Embodied Recovery: Reconnecting Addicts To Their Truest Selves

Today, I sit down with Michael Nolan, co-founder of Embodied Recovery (with Greg Vorst, who was unable to make it today) and a man who has spent over a decade helping others break free from addiction by reconnecting to their truest selves. Mr. Nolan shares his personal journey from early substance use at age fourteen to finding lasting sobriety through rigorous honesty, self-awareness, and spiritual healing. Together, we explore how his experiences shaped his mission to change how people approach recovery — not just as a process of abstinence, but as a journey of embodiment, authenticity, and transformation.

Mr. Nolan opens up about growing up as the son of an NFL coach, moving frequently, and feeling disconnected from himself and others. That disconnection, he explains, was the root of his addiction — the loss of his authentic self. After multiple relapses and arrests, it wasn’t until he met Dr. Barry Rosen, who challenged him to face his dishonesty and build a foundation of truth, that recovery began to take root. Through his work with Embodied Recovery and the Empowered Living Teaching Series, Mr. Nolan integrates breathwork, inner child healing, and spiritual awareness to help others heal on a deeper level.

We also discuss the philosophy behind Embodied Recovery — going beyond the traditional 12 steps to address mental, emotional, and spiritual roots of addiction. Mr. Nolan explains how his program’s structured breathwork, creative healing, and community-based practices allow clients to ground themselves in the present, regulate their emotions, and develop a sustainable recovery lifestyle. His story proves that recovery is not just about quitting substances — it’s about rebuilding connection, integrity, and identity.

https://www.embodiedrecovery.com/

Website: https://coupleonukes.com

Exodus, Honor Your Heart, & Thrive Alcohol Recovery: https://www.coupleonukes.com/affiliates/

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today we are going to be talking Addiction Recovery. We're gonna integrate one of the things that I've mentioned a few times on the show, which is. Breath work. There's a lot of different styles of it.

It's trending a lot more, but I think some people don't have the proper understanding. And we're gonna talk today about that role. It has in addition, recovery along with other things, including our personalities. Maybe not trying to change who we are, replace who we're, but manage who we are. So we're gonna get into a lot of interesting conversations today here with.

Michael Nolan, one of the founders of Embodied Recovery, and we're gonna get into it. Mr. Nolan, could you please introduce yourself for us? Sure. Hello everybody. So my name is Mike Nolan. I am an addict in recovery. Got clean and sober in 2007 and then started working in the field of addiction treatment in 2010.

I met my fellow co-founder, Greg Forrest who unfortunately is under the weather today. We usually like to do these things together, but we started embodied recovery in 2019 and we've been helping people struggling with mental health and addiction issues since then. Of course. And I'm gonna go back to the question I always like to ask.

What have you determined, unless you're still in the process of figuring out, but so far, what have you determined to be the root cause of your addiction? Kind of what started that. Oh gosh. The root cause I guess it would be a real disconnection from an authentic experience of self. I think I had a lot of experiences earlier in life where my expression of like personal freedom or I'd get really excited about things.

I had a lot of positive energy. And I was shamed or, told to be quiet or keep it down or, don't be so hyper. And so I internalized a lot of those messages and felt like it wasn't okay to be me. And then I moved around a lot and because of my dad's career and in those moves, I found that drinking and using was an easy way to to not care about what other people think, but also to kind of.

Connect in some of these social circles where I was always the kind of the new kid in school. So I, I'd say maybe the, the underlying cause for me was just a disconnection from my truest self, an authentic experience of self. And how old were you again when you started? Oh, so I started using when I was maybe 14, 15.

And then first time I went into treatment I was 20 but didn't end up getting sober until I was 23. So when you started at 14 years old, what did that look like? Was that stealing alcohol from just where you could find it in your parents' home? Was it going out and getting stuff with older students?

What did that look like? Yeah, it's a good question. So some of that was certainly there, had some, some friends in school who had older siblings that were able to, to get alcohol or friends that would take liquor from their parents. But I was just thinking prior to starting. My substance use, I was I had this tendency of being sneaky.

And so I remember when I was maybe 10, taking change from my parents' drawer and riding my bike down to the, the corner store to buy some candy without them knowing. And so there was always just this, this maybe natural rebel inside of me that wanted to break rules and test limits. And so, but the, the substance use piece, yeah.

