Ep. 8 Reboot: Keith Young on Recovery & Redemption

Matt Weldon is back! After a two-year hiatus and a recent career change, Matt revives his popular podcast, Single Dad, Sober Dad. In this reboot episode, Matt welcomes his old friend and fellow AA member, Keith Young, to the Iron Tech studio in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Matt and Keith dive deep into Keith's powerful journey to sobriety. Keith candidly shares his struggles, from early interventions and college brawls landing him in the Rockton jail, to the pivotal moments that led him to embrace recovery. They explore the challenges of navigating sobriety, the importance of spirituality, and the hard-won wisdom gained through years of dedication.

Keith discusses his evolution from a hard-headed young man to a successful business owner and dedicated father of six. They delve into the consequences of addiction, the power of surrender, and the profound shift in perspective that comes with living a sober life.

Join Matt and Keith for an honest and inspiring conversation about second chances, the transformative power of recovery, and the joy of living a life beyond addiction.

Transcript

(Music)

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Welcome to Single Dad, Sober Dad. The podcast is back after a two-year hiatus.

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I took a little time off and I actually just sold my wealth management practice about six months ago and I decided to dive back into the podcast studio and corporate speaking. So again,

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Single Dad, Sober Dad is back with your host, me, Matt Weldon. And today I've got a very special guest, an old friend from tables of AA Keith Young. How you doing man?

Pretty good, pretty good. How you doing man?

Good, good. It's been a long time actually. I haven't seen you around.(...) Our old stomping grounds got moved, the old meeting place, right?

Yep, yep.

Well it's good to see you. I'm glad you came in and Keith is the first guest on the Single Dad, Sober Dad reboot as I'm calling it or 2.0 or whatever you want to call it. So we're here at the beautiful Iron Tech studio in downtown Beloit, Wisconsin and we're gonna kind of just get right into it. So

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Keith, let me ask and I've asked this previous guest,(...) how long have you been sober?

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I've been sober quite a while now. Okay, when you say quite a while, what are we talking? Five years, 10 years, 20 years? 10 years. 10 years, excellent, excellent. So

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my previous guest, I asked the same question, you know, kind of started off the same way with you. What was the point where you said to yourself, holy shit, this is unfucking controllable and I can't do anything about it. Do you remember exactly? Was there a moment? A lot of people have the oh fuck, I'm hit the bottom moment or was it a compilation of things or

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what was it?

Well, I think I think most of our stories are a little different, if not similar.

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I was a little more hard-headed than most.

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You mean you had an ego?

Oh,

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slightly. Right.

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My thing was when I first came in, I was relatively young.

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It was pointed in my direction from a little professor lady at Rock Valley because I kept falling asleep in class and she was, you know, questioning me as I was walking out of the UOK, Mr. Young, you know, you seem like it's mellow, the alcohol on you, you know, you're at risk of failing this class, so on and so on. She goes, well, you might want to go talk to the, you know, so on and so forth. And I'm like, well, not me.

(...) Right. I'm not one of those.

(...)

One of those guys that are stumbling, living under a bridge, drinking out of a, you know, brown paper bag, so to speak. But, you know, there were, you know, a lot of moments where I was reflecting, you know,(...) maybe this little old professor lady might have a point now.

(...)

So just to appease her,(...) maybe I was just trying to pass the class.

Right.

I went and talked to somebody and it was at the treatment center in Belvedere.

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I was remembered this vividly sitting across from this guy, you know, and he leans back every time to me for about two minutes, he leans back in his chair, he looks right at me, goes, you're going to die.

(...)

You continue on the way you continue on. And I leaned back and I said, nah, I don't think so.

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And I remember I was playing football at the time for Rock Valley. And I was in my second year.(...) And it was a homecoming

(...)

dance. Me and my best friend and my girlfriend and his, it was up at the old wagon wheel. And we stepped outside. I said something to him about how he was treating his girlfriend. We proceeded to beat the shit out of each other. And we both ended up in jail.

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In Rockton.

The Rockton jail. Damn. I've been in the Rockton jail. Yeah.

So anyway,

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said, I'm not going to press charges against you guys. We guys need to work it out and let us go.(...) You know, and after the season had ended, I went up to one of my coaches and I said, you know, I'm going to probably be going into treatment. And he just kind of looked at me and a little bit shocked that I was so, you know, honest about it. But hey, I wanted him to know because I put a lot of trust in him, you know, and ended up at the treatment center in Belvedere.

