Bob Ney- Part 1

 An interview with Bob Ney: former U.S. Representative, veteran radio personality, and published author, who now shares his powerful journey as a person in long-term recovery 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 1:05

All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Terminal Addiction Podcast. My name is Doug H. And I'm Paul B. How you been, Paul? I'm doing all right. Good. What's called to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Arm is healing up and uh you know, just having a good time.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Yeah, last time we talked, Paul was uh recovering from elbow surgery, so it's nice to see him back swinging a tennis racket. So um yeah, I'm really excited about today's episode, Paul.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yeah, so am I. Uh somebody we hadn't seen in a long time, but very familiar to both of us.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Yeah, a good friend of ours um who uh recently moved last year. Uh he is a former U.S. congressman uh by the name of Bob Nay. Bob, welcome to our podcast. Well, thank you, Doug and Paul. Glad to see both of you. It's always a pleasure. Always good to see you too. How's the move been down there? Are you getting getting all settled?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Well, it's temporary, but I I uh came to Johnson, Tennessee. Now I've been doing radio down here for 15 years. I was here 12 years ago for two days to do a fundraiser for a recovery center called Askel, and uh didn't come back but continue to do radio. So a new radio host asked me if I would move here uh you know for a year or two and help him on his show and also to create a couple businesses. So I did October the first, and I went over to the Aspel Recovery Center where I hadn't been for 12 years, and I offered to volunteer, and they put me on the board. So they put me to the Well, good.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Well, um I'm glad that's been going well. We do miss having you around this area. Um, you know, you've been very influential in in my recovery and Paul's as well. Um so I'm it's really nice to just sit down and catch up with you a little bit. Uh you've uh I'm I'm guessing you've you've listened to maybe a little bit of our podcast, but just to fill you in on what we do here, um, you know, we talk about addiction and recovery. Uh addiction and recovery in in all shapes and sizes. Uh Paul and I, you know, both alcoholics and addicts, uh, we probably could subscribe to another handful of other uh programs. Um but but yeah, we're just here to get the message out uh to people who are either maybe in early recovery. Our our target audience, you know, started out being uh that person maybe a year or two in who has maybe worked the steps or been to treatment, uh, who's getting some of the things back in their life, but they sort of hit that that that little ceiling. And um, you know, sometimes people look around after a year or so and go, is is this all there is? And so Paul and I wanted to come on and start this podcast just to talk to people about other avenues. Um, we're also you know trying to reach out and uh get a hold of anybody who may be currently struggling with with any addictions, uh, as well as try to provide some some education and and some information to people's families as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So and just an update, we're we're at about 700 downloads now, so we're doing well.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Look at us. Are we gonna have a cake when we get to a thousand?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I I sure hope so.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Oh that's pretty cool. I I'm glad you're doing it. It's it's so worthwhile, of course. I know both of you and you've contributed so much to help other people. I know that for a fact. And I think your podcast is important. I've done a few podcasts this year, by the way. Uh not my own, but I've been on them. Uh Golf and Politics podcast, which was great, and and a few other uh news podcasts, but I I consider this one to be uh one of the more important podcasts that I could be part of. So I thank you for involving me.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Well, we hope you find it the best one.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I think it will be.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

I I know both of you, like I said. So I think it'll be perfect. Yeah, we really appreciate having you on, Paul and I, when we started doing this, it was just the two of us going back and forth, and then uh, you know, we came up with the idea of trying to invite some people on. So uh we've reached out to you know, people involved in other recovery uh programs. We've reached out to some authors and actors and musicians, and and we're still waiting to uh put together a schedule. But we really do appreciate you carving out some time here to uh come in and talk to us and uh share parts of your story and and maybe uh you know touch on some things that maybe we haven't talked about yet.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

