He Lost Himself to Addiction. Then He Rebuilt His Life | Eli Hayempour

In this episode of the Frum Health Club Podcast, I sit down with Eli Hayempour for a powerful and deeply moving conversation about addiction, recovery, fitness, Yiddishkeit, and what it truly means to rebuild your life from the ground up.

Eli shares his story of growing up in a Persian Orthodox home in Los Angeles, and how, despite a strong upbringing, he began struggling with drugs and alcohol from a young age. What started as experimentation quickly turned into years of addiction, leading him down a path of chaos, broken structure, and eventually hitting rock bottom.

One of the most intense moments in this episode is when Eli describes being homeless on the streets of Los Angeles, feeling completely lost, and having a life-changing encounter that pushed him to return home and finally ask for help. Shortly after, he made the decision to get sober, a decision that completely changed the trajectory of his life.

We also speak about what addiction really looks like, how to recognize when something has control over you, the role of discipline and fitness in recovery, and how structure, community, and spirituality can help a person rebuild themselves. Eli shares how he returned to Yiddishkeit, built a family, and created a life centered around purpose, gratitude, and growth.

This conversation is raw, honest, and extremely inspiring.

About Eli Hayempour:

Eli Hayempour is over 10 years sober and uses his life experience to inspire others who are struggling with addiction and searching for a better path. Through his openness, discipline, and commitment to growth, he has rebuilt his life as a husband, father, and entrepreneur, while helping others see that transformation is possible no matter how far someone has fallen.

Follow Eli :

https://www.instagram.com/sobermob26/

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https://chat.whatsapp.com/KaCltJZoGmp3qbeZh9K7z4?mode=gi_t

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Being in sobriety has taught me self-control and has taught me discipline. For a guy that used to wake up and drink vodka, smoke meth, and do heroin, for me to wake up and not do those things and go to shool and take care of my family and eat right and work out, it's all about discipline. Consistency is great and being motivated is great. But once those die down, once the motivation dies down, it's the discipline that is going to keep you going on days that you don't want to do it. It comes from being, you know, an alcoholic myself and seeing so many terrible stories of people dying so young, people with kids, people with parents, people with brothers, sisters, guys that are 20 years old, that have their whole life ahead of them, everything's finished, done because they just wanted to do one more drink. Hashem runs the world. But I would rather take care of the body he gave me than not take care of it. And then when I go, he asks me why I didn't take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Welcome back, everyone, to the Froom Health Club podcast. I'm your host, Mendel Krashinsky. Here at the Froom Health Club, we believe that health isn't just about your muscles or appearance. True health is about the body, the mind, and the soul working together so we can show up fully for our families, our communities, and our purpose in life. Today's guest has a powerful story of transformation. Eli Hyempur was born in New York to Persian immigrant parents. His father worked alongside the Rebbe and Rabbi Heck helping rescue Jewish youth out of Iran, which is also how his parents met. When Ellie was four years old, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he grew up in Tarzana in an Orthodox home. But like many people searching for direction, Ellie's path took a different turn. From the ages of about 15 through his mid-20s, he struggled with drugs and alcohol and found himself deep in addiction. At the age of 25, Ellie made a decision to get sober. A decision that completely changed the trajectory of his life. Over the years since, he rebuilt his life step by step, returning to Judaism, building a family, embracing health and fitness, and creating a disciplined lifestyle centered around gratitude and purpose. Today, Baruch Hashem, Ellie is a husband, a father, and has over 10 years of sobriety. Ellie, it's really an honor to have you with us. Welcome to the podcast. Good to be here. Good to be here. Good to be here, Mendel.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

It's an honor. I like what you're doing. My buddy Ruby, you guys had Ruby on a few a few months ago. He put me on to you guys. So I'm very happy that we're getting to do this. You know, this is special. Yeah, and actually, I just celebrated 10 years yesterday. So today's 10 years and one day. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. So Ellie, take us, take us back, if you could take us back to your childhood. What was it like, you know, growing up in LA in a Persian Orthodox home and just your story in general? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

