Outside the Line
You are more than a shield. Conversations about what keeps cops anchored to what really matters - life outside the thin blue line.
Outside the Line
Episode 13 - Big Dump with John Luedke
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Welcome to Outside the Line - the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world.
This week, I'm joined by John Luedke - author, speaker, and trader. John is the author of Big Dump - the story of grit and resilience told through his battle with multiple forms of addiction.
John struggled with addiction and compulsive behavior from a very young age. Food and video games were the initial coping mechanisms. By the time he was eight he was introduced to pornography and as he got older, he turned to alcohol and illicit drugs.
John's incredible story of grit, hope, resilience, and his continued sobriety is powerful and raw. You won't want to miss it!
Trigger warning: drug and substance abuse, addiction.
Read John's book:
https://a.co/d/07IZywDH
Connect with John:
https://www.instagram.com/johnny.luedke/
Welcome to Outside the Line, a podcast with conversations about keeping cops anchored to what really matters. Life outside the city line. I'm your host, Dana Campbell, an active duty NYPD detective on a mission to normalize conversations around resilience and mental health and help cops develop self-awareness and an identity outside their career so they can enjoy life and thrive in the real world. Outside the line. Welcome back to another episode of Outside the Line, the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world. My name is Dina Campbell, and today we have a very special guest. His name is John Ludke, not a first responder, not a cop, but an incredible story of grit and triumph and resilience. So he's really, really powerful. You guys are gonna love this. John, thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_01Of course, it's my pleasure.
SPEAKER_00And oh, of course, I forgot to mention, author of the book Big Dump, which we're gonna talk about the duration of the podcast. Not gonna give too much away because obviously we want everybody to go and buy it and read it.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00But if you want to, so the book takes us all the way back to when you were growing up and how you kind of got into like found yourself in that situation. So if you want to give like a brief overview of what the book is about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think it's important to look back at my childhood and you can kind of see that I had a predisposition to addiction. I think that was one of the big indicators that I wanted to cover because you know, the younger generation who might be reading it uh might have gone through similar things. They might say, oh, you know, I have been watching pornography, OnlyFans. I may be playing video games until the wee hours of the night and see these similarities that they have with me and say, okay, I'm gonna take a step back. Maybe I'm an addict, maybe, you know, when my friends are starting to drink, I probably should not. So that's why I think it was important to go back into some of my behaviors when I was um a younger kid and adolescent all throughout high school and college, because um, you know, for me also I could kind of see, you know, I was okay acting like this. And, you know, the traumas that ensued in my life led me to go to substance abuse, but I definitely think there was a predisposition. And I don't think enough awareness is brought to that. I look at a lot of my friends from when I was younger who ran in the same crew, who were the misbehaved kids, you know, doing the same sort of actions as me. And today, when we're older, you know, we've ended up okay and uh leading successful lives. But you know, there was a time where we all kind of went down a bad path. And I think that for people to see my story and see my childhood, maybe there's a chance for them to intervene in another person's life or for someone to intervene in their own life and understand they might be at a huge risk for addiction. So a lot of the book does cover my childhood, the behaviors. Um, I didn't get too in-depth to the specific traumas that happened to me just because, you know, I have a family. I think it was hard enough on them to hear some of the stories that I shared. So I did not go uh, like I said, too in depth to my specific traumas.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you for speaking so honestly about the things that you struggle with because in this culture they have become normalized. You know, like you said, the pornography and all of the gaming. And even like within gaming, now there's like blind boxes and there's like all these things that you can buy extra. And it starts like, you know, a gambling addiction, and that kind of spills over into other areas. So thank you so much for speaking on that because it's not something people typically think about when they think about how addiction starts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and to touch on the gambling aspect now, I feel like we're gonna look back at this time in 30, 40 years and say, how is this allowed? There's tons of if you drive in New Jersey, every single billboard is for cannabis, alcohol, or gambling. There's tons of marketing, there's no guardrails, it's it's a flawed system. And there, unfortunately, the casinos make their money off of uh compulsive gamblers. And right now, I could go on my phone, go on. I'm in Florida right now. I could go on the seminal hard rock app, Apple Pay my credit card, max it out, and spend every dollar that I don't even have on gambling. There's no way that this should be allowed. Um, it's going to lead to horrible credit for a lot of the younger generation. They're preying on addicts, unfortunately. It's not something that I have, thankfully. Gambling was probably the one vice that I didn't really suffer from, but I've seen it destroy close friends' lives, uh, people in my family. That's why I stayed away from it. You know, some extended family members have been dealing with gambling issues for decades, and now it's gonna be worse than ever because it's legalized, the advertising is legalized, and like I said, there's no guardrails. You could, once you're 21, you could sign up for a legal book in a state where it's legal and use your credit card and max it out. So I think that there's gonna be a lot of pushback in years to come against the gambling because it's just not gonna be sustainable. A lot of lives are gonna be ruined, and there's definitely gonna be pushback in the future.
