Episode 25 - Vinny

Segment 1: 

Segment 2: 

**From Darkness to Light: How One Man’s Journey Through Addiction and Resilience Can Inspire Your Comeback**  

Vinny’s story is a raw and powerful testament to the struggles of addiction, the weight of family trauma, and the hope of redemption. At just 42, he’s navigated a lifetime of chaos—early experimentation with drugs, multiple car accidents, deep depression, and the fight to reclaim his life from the grip of alcohol and chemicals. Yet, amidst the darkness, Vinny found something more—faith, community, and a renewed sense of purpose that’s now fueling his new chapter.  

In this episode, Vinny opens up about growing up in a strict Christian household, rebelling at a young age, and the moment he knew he was headed for self-destruction. He shares candid insights on how addiction sneaks up, the difficulty in breaking free, and the small wins that kept him pushing forward—even when he felt like giving up. You'll discover how his encounters with God, the importance of community, and the refusal to stay silent about his past turned his story around.  

We break down:  
- The early signs of addiction and how societal pressures and environment shape destructive habits.  
- Why acknowledging your struggles is the first step in healing, and how exposure and honesty can free you from shame.  
- The role of faith, love, and community in overcoming addiction and mental health battles.  
- Practical tactics Vinny used—prayer, therapy, volunteering—to rebuild his identity and find joy in life again.  
- How to recognize the warning signs in yourself or loved ones and the importance of compassionate support instead of judgment.  

This isn’t just a tale of survival—it's a blueprint for transformation. If you’re battling addiction, feeling lost in the chaos, or seeking encouragement to make a change, Vinny’s journey will remind you that it’s never too late to rewrite your story. The road to recovery is long and winding, but with resilience, faith, and community, light always follows darkness.  

Perfect for anyone in recovery, families affected by addiction, or those looking for a dose of real hope—this episode is a call to action to face your pain, embrace your strength, and keep fighting.  

**Vinny is a 42-year-old recovering addict who beat the odds, uncovering a path from despair to purpose through faith, honesty, and persistence.**  

If you need a reminder that your story isn’t over, don’t miss this episode. Tune in, be inspired, and start your journey toward healing today.  

**Remember: When you’re willing to face the darkness, the light will follow.**  

Follow Vinny on Instagram: 

@vinnyarana 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:17

You are listening to the Liquid Shape Podcast with your host, Cody Perez.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Welcome everyone to another new episode of the Liquid Shape Podcast, episode 25 with your host, Cody Perez. And today I am flying solo. No Mariah, no puppies. Try to get her up here, but she's not feeling so well. Mariah was gone the last few days. She went to go visit one of her best friends, Amanda, down in Colorado. And she had a great time out there. She had a blasty blast. But today she came back and she wasn't feeling too hot. So she's getting some much needed rest on the couch, and the boys are comforting her. So I bugged her a little bit. I'm like, hey, let's go do the podcast because I waited this week for you to get here so we could do it. And well, of course, I wasn't going to force her. She fell asleep, and I'm letting her rest so that she can hopefully uh resume with her week this coming week for work and all that fun stuff. So it's just me. You're stuck with just Cody Perez, and I get to annoy you for the next hour or so. This week, my guest is a person by the name of Vinny. Um I don't personally know Vinny. I just started talking to him online uh from the podcast, and I asked him to be a guest on the podcast to come share a story, and we go over his journey through addiction and overcoming and uh finding his way through and getting sober. And it's a great story, great conversation that we have. So make sure you stick around for segment two to check that out. It's like I said, a great conversation, awesome, awesome conversation with uh with Vinny, and I encourage everyone to go check that out after this is finished. And like I said, this week it has been a little bit different since it was just me and the boys here at the house. Uh Mariah took off on Wednesday and I dropped her off at the airport, and it was just me here at the house, man in the fort with the boys, and I uh it was a little peaceful, but at the same time it was lonely. I I let Mariah know, like it's kind of sucked without you here because who am I supposed to annoy besides the dogs? I did a lot of uh I didn't do any cooking because when I cook, I always cook way too much. I even cook way too much for me and Mariah sometimes, and it's like we have leftovers for days. So I'm like, I will just be picking up food. And uh, of course, with my luck, I always get people that fuck up my orders, and this certain restaurant that I think we've talked about on here before in the podcast, again, screwed up. I didn't feel like leaving the house, so I ordered DoorDash, and I had a feeling. I like I knew instantly, I was like, this comp this restaurant always fucks up everything that I order. They're gonna fuck this up. So the tab came out to be like $25 total, and it was just a simple meal, but with their fees and all that, it came out to be $25. As soon as I get my burger, I knew instantly, I was like, I bet you they put some sort of weird sauce on this, either their burger sauce or some mayonnaise or something like that, that I can't absolutely stand. Sure enough, I opened the burger and one of the buns is completely lathered in mayonnaise with the pickles and the lettuce and all that. I was so pissed, but I was like, I'm very hungry, so I cleaned it up as much as I could off the actual patty, and I did not use the lettuce or the pickles or the other bun or anything that touched that mayonnaise. I pretty much just was like, no, that's just completely slathered. There's no way to wipe all of that off. I'll I'll get the taste in my mouth anyways, and I don't want that. And of course, took pictures, sent it into DoorDash, and my meal was on the house. So I