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And yeah, it was

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the first step.(...) Right.

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And but did it stick? No.

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You know, I felt that was too young. I could handle it. And it was a roller coaster of events.

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And but as time went on and the trouble continued, you know, the fighting jail, you know, barely getting by school. I mean, I can go on about different events and stories. You know, I got kicked out of the U after Rock Valley.

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Well, back up, I got a fight.

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Between it was between lacrosse and the rugby team. I was playing rugby down there, some guys down in my apartment and proceeded to get in a fight. And yeah, so.

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So I've been meaning to ask you that. I mean, because you're not a small dude. I mean, you're what six to six, three to what? I'm six one about 265. Okay. And a little background on Keith, he's a professional bodybuilder.

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He's he's built like a badass. And I, I would hate to run into him on the streets after I've been drinking or if he's been drinking because I'm probably going to get my ass handed to me. But you know, that's that's the one thing that I've always considered crazy that people when they're young, they actually see that there's a problem.(...) And they confront the problem, whether they get it fixed right away or not, so to speak fixed.

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But for me, it was there's no way I am stopping drinking because I'm having too much quote unquote fun. And, you know, at the time I was living in Chicago and I was single and whatever else. But it's truly amazing to me that people can stop drinking or, you know, dealing with their addiction issues when they're when they're younger. So, you know, when you were in your 20s, did you finally realize, OK, it's probably time to actually get into this and take care of business or did that linger for longer?

(...)

So I would stay sober and it's this.

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I wasn't your, you know, your basic daily drinker. So more of a, you know, I'll go out every three weeks. But when I went out, I went out, you know, there was always seemed to be a problem.(...) So the problem would arise.

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And so

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when I was probably 24,

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I had gotten some more trouble again.

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I just had a son.

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And here I was facing the judge again over another battery charge for fighting. And he looked at me, said, Mr. Young, she's a 90 days or 30 days treatment. And I was at the soldier in house in Freeport. And of course, I'm like, OK, I'll take the 30 days, you know, in soldier in house. Let's give this a shot again.

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So I ended up doing the 30 days there.(...) I got out, started going to meetings.

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And that's when I met Susan.(...) And I started working at Kmart,

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the security guy,(...) you know, Mr. Big Shot, college football player, you know, I wasn't doing any of that that time I was, you know, gone to treatment, gotten out son,

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that was about a year old.

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And here I'm working at security guard at Kmart because my mom got me the job. Big time. That is, you know, it's probably, you know, I was at my lowest,

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but I was probably at my highest at that point. I wasn't drinking.

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And then I was drinking again.

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It was one of those things where, you know, I thought I could do it again. So basically when my son turned to and started dating my kids mom now, that's when I stopped.

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I started back to school at, well, I went back to Rock Valley to finish my associates.(...) I did that. And then I proceeded on to Rockford College, which is now Rockford University. And I stayed sober.(...) And then I ended up getting my bachelor's degree, physical education, education minor.(...) And then I became a teacher.

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Did my student teaching, all that good fun stuff.(...) As I was sober,

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then once I graduated, I got married,

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things were kind of going good. And then

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I started teaching at a place called the mill. It was a behavioral school, actually.(...) Matter of fact, Charlie Franklin,(...) my cooperating teacher,

really Franklin, hold on, hold on.(...) Mr. Franklin

(...)

was my PE teacher in grade school, ever acting grade school. So he was big tall guy with a mustache. Right?

Big guy. Mr. Frank. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. He was at Thompson Elementary when I did my field experience and my student teaching there.(...) And he's like, Mr. Young, you need more of a challenge than PE. And he sent me over to Mill, which was a behavioral school.

(...)

And that was had started my long career of being a special ed teacher. I never really used my physical education degree, except for maybe some adaptive piece stuff. But more or less, I worked with kids that, you know, we had gone through the, you know, the criminal justice system

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and the denturies.

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And yeah, so I started my teaching career.