SPEAKER_00And for the sake of society, like I hope that there is at some point, because like I don't know about New Jersey, but I know in my work as peer support, we deal with uh New York gambling addicts. They come and they they give a presentation. And in New York State, casinos have to give 51% of their revenue back to the state for like for gambling programs. Like, what other industry gives more than half of the their profits back in taxes because they're just making money hand over fist, like it's insane.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's crazy. I mean, I think that's part of the issue is that the government is making so much money off of it because it's such a profitable business. I mean, the odds are stacked against you in essentially every single sport or game that the casino offers. I think maybe it's like blackjack and backarat. There are like two ways where you can kind of uh get the odds in your favor. But for 99% of the games and sports betting that the casinos offer, the odds are against you. So they're essentially printing money and the government's getting a cut of that. So they're less likely to put a ban on it until you know there's there's going to be more pushback from society, from people who unfortunately will have their lives destroyed by gambling.
SPEAKER_00Getting back to you, if you don't mind sharing, how old were you when you that you can recall when you were exposed to the I don't know the pornography, but also like that you had a conscious awareness of the addictive behavior, the impulsive behavior?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I would say the addictive behavior started with food. I think I cover that in the book. Um, food to me was the earliest source of dopamine. If I had a bad day at school, like I would go to food. If I was anxious, food, it was quickly followed up and coupled with video games. I would stay up until four or five in the morning on my Game Boy playing Pokemon, and then I would miss school the next day, stay home, keep playing, sleep for two hours. So that those are where the addictive behavior started with those two substances. I would say video games and eating, and then pornography. I was introduced to at a very young age. I was eight, and I was doing viewing that every night. So those three I would say at a very young age, I was probably overeating at five or six, uh, playing video games around the same age, and then introduced to pornography at eight. And when I was introduced to substances, the addictive tendencies were already installed in me because I was already behaving that way with other substances, even though it wasn't drugs or alcohol to start with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like you said, you were you were already used to getting the dopamine hit. You just needed something else to give you the same dopamine hit.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00So how did how old were you when you started turning to substances? I know we talk about this in your book, and you don't have to go too deep into it because I do want people to read it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I didn't mention the first time I had a drink, but the first time I drank, I was in fifth grade. So I think I was 10 or 11 years old. My sister was probably a freshman in high school at the time. She was doing it with her friends. I thought it was cool. Uh, she took a picture of me and posted it, and that was probably my first time drinking. But in fifth grade, I probably drank like four or five times, and then I got caught because of the picture, and then I was scared straight. So I didn't do any substances besides I used like a hookapen, like a vape with no nicotine. Uh, but then in eighth grade, that was the start of my parents' divorce, and that's when I turned to marijuana, and then it quickly spiraled out of control. I mean, so I started smoking marijuana in March of eighth grade, and then by December of my sophomore year, so in less than two years, I was using very hard drugs, opiates, benzos like Xanox, uh, psychedelics, LSD, mushrooms, on top of a lot of cannabis and a lot of alcohol. And I think that does go back to uh childhood where I could see the need for dopamine. Like it was very quick that weed and alcohol weren't enough that I was turning to not only harder substances, but combining them all together. Like when I was a sophomore, I'd be drinking, taking opiates, and smoking weed all in the same night just to get high and escape reality.
SPEAKER_00And that's a really important thing for parents to hear. And thank you for sharing that because it it can be difficult for people to hear that, but it does happen even in small town USA, you know, any anywhere and everywhere, kids can get access to these things. So it's important to have these candid conversations as uncomfortable as they may be, and be aware as much as you possibly can of what what your children are doing and what your friends are doing if you're in the younger audience listening to this.
SPEAKER_01100%. And like you said, drugs are everywhere. I mean, there's gonna be anxiety, trauma, depression anywhere in the world, and outside of therapy and natural ways to heal that pain, people are gonna turn to drugs and substances anywhere in the world. So there's always gonna be drug use no matter where you are. Uh, some spots will obviously be more dense, like uh more drug use per capita, but there's always gonna be some use in every area.