can't complain. So shout out to DoorDash for making it right. And for any of you out there that are not aware of that, if they screw up your order, you have to speak up. You have to let them know. Like all of these motherfuckers out there, they want to get paid 25, 30 bucks an hour to make food and take orders and all of that, and they don't want to listen to what the customer states. Now, this in this instance, I don't know how you could have screwed this up because it specifically asked you if you want sauce or no sauce on there, and I clearly indicated no sauce. I even put in the additional comment I said, keep my burger dry, no type of sauce whatsoever. And it looked like they did it on purpose. It really made me mad. If you have a job to do, do it right. Don't fuck it up. Don't piss off your customers, don't piss off your employers, don't piss off your employees because it affects ultimately it affects all around the business. And it it just made me very, very, very, very, very angry. So I thought I'd share that piece of information with y'all. Uh but this week has been a little bit interesting. Uh I've been dealing with some sickness for like two weeks now almost. Been coughing like crazy and just I've had this like nasty, nasty, nasty cough, sore throat, lots of mucus. I've been taking all the medication I can possibly take. Nothing was doing it right. I even went to practice still just because I don't like to skip on practice. I feel like band practice is extremely important. I want to make sure that I'm the best that I can possibly be for all of you when you guys see us for when we record music for anything. So I like to stay on top of that and I make it a regular thing. And I like the camaraderie that I have with my boys. Like I love my band. They frustrate the shit out of me, they make me angry a lot of times. Things don't always go the way I feel they need to go, and I get angry and we fight like brothers, but at the end of the day, I do love them and I have a blast with them. So I do enjoy getting to meet up at least once a week, hang out, make some jokes, play some music, jam the songs, and what have you. And so we're getting ready for this tour that we're doing. So I was not about to cancel practice, and as you can hear my voice, I am not doing so well. My my throat's just been on fire. So I booked a scheduled doctor's visit, and then the day of my appointment, I get this message from Kaiser stating, your bill's gonna be $400 and something dollars. I was like, Wait, wait, wait, what? I'm like, I have amazing insurance with my employer and with Kaiser, obviously. And so I called him right away, and the lady pretty much said that there's like a high deductible on it for certain appointments. And this was one of those certain appointments where if I didn't spend over $2,000 in medical bills throughout the year, I had to cover it myself. Oh my god, I just about flipped. I was like, you know what? Keep your damn appointment. I don't want it. I will figure this out and deal with it myself. I'm not gonna spend $411 for you guys to tell me, oh, we can give you this medication here that's got codeine or whatever they they prescribed to me. So I canceled it and I need to speak to my benefits department. I've been slacking on that, but I'm gonna take a look and see what exactly was happening because there's no way I was literally just at the doctor less than a month ago for my annual checkup screening, and my insurance covered it. I paid like 35 bucks. And that's normally how it is whenever I go to the doctor. It's I pay 35 bucks and they take care of whatever else, the majority of the bill, because I have a great insurance. So that really made me mad. And uh it was it's one of those things where it's like I'm not gonna pay you guys to just put me on some medication where I have to pay the bill again to you guys because by the the farmer pharmacies there, and they're just basically making money and making money, making money off me. And they just that wasn't gonna that was not gonna fly. But I've been self-medicating with tease, throat coats, cough drops, fucking throat sprays, anything I can get my hands on that basically I could buy at the at the uh the pharmacy. But hopefully it will get better. We're about two weeks away from leaving or so. We leave on the 13th, and we just announced some more shows. I don't know if I mentioned that. We're doing Sioux Falls for sure. So we're doing we're doing Idaho Falls, we're doing Billings, Montana, uh Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we're doing obviously Kadat with the Rockfest, and then we're doing Des Moines, Iowa on this run. I think we're only gone for like 10 days, so I I don't even call it a tour. It's just it's a series of shows that we're doing back to back for us to get out to Rockfest and on our way back home. I'm very excited because I know that I'm gonna get to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time along the road. And if you are anywhere near, like I'm talking even three or four hours within the city that we're playing near you, I highly encourage you to come check us out. We are a very fun band to see live. We put on a great show. We interact with the crowd. We're gonna be there hanging out, taking pictures. We all have merch there for sale. We'll be making memories with all you guys. So I'm I'm very excited to be out there and come be in your guys' face and streaming along with you guys and bringing these songs, the live version to you guys, and bringing the American Overdose experience to you guys. I think it's gonna be a blast. I actually I know it's gonna be a blast, and uh that we're gonna make some memories. I'm and I'm so, so, so excited for Rockfest because we're playing at a very good time slot where I have a feeling the stage is gonna be just super, super, super packed with people, like extremely packed with people. We're playing, I believe, at three, I want to say three ten or three forty, somewhere in there, somewhere between three ten and three forty, I believe. And we get a 45 minute set, so it's going to be ape shit crazy. And we're playing the stage that we've played at the last three times, two times that we played there, sorry. Uh, this will be the third time. And that stage is awesome. It's a huge stage, and it's just it's it's legit. Great sound, great people that run it. And of course, the Rockfest crowd is just