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So through that time, you were you're sober, right? I was staying sober. Yeah. Okay. So when you say you're staying sober, were you living a life of recovery? Okay, so it wasn't bare knuckle, white knuckle. It was you were actively in recovery. You weren't just hoping to God that I'm going to make it through the night kind of deal. You were living your true

life, so to speak. Well, my thing is, you know, what I've come to realize also is with anything else, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg with some form of mental illness and alcoholism, I think we all come to realization that there's a factor. Right. So my thing also is, you know,(...) the way I grew up, you know, my parents were young, my dad suffered from severe depression, he's actually hospitalized with it a couple times, you know, and a lot of times, you know, you become a product of your environment, if not just, you know, from the gym, he's alcoholic, grandpa was alcoholic.

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My mom's dead, dad's dead.(...) Her family, his family, big drinkers.

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So it was pretty prevalent when you were young. Yeah, I was when I grew up around me, right?

Grandpa owned a bar.

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I spent a lot of time there.

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I'm sure you learned a lot of good habits hanging out. I mean, life lessons, though, right? Sure. Street smarts and whatever else, but at the same time,(...) learning some things. Just in the streets for a bit, actually.

So street smarts, book smarts, you know, I caught a good combination now. But at one point, it probably was more street smarts and books.

Right, right. And I think that's the way a lot of people are, right, especially in addiction and whatnot.(...) They're extremely street, street smart, because they need to find a way to get their next fix or their next drink or whatever. I saw something the other day, and maybe it was a couple of months ago, but it was talking about, you know,(...) a crackhead finds a way every day to get a fix.

(...)

Why can't you find a way to better your life or take that next step and do better at work or whatever else? And I mean, it sounds a little mean and harsh, but it's kind of true. I mean, it just told me that addiction, I mean, you can find a way to satisfy your addiction, whether you're broke or you're a millionaire, you're going to figure it out because it's that powerful of a thing, whether it's alcohol or math or pills or whatever else, you're going to find a way, right?

(...)

Sure, but some people take it to their death. Right. I mean, we know that the percentages are as well as people who come in to the program, whether it be A or NA. Right. And people, you know, just have a tendency not to get it or just don't come in at all. I talked to a lot of veterans and people that nature who are on the streets, you know, down where my business is at.

(...)

And I'm throwing it out there. Hey, how about, you know,(...) some resources and so you're able to get better and they just don't they don't want it. So you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make and drink that old thing.

Right. And that's the thing with a lot of addicts and alcoholics.

(...)

They never, and I'm guilty more than anybody that you don't want to admit that you need somebody else's help because you're going to fix it on your own. I'm going to take care of it. I'll do this. And you know, the the word I or me tends to come up a lot when you're dealing with addiction. And it's not always a good thing. I mean, you have to at some point let go and say, hey, you know what, maybe I should listen to some people that have experienced it and have done the work and have gotten to the point where they've been sober and they've lived a good life. And, you know, I always say that living in sobriety or recovery isn't easier. It's just better. Right. I mean, life isn't easy. There's there's challenges every day. Kids, businesses, traffic, people at Meijer that still write checks for their goddamn groceries. I mean, stuff like that. I mean, it's frustrating, but now I just kind of I don't make a big deal of it. But back in the day, I would like lose my shit over the stupidest, smallest stuff.(...) And as somebody that's trying to live a better life now,(...) those small things don't really matter.(...) But that being said, I still get pissed off in traffic once in a while. I still get impatient with my kids and whatever else. And I'm sure I mean, how many kids you got like 20 or seven? Six. Six. Okay. I knew I knew I was up there. So I know you can probably relate to that. Right. I mean, you try to be a great parent and a role model and whatever else. But there's moments even in sobriety where you lose it and you're just like, holy shit, I don't like that person that just it just went off on the kids. Right.(...) And when I do that, and it's not all the time, but when I do do it,(...) it kind of gives me flashbacks to back when I was drinking. I'm like, holy shit, I do not want to be that person. And I kind of rights the ship, so to speak, at least for that, that moment. And, you know, I, I don't know if you experienced that with your kids or they're they're always in line or whatever else. But I'm sure they're not.(...) If they're related to you.

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You know, just like when at the meetings, you know, just some simple sayings on the walls, let go and let go. Easy does it. I mean, that's, it's waiting gold. Right. You know, when you're having a rough day and you're looking up like, oh, yeah,

(...)

you know, because we have a tendency to forget. We're definitely forgetters. You know, right. It would tend to see the, you know, stuff that stuff and repress it and compartmentalize it.(...) When we get to a meeting, we can unlock that box and let it all out. And that's where we start to grow. And I think we both have, you know, noticed, you know,(...) that we, we both come a long way.