SPEAKER_00And then so once you started using the the harder drugs, the opiates and all of that, how did that affect your high school career? Like, did you still I know you went to college, but did you have aspirations to go to college? Is it just something like you just picked a path and you continued? How did that happen?
SPEAKER_01Uh so yeah, I always wanted to go to college. Part of the reason I was able to continue with my substance abuse and not raise too many red flags. Don't get me wrong, I definitely got in trouble and got the attention of my parents and the teachers in negative ways, but that was mostly through my behavior. My grades were always uh up to par, if not above par. I think I had you know a 90 average all through first or eight, and then I graduated high school with a 93 average, even though I was using all the time. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, when I began selling marijuana, I would carry around a bottle of Adderall and weed with me, and I would be off weed and adderall all day at school and somehow managed to still pass classes and get good grades and everything. So I put in the minimum amount of effort, but got results that would not, you know, deter me from going to college or would raise too many red flags with my parents.
SPEAKER_00And that's a great point because I I feel like, and I don't want to speak for like everybody, but it seems like once you get that label that you're the problem child, people are always looking for a way to catch you doing something wrong. But it sounds like you were able to fly under the radar and get just enough done that you didn't raise any red flags from anybody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. And I think that's a common theme uh with you know people who are labeled the problem child uh and who have similar stories to myself. I feel like addicts have a way of until it gets too bad, we have a way of masquerading around and acting like everything's okay. We got our stuff together, you know, maybe like uh high-functioning alcoholics can hold jobs and they might be thriving at those jobs behind closed doors, they're really struggling with addiction. So addiction does bring out a certain type of creativity with certain people just because of the lies that it requires to the keep up face. For me, it was you know, I was getting good grades, and then I had to convince people that I was sober. And if they if my parents or teachers would press into me, like, oh, are you drinking? Are you getting high? I'd be like, No, look at my grades, like they're fine. And I feel like a lot of addicts have an out, uh, you know, other high school addicts might be athletes, mom, dad, look, I'm playing a sport, I'm fine, this isn't a big deal. So I definitely think there is a lot of masquerading around and flying under the radar and using white lies and having, you know, a sort of label, whether you're an athlete or you have a job or some sort of stamp that shows I'm doing this, so you know, I might be able to hide the truth about my addiction.
SPEAKER_00Did you have any close calls?
SPEAKER_01In what sense?
SPEAKER_00Um, where you thought that maybe your teachers or your parents like finally knew what was going on?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I mean, so many. Just because I was I was traveling to school every day with a lot of marijuana. I went to school in New Jersey and I lived in Goshen, New York. So that was about a 40-minute commute. So every drive to school, I'd be paranoid about getting pulled over, and then I'd be using marijuana, selling marijuana in school in the bathroom. So there were tons of close calls. And I'm actually grateful that I got caught looking back on it. My mom had found probably 400 uh one gram dab pens, which is ounces of of uh THC, in my closet one day, and thank god she had caught me and not the police or a different authority figure that would have gone to the police because at the time it was a schedule, I believe is it schedule one or schedule A?
SPEAKER_00A.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a Schedule A drug and it would have been a felony.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, at the time I met my mom with a lot of animosity and everything, but looking back on it, I'm honestly glad things unfolded the way they did because they could have gone a much worse direction, I would say. So, and and there were sorry, there were a lot of of close calls leading up to that. And it's funny, a lot of times when like a black swan bad event would happen to me, like I'd get a feeling in my stomach, like, you know, I've been skating along for I've been skating along for a while now. Like I feel like some what something's gonna happen, like someone's gonna catch me. And I had that feeling when I was selling with my mom. It's funny because my friend uh who was driving me to my house that night, uh, he was gonna buy weed for me. And he's like, Are you sure you're fine? Like, are you sure your mom's not gonna find it? Because I left them at my house and I was like, Yeah, we're good, or whatever. And he kept asking me, and then we pulled in, and like before he could even get in the house, she was like, He's not coming inside, like, I need to talk to you. And you know, that funny feeling ended up being me getting caught.
SPEAKER_00How did you handle it throughout your while while you were struggling with addiction? How did you handle it when people tried to reach out and offer you help and you weren't in a place that you weren't ready to accept it?
