Devan Rajkumar | Cocaine, Alcohol, & Ego Deflation in the Culinary World

How does a celebrity chef dominate the culinary world while hiding a life-threatening cocaine and alcohol addiction? In this episode of Recoverycast, we are joined by Devan Rajkumar, popularly known as Chef Dev, who reveals the "unimaginable" double life he led for years. From national TV appearances and Times Square billboards to late-night after-parties and debilitating chest pains, Devan’s journey is a raw look at the high cost of high-functioning addiction. 

Devan discusses how early habits formed at age 13 evolved into a progressive disease fueled by the "work hard, play hard" culture of the service industry. He shares the deep-seated roots of his struggle, including generational trauma and the tragic loss of his brother to suicide, which sent him spiraling deeper into substances to numb the grief. 

Find mental health and addiction treatment near you: https://recovery.com/

Learn more about Chef Dev: https://www.chefdev.ca/

The turning point came when the "lie routine" finally collapsed after a terrifying overdose scare following a trip to Turks and Caicos. Now over four years sober, Devan explains how ego deflation and the 12-step program allowed him to trade his masks for authenticity. He also opens up about the immense challenge of quitting a 28-year nicotine addiction and why he now lives a purpose-driven life fueled by "Mad Love." 

Subscribe to hear more stories of hope and recovery, and join us as we explore the path from addiction to advocacy.

⏱️ Chapters:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:20 – Culinary Roots & Guyanese Heritage 
• 04:33 – The "Lie Routine" & Early Substance Use 
• 07:29 – High-Pressure Kitchens & After-Party Culture 
• 15:49 – Processing Grief: Losing a Brother to Suicide 
• 18:40 – Hiding Addiction Behind Celebrity Fame 
• 30:48 – The Overdose Scare in Turks and Caicos 
• 40:55 – Ego Deflation & Finding Humility in 12-Steps 
• 52:53 – Physical Fitness & Auditing Your Inner Circle 
• 58:18 – Living with Mad Love & Mental Health Advocacy 

❓ Questions the Podcast Answers:

1. How can someone hide a serious cocaine addiction while being a public figure? 
2. What are the signs of high-functioning addiction in the culinary industry? 
3. How do childhood trauma and lack of parental validation contribute to substance abuse? 
4. What is the "lie routine" used by those struggling with addiction? 
5. How can you navigate grief after losing a sibling to suicide without numbing the pain? 
6. What is "ego deflation" in the context of 12-step recovery? 
7. Why is the service industry particularly dangerous for people prone to addiction? 
8. How do you quit smoking after 28 years while already in recovery for other substances? 
9. What does it mean to "love people from a distance" during sobriety? 
10. How can physical fitness like squash or gym routines help maintain sobriety? 
11. What is the significance of the 12-step program for long-term recovery? 
12. How can practicing empathy toward parents help resolve childhood resentments? 
13. What is the "Mad Love" philosophy in Chef Dev’s recovery? 
14. How does a recovery sponsor provide a "coach for life"? 
15. What are effective ways to handle holiday triggers and the availability of alcohol?

#SobrietyStories #AddictionRecovery #ChefDev

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That was the turning point for me is like coming home from Turks and having the dealer waiting there and like the crazy chest pains and like almost dying. So we come home from catering and you walk out into the front from the kitchen and you are now in a club.

SPEAKER_06 0:12

Yeah. You had no chance. You had no chance.

SPEAKER_07 0:22

Welcome everyone. Today we're joined by celebrity chef Devin Rajkumar, known as Chef Dev.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

He has dominated the culinary world while also hiding a life that was at times unsustainable and unimaginable. Now over four years sober, Devin shares his journey from a life-threatening overdose to a purpose-driven life fueled by mad love.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Chef Dev, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Y'all do your research around here. Yes, yeah. It was nice and tight. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Thank you so much for coming out here. And I was gonna say thanks for braving the cold, but you're like very used to this weather.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

This is standard minus 20, minus 20.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Yeah, Toronto, Wisconsin, right now. It's given the same blistering cold. Yeah. Before we get into your journey, I'm really interested to hear about like what started this passion. What are your first like few memories of food and cooking and what led you down the culinary path?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

As I get more involved in cooking, and especially writing my second cookbook now, and I'm digging deeper into my memories to find the inspiration and to find that storytelling and to and to find those unique moments that really shaped who I became.

SPEAKER_05 1:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I love to bring this one up because it's one of my oldest memories. My grandmother, bless her soul, I miss her so much. When I was probably five or six years old, I would spend a lot of time with her at her apartment, just up the road from the house of my parents back in Toronto. And I remember one time she was showing me how she made coconut choca, which is a roasted coconut flesh that's ground on a lorha and sill, which is a large brick and a smaller brick used to grind, popular in India, popular in Sri Lanka. And you grind your ingredients. Think of a mortar and pestle. So you're grinding this roasted, toasted coconut with Guyanese weary-wiry peppers, which are so amazing that I eat like candy and uh garlic, you know, different spices, and you make this condiment that it eventually gets ground down so small that you roll it into balls and you eat it with dal and rice. Or, you know, it's it's a condiment. And one of my oldest memories is that moment because I was so obsessed with coconut choke growing up from such a small age. That was one of the moments that really showed me, hey, I can potentially do this. Another memory was um learning how to make Guyanese pepper pot, which is our national dish. Growing up, it was such a unique flavor. It's made with caserip, which is a thick, viscous liquid. It's bitter cassava reduced down, and it's a natural preservative. And it's very intense, very earthy. And it was always so mysterious to me how to make this dish until my aunt finally came over years later and showed me how to pressure cook it and make that dish. So from a young age, I was always attracted to like the sights and sounds of the kitchen.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

The steam, the boiling, yeah, the flame being lit, the the scraping of pots, you know, the clanging of the equipment, you know, pot spoons and all that. I was just always so drawn to it. I'd always follow my mom in the kitchen, and I was always in kitchens from a very young age.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Did you always know that this is what you wanted to do?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Not a chance.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Not I was always obsessed with food. To this day, I eat lunch and I'm thinking about dinner. Yeah. Like I came in last night. I already know what I'm ordering at Harvey House tonight.

SPEAKER_06 3:38

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

You know? Yeah. So I'm always been that kind of person. Culinary school was at 24, approximately 17 years ago. So I'm 41 years now. Uh, going to culinary school was an eye-opening moment for me. It was the first time in my life that I was really, really drawn to class and school and homework. I remember being in culinary school at George Brown in Toronto, and I remember being so excited to go to bed because the next day we're going in to do butchery or we're going to a class where we, you know, the whole class is on Brazilian food. And it's the first time that I was so excited. Like I went from studying standard deviation and statistics to like memorizing internal temperatures of done doneness for meat. And it's like everything changed for me in that moment. Learning mother sauces, you know, and learning classical techniques and learning knife skills. Like this was like wonderland for me. I never knew school could be this. It was always a little bit of a of a bore before. So going into culinary school was great. But even rewinding, rewinding from being 24, I had developed some pretty bad habits prior to that, approximately 10 or 11 years prior to that. From a very young age, from a very early age, I just felt the need to escape. I felt the need to numb myself. And I've spent a lot of time and we've done a lot of therapy and a lot of soul searching to find out what this was growing up. But around 13 or 14, I found, you know, certain types of drugs that just really gravitated towards. And then I developed this life of manipulation. Yeah. Trying to hide this from my parents. So I remember like, you know, smoking weed or whatever I was that I was doing, but I remember like having a routine of showering and shampooing and brushing my teeth and using the this amount of gum and like being like looking them straight in the eyes and using visine. Like I had all these things that I thought I was always outsmarting everybody.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Yeah, the lie routine.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

