Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
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Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Day Before Rehab with Anthony & Foose
Today Im joined by Anthony of The Day Before Rehab podcast and Coach Steve Wakefoose of CrossFit West Chester to talk about mens mental health, battling substance abuse & addiction and asking for help.
What's that saying? Oversell? Oh yeah, Oversell. That's how I think of my fitness.
Speaker 2:I've been the opposite I oversell you go out hot, you know how these four three-minute rounds where you rest after the workload for the remainder of three minutes. I'm like fuck you, I won the first round and I'm dead.
Speaker 3:the next three Sounds good to me, man. So, steve, steve, this is my first time working out with you, man. Like what is your jam of a workout that you can't say a two-hour rock?
Speaker 1:no, no, I don't so here across at Westchester, and I just follow our program every once in a while as a coach. I think you have to step outside of the program because maybe your members are talking about something like, oh, why don't we do some of this? And then, or you get an idea, you like to see the shiny object. That's the nerd of me that likes teaching and coaching, and so if I want to deliver something, or if I think something has value, I have to, I think, experience it for myself first. And what do they call it? Like scum works, you know, and like try things out, or crash that stuff, crash that stuff.
Speaker 2:So now you do your programming before you post it.
Speaker 1:So I am no longer involved in programming because there's three of us that are owners and we used to all have a day and sometimes my ideas get a little wild out there. It's just simpler. I like to keep the recipe. Too many chefs spoil the kitchen.
Speaker 1:So, I didn't want to, not that I would want to change our programming, but you know, I'm also. I'm like I have the attention of a squirrel, you know what I mean. Like, hey, squirrel, what whoa? So like I oftentimes read something, see something and be like, oh man, we should incorporate that. Yeah, you should do a little this. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily wrong, but you already have enough incorporated, but we can't. You know what I mean. It's like, ah, you know. And so I just took it. I was like, hey, you know, I don't want to be involved in programs.
Speaker 2:I get it and there's certainly, I think, the way we do it at RAID there's definitely like a linear progression of some sort. It might be broad, but there is a progression to the way we do it. You can have fun Metcons, with all types of shit in there, but the strength part should have some sort of progression.
Speaker 3:I don't have a jam for certain workouts.
Speaker 1:I am just a believer in the methodology, so I think if I do have a jam, I don't need to do it, because then it's just like if it's easy or I like it, that's probably because I'm getting good at it yeah so and I don't think there's anything that I'm like just great at um, for whatever weird reason, I've been a decent deadlifter, like I've always surprised people because when people look at me I'm a lanky dude, a I have short torso, long, orangutan arms.
Speaker 1:My son I have a son who's 30 now and he's cross-fitted and he's coached at other gyms and things and he's like Dad, you're kind of built like a frog and I'm like you know what? You're absolutely right, I have this short little squat torso and I have these kind of long, dangly limbs and maybe that's it, I don't know, but or maybe it's just my exposure to deadlifting. I've always deadlifted at some point in my programming, yeah, so when deadlifts are in it, I feel very confident that I know like I'm gonna be able to do that weight. That's not gonna be the problem, right other things are just they can come and go on me.
Speaker 1:You know, if I fight I got a shoulder injury for a while. So then I avoided a lot of like a lot of hanging and pull up stuff. I'm just getting back to some of that, but you gotta be careful, and when you get a little leery, um, I am, I am if you're asking what I'm good at I'm much better at interval training. Like I can can go and hit something hard and then I know I get a break. Those kinds of things are my jam.
Speaker 3:Interval type training. Anthony, what about you? I feel like you just told us you're the opposite of that, yeah.
Speaker 2:My jam is the sprint workouts, you know where, like the Fran's, the Isabella's, the Grace's, we just have to go as hard as we possibly can for like three minutes. Like that's my jam, as we possibly can for like three minutes, but it's to your point. It's easy for me to sell out in under five minutes, like at our gym. Justin and this guy, greg, they're really good at the long workouts and the only time I have a chance to even beat them is with the sprints, the long duration workouts where you have to pace yourself for 18, 22 minutes. I'm getting better with those. But the short, mid-range, mid-weight barbell with a pull bar, that's always what I've been good at.
Speaker 1:I have a hard time being uncomfortable, and then it's extending Like being uncomfortable and not knowing how to, or the high level foot level floor. I have a hard time with that. So when I do workouts, something like that, it's more of a. I have to think of it from a mental aspect of like I had to practice that yeah. I kind of like suffering a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well done for so long right yeah, but you know how long it should take. Oh, right, ain't in my head, so you're gonna lay us X amount of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:We're like if it's just a five rounds for time, like shit, I don't know if it's gonna play right.
Speaker 1:I hit that wall and I just start fizzling. I'm like I start negotiating with myself.
Speaker 3:So I start going. You know what?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to do this for quality. Yeah, take that control break, it's fine.
Speaker 3:I think it's so funny how the different timeframes on workouts can change how you approach them too. No for sure when you're like okay, this is three rounds for time and it should take around 15 minutes versus a 15 minute. Am rap right? Oh yeah, the intensity that people were gonna bring to those two different things you told us before steve. But do you remember your first crossfit workout?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, um, it was like filthy 50. I think I, I that was the one that sticks in my mind that I remember. So I worked um, I worked in corrections, work through the jail and I kept coming and I'd always been working out.
Speaker 1:You know I did martial arts and then it was like, hey, you gotta, you know, do some other things and you know, lift weights and all that. And then I kept going and looking on the internet about like, oh, what are like SWAT guys do, what are like police officer work. You know things that were like. You know, tactical fitness started becoming this immersive thing when it came out and I kept coming across CrossFit and it was like 100 pull-ups like that, 300 squats, like what that's nuts.
Speaker 2:it did seem so overwhelming right when you started.
