Gambling Englishman Daniel living in Australia Talks Pokies And Purpose

Pokies in a “VIP room,” betting screens on every wall, and a machine that lets you place fixed-odds bets without leaving the bar. Australia’s gambling environment can feel like the casino came to you, and that’s where our conversation with Daniel goes deep fast. Daniel grew up in Liverpool, moved to Australia, and now has over four years free from gambling. He breaks down how slot machines and sports betting are designed for speed, why that speed fuels compulsive gambling, and how easy access turns a normal night out into a relapse risk.

We also get personal about what changes when you stop chasing the next win. Daniel talks about trading the old gambler’s obsession for purpose: being a present dad to his two young daughters and a supportive husband, even on hard days. We unpack why chasing “happiness” can set you up to feel empty, while chasing contentment and emotional intelligence gives you something you can live with every day. If you’ve ever felt like you “can’t outthink” the urge, you’ll recognize what’s really happening and why willpower alone isn’t a plan.

Then we get practical with relapse prevention and early recovery tips: reduce exposure, use self-exclusion, add gambling blocking software, stop carrying cash, and most importantly, tell your people the truth. Daniel shares real moments where friends stopped him from “just one small bet,” protecting him when alcohol and impulse tried to take over. If you want less stress, fewer secrets, and more peace, hit play, subscribe for more recovery conversations, and share this with someone who needs a way out. Could you text one trusted person today and tell them what you’re working on?

Transcript

Welcome And Recovery Mindset

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Uh welcome again. This day we're going to be talking to someone in Australia. English, but living in Australia. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery, where we encourage you to laugh every day. Work hard. Work hard in recovery. Work hard in relationships, work hard in job, business, school. Just work. And the love unconditionally. Put much more love out there and watch much more love return to you. Because as we always say, recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ. And you cannot outthink an emotional issue. Encourage people to do is to go to the website lifeiswonderful. I repeat the free recovery growth scorecard. Activity to start your recovery journey, to introduce natural dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin. You've got to change the neuroplasticity in your brain. You got to start to heal. Things to do today. Everything's in the show notes. Now let's get into this week's episode. How are

From Liverpool To Australia

SPEAKER_00 1:18

we doing, Daniel?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I'm great. After that intro, I'm even better. Laughing and loving. That's what life's all about, Hugo.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

How do you gotta work? You gotta work. Because that's they always say that about gamblers, you know, or any addict, you know. They want the good life without any work. It never worked out. Okay. Uh your English.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Before you go in, you got I'm looking at the bottom there and I can see your uh when you're speaking, it's going big. For me, it's not coming up.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

No, I know it'll come up.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

You can hear me okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, we're good.

unknown 1:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So you're English, but you live in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I sure do. Very proud, very proud to be English. Never more so proud than when I moved here because the Australian Australians aren't very keen on the English, so I do get a lot of a lot of banter from the Australians, so it's made me very proud to be English. I have to be. The only way to survive.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

But you treated them as a prison colony. It didn't exactly didn't bring over your finest. It wasn't like princes and lords that were going to Australia. It was like, who wants to deal with the outpack?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

When my dad came over for my wedding in 2018, they asked him at the airport, any criminal convictions? And he said, Oh, I didn't know I still needed one.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

There you go. And tell the audience, are you Liverpool, Everton? Who do you cheer for?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I hope that blue sign in the background that everybody can see is a bit of a giveaway. A very, very true blue.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

You grew up in that side of the uh the country over by Liverpool?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yep, born and bred Liverpool for 28 years until I uh eventually moved over here.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Do you get over? All right, tell the audience one thing you love.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Funny enough, we've just spoken about it. Football. I played playing football, not only watching playing. I played yesterday. We got a 5-1 win. I think winning. I love winning. I'm very, very fiercely competitive.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Well, I think that is actually a trait of gamblers. You know, there is that competitive. That's why, especially with sports betters, most of them were athletes growing up. Because I always felt I had I understood football, American football, basketball, because I played those so much. I even played baseball as a kid. And those were my three main betting sports. Because I always felt, well, I understand, okay, the pitching. I understood, and that's the same thing that happens with a lot of sports betters now. They're all kind of athletes. And I always say it's one thing in recovery, do something competitive, whether it's your business, whether it's some type of activity or hobby. Because I think that way you can channel some of that competitiveness instead of worrying about betting lines, focus on competing on whatever league or whatever level you're at.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Definitely agree that the competitiveness was part of the reason I stayed stuck for so long. And now I try and channel that into other areas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So what are you? Are you a forward middle? Are you the goalie? What are you?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

