Bullied, Addicted, Incarcerated — Then Rebuilt: Doug Bopst’s Story

Doug Bopst is an award-winning personal trainer, author, and host of the Adversity Advantage Podcast. A former felon who struggled with substances, he was incarcerated for possession with intent to sell.  Doug used his time in jail to rebuild his life through faith, family, and fitness. He is the author of From Felony to Fitness to Free, Faith Family Fitness, and The Heart of Recovery, and has helped hundreds of people transform their physical and mental health. Doug has been featured on the Today Show, Men’s Health, Forbes, and major podcasts including Rich Roll and Impact Theory. His story was the subject of a documentary that premiered at the Reel Recovery Film Festival.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Thriving with Addiction Podcast, where we explore how recovery is not just about survival, but about truly living. Each week we'll dive into the styles, stories, and strategies that help people and families steal from addiction and build healthier, more resilient lives. I'm your host, Dr. John Avery. Let's get started. I'm John Avery and welcome back to Thriving with Addiction. Today we're joined by Doug Boepst. Doug is an award-winning personal trainer, author, and host of the Adversity Advantage podcast. A former felon who struggled with substances, he was incarcerated for possession with intent to sell. Doug used his time in jail to rebuild his life through faith, family, and fitness. He's the author of From Felony to Fitness to Free, Faith, Family, Fitness, and The Heart of Recovery, and has helped hundreds of people transform their physical and mental health. Doug has been featured on the Today Show, Men's Health, Forbes, and major podcasts, including Rich Roll and Impact Theory. His story was the subject of a documentary that premiered at the Real Recovery Film Festival. Doug, welcome. John, it's great to be with you. We're best buddies these days. We've been we've been uh talking on each other's podcasts. You did a talk to my uh family support program here at Cornell. I've just been really grateful to get to know you over the last year. Likewise. And I promised you this morning that I wouldn't get you fired from Cornell for our conversation. So watch, watch, watch what you say. Um, and uh I've also been excited to see what's going on in your life since I've gotten to know you. I don't think I've seen you since you got married. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, busy times the first quarter of 2026. Yeah, how's married life? Married life's good, man. I mean, it's not any different um than it was before because we were already living together. We already had a pretty strong relationship. Um, it wasn't like this was some huge out-of-the-ordinary thing where then your life completely changes, and now you're living together and now you're intermingling families. Like our family, my family, like they everybody knew kind of knew each other. Uh, we spent a lot of time together already. So the the main thing that's the biggest change is like, oh, this is my wife and this is my husband. That's been the more um I guess dramatic switch, if you will, because that's like a big deal shifting from introducing somebody as your fiance or your bo your or your girlfriend to this is my wife.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Hmm. Well, I couldn't be happier for you. And um what a journey it's been to to get to this point of married life and award-winning, you know, personal trainer and host and and author. Take me back to the beginning and and how we ended up here.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So I host the show called The Adversity Advantage. And I always tell my story like this because I think the the older I've gotten, the I the more I've realized that whether I like to admit it or not, I used adversity to my complete disadvantage. And I made things worse for myself. And so the adversity that I had in my life was my parents were divorced when I was young. I I loved sports, but I wasn't good. So as a guy, you internalize this stuff and you start to think you're a failure that something was wrong with you or whatever. And then I felt like I didn't fit in. I felt like my friends were way better um at sports than me. They were getting picked for the teams that I thought I should have been on, and I thought I was putting in the same effort. So I started to develop this what's wrong with me mentality, this victim mentality. And then I was bullied a lot and I was picked on in school, which made things a lot worse. And I was called names that you can't even really say anymore. Like I was called retarded and Down syndrome dog, and that's like what I was really called. So when I say that, it's not to throw shame or judgment at anyone, but I was that's what I was called as a kid. And because of that, I began to internalize those words, and also because of the fact that I thought I already had something wrong with me. I I thought that there was a chance that maybe there was because of what people were saying to me, and that warped my sense of self, it warped my identity, obviously it crushed my self-confidence and my self-esteem. And then the first real moment I got to check out, I did, and that was with weed. And so I'm 14 years