SPEAKER_01I was extremely rigid and dismissive, uh defensive about my actions, uh, because at the time I wasn't ready. I feel like a big uh misconception surrounding addiction and recovery is if uh we put person X into uh rehab, Y they'll get better. I firmly believe that the addict themselves has to come to a point where they're ready to make change and forcing change upon people labeling and not being supportive is not uh, you know, gonna help them get sober. So people came to me, but I was so rigid with my family and in denial myself that you know they they did not really press the issue too much just because I would always meet it with anger or I'm fine, I don't need that, blah, blah, blah. I would go back to the excuse, like I'm in college, like I'm getting good grades, or I'm in high school, like I'm fine, like everyone's doing it. And I would just tell them and myself all the lies that I needed to to continue on with the addiction.
SPEAKER_00So then when you went to college, how was your college experience?
SPEAKER_01It was crazy. And it was another thing where I got very lucky because the end of my freshman year was the start of COVID. So we were past fail for a year and a half. So all I had to do was get a 1-0 in every class, and I could check past. And then towards the end of my senior year, unfortunately, there was a school shooting, and then we were past fail for the second semester of my senior year. So I really only got grades for two out of the four years of college. So that made it very easy for me to skate by. Didn't I I still college was a lot worse than high school? I mean, I barely got through college and I cheated, I paid people to take classes, I I did everything I could just to pass and keep living the life I was living. I was drinking almost every single day, using I I moved away from psychedelics and marijuana, but I started using cocaine very heavily. I was using Xanax a lot. And my four years of college were binge drinking, binge cocaine weekends, and Xanax. And then I started doing nitrous oxide. I'm not sure if you know what that is.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I didn't until I read your book. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that is another thing that I think is gonna get a lot of pushback because at most gas stations you can go in and buy the nickname is Whippets, but you can go in and buy these drugs with you know just a fake ID. And they're extremely addictive, extremely dangerous too. But my entire uh college career was spent drinking. When I got there, I got there in September and October. I joined a fraternity, and that was just like the worst place for me. I was already had a predisposition to drinking and attention-seeking behavior, and fraternities reward that in a sense. So I like felt like I was at home because for the first time in my life, people respected my drinking, like it gave me an identity. People knew who I was, people liked me. I had like a lot of clout around campus. So I was, or my ego was enjoying it, but it was not good for me. And then as time progressed, because when you first join a fraternity, you can't use at least in hours, you can't use hard drugs. So once I was officially initiated and hard drugs were allowed, it was all downhill from there. And the cocaine use got very out of hand very quickly.
SPEAKER_00So that's actually interesting because you were able to stop using the hard drugs when they weren't allowed in the fraternity. And at no point did you ever want to stop using them. You just knew it was going to be a temporary thing until you could use them again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I saw a lot of the older members were using them. So it was only during our uh probation period where we weren't allowed to use them, and it was only two months, and we were still allowed to drink, so I knew eventually uh I would be able to use them again. And I had had some bad experience with weed, like panic attacks, and that's why I stayed away from smoking and the psychedelics, but I still in college used uh opiates, but I really didn't use psychedelics too much.
SPEAKER_00And then when you graduated college, you were able to get a good job, right, in in Manhattan?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so my dad has been a commodities trader for about close to 40 years now. I think he started when he's 23 and he's 61 now. Um, so 38 years. And I out of college I started shadowing him and his group, which is, you know, they've his group has combined over 100 years of experience with trading. So I literally got to sit with some of the most experienced traders in the world. So that was a blessing, especially given my actions and how I was in college, just to have that opportunity. And after I graduated, I was still drinking and I was starting to learn from them. And then eventually I was gonna start to trade. And New Year's was aligning uh at a similar time of when I was gonna start to trade. And one of my very close friends asked me about doing a 75 hard, and I was I was honestly terrified because I didn't know if I could go 75 days without drinking, but I knew that if I were to continue drinking, this job would it would not work, it could not coexist. I would end up just failing. So I was like, all right, I remember saying this to myself, uh, because I'm a big basketball fan. I was like, okay, March Madness is gonna start the weekend, the 75 hard ends. So just get through the 75 hard or the 75 days, you're gonna start your career trading, and then you can go back to drinking. And about two weeks in, I was like, I'm done. Like, I'm never drinking again. So much of the shame and the anxiety and the guilt and just the uh chaotic lifestyle was just foregone without alcohol, and it was the best decision I've ever made.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. So, how many times do you think? Because in your book, uh oh, all right. The question is how many times do you think you got to rock bottom, but it wasn't actually rock bottom? Because there were a few times like you lost what was it, a friend or a friend's brother or something?