A central defender. If I show you the bruises on my arm, the scrapes on my leg, and the two bruises on my two hips from the war that I was in yesterday. But when we win, it feels so good in the shower. When the shower hits all of those cuts and bruises, as long as we've won, it's like it's like a like a Viking cry. If we lose, it seems to hurt that little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

All right. So we all won't talk about the World Cup, even though England is one of the premieres. See, my my grandparents are Croatian, so I've had a lot of bragging rights these last few uh World Cups. Even we got to the finals eight years ago.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

But it's a painful semifinal. Painful semifinal, that one.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

It depends on who you are. Well, let's jump into the questions.

Pokies Culture Inside Australian Pubs

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Let's jump into the questions. Australia. Australia is known for having the most pokey machines. And if people don't understand what pokies are here in America, pokies are slot machines. But in Australia, they're called pokies. Because I when I was first heard that term in the US, we would refer sometimes instead of calling it horse raising, we'd call it the pokies. So I kept under, couldn't understand this Australian guy talking about why is he so interested in how I don't understand horses inside pubs. I'm not sure. Confused me there for a second. But that's what I want to translate. When we're talking about pokies with Australians, we're talking about slot machines. And Australia has the most pokey machines per capita, according to any other country in the world. And they're in every pub, they're everywhere in Australia. Tell the audience: do you see the pokies, because Australia has a high, just like England, just like the United States, there's a lot of gamblers. Do you see the pokey machines as almost like the gateway to more gambling in Australia?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

I believe the term pokies comes from, I think they were called poker machines back in the day, and Australians put nicknames on absolutely everything. Similar to you, I had no idea. When I moved to Australia in 2016, I had no idea of the level that it was at with the gambling over here. I'm very fortunate that pokies, slot machines, fruit machines, they were called in England. I was obsessed with them at a young age, 12, 13, 14. They were sort of my gateway into gambling. Since I've come here, they've never really interested me, which I've been very fortunate about. But yeah, I was completely unaware to how bad it is. So I'll just set the scene for you for what it's like in a typical pub in Australia. So the pubs are all called hotels. It's a way of getting around the license. It's easier to get the alcohol license if they're a hotel. But every pub has what's called a VIP room attached to it. Again, this was they used to be called gambling rooms or something like that, but due to laws that came in, they had to rename them. So they're called VIP rooms. So every pub you'll see has big massive flashing lights, VIP room, open till 4 a.m., open till 6 a.m. attached to it. You walk in the pub, and it's been 10 years since I was in England, but in England, you weren't allowed to place your bets in the pub. I'm pretty sure that's still the same. So most of the bookmakers were standalone shops, but they'd be right next door to pubs. You'd see a pub, and if you looked at it from the outside, there'd be a bookmaker's to the left and a bookmakers to the right, because they'd want as little friction as possible for the punters to leave the pub, place their bets, and then come back in.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

And there'd be one say they had a few more drinks, they're a little more reliable to empty their pocketbook.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