always amazing and they love us. They always hang out and buy merch and scream along with the songs, they're aware of who we are, and so I just uh it's gonna be such a great time. I'm just so amped up for it. You may have noticed if you follow me on my personal social media that I reactivated my socials for the time being. I don't know for how much longer. Um, I'll probably deactivate again. The reason why I activated is that we put out a brand new single and video, music video for the song Oxygen. Now, if you have not listened to the song, I highly, highly recommend you go do that now. It's a very, very catchy song. It's amazing. It's gonna be one of those songs that it gets stuck in your head, and I could see it being in American Overdoses catalog for live shows and a song that people will relate to us for a long, long, long time. It's one of those standout tracks that, like I said, it's gonna, I think it's gonna be what introduces people to American overdose. I could totally hear this song being on the radio, and already so many different playlists have picked it up, media sources have picked it up, and we're getting every day I'm getting notifications of different uh public publications that have been adding it. The funny thing is that I did not miss social media whatsoever. Um I've not been scrolling purposely to see what people are posting or anything like that, just because I post my stuff and then I have to move on and do whatever else that I'm doing, and I handle all the other socials for the band and now the podcast. So it keeps me very busy and I try to stay off my phone too. So if that makes sense, I have to respond to things and I have to post things, but I have to also be mindful that uh I don't want to spend my whole day on my phone. I I've gotten really good about not being glued to it and not being a slave to it. So having my personals now up and active is very time consuming and very draining because I'm posting on each one of them, posting on each one of the band ones, and posting on each one of the podcast ones, and it's just uh it it's not anything I missed at all. So I've kept it active for the time being. I I I will probably deactivate here really soon. So please, everyone that's listening, if you haven't yet, please go find American Overdose and the Liquid Shape podcast on Facebook, like us on Facebook, interact with those posts, find us on uh Instagram, because we are both of those are on Instagram, so follow those, interact with those posts, and on TikTok, we're both both of those things are on there. Interact with that, follow it. And American Overdose is on Twitter, Twitter X, whatever, but Liquid Shape is not. Um yeah, just thought I'd share that with you. So Oxygen was one of those songs that uh or one of those videos that we had to scramble to put together. We didn't know what we were gonna do. We'd been talking about it for months because we've had this, we've had this song for a while now, a long time. And I always had this vision of what I saw in my head for this song, but due to us being limited on funds, we're not assigned band, we don't have a record label, we don't have any management. Everything is literally done within the band, everything you see. So many times people think that we are have like connections to labels or that we someone someone in the band is funded somehow, or all this crap. We do a really good job of being able to get you high quality content with videos and recordings and producers and this and that, this and that, but that's all self self-funded. That is all funded through money that the band makes and that I put into the band. And being one person that's putting money into the promotions, the PR, and all that stuff, it it it limits what we're able to do. And we're very lucky that uh we are able to do the media inside the house, which brick handles pictures and you handle a lot of pictures, I should say, and handles all the videos currently, the music videos. We're very fortunate because that that's just another cost that it takes. And then you have to rent spaces, and then you have to buy equipment, and then you have to buy props, and then you have to hire people. So we've been trying to get creative with how we make our videos. I had this vision of what I wanted the video to be, but it just was not something that we were able to do and make happen. So, what you got was us coming together and saying, let's do a performance video. And Brick had this vision of what he saw in his head with the lights and how he wanted the background to be in. So we trusted him and and it came out great. I I'm very happy with the video. I think it's it's legit. I love the lighting. I think the lighting is just it's phenomenal on the video. He knocked it out of the park with this one, and I think the important part with this video and with this song was keeping keeping the attention focused on the song itself, because the song is just really good. And I'm not just saying that because it's my band and I'm in it. I'm part of it. It really is a great song. Whether you like American Overdose or even if you hate us, even if you absolutely hate us, you can't stand us personally, you can't stand us as a band or whatever. You cannot deny this song is really, really, really good. It's great. It's not even good, it's really great. Um, it's catchy, it's got everything you would want. It's got the heaviness, it's not over the top on the screaming, it's got really hooky, catchy lyrics and melodies, the lyrics anyone can relate to. So anyone that has trashed it or will trash it, it's just out of pure jealousy. They they they know it's a damn good song. So I will not let anyone uh tell me any different, because like I said, it would just be the mouth of a of a hater and a shit talker, which I don't have time for, and I don't care what your opinions are personally. But yeah, uh video came out, so I've been pushing that, promoting it, trying to do what I can to spread the awareness of it, and uh people are finding it, people, new people. We constantly have new fans every day finding us on TikTok and through ads and all that. So it is it's awesome to see the band growing. It's awesome to see that we're spreading, that people love us. Of course, you have your haters, that's always gonna happen. And if we didn't have haters, I'd be worried because then it's at that point that I don't think people are paying attention