old, and at this point I'm a freshman in high school, and I'm trying to fit in, I'm trying to like figure out again, like why I'm not good at sports, why I'm not getting the attention from girls that I wanted to of the whole the whole nine yards. And I was like, oh, maybe if I smoke weed, I'll be cool because people that I admired, whether it was rappers or musicians, they've they smoked weed. I was like, oh, I wanted to be that have that lifestyle. And so I I I smoked. Um, and back then I sound old, but it was out of a bowl, which I don't even know if they make them anymore in this day and age. But I remember I remember it gave me a feeling I wasn't expecting, which was scary. The feeling it gave me was that I didn't feel any emotional pain anymore. I got high and I felt at peace, I felt calm, I felt I felt like my my my problems just melted. I felt the the weight come off my back and I didn't have to worry about a lot of the stuff I had been um worried about. And so at this time I'm splitting um time with my parents, you know, 50-50, because that's traditionally what happens with um through divorce.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Just to pause for a second, did your parents know you were suffering and struggling in that way, or who did you tell? Because it sounds like it was a really rough go there. I'm I'm sorry you had to go through all that.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I it was a silent battle, man. Like I I'm in the middle of writing a book right now, and I I'm processing and talking about this like while I'm doing it, and the way I think about it now, it was so scary to say anything. Because you you say that you're being bullied in school, and then your parents call the principal or they call their parents, and then then what? Then you get picked on more, right? And now you're a tattletale. I guess that's what they used to call you, you know, when you were like younger. Um and then you feel weak, you feel like there's something wrong with you. And you know, I've been asked the question what would I have what would have helped me at that time? And it's it's hard because you're a 14-year-old kid, you're not even mature, you're I mean barely going through puberty, and you're trying to figure yourself out. If someone were to say like the proper self-help definition, which is the way someone treats you is says more about them than it does you, or you know, don't worry about what other people think about you, but like all the stuff that we know, when you're 14, you don't want to hear that. You want to know that you're safe and that you're gonna be okay when you show up to school every day. I mean, that's just a fact. And I and that's something that I think it gets missed because the right answer is the prior of the self-help or even like probably the psychiatry space is to control the narrative and work on you know cognitive um tactics. But when you're a kid like that, it's just different, like you're just trying to survive. And so weed became a survival tool for me because it allowed me to escape and feel nothing and to escape my reality of what I thought was a really terrible life at that time.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

And it works right away, too, which is an advantage over all the other complicated stuff that may or may not help that we might not even be able to participate in as a as a young person. So I understand why it really took hold there.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Well, and if you look at, and I don't want to say, you know, I don't want to say that I was at ri an at-risk person, because I don't think my childhood in my perception at that time was not the best. That said, I think that people had it way worse than me. That also being said, I think when people go through hardship in their childhood, sports can be a great outlet to overcome. You can help you build confidence, camaraderie, community, sense of accomplishment, all those things. I sucked at sports. So it made things kind of worse for me because I wasn't succeeding. And so I didn't have that as an outlet. I wasn't like a theater kid where I had that as an alternative or musician. So it was more it was either gonna be sports or bust for me, I felt like. And so I'm splitting time 50-50. I start smoking weed, that becomes a daily habit because now I'm trying to chase the same feeling that it gave me at first. And slowly over time, I develop a tolerance, then I'm like selling a little bit on the side to support that habit. And then my parents start to pick up on what was going on. And I had made some really stupid decisions as a teenager. When I was 15, I had a party while my mom was in the hospital, thinking that would be a great idea to get attention and to, you know, feel like a cool kid, bat backfired, um, got myself into some trouble and broke my mom's trust. Then on my 16th birthday, she caught me weighing out some weed to sell to a friend of mine. And that got me kicked out of her house on my 16th birthday, and then changed schools, changed ho houses, went to go live with my dad full time a hundred percent of the time, like that day, that night, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

