He can't help himself.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Going back to what you said though, that's why the
most important thing we can do is physical.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Sobriety. Yes, no matter what, don't put one in you
and you get a chance.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I know that we're cracking a joke in the beginning,
but literally they they you know. One of the things
that we share all the time we talk about is
the only thing you have to do perfect is not.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Used that day.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, that that's the only thing you got to do perfect.
The rest we fall short and can fix in all
the others.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Well, you're looking at three guys here. That's fucked up
every others sides putting one in us.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's true, and I feel like, you know, there are
there are circumstances that happen. You know, there's many reasons
why someone may relapse and they go out after you know,
long term recovery or any length of recovery for that matter.
But you know one would be maybe a medical condition,
you know Maddie talked about that last podcast, like a
medical US procedure. Another thing is, and this is the
case of my friend, is alcohol, right, yeah, because alcohol

(02:39):
is so normal, you know, so you get away from
from the program, or you get away from people in recovery.
You start acting with the normal folk and all of
a sudden you're like, hey, I can have a spike celtz.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
See like where it.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
But it differs from personal person like Damon can't stand alcohol.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
That can't either.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
He'd rather smoke wheat if he had a choice. He's
drinking that right, I I'd love to have a drink.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Tell him he he his his when he has that
the quick short fan of a fantasized age fanization help me?
Yeah whatever that thing he you know, the hot summer day. Yeah,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, I failed that, but it's not mine. I'm with
Damon on that. But I know, and that can that's
a tough thing, you know. So what happens is we
get away from hearing the message and we forget. And
when I drove him to detox, okay a couple of
weeks ago, he was all he was all fucked up, right,
and he just kept saying I forgot. He was crying.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I forgot. I forgot what this felt like.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Obviously he didn't fail that bad because he already drank,
which is what sucks. It's just a reality.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
What happened some of the times after that, like especially
if you had some length of sobriety and separated from
it is it's, you know, you get out and you
just start thinking about like, oh, nineteen years, nineteen years,
nineteen years, and it's tough to go. All right, well,
I'm on day one and I have to do this work,
the beginning work all over again, right.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
And it's it's kind of that mentality too, of which
is scary. You know, I already messed up. Yeah, Oh yeah,
I already messed up right, So wow, why not stop over?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
But that's another thing people gotta look at.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
Just because you used don't mean you're got to run
till the wheels come off the cot.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
You don't going to do that anymore. You could pick
up right where you came from.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Because the reason I have less clean time than you
guys is I really got clean twelve, twenty eight of eight. Okay, okay,
and I picked up after fourteen months, but I didn't
run until the wheels came off. I got right back
in it. And my new clean date was March fifth

(04:46):
of twenty ten. So I was out there for a
couple of weeks and said, what.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
The heck, this is good. We're supposed to at some point.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I was gonna continue because we kept into drops in
and didn't give Matthew enough to I'm yeah, last month
to finish this story.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
Oh hey, Justin's Angela the Scientist and I just listened
to the after show. We definitely need part two of
Maddie's story, but I don't want to bump Damon's either. Ooh,
might have to be another good, long one. But yeah,
really really riveted by the story. I'm four years sober. Wow,

(05:28):
and yeah, I love listening to you and those guys.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, yeah, I got a lot of them. People want
your part two.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I left my first stuck up.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
I think I'm not sure if it went through, but
I'm voting for part two of Maddie's story.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah. So, Damon and I mainly me, I guess rudely
interrupted your story. You got to the part where you
got clean, and then we were like, oh, that's it.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
You good for you.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
Keep it moving.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
There's another whole half obviously, of everything you've done after you've.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Gotten clean much right, And you know, I know, I
know from all of us from having the times of
sharing our experience, like that is a really really big
pot of your story. Like you know, you know what
you did, what got you here, that's all important so
people can identify. But like what you've done since then,
big guy, that's a yeah. I mean you gott to
drop the hae.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
People want to hear it.

Speaker 7 (06:19):
Hey, this is Joe. I'm still into SATA, but did
want to just comment on your podcast. With Power of Recovery.
It is always great to listen to the guys listen
to you. Don't apologize for ever talking about recovery. For
those of us who have family members in recovery, it
just reminds us of all the craziness that we've been

(06:41):
through yet how things have changed and they do recover.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So thank you, Thank you, Joe. I appreciate that you
got the best listeners. Dude, honest, I God, the After
Show Army, it's unbelieva.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's who they are. Yeah, they're dedicated to this.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
You never know what's gonna I mean yesterday I did
the podcast myself and I cry like a baby.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Wow, you know who's part of the army. I just
want to let you know who's part of the army. Yeah,
she was, what's up?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
You can bring her in, you know, dude.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I don't know if that would go. It would be fine.
She'd be fine, bring bring anybody want. She literally, she
literally was just texting me. So she is. She's actually
the program manager up at Powerfulpe at the kids Place.
So yeah, she was just texting me about something. I said, Hey,
I'm a little busy, and I sent her a picture.
You guys always in the in the studio recording the podcast.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Man, Yeah, bring her in, bring your wife.