The lie routine, the the lie routine that you have to use a hundred lines to cover up the first one.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Yeah. And really you're just sitting there because you know the lie and you're like, everybody can see, oh my gosh, I wonder if this like extra hand washing, they're not gonna be able to smell it, like all that.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

But to be honest with you, I thought I outsmarted everybody. I thought that I was always one step ahead. Yeah. But that like cunningness, manipulation, deceit, trying to convince everyone that everything was okay, that started with me from a very young age. So although you fast forward 10 years, I'm 24, early 20s, I'm loving culinary school. I found my passion. I still have all these bad habits lurking around. And the reason why it's important that I tell you that is because when you leave culinary school and you go into the real world, you're gonna get your ass handed to you. A lot of people these days see chefs on social media, they see cooks. I mean, a lot of people see me and they're like, this guy is just traveling all the time. He's living the dream. It's a serious amount of pressure. It's a serious amount of stress. Sure, I went to Portugal, you know, and and I cooked for a wedding, but imagine having like 250 people relying on you. Yeah. You know, you get off a plane, you're jet lagged, you walk into a kitchen and you have like five chefs staring at you, like, what do we do now? And it's like, uh shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

So there's a price to pay for for for that. Like you have to pay your dues. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is like given the place I was mentally at that point in my life, the culinary industry was very challenging for me.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

It's like a simmering pot, kind of just like turning up the heat. So love the analogy. Thank you. I didn't even think about that until I thought, girl, you're so neck and just so good. I love that. Um, there are little things that kind of like build up in our lives that like help not help us build negative habits, but are kind of like attributing to the little stressors that are going on and it's starting to snowball. And yeah, it doesn't start at 25. These habits and stuff usually start around like 13, 14, kind of like figuring out, yeah, what does that develop into then?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Oh man. So I remember leaving culinary school. Even in my fourth semester of culinary school, I started working with an incredible catering company who were just don't they weren't dominating then, they are now, and and they've grown so much. And it was amazing for me because I got to learn world-inspired cuisine. I didn't go to a lot of the kids in in in in university in culinary school, they were going to all the fancy restaurants. Yeah. But I didn't want to peel a bag of potatoes all day, right? I wanted somewhere that was more grassroots, not necessarily mom and pop, but a place where I would have a bit more attention on me. Yeah. Where I'd be given a little bit more, not necessarily freedom, but a little bit more responsibility. Yep. So I went to uh the food dudes who I love them so much to this day. They're they're doing my whole wedding. I'm so excited and everything, but I don't want to digress too much. I just like think about their food and I get really excited. Um, but I went to go work there long hours. I remember we did like a three-week stretch, 21 days straight, you know, and and like two weeks into that, like your hands are so sore you can't close them to make a fist.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

The muscle memory is like there, but you can't even so active, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And I remember the shin splints and I remember like the back pain, and I remember all the little nicks that you get from just washing stuff, cutting, whatever it is. Like when you're cooking 15, 16, 17 hours a day, every single day, things add up. And I remember like juicing citrus, and I remember like, oh my God, like this is really challenging. But I do love it. Now, with this type of lifestyle, I developed this behavior or routine of like, once my work's done, it's time to check out a little bit, right? Whether that's like going for drinks after work or, you know, partying all Saturday night. I remember if we can be candid here, I remember very candid. Yeah, yep. You can I remember leaving caterings, you know, having worked all week like a like a like a madman and leaving caterings and then going straight to the after parties like early, early Sunday morning and like dozing off and like falling asleep.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Uh at least you did it at the after party. I was like falling asleep in booths at my work, like restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I'll I'll be honest with you, like the disease of addiction is progressive. And it did get to that point. You like stories, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:39

Oh, I love stories. I love a story.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I got a juicy story for you. So it's 20. I guess I can say all this stuff now, right? I'm thinking like, what if they hear? But it's 20.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

I know. I I get you like my mom, like, oh well, you know, we're here now. We're good.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I've divulged enough information online. What's this gonna do? It's 2014, right? And I started going on this nationally syndicated television show. It's so popular. It's like, it's crazy. It's and uh I actually did that show for 10 years, right? But early on doing that show, I remember this is 2014, 2015. This goes back to like my ego and my shit don't stink behavior. I can get away with murder, kind of thing, right? Not that I did that, but you know, that that type of mentality, right? I can't get it.

SPEAKER_04 10:21

Once you've crossed a threshold, you're like, cool, can do this now. Next threshold, cool, can do that now.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Completely fooled myself. Yeah, right. So I remember being out at a party and and I'm out all night and it's like 3 a.m. And it's like, oh my God, I'm on TV at nine, right? I gotta be there at 8:39, and then it's 4 a.m. and then it's 5 a.m. And all my friends are there, and they're like, oh my god, only you can do this. And it's like, oh, I love the ego, it's building me up. And it's like, I can do anything, I can do anything. And I remember getting home at like six in the morning after like heavy, heavy partying. Six in the morning. I lay down for 20, 30 minutes. Remember laying down. This has happened hundreds of times over my life, but I remember times where I have to sleep, lay down, close my eyes, and it's like you're immediately on a roller coaster.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

That intensity.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

That like spinning, that spinning, that velocity, that chaos, that loud noise, that's what I see. And then I open my eyes, it's it's you know, the alarm goes off. I take a shower, and uh I head into work. And I remember going there, and it's like every time I did that over my career, it's like, Devin, you can't possibly be in this situation again. Like, why would you do this to yourself? The bright lights of the studio, 20 times brighter than it is here, the the 30, 40 people running around. Live audience. I don't know how you did that. Live audience. The clips online. Like I so every now and then I go back to it and I watch it. I was doing this, I was doing this like watermelon feta kiwi Rubik's Cube. So the yeah, it's pretty cool. So the night before I used a ruler, I measured out all the feta, the kiwi, the watermelon, and you compile it, inter, inter, interchange it. So it's really, really pretty. Tuck mint leaves into it. It's it's a vibe. So fortunately for me, I always had my prep done the day before. But I'm on camera talking to the host and like she must have known something was up. Uh but again, it's like I could fool everybody. Yeah. And now when I look back at those situations, I just feel like a level of disgust and like what disrespect to that amazing opportunity that I had, you know? What disrespect to all those people that invested in me and what disrespect to myself.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

Yeah, but it is a progression. It's not like one day you're like, I'm gonna fuck it all up and just throw it to the wind and do this and try that. It's a progressive thing because you're like, you get through one day doing it and you still need it. So you do it the next day and the next day until it just gets to be a bit too much.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Correct. Uh we say in the program, 12 steps and stuff, like your addiction, your disease is out there in the parking lot doing push-ups. Yeah. It's waiting for you. Uh-huh. You know, which is why I got to check in every day, one day at a time, and and I got to keep practicing doing everything that got me to this point.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

Yeah. Actually, like curious, like, at what point did substances jump into your life? Did it pick up like you're in the service industry, we're in culinary school, or is it something that was like, I you said you dabbled when you were younger?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

No, I didn't dabble. I was very extreme. Really? Right off the bat at 13, I was very, very extreme. I was always that person that had to smoke the most amount of weed, take stingers up the nose. Like I was always the extreme kid. Like I could always do the most. I always had to prove that. You know, I always had to be the guy to drink the most, to do the Jager bombs. Like at a very young age, for some reason, I just wanted to disappear. You know, over the years, I've studied, I love Gabor Matein. Like, I study a lot of stuff on generational trauma and early childhood trauma. And he says that we are biologically hardwired to receive love from not one but both of our parents. Growing up, my mom was so sensitive, compassionate, loving. She's the best. But my dad was not that type of person. He was very much an enforcer figure at home. I feel like I was lacking some love there, validation, and and and I just tried to reach out and get it from anywhere that I could, you know. But I'll immediately say I've said on podcasts before the relationship I had with my dad growing up, but I'm immediately gonna say right now, right after saying that, that we're in such a great place today.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