Started mostly with just friends that, that were able to. Buy alcohol or older siblings that could buy alcohol or take it from their, their parents. But for me it just started with smoking weed and then that kind of progressed over time into trying other things. For sure. And you mentioned the beginning, kind of some of the ways your parents talked to you kind of affecting your self worth and value.

And so as you went into addiction, did that parental child bond get strained even further? Did they even know about this or were you good at hiding it? Yeah, it's a good question. I, I guess I'd say, I was good at hiding it until it became such a prominent part of the way I was living, that it was impossible to hide any longer.

And so, I think that those experiences that I had where I was kind of made wrong for being really high energy and, and excited and, and really positive, that was more like the, the social shame, like it was friends or peers in class. Oh, okay. And, and so my I guess so my dad was a, a football coach and he coached in the NFL my whole life.

And so we would move almost like every four years he'd be with a new team. And so there was this, this strange. Kind of connection with new friends at a new school because it was, yeah, it was like, Hey, can, can you get me tickets to the game? Or, like if the, if the team played poorly, then, like I'd catch some strays because of it.

And so, it was just, it was, it was odd, but I think that my parents to their credit were, were doing the best that they could. Without knowing the, the neighborhood that we were in, or, like, it's not like I had friends that I had known since I was, 3, 4, 5 years old. Right. It was, like we'd go somewhere new.

I'd connect with some people. My, my parents wouldn't know who they were, and their question was like, are they, are they a good kid or not? And be like, yeah, they're great. And, and they would take my word for it. And so, yeah. Yeah, I just I think that that. That relationship definitely got worse though, as, as I was prioritizing my substance, use my partying more and more.

And then in their mind it's like, what's wrong with you? I remember there was a, I had taken a bottle of alcohol when I was 16 and I hid it under my bed. My mom found it. And then her first question was like, what's so wrong about your life that you need to be hiding alcohol under the bed? And in my mind, I wasn't thinking, everything is so terrible, I just want to get hammered.

It was like I just want to drink and have a good time. So I, I didn't have any of the psychological insight necessary to recognize some of these behavioral patterns and why I was doing what I was doing. It was just, I was just having fun. I'm very impressed by your, your mother's question and reaction.

A lot of parents, I think would've acted very differently. That's a, that was a really good question on her end. And, as we move along, this takes us to the end of high school. I know you mentioned the age 20 earlier, so that means two years after high school. So what was going on in that time?

Yeah, so, I had, so I was living in outside of Baltimore, Maryland graduated high school and then I was applying to colleges. I didn't have a, a great GPAI wasn't super invested in, in college. I was just gonna college 'cause that's what you were supposed to do. And so I ended up getting accepted to East Carolina University.

I went there and, and that was more like, you ever seen the movie Blow with Johnny Depp where he talks about, like, he, he gets in trouble and he gets locked up and he goes to, to prison with like a, a bachelor's degree in like minor criminal behavior, and he leaves with like a doctorate in like a, a criminology.

And so it felt like I, I went to college with some experience of substance use and partying, but now it was like. I had all of this freedom. I felt like my parents were so strict, I had a curfew, I couldn't do what I wanted. But again, from their side of things, it was like, we don't know any of these people.

Like we're not, we're not from here. Yeah, of course we grow up with these folks and so we just wanna make sure that you're being safe. And for me, I took it as like, they're so rigid, they're so controlling, they're not letting me do what I want. And now here I am at ECU and I've got all of this freedom and I completely, took advantage of that freedom. And so, I was, I was trying whatever drugs I could find and was maybe attending one class every couple months. And and so, the, the day that they came to pick me up at the end of that freshman year. I had gone out the night before I blacked out. I was in my bed, still in the same clothes as I was in from the night before.

And my parents are like, what are you doing? What's going on? And I'm trying to tell them that like, I failed outta college while just completely hung over. And I just remember how disappointed that they looked. But again, I just, I took it as they're so disappointed in me. Here I go again. Being a failure, it, it was hard for me at the time to see.

The, the consequences of the choices that I was making had landed me in that spot. Right? I was just like, living out of this place of, I'm terrible. I always make the wrong choice. And so that was, that was, yeah, at like 18 and then went back to Baltimore, did like a, a year of Baltimore community college. And then, I had at that time Oxycontin was really taking off and it was.

All over like the high school that, that I was going to, and I had never tried it. And, and I remember a friend saying that he had some and I had some cocaine. And he said, I never tried that. I said, I never tried that. And, and I remember when I was younger, hearing, don't do drugs 'cause you could get addicted the first time you use something.