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But as far as, you know, patience is virtue, those type of things that can just tend to go out the window once we leave the meeting, unless we're really applying it to our life. And that's where spiritual growth comes into play. How much are we letting God into our lives and how is driving with ourselves? Those are big two, probably the two biggest components right there.

Right. And that's the thing that kind of freaked me out when I first went into AA. I went into the local AA meeting and I sat down and I'm like, this is fucking brutal. Because I looked around and I'm like, these are, I am not like these freaking losers. I mean, and that's what I, that's what I said. I'm just being genuine here. And so I sat there and, you know, they go around the table, you know, do you want to say anything? I'm like, no, I'm good. And,

(...)

and before I could get up, this, this little old lady, she grabbed my arm and I'm like, whoa, whoa, you know, boundaries lady. And she's like, you know, God, God will save you. And I'm like, okay, I'm out this. God will save me. I mean, I'm not a church guy or whatever else.(...) And so that was my excuse to be like, I'm not going to AA. It's all, it's a cult and they're gonna brainwash you and they want you to, you know, worship their God and whatever else. But over the course of time,(...) you figure out that it's spirituality, higher power, whatever you want to call it, you know, God or this or that. I mean, it doesn't have to be what other people see as their higher power, right? And to me, that's, you know, that was something that I didn't really believe in or whatever else. But after I got back from rehab, I was more educated on the topic. And I'm like, okay, there is a higher power and somebody else is in control. And it's not me, right? And I think we learn that as alcoholics and addicts and whatnot, that we don't control the narrative. There's something else going on that controls it.(...) But we just have to adhere to the basic principles of,(...) okay, take one day at a time and go to meetings and whatever else. And I think that's important for a lot of people because I've had conversations with people that I haven't talked to in 20 years that have heard the podcast from the previous episodes. And they're like, Oh, I don't want to go to AA because it's all God and church. And I'm like, it's not. You've got to be open-minded if you want to tackle your problems. And, you know, it sounds like, you know, you're in a place where

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you're desperate. If you're calling me after 20 something years, I haven't seen this guy or heard this guy since college. And he's calling me out of the blue. Hey, I heard your podcast. I think I'm an alcoholic. I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, what have you done to address it? Well, I tried to quit. Well, how long did that last? Like a week. Okay. And then I'm going to drink just Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You know, the old.

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Okay. How's that going for you? And then I would get back in contact with the same guy. And Oh, how's it going? Well, you know, the,(...) my kids baseball game was out of town and I got together with the other dads and we have, you know, like there's always an excuse, right? There's always an excuse whether people are afraid of the whole God thing, or if they don't think they're at this level of the bottom, there's always an excuse. And I'm sure,(...) you know, you, you had a ton of them before you actually surrendered, so to speak. And do you remember that part where you're just like, okay,

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this is I am,(...) I am letting go of my thoughts and kind of putting it into somebody else's hands.

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So for me, if it wasn't for the consequences, I probably wouldn't ever stepped in(...) the doorway.

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So there always had to be a consequence.

So it was consequent based, right? Because you were getting in trouble all the time.

When it comes to the door of a, you know, because their life is better roses. Right.

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Well, I think I just come to AA because my life's going so good. That's not how it works.

(...) That's, that's probably the truest fucking statement I've ever heard about AA. You're not walking in there if things are going well.

(...) You know, I think I go to an AA meeting today because things are wonderful. You know, most of the time you're coming through an AA meeting, you know, with your tail between your legs because of some type of consequence, whether it be jail, loss of a wife, relationship, job, whatever the case may be, you know, and that's when you got to get gut wrenching honest with yourself. And they mentioned honestly, I don't know how many times and how it works, right?

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That's kind of a big part of the deal.

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So getting to your point about spirituality and God, you're right. You know, you have to be able to come to a conclusion within yourself. You know, what is spirituality to me?

(...)