So Yeah, I think a good place to start would be uh we uh Doug and I both know the the story, but uh kind of what happened, how you ended up uh you know uh getting sober uh in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Well, sure. And I'll I'll fossilize this. I don't want to make this a two-hour lead. My name is Bob Nail, I'm an alcoholic, and uh my story uh is like any other person with addictions to alcohol and drug addictions. Uh, you know, we all uh collapse and fall the same way. It's just different ways that we get there and different uh things in our life that have happened, but we all share uh, of course, uh a feeling that at some point in time that we want to try to go into recovery and try to make our lives better. Uh I was raised in the Ohio Valley in a little town called Belair, Ohio. My parents did not drink. I came from an extremely uh regular household, no uh trauma, no parents fighting. I had a very uh um great family, 21 first cousins all live within six blocks of uh a kind of Ozzy and Harriet type of existence. But the Ohio Valley was a two-fisted beer-drinking, steel mill, coal miner type of place. So although my parents did not uh drink, and my mother used to warn me, remember your grandfather, because my grandfather was an alcoholic, and I would say, well, that has nothing to do with me. Later on in my life, I found out it did. But I ended up getting uh involved in politics. I always tell people, even people uh do their leads and they say, uh, there's some drugs in my leads. I, you know, I want to pre-apologize. Well, uh, there's some politics in my lead, and so I'll pre-apologize. Not political statements, but my life was uh later on, uh my entire adult life was consumed with politics. So I started out as a volunteer for a gubernatorial campaign, Governor Rhodes, and I ran for state chairman of College Republicans in 1975. It was party town, uh college campuses, you know, and I was going to Ohio State University, and like anything, I was a binge drinker. I had drank in high school because in the Ohio Valley uh you could drink, didn't matter what age you were, 14, 15, 16, you could get alcohol at the back of any any bar. And I did that with my friends, got to college and progressed to uh binge drinking, but after all, I passed college, didn't I? So I was involved in college Republicans. I got elected state chairman of college republicans. Went on eventually and had a uh pretty uh quick start in a political career. I was a delegate for uh President Ford to Kansas City when I was about 19 years old, and again, a lot of booze parties. Uh, I found it fantastic, it was all free, and it wasn't stopping my career. I want to make that clear in my mind, at least, you know, guys, for that point in time. And then I moved to um Iran. We all know that's in the news these days, a country of Iran. Sure, sure. And uh I was a uh teacher at the Iran America Society, ran into the revolution of the Shah, and I and I moved then to um back to the United States. Now, in between time, I was 25 years old and basically uh looked at this election for state representative. My congressman had won the election, and the district was 3% Republican in Ohio, Eastern Ohio, Belmont, Monroe, Noble Counties. And a guy I worked with, Arnie Clebone, turned to me and he said, uh, Congressman Hayes won. He had had a scandal in DC, but they liked him and he won. He said he's never been beat. And I turned to Arnie, being the wonderful alpha alcoholic that I am, which prevails into my life in every aspect. You know, whatever I do, I do it as an alpha alcoholic. So I turned to Arnie and I said, Well, I can beat him. And Arnie said, Well, it's 3% Republican. You're Republican, you don't have any money, and he's Congressman Hayes, he won after his problems in D.C. So I said, I can beat him. So I quit my job in Columbus, Ohio, working for the governor, and I went down to Blair, Ohio, and I beat him within two years. And I served in the Ohio House of Representatives. I was 26 by that time. I worked hard and I drank hard. That's what I did. I worked to drink and I drank to work. I then lost the election because I decided don't spend any money, don't raise any money, don't deal with the lobbyists raising, you know, a ton of money. And I lost the election by 126 votes. So what did I do? I moved to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, of course. What else do you do? As one would. Yes, as one would. And of course, it's a no-alcohol kingdom. Well, no, no, no. Being clever as we are, uh, my friends and I made alcohol, some of the probably worst wine you could find, but we made alcohol. Then I came back after one year and I ran for the state senate in Ohio, and we flipped the Senate, and that was 1984. So from 1984 to 1994, I was in the state senate. I became chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the youngest, I think, in Ohio history at that time. It was a really good position. And I worked hard and I drank hard. And I drank to work and I worked to drink. And then I got recruited by Nick Newt Gingrich to run for the United States Congress, and I got elected. I was the first one in 55 years as a Republican. Now, I keep saying this, Paul and Doug, not to say, look what I did, look what I did, but to tell you this. Whatever I wanted, I went after it, and I got it. And I drank. So in my mind, I advanced in politics, I'm advancing making money, and I'm drinking. You know, what what a perfect