So uh we grew up in Tarzana. If some of you guys don't know, it's just a county and it's a city inside Los Angeles, part of LA County in the Valley. Um both my parents are from my dad, you know, Kapata, uh black hat, beard. Uh he was in the food business. We had a supermarket for many years in Tarzana. The our home was a uh, you know, I would say a religious home. Um uh kosher, everything, Shabbos. We all went to Emma Kibre Academy, brother went to Valley Torah, sister went to Eula. So very, you know, as far as the you know, the cliche American Jewish home. Now, growing up, we heard a lot about Iran, we heard a lot about the revolution, we heard a lot about the Rebbe. Being that my father worked along, J.J. Heft and Rabbi Alulian, they were like the uh the three of them were like the heads of the mission to bring the youth out of Iran during 1978, 1979, 1980. During those years of the revolution, they worked together. My dad came here in 1970. He came here when he was 14, so he came nine years before the revolution. His parents didn't want him in Iran anymore. It was a very prior to the revolution, Iran was very uh still a big Islamic Muslim country. Um, you know, and going to Jewish school was a luxury. My father, unfortunately, didn't have that luxury of going to Jewish school, so he was in a public school, which is an Islamic school. So, you know, my dad knows about the Quran and all this stuff. Um but at home, we were uh, I want to say more pointed to Lubavitch, more pointed to Chabad, but also more on the modern side. Uh, you know, we uh, you know, we we none of us went to Lobavic school because they were all very far from us. They were in the city, and my parents didn't want us driving. So we all went to Emek, but we were, you know, we all went to Chabad of the Valley, we all were black hats on our bar mitzvahs, you know, the Mimer, all that good stuff. Um, and it was beautiful. Uh childhood was beautiful. We lived in Tarzana for 10 years from 94 till 04. We lived in Tarzana. 04, my parents wanted to move to North Hollywood. We were getting older, I was going to high school. My uh my brother was already in high school, my other brother was out. Um, sister was in Israel at the time. So we moved, we came to North Hollywood, and the Chabad here was very small at that time. Um, it was an old liquor store. It was on the coin. It's still in the same place, but Bar Hashem, they built it up. It's a beautiful community. Now, um, with me, you know, growing up, I want to say till I was about bar mitzvah, I was okay. You know, I was an okay kid. Yeah, I was a little bit of a troublemaker, but um, I as I got older, I went to high school, I started to veer off, you know, rebel a little bit, dibble dabble with drugs, alcohol, um, you know, weed, some pharmaceuticals, pills, stuff like that. And by 15, 16, I went to Valley Torah here in uh in North Hollywood for one year. And then the following year they asked me not to come back. I didn't go back. I went to Nittanelli. It was a small Jewish school in the city. Uh it was more like I always joke about it, but it was more of like a place where all the degenerate kids went when they the their parents didn't want to send them to Eula, they didn't want to send them to Valitore, wouldn't take them, Eula wouldn't take them. So you went to Netanelli. And um, there was actually a big Persian community of kids that went there. Um, and then you had me. I feel like I'm more of a hybrid, you know, because we grew up very Americanized. Um, we really took on, my parents really took on the American way of life once we moved here, but we still have our Jewish customs, Persian customs, all that stuff. Uh after a year in 10th grade, my drug use got pretty out of hand. Um, you know, smoking every day, doing pills, drinking, all that stuff. And my dad was just like, look, I don't want you to be in high school. You're not doing anything with your life. So for 11th grade, I went back to school for about a couple months in 11th grade, and then he's like, just, you know, we're gonna take you out of high school, go work, go to community college, and uh, you know, you'll figure it out. So that was pretty much childhood. I mean, uh, very loving parents, very loving home. You know, I have uh two of my siblings are orthodox, and I have an older brother that is not orthodox, but everyone was, you know, trying to help in their own way. You know, addiction, uh, there's a lot of different beliefs on how you come to be an addict. A lot of people think it's your surroundings, some people think it's genetic. I personally think it's all of the above. You know, you're a product of your environment. So the friends you hang out with, you know, the music you listen to, the movies you watch, the culture you're in, you know, LA culture is full of gosh mess. It's full of materialism and instant gratification and who has what. And, you know, in the 90s, early 2000s, weed was a huge uh how do I see weed was like uh something you could show off, you know? It it was just starting to be legalized, uh, the store started popping up everywhere, but prior to that, it was like we looked at like a like a like a hard drug, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

At that time, Ellie, did it feel like you know, experimentation, or did you quickly start to realize that it was becoming you know something more serious and something more addicting?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