I'm glad.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

And I totally forgive him. Yeah. And when I started practicing empathy and left this like 12-year-old kid or 10-year-old kid with bald up fists, why didn't you do that? Why'd you yell at me? Why'd you yell at my brother and all this stuff? I practice empathy and put myself in his shoes. And like he grew up with some serious medical complications. He grew up in Guyana. I've seen the house. It's some pieces of wood on some pieces of wood on stilts, you know. Grew up without a dad. His dad died when he was very young. Dad was alcoholic. You know, he came to America with nothing, absolutely nothing at 18, 19 years old. And like when I started practicing empathy, a lot of the resentment, which is our number one offender, started to lift off of me.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

You know, yeah, you look at it differently, especially with your parents. I remember when I first was just like, oh, like my parents are people too. Like my parents are people too, and people make mistakes. And thinking back when you're like when you extend that empathy to your parents, and you're like looking back on just like how they were raised, how they grew up as well, you're like, I can guarantee you they're they were doing what they thought was best, is what I what I came to learn.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah. Um, but yeah, so right off the bat, I was always, always very extreme. I was always that kind of person. I found a really happy place outside of my current state of mind. Yeah. So throwing my state of consciousness with any type of substance was like, that's where I wanted to live. Yeah. Even if it was two poles on a joint, whatever it was, I just had to get out of this place. It was so scary to me. Uh, even prior to culinary school, I had a really, really tragic thing happen. Growing up, my brother Jai was five years my senior, the kind of guy to walk into any room and connect with anybody, whether it's a Led Zeppelin cover or whether it's, you know, scouts. Uh he was a star hockey player. Like he was not your typical brown dude growing up. Dyed his hair, pierced his ears, played guitar. Like he had such a big impact on me. There's actually this this clip from Almost Famous is like one of my favorite movies, but there's this clip where the elder sister of the boy in the movie like tells him to light a candle and play like these Janice Joplin records and Jimmy and stuff like that. And that that was my brother for me with life.

SPEAKER_05 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Not just that style of music. So but yeah, pretty tragically, like he uh he ended up committing suicide when I was 21 years old. It was in 2006, and this is prior to me going to culinary school, and this is long after I've become an addict. So that was a really rib really tough time in my life where I just completely couldn't deal with the grief. And I numbed it out, and I dove even deeper and spiral down deeper into drugs and alcohol at that time. And I very much thought I had to get out of jail free card, or it's like, what are you gonna tell me my brother just died? You know, like you've gotta let me do what I want to do. And a lot of people did give me space back then.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

You're like, we're not gonna touch it right now, we'll just let him feel his feelings. It's like me feeling my feelings is like grabbing any type of substance around me, so I don't have to feel my feelings. Someone needs to step in.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

That happened at 21, but I processed a lot of that a few years ago.

SPEAKER_05 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

But like almost 20 years later, you know, so that grief has just been processed, like, and I'm still going through it.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Yeah. Um it just looks differently every day.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

It looks uh I think that's a good way to put it, actually. It does look different every day. But I always lead with gratitude for the time that I had. It's not like it's I used to be so so hellbent on like was he depressed? Was it because of my dad? You know, was there something else at play here? I didn't get to say goodbye. And it's like, man, I got blessed with 21 years.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

And that's all I focus on now.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

That's a really strong part to focus on.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

During all of this, you've described your life as at times unstable and unmanageable. What did a typical day look like for you when you were balancing like high profile culinary career with also like the reality of active addiction and like being out in front of people dealing with that?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

It takes so much energy. It takes so much energy to always be on point in front of everybody. I remember I was just living in a state of recovery, not the recovery I'm in now, recovery from drug use. Um, not this type of recovery, that type of recovery, like being in the shit, you know, being so mentally unstable and beat down and just, you know, famished and just so worn out.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

Survival. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

But I had this ego. I had this ego that it's like nothing can hold me down. Yeah. Even though I'm operating at 30%, I'm gonna prove to you that I can operate at 100%. Like I can't be stopped. My dad was like a crazy workhorse. He still is. He's like still in his 70s and like trying to move like 500-pound rocks in the backyard. Like he's that kind of guy with like his weight belt on and stuff like that, and his like hairs all over the place.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

I think our dads are real simple.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, yeah. So he's still that kind of guy. So I think he instilled that in me, you know, because I'm absolute, I can be an absolute workaholic to my detriment, even the addict life, you know, all messed up.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

Also, it's like a sign of the times. So I feel like I watched like workaholic parents, like, this is how you do good in the world. You like do that, you just work hard. Doesn't matter, like if your employer employer says work harder, you work harder.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Exactly. Yeah. Uh so yeah, I very much had that mentality, but I was living a lie. And there was a lot of guilt and shame involved with what I was doing because like my nose was always running. And I remember like being on live TV, sniffling and stuff like that. And like every time I did it, I was like, who knows what's really happening here? Like I was always sick all the time. But I had to live a lie. I had to constantly convince people that everything was okay with me. I was very much the guy that was like, oh man, I'm amazing. How are you today? Today's a great day. But like inside, I'm hurting, I'm punishing, I feel alone, my hands feel cold. You know, I have like a mountain of problems that I've just been compounding for so long by escaping, right? So it was, it was completely exhausting.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I had to work three times as hard than I would have had I not been in that in that frame of mind or in that position. So I always had to work hard just to get by, harder to get by.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

Yeah. And what is it though that is preventing you from asking for help or wanting to change instead of like keep on going into the hamster wheel of it?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Oh, super easy answer for me. Six letters denial. I was in complete denial. I didn't feel that there was a problem. Sure, in like my worst times, like my rock bottoms and like all those times that like I'm in bed and my heart's gonna explode and I'm counting stuck on the ceiling. Sure, in those times, it's like I can't, I don't want to do this anymore, kind of thing. But then, like, you know, eventually at some point, by the grace of God, you fall asleep and then you wake up and that day's really shit, but then you have another good sleep and it's like I'm back, baby. You know, I was in complete denial.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

I was in complete denial that like, you know, I got myself into this, I can get myself out of it. And I had a lot of people around me boosting my ego because despite me living this life, I was on billboards, yeah, Dundas Square in the city, judging on food network, you know, 10 years on a on a on a on a on a on a massive show, like all the magazines, all all the publicity. Like it was just feeding and fueling my ego.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

It was it's also like a busy industry, like not just the entertainment but service industry. It's a busy, like go, go, go. So is it's also do you feel like the combination of maybe like a fast-paced, work hard, play hard industry kind of also covers up like what's really going on. You're like, no, I'm like tired and exhausted. I'm doing this stuff because of like the industry I'm in, but really like I'm kind of doing it because I'm like filling a hole or some type of void.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

That's an incredible correlation that you made that I had never really thought of before. I think naturally I'm a bit high strung. Yeah. I'm high energy. I wake up ready to go, coffee or pre working.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Tabs are up, let's go. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Like I can, I can. I bounce like to this day, like I get out of bed and I'm ready to go. Uh, but I love what you said because I think that type of lifestyle and uh industry and that type of uh profession, career that I was in, they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_04 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

You know, it's it's late nights, it's cash on hand, usually.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