And in my mind it didn't really make sense. Like, I'm just gonna take something and then turn into some drug addict that can't stop using. I didn't get that, that concept. And then I just, I remember the first time I used Oxy feeling like, this is what normal people feel like all the time. That, that it wasn't like I'm just this euphoria is so amazing.

I wanna keep doing it. It was more like, it, it had corrected the emotional problems that I had been living with for such a long time, and I felt like this was the default that normal people got to experience that I was only allowed to experience now that I was using. And, and then from there it was like, well, I definitely wanna do that again.

And I think that was, that was really where things kind of took a turn. And then I was. Using opioids moved on to some harder things and, and then it just like, stealing from my family. And just turned into somebody that I was really ashamed of. And then, got into some legal trouble, got arrested three times and like six months.

And then my dad got a job out here with the 49 ERs. And and when we moved out here. I was told I needed to do a residential treatment program or else I was, I was gonna go to jail. And so as soon as we landed in the Bay Area, I'm taken to a residential treatment program. I'm 20 years old. I stayed there for 30 days.

It was, it was a nice break. I felt like I don't have a drug problem. I just got in trouble for smoking weed. 'cause the law in Maryland are too strict. And and I remember telling my counselor that I was. I was turning 21 a couple weeks after I was supposed to discharge from the program and I said, oh, I'm looking forward to, getting back home and, and, have a couple drinks on my 21st birthday.

And my counselor looked at me like I had two heads and was like, what are you talking about? Are you confused about where you are right now? Like you're in treatment. Why would you have a couple drinks to celebrate your 21st birthday? And I said, well, alcohol was never my problem. And so it in my mind, again, I, I was still operating under this idea that, when I smoke weed, I smoke all day every day. And the, the opioids have certainly been a problem, but I wasn't using them too much. But again, this was just the, the system of denial that was so. Active within me that I kind of had this hierarchy of substances as, which would be most problematic.

I, I got outta treatment. I stayed sober for maybe a couple more months. I didn't drink on my 21st birthday. I copped a huge resentment, was upset that I didn't drink on my 21st birthday, and then one day decided to have a beer with lunch at Chipotle. And the sky didn't fall and nothing terrible happened, but I thought, okay, I can drink.

And then I, I started drinking every now and then. My parents would gimme, looks like, why are you drinking? And I'd say, well, I'm 21, I can drink. And they said, yeah, I know, but you know, like you just went through this whole program. I said, yeah, I know, but it's, alcohol isn't really an issue. They kind of said, okay, we will see.

And then that led to me again seeking out weed and then seeking out pills. And so it was just this, it was like drinking, cracked that door open wide enough for me to see what I really wanted on the other side. And when I saw what was over there, then it was just, I, I blew the door down and, and was back to doing what I was doing before.

A lot of people who have been on the show have shared something similar where they separated alcohol and drugs into two different categories, and always, if drugs were the villain in their life, then then alcohol was fine. Or if alcohol was the villain in their life, then drugs were fine. There was never a.

Oh, maybe they kind of do similar things or get abused for similar reasons. It was always like, no, they're two different things and so I can do one and not the other and vice versa. And it's interesting that justification, but again, I've had guests on the show and I've shared from my own personal life, stories of people who justify alcohol based off the type of alcohol, saying, oh.

I'm drinking beers, not vodka, or I'm drinking gin, not, vodka, whatever it is. Like people will, or I had a guy who was like, it's only soju. Like, and then, oh, it's, the holidays are such a big problem because they, these. Days that were socially e expected to celebrate, become such a, a drinking day, right?

It's like your 21st birthday. It, it, it is set up. It's, it is just a regular birthday, right? Mm-hmm. And yes, you can start drinking, but so many people have. Glorified and glamorized this day that most people who, people who aren't even interested in alcohol feel like they have to drink on their 21st. Like they just have to, even if they never drink again, they have to drink on that day.

And it's, it goes into those societal expectations. Same thing if like, you're an Irish person and St. Patrick's Day comes around, you don't drink. What, who are you? You're not a real Irish, right? So there's a lot of these stigmas and these different stereotypes and expectations that play into it. And so you talked about going to treatment, obviously it.