Speaker 8 (07:36):
I'm actually Damon Weinberg's wife about that.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Oh yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
That's the best.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
It's gotta be up there and it's the best. You
know what, she's super proud, she's super proud to be
your wife.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
I literally just gave her a hot time about that
yesterday or the day before.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. So here, here's the plan. Right, It's like we're
gonna hear part two of Maddie's story today and the
next month when you guys come in, we'll do Damon
story and just know that, like, you know, we laugh
and we riff on each other. But a huge part
of the second half, well, in the first half of
your story, Damon's a part of that.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right, he's been there since the very beginning, you know
what I mean. So we'll get you part two. Well,
I feel like every time you come in, it's like,
you know, either you pissed him off, he pissed you off,
because it's just.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
How we get through a day, dude, you know what
I mean. Like it's you know, everyone should be happier
that we're focused on our that kind of energy on
each other rather than anybody else.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, it's not easy, man, it's not easy doing
what you do. It looks not only are you running
multiple businesses, right, but you're also dealing with people and
active addiction, you know what I mean, that are trying
to get clean, relapse and all that. It's a lot
that goes into it, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And dude, you know as well as I do. As
much as anyone wants to tell us whatever, there's no
way you don't get personally attached to the people that
come through your doors. Whether it's at the program or
the houses or whatever, it doesn't matter, you know what
I mean. We hear the stories with part of the
stories the guys that and women that have been part
of our lives in one way, shape form or another for.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Years and years, dude, So if you look at it.
I hit him with it this a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
He's like, oh shit, every morning we wake up, we
me and him have over six hundred people in our kid.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Right, That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Yeah,
it's going to be stress you know, running any business
is stressful, you know, and having six hundred people that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
All right, So Maddie, I don't know, you know what
I talked about the last.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
No it's fine, make it nice and easy. How you
just started right there?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
You clean?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
You got cleaned finally twenty ten March.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Excuse me two, it was December twenty eighth of two
thousand and eight.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
That's the original, that's the original.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
We want to skip over to when you got clean
your last day years at I realized.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
And after after you gave that massage for the couple
of perks that day, a little reach around.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
How's this? This is I checked into detalks with money.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
That's how wild that's you are.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
That's how much I wanted to be clean.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
For people listening that don't get that, we typically nine
times out of ten, nine point nine you go to
detox when there's nothing.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
It's the only time that's ever had, the only time.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
And I'm still clean, right Yeah, I still think I
think it's important, like what you said from from my
you know perspective.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
That you do frame it.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
You did get clean and you were you were you know,
sober clean or whatever a little over a year or
something right before you.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
Have a teen thirteen to fourteen months and not just
like clean in it in it, yeah, commitments, stept work,
doing the recovery thing, doing the one hundred in it,
and then what happens is just exactly what your buddy said.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Tuesday night, I'm supposed to be here.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
But I want to be here. I can take Tuesday
off and then Wednesday. I can take Wednesday off.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Thursday.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
I'm not right my steps anymore because now I just
got too busy for the one thing that gave me life.
So before you know it, now I've been driving around
all year with this guy I was.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I was a plumber's helper. It was a Saturday. We
were in Dorchester doing.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
A job and he was older and had he always
had vicar in his console because he had aches and pain.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
They were there all year.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Never thought you knew they were there.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Knew they were He didn't know. I knew they were there.
You know, as an attic, we know that, and I
do this.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
You ever, you ever sit in a poking lot now
with your wife or kids or anybody, and you're in
a pocking lot, and what's it feel like? You're just
sitting in a poking lot? Remember sitting in a poking
lot when you were using like like, no, what he notices?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
You did? So I knew they were there.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
I made a conscious decision to walk out to the truck,
and I wanted to eat two of them.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
But I caught myself tiptoeing out to the truck. This
guy don't know. Now, we used to keep the cigarettes
in the console.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
Now I'm in the console like, oh my god, oh
my god, I gotta.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Get it out, like it's mission impossible. When all year
I've been in.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
And out of that truck, in and out of that console.
Nobody's looking at me, second guessing. All right, So I
take them by the time they hit my atoms, after
my whole entire bean change, everything about me changed, And then.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
You haven't even fully swallowed the pillion, a whole mind everything.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Monkey wakes up.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
It's so wild. Left.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes, probably a day or so more of painkillers than
right back to shooting arrow. But I lost my connects.
And now my friend Chris was out there using, but
when I checked in he was clean.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
He'd relapsed when I was clean, So I don't I
can't get dope right now. Now I want dope, and
it's around I don't know, six seven at night, six seven.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
And I meet him at a dunkin Donuts and Revere
and he gets in my car. He's like I'm not
giving it to you. I can't. I can't call the guy.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
I'm like, just call the guy, please, please call you
are clean, I'm like, no, I've been using for the
last three days whatever.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
So his cop holes. I'm sorry. This is a couple
of weeks because I'm already like strung out.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
You're running, I'm running.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
It's the first time I'm using with him. Yeah, because
this is what got me clean. The second time. I'm
sitting there and I've just worked for a year. I
put a little life together, first time in my life
I ever lived. And I'm sitting in the cow with
my friend and Chris, and we're waiting for the guy.
And he pulls up and I go, dude, ain't that
your fucking car.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
He's like the drug dealer was driving here.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, okay, So I said fuck this. He goes, I
told you getting better out here. I go, fuck this.
I'm fucking done. Wow, I'm done.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
And you didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
No, I didn't come on dude, after ideah, I did
it that day.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
The next day, I checked in the detox, went to
ad care yep, left ad care, used that day, check
back in that day and never used again.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Boom. Okay, never use again.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
I started going to a seven am meeting in Revere
every morning at seven.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
My job let me go to the meeting every morning.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
And then how I was only taking I was taking
home three hundred and eighty five dollar was.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
A week as a plumber.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
That was my pay, three eighty five a week. I
was taken home. Okay, So I go to that meeting,
go to work, leave work, do a side job, whatever
the hell. It may be a gobbage disposal, an oil tank,
whatever I could to make cash.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
Be back in a meeting by seven midnight. Sometimes go
back to the side job.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, or just go home.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
See you banging two meetings a day?

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Easy?

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (15:30):
For the first however long it took months problem Yeah,
and it didn't.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I just didn't want to go back.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
That's seven am meeting. I won't say his name, but
I can say his nickname because I don't want to
out him whatever. But Ping Pong, you know I'm talking about.
He's a guy. Yeah, I'm not gonna say his name
or whatever. Great guy. First guy that's the seven am meeting, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, he's the first guy I ever had speak.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
For me when I had enough time to share a
meeting me too. He's one of the first man I go, dude,
can you tell you ping pongs?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:00):
The poor Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
It was so intimidating coming as a newcomer to these
giants Chelsea, Bob, Johnny festav Oh, I know all these
guys and you'd go up and then they became like friends,
like Randy, all them guys, because Randy was the second
guy I ever had speak for me.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
It was at the Dat Club in Charleston.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Okay, yeah, and he's your sponsored now.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Now he's ship Yeah. Yeah, he's at power. He's sitting
in power of recovery, right, helping people. Yeah, I just
would have been a meeting last night.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Like it's just routine if you stay around long enough,
like all these people just they're regular people with a
couple of days more than you.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Have, So two meetings a day. Hold that thought because
for people listening, I want to kind of explain the
ping pong thing. So part of this guy's story he's
been cleaned a long time, is back in like the seventies,
he was overseas, he served in the in the service,
and he was in a detox and they all were
looking for things to get how to get high. And
someone said, if you smoke ping pong balls, you'll get high,

(17:04):
And sure enough, the whole place was smoking ping pong,
but they weren't getting high. They were getting like.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
And we're literally we're short change in this.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
It's really good. It's really you.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Have a sit and listen. He's absolutely I'm gonna call
him and ask me to come in here, and.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
He'd love I'd love I love that man. I'd love
that my sponsor, who I've had for pretty much the
whole time I've been clean. If he wasn't, it would
have been ping pong. I love that guy. Great message.
So two meetings a day.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Two meetings a day, learning a trade, grabbing a network
like and it was.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
I had a lot of fun, a ton of fun
early recovery, Like damon, I'll tell you back then, you'd
pack a cow with ten fucking people, go do a commitment,
eat an ice cream, call it a day. Because I'm
still trying to navigate. I went from a little boy
to a full blown addict to a thirty year old

(18:06):
guy with the brain mentality of a twelve year old. Yeah,
I don't know. I've never literally written a check, never
insured a car I drove unregistered, uninsured forever, like all
of that ship.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
And that's all ship I had to learn at thirty.
So I'm working that job.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
And my brother, who everybody knows about Wednesday nights like
he had all us.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Guys, we talked to night.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
We've talked about it, like grateful to this day for it.
He comes up with the idea of opening a soba house. Yeah,
and I was still stuck in like my attic mentality.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Now now, now when he says that to you at
that time, do you have a lot of money?