Speaker 1:I said that's crazy, because all you saw was that WordPress site and you were like there was no context and coming from like most of us or people my age. It was like bodybuilding, which was like everybody was on steroids. It was like muscle bag.
Speaker 1:You didn't know that, you didn't know that I didn't know that as a kid you know, teenager and PE class and all that. So you're like it was totally like what does that even mean? What is that? So then I just you know I'm a nerd, so I fell in love with the journal and I just started like a sponge watching all the videos reading all those early journals when great class, but used to write them right and I still rely on those in my coaching perspective today.
Speaker 1:It's like you know, it was such groundbreaking, like thinking you were like whoa, like that's, that's deep, but I did the filthy 50. I think I started and I did it in our staff gym so we didn't have wall balls or any of that kind of stuff and I'm like didn't know how to kick.
Speaker 1:I'm like trying to do some kind of a jerky pull, you know jumping pull-uppy thing. Um, well, I think it is. No, it's jumping pull-ups. Yeah, I was like, all right, I get this and um box jumps and stuff like jumping on a bench, and but I like I was so used to, oh, you shouldn't be lifting if your lifting session goes more than 45 minutes and you're not on gear, you, that's, that's probably it. You're at the end, hormonally optimizing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a good workout training and all that and I'm like, oh yeah, I don't want to be doing them. You know 45 minutes. I stopped myself at 45 minutes I think I was maybe halfway because I didn't understand scaling or anything and I was like 25 minute work right so and I think, because I didn't get it, I was trying to do everything that it was telling me to do and, like in my idea, yeah, and so that was like my first work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh man, what about actually? Before I say this, dude, how was, like, the rest of the staff reacting to that, to what you do? Well, they were all bodybuilders.
Speaker 1:Some may have been using a little help here, but they were all like big guys.
Speaker 1:They were, like you know, 200 pound dude that played football yeah, he goes to work in a jail, yeah, yeah and um, I mean, I'm six foot and you know, at my heaviest I think I you know this was I started like in my 20s. I'm 53 now, so I was like my heaviest I ever was. It was 215 and I wasn't fat. I mean, like I like I was working out, I was decent, I had some decent strength and stuff. But here's all these guys like you know, 200 pounds or whatever, and if they were like overweight they would like oh, I'm a powerlifter, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you know, it was like you got to rest a lot these guys were like benching 315, 400 pounds, but they could do a pull-up right on a mile, yeah, so we had a tactical team in the jail and of course I wanted to get on that. You had to be there at least a certain amount of time before you could try out for it.
Speaker 1:Of course, one of the tests is you got to run a mile yeah, um, because you have to have some type of aerobic fitness and most of the guys and people that I worked with they were like there were a lot of people that had been in the military, a lot of Marines or ex-Marines and things like that.
Speaker 1:So they're so drilled into their head, that PMT, that three-mile run and that kind of stuff. So, or mile and a half or whatever it was, I forget, back and forth, yeah. So they were like, oh, what are you doing, your Richard Simmons working between a jazzercise? Yeah, cuz I was like mixing in my strength, I was like all right dude.
Speaker 1:and it's funny because the one guy who was giving me a hard time, he was a really great guy, thanks Scott and he had been overseas, he'd known military men, marines they like re-upped and went back into the Army because he was like, you know, he was about that action, all about that. And he's like yo man, like they just changed our PFT all around because of at that time, greg Glassman and CrossFit were doing this I think was called Operation Phoenix I think that's what it was called when they had teamed up with the Marine Corps to help them revamp their physical fitness test.
Speaker 3:yeah, and so all of a sudden he's like yo, the CrossFit, stuff's like legit you know I know man, you're drinking the Kool-Aid now they've been trying to become like full-time partners with the United States military, like every decade for the past. Like 30, you're drinking the kool-aid now. They've been trying to become like full-time partners, uh, with the united states military, like every decade for the past like 30 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know they've done some things with like the army. Now, like when you go to uh and I don't know if this is still today I just remember when you went to west point because you come out of there as an officer and their idea was hey, it's my, whether I'm in charge of however many men I'm going to be in charge of, it's going to be when we are deployed and out in the field it's my.
Speaker 1:It's their job to keep your men fit yeah and so they everybody that went through West Point, I think got a CrossFit level one certification yeah, as part of their and I was thinking about this before I got here.
Speaker 2:I started CrossFit the year before Rich Brodin won his first one. So was that 14, 13? No, it might have even been longer than that. That's it. So he got what? Five four he?
Speaker 3:got four or five and then it was brain and then yeah, so he probably I think Fraser took his first one at 17. I think Ben won at 16.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there was a gap with Ben and Rich, I think. Well, it was.
Speaker 3:Rich went four in a row and then Matt thought he was going to get the next one, but Ben got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ben took him out, and then Matt went on his five-win streak, so let's call Rich's 11. Yeah, so it's been like 13, 14 years, but you know, trainer, I was a strengthening conditioning coach in college but yeah, I always had you. But to your point, with the workout, the filthy 50 the first one that I know that was the worst one I've ever done was, I think was called King Kong oh wow, I know, that is so that was back when there was.
Speaker 1:So CrossFit used to have all those specialty courses. Yeah, and they like wiped the slate clean. There were no specialty courses. Then they've started to kind of bring back in the fold. And there was a strongman specialty course. It was a hybrid athletics and I can't remember that dude's name and escapes me right now. But and then, like when he was had his course, yes, it was a strongman that started adding CrossFit methodology into his strongman training. Yeah, I wish I could remember his name. So was I, and he started training the workout is 100 clean and jerks 135,.
Speaker 2:Every minute, on the minute, five burpees. And I remember I'm doing this class and I just started CrossFit like three months before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you just learn how to do a clean and jerk, even though you played football your whole life and you're cleaning and you're jerking and deadlifting.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's not the workout I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2:There's another workout called Cane Con, where it's like clean 315.