That sort of punitive approach was the approach they were taking with you as more of a bad kid than a kid that was struggling.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, and then back then, like weed was I mean, we was looked at today like fentanyl is. You know, or we we back then was looked at how fentanyl is today, where it was like this horrible thing. And, you know, I I think weed is bad for for different reasons now. Um that being said, I I wish, you know, I really do wish selfishly they that there would have been more questions as to why I was struggling. I don't know if I would have been honest, and I can't truthfully because of the shame that that all carried. But yeah, they I got kicked out, changed schools. I I I kind of emotionally lashed out and said some things to my mom that you would no mother should ever have to hear from a child just out of anger and sadness and abandonment and all the things. And I think in their defense, you know, I don't think their intentions were bad. I think they didn't know what to do. And it there wasn't mental health and addiction wasn't talked about then like it is now. Um you know, weed was illegal. I was committing a crime in her house, which wasn't good. Um and my behavior was just out of control, and so I changed schools and they thought that that was gonna be like the fix. It just created more problems for me because now I had abandonment issues, I had a lot of anger and sadness, and I just found ways to use drugs with other people, and I quickly became friends with people that had um drugs at the new school and found ways to connect with them, and then the path continued, and I barely graduated high school because my friends and I would consistently cut class and go on rides and smoke blunts and listen to music, and that was like the thing. And then graduate I graduated high school, and um I caught like going to a four-year school wasn't in the cards for me. So I got introduced to a guy that was selling a bunch of weed. Um, and he's like, Hey, you know, he essentially was like, wanted me to ask me to like work for him, you know, and be like, hey, do you want to like pick up some weight and move it, you know, blah, blah, blah, and I'll spot spot it to you, and you can pay me back when you sell it all. So I did that, and that gave me a new level of high that I didn't realize at the time. Like looking back now, it was just as addictive because I got so much attention. I felt like I had some level of control that I didn't that I didn't have. I felt powerful. I felt like I was needed and wanted because now I'm the man who has the weed. And then as you graduate the drug game, you meet people that have harder drugs. And a big turning point for me was with Coke because I just graduated high school. I was kicked out of my dad's house at this point as well because I chose to still use drugs, despite, you know, him not wanting me to, which I frankly, I to obviously I totally understand his perspective. And I'm like bouncing around from couch to couch that summer, and I I got introduced to Coke, and I remember there was a turning point. I remember I crushing up this line of blow on a CD case or DVD case. I can't remember. I remember I just remember in my car stopping. And I remember once I do this, there's no going back. Now I am graduating from weed, which back then was very you know seen as a as a as a minor drug, to now this is a hard drug. Like this is gonna be real. And I did it anyway, and I felt this sense of euphoria, like I'm on top of the world, I'm confident, and all this stuff. But then I was like, oh my gosh, I want more of that. And then I'm selling weed to make money, so now I could have the money to buy coke, and it just became this horrific cycle where I developed a tolerance to cocaine, and then got to the point where I was snorting like an ape all a day, and then I began to have crippling anxiety. And I don't know where the anxiety came from, you know, it could have and panic attacks, and so I don't know if it was because of my life circumstances or because of the drugs I was doing that fueled panic. But what I do know is there was a night that I was driving home um and I felt this uh pain in my chest, my heart was pounding, my like left arm went numb, and I thought I was dying.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Which, you know, at the time I think I was 17 years old. I I'd been to a few funerals already for friends of mine that I partied with, and I was fat. I mean, I was 40% body fat. I was eating fast food essentially at every meal, smoking cigarettes as well. So I was like, well, maybe I'm dying. I end up going to a to the my friend's house that I was living at, screaming help, help, help. And his mom takes me to the ER. And they essentially were like, You just have a panic attack. You just had a panic attack. I didn't know what that was. So now I'm in a spot, I'm trying to deal with having a panic attack. My fear is that I'm gonna have another panic attack because I was just so scared of what had just happened. And back then, again, no one talked about this. I remember my friends, it was kind of funny. We laugh about this now. They bought me like a panic attack book, and then whenever I would have a panic attack, they would just tell me to read my book, you know, um, which is kind of like funny to look back at now, but I had no idea what was going on. And you would have thought this would have been a crossroads for me because I had made this decision to make my to have my life be this bad based on you know how I responded to adversity, but I couldn't give up the power of being a drug dealer and the way the drugs made me feel. And so what ended up happening was I couldn't get high, I couldn't smoke weed at that point without having a panic attack. And then I had my some somebody gave me a five milligram perco set, and I remember doing the perk, ripping a bong hit, and there was no panic. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is awesome. So now I'm like smoking a bunch of weed, doing coke, and now I'm adding you know opiates into it, and I didn't realize how fast I would get addicted to opiates, and I'm not gonna blame I as much as I think the Purdue Pharma situation is horrible. I'm not gonna blame that and the narrative for why I got high um or why I got addicted to drugs. I will say I didn't I didn't realize how fast you would get addicted to them. And it was like quick five milligrams, then I needed 10, 20, all the way up until I was doing hundreds of milligrams of my nose every single day. And I was a diva when it came to drugs. It was OC eighties, OC40s. I'd lick the time release off, I'd use a home a hose clamp to shave it down as fine as possible so I could get the biggest adrenaline rush. Did do the generic stuff because they had filler that would clog my nose, and I was just complete prima donna when it came to my drug use.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

But it it makes sense that you were a true believer because we had all this turmoil inside, and some of it was spilling out in terms of these panic attacks, and so we were trying to feel better. I yeah, I was, and I just think I was going about it in in the wrong places.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I think that I had convinced myself that I was gonna die anyway. So why not just continue the path? You know, the the famous story I tell is Synchodemai of 2008. I was riding around to make a drug deal where I was essentially gonna trade a bunch of weed for pills. And I had a bunch of uh half pound of pot in my trunk, a couple grand in cash in the glove box. And at that life, at that point in my life, nothing mattered more, nothing else mattered except the fact of my ability to get and sell drugs. And so my my headlight had been busted and out for a while. I didn't change it because I was lazy, and frankly, I didn't feel like doing it because it didn't help with my drug addiction. And there was a cop running radar, and I flashed my high beams at the police officer thinking that um he would not see the fact that I had a busted headlight, but it just gave him a reason to pull me over, pulls me over, and at that point I thought my life was over. I just knew it. I knew something about that situation was gonna be really bad. So he comes up to the car. I struggle to get my license and registration out, and he just knew something was up. I end up being pulled out of the car, searches it, finds everything, finds a scale, finds money, finds the weed, and then I'm in the back of a police officer's car, and I'm in handcuffs, and I'm like, man, like shoot, my life is over right now. I remember having I remember thinking to myself, like, you have this moment of truth, I think, where just everything kind of catches up to you. And you have this moment of clarity where you're like, How did I get here? How did the boy who just wanted to be loved and fit in and be good at sports and all the things, how is he now in the back of a cop car facing felony drug charges? And the the the hard answer is I just couldn't deal with discomfort. I mean, there's compassion for myself and my situation for sure, and what I'd had to deal with. But the reality was the more I sulked in that story, which I did for a while, it got me nowhere. And it reinforced my me being kind of handcuffed to my past and that I wasn't gonna make it because of my sob story. And as tough as people may have thought it was, it wasn't helping my cause. Like it made things way worse for me. And I think that's an important point that people miss is that situations can suck and they can be tough, and you can have compassion for yourself, but you also have to get to a place where you put that behind you and move forward, you know, step by step, if you know, if you can. And so I get arrested and get taken to jail, I'm charged with possession with the intent to distribute marijuana, uh, which is a felony. I don't even know if it's a felony to today still, but it was back in 08. Go to court in September, and the judge, in my mind, like came down on me pretty hard. He said, at the time he did, but he actually gave me a big blessing. He said, I'm sentencing you, I'm convicting you, I'm finding you guilty. Like the writing's on the wall, you have the scale, you have the money, you have the drugs. Like you're you're as guilty as can be. Yeah. He's like, I'm convicting you, finding you guilty, but I'm sentencing you to five years in jail and suspending everything but 90 days. So meaning, like, if I messed up, I would have to do the full potentially the full five years. Five years probation, 200 hours of community service, all kinds of fines and drug classes. But he looked at me and he said, Doug, you're young, you're 20, this conviction is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. He said, if you do everything I ask with no mess ups, at the end, I will take the felony conviction off of your record and give you probation before judgment, which is essentially, I mean, you may know this better than me, but essentially it's like a f a free it's like you're guilty, but it's a free pass.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