combination was that for me? I didn't tell myself I needed to stop. Nobody ever told me I needed to stop. Now I had a lot of close calls. Blackouts, you know, you you name it. I had those close calls. Sure. But I ran for the United States Congress in 1994 and I won. Quickly excelled as chairman of the House Administration Committee. And again, I did my job. I worked hard. I didn't miss votes, and I drank. Because I drank to work and I worked to drink. And I kept winning elections. Got involved with a lobbyist named Jack Abermoff, and then everything started to implode. It was one of the most uh major scandals in modern day uh American history with Abramoff and the uh Native American tribes. And that's when my alcoholism went from a big alcoholic to alcoholism on steroids. I'm, you know, I got the government after me, I'm going down the tubes, and what did I do? I just obviously drank more. I was an entourage social drinker, with friends, you know, in DC and with uh uh lobbyists and other people. Uh but at the end I became an isolated uh drinker. And my big moment was when my lawyer called me because at this point in time I spent$581,000 on a plea deal. Uh I was going down the tubes, losing everything. I resigned from uh running in November. I resigned from the uh from the halls in 2006. My lawyer said the government wants to do a plea deal, and they were pushing to do one, the government was. So I said, okay, I'm I'm gonna do a plea deal versus going to China. Now, my lawyer called me, and I will never forget this as long as I live, and this is how I try to approach people. But Mo called me, Mark Twee, and he said, Listen, I'm not judgmental. My family has a ton of alcoholics in it. I've been around it, I've seen it, I've experienced it, I've lived with it. And again, I'm not judgmental, you're a good person, but in your current condition, I can't let you make a big decision about a plea deal until you go to rehab. And you know what my response was? Tell us. My condition. My condition. I've got the government, you know, starting out at 25 years in prison, getting down to 18 months, and then uh I'm ending up uh drinking alone, isolated, I'm losing my house, I'm I'm you know, gonna go to prison. So I went to Cleveland because Mark said I should be thrown from the law profession to let you make this kind of major decision. So I was forced into rehab. My first AA meeting in the Cleveland Clinic, I sat there and I, of course, took everybody's inventory. Well, that girl over there, she's drinking and doing heroin. She doesn't have a job. I'm unemployed. Oh my goodness. Luckily, I'm not like her. So, you know, I spent more time. And then, of course, my mind said, well, this was created in 1935. Uh I think we can redo this, rewrite it, maybe take it and NA and you know, make them a lot, make them a lot different. So after three days, I checked myself out of the Cleveland Clinic, and here was my bright light moment. My mother was having emergency surgery. My sister said she may not make it. I drove to Wheeling, West Virginia. Mom survived. So on the way back from Wheeling to Newark, Ohio, I stopped in Cambridge, Ohio, got off with Route 209 exit, went to the parking lot of the Point Bar, one of my hangouts, and I sat there. A guy and his wife in down the street, he had worked for me. I said, John, can I stay at your house tonight? Because I know what I was gonna do. Now my lawyer said, stay low-key, stay in rehab. We're trying to make a plea deal. So what am I doing? I'm in a bar, I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get blasted out of my mind. Do Lord knows what? I sat there and I thought, I'm insane. Something's wrong with me. So I was gonna drink. Had mom died, which she lived through the operation, I would drink. Sure. So I I called uh rehab center. Make a long story short, I went up to the rehab center, and then on my 30th day to 2006, Friday the 13th, October, I'm standing in Washington, D.C. before a woman in a black grease named Judge Livelle, and I got my coin from my uh friend old Bill. Yeah, my first coin, I still have it in my wallet today, and I stood there and I did my flea deal. Now I wanted to drink so bad. I was white knuckling it, you know, etc. etc. But I kept going. So I I got a sponsor, Russ, and I called him and I said, I'm losing my house. What do I do? Russ said, Don't drink. Sure. The electric's gonna get shut off. What do I do? Russ said, don't drink. I want to hear how I fight countrywide mortgage. I want to hear don't drink. Tell me, you know, tell me how to keep my electric on, tell me how to do this and how to do that. So I I stayed with it, I kept coming back to the news. Now, as I got sober, which was September 13, 2006, I entered prison, which would have been March of 2007. But in that period of time, after I got sober, which I'm like, wow, first time in 34 years, I lost my house, my car, all my money. I did a plea deal of 18 months, just thought 30 months looked much better than 18. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, Russ, we went from 18 months to 30, what do I do? That's what Russ said.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Don't drink. Don't drink.