and you want the attention, obviously. So we don't mind the shit talking, we just talk shit back to you or we'll block you or whatever. If you have not seen the video, not heard the song, I highly encourage you to go please check it out, blast it over and over again, add it to your favorites. Uh, leave us a comment, let us know what you think, and uh add it to your playlist, share it with your friends that might like it. And yeah. So, with that said, uh let's see what else happened this week. Cody was alone, hung out at the house with the boys, watched a lot of movies, and today we actually went and hung out with one of my friends from high school, John. Happy birthday to John. He had his birthday and got to go hang out with him and he barbecued and got to meet his family, and it was a good time, man. We went out there, hung out for a couple hours, and shout out to John and Stephanie for inviting us over there. We we just got to see see some friends, and it was it was good. It was good, good time for sure. So, this week for the question of the week, I got a lot of responses, which I'm always thankful for, guys. Thank you guys so much for sharing your thoughts, opinions, your your stories, everything. I I love reading these. So this week's question was, what's one thing you've survived that you never thought you'd make it through? And then some follow-up questions that we had uh related to that was what kept you going? How did it change your outlook on life? What would you say to someone facing a similar struggle? I loved this question and I really thought on it before like I didn't even I I thought on the question, but I I I didn't know what my response was going to be. I thought about it for the last couple of days after I posted it, and uh I have my answer and I will I will share that. But I'm gonna let the uh the folks, the fine folks of social media speak their minds first. This one came in from Nikki. And Nikki says, Back on April 8th, I emailed my response about my toxic relationships catching my ex touching his daughter. That was one thing I didn't know if I'd survive because the courts are a joke and did absolutely nothing to protect not only her, but other children. I found out the following year that he was caught doing that to a friend's neighbor's daughter. I'm not sure if those people filed a report or not, or if that was the reason he was run out of the Pacific Northwest. The fact the fact that I had my son and had to raise him is what's going what's kept me going. Had I not had him, I would probably be behind bars for the rest of my life. People may say counseling helped them, but it didn't do a damn thing for me. It if anything, it created more hatred and resentment towards him. Even to this day, if ever given the chance, I'd go for him and make sure he'd never be able to do that again. I would make sure he'd suffer considerable amounts first. My outlook changed pretty quickly. I remember hearing stories on the news about that happening to kids growing up and thought that there's no way in hell someone would be able to do that. Admittedly, I was pretty damn naive. Come to find out, people do it with zero remorse, zero accountability, zero guilt, and it's pretty damn disgusting. Being a mom of three, I can't fathom intentionally hurting my kids for any reason. If someone is going through something similar, make your voice known. Talk with as many lawyers as you can to see what can be done. Make it known throughout town what they did do. Go through every single process you can to make them famous in a bad way. Every year on the day it happened, I make a post about what he did and the fact that he's still walking free because our judicial system is a fucking joke. He technically can't come after me for libel or slander as I'm stating what I caught him doing. I don't feel like I did enough to get him in front of a judge because I had no money to go through that process. She will be 15 years old this November and she still remembers what he did. Now there were many motorcycle clubs he was trying to get into, and I made sure and made sure each and everyone had a copy of my police report and what he was also telling the officer when he was interviewed. I've had a few other instances that hurt pretty bad, but this was the worst that I've dealt with because it was draining in every aspect of my life. It was so bad that I could not go to bed without that night repaying replaying when I shut my eyes. I had to have music going and create my own music videos in my head to divert away from the images burned into my memory. Even even every now and again, those memories pop up and I physically cringe because I didn't do anything but freeze up. I honestly I feel so fucking bad that I didn't kick him in his fucking face when I had the chance to. My god, I do remember that story from Nikki before, and it makes my blood boil and it makes me angry that someone like that could be out walking and free after hurting a person, hurting a kid especially. Nikki, you definitely don't have a reason to blame yourself. Everyone handles things differently. Um, and I I just can't imagine. I'm not a parent myself, so I don't know what it's like, but I am an uncle and I know that if someone even like harmed or touched or came near my nephew, I would absolutely lose it. I would go ape shit on them and I would make sure that uh I did everything in my power to see that they that person suffered the consequences and I would ruin them. So I I this is not a this is not an easy an easy thing. And I I just I can't imagine that to be in your shoes and and in your daughter's shoes, man. That that's just that is horrible. That's not a that's not a not something that I would wish upon anybody. And uh hopefully that guy that did this, I hope that he gets what's coming to him, and he will. Karma has a way of finding those that need to be served, and his his punishment will be well deserved, and I'm sure it's gonna be suffering and fuck people like that. If or in a situation like that, making yourself making it known what you're doing right now is right. You should be letting everybody know and speaking out about it and making sure that everyone's aware so they can protect their kids and protect other people from being around a person like this. And those people, there's gonna be people obviously that don't believe it or that just choose to side with them, but I