Speaker 1:Ah no this wasn't that, and it was like I forget what the other stuff was. It was all this weird, not weird heavy, strong man stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm out yeah, but you know like when you're dying, when the next play starts and you still haven't finished yeah, it was brutal I bet dude because, like you know, you can only get like two reps in at a clip because the five burpees are taking it 30 seconds at this point yeah, that's the worst, because you're like that's calcium, it's the same thing that's what it was calcium, calcium calcium, calcium's worse.
Speaker 3:It was Khao Su, khao Su, khao Su is worse, it's thruster, 100 thrusters. Maybe I'm butchering the name. So yeah, I can't wait for Steve Tells with King Kong.
Speaker 1:All right, king Kong is three rounds one deadlift at 455, 320 for the ladies, two muscle-ups, three squat cleans 250, 175, and four handstand push-ups. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I've done that. Yeah so you could put make that one of the Saturday Chujaro workout. I mean that's cool, yeah, but just not this Saturday, when I coached another Saturday. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Cal suit. Dude, I've done that. That's probably not my first, but within my first ten workouts. Yeah, and that was when I was still in the like doing CrossFit at a Globo gym, still doing CrossFit at a Globo gym, and I'll never forget doing it with dumbbells before it was a big dumbbell weight in CrossFit but like sitting down for a whole bunch of rounds, like you don't really understand intensity until you go in the building and you are around people that actually do CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tried doing DT in the Temple University gym. It took me like 30 minutes. It's a fraction of that. You can't do a CrossFit workout, not a CrossFit gym. It doesn't work out. You need the atmosphere, the environment.
Speaker 1:I think you can do it After you become a CrossFit you can go back. You know what I mean when you first are doing it and I hear people go, because people ask us all the time. They're like in one of our first questions they're like, yeah, I want to join your gym. And I'm like, oh well, here's how we do an on-ramp program. Of course, yeah and yeah, but I'm an athlete.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what I said, oh man.
Speaker 1:And you have to know you don't want to because they don't know. Yeah, you know there was a different time where you're like no, dude, you know what I mean. But it's not a good business model to be that elitist and to spread the wealth across, right. But I remember gyms were a lot like that Like no, dude, we don't want you at the gym. It was like this kind of feeling of like no, we don't want you at the gym because you're goofball, you don't get it.
Speaker 1:But it's like, well, no, it's your job to help them. Some gyms can be pretty culty, yeah, but yeah, people will be doing it at home. And I'm like, no, you don't understand man. When that clock goes and everybody's ramped up and feel the energy, it's a whole different vibe.
Speaker 2:I still get nervous like I'm going to get into a street fight at 321 GO after 13, 14 years Still, I still get nervous like I'm gonna get into a street fight at 3-2-1 go.
Speaker 3:I still get that. I sometimes still get that it's like, 15 years in One of the good things about CrossFit especially this year's Open Open of 2023, I did not get that feeling at all. I started the workouts, these workouts they had this year. I had that feeling in my stomach like, oh man, I know what this is about. To feel like, yeah, and like you're excited for it, yeah, yeah, you know, like it's just that crazy feeling and the intensity thing is like we did this workout together today and I'm like, all right, like I'm dying, I need to rush these double unders, but if I can get back to them a little bit quicker, then I can shorten the distance between us.
Speaker 2:You know like you get to that point where you're like I don't want this person to be like this far ahead of me. Yeah, and you can know. You know kind of close the gap exactly for sure.
Speaker 3:So are you. Are you from the area? Are you from the north? I'm from.
Speaker 2:Philadelphia. I was raised, yeah, father, judge, judge, and then a holy family for a year. Then I had a daughter and then I got family for a year, then I had a daughter and then I got into construction College, back in construction and then back in college, again Back and forth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so did you play sports growing?
Speaker 2:up your whole life yeah, all four sports. Played baseball, football, hockey, basketball, but then in high school, just football. My dad was my coach in grade school.
Speaker 3:Sports were a huge part of my life growing up Back in the day you're going out with your friends.
Speaker 2:It's not so much anymore but two-way and touch on the street football on the weekend.
Speaker 1:I never played sports in school. You were too busy playing outside. I was just no. When I moved, I moved right in middle school or junior high, whatever you want to call it now. It was like I went from this oh yeah, we're out playing any everything you know outside all the time.
Speaker 2:And then I was just like I didn't.
Speaker 1:I was just oblivious. It was like a big school and I was from a little teeny elementary school. So I was like, do I sign up for sports? Like how do I do that, I don't know. And then it was just, you know, just never really happened. It wasn't until, like I think, eighth grade, I started wrestling. There's you kind of figured that out a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one thing I just saw.
Speaker 1:Did that because it was like all the football players suck wait.
Speaker 2:I started doing jiu-jitsu about six years ago. I I only did it for two years. I tore my bicep. One of the guys on the job was a D1 wrestler for Cornell. He said come to my gym, we'll work out. And at this time I'm like 35. He's 22. And he just came in second at States or whatever, fresh off the off-jig. Oh my God, dude, there was no off-bug with this dude and I'm dying. And he's letting me get him in positions and then he would just choke me out. It was brutal. Greatest guy ever, dude. But man, those wrestlers, they're just a different breed. They'd be great. The guy that just won the game was a wrestler, wasn't he? What?
Speaker 2:Jeffrey Adler Nah, the one before that with the mullet yeah, chris Spieler was a wrestler yeah, I used to watch his videos and had learned how to do butterfly pull-ups for hours yeah, that was the first.