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Don't drink. So I went to federal prison and I went to a wonderful rehab program in federal prison. And in that rehab program, because people say, oh, they're mean to me in rehab. It was a prison rehab program. You can say whatever you want. It was uh it was quite enlightening. So I went through that whole process, got out of prison, and I continued to go to meetings. Of course, I met uh both of you, and I've continued to uh to go to meetings. Um I go to meetings all the time. One reflection I'll have, and and I'll I'll be quiet and we can share some conversation together. Sure. I said at my first meeting in Newark, Ohio, it was the 9 a.m. meeting. That would have been back in um September of uh 2006. And I thought some people who were sober today, and I thought, they've got 10 years sober, 15 years sober. They must have the most boring lives on planet Earth. What do they think each year? And you've got 19 years and some change sober now. One day at a time. I can relapse tonight. I'm not I'm not dumb. At these meetings, I don't have the most exciting life, but I live their life. I, you know, I I traveled to India, I got a prison, I got a radio gig, I've equipped in houses, you know, all these things. I still go to India for the spiritual side, but I kept coming back. And I I did the steps and I listened to what you all had to say in the rooms, and to this day, I go to meetings almost every day, if not, you know, every other day. Uh, and I will, you know, I will continue to go to meetings because it's my it's my maintenance. It's not that you know I'm bored and I just want to run to a meeting. I do it because it helps keep me it helps keep me alive, it helps keep me balanced. Because meetings are to me are the number one. Everything else. My kids, my grandkids, my loved ones, my friends, my job, everything else sums off of this wonderful program.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, we talk about the promises all the time. And you know, the promises don't say that we're going to be free from uh economic uh um insecurities. It just says we're not gonna worry about them anymore. You know, the things move on. Uh so yeah, we you know, our lives do get better.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Yeah, and I always enjoy hearing your story, Bob, and um, you know, heard you know, one-on-one in the car, just having having lunch and stuff, uh seeing you speak at podiums at meetings and stuff. But, you know, that that that story that you tell uh is it it parallels just about everybody uh in in in in in addiction or in recovery. You know, we we do these things, we don't see a problem with them. A lot of alcoholics and and addicts, you know, exceed uh uh expectations and really excel in life, and they go on and do great things, whether it's teachers or lawyers or uh you know athletes or musicians, and and people just go and they do these awesome things with their life and and the drinking is always there. And uh then when you talk when you talk about you know you know having um you know the the ability, the means to do it, uh to advance the disease that you were you know blessed with, um, you know, I I hear that same story, just substitute different different you know career paths. And um, you know, when when people hit bottom, uh, you know, it's it's it's always it's it's usually pretty catastrophic, and and and yours certainly was. Um and and it's it's not what people do to get to the bottom, it's what they do once they reach that point. And I think you have done a tremendous job uh and in helping Paul and myself and and countless other people uh to share your story and and your uh experience, you know, strength and hope about how to rebuild and how you know the new life does not have to look anything like the old life uh for someone to be sober and content and peaceful and happy.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

And so you I mean you're creating, and the one thing I you know I tell people uh quite a lot is this I mentioned these things I I won, you know? Uh winning an election at 25 in an impossible district, going to the state senate, uh winning the congressional elections in a 16% Republican index as a Republican. You can imagine how hard it was, right? Nothing stopped me. I won the races. But you know, the race I couldn't win, the opponent I couldn't defeat. Which was that's why I tell that story. It's not to say, oh, look what I did, it's to say how powerful that this struggle is. I had a career people would pop their finger off to have, and the money, you know, and and the life that I had. Well, the power of this of this alcohol and drugs made it not matter to me. It didn't give me the insight. And I thought I was a functional alcoholic. How I hate that word. I wasn't functional, it just took me longer to hit the wall.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Yeah. Yeah, I heard someone else uh explain that concept. You know, a f a functioning alcoholic is someone who needs alcohol to function.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