Where, where do I want to come from? Whether it be God, whether it be that a book sitting on the table, whether it be that do or not, whatever you make is your higher power is your higher power. Because you know what, at some point in time, you got to realize I'm not in control of this deal, right? Because your control got you sitting in a spot in alcohol synonymous. It allows you how we earn that spot.(...) But we have to continue staying in that spot.(...) Right. That's what it comes down to for for a lot of us is when we realize that we're not in control. And something else is when things start to take place in our lives. It's kind of like kicking in the door and stepping through.

Right. Right. And, and that's the thing. I mean,(...) the C word control. I mean,(...) if I had control of what I could do, then I wouldn't have walked into AA, right? I mean, there's, there's something inside of all of us that have been in meetings and have addiction issues that we can't control our our addiction, right? Our addiction controls us. And until you relinquish that control and see that there is a proven method to be able to get you out of that shithole that you're in, then you're going to stay in that shithole for a pretty damn long time. Or until A, you kill yourself or B,(...) even worse, you kill somebody else because you got behind the wheel. I mean, those consequences are that those those scared me more than the self-harm that I was doing, hurting somebody else.

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I, you know, I like to joke now, but I mean, I, I never got a DUI in all the years that I was drinking. And I, I don't even know how that's statistically possible.(...) I mean, seriously, you're lucky. Well, yeah, I mean, that's one word for it. But how how is it? How is that only possible that someone like me who was drinking and driving all the time never got pulled over? And, you know, nowadays,(...) I kind of wish I get pulled over at night because I'm like, Hey, what's up, officer? How you doing? Oh, yeah, it's it's 1030. And I'm out here. I'm good, man. I'm good. Do you need me to walk the line? Or what do you want me to do?

(...)

And yeah, that's that part scared the crap out of me. As far as, you know, the the long term consequences,(...) killing myself, which is secondary to hurting somebody else. And to me that that was a relief once I surrendered and got sober and said, Oh, shit, now, at least just for today, I don't have to worry about killing somebody else's kids when I'm on the road. And that,

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I don't know, to me, that's, it's, it's huge. It's, it's a relief that I don't have to worry about. Right.

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And, you know,

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kind of circling around here. So, I mean, I think that's, that's a as far as the we kind of talked about the, the dark side, so to speak of recovery.

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When, you know, you stopped and you're living your life, what, how much better is it that you're not drinking? How much, how much better is life now that you're not drinking or some people case using her?

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Well, we're kind of backing up to what you're saying. I mean, self-fishment and self-centeredness is the root of our problem.

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And when I can get past that, then I start to grow.

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And what's it going to take to get to them?(...) To be brutally honest,

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right?(...) Be a sponsor,

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come to meetings, you know, get involved,

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work the steps.

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I mean, how many times have you come to a meeting and brought something up and your sponsor, Polity Science said, so what step are you working on?

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Right, right. Because it sounds to me like you're not working any of them. Sound like a raving lunatic. Right. You know, especially when you come in bitching about the traffic. What kind of day are you having?

(...)

Right.

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But for me, you know, honesty, my life(...) couldn't be any better.

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Well, I mean, you're a successful business owner. You got Midtown Fitness. You know, you started your own gym. How long ago was that? 2018.

So I bought the building, renovated it.

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And we were able to open in 2019.

(...) Oh, cool. Right before COVID. So that was ideal.

(...)

Nice.(...) So do you think that if you were still drinking that you would have been able to buy a gym at any point? There's no way.(...) No fucking way, right?

(...)

I mean,

(...)

do you think if you were still drinking, you'd have a solid relationship with your kids? Probably not. Right. I mean, and it all goes back to me.

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You know, when I was drinking,(...) I drank to escape my problems, like 100%. You know, you can blame everybody else at the end of the day. But if you're in the self pity mode, and you're just drinking to, you know, poison your thought process, then you're not gonna get anywhere.(...) But, you know, to me, you know, life in sobriety is brought a lot of joy that I never would have experienced if I was still drinking. And to be honest, I'd probably be dead by now if I was still drinking. There is no doubt in my mind that I'd be dead or in jail.(...) And, you know, the positives so much outweigh the negative. But it's hard to see that at the beginning. Because I remember my first thought was, how the hell am I going to have any fun if I'm sober? How am I going to, how am I going to, you know, be able to go out with my buddies and have a good time and whatever else? But I have found that in sobriety, I have just as much fun, if not more than those guys that I still hang out with to this day. And you know, my good friends from grade school and high school and whatever else. But now it's a different kind of fun, right? I mean, you enjoy the moments. And what's nice is that when the people that you're hanging out with have gotten to a point where you can't stand them for the night, you just fucking leave.(...) You know, I don't say goodbye. I just I just totally ghost everybody and walk out.