Speaker 3 (18:46):
None? Saved like none, I had any money?

Speaker 1 (18:51):
So your brother came now her brother probably had some money. None, Okay,
Then where the fuck did the money come from?

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Beg borrowed and stole? Wow? Yeah, And just like so
I'll tell you the last I'm sorry, no, no, but
we did.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
This house over in the last four grand we needed. Okay,
I'm like a year year and a half so and
uh we got to open but with four grand short.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
And he goes asthma for it, and I go like,
I just robbed her last year me.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
He goes, I ain't on better terms with her right
now either. I go all right, I'll try.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
And this is what changed my trajectory of my life.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
I didn't know I was good at certain ship because
I never did it before. Okay, like I told you,
I went from a kid to an attic to a
thirty year old guy working a job. Now I go
up to it. Okay, We've been working on this house
for months. We had damon rufie.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I know, I was gonna say the part of
the story, like we kind of were just leaving it
to the waiside. We they literally scraped together the ability
to buy this house. It was downtrodden. It was like
they it was on Strawberry Ave. We literally had to
like there was like cops there getting squad is out
of there like it were. People were like it was nuts,

(20:06):
and we would every day. Everybody had regular jobs and
every day after the work, we all were going there
to help build this house. Dude, I've I have I
don't know if you can tell, but zero roofing and
construction experience. Yeah. No, I was in the crew, dude.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
What happened was all that them good deeds my brother
put in on Wednesday. On Wednesday night, there was a roofer,
big gym legit roof of professional roof. Yeah, so you'll
give you a Saturday and Sunday. You guys lay before me,
all right, cool, we can do what you tell us. Boom,
carry this, do this, do that, Boom, we get a
new roof, just like my younger brother's electrician.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
I'm a plumber. Like we just threw it all together.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Now, hold on, now, when your brother had this idea? Obviously,
you know, you you buy a house, you rent it
out to men or women or whatever, sober house, you
generate income. But was that that wasn't My question is
was it because he really did want to help people?

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Was idea?

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, he didn't want to open it and look like
he was doing it for a financial thing. He needed
Chelsea Bob's blessing because the literally when guys were.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Like everybody's opening up this ship going for the money.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Grab and six guys in a bedroom.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
He asked Chelsea Bob for his blessing, and he said,
you guys can do whatever you want. You're the real deal.
So we still honor it to today. No more than
two in a room. Everybody gets their own TV, Wi Fi,
bed sheets, pillows, We supply all the cleaning supplies. We
go above and beyond any other place back then, trying

(21:46):
to tell me that I was just a guy carrying.
And you guys will know this because you got clean
all right before me. When you had to carry a
toilet paper from your bedroom to the bottom. Ye, how
do you feel home? Or when you went to do
your laundry in a dirt basement? Soba houses were disgusting,
gross places, many same ben and many disgusting.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
We didn't do that. It was all new. It might
have not been stated.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
The yacht the first one because we scraped it together.
Flat screen TV, yeah, they were tiny.

Speaker 6 (22:18):
They were big to the living room was only thirty
two we had in the building. Dude, we had nineteen's
on the wall, but they were flat screens.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Baby. Yeah, so like ship like that, but nobody's ever
seen it before. Now we we go through that, and
here's exactly what happened.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
I find in the interim, I meet Michelle. We end
up moving in together. I never did like my mother,
don't know what's it like? Oh my god, is he
going to be all right?

Speaker 3 (22:52):
Like I was either home or away or on the street.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Wait, so where are you living now?

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Well? I moved into.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
One tiny one bedroom in Saugust for seven hundred and
fifty dollars.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
And you're plumbing your you're a plumber's assistant.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
I'm an assistant doing side jobs at night. And I
move in with Michelle, who's working at the that clinic
out in Marblehead. She's been working there ten years.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, she's got her ship together, well, probably six years.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
She's about six years sober.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah Michelle, your wife got sober in two thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Yeah right, yeah, so yeah, see she beats all of us.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
I was in the I was there with her.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, I'm still doing my thing, going to meeting's, running
around work, and now we got this. And then Friday night, I.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Walked into the Saugust AA meeting Young People's Meeting and
seeing her and I was like, oh man, she was
a woman with girls. I was like, I need to
talk to her. And her friends are.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Like she.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
So I was Maddi Fit Matty Polante and I'm like, dude,
who's that girl.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
He's like, forget it. I go all right. So after
the meeting, I walk up to her and I go, hey,
we're going to get something to eat after the meet,
and you want to come with us?

Speaker 1 (24:16):
She went no fucking no.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
So I go, oh, man, I think she likes me.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Imagine to tell you.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
So the next week, obviously, where am I? You know
him at that meet? You know him at that meeting?
And I sit behind her with Matt and I'm talking, talking, talking,
first word she ever said to me. She turns around,
she goes, hey, I go yeah. She goes, well, you
shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, so you have to know Michelle how she is.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
She was there for a meeting. That was it.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
And then after the meeting I waited out. She's like,
what's up, dude, I'm just waiting for my apology because
you just swore at me.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
She goes, yeah, okay, and then said nice shirt, but
tap my shoulder. I was like, all right, but whatever.
It took me a couple of months. I pretty much
talked until.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
She said I was hoping that we got to that.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
I was open. We got the honest piece, so whatever, no, no,
tell the whole thing. They would he would drive around
and open the door of a meeting to see if
she was in that. Okay, I'll do a credit. He
would at least stop and attend the meeting that she
was at when he found her, if he found her
that night, but yeah, that's that's how it went.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
And then would sit with the car run I like, nope,
let's go peel off and have a meeting list.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
It sounds so much creepier now when we tell the story.
It didn't feel that way in the midst of it.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Like the girl and I.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Chased, yeah, you did you know? And she finally said, yeah,
well I cold called her. She never gave me your number.
I went to the beach. Remember Richie and Perado.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Oh my god, I love Richie. All right, he's still
talking to him.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, here and there, Me and him graduated churn about together.
I'm the godfather of his son. We got real really yeah.
So me and him were real close at the time,
and I'm standing down Winthrop Beach. I go to meet
him and he's walking his son in the stroller, and
I tell him about this girl.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Oh dude, Butchie knows her. He was in the hospital.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
I didn't know this. And he goes, who I get
the fuck out of here. Oh yeah, I swear to god.
He goes call her. Bro I go, no, I just
can't call her. He goes, here's her number.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Mane.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
I called her, She's like, what what you know, Nona.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
The next day we went to Santapios for pizza.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
On the Boston No, right on the wall at the beach,
And that weekend we were at what's.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
That Fear up there? Todd Fail Fear first and only
time I ever been there, Will never go again.

Speaker 7 (27:04):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Disgusting love that place. Gross.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Pretty it's pretty busy, Okay, Yeah, so that was like
your first.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
That was that was like my first like real girlfriend, dude, wow,
like because I never had any structure anything, and she
taught me about relationships and stuff like that. So fast
forward a few months obviously we move in together, tiny
little place. House opens. My brother walks in to the house.