100%. But there'd be one TV on with the horse racing. Here in Australia, when I walked into a pub, there's maybe 14 screens. There's a machine next to those screens that's called a TAB fixed odds bet and fixed odds machine. You can place your bets on that machine. So you don't even have to leave the pub. You can get your drink at the bar, walk two metres to the left, you can place your bet on the horses, the dogs, whatever you want, and then it's on one of those screens. That then the room next to that, which has to be separate to the pub, but it's just it's separate via a door, a sliding door, is the VIP room. Depending on the size of the pub, the size of the venue, there'll be anything from 20 up to 200 machines in that room. That room is just all those machines, maybe two ATMs and a bar. And it's it was it just amazed me because in England you could have maybe two machines in the actual pub and you had to leave to place your bets. But Australia, the bookmakers came to you, the casino came to you, those VIP rooms, it's it's it it blew my mind when I first got here. My friends are pretty big on the pokies. Like I can see I I I I now I'm four and a half years clean. I sometimes go in there and watch them do it, and I can just see, especially one of my friends, I won't name him, but I can see the addictive behavior, and I can see exactly how I behaved with gambling. Like they'll they'll chase and they'll chase and they'll show and then they'll get that win. And I'll be like, Great, come on, let's let's go back in and watch the rugby or the football, whatever's on the screen. And he'd be like, I'm just gonna have one go on this machine. And I can see that it's they're addicted to playing it, they're addicted to the gambling, it's not the money, it's not the wins, it's not the losses because you've just won, but you still want to play. So just how addictive they are. I don't even think they need to be a gateway into more gambling just because of how addictive. Like you can do 10 pounds, $10 a spin. So every two, three seconds, $10 is gone. So it takes less than a minute to blow $100. So it's not limited. It's not they're not speeding.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Right. Now it's actually the speed because now there's you know, you can actually have like multiple bets. So I keep telling people that's why gambling is becoming more addictive. It's not the when I gambled, you know, I haven't gambled in 26 years, but we would bet on a game. There was no line betting, there was no prop betting, except it was in the Super Bowl. That was but that was one game. Now there's so many prop betting, you know, before it was just the the game, the line of the game, or the total. And now, and that's why I say gambling is so much more addictive, is because the gambling industry realized is they have to maximize how many bets can be possibly made per hour. It's all about speed. Because I remember I would listen to like gamblers would they would hate when they were like on a gambling rush playing blackjack, and then they would have to like reshuffle the deck and so you couldn't gamble for like three minutes, five minutes, and some people would, you know, you'd hear their anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I remember the poker poker tournaments. I'd in the breaks, the 15-minute breaks, I'd go and lose more at the roulette table than would be possible for me to win if I even made it to number one in the in the poker tournaments.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I know that's a it's just the the it's almost like that insanity that we talk about. Because here in America, I think it back when I started, it was always American football was the gateway to more gambling. Or it was poker that kind of led. Now it's partly it's all these fantasy leagues. I'm assuming they have a lot of fantasy leagues in Australia as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Um the parlays over here are called multis, same-game multis. Like you this guy's gonna score first, this guy's gonna score second, this guy's gonna get sent off. Like that's that's the big thing on Sports Bent at the minute. Same game multis.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

But do you know the two the number two biggest revenue generators for any casino or sportsbooks are slots, poking machine, number one, have always been and will always be. And number two is parlays. Parlays are the easiest win for a casino, but because they have such high odds, and people say it's only $20, or let's say English, it's only 10 pounds. Uh, and thinking, well, I'm gonna win 100, 200. Yeah, but the but your odds are so minimal. They're so small, that's not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I I hit one of them very young, and I believe that's what distorted my reality of how easy, how possible, how plausible it was that you can win these.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

No, and that was it. I won my first bet at the age of 12. You know, I was betting on uh college football, uh bowl game. But that leads us into question two.