It's like a almost like a uh Well, you have a chance to live your life and without that felony attached and without the conviction. That's a huge motivator, hopefully, for change, is I imagine what he was doing.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

A few weeks later, I report to jail, and I cried the day I went in, and I cried the day I left because I didn't want to leave. And the reason is because I detoxed cold turkey from oxy for the first few weeks, which was terrible, horrible. I mean, like having the worst case of the flu for weeks upon weeks upon weeks. And my cellmate was like, Hey, you're gonna start working out with me. And at the time I was very out of shape, deconditioned. I was like, There's no way I'm gonna work out with you. Like, that's very intimidating. And then we had this conversation that in the cell that changed my life, and I'll keep it PG, just sort of academia. Um, he said, he he looked at me like any good coach or therapist, like they ask questions. They don't talk with themselves, they ask, you know, open-ended questions. And he said, What got you here? What happened, like all the all this stuff. And I started to blame everybody but myself, my parents, the divorce, kids, school, everything. And he said something to me, I mean, he didn't pause hardly at all. He just said, Quit being a victim, quit feeling feeling sorry for yourself. And I remember him saying, you know, the word he used a little bit harsh on that. When he said that to me, I was shocked. Because I was used to people coddling me and being like, Oh, it's okay, Doug. Like they were so mean and it's okay. And that becomes addicting. Like the more I've learned, like, that like coddling and patting you on the back, like it's good for a bit, but after that, like it just becomes very unhealthy because now you're essentially taking all your power away, you're forcing. Take zero accountability. And when I heard that, I said, What do you mean? He's like, You are blaming every single person for your problems but yourself. He said, You're taking zero ownership. You're 21 years old. Um, you know, this happened years ago. No one's coming to save you. It's up to you. Like, if you want to change your life, you have to take control. You have to say, you're gonna look at yourself in the mirror, be a man, and understand that you got yourself here, and it's up to you to change. Like, no one's coming to save you. And that conversation changed my life. It forced me to look at myself in the mirror and realize two things. One, I had to get back, I had to get past the fact that my childhood was so bad and understand that it was in the past at this point, and I had to move forward. It doesn't mean that I couldn't think about it or couldn't heal or couldn't have compassion. It just meant I couldn't let that be the reason that I self-destruct my life anymore. So it started to take accountability. I started to realize that I was a big part of my problem. I was the common denominator and all of my shortcomings. I mean, I had 21 jobs at that point, I was only 21. I had damaged relationships, I'm in jail, like my life, I wasn't making the best choices. And it got me to take steps to move forward in my in my life. So got down to do a push-up because he was like, all right, let's go work out. Could barely do one, could barely even walk. But with his motivation and encouragement training me in there during my 90-day sentence, I was able to do a set of 10 push-ups and run a mile by the time my sentence was over.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Wow. And what a what a miracle to really get this guy in your corner sort of out of nowhere. You don't go into jail to get a therapist and a trainer. And and you got both of those and with such wisdom and insight. And what you say is so key. Like we have to be aware of our trauma, address it, but we can't let it overtake our identity. And it seems like that moment with him sort of allowed you to find a new identity. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, it just got me to look at myself in the mirror and be like, hey, you know, life was tough, but so what? Like everybody goes through something. You know, in hosting my podcast, I've learned like everyone's got stuff. Maybe it's not as public or maybe it's not like legal, but everyone's got stuff that they deal with, right? And it just it also got me to like, it also got me to to to be comfortable dealing with discomfort, you know, and just because I I was scared to do something doesn't mean I didn't that doesn't mean I couldn't do it, you know, or taking responsibility and showing up and being disciplined and I mean crap, working on delaying gratification. Oh, it was so tough, especially being a former addict. I literally, just to show you how sad my physical state was, I had to um so