So I think in the beginning of my so we have a saying in in recovery, it's fun, then it's fun with problems, and then it's just problems. So, you know, the drugs are fun in the beginning, you're young, you know, you get high, you go eat, you you know, you got the munchies, whatever it is, and then it becomes fun with problems. So then, you know, life starts hitting you in the face, you know, you're dropping out of high school, you're you know, you're you're not employable, you have nothing going for you, and then it's just problems. Then, you know, you're homeless on the street 10 years later. So uh, you know, we could I could sit here for two weeks and talk about all the crazy stuff that I went through in my life, but I think the point that we could get to is that, you know, as a community, I think that it's very important today, and I think that parents and schools and these places are doing better because I just see my nieces and nephews growing up, and I look at them, and they're 17 and 13 and 10, and uh and and they're way better kids than I was. You know what I mean? With all of the goshness and all of the outside influence that's out there, I think that the Jewish community is doing good. We could always do better, but I think they are doing much better, they're more accepting. You know, in our times in the in the 90s and early 2000s, it was like once a kid goes off the derek, he's done. You know what I mean? He's shunned, nobody wants anything to do with him. A lot different in California than New York. I think New York has it a lot worse when it comes to this, um, when it comes to the judgmental stuff. But my parents, they always stuck by my side and they never gave up. No matter how far off the path I went, they really, really, really tried their best to kind of keep me in line. Some of it was through gentle love, some of it was through tough love. Um, you know, but I do believe that for me, drugs were an outlet, you know. I was, you know, I feel like maybe I had ADD, I uh, you know, had high anxiety, all these things. I needed an outlet, you know, and I felt like once I found the community of stoners, you know, which later in life leaded to a lot heavier drugs. But as a 15-year-old, you know, you just want to be a part of something. Um, and that's what it gave me. You know, we had a community of stoners, let's say, you know, we would all get together, smoke weed, go out, whatever it was. And then, you know, and a lot of those guys turned out totally fine. But then you have a couple of us, a handful of us, that just couldn't give it up. You know what I mean? You can't hold a job, can't go to school, you know, whatever it is, just not really having a lot of direction in life. And I think that's what sets apart the uh, you know, the the weekend warrior, you know, the guy that just gets high and drinks on the weekend, and somebody that can't put it down on Sunday night and say, I have to go to work tomorrow, I'll come back to this and revisit this next week. You know what I mean? So I think that's what sets the, we call them normies, people that could drink like a gentleman. You know, if you could drink like a gentleman and use drugs like a gentleman, you know, I don't really care. You know, I'm not out to, you know, I AA is like almost like Judaism. We don't go out and convert, we don't go out and proselytize. We don't go out and say, hey, everybody needs to be sober. It's not like that. It's a it's a program of attraction rather than promotion. I get sober, I let people know, hey, I'm sober. This is what my life turned out to be after all of the addiction and all of the pain and the suffering. So if I could do it and you want to do it, you could come join us, but you don't have to. It has to be your own choice. Yeah. Um, you know, and that's really what it comes down to. It's uh it really is, you know, I mean, thank God, dude. You know, you put time together and life just gets better. You know, you know, we have a saying also, you know, you just don't pick up no matter what, you know. Um, and with the drug use came my distance from Judaism. Um, in the beginning of my drug use, I used weed and alcohol and pills and pharmaceuticals to bring me closer to Judaism. And I would almost I would almost justify my drug use for how religious I was at the time. You know, because between 15 and 25, I jumped back and forth from being religious, not religious, religious, non-religious, and and it was like, oh, but uh I'm keeping Shabbos, so you know, I could do drugs on Shabbos and I could drink because then I'll just keep Shabbos and I won't break won't break Shabbos or you know, whatever it was, you know. We just we go through this cycle of just, you know, it's just chaos. All of it's just chaos, and and it turns into just problems at the end. Um, you know, yeah, it's uh it's pretty heavy stuff, but you know, Bar Hashem, there's always uh solace at the end of the tunnel, there's always some comfort at the end of all of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah. So as you mentioned, at 25, right, you made the decision to get sober. What happened to, you know, to you that led you to that moment to finally you know make that important decision?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