Speaker 1:Like fitness crossing book I read yeah, yeah, wrestlers have a very different work ethic and it's because, like they're training. If you look at their training, they just drill the shit out. They make him run forever and I'm like why are you like they're training? So I think sometimes a little too much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they would do more running what I did indoor track, like your shot put in one time the wrestlers would do more running than all the runners there. Right now there's a running up to stop it down the stairs like drop the gym.
Speaker 1:It was this idea of outlasting, but the problem is it's like right, it was just you were being trained, like your coach was trained, like that kind of thing. And I think there's a lot of guys that just didn't. They didn't understand how to maximize this time frame of how long you're really going to need to do things.
Speaker 3:So that sure returns, like you talked about earlier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you could be going into overtime or whatever. How long is a wrestling thing? Three minutes, and it's very different. It's a very different thing than going and running, you know, for five miles or three miles or whatever. Setting in a pace and physically trying to move another human being is like fighting or boxing.
Speaker 3:I think that wrestlers, though, what they do setting in a pace and physically trying to move another human being is, you know, it's like fighting, or I think that wrestlers, though what they do better than a lot of those other sports that are individual is like they develop team, like camaraderie better and like a track team or like anything else.
Speaker 1:Like that it's like the support is because you're out there on the mat. You feel your whole team like yeah, like you develop that through those suffering sessions.
Speaker 3:Sure you know, and you're wrestling each other and you're out there on the mat.
Speaker 1:You feel your whole team like, yeah, like you develop that through those suffering sessions, sure, and you're wrestling each other and you're trying to make everybody better, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've definitely noticed that that, like your action sports people and your MMA people, your wrestlers. They develop camaraderie even though there's like nothing to do with the rest of their teammates. You know they perform as a team better than like track athletes.
Speaker 2:Well, it their teammates. You know they perform as a team better than like track athletes, you know, sorry, they know they'll experience the same thing.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean it's chaos, it's brutal and they all kind of you're more than likely to watch that your teammate wrestle even has nothing to do with you. Yeah, you are like shot better. I'd like never watched the four by four it's the suffering, I think think, watching somebody run, somebody who's really good.
Speaker 1:Take any, I don't know, I can't think of anybody off the top of my head, but think of anybody who's been a great you know gold medalist or Olympic. When they're running, they're running hard, but they're not. It doesn't look like they're suffering, yeah, but when you watch CrossFit when you watch somebody wrestling. There's suffering there, yeah, so that's a bonding, a very bonding experience, I think so back to like sports growing up.
Speaker 3:I remember the time period I remember vividly, like going from eighth grade to ninth grade. I went to high school horseshow, so we had middle school and high school. Middle school ended at eight, high school started at ninth grade. My friends, the ones that we played outside with around that time period is where you started seeing the divergence of people that would continue to play sports, go do the outside stuff, like when they got home homework and stuff like that, and the people that were starting to get high. Around that time period, my friends that, like I said, I can remember vividly. There was, uh say, catherine's of sienna, uh, catholic school that was like half a mile from my place. We used to play black basketball there all the time it went from. One summer half of us kept playing there and the other half, people started getting high.
Speaker 3:Um, do you and do you have the same experience? Do you know what drugs are to enter your inner circle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, like junior senior year I didn't hang out with athletes. I might have one or two friends that played sports, but my neighborhood at Northeast Philadelphia I graduated in 2001 and drugs were a huge part of it. People were getting high and going to school, selling drugs in school, but junior and senior year like the drinking, the smoking, the pills, the ecstasy really became a big thing about senior year Party drugs, damn it.
Speaker 3:I remember people going to like middle school and high school dances Like not even prom, they were winter balls and stuff.
Speaker 2:We would drink 40s and go to the rhyme dances freshman year. I just think it was normal.
Speaker 2:We all put down two 40s before we walked into the dance so you could meet the most girls. It was so normal so early on for all of us. I don't want to say it was a rite of passage, it just was what we were all used to. My house, senior year, was a party house. My dad got sober when I was a junior, so junior summer, so senior year, he would go to A meetings on Friday night. He would leave the house at 5.30 and keg would be brought in at 5.31. And we had like an unwritten rule. I think I took advantage of him, uh, feeling bad for kind of being an addict and an alcoholic, so like, as long as the house was clean when he got home, he wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had two sets of friends. I had the Father Judge friends and I had the Lincoln High School friends. Father Judge's friends were upstairs drinking, playing flip cup, doing pills. The gangster friends from Lincoln were in the basement smoking weed and just doing whatever.
Speaker 3:It was like we.
Speaker 2:We were kind of mixing upstairs, downstairs, but it was like my house was the party house. Yeah, it was. Just we would get to a point. It's crazy to think about it like there were Oxy-80s were big back then. We're scraping the time, release off at the table senior year to get high faster in school. Now I have my house already.
Speaker 3:Well, that became the way to do it. Yeah, so there's so much so that. But they were trying to combat that opioid addiction.
Speaker 2:You know, they coded the time releases so that you can't scratch yeah, and as soon as one genius figures out how to do it faster.
Speaker 3:Really that's great Right, so was it normalized like that for?
Speaker 1:you. I mean, I went to O&J Roberts which was, like you know, just south of Pottstown. So I think the worst thing I ever did into my high school years was I was such a nerd, like I wasn't like a book nerd, I don't even know. I was in this weird fringe of a friend group of just some people that were like trying to figure it out Like I wasn't a jock and I wasn't like, you know, the computer guys.
Speaker 2:Yet Like the AV crew, we we didn't have computers back then.
Speaker 3:We didn't have the AV crew. It was an AV crew right, Roll the TVs out.
Speaker 2:I wish I was in the AV crew.