(27:33):
He's established, he's ten years older than me. He's a
family man. He he knows stuff that I don't know.
And he goes, all right, i'll see you.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
I go what Hey hands him the checkbook for the
bank account. I think we had twelve dollars.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Hands me the checkbook. I never wrote a fucking check.
He goes, you're a smart kid, you'll figure it out.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Greatest thing that ever happened.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Wow, Yeah, and you did well.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
I never paid an electric bill, a cable bill. I
don't know how to balance a check book, so like
I'd do it every week. We had three bills, but
I'd be balancing.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
It every day, every single day. And we had six
beds to start in the six beds under and twenty
five bucks. I think the rent was yet on.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
The beds. Yeah, pretty quick.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, well what we did, I'm knocking to bullshit.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, when we first opened, I'm a year year and
a half.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
He's no, no better whatever. So we'll like the guys
that are living in the house, the guys we go
to the meetings with, they're our friends.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yeah, we're sitting there Friday night after rent playing CODs,
eating pizza.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Like not just playing CODs like friendly, we like gambling
with the guys. I think that's what he's trying to
you know what I mean, not a clue in the world,
Like it's not to us. We're not looking at it
like you know, guys running a business, or we're hanging
out with our friends playing CODs, gambling like on a
Friday night because they were your friend, right.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
And then it takes people who've been in recovery, say
like show or them adults, you take adults.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, hey, you can't fucking do that.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Me and him looked at each other like, what do
you what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (29:09):
And they were like, oh shit.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
So we've learned from all mistakes that could never happen today,
that would never happen, but fifteen years ago.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
That's but it got us closer to the guys.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
And we knew their girls' names, we knew their kids' names,
we knew their parole office, isn't it. And so that
happens that small basement apartment. She's now pregnant.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
I'm like, oh fuck.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Oh yeah, you're going to be a dad.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
I'm going to be a dad now. I just started
learning how to feed myself. So I said, fucking I'm
gonna open my own plumbing company. My plumber boss goes,
you're not a plumber. You're not a plumber.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, you were just still an assistant.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yeah, you can't open a plumber company. I looked at him.
I go, can Bob Craft throw football?

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Imagine?

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Oh my god?

Speaker 4 (29:59):
And he goes, I go, Canbobcraft row football? I can
get jobs. I can price jobs. I know how to
do the jobs. I just need to get the right people.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
In the right place. So I went and got me
a master plumber. I opened up a plumbing company. I
started first it was just me in a truck. Then
came on the plumber. Within two years it.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Was nineteen guys. Wow, Yeah, I redid the Prudential Center.
I grabed huge accounts just from getting getting up and
getting it.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's out there, if you want it, go get it here.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah. No, you can definitely get that sense with you
that you have this natural kind of business mind. You
know that that probably you never even realized that you had.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So this is what dude, I still got.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
I still got pictures of you said and that it
was just a million dollar contract. It was like we unhurt.
Me and him were like just holy you know what
I mean. It was nuts. And he's at his desk
and we had a small little office in Clifton Dale
Square in Saugust, dude, and then he's like, dude, this
is the first million dollar contract I've a signed in
my life.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Now what are you doing at this time?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Money?

Speaker 2 (31:01):
I'm losing.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Well, you're gonna tell your story next time.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
But you're funny how he gets on to this.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
The plumbing was you. He had nothing to do with
that no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Occasionally I was a plumber's help up. Yeah, I was
room yeah, dude.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
Listen, whatever we do to get by at night, I'd
go into places personally cheaper than the next guy.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
But I'd bring Damon the bill for two guys, so
he'd go to do with them. Some lady would cook
him chicken palm, I clean her grease trap.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Dude. But like I was doing other stuff like I like, again,
we'll get into my story another time. But but like
we'd both be showing up to a meeting like in
Workfill was still right, like we we were grinding, man,
you know what I mean that that's all it was.
It was a grind.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
So you guys have been best friends for years. I'm
just saying, like, all this stuff you've done together.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Dame, Yes, Damon's first day, it's all right. Because now
let's just intro the second house. My brother Dennis goes
out and buys a three family I.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Just want to I'd like to make a note in
this story that in the beginning, you haven't heard much
about his brother Dennis until he realized.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Which is, what's one of the brothers that's bought my
first house.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
My older brother, Stephen. I have a younger brother, Dennis,
who said, you're going to open what with who he's
a fucking idiot but me because I just.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
We was talking to Steve aka Snuff Denny Jones.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Robbed the kid for the last fifteen years, like I'm
a leech, I'm a pariah.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
So Dennis said, nothing to do with the first house.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well he come and Wyatt, Yeah, and he'd work.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
You know, he helped us, but he didn't want Nope,
nothing to.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Do anything to do with the business part of it
with him involved.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
So what he.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Seen was a total transformation of me personally, Like you know,
my mother's not going upstairs with her pocketbook. I'm going
to work. I have Michelle, she's pregnant.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
He saved every penny from work, from his side jobs,
from the solo house Busines has paid his mother back
to four grand that meeting because we could actually we
wouldn't have been able to open without her four thousand
to get the furniture, Like he told you what I mean.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
So yeah, I call her and I go hey, she goes, yeah,
come by and get it. And now my mother don't
have money, She's not like she's a regular person.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
She don't ye four grand, that might have been a
million time might as well. You know, that's a million.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Dollars to it to us, we're regular people. So I
didn't know I was good at this.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
The second she handed me that money was the day
I started paying it back, do you know what I'm saying?
And I never missed the payment, and I was always good.
And you know how they call the wreckage of the
past and bill collectors in this, I had all of
that shit ambulance rides. This that I paid a lady
thirty dollars a month for three years to clear up
an ambulance ride. Credit cards, you know, they'd give you

(33:50):
five hundred dollars credit card, you'd run it through the.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Ring around, you get. I I did all of that shit,
so I'm cleaning that up. Also making my paycheck was
three eighty five. Okay, well, because your credit was probably shit.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Now, yeah, but this is just all like it's I
think it's important now we're hitting these points right, because
this is like it was. It's a lot of work
and we forget it sometimes. But he did every bit
of that as and as much as you see these
mountains in front of you, he took that bill and said,
I can afford thirty dollars month. He started the budget.
He started like, Okay, this is what I make every week.
This is what I can do.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
My friend Anthony taught me about budgeting. He he was
best friends with Denny, and me and him became real
close and like he's the godfather of my daughter. Now
one of my dearest friends in the world. And he
went one way after school.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I went there.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
He went the good way.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, property business, self employed.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
And I go, I can't make I don't make money
like you make money. I can't make it through the week.
And you go, come into my house. Okay, what do
you make a week? Fucking three eighty five?

Speaker 4 (34:54):
I can't pour meats right, And he goes, how many
ice coffeesh you buy this week?

Speaker 3 (34:58):
Huh? How many you bring your lunch to work? What
do you do? This? What? What?