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so when I was a senior in college, it was my spring break, so it was March of 2023, and it was kind of our last senior trip because we graduated in May, so two months before we graduated, and we were in Mexico, and the last night of the trip, I won't spoil the entire story because it's a a good portion of the book, but I was essentially got caught doing cocaine in Mexico by a subgroup of the cartel, and they held me for ransom. And the morning after I woke up and I wanted to die. Like it was the worst anxiety I've ever had. It was the most guilt, the most shame I've ever had. Like I've had panic attacks before, probably four times in my life, and that one was significantly worse than all of the other ones. It was it felt like my life was destined for death or jail. Like that moment, the morning after that had happened, I knew that if I continued using, I was gonna end up dead or in jail. So at that state, I was very weak. And the day after that had happened, I got a call from my best friend, and his brother uh had passed away, and I just completely broke down. Like it was I never thought I would feel that horrible. It was like the two worst events that had ever happened to me happened in a two-day span, and that was like my complete rock bottom. I told myself, I'm done drinking, I'm I'm going sober, and I lasted nine days because that's how bad the addiction is. Nine days of and then I started convincing myself, you know, you can just have a beer and and be okay. And then as soon as I started drinking again, the same behaviors came back: the binge drinking, the cocaine, the spending, all the money, going to strip clubs, yada yada, yada, every single time. Alcohol touched my mouth. It was chaos.
SPEAKER_00What do you think was different about the 75 hard that you chose to stick with it? Do you think it was the the fun keeping you accountable or was it something else?
SPEAKER_01You know, that's a very good question because I think for a lot of people, um typically the moment they get sober immediately follows up to some sort of rock bottom or traumatic moment, like an eye-opening experience. For me, that wasn't the case. I had my, you know, come to the light moment, uh, epiphany nine months before then, and then didn't get sober after that happened. But I think having a clear mind for that amount of time, because it was the first time in 10 years that I wasn't using porn, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, it was the first time I had a clear mind and I had goals that were set that I finally saw my life on the other side of alcohol. And I think that was when I was like, oh wow, this is just a taste of how good my life could be. I never want to go back to what it was.
SPEAKER_00So before that, did you even think recovery was possible for you?
SPEAKER_01No, absolutely not. I thought I was gonna die as an alcoholic. Whether I would make it to old age or not, I always it it was so bad. Like I surrounded myself with as drinker zoo, I surrounded myself with alcoholics and drug users. And I always felt that I was the worst out of all of them, that I was the least likely to ever make it out the worst drinker, the worst drug user. And I thought that my life was doomed to addiction forever.
SPEAKER_00Now it sounds like all of these years of addiction was a coping strategy, like a negative coping strategy, but still one. When you finally got sober, were there emotions that came up that you hadn't dealt with and were just numbing along the way? And how did you deal with that stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. I think that most, if not all, addicts are, you know, numbing some pain, whether it's from their childhood or their past. And for me, one of the biggest ways I could I did work through it was journaling. I journaled every single day for the last two years, and I've gone to therapy, which has been very helpful as well. But I think journaling was the biggest thing. And then, you know, it might sound uh cliche, but solitude, being able to spend time with yourself is one of the biggest things. I think that one of the disease of addiction is not being able to turn your mind off, not being able to sit with your own thoughts, to sit with yourself. And that's why we need mind-altering substances to get away from who we truly are and get away from reality and not be able to sit with ourselves. So I spent a lot of time in solitude, deep, deep meditation. Um, one of the things I started doing was I would sit in a sauna blindfolded for 20 minutes every single day, and really just I worked through a lot of my issues with meditation. I would say journaling, meditation, and other forms of solitude, just spending time with yourself, becoming your own best friend, that was the biggest thing for me.
SPEAKER_00I love that. And and it sounds sometimes like hippie woo-woo stuff, but it's really not because a lot of times there's so much we we isolate, and I'm not just I don't want to speak for you, but like people in general who are in pain. There's a lot of shame, there's a lot of isolation, and then there's a lot of judgment when you sit with your thoughts. And to be able to come to a place of solitude where you can just observe your mind without judgment and without shame, sounds like it was really powerful in your healing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. And it's funny you say that because if you would have come to me when I was 300 pounds and drinking every day and said, you're gonna end up meditating in a sauna, and that's how you're gonna deal with everything, I would have laughed in your face. But it's true, it sounds hippy-dippy or whatever. But I mean, I encourage a lot of my friends or anyone to try meditation and and try like the hippy-dippy stuff because it does work. It forces you to spend time with yourself to go over your thoughts. It's almost like uh a mental mailbox in a sense. And you you can work through uh a lot of your issues, what you're anxious about, your past traumas when you meditate.