guarantee you that those folks will at least at least have that in their mind and they will keep a close eye, I would hope, whenever he's around. So my hope is that my hope is that uh karma gets to him sooner than later. This one comes in from X. This one. Alright, this one's from Blacklight. And Blacklight says, My addiction to meth thought I would be dead by na by twenty-three, but thank god I quit shooting dope at twenty six. Now I'm forty nine and twenty plus years clean. Great job, Blacklight. I'm very proud of you. And Blacklight, I I I met him on tour. Um, so I'm familiar with Blacklight. He's been a good friend for for some time now. Shout out to Blacklight. Blacklight for staying clean and figuring out that you can you're better than that and fighting through addiction. Addiction, as this constantly mentioned on this podcast, is not an easy thing. It is like a disease. So anyone out there that doesn't understand that, it's easy for someone to say, Oh, you have a choice, you have a choice. No, you don't. You really don't know until you are behind, until you are in it, and then you realize, like, wow, like this is not something I can control. This is not something I can manage. Um, I can just turn off like a switch. So, Blacklight, I'm I'm proud of you, man, and uh keep going, and I'm I'm glad that you're here. You have a purpose, brother. The next one comes in, and these are from Facebook. William Reynolds says, Going through it right now, every day is just a new horror, but I've always had a saying, don't play who's the bigger asshole with me. You will lose. I have to survive because I will not let them win. I like that attitude, William. I'm sorry to hear that what you're going through. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through some shit, uh, but at the end, I'm sure with that kind of attitude you're you're well aware that uh you will overcome and there is light at the end of the tunnel. So keep fighting, William. Tim Roberts, multiple brain surgeries, my faith and support from loved ones kept me going. My outlook changed on life. Be present, be grateful, be thankful. If anyone is struggling with major health issues, don't be afraid. Stay strong for yourself first, and then everyone else. And Tim is someone I personally know. I've played shows with him in the past, so I I I I've seen him post his uh his journey, and I gotta say, man, you are one tough motherfucker, dude. Like I I just can't imagine. I've never had surgery myself personally, but I know that uh I can just imagine what uh what that would feel like and to be going through that. And then just I I I commend you for being a badass, and you're around here for a reason, dude. So glad to see you still fighting and uh keeping a positive attitude, and you are definitely an inspiration for anyone out there that knows your story and you sharing this. So thank you. Thank you so much for coming on here and letting us give us your wise words. Pauline silenced voice says, I would have to say the loss of my dad and brother back to back wrecked me pretty hard. I was on autopilot for years, then we lost our oldest daughter and my sister during COVID. After that, so thing something inside me snapped because less less face is we all die. And rather you believe in religion or science, they both agree the spirit or soul lives on. Yes, I am stupid I man, I can't imagine, Pauline, losing close family people, family members like that, back to back, and then your oldest daughter. Oh my god, I just can't even imagine. Can't imagine it all. And you're right, the spirit does and the soul does live on. And I've been listening to a lot of, I think I've shared this on here, a lot of near-death experiences. And I love hearing those because as I get older, I realize that death is just around the corner at some point. I don't know. We none of us know. None of us know when our time is up. It could be today, it could be tonight, it could be tomorrow, it could be a week from now, it could be 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, whatever. But uh one thing's for sure, it's gonna be there for all of us. And hearing these near death stories just gives me uh gives me hope that there is life after after this, and that there's we'll get to be with our loved ones again. Greg Epic, sorry, strip it's hard to see this. Stip off I can't say it. Stipovich. Sorry, Greg. I uh fucked up your last name. My bad. I've lived through a lot, I mean a lot, but the worst has yet to come, and I know it's gonna be the hardest time for me, but time is on its path, so I'm just I'm just steady, not really waiting, but knowing. It'll come t it'll come just never know when or how. But it will be the hardest thing. I fought and the damn near killed myself to keep this woman in my life. Days go by, go days go by go by and I've loved her my whole life, and then she goes, I don't know what's gonna happen. Best friend slash mother. Yeah, that's losing a close loved one, man. That's that's not easy. I just I can't imagine. Uh well I can. I've I've lived it. I've I that's actually gonna be one of my things that I share later, but uh trying to find a way to see to stay positive or stay hopeful. That's that's the uh that's the tough part. And there's not I don't know that there's any words that I can say that can tell someone it's okay or you other than it's okay. You want to cry it out, you don't want to hold that in. I've I've I've done that before in the past too, where I've held things in and then later it it breaks you. It it comes out when you least expect it. And trying to hold things in, uh emotions and all that is never a good deal. Armani Beirava Bay Riva says, I've survived survived suicide four times, being raped and molested by a family member and abusive teachers and parents, and I am recovering I'm a recovering alcoholic four years this November 7th. Live music and my photography is what gets me through. It also shuts up the PTSD. My goodness. I am sorry to hear that Armani and that I uh reading these, it's like I I I don't know anything other to say than I am sorry to hear that you've gone through that. Uh and it's it makes you stronger. Not that you wish that upon anybody or that it makes what happened or what's happening okay or or whatever. But I believe that everything happens to us for a reason. Happens for us, not to us. And it's what makes you stronger. You can tell your story, you