So I had uh at the time when I was 25, I'd been using consistently for about 10 years. Uh, I got sober a little bit here and there, a couple months here and there. Uh my longest stretch was when I was from 20 to 21. I had about 10 months of sobriety. Um, but that was after a major uh I got I got assaulted in Koreatown, broke my jaw, I had my mouth wired shut. I was in the hospital for a month. It was a crazy thing, and I ended up in a rehab for for about six months. Uh, but then after that, I moved to Las Vegas. I lived in Las Vegas from 21 to 25. Um, this is in 2011 till 2012, I should say, till 2016. I lived in Las Vegas back and forth. It was a couple of years after the crash. I thought it would be a good idea to move out there, get into real estate, get into some kind of business. And I did well for some of the time, and then everything just dwindled away. You know, I I I we talk about this hole, you know, we have like a hole in our soul that we need to fill constantly when you're using drugs. And we use the drugs and alcohol to fill that hole, to fill the void, because you know, recovery is a spiritual program. You need to have God in your life. And we're not, I'm not talking about religion, just spirituality in general. You need spirituality, you need community, you need a purpose. Um, so our purpose when you're using is just to use, essentially, you know, you're just using to use. And then when you start using harder drugs, you'll use so you're not sick. You know, when you're talking about heavier drugs, heroin, meth, all these things, you start to go into detox. You know, you especially with you know opiates and stuff like that, it gets very uncomfortable. You can't just not use because then you're you're in bed shivering, shaking. Uh, same with alcohol. Alcohol will do the same thing to you. Uh, I still to this day believe alcohol is one of the worst detoxes out of all of them. But at 25, I had built a business in Las Vegas, then burnt the business to the ground. I was in the promotions business for nightclubs in Las Vegas. We worked with uh many hotels, mainly the Hard Rock Hotel. Uh and once that business went south, my uh my girlfriend at the time, who I have no contact with, thank God, but she actually went to prison for um she uh I'm not really trying to say she's smuggling heroin across state lines. So um she went to prison. I was in Las Vegas. She called me from at the time she was in Florida, she got caught in Florida, she said, it's over, I'm gonna be in prison for you know, whatever. I think she did two years. But uh aside from that, I had to kind of figure out what I was gonna do in Las Vegas. And I said, Okay, let me try to hold the fort down. You know, I had an apartment, I had a couple dogs, this, that, but I couldn't hold anything together. You know, I was out of my mind. Um, so my brother-in-law actually had a business in Las Vegas at the time, and he flew in and he came to visit me at my apartment, and he saw what was going on, and he's like, We got to get you out of Las Vegas, buddy. You know, you're not doing good. Um, and I had nothing going for me. So I didn't want to leave personally. I was very scared to make the move, come back to LA and really face the music, face my problems. But I did. He got me on the plane, I left everything there. I just came here with a duffel bag and a plot. I remember I couldn't even pack my luggage. Um I came to LA. I came to LA in November of 2015, um, and I got sober in March of 2016. So it took me about five months, and within that five months, I had managed to get arrested. I managed to overdose two times. I managed to pick up a case with LAPD for it, thank God it was a vandalism thing, but it it was an assault. I woke up in the hospital after overdosing on pharmaceuticals and alcohol. I woke up in the hospital and I was trying to figure out how I got there. And the nurses were telling me that I couldn't leave, and I said, I'm not staying here. So I ripped the IVs out of my arm and I ran out the door, and the security guard was chasing me outside, and I turned around after I got out of the door and I kicked the door. And unfortunately, the door was made of glass, and all the glass broke on the security guard. And this was one of the biggest blessings in disguise because because of this, they arrested me. I went to jail, I woke up in jail, and they said, Look, buddy, you could either do six months in jail, we'll put you in jail for six months, or you could go to a program and get sober. Um, you know, and at this point, that was in January that I got arrested. So it still took me three more months to get sober. Uh, I bounced around from sober livings to the streets. I was homeless for, you know, maybe a week. And after being, yeah, I was on Los Angeles in six, right off the 101 freeway, near Skid Road, not on Skid Road, right off the freeway. I uh I had met a girl. I was in uh uh I was in um not Chevy's Hills, where was I? I was in Mid City, was where the sober living was. I left the sober living, I uh ran into some girl, she took me there, and then I ended up just staying there for like a week, and I had met this massive Mexican dude. His name was Oso. He called, they called him the bear. And I swear to this day, I feel like he was a malach from Hashem. He came to me after like three, four days of being there, and he started talking to me, and he's like, I don't understand why you're here. And he said, Look around. And I said, and I started looking around. I had been up probably for two, three days at this time. He said, I want you to look around at everybody here. He says, none of these people have anyone in California or in life. They have nobody, they have no parents, they have no brothers, they have no sisters, and if they do, they don't even know that they're alive. You are from Los Angeles, you come from a good family, from what I know, from from what you told me. Because you know, when your homeless on the street, you talk to people, you open up, and he says, I don't understand why you're here. You don't need to be here. You have a family that loves you and wants you to get better. You should get out of here. You know, he's like, This is not for you. You're not supposed to be here right now. And it was like a light went off of my head.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

That was the AA program, or that was when you were homeless?