And and so that's that's that's that's us. Uh that that's the three of us. That's that's a lot of our audience, that's the people we sit in meetings with. And um, you know, at some point, I am no longer in control. The alcohol is. There's that old Irish adage that uh first. The man takes the drink, then the drink takes the drink, and then the drink takes the man. And uh I I I could see that, you know, play out in my life um with a little bit of hindsight now. But um yeah, in the moment I think we're just going through the motions, we're just doing what we're doing. We're uh we're excelling, we're getting praise and recognition. And and meanwhile, there's this part of us on the inside that is just crumbling, and uh nobody sees it until you know it's it's super evident to everyone.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I thought I could beat it because look what we're taught in America. You know, belly up to the bar, you know, second place isn't girl for first place, you know, win-win wars except the last three. Uh we're we're taught all these things, fight it. That was hard for me to, you know, I can fight this. I I fight elections, you know, I fight and I debate people, et cetera, for a living. And all of a sudden, you know, I realized that yeah, you have you have to surrender. And I have to realize I'm not infallible, and that that this thing can take a hold of me, and it, you know, it's dressed every morning waiting for me. So yeah, I had I had to learn that lesson, I really did, in order to be able to deal with this disease. I had to realize the way you have to approach this disease. And and and one other thing, and uh I won't tell a bunch of uh stories, but this just kind of shows you something. I went to Israel during the end to fada I was you know with the uh uh a trip, uh congressional trip. So I went to Israel and I was at the King David Hotel. And when when you're there, the Israelis provide security, and we have our own army security that travels with us. They seal the floor off so it's members only, you know, for security reasons. And they set up a control room with everything you want, all the alcohol you want, you name the brand, you know, beer, merlot, yellow meister, whatever you want, it's put into that room for you, this control room, they call it. Um at taxpayers' expense, I may add. And um, so that evening, uh signed me a thing with Earl. And that evening, I said to a couple of people on the trip at 11 o'clock at night, we need to sneak out and go to a bar in the old quarter, the air quarter of Jerusalem. And we did. And we we got I told Earl that I was retiring for the evening, and we we left the King David Hotel, got a car, and went, and was during the Antifada uprising, and went to drink in a bar. Well, when I got back, Earl had realized you know I was gone and we were in a panic. Terribly, you know, somebody could have got killed, it could have been embarrassing for if we didn't get killed for the government, you know, in the whole nine yards. Earl at that time, wonderful man, he was one month from retirement. And he said to me, you know, I I care about what happens to you, but also he said it would be my fault if if if you were gone, I could have cost Earl his retirement. Sure. And you know what he said, well, yeah, I feel bad about it, Earl.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

I could have cost this wonderful man literally his retirement to no fault of his own. And so it it not just takes away cars and houses and things, it takes away our spirit, our you know, our humanity. It takes away, you know, at least for my case, it took away my my 15. And uh I got that back. And I learned one lesson too, because after this I had a heart attack, as you know, and I didn't have medical coverage, and I'm sitting there going, here we go again. You know, I lost my money once. And and I sat there and I thought, what does history tell me? Just don't drink.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Don't drink, sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Seven years later, I'm I'm talking to y'all, you know, I'm I'm doing okay, don't have everything that I would like, but I have everything that I need, and I'm sober. That's that's number one. And and you all are sober, and that and that makes me happy when I see you. And I've seen the tragedies as you all do of people who simply didn't make it because they thought they could have that one drink or that one drug.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Well, we are coming up on a hard break, and so we will take a little break. Uh for those of you who are listening online, it'll be a two-week break, but uh for Bob, it's gonna be about a five-minute break until I get everything reset. And uh so for those of you uh listening, uh thanks so much for coming uh and listening. And hopeful, hopefully you come back in two weeks and and we finish this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

Yeah, I think we want to guide this conversation towards you know the recovery aspect. You talked about going to India. Uh that was something that you and I did together, and I would love to dive back into that. Uh, you know, the spirituality side of this and and um you know give you a chance to maybe even plug the book. Um and uh you know, we just want to we just want to talk about the recovery side of things a little bit more in detail and just hear more about uh you know your journey and and and bounce back and forth some of the things that Paul and I have experienced too. So everybody, we appreciate you guys listening. Bob, thank you for being on. We will have you back on in about 30 seconds real time, two weeks uh broadcast time. So thanks, everybody. Thanks.