To a degree and, and to another degree. So when was the, the, I'll call it the permanent turning point of where you got recovery? Yeah, the, the, so the, the permanent turning point. So that would've been when I was 23 and, and it was interesting. So, up to that point. It, it was it was clear that what I was doing wasn't working.

And and I remember my mom, she'd say why do you keep doing these things? You know that it's not good for you? Why do you keep choosing to use drugs when it's killing you? And, and I said, like, I don't know. And, and in her mind it was like I was just blowing her off. But I, I, I, seriously, I didn't know, like, I, I didn't understand.

Why I kept doing something that I didn't want to do, but I couldn't not do it. And so, it, it, for me, I, I needed to be sort of taken out of the environment that was so easy for me to keep doing what I was doing. And, and so when I was 23, I, I landed in a, a treatment program that was started by a guy named Dr.

Barry Rosen. And he's since passed away, but he. He changed my life. Like he, he was someone, and, and there have been a number of people along my path of recovery that that have changed it in a really positive way. But he, he had this gift of being able to call me out on behaviors. That that I was so ashamed of that I was embarrassed about that, to, he would say that I was a pathological liar or that I was manipulative, or that I was, he called me a bottom dwelling dope fiend.

And, and, and I remember hearing this and almost like being in shock. But in, in him calling me out for my dishonesty. I didn't feel like he was judging me for being a liar as much as he was saying like, Mike, your dishonesty is a huge problem, and if you want to get well, you need to take care of this.

You need to tend to this dishonesty problem, and you need to practice rigorous honesty every single day. Every time you tell a lie, you need to clean it up right away. If you don't clean it up right away, you need to clean it up as soon as you can. You cannot continue to tell these little lies. Over and over again and expect to continue avoiding the natural consequences of your choices.

If you want to change, you need to start with a foundation of honesty. And when I did that, it was super uncomfortable and I felt so embarrassed and and it filled me with anxiety to, to be truthful with people. But what I noticed was that when I was honest I didn't have to file those lies away in the back of my head and then keep track of them.

Across all of these different relationships. And then I was able to actually be in the relationships that I said were so meaningful to me. And so, so Dr. Rosen was a, a huge influence in my early recovery. I was in residential treatment for 30 days. And then another big part of the process for me was that.

I, I had it in my mind. I'll do another 30 days, I'll get back to school. I was playing lacrosse at San Jose State. I was thinking like, I'll be able to play sports again. And he said like, what are you talking about? Like, why would, why do you have any business going back to school? You can barely take care of yourself.

Why do you think you'd be able to actually get good grades and show up for things? You need to stay focused on your recovery. I pushed back. I was upset. But I, I, I did what they suggested because I was at a place where I didn't want to go back to what my life was like. At the time. I was wandering the Tenderloin District of San Francisco in the middle of the night.

I had no business being there. It was a dangerous place, and I was really setting myself up for some serious trouble. And, and I, I had a night where I saw that as my future and I didn't want that. And so, when he said, this is what you need to do, I, I, I listened and I said, at the very least, if this doesn't work out, I can say that he was wrong and he doesn't know what he's talking about.

But when I listened and I did the things that were being recommended. My life got better. People started trusting me more. I, I was responsible again. I was able to do things from a place of greater integrity, and I felt better about myself. And so I did their day program for another four weeks after residential.

So I was going there every day, Monday through Saturday. From like nine to four. And then after that I did an intensive outpatient program, which was like three nights a week from six to nine. I was working, two part-time jobs. One at Nordstrom stocking shelves and one at Starbucks as a barista.

And, and that was just my routine. Like I was going to meetings, I got a sponsor, I started working steps, and, and I was I, I was. Signing up for an intensity of recovery that was recommended. I was told that this is what you need. If you wanna get, well, these are the steps that you need to take. And I was just, like I said, I was at a point where I was willing enough to, to listen and, and it and it got me results.

And the more I did it, the more life opened up and the better I felt about myself, and the better I felt about myself, the more I wanted to keep doing this. And then it was like, what would it be like if I could have a career helping other people? And then I went back to school and started working as a counselor.

And at what point did you meet? We mentioned in the very beginning the co-founder with you, Greg, when did you meet him? So Greg and I met working at an outpatient program in 20. 17, I guess maybe like March of 2017. And and so Greg had a lot of experience in like spiritual communities. And so he was a spiritual aspirant and was reading a lot of spiritual literature and was going to school to be a therapist.