SPEAKER_01 21:21

That was when I was homeless. That was when I was homeless, just some random homeless guy. Um, he had he had a tent on the same street as me for that week. So he told me this, and he was like, You should go to Union Station. Union Station was a couple blocks down. He's like, Go to Union Station and go home, go see your mom. And it was like something, something flipped a switch in my head, and it was like they we talk about it in recovery where you get these white light moments, you know, you get like a like an epiphany. It was like you're you're you're kind of waking up to your reality, you know. And I hadn't showered in maybe a week. It rained the night before. I was soaking wet. My socks were soaked. My pants were soaked. Everything was wet. I was uncomfortable. I was probably dehydrated. I weighed about 110 pounds. I mean, now I'm like 150 pounds. So you could just imagine, you know, I'm 5'5, 5'4, uh, you know, soaking wet back then. I was 110 pounds, very skinny, very malnourished. So I got on a train. I came to, I came to the valley, I got off at Lankersham. I remember I walked to the 7-Eleven. I stole a beer, and then I walked home to my parents' house. I knocked on the door, and I, my mom answered the door, and she looked at me like I was a ghost. I never forget this. I knock on the door, she opens the door, and her whole face turns white. And I'm thinking she's crazy because I don't think I looked at that. You know, I hadn't seen myself in the mirror in weeks. You know, I'm on the street. Um, no phone, no nothing. I sold my phone for two beers um a couple weeks before. So they had no contact with me. And I just said, Mom, I need help. I need to get sober. I need, you know, and I knew that the case, the court case was pending. So I had to either show up to jail or I had to go into a treatment center. It was one or the other. Um, and this is three months later. So I told her that, and I had a buddy that was running a sober living in mid-city, an Israeli guy. So she called the Israeli guy, long story short, they set up for me to fly out to Sacramento the next day. Uh, you know, I didn't feel comfortable staying in my parents' house because I didn't want to put them through that. So I stayed overnight um in a tent like near my parents' house. And this is, you know, I don't want to make it seem like my parents are bad parents. They, you know, they offered me to stay in their house, but I was on so much drugs and I was so incoherent that I just felt like it was disrespectful. Um, you know, they never they they never really officially kicked me out of their house when I came back in November of that year. I was bouncing around so much because I didn't want them to see what I had become. Um, so I tried to stay away as much as possible, you know. Uh, and and that was the beginning of the end. Uh, you know, or it was the beginning of the, it was the end of the beginning, whatever it was. One part of my life was ending. I I flew into Sacramento. I had my last drink on the flight. Um, I remember my mom gave me $20, and I said I need $20 for toiletries, stuff like that, once I get to rehab, which I didn't need. I just wanted 20 bucks, you know, uh, just because I had no, I had no money, nothing, no phone. I didn't have anything going for me. Um, and I'm sitting next to this businessman on the flight. I probably reek of God knows what. You know, at this point I had showered and everything, but still, you know, when you're using heroin, meth, alcohol, you're just constantly sweating. So I remember I get on the flight, I'm schwitzing, I'm sweating, and I look over at this guy and I go, Look, buddy, I'm going to rehab. I'm on my way to rehab right now. You know, I don't have a credit card. They're serving booze. Could I give you this 20 bucks, buy me a drink? I didn't know this guy was going to talk to me for the whole flight. Thank God it wasn't the longest flight. But he starts talking to me about his sister and her addiction and this and that. At the end of it, he said, I'm going to buy you two drinks. You got to promise me you're never going to drink again. And I and at the time, you know, my plan was to go to rehab, clean up, come back out, and do the same crap I was doing my whole life. But I had those last two drinks on that flight. I got to Sacramento, went to detox. I was in detox from March 8th till March 15th. March 15th was the first day that I didn't take any narcotic medication for the detox. So I was in detox for eight days, seven, eight days. I had detox, you know, the heroin, the meth. Meth is very easy to detox. You just need to sleep and drink, drink water. Um, the alcohol was probably the hardest thing for me to detox. Alcohol, even though I was out of detox, I still felt physically sick for probably the first three weeks in rehab. So it took me about a month to really detox from alcohol. Um, you know, and one of the reasons in the beginning of recovery of why I didn't use, you know, because I was on a pink cloud of spirituality and happiness, and you know, I felt like I got a new lease on life, was that I didn't want to feel that detox again. I didn't want to feel the pain and the shivers and the fever and the sweating. I didn't want to go through all that again. It's really it is hell, you know, in a a huge amount of addicts today, they don't get sober just because of this reason. They don't want to deal with the detox because it's treacherous, you know, but that pain that you feel, you know, um is crucial for your memory to, you know, let's say not go back and use again.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Over time, you rebuilt your life, Bar Hashem, in many ways. What were some of the first habits that helped you stabilize, you know, after getting sober?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Uh so in the beginning of sobriety, I one of the things that I really got into in early sobriety, which kind of dwindled away once I started to work, was going to the gym. I had made the rehab that I was going to take me to the gym every morning at 5 a.m. They would wake, I would wake them up because you know, you go to sleep at 8, 9 o'clock at night. I couldn't sleep that much. So they would take me to the gym at 5 a.m. I'd go to the gym 30, 45 minutes, come back to the house, you know, and this is Sacramento, everything's a little bit calmer, there's not as much traffic, so you can get around, you know. Um, so it was that. I think diet is a huge thing. So, you know, eating good foods, sleep, um, and spirituality. You know, when I say spirituality, I wasn't religious at this point. You know, I was maybe, I wasn't even a Yom Kipper Jew yet, you know. Um, I had gone to rehab right before Pesach, I remember. And I called my dad, and I'm like, they have no kosher food here, so I'm not sure what we're gonna do. And he said, you know, you have a head there, you're good, you're in rehab, you need to take care of yourself, you know. So I did my own version of Pesach. Um, you know, I just didn't eat bread. Uh, you know, I stayed away from humates, you know, veggies, meat, fish, stuff like that. They actually took me to a Pesoff Seder. The rehab took me to a Pesoff Seder while I was in rehab, which was very nice. They took me to Chabad of Sacramento. Um, you know, and I'm sitting around, I have my my counselor with me from the rehab, and there's wine all over the table. And he thinks that we have to drink the wine for the Seder, and he's like, he's like, you know, if you need to drink the wine for religious reasons, you know, uh, you know, I could talk to the facility, and I was like, dude, what are you talking about? I was like, I can't have anything. You know, one is too many and a thousand is never enough. So, you know, uh, but that was early recovery. I really jumped into the community of recovery. So meetings, you know, I went to a meeting every day, fellowship, which is your meeting after the meeting, hanging out with other people that are trying to get sober, that are trying to stay sober. Um, you know, Bar Hashem, I was able to get a job out there. I stayed in Sacramento for about a year and a half. Um, I really built like a solid foundation of recovery before I moved back to LA. And uh I was working at a psych ward as a rehabilitation assistant. I started as a janitor, and then within three months, they hired me as a rehabilitation assistant to start helping with the clients. Um that was it, man. And uh, you know, early sobriety was jumping into the recovery world of the rooms and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Wow, wow, yeah amazing. So, how can someone, you know, that maybe doesn't really know that they're addicted, maybe they're just they just feel like they're enjoying what whether it's alcohol or drugs, how does a person realize that they are actually addicted?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