in jail where I was in a detention center, there was no like formal gym. So there was a perimeter around where everybody ate and like played chess and watched TV and stuff. I would have a deck of cards, and every time I was able to make it around by walking, I would take a card from my left hand and I would pass it to my right hand. And I would do that for a period of time, and then I got to the point where I could like walk a mile or something, and then it was about walk, jog, and then jog, and then jog, run, and then I got to the point where I could run that mile. But I was so deconditioned and fat. And I say fat not in a demeaning way, like I had 40% body fat, like I had no muscle mass, so that's kind of what I mean. That's what I I mean, just what I what I was, and so I couldn't even hold myself up to do a push-up. And I was very weak. And once I understood the reality of what I was dealing with and why I had to change, it was kind of like game over for me. And that forced pause for me, changed my life, and so much so that behind me, um, I have the framed workout plan that my cellmate gave me the day I left because I did I cried. I was like, man, like how do I ever repay you for what you just did for me? Um because he he's just said, you know, pay it forward and don't mess up. And I I still have letters from him that he wrote where he like, I was like, I remember getting out and it was cold. It was the day after Christmas I got let out. And um I remember part of my workout plan was to run outside. It was like, I forget the exact temperature. It wasn't warm, it was wintertime here in Maryland. And I remember writing, or he wrote to me and asked me if I had ran, and I just said, no, it's too cold. And he like used some pretty harsh words with me and told me to go to Target and buy some sweatpants, and so that's what I did. Um but he forced me to take like radical accountability and to control my to take back control of my narrative because I think so many people they just lose control of their story because they had a bad chapter and they don't realize how small that chapter is in the context of the full story of their life.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Right. How were you able to keep it going after you left? I'm I'm sure there was that temptation to stay in on the cold days, to call old friends. How were you able to sustain this, these insights that were earned the hard way?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

I got lucky in that I had some some time behind bars where I was consistently working on myself. For months I worked on myself. The first few weeks I wasn't because I was going through detox, but after that, once I got going, um, I was very consistent. And so it it it it gave me these tools in real time on how to deal with discomfort and stress and discipline, and my brain, I guess, got kind of rewired in there. And then at first, I didn't want to let my cellmate down. So that was like the fuel. And I think whenever, whenever you first start on a transformation, you have to use whatever you can take, right? And so that was fuel for me, was not letting him down. And I had realized how much of my my decisions in my life were made because I was still angry at people. And so I would think about what made me angry and I would use that as fuel. So people picked on me and called me names. I was like, oh, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna get in the best shape, so that way I won't be picked on anymore. And I just took it day by day, man. Like I knew that I knew that if I sat in the old version of me and felt sorry for myself and gave in the temptation that I was gonna fail. I also knew that there was a chance that I would make it if I could just give it my best each and every day and take it day by day, and then compound those small wins, it just gave me a chance, and like, you know, one day turns into two, turns into a week, turns into two weeks, and then you look back, and crap, like I haven't done anything that I was abusing in like what however months. And I you know, I I really didn't have I I didn't deal with cravings. I think because I had gotten it all out of my system when I was in jail, and I was so scared of going back because of this crazy transformation I had, I it was a lot easier to not fall temptation. I mean, the reason I stopped hanging out with a lot of my old friends was just by proxy of like me being completely innocent and then getting myself into situations where I could have potentially gone to jail because of something I didn't do. Whether that was going to the mall and then they were buying drugs and the cops swarmed the car, and now I'm like in it, and they look at my record and they're like, I wonder who's guilty here, you know? Or grabbing a friend of mine's jacket by accident instead of mine, and when I was going to community service and his had weed in it, which I didn't know, and I almost, you know, could have gotten caught there. And it was more stuff like that where I started to realize like I need to like change this environment.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

You know, I like you can only muscle out muscle it for so long. And what role did faith and meaning play in your recovery? How did how did that intersect with the physical change?