Speaker 1:now I mean and or there was like band people like that was a click. And then there was like theater, you know like chorus and band and theater were kind of that kind of squad. I was in this weird eclectic kind of artsy fringy I wouldn't even know what to call it and we were just all kind of figuring it. You know, I was just figuring it out, yeah, but like other kids in my neighborhood that were like more popular or whatever that were like, there was a guy you know he had like three brothers, so that was a little bit of a different scene. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:My sister's like 10 years older than me, so I didn't see her go through a party phase. Yeah, for real, like that, like she was always just so like a second mom, or yeah, you're sick, she's 16, right, so you know what that wasn't a thing like. So the worst things I were doing or anybody I was kind of hanging out with, is you would try to scramble around some alcohol, because everybody's parents had a bar and my parents weren't like partiers like that.
Speaker 1:That they, they were like having people over so they had this old liquor sitting there. So I'd be like a little bit of this. Yeah, mix them all together and we'd call it jungle juice. I mean, I know jungle juice had a bigger thing of like where it actually tasted good yeah.
Speaker 1:You guys were just mixing stuff, I was just whatever, and it tasted horrible, but it got you drunk. You know what I mean, but it got you drunk, you know what I mean. So I think a couple times I snuck out, but I didn't even sneak out. What we did was we were like my group was into camping, so we'd be like, oh, we're going camping, and then somebody would drop us off and we would go camping at French Creek State Park, yeah, and we'd just be drunk in the forest.
Speaker 1:You know what the fuck, sorry, roasting hot dogs and not really, but just get drunk, yeah, but like in the, you know, like there's I, somebody said the there's like a song going out in the cornfield drinking.
Speaker 3:you know the lifestyle drinking alcohol, sure you do that a whole bunch of crone events, what we did, a whole bunch too, like just parts in the woods parties in the woods, dude. Like that. We went through a stand-up, like people were breaking into vacant houses too, when we were in high school and it's like look it back, like, dude, we were committing crimes, you know? Like so, like that was happening, like it seems so innocent.
Speaker 2:It seems so innocent, it really did man it's just a Saturday night in Northeast. That's how we looked at it. Well, did you ever get?
Speaker 1:the your dad be like oh you, oh, you know, yeah, I did that. Yeah, well, I've done some worse things, you know, you get this rationalization of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like you're saying, right, like your dad was in AA at that time period, did he talk to you about this?
Speaker 2:stuff. No, no, he didn't really start talking to me until I got to the Carpenters Union. You know you get paid on Thursday, you miss work on Friday. That kind of shit would piss them off. You know you're going to lose that job, you're going to lose that girl. He never talked to me about getting sober, ever until I actually went to my first rehab and then obviously our relationship changed at that point.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He never tried to get me sober. He would just let me know that what I was doing was messed up and I'm going to pay at some point. He never beat me down over the head.
Speaker 1:It's always great dad always there for me, but he never tried to press me Do you think that's because of his own like whenever he had his come to Jesus moment where he's like, hey, man, I got to make a change. Well, you know that there's probably people in his life that he's like I'm not listening to them.
Speaker 2:So he felt this is just gonna fall on dead ears until you're ready. Well, you're probably right. What I found out, my dad was on heroin. I was in seventh grade and you know, seventh grade to junior year my mom was still around, so you know he stole money off me once. He ruined my sister's birthday once, a couple, a lot of things, but nothing we did was gonna get get him sober.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ever.
Speaker 2:And I think he knew that. So I think that's probably why he didn't press me. My sister she's sober 17 years at this point he never pressed her either. He just was always there for us like led by example. You know what I mean, and that's the biggest thing. With sobriety, especially with AA, you're not going to stop until you're ready to stop.
Speaker 2:There's just no way. Nothing, he was going to say to me, was going to work. You know what I mean. It sounds cliché, but until the pain got great enough, I was going to do what I wanted to do. He just was always there and supportive and never kind of beat me over that.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's just isolated to sobriety.
Speaker 1:No, you're 100% right, it's behavior change in general, because I've coached a number of people in trying to change their behavior with nutrition or fitness or anything. Anything works. If you're not ready for it, it's not going to work. You can be the best coach, best whatever you can inspire, right. And I think that's where people get some things messed up. They're like, oh, I'm not motivated to do that. Well, there's days I'm not motivated to work out right. And I think that's where people get some things messed up and like, oh, I'm not motivated to do that. Well, there's days I'm not motivated to work out right. Right, it's, it's the universe.
Speaker 2:It's a discipline, that's all it is.
Speaker 3:I just thought what that would lower right. Like if, if all of your success and every, all of your goals lie on the other side of motivation and like you're, gonna fail you know, because you're going to be able. You have to find your ways to be successful without motivation, yeah. So if you have to rely on it, you know it's going to be good or really dark place yeah, so you got to be inspired to make a change yeah I think, and that that is intrinsic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and listen, my son, he went through some things when he was in school. He lived with me during high school years and, uh, he started, you know, with marijuana and it was just like, was it that bad? No, he wasn't doing anything that bad, but it was. I tried everything. I mean, you know, one day we tried counseling, I think twice, therapy, and later in life he's like Dad. I just did that to make you happy.
Speaker 1:I didn't do anything for me, right, yeah, and I was like all right and I didn't know that, but having him tell me that was like oh okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there was just like yeah, I tried everything. There was one time I tried to put him through a wall. I was literally just trying to beat it out of him. You know I did it. But you know we got physical with each other. But it was like I was just like you know you're like hey, when are you gonna get it?
Speaker 1:And it wasn't because of what he was doing. It was because of how I thought that was going to not living up to his potential. Yeah, absolutely. This kid was yeah, I was just like you can do anything you want. Dude, you have that type of personality. People love you. You know how to. You know what I mean. So it was just like all right. And at one point we had to part ways. I had to say because I got remarried and I had two kids, little kids, and we separated. That had to be tough. And then I'm like you're here messing up and I was like I've got to think about, is it?
Speaker 2:too, late.