Like I know that's when I was like going my hardest, is when I was like working in a restaurant. And then you could have put me in any job at that point in my life, but this one just like exacerbated it because everyone is kind of like laxadaisical, high stress, let's go, go, go. Then I leave with money on hand. Okay, we're gonna go de-stress here. And then we get our second wind late, late at night. So then you just do that until you run in the morning and then open shift and do it all over again.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Exactly. To this day, a lot of the events I work are open bar. Cash is everywhere. Uh, people are sending you wine, they want you to drink as chef and stuff like that. Um, people are getting wasted, people are doing shit in the bathroom. A lot of a lot of the events I do are still that. So picture this like it's 2012, I think, right? So a couple years out of culinary school, and the food dudes move into a bigger space. You know, this is the beginning of their progression. They're just killing the game, right? So they move into a bigger space and I'm with them. I move up to Souchef uh of the catering. And uh, we're doing a hundred hundreds of events a year. It's a very busy company at this point. So it's a supper club we move into. So half the food dudes team is now doing catering out of a big kitchen, the other half is running the supper club food. So we come home from catering, late events, midnight. You unload, take off your hat, and you walk out into the front from the kitchen, and you are now in a club.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Yeah. Yeah. It's right. You had no chance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

You had no chance. Yeah. You had no chance. And this would happen like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and it's like, you know, and then yeah, you it just the industries go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

I feel you. I got off my job and there was a TGI Fridays across the street, and I was like, you know where I'm going. Right. It's right there. Yeah. Everybody meet me there. Beat me there.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Let's kind of and imagine that young Devin, like super persuadable and like naive and egotistical. It's like, oh, we're hitting the club. We got to hit the club. It's like literally, you can hear the music when you're unloading in the walk-in fridge, and it's like walking through that wall. Yeah. You know, it's like you're coming out of the staff area into a club that's packed. And this club was bloken for this club was the place to be back in the day, right? So yeah, that was uh that was also a challenging time. But I'll be honest with you, even if that wasn't the environment I was, I was I was in, like even if that wasn't the geographical setup of what we were dealing with, I would have gone and found.

SPEAKER_06 24:32

I would have found my way down there somehow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

I would have found it.

SPEAKER_06 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I could score in the desert. Like I was, yeah, I was relentless.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

So how did the public persona of Chef Dev make it more difficult for you to admit that things were kind of slipping out of your control?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

I don't know that it made it more difficult, but I was very mindful. As we started getting to 2017, 2018, I was, oh man, I'm just unloading some shit here today. Unload. But I've never said this before. Yeah. But as it was 27, 2018, I remember being more mindful of walking down the street from after parties at like 8, 9, 10 a.m. or 5 p.m. the next day. I would try to avoid that because I would never know who I would see in an elevator or who would recognize me.

SPEAKER_05 25:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Because it was starting to get really well known back then. And I remember running into people and it was super awkward. I remember I was on a billboard in Dundas Square, a massive, which is like our Times Square. I was, and then I left an after party a couple blocks up. And uh, and we actually saw it as we were walking home. I can't remember, I can't remember who I was with. And like, of course, like I'm just in a complete state of destructive, they're just like a mess. Yeah. But I remember seeing that, and I remember like, this is not good. This is really bad. Who can see me? I remember being at after parties and like the show I was on would air Monday mornings at 10 a.m. And from Friday night we'll be partying until Monday. And one of my friends will put the TV on because they know it, they knew I'd be on TV and we'd watch it. And it's just like, this is cool, but it's not cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

That's sad that that's your reaction to seeing yourself on like your version of Times Square. Cause I'm like, oh my gosh, if I were to see like see myself up there, it'd be like the most amazing feeling in the world. And you're sitting there like, this is awful. I hope nobody sees me.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

That's part of it. The other part of it is the guilt and the shame because I have so much potential. And like, look what I'm able to do. This is a big part of my story, actually. It's like for a lot of my career operating at 50, 60%, I feel like in some ways, I was able to like move mountains and really carve out this niche for myself. And I thought about this as like, man, like I'm killing myself all the time. Like, what if I gave this thing 100%? And that was a big part of the turning point for me when I actually almost five years ago, when I actually decided to get clean and sober and approach this one day at a time and give it 100%. It's like, man, I had so much potential. Like, how am I living this lifestyle when like this is like these are the things that are happening in my life? These are the amazing things that I'm able to produce. Yeah. Like, what happens if I just this gift that God gave me, what happens if I just give it my all? What could happen? And that was a big turning point for me.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

Yeah, I want to hear the rest of this turning point because it sounds like you are, I mean, like high functioning-ish. Like you're you've been doing this for, let's see here. You graduate culinary school, and then it's another 10, 15 years.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Until I get sober. Yeah. 11.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

Eleven, yeah, 11 years. So it progresses. And then what is that final straw? What sends you over from I'm not maintaining this anymore. I don't, I don't want to do this.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I've hit so many rock bottoms. But to provide some more context, in 2014, I broke up with a girlfriend, an ex-girlfriend back then. She went and told my parents everything that I was up to. Long story short, I I wanted to kill her. I wanted to. You know, obviously, you know, the she told my parents I was doing this, that, and everything. And I'm like, how could you do that?

SPEAKER_06 27:52

Can we just deal with the breakup? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, no, and I was just like, I think I thought she did it out of spite. I haven't seen her much since then, but I would hug her now, you know, because that was a very critical part in my recovery. I went to a treatment center called Renaissance. I did a few weeks there in-house.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

I know Renaissance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

So I went to there's two in Toronto. So in 2014, I go to Renaissance. I spend a few weeks. This is where I learn about ego deflation. This is where I learned that the program of 12 steps, dudes are actually recovering from doing the work. I saw there's a 12 steps book back here. That's why my thumb's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um that was a really important part of my recovery. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because all the years later, I know a solution exists. I know if I give this thing 100%, I have a really good chance of getting clean, but I still like I can still screw around. I'd my it's not that bad. It's not that bad. I had many rock bottoms. And when I say rock bottoms, like several times I was in the hospital with chest pain so bad, they have me wired up to shit like rock bottoms where I got fired from something or you know, like not showing up to work, like uh really, really hurting someone, really hurting myself, like really, really low levels of depression. But when COVID started, I had returned from four months of traveling, cooking abroad, cooking in Turks and Caicos, cooking in Lahore, Pakistan, like all over the place. I come back on March 15th, 2020, and I'm I have food poisoning for five days. It's COVID. I'm quarantining. I come out on March 20th and I released the first episode of what became Chef Dev at home. It blew up, everything was going amazing. And while everyone was quarantining and staying at home, I was putting out recipes. Long story short, I started to make a lot of money via brand partnerships, more money than I'd ever seen before. And that's a pretty important part of my story because over 2020, into 2021, my use really, really got more and more and more and more and more because money was not an issue anymore. It was a really eerie, weird time. We were quarantined, we were isolated.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

There's nothing else to do. Nothing else to do.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Boredom. I rented this really fancy place in downtown Toronto. I got the whole first floor of a home. Wow. Just silly and having big parties every single day. Fast forward to 2021 now. I fly out to Turks and Caicos for the entire month. I'm cooking out there for a month, working hard for two weeks, partying hard for two weeks. That was the thing. Cash. Cash in hand. We talked about that before. Living a lifestyle that not only could I not afford it, I just couldn't take it emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, none of it. This is a big, big moment for me.