SPEAKER_01 29:46

At first it didn't at first it didn't really play in in anything. Um I say that because you know, I grew up under the impression that if I was good, I was going to heaven, if I was bad, I was going to hell. And so I felt that I was clearly on the highway to hell, given my past and my track record. And I also like hated God because I was like, if God is about love and if God is about joy, why is my life the way it is? So I had this kind of warped sense of reality when it came to religion. And then, you know, after a few years I got into some I got into ridiculous shape. I mean, I had every ab possible, veins running through my muscles. And I say this because I was still broken as a guy. Because I had chased that as almost as a new drug, like vanity became a new drug for me. And what changed it was I was I became a personal trainer, which I've been now for over 15 years. And one of my clients was a pastor at a at a non-denominational church, and this guy was always happy, he was so joyful. I was like, why is this guy always happy? It's just very, it was very strange. And he kept begging me to come to church. I was like, dude, I don't belong in church, man. Like, you have no idea, right? And um he just kept kind of nudging me, and then eventually you get I got to a point where I was like, man, I'm like, I can't figure this out. I'm still the same jerk I was, just not using abusing drugs, and I'm more fit. Like, what's wrong here? And so um ended up becoming a Christian. Um and and this is back in um, I want to say it's like it's been about 10 years, I think. And my life really changed because I it taught me a lot about forgiveness, and I and I really identified with uh the reincarnation uh idea, the redemption story of Jesus, not to say that I have a God complex because I don't, but it's more like I identified with the fact of how he could like be re come back, you know, because I felt like I my I had this like rebirthing moment in jail where I was a God, I look at pictures of myself from back in the day and I was a completely different person. And I feel like part of me died in jail, and I like came back in some way, as strange as that may sound. And it also taught me a lot about purpose and that God may have I might not have been proud of what I did, but God was because now he would used it to help others. I mean, I remember a guy saying to me, Hey man, like it's no coincidence that there's this guy who randomly comes into your life in jail who's helping you use fitness to change your life, and now you're doing the same thing to help other people. Like you can't make that stuff up. And it didn't stop there. Like I had to go to therapy and I had to work on stuff from my past and trauma and forgiveness and acceptance and all the things, but yeah, man, it's been a journey, and I think you know, sharing my story and talking to people like yourself every time it helps me process things. And the thing that really brought things full circle, and it was it was one of the toughest days of my life, was the question everybody always asks me is what happened to my cellmate? And you know, I got out, I stayed in touch with him for a while, we even met up and did a few workouts together, and then you know, it's just he I just say he went down a different path that I was going, and um we kind of lost touch, and then I get a message from his mom who was like, Hey, I'm not sure if you know, but he talked a lot about you. Um, he died. Um and I was gutted. I was so upset. Because I'd always wondered, man, like I was like, why did he choose to help me? Like I I still wonder to this day, why me? Like, why did he take such interest in me and not anybody else? Why did he choose to put his energy into myself instead of himself? And so that was um it was it was it was very hard for me, but what made it easier was a family member of his reached out to me and she said, Hey, you don't know who I am, but I'm so and so's cousin. And I want to thank you. I've been going through like his friends on Facebook, I saw that you were like tagging some stuff, and I I saw you share these podcast episodes and I saw the story and I I listened to um and I get emotional every time I share this because it's just crazy how this all happens. Is she said, I listened to the story of how you talked about my cousin and it it's it's it's great memories for us because it uh it reminds us of like the good in him. And I just I never thought I get on these podcasts because I I genuinely like talking to people about this stuff because it's important to me, it means a lot. I I think I have a cool story that maybe inspires people to make to take a good first step. I had no idea it was gonna be like legacy for my cellmate, for his family. After how much he changed myself and my family, that now I'm helping him with his family. So then it gets even crazier. I get invited to speak at his funeral, and I was the last to go, and I told this the story of how he saved my life, and it was crazy. It was just it was so wild that how things come full circle, and it and if I didn't, you know, if I had questioned God at that moment, man, like I sure as heck really believed then because it's like you can't make that stuff up. And so it's to say like kind of how we started the conversation. I was talking about the adversity and to