Speaker 1:I'm not influencing you, you're making these choices and do I keep these other two children in and around that environment? And I was like he graduated, got through school, and I was like you gotta go, you want to do things your way. You don't want to do them in this way, so you can go, do them your way, right, it's time now. Yeah, it's like what do you mean? I'm like I don't know. You got to find a place to live and I I I knew he was bad and oh God hurt me so bad to be like you gotta go, yeah, but I didn't know what else to do. Yeah, I just didn't know what else to do. I guess that's not quite for so many people, but he's totally turned his life around. He had to figure it out, figure out his path.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And maybe go down that road a little bit further, and then figure it out.
Speaker 3:So, and did you ever have anyone like Steve in your life before that showed you like, hey man, this is, we talked about it being like such a regular thing, like where we grew up a lot of time and like drink and get high and all that stuff? Do you have someone that like showed you like this is like people don't just do this every day.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because my dad was that guy as well. Like, even though he was drinking and getting high through high school, the guy never missed work, always had a big-time job in the union. So I knew what the foundation was supposed to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So even though, like, while he was not sober, he was the quote-unquote functioning addict.
Speaker 3:Well, remember he was functioning, dysfunctionated, that he gets clean towards the end of your high school when you're starting to pick up things.
Speaker 1:I think that's what makes things so hard is because for him and I, felt the same way like oh well, you're able to do it, so why not Be high or drink? Yeah, Because it's not. You're still doing it, Steve.
Speaker 2:I took the test to get into graduate school high as a cutting, and I nailed it. The GREs nailed it. And job interviews to become a construction manager, high as a cutting yeah, nailed it. Doing well on jobs and projects $400 million project at Princeton University Couldn't draw a silver breath and crushing it, the only thing that was a problem was I was losing my soul in one day.
Speaker 1:There's other places that it's happening, I would imagine, and it's not showing up in, like when we put things on the graph like oh well, he's successful. It's like because we put so much emphasis on External facts Instead of.
Speaker 2:Well, you talked about your son and I bet because this is what happened for me I bet the way you raised him at some point when he was messing up, he knew deep down inside that whatever he was doing was potentially wrong and that plays a part, right? That's how I felt. I had a good upbringing up until eighth grade, when shit hit the fan. My dad was my baseball coach in grade school. I knew that what I was doing was wrong and I would feel the impact of that.
Speaker 3:But I just didn't care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and at some point, you know the issues started to mount up and you know they weren't necessarily on paper, but it was our relationships, the way I was feeling about myself, like I was a shell who I thought I should have been. You know, not too long ago I thought I made a change in my life and I think my dad and my parents, my grandparents, my uncle's, my aunt's they were all always very supportive because they were always doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:so you knew what it was supposed to look like yeah, you know, I was just lucky enough to to get my education. I went to undergrad. I've been a successful carpenter construction manager, despite my issues, and you know I was playing with fire for a decade in my career and you know, luckily it's not like that today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how did things develop for you Like tell us, like, do you have like a rock bottom that like always got you clean in the middle? Do you have like a rock bottom that like always got you clean in the middle? You had like a final destination. You're like, alright, this is where I had to stop it, like really start to get clean. Like how was your journey?
Speaker 2:well, I, just right now I'm eight and a half months sober. I've been in and around A for 15 years and I was a year and a half sober six years ago, but I knew that I was gonna drink at a year. I knew I was gonna drink in six months, yeah, and it took me five years.
Speaker 3:Did you go in like yo get this year?
Speaker 2:well. So a typical addict, I got sober, a great job, got engaged and then, when my wife scheduled her bachelorette party, I was a year sober and it was six months later.
Speaker 1:This is the ticket. This is ticket.
Speaker 2:So she went away for a couple days. I went to AC with my buddies for my bachelor party. I was supposed to be sober, and for the next five years it was just chaos, but what happened for me this latest time in October. I'm down the shore. We had just bought a condo in Margate. My wife threw me out for catching me with drugs for the millionth time you know what I mean, and I'm driving back and forth from where I eat to work.
Speaker 2:I'm meeting a deaf guy in South Philly for HercaSets. We're FaceTiming and he can read lips and I'm like what the fuck am I doing? So I leave work, I go home to start trouble at my house because that's what I felt like I needed to do that day and my wife is working. She works in a room. I converted the middle bedroom to a salon right.
Speaker 1:So what do you mean by you went home to start trouble?
Speaker 2:I just wanted to be a dick.
Speaker 1:I wanted to go home.
Speaker 3:You got high and then you're like oh yeah, I was high all day I went home and I'm like I'm just going to start trouble.
Speaker 2:And you know, fittings or something, she kicked you out, right? Yeah, so I'm already traveling back and forth from margate to philadelphia work. My job site was only 10 minutes from my house. So I drive home and, uh, you know, they're not like physical or like just I was being a dick. Yeah, I slammed the refrigerator, grabbed my she's like you know, I'm disrupting her life right now. And uh, you know I got out and I'm driving down the shore and I got a shower. I'm in my fucking shore house that I worked so hard to get. I'm on my knees in my bathroom and I look in the mirror and I'm like what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 1:You had everything, but I was soulless.
Speaker 2:You said empty right, no joy. I was in full despair. My sister sent me a text like 10 minutes later. Like bro, I think you need to go away. And for me you know I'm a superintendent on a job site and you know I'm running this project and, like you, put that in your head like it's not, like I'm the president, like they can live without me. You know, what I mean. I call my boss and how are you going to call him and say hey?
Speaker 1:listen, I know I'm on this big job, but give me three months. Here's the crazy part.
Speaker 2:My boss is at my project that day. I'm in the bathroom in the trailer and I just snored a part 30. I walk out, he walks in into the trailer and I go fuck, we walk the job slate and he's telling me how good I'm doing. Twelve hours later I called this guy in tears.