SPEAKER_00And becoming your own best friend is a powerful message because, like you said, when you were in college, your identity kind of formed around like performing, whether it was the drinking or whatever it was, and you you finally felt respected, but then you you've done this complete 180 and you realize that like you only need the validation, it has to come from yourself first before it can come from anybody else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if you know I was the epitome of someone who saw external validation, and I can firmly say that if you're searching for external validation, you've already lost because you're never gonna find it. It has to come from yourself, it absolutely has to. And once you realize that and understand that, so much of the anxiety and the attention-seeking behaviors just vanish. And once you can find it from yourself, I think that's when you can really find change.
SPEAKER_00What's the biggest lesson you think you've learned throughout this whole process?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I would say change is possible, anything's possible. I mean, I was 320 pounds drinking every single day, using a ton of drugs, and you know, here I am two years later, over a hundred pounds later, working a job that I never even thought I would be capable of, living in a fit body, which was like an afterthought for me. And if you put your mind to something and put the work in, literally anything's possible.
SPEAKER_00That's such a great message. So let's talk about what you are doing now.
SPEAKER_01So I'm still trading. Um right now, I trade crypto energies, like heating oil, what you use to heat your house, gold and silver, coffee, sugar, cocoa. So I trade a wide range of commodities. And then, you know, on the side, I've been working on writing and editing and publishing the book. That was a 20-month process. And then the last month or so, I've been working on a lot of the marketing and some little speaking gigs here and there.
SPEAKER_00Nice. I wish you so much success with all of it because your story is so powerful and it needs to be shared. And what I love about the book, and I was telling you this before we started recording, is that it's not just some Hallmark movie or Cinderella story with a happy, I mean, thank God, yes, it has a happy ending, but it's not like packaged in this in this neat little bow, you know, like with a neat little bow on top. It's like you literally were clawing your way through this whole journey, and you really do a great job of taking the reader on that journey with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually, I actually started writing the original idea for the book, it was gonna it was I was gonna name it 120 ways, and it would be 120 recipes to lose 120 pounds. And then as soon as I started writing, the raw, true story came out, and I was just like, okay, I'm going with this. This is what happened to me. Like, this is what's gonna help people, this is what people need to hear.
SPEAKER_00And good for you for being vulnerable, because it's not easy to put yourself out there so publicly and be vulnerable like that, but you never know who might be struggling or supporting somebody who's struggling who needs to hear this message.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, if I if one person stops shrinking, if one person doesn't kill themselves, if one person loses weight, then it's all worth it at the end of the day. So, you know, I'm hoping that my vulnerability, vulnerability leads to at least one person making change. That was the goal with this book. It was never to make money, never to get fame or anything. Not that either of those will ever happen, but it was always to help people. And I just hope that you know I can change one person's life.
SPEAKER_00I have no doubt that you will. Um, so where can people find you?
SPEAKER_01Um, so the book itself is on Amazon, and then I'm active on Instagram and LinkedIn if anyone, you know, wants to reach out on there.
SPEAKER_00I will, if you don't mind, I'll link your socials in the show notes so people can reach out and contact you.
SPEAKER_01100%. I'd love that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, awesome. And I always like to end on a high note. So what is your favorite karaoke song?
SPEAKER_01I think the best karaoke and sing-along song is piano man. It's an all-time classic.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you can't go wrong with Billy Joel. Everybody knows it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. John, this it's it was really such a pleasure having you on. And I wish you so much success with your book and and in life in general. You've come such a long way, and you're really not shy about bearing all of the gritty details and bringing everybody along with you on this process. So, truly, the lives that you are going to touch that you may never know, I guarantee you, will be it's like a it's like a ripple effect. So I hope it ripples out positively into the world because you deserve all of the success. Please, for those of you who are listening, read his book. If you're struggling, know that recovery is always possible. And in case you haven't heard today, you are loved, you matter, and you are not alone. Thank you so much for stepping outside the line with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing with a friend or to your social media network. And if you do, please tag me so I can reach out and thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are personal opinions not reflective of the host or guests department. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with your mental health, please speak to personal health resources are available. You matter, and you are not alone.