my disadvantage. Like now I see it all as a huge advantage. Like I wasn't a confident kid. I wasn't I didn't have self-esteem. I wasn't I didn't think I have I didn't have any real talent, but now I think I'm I'm a great storyteller. I can carry on a conversation with somebody like yourself who's way more qualified and smarter than me, frankly. And and all these these skills have come from addiction and adversity and redemption and and strength and all of that that I didn't have when I was a kid. And so for somebody who's listening to this or watching it or however they're consuming it, like there's so much power in transformation that once you can accept the fact that things are not the way they're supposed to be, and that things are unfortunate and they're rough, and that you have the power to change, and you just take those small steps and you move forward day by day, the strength you build from that will be something you carry with you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

That's such a powerful story, and I could talk to you for forever about it because it does hit on so many sort of core, core truths, and and it's great to that your story has helped so many, and and now you're sharing it not just with me, but through your podcast and interviewing great people because people want to talk to you because you really understand and and are really there to help people. The difference you've made is in incredible.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Thanks, man. And it means a lot. Like that you respect my work and that we have a good friendship because you know, I I've never wanted to be like I think there is this, like I guess, assumption that exists that there's academia and then there's like the podcast space or whatever where you don't feel I don't feel sometimes disqualified to speak about things because you know I don't have the degrees, I don't have the formal training. And I think you do a really good job at making people like myself feel like welcome. And and I've all been in that set, I've also done my best to bring on people like yourself so that because I I believe in obviously medicine and what you do and your colleagues, that it helps me learn and grow, and then I think we're all in this together to like help this insane um issue that we're we're facing right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Hmm. Well, I feel just incredibly lucky to to know you, to count you as a friend and uh sharing this this journey of of helping others together. And tell me a little bit about what that looks like for you today in terms of of how you're helping folks, maybe discuss your podcast a little bit and the and the different things you're doing and writing about.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

So I've hosted the show The Adversity Advantage for the last six years, and I've had people like yourself, many other experts on, and people have cool stories. And the show is it's focused on helping people get through hard times. So it's helping people with addiction, mental health, relationship stuff, wellness. And the idea is that you're gonna go through hard times in life, and with those hard times, you know, there's there's better paths to take and there's worse paths to take with doing things. And so been doing that for the last six years. Um, it's been amazing. Connected with a lot of cool people. We've got almost 20 million total downloads and streams in the show, a couple hundred thousand subscribers. It's been great. I really enjoy it. Um working on a book that'll come out um in 2028, I believe, early 2028, about my story and practical tips and takeaways for the reader that they can implement into their daily life. Um, and then, you know, my main, my main passion that um and and hopefully it continues to build is helping young men in recovery or with their mental health. And not to say that I'm a therapist because I'm not, it's more like I just I think a lot of guys over the years have related to what I've had to say, and I think I have a great art at communicating with them in a way where they don't feel alone, I have compassion, and I help nudge them into a better place. Um, and so I'd love, you know, I'm I've coached a lot of young men over the years. I'm hoping to do it more consistently as something that I could kind of build into something because I think you know, young men are have a lot of problems with loneliness and suicide and addiction and all the things, and hopefully I can be a small part in in helping that um get a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

You will be more than a small part. Yeah. Doug, you're the best. I appreciate you taking the time today to share your story and to continue to go about this path of helping others with me.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Thanks again, John. You're the best. I I love this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Thanks for listening to the Thriving with Addiction Podcast. If you found today's episode helpful, please follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and share it with someone who might benefit. You can also connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, or visit thrivingwithaddiction.com to learn more. Stay tuned for next week's episode and remember, Thriving is possible.