Speaker 4 (35:05):
I was spending unnecessary money? So he goes, you want
to make it through the week with money, here's what
you do. And he wrote down a budget for me,
and I followed it and within a month I saved
my first hundred dollar fill and it was a small
face hundreds bill, one of them old school, hundreds dollar bills.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I still have it in my sock draw. Really, I've
never been week to week since that day.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Ah, that's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yea, that's a big deal.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
That day, big bill that was in whatever, twenty thirteen
or twelve.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, never so.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Right, So his brother's seen all this stuff along with
you can. Whether he's looking at his budget or not,
he's watched what he's done with the house. Bills are
paid on time, Mom's paid back. He's like a different
human being at this point. They've never seen No one
in his family has seen this version of Mattie Powers.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
So that's why the other brother, your younger brother, came
for the second house.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
We don't know about the house. Me and my brother Steve,
and Denny walks in. I take it Sunday titter at
my mother's.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yea.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
He throws the paper on the table. He goes here,
we're potanas. He bought us a house.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
He went, He didn't tell him literally, And this is
how Denny lives his life. He went and bought Franklin
Street right seventeen Dash nineteen Franklin. She went there, bought
it and came over and was like, all right here
I'm in.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
So now all three of us are pot Now I'm
in perfect. I mean this place was a shipthole too.
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:24):
So now now we have Denny on the team. So
now we're all they are working on that house again and.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
So on, and so is the first house making money?

Speaker 3 (36:33):
No?

Speaker 2 (36:34):
So why let me get it? So So listen, the
thing is with the with the house right again, one
hundred and twenty five dollars a week. There's a mortgage
payment that's due, all the other you know, electricity, all
that stuff. So some weeks were full and everybody has
their rent. Wonderful you're getting you know, six six beds
right since opening?

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Has any has rent ever been perfect since the day reopened?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Note and we've never had a week where there's been
one hundred percent. So that's why I say it the
way I say the house can be full, you may
still only have four guys paying rent that week because
they it just you know what I mean. So and
and you know, we built out, We're built we built
the company to be able to survive that because of
the way he started with it. Every single doll that
came in was recorded, hym and I he's got workbooks

(37:18):
still from the time, like we would collect rent on
a Friday to be three hundred and seventy five dollars. Okay,
here you go. I gotta put this three seventy five
in here. And then after three or four weeks, sorry,
I got twelve hundred, but I got to pay the
mortgages seven hundred. I gotta pay this all right, we
got ninety two dollars left. No one touches it. No
one touches it. When I first went to work with him,
he was literally like, hey, I need your help because
I let me tell them.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yeah, after Franklin Street opens, we open Franklin the second house,
second house, thirteen people.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Ah, yeah, I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Now it's like ninety yea yeah, it's there. It's there
full time and a half pumping now trying to run
these and I you fucking can't. So I go to Damon.
I go Damon.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
Now, don't forget. I see Damon every single day. We're
at the same meetings where it's house every Wednesday. He
knows everything that's going on. He's already hanging out at
the houses like he's what are you doing for work?

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Though at that point I was doing junk removal stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Oh I remember that. Okay, so you have your own.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Job, yeah, I mean I was sort of self employed
in the like least loosely way you could possibly mention it.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Okay, go ahead, Manny.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
So now I go, I go, Damon, it's getting a
little too busy for me. But the baby's coming, the
whole nine whatever.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
My life is real life. I go, I need your help. Yeah,
can you come work here? Yeah? All right, I got
no money to pay you, you said him.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Yeah, because none of us had any money, right, nobody
had any money.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
I go, I got no money to pay you.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
So for Damon's first couple of years, probably it cost
him money to come to Chelsea's house. Literally, he'd buy
pizza for the guys, he'd pick up what he would
what he did at first to help out was pick
up the rent on Friday nights. Yeah, Friday night, he'd
pick up the rent whatever, and we'd hash it all out.
He's good with numbers.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Boom. That's it's still his gig.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, and so and the other stuff we do. We
obviously we're doing drug test and a different thing like
all that stuff. So like we you know, I mean,
it was simple as that like, oh, first pick up
the rent, then like we'd have a house meeting. We did,
like just a few different things, like he said, literally
it was costing me money and the fact that A
I wasn't getting paid it was my time, and b
like like literally there'd be times like all right, let's
eat and then no one in the house got money.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, let me ask you a question. I know, you
know he's obviously your best friend, and that's what we
do for our friends, right, we help out. But was
there any part of you that kind of saw what
his vision was or thought in your head like this
could be something big and grow into something big, that
could be a part of that you wanted to be
a part.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Of this Listen. If I'm honest, I'm not really sure
I saw the vision for how big it could be.
What I felt was the moment, right, And the moment
was an extension of what Wednesday Night was for us,
which was all of us coming together and the feeling
of what the program gave us and by the program
me like like naa like like that feeling of feeling
good and helping others was like enough. So I don't

(40:09):
think any of us had like some real crazy vision
about that at that time we even knew, right yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
You no years and no, because I'm the kind of
guy where if you gave me ten million dollars right now.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
You know what I'm you know what I want? What eleven?

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (40:26):
More, whatever it is, I just use ten million. If
you give me two ice creams, I'm looking to taste
a third.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
So maybe in the very beginning it was okay, but
I think after that check, I'm like, I.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Can grow this. Yeah, we can do this, Yeah, I
can you know, I'm growing the plumbing here. Let's do
this here.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
And from like that day forward, when Franklin Street came online,
like we were off and rolling, and we did a
couple of houses a.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Year, and so how many of you at now thirteen?

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Yeah dude, a few years we like doubled in size,
like six to thirteen houses.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
And where are they spread out? What cities?

Speaker 2 (41:06):
So Chelsea, Lynn, East Boston and Maldon, Yeah, we got
one and more Washington right in between Oprahove and Washington.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
I grew up right there there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay,
So do you still a plumbing business business.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Or now not? As of two months ago?

Speaker 1 (41:22):
You let it go because it just became too much.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah, I'm I because I'd never given one thing one
hundred percent and we've done all of this, so if
I can give one thing one hundred percent, god knows where.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I remember when you first started coming in here and uh,
you know, I remember I was asking you about your
plumbing business or whatever, and you're like, dude, the phone
doesn't stop. It's like it's either you know, power of recovery,
the sober houses, the plumbing thing. So so you let
that go. You sold the plumbing business, so that's gone, gone,
all right, So let's get to the power recovery and
how that came about, because now you're switching from sober living,

(42:04):
which people move in they pay rent to. Now you're
talking about insurance and all that whole treatment.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
Yeah, so whatever, we do the sober house thing for
about what twelve ten, twelve years something like that.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, I mean so, yeah, we still we were expanding,
we were growing, and you know, we did see some
places around here has start to open for treatment places.
Early on there was a there was a couple of them,
and we're housing them.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
So that's what happened. Like a lot of those places
they would they would, uh, the families would come in.
Some of the families were coming to people coming from
out of state, and so they needed place to stay.
And we were well known as this is the place
you send your people to because you know, you know,
there's not using in the houses. There's not they're not
letting people get away with stuff.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Like you know, we're the best sober house in the
state of Massachusetts and it's not even a close second.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I know that from its true.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
It's a fact.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah yeah, I know that.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
We try not to stick it out there like that,
but it is the truth, and I think it's important
that we do mention that.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
But I'd say it in my story.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
I've never been the best of anything in my entire life,
never anything. I know for a fact we have the
best sober homes in the state of Massachusetts, and I
won't play a close second to anybody.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Yeah, just the the ship we've done throughout the years.
He actually did it. He made it in a way
where the guys still want to come to us in
the parole offices, still want to send to us.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Do you know how how that is?