can hopefully help others that may be going through it and uh let them know that that you can you can fight through it and and survive and and see through it. And that's that's kind of just what I basically have to say about some of these some of these things here is that your story could save somebody's life. And if not not saying that you should be going through any of this type of stuff, but if it can help somebody, at least there's that. There's there's that light at the end of the tunnel there. Jared Dimes says, going on tour across the country with you guys, haha, specifically the first night in the woods. Oh man. And Jared Dimes, what he's talking about is the two thousand the infamous 2013 tour that we did in a van that we had no idea was a piece of crap. Like loan, it was loaned to us by a friend of our guitar player at the time. And I pretty sure I don't want to accuse, but I'm pretty sure that the van was stolen and it was, and we're driving across multiple states to play a festival out in Michigan that turned out to be a shit show. Shout out to the A2 Fest because bands like Head PE, Mushroom Head, Primer 55, Dead Horse Trauma, Green Jelly, I believe, was on it. It was a massive amount of bands that were on it. And we all, Taproot, I think too. Um, we all got screwed. A lot of us got screwed there. And so we we got invited to play this huge festival in the summertime. We were like, all right, we're just gonna make a tour of it since we have to go out there anyways. Let's go ahead and put play some shows along the way. So we went for like two and a half, three weeks, something like that. And what Jared did, there was a lot of crazy shit that happened on that tour. I someday I'll have to just do a whole episode on it and invite maybe I'll invite everybody that was a part of it and we'll we'll discuss it and share it with you guys so you guys can kind of hear what was what was going on. But uh the first night he's talking about was we had to stay out in the woods and shout out to my buddy Trevor and his band Blood Oath that uh that we met up with down there. We ended up staying at the shady, like out in the woods of like Medford, and we just parked the van, and it was like we found like a shallow grave that looked like there's bones there. I don't know if they were they were probably animal bones, but we didn't know, and it was just creepy. We had I won't mention who it was, but one of the members that was with us in the van failed to tell us that they had night terrors, and we were all asleep. And I think I was in the driver's seat, maybe asleep in the van, and that person woke up screaming bloody murder, and we all like were what the fuck? Like we were freaking out, like what in the hell happened? Like, like we thought that someone died or something, or someone was getting attacked by an animal or something, because it was like screaming bloody murder. Turned out to be that this person had night terrors that he failed to tell us that he had, and so of course, we found this out after it happened, and we were just all like we we couldn't do anything but laugh for like we laughed the whole the whole tour, we just kept bringing it up, but we laughed hard that night. So uh Jared, you survived that, dude. You you you made it back. I almost didn't. I almost died multiple times, including the last night, of course, it had to end dramatic. But we will definitely have to we'll have to have a talk about that tour and get more of the people that were a part of it to share that what they what their perspective was and what they remember. Because I'm sure there's a lot of things I don't remember that happened on that. Touring back then when I was parting and all that was a lot of parting and it was a lot of foggy memories, I'll say that. Next one is from Joshua Holland. Joshua says, having my recording studio flood in 2010 and having to take almost three years to rebuild, with me doing a large amount of it, I decided that it was my choice to choose. Meaning, is this to tell me to stop or to ask how bad I want it? Full-time producing for eight years this weekend, which wouldn't have happened if I gave up. If it's worth the fight, then it's worth fighting for. I love that. Josh, you are you are 100% correct on that, man. I'm glad you're doing it too. You're an incredible musician. I love watching your uh your videos you post and and you've been a guest on my uh on my podcast. So everyone go out and check out the Josh Holland. I believe it's episode four, three or four, where I get to talk to Josh and his experience with recording, and he actually tells the story of the the flooding of his studio. So shout out for fighting forward or fighting on and encouraging others to do the same, man. That that that's what this is about is just putting getting people to know that it's possible and you can you can overcome these some of these tragedies. Next one comes in from Alex Frazier. Alex says, first heal, first real heartbreak, was 18 and didn't think life was worth it. Not sure what kept me going, other than my family and my pup at the time. My advice, a person breaking up with you is not the end of the world. It may seem at the time, at the moment, but other good moments will happen to replace those bad ones. 100% agree with you, Alex. That's actually gonna be one of my other one of my uh one of my stories that I share on here. So I'll get further in in depth with that, but Alex, I like your encouraging words and the way you're looking at things. It's it's uh it's very, very true. It's easier said than done for sure, but it is it is a fact. And Guido Magnon says, the death of my two grandfathers in the same year and my ex's suicide. These both led me to meeting my amazing wife. Almost losing both my wife and son during labor led to the birth of my son and amazing loving kid. Pain is temporary, happiness is worthwhile. Damn, Weito. I'm I am so glad to hear that I'm so glad to hear that there was light at the end of the tunnel, man. Like that's these things are not easy. And what can you really say to someone that has gone through this other than I I can I can say good for you for for moving forward, good for you for sharing it and being able to talk about it and being an inspiration that you can you can live on and you can that you can see some sort of positivity, some light at the end of the tunnel. So next one comes in from Autumn, you