And so when he and I met. He was an associate therapist working on getting the hours he needed for licensure. And, and, and we had this experience where I had talked to him just about how much the, the rooms of the 12 steps had changed my life. But that there was such a, there, there were more levels beyond.

12 step recovery that would address Yeah, the, the emotional hangups, the spiritual hangups, the, the ongoing movement into recovery. And he was saying that he had these experiences in spiritual communities where there was such a lack of recovery where people were doing this bypass work around on their underlying mental health and codependency issues.

And saying, because I'm spiritual, I don't need to do some of this more foundational work. And, and it felt like, we, we just. We really resonated with each other and in our stories and in our histories. And he had so many of these qualities that I admired and Dr. Rosen and, and so watching him work as a therapist was, was exciting and it was fun and he was getting results and and people were really healing.

And so, that program unfortunately closed and we moved into working in a residential program together. And that was where we were able to really. Kind of co-create the teachings of our Empowered Living Teaching series and start working with the clients and staff in a more collaborative way to see if some of the ideas that we would have would really yield the results that we thought that they could.

And and they did. And then in 2019 we, we had an opportunity to start our own program and and we did. And at what point did the Empowered Living Podcast come into play? Yeah. That's a fun question. So that so in in 2020, so during COVID we had talked about wanting to, offer these teachings to the family members.

So the clients in treatment, we would, we would do these teachings one every week. And so we would cover topics like boundaries, codependence, family systems, neurobiology of addiction habit formation. And so, early on in the the start of Embodied Recovery, we would have the clients and the families there together.

And then it felt like the, the, having the families and the clients made it hard to get to some of the educational material. COVID happened and then it was just the clients and then we thought, well, maybe we can do this once a month. So we'll present one of our teachings to the whole community.

Anybody that wants to attend can do that. They can come via Zoom. Since we weren't having people come to the center, and so we started doing that once a month via Zoom and we thought, maybe we could turn this into a podcast one day. But that was, that was in 2020. And then the program picked up, we got busy, we weren't really able to continue with those monthly talks until this year.

So in the beginning of 2025, we, we said, we want to get back to doing this teaching series for the community. Invite people in to experience the work that we're doing. And then we've been. Recording those episodes. We just did one last night. That'll that'll be posted here within the next week or so.

And, and so that was sort of the, the beginnings of it was just this, this teaching series that we felt so excited about and wanting to offer it to the families, but didn't have that that way of, of getting it to them. So we thought we'll just do it open for everybody. We'll record it and then we'll put the episodes up on online.

Right now you mentioned going beyond the 12 steps. What does Embodied Recovery kind of go into that sets it apart from other practices and, other traditional recovery methods? Like why would people want to go there and, and what are the benefits and some of the, testimonies and results that y'all have had?

Yeah, that's a good question. I guess, in, in speaking about what sets us apart, I, I don't want it to come across as if it's like, what sets us apart or makes us better than others. I think that there are a lot of great programs out there that do some wonderful work with people. One of the things that we noticed over the years working in the field is that so many programs are set up to have.

A great educational component. And so they'll teach on relapse prevention or cognitive behavioral therapy, or dialectical behavioral therapy. But the, the programs themselves don't have much of a core curriculum built out. And, and so much of the results that they get are built off the backs of the clinicians that are facilitating these groups.

So a counselor, a therapist is hired and they said, okay, you're running three groups a week. You can teach on whatever you want. And just make sure you get the notes in on time. And for us we, we wanted to be more intentional about the curriculum that we developed. And so, a big part of our programming is the AL Practice.

So to help people ground themselves. In a practice that is bringing them back to themselves every day is very different than maybe some of some other programs that'll do a yoga class on Saturday. And then blast a, we're a holistic treatment center on their website. For us, we, we really want people to put their recovery into practice, so we want them.

Engaged in this breath work practice that helps to regulate their nervous system, ground them more, so that they have a foundation in which they can feel a greater degree of safety in some of the deeper therapy work that they're gonna be doing in groups and in the individual counseling and therapy sessions.

So the Sundo practice is a big differentiator. The Empowered Living Teaching series is another one. I think that for many clients that have gone to other treatment programs and come to us. They've just shared how how unique the program has been. So many of them come in feeling like, I've already done this.

I've been to 10 different treatment centers. I've seen it all. You're not gonna teach me anything new. And so to hear from them that. The material is presented in such a, a, a unique way, has been exciting to hear. We do a lot of inner child work. We do a healing through creativity group. We do ecotherapy HeartMath and then obviously, like I said, the Empower Living Teaching series and the.