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, walk in the line.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
They have both y.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
It was. It was a group effort, believe me, but
it was. We've been We're very, very fortunate. We just
we kept doing what we do, right. We literally took
the Wednesday night that his brother started, that's that snuff started,
and we brought that into the homes. And it didn't
matter how many more beds we got. We kept the
same like, hey, this is your home. This is a
safe place for you to come back to at the

(43:58):
end of any day that you haven't good, batter indifferent
and you're gonna be okay here. And that's literally the
base of it.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
All right.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
So now in the interim, all I know, you want
to get the power of recovery. But in the interim,
now my brother Dennis comes on, my father retires.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
He's now running a maintenance group. So it's like a
family maintenance. We have a houses.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
Yeah, we have a maintenance team that's in the houses
every day. They just keep cycling around the houses, which
keeps our houses at a different standard of everybody else's.
Do we make as much money as everybody else?

Speaker 3 (44:32):
No, is your loved one gonna walk into a nice
clean room.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yes, so you're not a slum lord.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
That's good not even close to.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
No, and then like, uh, change their lives, say Denny
and my father, yeah, stand office against us kind of guys.
As to now, Denny's making side calls to Damon, Hey,
you might want to go over to Franklin Street and
check on Justin.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
He looks like he's having a bad day.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
His father's walking around to a just I'm over my
book like there were his kids, they were those are
the it was wild dude, yeah wild?

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Wait so your Donny Denny has his own career.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Though, No, no, now he's with us full time.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah okay, but he was a he was a licensed electrician.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Yeah wow.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah wow, So he's full time, had his own business everything.
But now yeah he does he's fully yeah wow yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
So it's like twenty twenty, dudet a couple of cans.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I guess I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, so obviously you said the kids, Yeah, this is
what happens. Though, You're like, we're we're at this point
where a few houses and a few years into it there,
I guess going good.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I guess My question to you, Antimaty, right is you
were kept opening more sober House was very successful. What
made you not just continue opening sober houses we.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Have, we still open them. But but he'll tell youstruction right,
so will wild recover? So what what some of the
stuff that we saw he had he had a vision
with some of the things that that we saw along
away and just stop, you know, and miss.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
What happens is people walk in on year sixteen or
seventeen and they see something polished. Okay, he's not dirty anymore.
He's driving a decent car, a nice house.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (46:18):
Life looks put together in my personal life, like I
stayed in that small apartment and drove a free plumbing
drunk for years yep. And then once I got I
had a little pig on side of my bed, a
little awkward pig.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Every night I do a side job. I put money
in that pig in a piggy bank, like a piggy
legit piggy back. No word of a lot really, so
you're ready. Michelle had good credit and no cash. I
had no credit, and I was able to know. I
was able to save up eleven thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
Okay, from sixty dollars fifty dollars, two hundred dollars, I
saved up eleven thousand dollars by driving a free vehicle
and not living beyond my means in Anthony's budget. And
I did that for years, and my son Maddox is born,
and she's already pregnant with my daughter Mia, and was

(47:12):
still in a basement apartment, one bedroom, tiny, big as
these two studios put together.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
I said, we get to buy a house. She goes,
all right, we get to buy a house.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
I find a house Inland, a two family for two
hundred and ten thousand dollars, and I have enough for
a down payment, first time home buyas I go, we
gotta put it in your name. I'll get a gift
from my father to put down and I'll give him the.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Cash yacause first time, three percent.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Two family.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, we buy it.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
She's like, all right. When we moving, I went on,
I make seventeen hundred a month on that. Dude.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
I think this is I think this is the pot
where where you get to tell him that you stole
two houses from your parents.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
So my father and then from buys a house in Saugust.
But my mother's not leaving, Chelsea. My old man just
buys shit and don't tell my mother. Old school relationship
you know, she won't leave Chelsea.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Like buys it for what he wants to live there.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
With my mother Because now all his family's moved up
to Saugust. We're not in Chelsea anymore. She's not ready
to go.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Well, hold on, So your brother is just like your father,
because your brother did the same thing. He bought the house, remember, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
H and just showed up the very similar Ye. Yeah, oh,
I did the same. Except we all know Judy runs
the nest. So when he said about the house, she said,
that's great. What are you gonna do with it? I'm
not leaving.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
So my grandmother and I lived downstairs. Nice house in Saugust.
Upstairs is a different apartment. My father said, I go, Dad,
I getta go rent a place. I just bought another
house in Saugus. It's down on the river. The only
one I could afford. It was two hundred and ten thousand,
come to think of it, both houses with two tens.
Well that was one eighty, but it needed a ton

(48:54):
of work. In comes my brothers and my father and
they go to work and my father goes go live
up there. Just pay half the mortgage until your mother
wants to move.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
I do that my house gets done. I moved in there.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
I see it.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
I end up selling both of them houses and buying
the house.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
I live in now, you know in Sagus.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Yes, yeah, So it was a slow crawl, like, you know,
I'm not out there buying cars or jewelry or anything
like that.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
I'm trying to I'm trying to do it, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
He stole the family home. Okay, he stole their family
home that they were going to buy in.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
He lived there.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Then when things changed, he was like in the he
was in the bottom half at first, then he went
to the other side. Whatever, it's flip flop. So first
he stole from his parents, then his aunt still had
a way to move in.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Then that was the second time when I had to
build the house I live in now, right.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
And then oh yeah, that's right. And then when his
parents were fondly ready to move out of their childhood home,
what'd you do, Matt.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
It's seventeen guys in there. He stole it the house.
I did the house over.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
It's a home.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
So now the guys that live in my bedroom were.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Like, oh my god, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Don't worry. His father got the best thing out of
his father's Yeah, his father is good for the rest
of his life. But yeah, nonetheless, I always I find
it amusing. We like to tell the story I lost
my parents' house. He stole too from his parents, you know.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
What I mean.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
He's a business man.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
Well so, now, all right, we have the best soba
houses in the state. We now have men in women's
houses because we have women running the women's houses.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Me and him are running the men's houses. And I said,
I'm watching these people open these treatment centers, like I
can do this. We could do this. We could do this, eason,
no problem. And imagine what was it?