SPEAKER_07 30:23

This podcast is brought to you by recovery.com. Recovery.com is a place where anyone can find mental health or addiction treatment options specific to them. You can filter by location, price, insurance coverage, therapy type, mental health condition, levels of care, and so much more. Recovery.com is the best place to find mental health or addiction treatment for anyone, anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

I was partying every day for two weeks, doing lots of drugs and lots of alcohol, but I realized what I was getting there was not giving me the fix that I needed. So I came home real rusty. And when I flew home, I ensured that my dealer was waiting at my place already for me. Waiting. He showed up five or 10 minutes after the cab dropped me off. And as soon as he came, I got to business. And an hour or two later, the most shrieking chest pains came through. I couldn't sleep that night. I had such bad chest pains that like every time I do a line or every time I would ingest something, I would have to deal with like the torment and the shrieking, excruciating pain through my chest, right? And I was at this place where it's like I needed to get high. I was crashing and I had so much depression. But every line could be the last. And I had to deal with the pain. And I couldn't make any sudden movements and I couldn't lean forward because the pain hurt so much. Right. Later that day, I reached out for help because I knew like this is it, you're gonna die. So I reached out for and this is early 2021. So I reached out for help to an individual named Eric, who I had met in recovery when I was because I I didn't mention this, but I was clean after Renaissance for 10 months, and then I relapsed opening a restaurant. Lo and behold. Um and I reached out to Eric and I said, I need help. And he's like, I got you, bro. I got a sponsor for you. Come see me at the treatment center. Let's get you tapped in. And I didn't know what that meant at the time. So I'm like, okay. I stopped using um that day and I started to feel a bit hopeful. But a couple days later, I I grabbed again, you know, and it took me about six weeks to get into that treatment center. But when I got into that treatment center, I actually did give it a hundred percent. Yeah. And I really started because I was like, man, you have so much potential. You're doing so many amazing things in your industry. Like, people like you, you're a good person. You got a lot of love in you, man. You got a gift. Why are you throwing it away? So that was the turning point for me is like coming home from Turks and having the dealer waiting there and like the crazy chest pains and like almost dying. That's when I I finally said, Man, I gotta give this thing a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

So what's your sobriety date?

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Oh, uh May 10th. May 10th, 21.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

May 10th of 21.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah. So the the 10th of every month uh is like my fiance will will remind me. I forget sometimes. And to be honest with you, I'm so proud of the 10th of every month. Yeah, but I'm even more proud of the 24th of every month.

SPEAKER_05 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Because May 24th, I quit smoking cigarettes. Dude, I yeah, I'm 28 years I smoked. It was like the first part of my old identity. It was the first thing I started doing with smoking cigarettes, and it was the last to go. I was like three and a half, four years sober, but I could not drop cigarettes for the life of me. And they were killing me too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

You and you smoking cigarettes, cold turkey. I smoked for probably like 15, 16 years, and uh I was outside, and you know they're bad for you, but like nobody could tell me it. I just wasn't ready. I wasn't like that big of a smoker. And then one day I was outside and I could hear my neighbor. He couldn't see me. He goes, as after I made breakfast, he goes, Wow, bacon and cigarettes, that'll fucking kill you. And I was like, wait, I gotta quit. So that was actually my last cigarette last day. But it it is hard because then I went to vaping four, four years ago and I recently quit vaping. Uh I don't have it's like every Saturday is my new week, but it's been six, seven weeks now, and it's still it's hard. But yes, anything you kick, it's it's like, okay, it's out of my system, and I'm still thinking about it. Like I have to work past that part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

A big, a big part of the cigarette thing for me was like I'm online talking about knocking habits. Like I'm talking about fitness. I'm at the gym every day and I'm online talking about like how to get over alcohol and drug addiction, and I'm ripping darts. Yeah. Like this didn't make sense to me. There was a huge disconnect there, but I couldn't stop.

SPEAKER_05 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

I could not stop no matter what I drank. Nicotine's just and you said you you stopped cold turkey, but I was hammering Nickorette until a month or six weeks into it, I had realized, holy shit, it's been like three or four days. I haven't chewed a piece.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

And that and that's what happened. People ask me all the time, how did you quit? I read Alan Carr's Easy Way several times, the short version, the long version. I had a, I worked at a I did a few sessions with a hypnotist. I wish I had something more concrete to give to you that everybody could use, but like meeting my fiance and getting close to Sandra, that's like the main catalyst for me because there's not a frigging chance she would ever tolerate cigarettes and that smell on me. There's no fucking Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

My the person I was dating at the time we were a year into our relationship, now my husband, he's like, everything about you, love it, love, love, love, love, love. The cigarettes, though, like I don't like it at all. And I was the first person I I didn't just be like, well, fuck you too. I was just like, exactly, actually, maybe, maybe I want to do it for this person. But yeah, it was, it is because it's like it's embarrassing at that point. It's like, oh, I was like nine, 10 years ago, so like 2017 or something. And somebody was like, Wow, 2017, you're smoking cigarettes. That's like old. I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Exactly. Yeah. And I was a bit of a secret smoker. Like, I remember like I'd pull around buildings and stuff to have a cigarette.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

My family never saw me do it. People would, if I didn't want you to see me do it, you would never see me do it.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Well, I'd be really embarrassed too. Like I'd have a cigarette right before I did television or an interview or a cooking show or a demo. Like I'd always have and like I knew people and I would see people look at me and be like, oh, like they don't say it, but it's like they get a whiff and it's like, oh, you smoke cigarettes, but you're not stupid. You know, and it's like, oh man.

SPEAKER_06 36:32

I know.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I'd like to look at me, but one of the hardest addictions uh to ever drop. And I had a little bit of a resentment towards AA meetings and treatment centers because they always brush it aside. And if I may speak candidly here, which you've allowed me to do, it's like, I and I mentioned I um I was guest speaker at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting just two nights ago in Etobicoke in Toronto. And I shared this. I wish that there was a little bit more attention just put onto cigarettes because it's always like, ah, it's the lesser harmful thing. Like, let's get you off the alcohol, let's get you off the opiates, et cetera, et cetera. Just smoke, smoke, smoke. It's fine. We'll deal with that later. Uh, and I remember there's just like a crazy cigarette culture in the world of recovery because it's looked at as a lesser evil. I wish there was a bit more attention put on.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

It's like I can still, like, yeah, switching to vape, they're not better. They're kind of worse than cigarettes, and you get your like immediate little buzz. And it's this mental thing of like, oh, it's helping me calm down. It's like, again, we need to go back to the thing where we're just not using things to help us come down from the the feelings.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

That's right. Going back to getting clean though, for me, it's like I get asked all the time, like, how did you stop? How did you stop? I just, I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired. I lived a life of lies and manipulation. I was a master of masks. I thought, I thought that I could put on any type of mask and convince you of what I wanted to convince you of. I could make you feel a certain way. I'd convinced myself of that. And I'd put on a mask and you couldn't see in and I couldn't project out what was under it. And I thought I was just fooling everybody, but I was really fooling myself. Yeah and getting clean has been the most unbelievable experience of my life to just be able to live in this head space right now. And when adversity comes, because it comes, life's not perfect. Life's always and I have an extremely high stressful job, you know, I have tools and resources to deal with it. I don't have to take a shot at tequila or do this or do that. Like I have ways that I can manage it and work around it. And early recovery is shit because you're telling me I now have to start going through like my resentments and I have to build a connection with a higher power. And I have to like convince myself that I'm not the center of the universe. And you want me to deal with all these feelings and emotions that I've suppressed. And as soon as I start doing that, what am I doing? I'm reaching for what I was grabbing before, but I can't do that anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

So what's my thing now?

SPEAKER_00 39:04

It's really difficult. But I think for anybody watching, for me, the important thing was to understand that doing that work is always going to be easier than doing the other work of hiding and using.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Right?