So that's a good question. I feel like for everyone it's different, everybody's gonna have a different tolerance to drugs and alcohol, but I feel like once the fun starts going away, then you start to realize, hey, I might be ha I might have a problem with this. Or if you can't have fun without it, that could also be an issue, you know. Um, look, even in Judaism, a lot of our holidays and uh customs and everything revolve around alcohol. So I'm not a big uh, you know, everybody needs to be sober. You know, there's plenty of guys that could drink and that could act like a gentleman. There's plenty of guys that enjoy it. But I think once you cross your own lines of boundaries that you set for yourself, you know, you say, okay, I'm gonna drink it, I'm not gonna do this, but then you end up doing it, you know. Um, and then also there's, you know, the mixture of drugs and alcohol. So a lot of people, you know, like for us, people always say, well, why don't you just smoke weed and just smoke weed your whole life? So the issue is that I can't just stay smoking weed. I always want something more, you know. I can't just have one drink. I always want to drink the bottle and then go buy another bottle and then get drugs. And it it never stays at moderation. We don't understand moderation as users. So I think that for people that are questioning whether or not, you know, if they're sober, curious, and stuff like that, I would say that if the problems start to show up in your life once you put a drink or a drug in you, then it would be, you know, uh time to step back and kind of unpack what's going on in your life surrounding drugs and alcohol, you know. Uh if you could control the drugs and alcohol, not let them control you, you know, and you could keep it in moderation, then you know, whatever. You know, you want to smoke a little joint and drink a little bit. I'm not gonna say anything. But you know, if your life is falling apart because of it, then we have an issue, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah. Definitely wow, your story is just incredible. How does your life look like now? And what do you do on a daily routine for your health? I know you're big into fitness now and health in general, so you could share that with us.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Uh, so around year five of sobriety, we had COVID hit California and it was like a death sentence here. Um, I was working in uh I was working in recovery for many years, and I had quit right before COVID. So for about a year, we you know, I was kind of unemployed. I was on unemployment, I didn't really have much going on for me, didn't really get into fitness until about after a year after COVID hit. So I want to say 2021, I had got a job at another detox facility in um kind of near Malibu, almost like uh, you know, Thousand Oaks area, Malibu, like all those distant valley areas. And they had a few houses, and I was there for like three weeks. Long story short, I got fired from the job. But the problem was that I was waking up so early to be there at six, seven in the morning that my schedule, I was just awake. So the next day after I had gotten fired, I woke up in the morning and I was like, what am I gonna do? So I was like, let me go to the gym, you know. So I went to the gym one day, felt great, went back the second day, felt great. And then it just turned into like this snowball effect of going every day. And because I didn't have a job at the time, I uh, you know, I was able to go for two, two hours, three hours, leave, come back, you know, it was like the gym was my full-time job. Now I have to give credit to my wife because when we first started dating, she was very big into fitness and she was like, you need to start working out. So I started working out with her, but then COVID hit and everything shut down. So I kind of took a break from it. But then when the world started opening back up, it was like all of the growth happens when things get the worst. So, you know, when life gets hard, because life gets hard even in recovery, just because I'm sober doesn't mean that everything's great, you know. Life is beautiful, my life is full. You know, every morning I wake up, I get up at 5:30, I get up before my son gets up, I have my own, you know, hour, hour and a half of quiet time. I read, I make coffee, take a shower, I get ready to go to school, I go to chakras every morning, Dobbin with a minion at eight o'clock. So I think that having structure in your morning is very important. For me in the morning, I really try to stay away from my phones for like the first couple hours. You know, I wake up, uh, you know, I read a little morning meditation, I journal a little bit, I make my coffee, I go take a shower. I don't see my wife or son until I come back from school at around 8 45. Um, and with work, Barkashem, I've been able to, I got into the roofing business, construction about five years ago. Um, and just recently, about eight months ago, me and a buddy of mine opened our own company. Uh, you know, so we do residential commercial roofing, which, you know, it's good because I'm not uh locked into a job where I need to be there nine to five and be gone. It's a little bit of a harder job in a sense because you're managing everything, but you know, that all comes with the growth, you know. So um the main thing about, yeah, the main thing about it all is continuing to have a structure, you know. And when you're a father, a husband, you know, you have a business, all these things, life could get chaotic, you know, it can get very chaotic. But I think that if you could center yourself in the morning, so for me, it's waking up, having coffee, reading my morning meditation, journaling, and all this only takes about 20 minutes, not even. Uh, and then going to show. So I did, you know, two I had two and a half hours, three hours of me time before nine in the morning. Now I could give myself to everybody else. Now I could work, I could help my my wife, I could play with my son. I don't need to worry about me, you know, because at the end of the day, it's not about me, you know. Um, it's about it's about our kids, it's about our family, it's about our wives, you know. You know, we have a big saying that, you know, you can only keep it if you give it away. You know, that's why in AA we do so much uh like key roof, we do so much outreach to people, you know. Like the reason why I'm so active on social media with being sober is that when I was using, if I would see somebody, you know, in person or online speaking about sobriety so openly and speaking about Judaism so openly, it would make me think like, hey, that's pretty normal. This guy's doing it, it's working out for him. Why can't I do it? You know? Um, and those two worlds could be very connected, you know. Once I, my wife, I gotta give her credit also for me becoming religious again because when she went through her conversion, I wasn't religious at all. We met at an AA meeting. I was, you know, uh I was a Yom Kipper, Rosh Hashanah, Pesachju. Uh, I didn't eat meat out, but I didn't keep kosher, you know. I didn't wear yamulka, I didn't wear tsits, you know. I I went to shul on chapis maybe once every three months, uh, you know, for a buddy's kids' bar mitzvah or something, whatever it was. Uh, you know, and then when she started going to her conversion classes, I had to go with her. That was the deal that the rabbi said. He said, You have to come with her. So it was like a refresher for me, and I was seeing the light go on in her eyes, and then the light started going on in my eyes, and I was like, this is actually beautiful. You know, Shabbos is probably one of the best creations of the whole world with Shabbos because we're so locked into our phones, we're locked into business, we're locked into emails, Instagram, life, that for one day a week we could put everything away and we could really be present with our families. You know, we could really uh, you know, play with our kids, we could talk to our parents, we could talk to our wife, we could talk to our siblings. For one day, you're not affected by the outside world, you know. So, in a sense, you're disconnecting to connect. And I tell people that aren't even Jewish this. I tell them, hey, you need to put your phone away for one day, even just for the daytime, you know, from eight in the morning till eight o'clock at night, just on a Sunday, just put your phone away and don't look at it. You know, nothing is gonna happen. The world is not gonna end, you're not gonna miss anything. Every shot, every time Shabbos ends, me and my wife, we get on our phones and we look at each other and we laugh and we go, literally, we didn't miss anything. It's the same nonsense that was happening on Friday is happening Saturday night. Like there's nothing going on. Um, you know, so I don't know. I'm a big believer in structure, I'm a big believer in having a community around you. So if whether you're in a small Jewish community or a big Jewish community, I think to jump into that community and to embrace it is great. And through all of this, none of this would be possible without fitness. And the reason why is because when you feel good physically, automatically you'll feel good mentally. You know, when you take care of your body and you treat it with respect, you know, and I'm not telling you to go be Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'm just saying if you eat right, you eat healthy, you go to the gym at least three times a week, you take care of yourself, the light will go on in your eyes. You know, you don't want to eat unhealthy when you're working out. It's not even, you know, it doesn't even come into mind. You know, I'm not thinking like, you know, let me go get, you know, for for us to keep kosher, it's very easy because we don't have fast food. You know what I mean? I feel like for a religious Jew, being fit is one of the easiest things because, you know, as somebody that didn't keep kosher for many years, the fast food is probably the number one killer of people in America here or around the world. You know, and we don't have that. You know, if I want to go get a burger, I have to drive to the restaurant, wait for 20 minutes, put in my whole thing. And don't get me wrong, I still do it. I still do it maybe once a week, once every two weeks. I still have fun. But everything in moderation, you know, being in sobriety has taught me self-control and it's taught me discipline. You know, for for a guy that used to wake up and you know, drink vodka, smoke meth, and do heroin, for me to wake up and not do those things and go to shool and take care of my family and eat right and work out, you know, it's all about discipline. Consistency is great and being motivated is great. But once those die down, once the motivation dies down, it's the discipline that is going to keep you going on days that you don't want to do it, you know. Um, and Ruby spoke about this. There, there's really no question. You know, there's, you know, I'm tired, my pinky toe hurts, my back hurts. You know, there's no question, you know. So if one side of the body hurts, you go work out the other side. If you're too sore, go on a run. You know, there's always something just to stay active. You know, days that I don't work out, I try to do, you know, a walk with my wife around the neighborhood, an hour walk, whatever it is, just staying active, you know, and I think a big thing for the Jewish community is our kids seeing us being healthy, you know. Um, is our kids seeing us eating right? Is our kids seeing us taking care of our bodies? Because at the end of the day, you know, the only way I'm gonna be able to be around is if I take care of myself, you know, and Hashem is the one that runs the world. I know people that pass away, uh, you know, the snap of the finger, everything's going good in their life, and unfortunately they pass away. My my brother-in-law's brother just died a couple weeks ago, a month ago. Today's in Shlosham. 45 years old, he just he just dropped dead, he had a heart attack, dropped dead. You know, so really, you know, really at the end of the day, Hashem runs the world, but I would rather take care of the body he gave me than not take care of it. And then when I go, he asks me why I didn't take care of it. You know, I think the same respect that we give to the Torin mitzvah, we should give to taking care of our bodies, taking care of our souls. I think they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Wow, Ellie, you have such a beautiful and incredible story. It's uh so inspirational. Appreciate it, brother. Appreciate it, brother. If someone, let's say, is listening to this right now and is struggling with addiction, and it could be maybe it could be alcohol or drugs or other things. You know, I was listening to Rabbi Gordon's uh Tanya class a couple of days ago, and he says everyone is really addict, like if you're honest with yourself, everyone is addicted to something. Everyone is addicted, yeah. Everyone is addicted to something. I remember that one. Yeah. So what would you say for like for people that um are struggling with some type of addiction, no matter what it is, what would you want them to know in terms of their first steps getting out of it?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