don't need it. I know it sounds like nothing but a panic attack. Until you have a until you have had a severe one, you think it's nothing. But I literally thought I was dying, I couldn't function. My heart was racing, my body was numb and tingly, my chest hurt, thought I was having a heart attack. Last thing I remember was telling my best friend I loved them and passed out. Woke up, still couldn't breathe. Ambulance came, I couldn't move my body. They had to carry me, loaded me on the loaded me up on benzos to calm me down. Weirdest thing ever. Still happens occasionally, but now I usually can talk myself out of it. Sometimes it still requires meds. It's the new norm. Nothing I can do about it besides breathe. Oh my goodness. Autumn, I can 100% relate with you. And I will I think she added some more. Learn to live with it, change my outlook because I realized what I wanted in life and stop worrying about what people thought. I just realized I've been through a lot. I push a lot down. Doesn't matter how strong you are, you all break and are humbled by life. 100% agreed with all of that. And to share Autumn, I uh I myself have dealt with panic attacks and anxiety. And this started happening like in 2000. I want to say anxiety started happening to me. It's it's always I've always had it, but it really hit me hard around 2016, 17-ish, I think. And once I got sober, it even got even worse. So it's it's one of those things where when you try to tell someone that's never had it or had a panic attack, they don't understand. They think it's just like a simple, hey, you can you'll be fine, you'll be fine. It's not that you really think like the end of the world is there, you think that your body's shutting down, you're having a heart attack. It's very, very, very, very scary. I finally decided to go to the doctor a couple of years ago. They prescribed me medication. And as you guys know on here, I don't like to take medication at all. I just don't. I don't I don't trust it. I don't know what the long-term effects are gonna be, and it just if I can avoid medication, I avoid it. So I think I've only taken the medication in the last what three years that I've had it, four years that I've had it prescribed to me. I've only taken it maybe three on three separate occasions, and oh my goodness, anxiety, panic attacks, those are the it's hard to put into words until you feel it. But it to me, the best way I could say it is it fell like it feels like the world is crumbling all around you. You're it you're feeling claustrophobic, you can't get outside of your head, and you feel like you're having a heart attack. At one point, I even actually went to the hospital because I thought it was, and they put little machines all over me and they found out that I was I was fine. It was a panic attack, and that's when I actually got prescribed the medication. But yeah, I've been learning to breathe. I've been learning to like my girlfriend Mariah will rub rub the top of my head or give me a massage or something just to like get my mind off of it or keep me keep me preoccupied to to get me to down. And it really sucks when it happens at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes it's like right when before you go somewhere that you're gonna be around a lot of people, and it's like fuck. Like I have to I have to figure this out now and I gotta I gotta get through this. Like I I can't just cancel. I don't want to cancel. That's the last thing I want to do is cancel because I have an anxiety attack. And I remember I won't mention I won't mention specifics, but I was gonna meet up with uh a celebrity and I was like freaking myself out over it and all excited, but at the same time I was like, uh, I'm having a panic attack, and I don't know if it was the excitement of meeting them, the person that I like was I was meeting up with that I looked up to that is awesome, was awesome, whatever, and partially my anxiety. But I I decided not to cancel and I made it happen. I went and it was one of those things where I'm like, I'm glad I'm glad it I'm not letting it stop me. But I I can see that there is people out there that it does stop you and it prevents you from being able to live your life. And the only thing I can say is that it if you can just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing through. Don't let it control you. You gotta fight through it. Next one comes in from Brent Lamro. Brent says, heroin and meth addiction overdosed back in 2010, didn't touch it again after that, then spent five or six years as a daily meth user, currently clean, have been for a few years now. I would tell people that the withdrawal and bullshit that comes with quitting is 100% worth the pain and the struggle. A relapse is just a setback, not a death sentence. Yeah, Brent, thank you so much for sharing that and congratulations on being sober, man. Like that's it's a tough thing. Addiction is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. And it sucks when other people don't understand it, but I think a lot of people now do because more people are talking about it, more people are affected by it. Whether you are you you are a person that's addicted or your significant other person, significant other is, or a family member, brother, sister, mother, father, grandparent, aunt, uncle, whatever, cousin, best friend. It it affects people. And the more we talk about it, the more we can find ways of dealing with it, I should say. I don't know how you there's not a cure for it. I always mention that there really isn't a cure. And for me, getting sober was I I had to make this choice myself. I there was nothing that was gonna do it other than me wanting it and me uh being determined and drilling that into myself that I was not going to do it anymore and I was going to make a change and set my foot down. The next one comes in from Samantha Kessinger. Samantha says, The death of my mom. She raised me and my sister on her own. My dad left when I was two with no contact until 2012. He died a year later. Dealing with it was not easy to this day and is going on 11 years. I know for a fact she would want me and my sister to keep going, especially after my sister had a liver transplant on in 2023. Advice for anyone going through this: keep the memories alive, whether it be something that was said, something they did, or any little memory you have of them. Plus, I've got some of