SPEAKER_04 39:17

And recovering daily instead of like long term. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

My worst day sober, my fucking worst day sober will always be better than my best day high. Always and forever. That is so true. Always and forever. And I always think about that too. Because when life gets tough and I just want to disappear and numb myself, I think about everyone that I'm going to hurt, everything that I'm going to throw away. And now, most importantly, I think about myself that I'm going to hurt. It's, it's a lot of this is selfish. You got to be selfish in recovery, we say. Right. Look after yourself. I was always the guy that was looking to take care of everybody around me, but my oxygen mask wasn't on first. I was always looking to put it on everyone else around me. Right. So now it's like I take care of myself. And now that I take care of myself, I can take care of everyone around me way more than I was able to before. And I can have a relationship with, with, with, with, with, with a, with a partner and one with effective communication and one where I'm not lying and hiding and cheating and stealing. One where I can say, I fucked up and I'm sorry, and I'll do better.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I couldn't do those words didn't exist to me before. I made no mistakes. I had no chinks in my armor. Yeah. So now I found vulnerability, uh, strength in vulnerability. Now I found strength in vulnerability all these years later, but better late than ever.

SPEAKER_04 40:35

Yeah. Exactly. Always. And it's that ego that keeps us from doing that. So once you strip that ego and you are vulnerable and out there, you recovering, what is that like now for you as opposed to the daily living of before of hiding and lying?

SPEAKER_00 40:55

We say ego is is is the is the is the reason for addiction. Like it's very much Devin oriented. Devin wants what he wants, how he wants it, when he wants it. Doesn't matter who he hurts in his path to get it, kind of thing. It's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, right? Which is why I hurt the people closest to me. My partners, my mother. Oh God, my mother crushed that woman. Right? Crushed her. And all the all the nights that I wouldn't answer the phone, all the days that went by, all the lies, all the BS, which is why anybody that follows me now, you'll see that I'm so close to where we travel the world together.

SPEAKER_06 41:26

Make her the best meals because sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Try to try I make my dad the best meals because that's what makes her happy.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

So it's like I treat that woman because I can't take back the BS that I did in the past, but I can do my best moving forward. Right. So the ego deflation process was learning about humility. And one of my favorite quotes is true humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Ego deflation is like shutting the fuck up and stop talking, listening twice as much as you speak. Because in the rooms of recovery, and 12 steps is a big part of my recovery. What 12 steps did for me is it put a me in a room of people that I could relate to. And it put me in a room of people that were struggling, but a room of people that have recovered. And I saw that there is hope. And when you're in that type of room, sure, I can go in there and share how I feel, but I can't go in there and talk about like how I know what like that, like I know what I'm talking about, or I got myself into this mess. I can get myself out of it. Going through the big book of AA with a sponsor, someone that I could bounce questions and ideas and and how I'm feeling off of. This is all ego deflation here. Cause for once, Devin has given up the role of director and he started, he's finally starting to listen. I shared this in my talk a couple days ago. Like you just, I just always thought I had an answer for everything. And for in early recovery, I wanted to open my mouth and say things, but just because you think you have the right answer doesn't mean you have to share it.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Shut up.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

And listen, shut up.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Shut up. There's the art of just listening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Just shut up and and working with a sponsor and having that humility to do that, to say, hey, I need a coach for life. Yeah. And hey, I need 12 steps. I need a structured living. I need routine in my life. Hey, I need to find spirituality and get out of myself as being the center of the universe. Like all of that was ego deflation. I have this tattoo on my wrist that I got it when I was full of ego, but it means so much more now. Like, I mean, you might think I have a lot of tattoos. I was gonna say, but it's right here and it's Sanskrit, Sanskrit here, and it says Seva. It's a S with an A, so it's Seva, Seva. And this is selfless service without praise or recognition. And this is what I try to live by. I lived a life where I was always very generous. My parents are very generous people. I was learned I was I was raised with that. Be very kind, lead with kindness, be generous, you know. And I always did that over the years, but I wanted to be recognized for. It there's another beautiful saying like give with the right hand so anonymously that your left hand doesn't even know.

SPEAKER_05 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Like that anonymously. So a lot of things that I do now, I try to be of service. I thought a lot about what is the purpose of life and why am I here? And the one thing that I keep coming back to is to like look after my neighbor.

SPEAKER_05 44:20

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

And this is a very humbling thing. So be of service, but do it anonymously. Don't look for the praise or recognition with it. Yeah. So a big part of my ego deflation and humbling journey has been looking after, of course, getting myself in check so I can look after the person beside me better. So I can have a strong, healthy relationship with my parents, so I can have a loyal, trustworthy, loving, nurturing relationship with my partner. So I can come here and be vulnerable with you. These are all the reasons why I humbled myself. Be fucking grateful.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Honestly, be grateful. I do. I think like our main purpose here is just to live and lead with joy and love and gratitude. Yes. And if everybody just does that and take care of your neighbor, we'll all be fine.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Sounds easy, right?

SPEAKER_04 45:05

You know, it does. The final time you went to treatment, what was that experience like, like going in there? What is your mindset like? Like, do you know that you're get like tapped in? Like, I'm kind of curious about this, like get you tapped in.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I love that you remembered that.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

But I'll answer the first part of your question first. My first, my first time ever with any type of treatment, I went to a place called Bellwoods and I had like a counselor. This is after I failed out of Wolfridge Laurier first year. I went to private boarding school for grade 11 in 12 in Nova Scotia. I did very well there, like assistant head boy, prefect, all the time. A lot of, a lot of, a lot of amazing things happened there. You know, I got a little scholarship to Laurier and all that, but like, but like heavy use. Yeah. A lot of blah, blah, blah. So I went from a very structured, regimented private boarding system to nothing at Wolford Laurier. Here's a room.

SPEAKER_06 45:56

Just like here's life, like go do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Here's a room bye.

SPEAKER_06 45:59

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

You know, so I just I failed out first year, you know, and uh I wasn't set up. And then after failing out of first year, I had kind of told my parents that I had an issue with drugs because I was introduced to cocaine there. And uh, you know, I was always a heavy weed smoker and drinker and mushrooms.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Wasn't until then you were introduced to cocaine?

SPEAKER_00 46:15

I I had done ecstasy and all that at 13 and 14 and all that type of stuff. But I think cocaine would have been first year university. Yep. 18. I was 18 years old because we didn't have OAC Ontario academic credit. We didn't have grade 13. Got it. So I went to Laurier at eight uh at 18. When I came back and failed at a first year, I told my parents I had a problem. They took me to Bellwoods, which is uh, you know, for addictions counseling. I had a I had a person I checked in with, a counselor. And then I went to my first AA meeting. I love telling this when I share my story because I work with a lot of sponsees and I talk to a lot of people, right? It's like, you can't look at the defects that you find in the rooms of recovery and in 12 steps. Everyone's always like, oh, I don't believe in God. I can't there, they just love God. And it's like, stop looking at all this stuff. Because when I went to that, what yeah, when I went to that AA meeting, nobody looked like me. It was all old white people. You know, nobody looked like me. I couldn't relate to anybody. It smelled like burnt coffee. It was in the basement of a church. You can't tell me that this is where I'm gonna get better. Yeah. So I immediately checked out, but I knew that there was a program that existed.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Now that's 18 years old. Fast forward to like, I think I'm 31 or 32, you know, 13 years or whatever it is. Then I go to Renaissance. I'm in a more of a developed place in my head where, okay, now I recognize that there's a program which I shared earlier. Yeah. There's something there. Now we fast forward to Addiction Rehab Toronto, and I'm like, okay, here we go. And these are this is it.

SPEAKER_06 47:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Prior to me going into art and even a little bit going into art, I want Addiction Reab Toronto, the treatment center. This is March 21. Prior to me even going into there, I was like, I'm gonna find a way to come in here and get clean and sober, but still hate my dad, but still hold resentments for certain people. But maybe even try and find a way to moderate my use.