So the first step to addiction is is admitting that you have the problem. A lot of times in addiction, we It took me 10 years to admit to myself that I have an issue with drugs and alcohol and that I have no control over it. So once you could be honest with yourself and be accountable and say, Ellie, you have a problem with drugs and alcohol. You can't use and drink, you know, you've lost your privilege and you need to do something about it. Um, the next thing, you know, and I'm going right into the AA, the next thing is turning it over to God. So saying, you know, Hashem, you know, I have trust in you, I have Bitakon in you. I'm giving you my problem. You need to help me get over it. And really, I think the main thing that's really going to help you, because I can tell you to do all this, but you're not going to do it essentially, until you make the first step of admitting that you have an issue with the said substance, whatever it is. It could be gambling, it could be sex, it could be food, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could be so many things. Um and the next thing I would say is find find a program. There's so many programs that are completely anonymous. In the day of COVID, they've made millions of Zoom meetings online for people in recovery that you don't even need to go there in person. You could just put on your headphones, blur your face, and listen in to the meeting, just so you could hear somebody else's story of you know, of some familiarity. Um, so I really think that you know, if people are on the fence about whether they're an addict or not, you're probably an addict if you're already having that conversation with yourself. You know what I mean? If if if you're sitting at night and you're contemplating why I'm like this, you probably have an issue.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Wow. Wow. Okay. So let's say if someone remembering this podcast 10 to 15 years from now, what would that one thing, what would you want that one thing to be for someone to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 45:55