Trading The Chase For Purpose

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Question two, we already kind of alluded to it. We were talking about how that gambler, you know, they start winning, they lose some, you know, then they go back and forth, back and forth. And at some point they get into that disperation phase, which is a lot more chasing, and they start chasing and chasing and chasing. Now that you've stopped for four and a half years, what do you actually chase in life here in recovery? Or what do you see as more of your purpose? You talk about now that you're married, you have two young daughters, you have a podcast, other things. What do you see as what gamblers need to do in terms of almost like changing how they chase? Because, like you said, we're all competitive, so we still want to compete. But talk to us about purpose and chasing and the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I used to say the only thing I was ever passionate about was gambling. I was just obsessed that it was my everyday thing. It was it was gonna turn me into a millionaire. Once I got a fair way into recovery, I used to say now the only thing I'm passionate about is recovery. But I do have a wife and two daughters, as you've just mentioned, so I have to be careful about saying that these days. But I do believe the gambling was an escape for me because I didn't have any fulfillment or any purpose in my life. The only thing I was set on was I was convinced I'm gonna get that big win and then I'll stop. And then I can then I can focus on building my life. So I just never had anything. I always was obsessed with placing that bet. Now in recovery, I believe I'm building a life. I say building, I'm four and a half years in, I'm forever gonna be building. There's no end goal. The end goal is me lying on my deathbed. So I am forever a work in progress. So I'm now building a life that I'm content with. Again, I don't use the word happy because happy is an emotion, happiness is an emotion that comes and goes. I'm not happy 24-7. I have bad days, but I'm content. I'm the most content with my life that I've ever been. I so I did this thing with, I don't know if you're aware of Rangan Chatterjee is a podcast host, and he was speaking about setting yourself goals. So goals for this week, and then goals for this month, for this year, and then what's your what's your again? Um this is a pretty morbid conversation. I'm talking about my deathbed again. What's your goals when you're lying on that deathbed? What's like what's going to be going through your mind?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

What's on your obituary?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Those two things were being the dad that I know I can be, being an amazing dad, and being the supportive husband. And he said, figure those goals out at the end of your life and work backwards from them. So they're my two biggest passions. Literally, being the dad that I know I can be. That my my daughters are four and six, as you've mentioned. The first two years of my oldest daughter's life, I was still tied up in my addiction. Like I remember one day, all I ever wanted growing up was to be a dad. This one day I'm sitting on the couch and playing on the Bitcoin charts, and my one-year-old's on the floor and she starts crying. She needs my attention. And I'm like, because I've got to put the Bitcoin charts away. And I remember the thought going through my head is it's okay, once I win all this money, I can just pay for a nanny, and the nanny can sort my daughter out. And like looking back at that, I'm like, all I ever wanted was to be there for that child. But gambling made me think, I need to be this, I need to be doing this gambling, and then I can gamble to win money and get somebody else to pay them to do what I wanted to do to begin with. So it just shows how distorted my reality became while I was gambling. All I ever wanted was to be a dad. And like my wife has been so supportive of me throughout my addiction. We got married in 2018. I had a big slip-up in 2017, a relapse in 2019, and another one in 2021, and she stood by my side. And we've we've been through some tough times in the last few years, but I've stood by her side. I I know she's got plenty of credits in the bank due to what I've put her through. So being there, be trying to be that supportive husband when it when it's hard, when my wife's ADHD is annoying the life out of me. I have to dig that little bit extra and think, I owe her this, I owe her this support. And I at the end of the day, do I do I wanna have shouted at her and told her that I'm annoyed at her and dah-da-da, or do I want to sit there and go, you know what, I was supportive in that moment. I really had to dig deep, but I was supportive and I was like, that's what I want. And then same with my kids. My kids all frustrate me. And I have to think, they're not gonna be four and six forever. They're gonna be teenagers soon, they're gonna want nothing to do with me. So while they're in the daddy, daddy, look at this, daddy, look at this, daddy, I'm doing this. I need to, I need to be present in that moment. And that's what recovery's given me. It's given me the presence of mind that I can be there for my daughters, I can be that dad, and I can be that supportive husband. And that football on the side, my daughters often say, Do you love us more than Everton? I say, it's very, very close. It's a very, very close point. But you're just you're just tipping the scales. But they are the two end life goals for me is being that supportive husband to my wife and being that dad for my girls.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, you brought up two things. Uh, one, I always say when people talk about, I remember like when my brother got divorced, he goes, Well, I just want to be happy. They go, but you're chasing something that's not achievable because you can't chase happiness. And so many people, especially here in America, they always talk about, I just want to be happy. And I like what you said, content. I like what Buddha always said. Through in reality, what we chase or what we need is can you because you can feel content every day of your life. And I use this example is when my dad died, I was sad, I was grieving, but I was content because the last 10 years, I had wasn't gambling, I was present, we had great conversations, we could finally, I mean, I could actually take responsibility, uh, ask for amends for either things that I did or didn't do growing up or as a young adult. And then, you know, after I did that, then he apologized for the family bankruptcy. And there was a way, there was a lot of healing. But I say is I was content because there was nothing left unsaid. He knew I loved him, I knew that he loved me, and we didn't have anything that now I wasn't happy, but I was content that we lived a good life. I mean, I was around, he was around for 49 years. I mean, that's when I look at it, that's more than what a lot of people get. A lot of people don't get their dad for 49 years. And so I use that as a way to uh to kind of to let people know that chase what you can do today and just be in touch with whatever your emotional intelligence is. And then the last thing that uh you know, you were uh kind of talking about um besides content. Um I think you are oh, you think you're just talking just like either just about your kind of like, you know, your wife, you know, what what we can only control what we can do these 24 hours. And I always say is it's like almost anything. Uh people remember what you do for me lately. Well, if you were a great husband today, that has a lot more impact than what you were the type of husband 10 years ago. Uh and I guess the last part, was she Aussie or is she English?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, Aussie. So I I met her on my second to last day on holiday here. And then she came to Europe a few months later. We hit it off for that week, did long distance, and then I moved here. So funny enough, before the before my addiction restarted in 2017, I always had the line. I moved halfway across the world for you. I packed up my life and I moved 17,000 kilometers for you. So I always had credits in the bank, but then once the gambling reignited, she uh she went into the bank.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