Speaker 3:I'm like man.
Speaker 2:I got to go rehab. He's like for what? And I just said drinking. I didn't know what to say. I had to say something. I didn't want to say I was a strong person to trail him. He said where are you going? I'm going to Karen Treatment Center in Redding. He's like, oh good to have you. My ex-wife went there.
Speaker 1:You know, aerosmith went there.
Speaker 2:And I was like instant relief. He's like get clean, your job's safe. For me it was like I could not believe. I turned to the person that I did no relationship with my sister, my nephews, my wife and I was ready to throw it all away and I convinced myself that this was the move. I'll just live in my shore house, fuck them all my sister just sent and I convinced myself that this was the move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just live in my shore house, fuck them all. Yeah, and my sister just sent me a one-shot text like I'm going to get some help.
Speaker 1:I think it's easy to do that, especially as a man, and I've been kind of talking about this. Some other guys that I went it's a weekend retreat with this guy who used to be a coach here. He's gone and done a lot of inner work and things like that, and any time I'm in this group of men and we're sitting down and we're talking about life, there's a couple perspectives. One is like oh, I thought I was the one that fucked up.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, thought I was the only one fucked up. There's a lot of that and what's keeping me from being the guy I know I can't be or I want to be, and it's fear, 100% those two things together. And it's because, as men, there is this stigma of, if I'm not falling down, killing people, whatever. It's not like that guy when you see pictures in Kensington where people are on the sidewalk bent over and they're homeless that's not me.
Speaker 3:That dude was probably you at some point along his journey. I agree, People leave, I mean that's all we can talk about. We're all one step away away. One bad day away.
Speaker 1:You know it's the 1% right and it is in these choices that we make when I used to teach well, I still teach. But like, so, firearms, right. If you're close enough, I can be a little off left or right, I'm still gonna hit you ready. But that little off here I go further out that little off takes me on a completely. It can be a different planet.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. Yeah, so when you?
Speaker 1:think about oh, that's not me. And I think that's what people have a hard time when they try and find sobriety. They try and find health therapy, no matter what the problem is right Drugs, alcohol, relationships you're like. You look around and you're like well, you either go, you either lean into oh, that's not me, I'm not that guy, that's. I think my son had a hard time with that. He would go to therapy. And all these people are, you know, kids are sniffing gasoline and paint cans to get high.
Speaker 1:He's like I'm not doing that. I'm just God. Everybody at this school's smoking, weed or doing whatever.
Speaker 3:What's the big deal, you know, getting drunk. That takes us back to when we talked about the internet right Like it becomes, people normalize it. You know, normalize it so often. I will say that I think that the two things you said are super related and tied together and that men are afraid of they fear vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this. This is an easy question that brings it right out to the light Did your dad ever sit there and talk to you about how to deal with your feelings?
Speaker 3:No, that was never in my life. There you go. I had an older brother that was 70 years older than me.
Speaker 1:Now your dads are leading by example, but you've got to think. Like you know, this is where they use these terms generational trauma.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What are you going to do to break the cycle? I hate using all these buzzwords because it kind of you're like ugh, right, but it's like it's a real deal thing. Like I know my dad, you know, I remember hearing these stories how my dad said his dad was a real a-hole, uh-huh, and my dad was pretty strict, very critical. Great daddy did the best that he could with the tools that he had. Yeah, and when I was able to get to a place and learn you know what my dad did the best job he could. But he just didn't know because he didn't have the tools. He wasn't going to read books about how to deal with your emotions, or breathwork therapy or any of those things. So like men get in, they think, because their thing is so little that they're like I don't want to. Oh, my God, I'm going to bother somebody with that. You know, like it's not a big deal, or I don't.
Speaker 3:You know it's embarrassing, it's a fear we think we're supposed to shoulder all the burden, so we don't want to pass on it If not, you're a weak ass, Right, Right.
Speaker 1:And where do we learn that? I mean, you know, part of that is just. That's our part of, that's our job. You know what I mean? Like we're the protector who do people in your relationship look for when it's time, but we'll suffer in silence.
Speaker 2:I just heard someone talk about that. When a man is silent, he's in pain, right, and that's been my life yeah. Your wife's right there. I could say whatever I wanted to her about how I was feeling, right I?
Speaker 1:just won't. But part of that's a woman's, part of that is just some I don't even want to call it genetics or personality. I mean it's like men are for Mars, women are for venus, like a role we feel we're supposed to play into it's just women tend to be more in touch with their emotions, and you could play that off to a lot of things. Yeah, that doesn't mean every woman is I mean. I mean, it's a real cold-hearted yeah ladies out there right that are straight up like, just like hanging out with dudes.
Speaker 1:You know, um and right men are that right? Men wanna we wanna withdraw. We wanna like machinate. It's like hanging out with dudes. Men want to withdraw, we want to machinate over it. Let me think about this. We try and use some logic to figure out our problem because we're not attached to our hearts, and how this is making me feel. It took me. I'm 53, I'll be 54 this year. I've only heard about this stuff in the past year or so.
Speaker 1:I went to marriage counseling, you know, but it's not the same. It's not the same as learning about like what does it feel? Like to feel a feeling and then be like how to deal with that and express it and express it Because I don't know how you are. My go-to is anger. It's so easy for me to do.
Speaker 3:I had another men's podcast where we talked about that. The most accepted men's emotion is anger. There's nothing between neutral and anger.
Speaker 1:Really you're hurt. But it's not cool to be hurt Because then you look like a wimp. But I'm going to But's like when you really can sit with that and let the immediateness of things and go no you know what that really hurt my feelings when you said that to me.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:That's why we're laughing.
Speaker 1:It's like so like no, I could never, you know, I could never.