SPEAKER_06 47:59

Maybe moderation, maybe walking in there.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Let me see if I can get to a year.

SPEAKER_06 48:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Yeah. That was kind of my mindset. But as I got there, I realized that I would have to forgive him. And a therapist that worked very closely with me brought me to that point of empathy. I started writing letters to my dad. And this is recovery. It's a progression. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a lot of little things that add up, in my opinion. But I'm writing, he's like, write letters to your dad from you know when you were a kid. And it's like, oh, why were you yelling so much? Why were you doing this? So you never hugged me. I know you never said I'm proud of you, blah, blah, blah. And then I wrote another one the next week, and it's the same shit. And he's like, Tell me about your dad, how he grew up, and I shared all that kind of stuff. And like these letters changed to empathy. And I put when I finally put myself in his shoes and what bullshit that he had to deal with, you know, coming here working a high-profile job, like no dad growing up, all the racism you must have dealt with, you know, big bank and executive of a big bank and all that stuff, I learned to forgive him. And that was also a big part of my recovery. I'll share something regarding my last time in treatment. I didn't say it before, but I actually relapsed when I came out. I did a month there. I was working with a bunch of different counselors in there. I was writing, I was reading, I was giving it 105%. When I came out, and this is important for someone watching, when I came out, I had a few days off, and then I took over a food truck, a very popular food truck in the city, and I served all week. You know, I prepped for two days, I worked three days all weekend. Prior in life, I had developed a reward system. Whereas if I, and you're nodding, you agree with me, you know what this is about. Where like if I performed or if I finished work or a catering or did anything, I would reward myself with, you know, escaping, getting high, numbing myself. But as I finished at 5 p.m. on that Sunday, a timer went off in me. And it's like, get high, get high. Immediately, what do I do? I do what I'm told to do, text my sponsor. But I didn't call him, I texted him. It took him three minutes to text me back. In that three minutes, I had already organized with the dealer.

SPEAKER_05 50:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

And there's a reason why I didn't call him. You actually relapse long before you actually pick up a drink or a drug. And we always say in the program, too, when someone relapses, we're not focusing on what they were doing. We're focusing on what they were not doing. And now if someone relapses, if I have a sponsee or, you know, if someone in my life I hear that, it's like, what were you not doing? And back in when I was opening up that restaurant, coming out of treatment, you know, back in 2015, I know we're jumping around a lot of dates, but you know, I wasn't doing anything I was supposed to be doing. I wasn't checking in with my sponsor, I wasn't working the big book, I wasn't talking to my conception of a higher power, which is the ever-expanding universe, by the way. You know, I wasn't meditating, I wasn't checking in with people from the program. I was going places I shouldn't have been going. I was going to bars. You know, we always say people, places, and things. I was doing everything I was not supposed to be doing. And lo and behold, because I put my recovery in the rear view mirror, when the time came and when I had a panic attack or whatever happened, boom, I went, I went off and I relapsed, right? But that time and in and coming out of treatment, I had already made the decision. And that was a really tough relapse for me coming out of treatment because that was the most guilt and shame that I had ever felt. Because I'd just come out of a month proving to myself and everybody that I could do this. You know, I just spent a month doing this and I thought I finally had this thing covered. But a few days after I relapsed, my sponsor said, Have you ever given this program 100%? And I said, No. And he said, Why don't you do that? And I'm here today.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Yeah. Have you had um, have you ever had like an aftercare program when you've gotten out of treatment?

SPEAKER_00 51:45

When I came out of Renaissance, I believe there was aftercare. When I came out of art, there was aftercare as well. Yeah, there were, yeah, man, imagine this too, coming out of art in in 2021. It's COVID.

SPEAKER_05 51:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

So all the Zoom calls, we call them Hollywood Squares.

SPEAKER_05 52:01

Yeah. With all the characters.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

So all the Zoom calls, I remember I would I would go on and stuff like that. But eventually um, meetings opened back up.

SPEAKER_05 52:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

And and I went back to meetings and stuff like that. I remember leaving Renaissance my first time in treatment in 2014. I remember coming out. We have a thing where we say uh it's recommended to do 90 and 90. So 90 meetings and 90 days. I think I did 87, you know, so I was dialed in back then and and and really wanted it bad. But again, like I said, I stopped uh I stopped doing everything that I was supposed to be doing. But yeah, my my aftercare uh coming out of treatment, uh, it was online and then it transitioned to uh, you know, what is my home group now?

SPEAKER_04 52:38

You've talked previously about like physical fitness and routine being a huge part of what keeps you like still locked into your recovery. Um, can you tell us a few other things and how these are helpful for you?

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Touching on the physical fitness part of it though, when I got clean in 2014 from Renaissance, I found squash.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

Not the vegetable. Not the vegetable.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah, the sport. Okay, you know, which is like incredibly fast-paced, incredibly physical. They say with boxing and squash, this is the two fastest ways you'll burn calories. It's nuts. I can do a thousand cal in an hour. What? Yeah, it's it's a mad ting.

SPEAKER_06 53:18

That's insane, okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Right?

SPEAKER_06 53:19

So mad tings, mad tings.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

So I found squash and I gave my life to it to that. And then that's where I started getting a bit of relief of this need to exert energy and let out all my stress and emotions and completely get all this sweat out of me and just the competitiveness in me. And I just, it was just so shocking to the system. It became a place where it was like a high.

SPEAKER_05 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

And I got a lot of adrenaline and I got a rush from it. And that was really important for me in 2015 because today, when you fast forward to now, present day, like I'm training later today. I found Pat's gym or something up the road around here somewhere. I always find a local gym, but I was already on the treadmill doing steps. Nice, you know, this morning because I tried to hit a certain goal every day. And just being in shape, being healthy, looking after my heart and uh just clearing my mind, this is a really big part of my recovery. So I think for anybody out there who's trying to recover, you need to find things like this. But in terms of other ways that I stay healthy and sober, I think like, I don't know if this is cliche, but a really big part of recovery for me is surrounding yourself with the right people.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

In early recovery, like anybody trying to get clean and sober, if you're like, okay, you want to get clean and sober, I'm gonna take your friends away. That's like the last thing you want to hear. Like you're either isolating or you could be a loner. But for me, I was doing that as well. I had heavy isolation, but you can't take my friends away. You can't take my safe space away. But ultimately, at the end of the day, these people are enabling you. And I heard this from a counselor a long time ago. It's like you don't have to eliminate them from your life, you can love them from a distance. And that's so powerful. So I love a lot of people from a distance these days. I'm still in touch, but from a distance. I can't keep going out with the same people I used to use with. I can't keep going to bars and clubs the same I used to do back in the day. We say if you sit in a barber's chair long enough, you will eventually get a cut.

SPEAKER_04 55:17

Yeah, you go and get your haircut, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Yeah, so people, places, and things, be very mindful. So a big part of my recovery today is yeah, the physical fitness. But introducing healthy people into my life, you know. Um, you are the company you keep, so be prudent in the friends that you seek. Yeah. Audit your circle. Audit your circle. Like I had to trim some fat. You know, there were people that were not adding any value to my life that I had to distance myself from. And just the fact that we've known each other and we were best friends 25 years ago doesn't mean I have to be your best friend today. I've done a lot of learning.

SPEAKER_05 55:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:51

You know, and I'm not perfect and I learn every single day. You know, I walk into a kitchen, you know, somewhere in the world, and I can learn something from the most inexperienced cook. And I ask everyone questions these days. So I'm always learning, but it's really important to put good people around yourself.

SPEAKER_04 56:07

Absolutely. How has the progression of sobriety, like over the last four years, been for you?