(...)

And they always ask, well, what time did you leave? I'm like, I don't know, 1030.(...) Like, oh, man, we stayed till two. I'm like, yep, exactly. And that's, that's that, to me, is the most powerful, powerful thing about sobriety is I have control over those situations before I had zero control, didn't really care, got in my car, woke up the next morning,(...) looked in the garage and like, oh, thank God, my car's here, right? And just had no recollection, usually of the night before. And it is truly empowering to be in a position where you don't have to do that. I'm sure you went through that too, right? You, you woke up the next morning and said, Hey, guess what? I didn't get in a fight. Guess what? I don't have a court date. Guess what? I mean, it's, it's extremely liberating to live a life of sobriety. And I get it. The fun part is of the obstacle for a lot of people.(...) But trust me, the lows are not worth the lows at the end of the day.

(...) I mean, you can look at statistically what alcohol is done to our country, people in general, I mean, the writing's on the wall.(...) Should it be illegal? I don't know. That's not up to me. That's up to the public.

But do you really think it should be illegal? I don't. Okay. I mean, I don't hear too many people say alcohol should be illegal. No, but it's done more damage than any other. Well, absolutely. Because I mean, it's, it's, it's every grocery store, gas station. And what are they want to lower the age?

I saw that 18.

(...)

Well, it's in Wisconsin, you can be 18. If you're with an adult, right, right, what, a relative or

yeah, whoever you're at the restaurant or bar with, I mean, but, you know, that to me, I mean, that I don't think is because there's people out there that understand and get how to have a good time with alcohol. So you shouldn't punish those people by, you know, banning it or whatever else. And I, you know, I think that lowering the age might be a little risky, but then it goes back to the point of, okay, well, if you're 18, you can vote and you can die for your country. But you're telling me I can't have a I can't go into a liquor store and buy my booze. I mean, that kind of gets into a murky area for me. Because I, if you're an adult, then you should be able to make adult decisions. And if one of those is to go out to the bar and have drinks and whatever else, then, you know, more power to you.

But to me, I don't think an 18 year old is an 18 year old of the past. That's the a lot of kids that are very immature these days, a lot of parents hovering over their children.

Well, right, the helicopter parents that don't let them make any mistakes, right. And that's the unfortunate part, I think, where we're at in society where kids don't get to make mistakes, because mom and dad are always in their face or hovering or, you know, knowing where they're at 24 hours a day. I mean, there's something about growing up making those mistakes.

They have a tendency to overcompensate for lack thereof. Right. To a certain degree, right? Right. We went through it, we know how it is. So I'm going to protect them from every little thing. And that can go, you know, south fast.

Right, right. And, you know, the kids today, I think, are a lot more like, and probably said, they're a lot more sheltered from real life street smart stuff that if they were out there on their own, they'd probably panic. And, you know,

(...)

it frustrates me that we're at a place where, you know, kids nowadays, I was talking to a person that does HR for a big firm in Chicago. And he literally said that during the interview process, like kids are bringing their mom and dad into the interview and asking if they can be in the same room during the interview. And the guy that I was talking to was like, what the fuck is going on out there? This is never the same thing. Right. I mean, what, what kind of society are we bringing up here? But anyway, we got kind of got off track there dealing with society's issues and whatnot. So that all being said, you know, I, I think that, you know, meeting you at some point was extremely helpful in my process. And I met you before I actually went to rehab. And,(...) you know, I remember having conversations at a new attitude group in Rotford and saying, okay, this guy might know what he's talking about. But then I would go back out and I would drink. And it wasn't until after I made my 30 day stay up at the Hazleton, Betty Ford, that I actually, you know, started living life and recovery. And then, you know, we'd see each other once in a while. But it's, it's been, it's been a while since we've actually talked about this. And I'm glad you got to come in and, you know, share some of your thoughts and

(...)

Yeah, the new attitude group is it was a great group. But, you know, you get all walks of life that come through through the door there, you get a lot of good sobriety.