Speaker 3:But I mean're laughing, it's like so like I could never, you know, I could never but I mean yeah, it takes me back to what you said about you were like I'm going to go start some trouble because, like a lot of the, one of the only ways that we know how to react is to.
Speaker 1:I'm hurting someone else.
Speaker 2:I want to pick that part I'll show you. I'm hurt, but I'll hurt you more, or something like that Hurt people, hurt people. Yeah, there's a saying that I've heard before, like in the room.
Speaker 1:Well, you're looking for the connection is what's really happening and when you're trying to, in my opinion, is you're looking for a connection and I don't know how to go.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to back down out of my position, because then it means I got to deal with a lot of other stuff that I push down, not admitted to I'm wrong, like all of that. It's much easier in the moment to build that up because we draw on that and I think that comes from a genetic, it's buried in our dna. When, when, when things are going on like we gotta step forward and you know, you know, kill the dinosaur, kill the saber-toothed tiger, right, you know that can protect the family, like that type of thing, and I think it's easier for us to switch that on than typically for a female to do yeah, uh, and so we're gonna lean into that and be like you know what, I'm gonna go start some trouble Because now I'm going to get something. Right now I'm not getting anything from you that I want. I really want love and understanding, because I'm really hurting inside, but I don't know that I'm going to blow it off.
Speaker 3:I'm feeling pain, so you're going to feel pain. You know you think about little kids right throwing tantrums, like some emotions and reactions are just natural, right? They don't need to be taught and that's usually rooted in the kid wanting to be seen and they don't know how to like broker like hey.
Speaker 1:This is what I'm feeling this is about right and it might not even be anything from that moment. Right, it's something that they don't know, a build-up, a build-up of emotion that they can't, couldn't express because they don't know how to express it or deal with it, or think about it. And so they just go ape shit and they're like ah.
Speaker 3:And it's just off track behavior. So the name of your podcast, your show, is Day Before Rehab. Is that born of the story that you're telling right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the day before rehab was the worst day of my entire life.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I never thought that I would feel that pain ever in my life. I'll give you an example. I was sitting in my trailer probably a week before rehab, and at this point I went through a psychic. I tried these Kraven pills. They get you high, but they're not perfect sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've heard, I tried. The wheat gummies Is hurt.
Speaker 3:I tried the wheat gummies is just to try to like that.
Speaker 2:Anything but stop getting high, we're gonna rehab, yeah, and uh, like that's just where my life was, yeah, and so I got you know the deep Korea was. It was the worst pain I felt my entire life and the reason why I started that was about a month after rehab to come home, I had to get a therapist.
Speaker 2:My wife was building back, couldn't listen. I got a therapist I'm talking to this guy and he recommended you know, kind of like in jest, but it was also serious to write a book to track my journey. Yeah, as a layer of accountability, right, I get him. I'm talking my wife about writing the book and she's like you just start a podcast and like that's it the day before we have podcast, yeah, just, and it's like, for me it's just podcast and I'm like that's it Day before
Speaker 2:rehab podcast and it's like for me it's just another layer of accountability. You can't have a day before rehab podcast and be relapsing every day. You know what I mean. So that pain of that day translates to so many other people, so many other traumas. You know, like I had a person the one who had an eating disorder, someone with depression same same situation, traumatic. It was traumatic for me the day before we had what my trauma looks like might be different from yours. How did you get through it? And that's what I want to learn about and that's kind of where the podcast.
Speaker 3:It goes from like oh man, I'm sitting down these spaces talking to other people and I'm so different than them, you know like I'm not as bad as them to oh, I'm hearing myself and all these different people. Absolutely I'm hearing different than them. You know, like I'm not as bad as them To. Oh, I'm here myself and all these different people, absolutely I'm here in my struggles, and all these different people, yeah, and like how can we come together to like get through this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. One thing that they taught at treatment this time was the opposite of addiction is connection.
Speaker 1:And you kind of touched on that.
Speaker 2:Everything in me. I'll give you a perfect example the past couple weeks I have not felt joy or pleasure in anything in my entire life. I think I've stretched myself a little too thin with school Not necessarily the podcast but I put all these expectations on my life, what it's going to look like after I get my MBA, and I just decided yesterday I'm just going to focus on the MBA. I'm not going to focus on the job I'm going to try to get after the NBA. So I went to the gym, I went to the meeting, I talked about it and now I feel better, yeah, you know what I mean, but this has been a relapse story my entire journey.
Speaker 2:I put all these expectations on myself. I feel bad that I'm not accomplishing them as fast as I think I should be Right in them as fast as I think I should be. I get sad when you get a clean. You're like all right, now, double time, double time. I got to do this, got to do it, yeah, and I finally was willing to talk about it with certain people and I got through it and my therapist calls it money in the bank where you get through this experience.
Speaker 2:You got through it. How'd you get through it? You learn, you remember, you can get through it again. It again like one of my biggest issues was getting high at the vacation because the world's falling apart at my job, like how can I deal with work when I get back from vacation? Nothing happened, yeah, but in my head it was catastrophic and the only way, the only way to handle this monday, was to get high. You know, I've been through a couple vacations, sober and like it's money in the bank. So everything at this point for me is just learning how to get through an experience. Remember how, how I did it, wanting to back from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds a lot like this overall marching beat of mindfulness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, being aware or present.
Speaker 1:Being in the moment, putting one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 2:Well, this too shall pass is like that was. I couldn't grasp that concept?
Speaker 3:Oh, I never. It was always. I'm going to feel the same forever.
Speaker 2:Well, you know when you're sick or you have the flu, you're like I'll never feel better, ever again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's how I would think Right, like when I'm sad, like I'll never not be sad unless and I think you have to give yourself some grace there, because it is true, yeah when you are in that moment and it is the worst thing.