10 to 15 years from now. I think from 10 to 15 years from now, if there's one thing that you could get from this podcast, is to remember that life is short and you should enjoy life responsibly and you should continue to stay grateful. Um, because in a blink of an eye, everything can change, really. You know, and I I think it comes from being, you know, an alcoholic myself and seeing so many terrible stories of people dying so young, people with kids, people with parents, people with brothers, sisters, you know, guys that are 20 years old, that have their whole life ahead of them, everything's finished, done because they just wanted to do one more drink or have, or you know, whatever it was, you know. So I think if we could stay in gratitude and we could stay focused on being present in the moment, that's the richness of life. You know, it doesn't have to do with money and what you have and your house and your car and your business. Your kids don't care about this. Your kids want you, they want you to be present, they want you to spend time with them, you know. And I'm not saying those things are bad. You know, materialistic gosh means things are not a bad thing, you know. Yeah. But I think that if we could focus on the beauty of life that we have, whether you're in Israel or in America or in London, whatever it is, as a Jew, at least, you know, we are a light on to the world, you know. Um, and people want to get political about it. Oh, you think you're better than me. No, I just I have, you know, as Jews, we have 600 more responsibilities than you do, you know, that we need to do just to be normal, you know, and it's on us to do that. And it's our responsibility, it's not your responsibility. You don't need to do that. You don't need to keep Shabbos, kosher, you don't need to learn Torah, you don't need to do anything. You know, you just need to be a good person and and we'll love you for that. But for us, we have a lot of responsibilities. And I think that if we embrace our Judaism, you know, and this is coming from a guy that wasn't religious for 10 years, I'm covered in tattoos, you know, and I made a you know a complete 180 and come back to it. Um, you know, I always say, if I could do it, you could do it too, you know. Um so that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

That's it, man. That that's amazing, man. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible story. If people want to start following you or get into contact with you, we'll we'll link your Instagram. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Sobermob 26. Sobermob 26, S-O-B-E-R-M-O-B 26. I made that Instagram uh three months into sobriety, so about 10 years ago. Um, and I just never changed the name.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

You know, the name stuck. Wow. Yeah, I I would highly recommend for people to follow you. You have amazing content, really inspirational, really great stuff. Mandel, I love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

I love the the from health club. I think that we should also get uh the not from health club involved too. And I think that if we could bring both both of those worlds together, you know, it would be a tremendous thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, Ellie, thank you so much. Thank you. All the best.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Enjoy.