Speaker 2 (50:51):
What was the exact phrasing that you use when you
were talking to us and your brother brothers about it.
It'll be seem quick quick, quick, and eat quick and cheap. Yeah,
quick and cheapy this week and cheap opening power recovery
quick and cheap wasn't either.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Nope, but I would not give up. I didn't quit
on it. People started losing. No, you got such and
such invested. You might want to like.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
At this point. So now so just to set the stage,
we're talking somewhere around nineteen twenty, right, like twenty nineteen
twenty twenty. He's in the new home. He has a
he has a couple bucks off the not not a
ton of money, but he's got a couple bucks. But
he's prepared to dump his entire life savings into what
it's going to take to open up Power recovery.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
And your brothers are involved in Now, yes, they're gonna.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Help it, but on like, I'm like, okay, let's he
so they weren't fully important. He said, I'm doing it anyways,
I have money, I'll do it. At some point everyone
woke up and go, Okay, we're not going to let
you risk everything, and we're all out of it. Yeah,
but this kid, I did.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
I put my life save yead of into the power
of recovery.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Were you nervous?

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Yeah, I just I don't know. For some reason, He'll
tell you, I just knew it was gonna work. I
just knew it was gonna work. And it was like
no brainer to me, and I knew it. Don't get
me wrong. They would dock bad times with him and
I I took everything my kids had out of the
bank at some point after we open where we got

(52:29):
a payroll where I'm physically going out putting water. Heat
is in taking the money and giving it to the
people to work at power like ship like that.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
That's I think he told me. Maybe it was probably
two years ago. Now, God, time flies, I remember you
had told me you had just gotten your first paycheck
from Power of Recovery.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Because I did Power of Recovery like I did Chelsea Cells.
Nobody took a penny.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
From Chelsea Cells for a few years.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
We worked for nothing for a few years, and Power
of Recovery the same way. When we open a business,
I keep two to three months in reserve, So until
I hit that point, nobody's getting a fund.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Which is a general good tip for anything in life.
You know, you should do that in your regular Right.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
Now, we we're now in a business we know nothing about.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
I was just gonna say, when you get into that
part of it now, right. We opened in May of
twenty one, so COVID is still a big thing at
that point in time. We're opening an in person facility. Yeah, dude,
it was absolutely wild, all the stuff, but like again,
he had a vision, he had these things. When we opened,
he had twenty maybe maybe ten twenty k left to

(53:41):
Oh yeah, that was it was he was like literally
like he's not kidding. He's talking about like he had
a vision he believed in it, which one hundred percent he did.
But you know there's a point in howhere he's looking going,
Oh my god, dude, Like and insurance is a minimum
forty five to sixty day. Wait once you get people
in the building right one day.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Now you're in a different world before me and Damon
are running sober houses.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Now I think Mari's on.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
The scene, Steve, Yeah, and we're just going to work.
We could talk to the people we're doing room check.
Here is this that I now need a medical director,
clinical director, I need.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
An l I C. S W. All these letters.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
And you can't put in those positions.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
And and to be honest with you, right, like we
our experience, what we know about treatment is the places
we've been in. We don't have any you know what
I mean when it comes to experience with running that
kind of a business, Like you know what I mean,
like what we what we took, what what he took,
what his vision was to do, what we tried to
do throughout over the years, and what he's always done
is just put people in a place that know what

(54:48):
they're doing, right, No enough to know that. You don't
know that. I don't know how to do that. So
let me get the right person to do that.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
All the way till the book ends, like we we
had his God.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
Send help me with the plumbing company. We call them
Mikey QuickBooks.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
In his first day there, I'm like, what do you
think of the office? He goes, Oh, you run a
perfect office. If it was nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Minutes like I got shit on Napkins, I got into back.
Oh hey, I don't know what a balance sheet is.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Should we call Mikey QuickBooks because he essentially introduced QuickBooks
to the company for us to.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
So he had to come in and now anything financial
with that balance and this that I follow his leap,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
He tells me what I can spend.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Go ahead, And I want to point something out here,
so it should be noted right that if you listen
to Maddie's story. So when we get clean, you know,
typically we get sponsors, right. It doesn't have to be
one person. It could be separate persons. They're just people
that are mentors. People that we listen to that have
come before us, that have you know, experience, and you
know that's where you have to put your hands up

(55:57):
and say I don't know anything and I want to learn,
and you do that like with a sponsor, right, But
then you have to apply that in life. And you
see that with Maddie.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
What was the other kid's name that you grew up
with that taught you how to do the budget? Anthony,
that's a good example. And then you have quick books,
so you were you had an open mind and you
were willing to learn, like I don't know what the
fuck I'm doing, teach me, you know, I think that's
a really should point that out.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
You know, we still do it today. I still do
it now. Like now I still do it. I'm looking
to do some projects somewhere about something it's out of
my realm. I know this guy, that's what he does
to bring him on, Like you know what I'm saying, dude, do.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
You understand that? You know, for people that are listening
to this podcast, like you've you've dropped a lot of
gems here, Like your story is really really inspirational, especially
if it's somebody that wants to open a business or
wants to even save money. You know, it's it's really
amazing not to ship in your story, and your story
is still coming, Damon, don't worry, but it really is amazing.

(56:59):
So so okay, so you get the facility. Now you
have to get the insurance companies, which is sure. It
wasn't easy.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Well for me, impossible. Damon can wrap his head around
that shit better than I can.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Sure, do you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
So I'm way better at day to day structure in
where somebody's supposed to be and what they're supposed to do.
Damon is way better at reading an email that has ur.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
L LC blah blah blah. I don't he knows that shit.
I don't do your job. I'll do my job.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah, And I'm terrible at like keeping a schedule start
like So it's perfect. It's like a marriage made in heaven.
When it comes to what we do. He keeps me
on track and I explained the big words. It's about
as simple as that.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I mean, it's a good team. It's gonna make a
good team. But so then when I when I came
on board, right, you just had one section in Revere
of the office.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
And then when I was there, you were like, we're
gonna do this and that, tear down this wall. Yeah.
And then I came back and then it was.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
All we're currently looking for a place in Revere to
grow to. We grew out of the way, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
see what we did now day one of open.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Wait, did you have to pay to do all the work?

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah? No, the land lets said hey, let me hold you.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
No, I know. So now you're going to move somewhere
else after you did all.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
The grown out of it. Man, oh boy. So day
one of opening with sitting.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
In the group room, we don't know how to you
have to open these places out of network.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
That's yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
It's insurance stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Due. Now here's your p PO insurance.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
That's your cream I have? Okay you oh, you have
the best insurance in the world. Okay, did you have
that when you were using?

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Dam right?

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Actually, when we opened the doors, great story, neither one
of us could go to our own place. This is
what I was getting your insurance he had at least
he had health insurance.

Speaker 4 (58:55):
Then I'm sitting in the group room and my brothers
and the Damon's yeah, I go, let me see your heer,
and Scott's Damon, no, Steven, no, Dennis, no.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Met I go.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Guys, Yeah, we don't have good enough insurance to go
to our own fucking program.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
We own it. We can't get in here. So my
older brother's like, you better fucking fix that right away.
This is a why, Like, all right, okay, I don't
know what I don't.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Know, and we knew. The other piece of it, just
real quick, is that most of the population that we
deal with, at least initially and more often than not
for quite some time in the Sova houses is the
mass health populations, the medicaid populist people. Right, That's who
we are. That's who we were then, and so we
saw we had a problem.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
So Damon said out.