So maybe you guys are at zero now. You both can just just just be the best husband and wife that you can have.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, that's the best, best way to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Okay, let's just jump into question number three. You

Early Recovery Blocks That Work

SPEAKER_00 21:07

know, there's a lot of stuff that's going on with gambling now. And to me, that what I what I tell people, gambling is only gonna get harder because, especially here in America, all the major sports leagues have sold all the data. So all the lines, whether you're talking about lines, whether you're talking about prop betting, it's gonna get tighter because they're gonna use computers to make it much more difficult. And so there's gonna be a lot more people that are gonna be affected here in America, the UK, Australia, even other in every other country. And because it's on our smartphones. Any tips for people that are now entering into uh recovery on what they possibly could do today or here in this first week, first month?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

You just want me to stick to People just coming into recovery, or do you want me to go into how that advances?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah, I mean, just answer it to how you feel, just to help anyone that either is just coming into recovery, maybe relapse. What do what can be very helpful to that? What do you feel are some helpful tips?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Okay. So early on, it's for me, it was about not exposing myself to gambling. That changes as time goes on. But early on, it's about not sitting, not going to a casino, not sitting with the app on your phone, not going to the horse track. Basically trying to keep yourself away from it. Because when you've just had that big loss, you've just had that big big relapse. I'm never gambling again, I'm never doing it again. That fades three, four, five days later. And then if you're exposed to it again, your brain soon switches back to, you know what, I could just do a little bit. Or in my case, it was, you know what, I'll start again and I can I can win that big money, and then everything'll be okay. So sort of putting blocks in place. So, like with regards to your phone, that would be like a blocking software. Like Gambans, the one that I used. With regards to casinos and horse raking, horse racing tracks, you can do self-exclusion. But what worked for me and what stopped me from actually relapsing twice along this four and a half years of recovery was telling everybody. Coming clean, telling everybody sounds a bit dramatic. Telling all my friends and family, telling all my loved ones. So when I went to rehab in 2021, I told my friends I was going into rehab, I told them the level of where I was at. So all my friends knew. So I spoke earlier about the pokies, how my friends still do that. About six months into this recovery, my I was in the pokies room with my friends, and I went, you know what? I'm just gonna I'm just gonna sit on this. They're playing like $5, $10 spins. I was like, I'm just gonna play one cent hits. I'm just gonna put five dollars and it'll last me however long it lasts, you boys on there. And my mate's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm just gonna put five dollars, it's only five dollars. He's like, don't put five dollars. I'm like, it's only gonna be five dollars, it's fine. And he wouldn't let me. He's like, no, you we know how bad it got for you. Don't do this. And he talked me out of it. If he didn't talk me out of it, if he didn't know my situation, if he didn't know how bad it was for me, he would have let me do that. And that, I do believe, would have relit that little ember that's that's burning inside of me. A year later, so just how bad gambling is overheating in Australia on Anzac Day, there's something called two up. So every pub is allowed to play this gambling game in their beer gardens called two up. Basically, two coins, they're on a paddle, and everybody's stood in a big huddle, a big big circle. And then people will say, like, $20 on heads, and someone will take that bet off them. So two people will have $20 each, one will have heads, one will have tails. The person in the middle flips the coins up, whether it's two heads or two tails, that person wins. I wanted to, after having a few drinks, we spoke about how alcohol lowers your inhibitions. After having a few drinks, I wanted to get involved. I was like, you know what? Go on, I didn't carry cash. That was another thing that was a block not carrying cash. I said to my friend, give me $50. He's like, Why? I'm like, I want to play. Tails never fails. I want to play, I want to have a go. He's like, I don't should give it to you. I'm like, come on, it's only one game, I'll be fine. And he wouldn't give me the money. So again, that stopped me from potentially relighting that that ember that that's burning brightly inside of me. So being open and honest with friends and family, with people who I know I'm gonna be around, who I may find myself in a situation to gamble, like I did in those two instances. But the people I was with knew how bad it was, and because they loved me, they didn't want like it would have been awkward for them to say no to me, but they were willing to do that because they love me. They've got that that strong feeling about me. Yeah, just openness and honesty from day dot is what it's all about for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And more than likely, you would have taken tails and would have been heads.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Wait, win or lose, Hugo, it wouldn't have mattered.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I wouldn't find out I always just to just to just to put a little salt in that mood.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