SPEAKER_00 56:13

To touch on that a little bit, we called it in treatment the bubble. You're safe in the bubble. And counselors would often say, after you go over that fence, you're in the real world. You're gonna have to figure it out for yourself. Yeah. And you're gonna have to decide is this something that you really want, right? So the bubble. We were always safe and protected in the bubble, but not always someone safe. You have people bringing shit into treatment, like Ubers being delivered. Anyways, I don't want to digress too much. But you asked me a really great question because I'm sober four and a half, going on to five years now, one day at a time, right? But some of my biggest learnings came this fucking year.

SPEAKER_05 56:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

You know, it's one thing to get sober from drugs and alcohol, but living a good, honest life after that is a whole other ballpark. You think, oh man, I'm not picking up drugs and alcohol every day anymore. I'm good. But Devin, me, I had so much bullshit to clean up. Like the dishonesty, all the manipulation from before, the ego, these are all character defects that I need to be aware of and I need to action treating women the way I try I always treat women, like that needed to be looked after as well. Because earlier this year, like I made some. No, sorry, I'm I'm referencing this year. Earlier last year, 2024. I mean, we just started this year.

SPEAKER_06 57:30

Yeah, I'm still getting used to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

So last year, yeah. No, I I engaged in some behavior that I was not proud of, but I was three and a half years sober. I haven't picked up a drug or a drink, but it doesn't mean that I'm able to live a good, solid, clean life. Like it's one thing to get clean, but then to live a good, solid, clean life after, that's where a lot of the work comes in. And I think in some ways, like it can be more work at times because I have all these bad habits from before that as I stop using and I get closer to my higher power and I start living a better life, they kind of creep in. You know, like I'm not perfect.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Things float around and they kind of seep in here and there, which is why you just got to keep practicing everything that got you to that place, auditing your circle. It's like a lot of little things that come together to build you a good, clean life.

SPEAKER_04 58:18

So now that you are over four years sober and cooking with truth, what does it mean to you to live this purpose-driven life? And what is the message behind your signature phrase mad love?

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Mad love. Uh, what do I answer first? Let's talk mad love first.

SPEAKER_06 58:35

Mad love, yes.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Because mad love came when I was not in this headspace. But I I mentioned it before, like I was raised to lead with kindness, and I have so much love to give. And and I really feel that love is one of those things that the world is missing. So whatever I can do to share my love, I would. But mad is more like mad means a lot of. Yeah. So I'm mad hungry, there's mad cheese on this pizza, mad love. When I started filming Chef Dev at home in early 2020, and I did, I did hundreds and hundreds of videos since then, hundreds. Um, I was naturally and organically signing off videos with mad love.

SPEAKER_05 59:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

And it's like, you have to cook with mad love. Everyone needs mad love. I have mad love for you, the world. So it's just like, it's just me talking with my slang. I like to talk with a lot of slang. Yeah. So that's where that came from. And then lo and behold, I have the merchandise and the cookbook now and blah, blah, blah. To answer the other part of your question, like cooking with truth and like purpose-driven, there's been a bit of a transition in me over the past few years. At one year sober, I decided to go public with my story. And I'd waited for one year. Took make sure I had a little bit of credibility. Yeah. Because I wanted to do it a little bit earlier, but I was also super nervous. How was it? A lot of pressure.

SPEAKER_04 59:47

Yep. And I don't want to hear it right now. I'm working on me. I just still I don't need you in it yet.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Exactly. Mad pressure. So I was like, oh man, do I really want to share this story with everybody online? What are all my fans going to think? What is my family gonna think? What are my parents' friends gonna think if I go online and say that I have a problem with substance abuse? Like, is should I not do this? And ultimately I thought this is going to help people. Yeah. Because people think that I have my shit together. And guess what? I do not, yeah, I do not have my shit together. So I summed up the courage. And what I did was a videographer that I film a lot of food content with. I just had him sit shotgun and we drove around and I just told my story. Yeah. And then we came back to my backyard. I think he shot that in black and white in the beginning. And we came back to my backyard and uh we shot more of it in color, like the second half of it, you know, the recovery, the recovery part of it. That's all him. That's not me. That's all Josh. And I realized when I did that and I put it out, it really impacted a lot of people. I learned that people from my community that may not have necessarily had someone to look up to or someone else that they respect and admire to say that it's okay to not be okay. I feel like it gave them a little bit more hope and it gave them someone that they could relate to. And oh, you know what? Maybe everything you see on Instagram is not as it seems. Like this is here's a guy traveling the world and living it up, and he's on TV cooking and he's doing all these amazing things, but he's hiding this dirty secret. So that's another way where I found the strength and the vulnerability. Yeah. And now, as I mentioned to you before, like I'm hit a bit a bit of a transition. I'm really taking more of an active role of speaking out on mental health awareness on my platform. I remember a month or so ago, around Christmas time, I filmed an Instagram live where I talked about tips and tricks to navigate all the booze that's readily available during the holiday season, whether that's going to your aunt's house, whether that's going to the work party. Yeah. You know, wherever it is, there's constant parties and there's alcohol and people struggle. You know, there's rum and eggnog everywhere that you go. So although I'm not posting every single day, I'm definitely posting more often.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

And I built an amazing following and I've nurtured a community and an audience online. And there's more that I can do than just teach you how to break down a pepper or teach you this fine dining dish from from wherever it is, or you know, take you on a tour of my last catering somewhere in another continent. I can talk about really substantial, really deep personal things that hopefully you can relate to. And if it's not you struggling, maybe I can equip you with some tools to help that person close to you that is like it's so much bigger than just who's watching and is that person struggling? No, there's like something I say may impact someone, and I'll never ever know.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:44

It's the ripple effects that you don't see.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

It's the ripple effects that you don't see exactly. I'm using that line going forward.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:50

Yeah, you can take that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Then I can relate to it with Chef Dev at home because when I, even with my cookbook, I was putting out recipes and I was doing tons of tips and tricks. And I did like, you talked about lasagna earlier. Like I had a crazy cool lasagna recipe with Bechamel and like everything. And I remember doing all these things, and someone would get back to me and be like, Oh, yo, by the way, my neighbors are such big fans of you. They make your meatball recipe every Sunday. I didn't know that. And if he didn't tell me, I would have never known that. So the same thing goes for the recovery talk and and and and you know, the the experiences that I share online. I might say one day, if nothing changes, nothing changes. And that might click for someone halfway around the world. And I don't need to know that it clicked for them. Yeah. But if it could just improve their life by 1%, that's a massive win.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

And that's how I've transitioned over the past little bit. Like I have more purpose now than ever. Before it was for me to inspire people to get really passionate in the kitchen and surround the table with loved ones. And that's still a big part of what I do. But now there's an added layer to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:51

Yeah. I was gonna like hearing you explain, I was like, gosh, the parallels in like having the passion of cooking, it's like it's intentional. It is love-based, it is giving to other people, it is caring for others. And now you have switched that into like your advocacy work. It is caring towards others, others, it's the care of others, it is providing for others, it is giving them something to continue like building on and to take care of themselves. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been absolutely amazing getting to know you, getting to hear your story. And I can't wait to hear more about your story and to see where this all takes you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

It's been an honor and a privilege. Yeah. And please bring me back in the summer.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:37

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And where can all of our listeners find you on your socials?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:42

Chef Dev. So Chef Devin D-E-V-A-N at Chef Devon De V A N on TikTok, on Instagram, Chef Devin Official on YouTube, Chef Devin Rajkumar on Facebook. And uh, I'm coming soon to a city near you.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:56

That's a promise. All right, thank you all for joining us. Have a wonderful rest of your day. We'll see you next time.