(...) Right. There's a lot of experience and have in that group. There's quite a bit, a lot of characters.

I mean,(...) I think we knew and I had more in common. I think that's probably why we kind of hit it off in there. Right.

Right.

For the simple facts matters is, you know, sometimes you got to close your eyes and listen to the message, not the messenger and you're going to get messages in it. In that particular meeting. And I think that's where we learn a lot of patience.

Well, that's a great point. Because sometimes there are certain people in certain meetings, and I don't care if it's Rockford, Illinois, or Miami, or New York, or Austin, Texas, or whatever. Or when you're at a meeting or in a meeting, there's always maybe one or two people, you're like, holy fuck, this guy goes on and on and on. But like you just said, patience, patience, patience, because at some point, maybe you're going to get something out of this guy's rambling. The grace of God there goes on. Right. Right. And it's there are messages to be heard from, from people that you might not want to hear them from.

And I'm sure some people are like, who's this uptight country club kid coming in here sticking his nose up at us?

Well, and that's funny you say that because I would come in there and like my suit and sometimes like a three piece suit, whatever. You were sure. I was I was dressed for work and I but in my defense, I did bring donuts like every day.(...) And I think that that eased everybody's looking for the protein bar. But you know, I'm not spending all that money on a protein bar for everybody.

(...) That's me. We know we saw what the rest of them look like.

Well, I mean, see, now, come on, man.

(...)

Now, there is no judging, no judging, no judging. But(...) but yeah, I'm I'm super excited that you're the first guest back on the single dad sober dad podcast. And we're looking forward to doing two episodes a month right now.(...) And like I said, I'm kind of diving deep into this. I sold my wealth management practice and I started a new company, Welding Media Group, and the podcast and my corporate speaking is going to be umbrella under that going forward. So if you if you like the episode, make sure you share it, make sure you spread the word on social media.(...) And you know, make sure that you send that or share that to somebody that might need some help. Because like I said, I've gotten feedback from people that I haven't heard from in 25 years from college, like literally, I haven't talked to them since college and they they heard the podcast reached out they say I think it might have a problem. And that's really what the purpose of the podcast is, is to help people see that there's a better way to do it. Not an easier way, but a better way, right.(...) And, you know, at the end of the day, that's that's the mission of the podcast. And, you know, to help maybe one person, you know, see the light, so to speak. And I've always joked that if a total dipshit like me can get sober, then anybody can do it, right. And I'm sure you'd agree that, you know, you've, you've, you didn't think at some point that you were going to be able to get sober, right? I mean, no, nobody does.

And some of us are a little more hard headed than others. I was listening to a guy at a meeting one time he had, he was at a wedding reception.

(...)

And he had a glass of wine, he said he tripped over the curve, fell on the back of his convertible BMW. And he said that was it. Didn't want to embarrass himself. He stayed silver and never picked up another drink. Some guys could go out, commit heinous crimes, drink, do drugs, go in and out of prison and still never get this. Right. And, you know, it's a sad scenario, but it's a fact.

(...)

So, and I've been in a lot of meetings where

(...)

there were some people, I was certain,(...) certain they weren't going to get it. And they got, and there were some that this guy's got it.

And he went back out. Well, right. And then you hear that all the time, all the time, 10 years, 15, 30 years sober, and, hey, we're so and so, oh man, he's back out. And it can happen in the blink of an eye. And that's why it's important to keep going to meetings, keep talking to your sponsor, keep, keep up with yourself, essentially. Because once you, you think you've got to figure it out, that's when you're the most fucked. Because your ego is saying, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't need this anymore. I don't need a meeting. Well, guess what? That's what you put into his

how much you're gonna get. Right.

I mean, that's just simple. Right.(...) And that is a great way to end the podcast. I want to thank Keith Young for coming out. And if you're in the Rockford, Illinois area, and if you need a gym, why don't you head over to Midtown Fitness and talk to Keith. He does a great job for his clients. And I know that he takes extra special care of people. And that's, that's what I think is important when you're talking about a gym, you want people that actually care, have the experience, and can help you, you know, physically become, you know, a better person. And I think that's important. And so I want to thank you again for coming out. So that's it. Again, we will be back in a couple weeks with another guest to be determined. And I want to thank everyone for listening, sharing, and we'll see you soon on Single Dad, Sober Dad. Thank you.