One bet is too many, a thousand isn't enough.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah. But yeah, I always say I I just laugh at all the places that whether I want what all whether it was alcohol, gambling, just all the insanity. Uh just said, you know, I just need more peace in my life. Uh I don't need this uh insanity. That's uh okay.

Peace Of Mind Without Secrets

SPEAKER_01 26:32

We're the best part of recovery for me now. Everything's out on the table. Like I don't have to worry about my wife picking up my phone. My heart doesn't skip a beat. I don't have to be there to the mail, man. I don't have to hide my emails. I love that everything's out on the table. That peace is just that peace of mind is just priceless for me. There's no amount you can put on that. That's the best part of recovery.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

And it actually, to me, will add years to your life. You don't have all that cortisol, all that stress, all that tension. And that's why I always dispute when people, whether they're gamblers or the gambling industry, say gambling is entertainment, it's fun. I go, I don't care if I had $5 on it. I still wanted to win. I was tense. My whole body. They go, there's a reason why when you don't do certain things, that you just feel a lot more free. When they always talk about the freedom of addiction, I do. I just live much more in freedom. I and that's why I like having a YouTube channel podcast. Everybody knows everything about, you know, different pieces of my whole story. It's out there. There's nothing that's a secret, there's nothing that's unknown, the good and the bad. You know, just like now, I tell I I proudly state, man, I'm gonna be on stage here in 15 days giving a TED talk on the dream world of the gambler. And to me, that's I've been working on this for four years to get on a TEDx stage. And culmination is one of my three big goals in life. Uh and so, but I tell people, I'll I'll tell you about any of the misery, but I'll also tell you about the accomplishments. And I had accomplishments when I was drinking and gambling. I mean, I graduated, you know, that had a certain amount of success uh in athletics. But uh nothing beats it where I can actually be in the total moment and feel like, you know, here I am. Any last words, a quote, any last thing you want to say before we close it up?

Final Quote And Closing

SPEAKER_01 28:39

I wish you had to prepped me for that one and gave me a bit more time to think of it. But off the top of my head, I'm gonna I'm gonna say one that the therapist said to me on my first day in in rehab, and I thought, what is this hippie shit that they're telling me? But I stick by it now. You'll never be able to love anybody else until you learn to love yourself.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Right. I agree. All right, with that, we are gonna conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast.