From Addiction to Ownership: How Chef Scott Crawford Rebuilt His Life

 In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier sits down with chef and restaurateur Scott Crawford for a direct conversation about recovery, leadership, and building a business with real standards. Scott shares how addiction nearly cost him his life, what finally pushed him to get sober, and how that decision changed everything from his creativity to his career trajectory.

They talk about Scott’s journey from humble beginnings in the restaurant industry to owning multiple restaurants in Raleigh, North Carolina, including Crawford and Son, Jolie, Brodeto, Sous Terre, Crawford Brothers Steakhouse, and Crawford’s Genuine at RDU Airport. Scott also explains how he built a workplace culture centered on professionalism, safety, accountability, and team buy-in in an industry often known for chaos and substance abuse.

This conversation also highlights the importance of support systems, mentorship, and giving back. Scott discusses Ben’s Friends, a support network for people in the hospitality industry, along with Healing Transitions and the work being done to help people find recovery and long-term support. This episode is a strong listen for anyone interested in sobriety, entrepreneurship, leadership, hospitality, and personal transformation.

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Learn more or support Ben’s Friends: https://www.bensfriendshope.com

Key topics covered: recovery, addiction, sobriety, restaurant leadership, chef life, hospitality industry, workplace culture, entrepreneurship, Raleigh restaurants, Ben’s Friends, Healing Transitions, personal growth, team building, accountability, overcoming adversity

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Transcript

Corey Berrier 0:31

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier, and I'm here with my man Scott Crawford. How are you, brother? I'm doing well, Corey. How are you? I'm good, man. I'm really excited to talk with you. I know we chatted a little bit the other day, and I know you know bits and pieces of your story, but I'm very interested in hearing the rest of it and you filling in some of the things that maybe we missed. But before we dive in, uh Scott, those of you that may or may not know you, I'd like for you just to give a quick bio of your what you're doing these days, your restaurants, and a little bit about all of that, if you don't mind.

Speaker 1 1:16

Sure. Well, I'm Scott Crawford. I uh my chef and restaurateur in Raleigh, North Carolina. I own Crawford and Son, Jolie, Brodetto, Bar Soutaire, Crawford Brothers Steakhouse, and I also have a restaurant at RDU Airport called Crawford's Genuine. I have an amazing team and uh amazing family. And uh I've been in Raleigh for 15 years and have uh enjoyed being part of the uh creation of an amazing food scene and amazing growth in our city. Uh I'm also good to note that I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Sometimes that's fun to share right up front.

Corey Berrier 2:13

Yeah, that's important. I think a lot of folks have a different view of what a drug addict and an alcoholic looks like because of maybe preconceived notions or maybe movies that they've seen, but I don't it's it's not too crazy to talk to someone who's had a lot of success in their recovery, and in addition to that, having success in business, and I think that's really interesting to point out and uh and important because you didn't start out with five or six restaurants, right? Obviously, that's right.

Speaker 1 3:00

I had very humble beginnings and uh my share of struggles in life, like many chefs. I think you'll hear it's a common theme. Chefs will say, I found this industry because it welcomed types of people like me, kind of a little bit on the wild side, creatives maybe, but most of us with a strong work ethic and a willingness to put in the work, but uh you also hear a common theme that many of us hit a wall or burned out or crashed and burned, or and that was kind of all of the above for me. But also, you'll hear a lot of chefs say that this the industry kind of saved them in a way, maybe saved them from themselves, and that's something that I believe wholeheartedly happened to me. I'm not sure what would have happened to me if I hadn't found cooking. Yeah, so let's talk about starting out. Yeah, go ahead.

Corey Berrier 4:25

Yeah, so let's talk about let's talk about that. What was it like before you got sober? And then what exactly happened that you realized there was a change that needed to be made. What was that about? What was that like?

Speaker 1 4:50

Well, I got into cooking at a really pretty young age. I found the industry just as a means to survive. You can get into one of the things I love about this industry is you can get into it without the benefit of higher education. If you're willing to work hard and follow a program, you can follow along with people's standards in restaurants. You can be very successful just working hard. And that's what I did. But that was in the front of house for me in the beginning, making earning tips, doing busing, a bar back, bartender, server. I kind of went through the whole brigade in the front. And I started in the back by on by accident one night when someone didn't show up. I was very good friends with the cooks. I hung out with them mostly. They were kind of my people, and I sold weed to all of them, so they were really my people, and so they were perfectly comfortable asking me to work, even though I had no idea what I was doing. It felt like, and I was told that that was a place where I belonged, and it was a huge pay cut to do it, but I chose to start cooking, get into the back of the house, learn this craft, and kind of dedicate myself to it for a while just to see if I had some talent, if I had what it was gonna take to be successful at it. And after working for a few chefs, you know, well, let's back up a little. I I cooked for in in mediocre restaurants for a good long time. I was a good line cook, solid. And then I had a period of time in my life where I was not cooking, not doing the right things, and going down a path that a lot of people don't come back from. And a lot of my friends or people I knew didn't come out of that unscathed. And I kind of did. I was able to sort of escape that life and get back into cooking in Richmond, Virginia for a chef who named Michelle Williams who really changed my mind about how the industry could be, just in subtle ways. I don't think she was trying to say anything profound or impact me. I just really respected that she was a young-driven chef, had her own restaurant, was doing it right, led with empathy, had a lot of people working for her that were a bunch of ruffians and pirates, and but we all loved and respected her and would have gone through walls for her. And she really made me realize this is it, I'm gonna do this. I went to school, I went to culinary school, just a two-year program. I did it accelerated. First time in my life I got straight A's ever. Um, maybe the first time in my life I got any A's. But I was just really committed and I was absolutely obsessed with learning everything I could possibly learn. And so that was a beautiful thing. The only problem there was I was on this amazing path, but the habits that I had formed in my previous lifestyle were still there. They weren't gone. And so I spent the first part of my chef career working in San Francisco and New York, and for companies like Ritz Carlton and Relane Chateau properties, and working at a very high level, still very much struggling with substance abuse. And what happened to me was that my eventually, between the stress, the long hours, and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, my body attacked itself. My immune system killed my pancreas, and I was nearly nearly died. And so you would think, yeah, that that should do it, right? That should get you on the right path. And I was released from ICU, got out of the hospital, was now needing to inject insulin and all it to survive, and all, and I went straight to the liquor store from the hospital. So it took a long time for me to come to terms and be honest with myself that I was killing myself. And the most amazing thing happened. I went on a bender and I almost did kill myself. And my brother had seen me during this time, and he called me after a couple of days, and he said, We're all just kind of waiting for the call. You're gonna die. I was there, you helped me. It's time for me to help you. You really need to get help, or you're gonna die. You're there. It's I can see it in your physical being. I can see it in your face, your eyes, your everything. You're gonna die. I don't want to watch you die. And I believed him. People had told me I was gonna die before, and I had kind of thought I was gonna probably die young at times, but for whatever reason, that day I knew he was right. I knew that I was really close to dying. And so I was ready. That was it. I decided that day that I would do whatever it took, no matter what, to chase these demons down, to you know figure this out. It wasn't a everyone says, well, you know, you gotta just do one day at a time. It was one hour at a time.

unknown 12:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:15

For me at that point. And some days I call my brother, was the one I would call, you know, five times a day. And he or he would call me and just check in like five to six to seven times a day. And uh slowly but surely over time, and I didn't do it by myself. I followed a program, and uh I some of which I really loved, some of which I didn't, but didn't matter. I didn't care if I loved it, I didn't care what I had to do. I was just truly grateful that I wasn't dead and that I was able to have this sort of chance to, I don't know, be the person that I always wanted to be. It's such a lie. You live such a lie for so long in addiction, and uh trying to live a double life, trying to pretend like you're part of normal society, and you're not, and people other people know you're not, you're part of a like a vampire group that's out drinking and doing cocaine all night, and then when the sun comes up, you're take a shower and go to work when you're just literally destroying yourself, and I did that for so so long, and I just had this overwhelming sense of relief that I didn't have to do that anymore, and uh the over just a really short period of time I started to taste things better, see things differently, feel good. I could put in a good long day and still be sharp at the end of the day, and I was sharp when I woke up, and it didn't happen overnight. I I developed insomnia at first, I couldn't sleep, I was emotional all the time because I hadn't felt anything in years. I was I went through some pretty serious detox, but when that was kind of over, I started to see improvements in my life like immediately. I mean, I started to have a lot more money right away and was able to use it for things that were a lot more meaningful than I mean, cocaine's expensive, and I spent a lot of money on it, and uh I would go to bars and had it would be nothing for me to have a two, three, four hundred dollar bar tab. So it was it I started to really feel some success right away, just small little personal successes, but man, my career just it was like a rocket. It was like I had all of the I had all of the makings. I had this talent, I had these leadership qualities, but they were all sort of being beaten down by substance abuse, and then it was like this whole new world opening up of you know, truly inspiring people and building teams that were unstoppable and uh doing food that I never thought, imagined that I could do. It was really an amazing trajectory for me after that.

Corey Berrier 16:32

Scott, were you so I can imagine so I imagine I trying to imagine some of the things that you maybe thought before you quit? And you were already you were already a successful chef by all standards, and I wonder, did you ever wonder how your talent would suffer if you stopped? In other words, if I stop drinking, I stopped drugging, I'm doing pretty well of above standards with the places that I'm working. Did you ever think that I can't really stop because the creative side of me is gonna potentially die if I do that?

Speaker 1 17:35

Yeah, though I had those thoughts. I mean, when you're in addiction, you'll convince yourself of all the reasons why you shouldn't stop, right? And that one was definitely one of my top reasons. I would have very sort of manic creative moments when I was using, but I couldn't always help but wonder how much better I could be, because I felt also the negative effects of substance abuse all the time, and you you just cannot work ninety hours a week and use cocaine five four or five nights a week and not destroy your body, it just destroys you, and so I uh had both thoughts for sure. I thought that some of my uh most amazing ideas came when I was using and I did have some pretty I did have some pretty cool ideas because I wasn't uh bound by any rules of creativity. And I think that it's like a lot of musicians and rock stars, you know, they start out and it's great. They're writing amazing music and they're using and they're touring and everything's great, and then I mean, eventually, you know, substance abuse and alcohol, it's a thief. It'll steal you, it'll steal steal your soul, your it'll steal everything if you let it. And most of us do give ourselves to that at some point, and it stole everything from me, including almost my life. So at the end, there there wasn't any, well, what if I'm not? It was like, man, if I I'm gonna die, like I'm gonna die. I have taken this as far as I can take it without dying. So, because when I walked into the ER and they measured my blood sugar, they said that they looked me in the face and I could tell that they were really tripping out, like they were looking at me like I I think I could even taste death. It was a really surreal day. And they were looking at me a certain way, and I said, What is going on? And they said, We've just never seen anyone alive with a blood sugar as high as yours. We've seen dead people, but not alive. We're not sure exactly what to do with you. We think we might have to life flight you somewhere else because we're not equipped to deal with this. This is in a fucking hospital.

Corey Berrier 20:59

Jesus Christ. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 21:02

Yeah. It was unbelievable. So that's pushing it about as far as you can push it. You can't really push it any further than that, I figured. But anyway, the creative side, fortunately for me, became tenfold. I it turns out that all of that was really just holding me back. It came just rushing through me. I I had more ideas than I could write down, and it took me a long time though to sort of harness all of that energy, and I couldn't understand why everyone wasn't as motivated as me then, and I was a mess for a while just with all of that pent-up energy and new sort of attitude toward life, and uh it took me a while to sort of realize that I needed to kind of calm down and just I was gonna I was gonna live. So there's time. I've got plenty of time to take all of this and figure out what to do with it and how to make myself truly successful. But when you're in substance abuse, there's a thing that you just you know you can't imagine. Like I would never have imagined that my life. Would look like it does now. That would have been way too much, way too unimaginable. I would have laughed and said, Well, that would be nice. Well, it is nice, but it's the potential was always there. And it can happen, it can happen to anyone. If it can happen to me, I'm telling you. I never could have imagined this. So when I got sober, I started to be able to then imagine. Well, I you know what? I do belong in that room. I have something to share and add. I can enhance this. I have value to bring to the table. And I belong in these rooms that that I'm in. And in my former life, the one that we're just sort of gonna touch on a little bit, I always had the ability to infiltrate whatever group I wanted to. It's a street thing. It's learned from a young age of reading people and reading rooms and reading energy. And I I could I had that talent and ability, and I recognized that at the time. It kept me out of prison, and it kept me from making big mistakes that you can't come back from. And I took that and I used that. I used it when I got sober. The groups that I wanted to infiltrate were very different, but it was the same talent, the ability to do that. I want to sit in rooms with billionaires and developers and people who are making big moves. And I need to infiltrate those groups, and this is how I'm going to do it. And so the things that I learned in my former career were absolutely relevant, and I had that conscious thought and conscious thought process of how to use those in the world that I was now living in to create success for myself. It worked. The fake it till you make it kind of thing where let me get in this these rooms, let me convince these people that I have value, that I have can put value on their to their project. And then it's just a matter of delivering. And I knew I could do that. I knew I had the confidence to know I can deliver on what I'm telling them I can do. Whether that was a Forbes five-star award for their restaurant or Michelin recognition or financials that they needed to achieve, whatever it was, if I said I was gonna do it, then I did it. And that was like a really, as simple as it sounds, that was a great formula for success for me.

Corey Berrier 26:38

So you mentioned value. All right, so let's dive into that for a second. When I first got sober, and for a while after I was work working on staying sober, one of the things you mentioned is you didn't say you had different masks, but I can't remember how you said it. But basically, when we were drinking and drugging, we had to be a different person in multiple different places and how draining that was. And so for me, I it was almost like I had so many split personalities, not diagnosed, obviously, split personality, but so many different faces and masks that I had to put on in different situations in different places. I really didn't know who I was, and I really didn't know what value I could even bring. But as I've gone as I've gone through this and stayed sober and kind of just uh not tried to force things. I've I meditate and I do pray and I've just kind of unplugged from a lot of things, especially over these last five months, and for and the things that I'm working on now are just they're flowing. They're you know, flow that it's really hard to explain. Almost a mystical sequence. It's does that make sense?

Speaker 1 28:24

It does. I love that you said that you don't know exactly who you are, and I didn't either, and that gives you a that creates a real lack of confidence in the real world of where where do I fit in here, and do I at all. But even in those days when I was a criminal, I had a value system because I was raised with values. I mean, I I had a lot of trauma in my childhood, but it wasn't like I didn't know there were no values instilled in me. There were. And I had that the whole time, even when I was doing things that were not right, I still had this sort of idea that I was doing it right. And I was my crimes were victimless, is what really I had myself convinced of. And so my I really I did, even looking back, I did have a lot of I had standards, I had values, I had boundaries, because trust me, the animals that I was running around with did not some of them, and so it wasn't difficult for me to make that transition into real-world values, they got a lot stronger, better, different. I always had this sort of value system. I think I really do think that kind of kept me from going to prison or getting shot, also, because there was a I just didn't cross certain lines. So I kind of knew who I was even then, but it was a real blurred version. It was severe, and those lines were blurry a lot, and I really enjoyed being able to make those lines crisp and clear to me and the people that I was interacting with in real life in in my sober career. I've always loved having knowing who I am and who I'm going to be. It did take time, like you said, and it's different for everyone, and that's okay. Your process, I think, in finding out who you are and who you're going to be. But man, once you do, you know, and you get other people to believe in that, the authenticity of that, I have a team that uh they just really buy in to what I believe in. And when that happens, you can do some just incredible work. It almost feels like you're unstoppable when everyone really believes in the same value system and the same beliefs and the same sort of disciplines, it and you get a bunch of really great talented people together. That is pretty magical. That's pretty cool stuff.

Corey Berrier 32:12

How do you keep? I'm just curious, the restaurant industry, as you mentioned earlier, you know, is known to be the everybody knows that well, I don't know if everybody knows, but I've worked in restaurants, and I don't think I've ever worked in a single restaurant where there were drugs and alcohol. And so I'm just curious, Scott, how do you how do you manage multiple restaurants with your background and not have those same issues, assuming you don't have those issues, and it sounds like if you've got a great team, they're probably not higher drunk. So how do you m manage that? Or how do you because it seems like that would be slim pickings these days, I would think.

Speaker 1 33:01

Actually, we it it's the opposite. So we early on, I started this company 10 years ago, and very early on, we decided that we were gonna be not consuming alcohol in our restaurants at all. That means no shift drinks, no, you don't sit down at the bar after your shift, you clock out, and you go home. Like other industries. You don't uh get shots brought to the kitchen because they did a good job. We reward you with compensation, and we reward you with uh bonuses or a family meal, food. We cook family meal for our staff on Fridays and Saturdays, so and that's exciting and it's fun, and it's something different every week, and that's a a way to say, hey, hey, good job. But uh rewarding people with alcohol didn't feel right for us because I know what that means. That means if you remove that from the workplace, you remove ninety-five percent of the problems that are going to occur. The sexual harassment issues, the drama. We just wanted to remove that. So no consumption of alcohol in our restaurants by our employees, period, zero tolerance. That's it. And by doing that, we realized very quickly who didn't want to be there and who really wanted to be there, and what we started to then sort of attract a lot more people because of what we would consider a very safe professional work environment. Now, we we're not perfect, we've had some issues here and there. Again, zero tolerance, and it's known that's not behavior that's going to be tolerated within our group, and so with that, people they understand it, they either really want to be in an environment like that, or they go work someplace else. There are lots of places where you can go work and drink at work, lots of restaurants. It's not our place, none of our places. So, and we we don't have a difficult time finding people. Most of the time we're fully staffed. We might need a person here and there. Most of the time, all five or six restaurants stay fully staffed. And I believe the reason for that is because they're busy, they make good money, and they have a safe professional work environment. These are the very basic things that I can provide as an employer. Now we've been able to now have insurance, health insurance, which is great, and we've added a few small benefits, and as we grow, we're able to do that. And so we're getting stronger, I think, as a group to be able to offer those things. But that's not the reason. I think the reason is because we have we strive every day to have a professional environment. And I think a lot more people in the restaurant industry want to work in that environment than they do in the environment where it's kind of chaotic and there's drinking and bad behavior.

Corey Berrier 36:49

That makes sense. It sounds like to me that you also culture is a big deal in any company. And if the culture's not good, even if it's one or two people, it can really destroy the culture of an environment. And it sounds like what you do with your team dinners, and that builds that builds a culture of success.

Speaker 1 37:19

That does culture is very important, but it has to be authentic. And the message that we send every day from ownership to director level to general managers and chefs, and all the way to line level employees, is that we all are responsible for creating our culture. Not me, not just me, and not just the managers, it's everyone. Every single person has a responsibility to come in every day and be and contribute to the culture that they want to be a part of. And so if you're coming in with negativity and griping about something instead of addressing it professionally with a manager or whatever, then you're that's the you're we it's very easy to identify who's creating negativity within a culture, then that's not the culture that we want to have. And we've really sort of clearly outlined the steps to take for issues that you might have. The support is there, and you can either go about it the right way or you can go about it the wrong way. And if you go about it the wrong way, it's glaring. Yeah, it's glaring because everyone else is kind of going about it the right way. So it becomes almost self-policing. And I maybe policing is the wrong word, but it's kind of true. If you're negative and you just want to be negative, you're not gonna do well. You know, that you're not contributing to our culture, it's a bad fit. We'll invite you to uh plan your exit strategy. No, no hard feelings, not a good fit. Because if people come every day and they can be positive, then together we can resolve any issues that arise. And we have them every day. Restaurants are extremely complex organizations. We have issues, but it's how you address them, and also it's us against the issue, not us against each other about the issue. And it's us we have the power to address the issue, sure, if we go about it in a prof in a professional manner, and that creates the culture of how we deal with issues, because they're never issues in any organization, but especially restaurants, because they're so people driven, they're always going to be there.

unknown 40:07

Yeah.

Corey Berrier 40:08

So curious, you've been you've been sober, you said 15 years, and you mentioned 21. 21 years, sorry. 21 years. That's okay. So over those 21 years, you've had help. Just when it will, if it was early on, I mean, look, there's different spots in our in our sobriety where we need help from other people, and then we're there to also help other people. And so what are some of the ways that you've been able to give back to the community that that helped you stay sober for 21 years?

Speaker 1 40:48

Yeah, well, I think that's very important, and I'm glad you brought that up. You know, some I have some people in my life that helped me a lot. Mickey Baxed, who's been my sponsor. I met him when I was maybe two months sober. He's been my sponsor for 21 years. He he really was really important, especially in the beginning. I he called me on my bullshit, and man, I needed it. Um and now it's we have a different relationship, but he's been a dear friend and a mentor and a great sponsor for 21 years. And Steve Palmer, he's another great inspiration to me. And Mickey and Steve actually started Ben's Friends, which is a support group for people in the industry. And I was super intertwined with that because it was named after Ben Murray, who took his own life after a relapse during an opening of a restaurant that I was involved with. I was at the opening, and it was a bunch of chefs who were sober, and Ben relapsed and was so felt so much shame about it that he took his own life. And Stephen Mickey founded Ben's Friends in uh in his honor to because we they thought we we have to do better for our people in the industry. And I founded the first chapter outside of Charleston in Raleigh before, and that was pre-COVID, then it went to Zoom. But uh they're now nationwide with that. And I just wanted to plug that a little bit and mention that I was honored to be sort of involved in that early on, and then I transitioned a lot of my energy into a local facility called Healing Transitions, which I know that you're familiar with. And the work that Healing Transitions is doing, I think in our community is just amazing. This is a facility where people can go stay for up to a year. They don't turn anyone away. If you have insurance, they can take it. If they if you don't have insurance, you still you can still go through the program. They're also a shelter for people who don't have homes, and they're expanding. And I was part of the capital campaign to help raise money to expand that, both the men's and women's campuses, and that felt great. And so then I was asked to serve on the board, and I have been, and I've really even developed through that process of serving that developed an even deeper appreciation for the work that they're doing. And I think every community should have a facility like Healing Transitions. And we're really lucky in Raleigh to have it and to be able to have that resource for people who are in need in that way. And so I've become sort of an advocate for raising awareness for healing transitions, raising money, because if you're going to not turn anyone away, you're going to need funding because a lot of people don't have insurance, right? And a lot of people don't have a way to pay for it. And so we still think that they deserve treatment and help. And I needed when I got sober, I needed just one person to believe I could do it. And that was at the time, that was my brother. He believed that I could do it. And he said that I could do it. And he believed in me. And I just needed that one person. And at Healing Transitions, uh, he felt like I was worth saving. Even though I had hurt my family and a lot of people, and I was, you know, kind of they'd a lot of people had written me off, thought I was just gonna die and waste away. And but he thought I was worth saving, and he invested a whole lot of time and energy in trying to bring me back to the to life. And uh at Healing Transitions, they believe everyone's worth saving, and it's just a beautiful thing. And so I have been honored to be a part of that and to believe in that and to raise awareness. And so we started something, an annual dinner called Freedom Harvest. And so the freedom comes from freedom from addiction and alcoholism, and the harvest part is because we do it every year in the fall, and it's a large family-style dinner where you know groups can come in and hear from people involved. We have speakers, we have graduates speaking, people who graduated from the program, alumni talking about the program, and then we'll have a silent option. And it's been a really successful and fun event. We'll do our third this year in October. And uh, so I'm really proud of that, that we have this thing that we're doing every year, and we're growing it, and we're growing it because the community is coming out and saying, wow, this is really cool what you're doing, and this is fun, and this raises a lot of awareness, and yeah, and we would like to donate, by the way. And so through that, we've been able to raise uh a lot of money, not just the expansion that's happening right now with it, but ongoing running an organization like that. Um, there are on there's an ongoing need for donations. So I'm very proud of the Freedom Harvest dinner. That's really cool. Those are just a those are a couple of ways that I've been able to give back. I also uh use the restaurants for space for different types of support meetings, and that's been really kind of cool. Just to be able to offer up the space.

Corey Berrier 47:43

Yeah, I've told my story there, actually.

Speaker 1 47:46

Ah, that's great. I love that. Yeah, well, and people have said that it's a different time because I don't think years ago, 21 years ago, when I got sober, I don't think we would be having a meeting in a place where there was liquor on the shelves, right? Yeah. And that sort of started for me with Ben's friends when we were people were like, wow, you're having a meeting with there's liquor right over there. And I was like, Do you think you're never gonna see liquor again, though? Like, it's everywhere. You can get it if you want it. I don't think I mean, and they were kind of like, Yeah, you're right. I don't think about the bottles of liquor when I'm having a meeting there or having a support group come in. We're so I think it's sort of a different mindset than the old school put us in a basement of a church somewhere, locked away in four white walls. I admit I mean I was a part of a lot of groups like that, and that was fine, but uh I I think there's a different mindset now, and I'm glad to hear you told your story there. I I think that's a great place to do that.

Corey Berrier 49:05

Yeah. So I I am curious because I don't really know what Ben's Friends, I don't know what that is. So tell me a little bit about what that is, and when you say it's nationwide, what do you mean by all that?

Speaker 1 49:17

So, great question. So, Ben's Friends was started as a support group that conducts meetings, that has resources, that can get people in the industry help because there just wasn't much of that. It started with a meeting in Charleston, one meeting. And it's not a STEP program, it's a support group. So I should say that up front. It's not an organized program. However, when you attend these support group meetings, there are a lot of people there who have been through different types of STEP programs, different types of rehabilitation situations, and they have a lot of insight they can share. They have resources they can share if you need, say, medical detox or something because the opioid crisis has been a big issue. Uh, there are resources for all types if you walk into that meeting. And so it started in Charleston and expanded to Raleigh, and then it's how do they go nationwide? Was by finding chefs and restaurateurs and people in the industry who wanted to conduct or lead in their city, in their restaurants. And so it's a weekly meeting, and then now there's been built this network of resources. So when you walk into one of those meetings, if you need more than just some support, there are places that you can be referred to. But a lot of it is just having people that are in the industry who have been successful staying in the industry and being able to sit and talk with them about how they did it. How did you stay sober in an industry like this? And there's a lot more of us now, there's a ton of us. And back in the day, there was like three of us in the industry. I mean, I can tell you that I missed out on a lot of things in the industry for like festivals. I would go to festivals and I would cook and I would have a good time, and at a certain time, I would have to just exit because festivals were just a drunk fest. Well, Ben's friends now host meetings at a lot of these festivals. So you got a place to go where there's food and there's spirit-free cocktails, maybe, or just uh camaraderie and community in an environment that's safe if you are interested. Yeah. So we've come a long way. Our industry's come a long way. Ben's Friends was great for that, and I really admire my two dear friends for founding that. And uh I think it's just amazing what they're doing. So occasionally, too, I'll do something, maybe go cook in Charleston to raise money to help raise money. Uh, sometimes people will ask me where what they should donate to, and I'll suggest Ben's friends. It's it's a really great thing that they're doing. Really cool.

Corey Berrier 52:55

Yeah, that's really cool. I didn't know that. But although I did think maybe that's why Crawford and Sons was being used for the reason it is. Some I thought there was some cross-pollination there, maybe.

Speaker 1 53:08

Yeah, that's how it all started there. That's how we decided, well, let's use this space.

Corey Berrier 53:14

Yeah, which is really cool of you to to uh to do, and it's got the best coffee in town.

Speaker 1 53:20

That's what I always say. If you want good coffee at a meeting, this is the coffee right here. We we've had a lot of bad coffee at meetings over the years.

Corey Berrier 53:32

That's right.

Speaker 1 53:33

It's okay though, because it's not about the coffee. But I thought, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna step it up a little bit. We're gonna have really good coffee at this meeting.

Corey Berrier 53:43

You were definitely successful at that, I can tell you that, because uh it is uh tremendous. And that meeting's at a good time too. I like the 545. So Scott, I know that we're on we're getting close on time. Is there anything that that maybe I should have asked you today that I didn't ask that you would like to uh share about? Um sorry.

Speaker 1 54:12

I don't know if it's anything that you didn't ask, but the one thing that I like to tell people from my heart is that if you're wondering if you can do it, the answer is you absolutely can. If there's somebody out there who's listening to this and they can't imagine them themselves going through that and getting sober and what life would be like, I remember this fear of getting sober, like this is gonna be terrible. My life is gonna suck, it's gonna be boring. How can I do this? I mean, and let me tell you, I just want to convey this. If I had known my life was gonna be this exciting, this invigorating, this amazing, I think I probably would have gotten sober a long time ago. It is beyond what you can imagine. Just imagine your best life and then multiply that by 10. And that's the potential that you have in sobriety. It's really unbelievable, and I can't convey that enough to people. If it doesn't happen overnight, it takes a lot of work, but man, when you get on the other side of that, it's like it's like a movie almost. You're just like, man, I I this is unbelievable that I'm able to have this life and do these things that I'm doing. So I just want to convey that to anyone who might be listening. There's help out there, there's a lot, there's a lot of resources, there are a lot of people who care. And on the other side is a life that you can't even imagine.

Corey Berrier 56:13

Well said. Do you mind do you mind sharing where people can, if people want to donate to to Ben's friends, I think that would be an appropriate link to put in the show notes if there's somebody listening that feels compelled to do that. Where would they go do that?

Speaker 1 56:32

Yeah, absolutely. They have a website. Uh Ben's Friends website, I'm not sure exactly what it's what it is, but you can get it to me. Yeah, if you I can send you the link or you can search up Ben's Friends, and they have a great website where you can donate healing transitions, also. They have a link on their website where you can donate. And if people are wondering, well, will my donation make a difference? I mean, even small donations do make a difference. And Ben's friends, some of the money when they get donations, they use that money for travel to go to new cities to roll out another Ben's Friends meeting. Sure. And so it's money well spent, and small, even small donations do help. So I'll send you those links, but uh, if you search up Ben's friends or healing transitions, you can donate on their websites. Perfect. Thank you for that.

Corey Berrier 57:33

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I always say that the money's not the mission, but the money helps the mission succeed.

Speaker 1 57:45

That's right. Yeah, there's no doubt. Yeah.

Corey Berrier 57:50

All right, Scott, I appreciate you, my friend. And um yeah, appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 1 57:56

Thank you for having me, and thank you for what you're doing. I appreciate it. This has been fun.

Corey Berrier 58:01

It has been fun. Thank you, my friend. I hope I see you soon. You will.

unknown 58:05

Bye.