And the Sunbelt practice. So the breath work practice, and the, the process, the emotional process work that's happening in groups is designed to get people into a present centered experience of their issues. Rather than just talking about or having some cognitive awareness of the issue, we're really wanting to pull people into a more lived experience of recovery every day.

Right. And then. Do, are y'all hybrid in a sense that, do you take in-person online, both Only one or the other? What kind of people can attend? Yeah, so we have so our intensive outpatient program is Monday through Thursday from two to five, and it's all in person. We also do some individual addiction counseling and psychotherapy that we prefer to do that in person, but that can also be done virtually with California residents.

And then. We do that AL practice every day. So every morning we're here from 5 45 until about eight in the morning doing that, that practice. And so people are welcome to join that via Zoom. The AL practice is free. That early morning practice isn't for current clients. It's alumni. The intensive outpatient program.

We do that practice twice a week. So, it's not. It's not every day, but we certainly encourage people to engage in that daily practice of the breath work once they've completed the program and they can practice on their own at home. But but yeah, so the intensive outpatient program is in person.

Some of the individual services are virtual and, then the practice is, is both in person and virtual. And then the the last Wednesday of every month, we host that Empowered Living Teaching Series talk here at the center, but we also have that available to people if they wanna join via Zoom. Yeah.

And to, if there's anyone listening right now who is struggling with addiction recovery or, whether they're still actively using or just finished a recovery process and they're in that post use, in that, in that sobriety phase, what would you say to them? Him, mm. That you're, you're never. Too far gone to to turn things around that that help is available.

That there are people out there that, that care, that are are willing to walk you through this process. That you don't have to do this alone. That, that you're not fundamentally broken or unfixable, but that there is, there is real tangible hope for change. Now the, the process requires some humility and patience and consistency.

But if you're, if you're, they say in 12 steps, if you're willing to go to any lengths then, then you can definitely get this. There was a period of time in my life when I was going to meetings and thinking. Why am I not getting this? And they'd say, the only people who we've seen fail are those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.

And I thought, there we go. That's right. That's me. I'm constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself. That's why I'm not getting this. When in reality it was that I was going to my dealer's house before the meeting, getting high in the parking lot, and then going into the meeting like, maybe I'll hear something that's gonna change my life.

I was, I was living in a very delusional state of mind. I think that's a, a big thing we've talked about is the intention going in. Right? I've had guests on who said, Hey, rehab didn't work till the fifth time I went, because the fifth time I actually went in wanting to get healed. If you're going in, not with the intention to recover, right?

You're only gonna pick up so much like you said. I think that's a great example. I think, AA isn't a place if AA or wherever you're getting treatment or whatever, it's not a place to meet like-minded people in terms of wanting to keep doing stuff. If you wanna meet like-minded people in terms of recovery, that's great.

But it's not a place to go get a date who understands you. It's not a place to, hang out and, and, and reminisce. It's not a place to also just dwell in the past as a place of recovery moving forward. And you have to go in with that intention. So I think that's part of the reason a lot of people struggle.

Like I said, I've had guests who have shared similar experiences, and on the note you mentioned about it's never too late. This show has been so inspirational to me because I've had people who are in their seventies. And they got sober. I've had people who were addicted for 30 years or more, and I think a lot of times what I've seen in some addicts in the who are a bit older, they just say, it's too late for me.

I've been addicted for X, y, Z amount of years, i've seen the opposite. I've seen people who were addicted for over 30 years, almost, almost half their life. I mean, some of these people, it was actually half of the time they've been alive. They were addicted and they got better. I, I really appreciate that sentiment of it's, it's never too late.

And I think some people just get in that miy pit and they wanna dwell there, and it's not just about the, it's too late to quit addiction. For some of them it's. Too late to, to repent from my actions to, to make up for all the bad I did while I was, addicted for some people, which, is, is crazy things for some of them said, but I don't know who, what kind of person I'll be without the addiction.

Who will I be without it? And so, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It, it can be a, a. A scary prospect to, to think that, like I've, I've relied on this coping strategy for decades and you just want me to give it up. Like, I, I don't even know what life would look like without this. And so, yeah, it, it certainly can be scary and you are making me think about, people that'll say, you have to, you have to do this for yourself. You can't do this for anybody else, or you're never gonna get it until you hit rock bottom. And and I feel like, your bottom is only as deep as when you decide to stop digging. And, and my experience, a big motivator for getting sober was, I have a younger brother, he's eight years younger than me, and, and I felt like.

I had set such a terrible example of, of what it means to be just a, a good man in the world and, and that I don't want him to look at me and think, I can make those mistakes too. And so I wanted to be a better example to him. And, and it was, it, it was just a big motivator for me to get sober.

But then I also was able to connect to. What I wanted for my own life, and, and it was I didn't have the full picture of what I wanted my life to look like, but I knew I didn't want what was, I knew that it, it could be anything different and it will be better than this. And so. Despite going into treatment and wanting to get sober to be a better role model for my brother, I had enough of these moments where I felt like what I was doing was good for me.

That I was getting to know me in a way that that was exciting. And I remember I was, I was holding my parents accountable for so many of the, the bad experiences that I was having in life. And, and I had a therapist that was saying. Mike, it it, it doesn't matter whether your parents come to Family Group, whether they go to Al-Anon meetings, whether they do therapy or not.

It, it has no bearing on what you need to do for your recovery. If you want to get this, it is on you and you alone. And, and I remember thinking that it seems like common sense, but it was just, it opened my eyes. And I thought, oh my God. Like if, if I want this relationship to change, I can't keep demanding.

What I want from them. I need to take responsibility for my life and for what my recovery is going to look like. And when I did that, over time, my relationship with them got better and better. And so, I, I had to work through a lot of these experiences where. Like they wouldn't allow me over at their house and I, I couldn't even just stop by to say hi because I've just burnt that bridge too many times.

Then they invited me over for dinner one night and I said like, oh, this is great. Like things are getting better. And I go over to their house and as soon as I walk in, my mom grabs her purse. She goes and she locks a dinner room. She comes back out and I think, man, I'm just. Such a piece of garbage, like, of, of course she's gonna do that.

And so, but I thought, you know what? It's okay. I'm here. They invited me over. It, it, it'll if I keep doing this, hopefully things will get better in time. So then they invited me over the next few weeks and each time I would come, she would take her purse and lock it in her room and on like the, the seventh or eighth week that they invited me over for dinner.

I came in, said hi to everybody and I noticed that while we were eating my mom's purse was still on the counter. And, and I just remember thinking like, this is, this is working. Like she's, she's not feeling afraid that I'm gonna steal from her. And that like, she, it, she might not have even thought about it.

But for me, just her leaving her purse on the counter was such a sign that that things are improving, right? It felt, it felt amazing and there were so many of these along the way where I started to tune my vision into signs that things were working rather than signs that things were still terrible and it's never gonna get better.

Mm. And that was a big shift too, when I started looking for the things that were affirming my recovery. I started to want my recovery more. Yeah. I've had, guests on the show talk about that recovery can be slow and, and painful sometimes. Especially with, those relationships, whether they're friends, coworkers, family that you have damaged so drastically.

I know I, I had a gentleman who he had to go live with his friend for a couple weeks to prove that he was sober, that his friend, could see that he wasn't drinking, wasn't acting up, and. That's what it was. And I think, like you said, there's gonna be all those small signs of recovery and it's important to focus on those.

And I know it's easy to focus on what is not going right, like you said, but it's important to keep that optimistic shift because. Especially if negative thoughts are what cause you to, to drink or do drugs, you want to minimize those and mitigate those as much as possible. And we're gonna have your website and description below for people to check out your social medias as well as look further into.

The Empowered Living Podcast as well as Embodied Recovery to see if maybe, if they haven't been connecting right, with whatever recovery program they're trying or whatever methods, and maybe this is something new that might connect with them better or to just get information that they can implement into their lives.

So. I wanna thank you for your time today and for coming on the show to share what you have. I hope it really resonated with some people who are maybe in a similar situation or even a different situation or really took and cultivated some life lessons from what you said. Thank you. No, I, I really appreciate the conversation.

It was, it was great to be here. And yeah, if, if anybody has questions, they're always welcome to reach out to us directly. They can find us online. And then we also have a, a nonprofit organization called malos. The website's malo center.org. And then there they can find all of the free offerings, the, the SUNHILL practice, the Empowered Living Teaching Series sober dance events.

So there's, there's a lot of exciting ways that people could connect with the community here.