Speaker 4 (59:40):
It took us a while, and now I see why
people don't deal in mass health because they're a pain
in the ball.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
It's brutal.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Is it a pain to get paid?

Speaker 3 (59:48):
It's a pain for everything. Okay, yeah, it's a pain
for everything.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
What do you take mass health?

Speaker 3 (59:53):
We credentialed with all of mass health, not one that
we don't not one that we don't take. Really, So
now We've been to live in harmony with PPO insurance
all the way to mass health insurance.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
We figured it out because it's HMO p PO.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Yeah, and then all the medicaids. Yes, And you could
walk into a place and you wouldn't know the difference
between which guy came from mass AVA and which guy
came from the corporate office.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
It's wild.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
So you take all insurance every everything, Like, how do
you even do that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
We find I'm the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Yeah, either what do you do? Make phone calls?

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
And it's a lot of work, dude, And again I'm
gonna sit in the same thing. He trusts me to
do that, but I do the same thing. I pick
up the phone because I'm like, I've never negotiated a
contract with a billion dollar corporation. Can somebody help me?

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
So you know, you just ask for help and you
go through it, you know, and you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Holy shit. Yeah, So, how many people does this power
recovery hole? Like why like how many day treatment people?

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
So, like he said, for for the for the power
recovery side, we're dealing with, uh, over three hundred people
a day. Wow, census is over three hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
So now you're looking for another place.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
It was three fifty four this morning. Yeah, not that
I look.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
So now you're out growing it, So now you have
to find a bigger facility.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Yeah, because not everyone there's not fifty four people in
the building at the same time. But like nonetheless, with
that much traffic and people coming in in the needs,
we need to have more space. Very parking, right, parking,
every bit of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Okay, he's taking a picture in the middle of the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
Yeah, they want to know where the hell I am radio?

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Do you have to leave?

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Can you do the docu sign I sent you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Like, I'm busy business business business.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Okay, So Paul Recovery, you're looking for a new bigger,
bigger spots. You're grown.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
That's good news. Yeah, that's really good news.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Yeah. So if anybody got a biggest spot out there
in the REBA, are you don't.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Want that wants to donate it or something? Yeah, we'll
take donations. Yeah, yeah, any bank that wants to do business,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Yeah, God, your your world is you guys' world is because.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
It's far didn't know how to do what I'm doing
better than me, and I want to meet them people.
Do you know what I'm saying. I'm hamstrung. I'm like,
she just mentioned who she interviewing. She's interviewing the president.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
President.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
If I got a guy like that with his connections
and stuff, it's endless what we could do. We've been
doing this from our own paychecks, saving up for a
down payment, getting some equity, saving up, and it's a
slow burn. If I got introduced to real business people,

(01:02:29):
sky's the limit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Yeah, absolutely know what that may come.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Maybe, Yeah, Lisa, Lisa did a solid earlier. She said,
throw me on the guest list. I'm definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Oh yeah, you guys are in. Just let me know,
let me know if you want to go. That's coming
up next Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
I'll be there, Dude, you can count on me. I'm
gonna convince him. I'm sure it's not gonna take a
lot to you know, it's a it's a multi level
thing for us. It's obviously portnoy, local guy who likes
you want to talk about making it. But then also
obviously like know the event, Lisa supporting you guys, all
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
It's yeah, we'd love we'd love to have you her
book Clubs and Nuts do it. Good Night Live sold out,
it's crazy, crazy, crazy, all right, man, do we do
we miss anything here? We did? We do we do
right by you? Do you think on the second half?

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
I think I think that the people find out, yeah, yeah,
that the they can come. But I think I think
he did pretty good. He hit a lot of heavy points.
I think, just like you said, like if you really
bring this whole thing back, like he was smart enough
to know way back when that he needed help and
and like not only knew that, but then asked like
right like and that's like for us when we're talking
about like and the things we do, like you know,

(01:03:37):
the commercials, all different stuff we talk about, Like, it's
literally that in the moment when you're in the middle
of it early on and you don't know what to do,
Like we're offering you an opportunity to just pick up
the phone and ask for help. We may not have
the answer, I promise you. We know somebody who does.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
That's what I love about you guys, Yeah, because it
really is about helping people.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
Right, Well, it's simple. You mentioned sponsorship. My first sponsor
was Chip, Right, everybody knows Chip. He's not with us anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Good friend of mine.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
He's the man who taught me in coloon one night,
I'm sitting there eating with him that driving an unregistered,
uninsured cop is weighing on my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
I just don't know about it. Life like. Yeah, but
your two years sober now, you can't do that. Come
to find out, every time a cop pole behind me,
I would think about it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Nowadays, don't care. Now I have another sponsor, Randy. Everybody
knows him, loves him. He's the man that teaches me.
Just because I think it, don't mean I have to
do it. You have to do the next right thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
You're not responsible for your thoughts, You're responsible for your actions.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Yes, okay, so you take both waves of that from
my infancy till now. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
As a grown up, just because it runs through my head,
I don't have to think it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
I don't have to do it or say it. Keep
it in your fucking head, stupid, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
He still struggles with that hair.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Yeah, well you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
I mean everyone, Well.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
I am left to my own devices, unchecked and unmanned.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
I got a good idea.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
I will be on a park bench. Yeah, that's the
best my brain will get me the same insane.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Park bench again again. Yeah, it's waiting for you, literally
waiting for us. So all right, Maddie, thank you job man,
it really is and uh you Damon will do you
next time?

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
I'm sure I can't wait for this. What's gonna be
funny is like you know, Maddie told his story part
one and part two and you had like mine. But
more importantly, Damon's commentary. Just wait for Maddie's commentary.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Yeah, we might bring in we might bring in Katie
for this one.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Oh yeah, will you please?

Speaker 8 (01:05:47):
I'm actually Weberg's Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Right next to you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Who's gonna babysit?

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Huh oh yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
You got like ten kids?

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Yeah, and it's summer time. You want me to bring
him in the studio, this place will be upside down?

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Dude, try of trust. I mean I only have two,
but I understand you for sure. So Damon story is
coming up next. Guys, Power of Recovery. People need help.
What do they have to do?

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
They just reach out at Powerofrecovery dot org or you
can call us at eight five seven fifty six power
that's eight five seven five six seven six nine three seven.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Yes, they'll be back and you guys be back next month. Yeah,
so leave it. Talk back. If you have anything you
want to say or add, or if you're angry with
Maddie for whatever reason, leave a talkback.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yeah it's easy to be angry at him, so don't
be shy.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
I always got to be the bad guy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
No, it's worked, No, it's worked well for us.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
I'm always the bad guy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Yeah, it's okay, it's all right. You guys are a
dynamic couple, so leave it. Talk back, and I will
be sure to play it back for them next month.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
All right, thank you guys, Bye, everybody, Bye,