her ashes, so I know she's haunted my house and haunted my sister also, not in a bad way, mostly knocking on cupboards or pushing over empty boxes. I love that, Samantha. That's awesome. And and I'm it I can't imagine losing your mother. I've lost my father, I luckily still have my mom, but a mother, as I've mentioned many times before, is something very, very, very, very, very special. And then losing both of your parents, like that's that's really rough. Even if your dad wasn't a part of your your life for for a long time, still knowing that your your two parents are gone. I just can't imagine. But you're right. And then this is another one of those examples that I was gonna talk about that as my own personal story when I share mine. But keeping the memories alive, remember reminding yourself, looking at the pictures and knowing that the person is with you. You know, you feel their presence. You you know that they're around, they're watching over you. The little things that remind you, things that come up with random dreams that you have of them. That's just I think it's just another way of them getting communication and letting you know that, hey, I'm still around, I'm still here for you, I love you, and and just saying hello. John Dawson says, in all honesty, I never thought I'd survive my dad passing away. The man was always my rock. He all he was always my safety net and my hero. He got me through an abusive marriage, he got me through my kids being ripped away from me. He gave me a place to sleep when I was homeless. What got me through it was God. I know that might sound corny to some people, but never really had faith till my dad passed. Like I I always believed there was something out there, but couldn't land on what exactly it was. But I know that it could have only been God and the support of my wife, current wife, not abusive ex that got me through it. Yeah, losing losing a parent is rough. That's that's one of those things that I I always feel bad when I hear that someone's lost their their parent, and it it's not it's not an easy thing that you have one you have one mom, you have one dad, whether they're biological or not, it the the person that raised you, the person that was there for you, and all that, it's it's a tough, it's a tough thing, man. And I don't think it's corny at all. Uh I especially more recently have gotten have gotten more in touch with my beliefs, and and it it helps it helps you get through the tough times. It helps you even when when things are not tough. Just being thankful and I don't want to sound preachy on here, obviously, but I think having a connection, spiritual connection, faith in something does help us and gives us hope. Next one's from James Browning. James says, honestly, my teens through my mid-20s, I was spiraling downward pretty fast, mid-teens, and got moved from my grandparents' house to a verbally and physically abusive father whom I barely knew. After joining the military, I started binge drinking, never expected to make it past 25. Lucky for me, I met my wife at 24, got married, and had my first child at 26. Vowed never to be the man that my father was, and that alone changed my whole life. Without my wife and kids, I would almost absolutely not be here, either by by my alcoholism or by my own thing. James, I'm glad to hear that you were able to fight through that and get through it. I'm sorry that you were physically and verbally abused. That's a horrible thing, man. I I'm glad that your your wife and your kids helped save you and helped encourage you to push forward and you're still here. So glad you're able to fight the alcoholism because yeah, like I said, as I mentioned on here, drugs and addiction, alcohol, all that is just it's a killer. Carla J. Green Shady says, When my husband had an affair, aftermath was worse than the affair itself. Music got me through most of it and support from friends. It made me bitter, even though I stayed. And my advice would be would be do what I could not leave, especially if they aren't sorry. Yeah, Carla, I agree. I've been cheated on uh before multiple times by different girls, and it sucks. It's one of the worst things ever. And the only thing I can say is that if they say they're going to change or they changed or whatever, don't believe it, and they'll do it again. And at some point, you gotta be like, all right, I gotta take some accountability of this. I'm letting this happen. And I'm a firm believer of once a cheater, always a cheater. So there's that. Kiris Emberborn says, Your time away from social media. I was distraught, lost, and confused, and then you came back. Thanks, sweet baby Jesus. My real answer is in my episode of this podcast, but I still wanted to chime in. Thanks a lot, Kiris. Well, I I hate to be the bear of bad news, but as I mentioned, I'm probably gonna be taking down my social media again. So please follow the Liquid Shape podcast on TikTok, on Instagram, and on Facebook. The next one's from Joy Nick Newton. Joy says, Toxic marriage with children. Just stop fighting. The aftermath still lingers. Children are now grown and thriving. We all still have the mental scars. Life seems to shine now. Yeah, a toxic relationship is always bad. And what sucks is if there's children involved, of course, they see that. And how does that affect them? Because you know it does. Eventually it does. And it's uh it's one of those things that it makes you wonder is are they gonna are is that how they're gonna perceive what love is? Are they gonna pass that down to their their next relationship? If you're in something bad, you gotta get out. Even if you have kids, they're gonna be better off in the long run. They're going to know you respect yourself. They're going to know that you won't put up with that kind of shit and the shit that they're putting you through. It goes back to the message that Carla mentioned earlier. When you're in a relationship with someone that's cheating on you, someone that's abusive in physical or verbal or emotional ways, you have to cut it because that's not going to change. People, people continue to do things and they they just get better about how they do it. They manipulate more, uh, they get sneakier about it. They they they're sneakier about everything in general. So if you are in one of those situations, just get out. It's best that you do. You're you're gonna avoid yourself a lot of heartache. Mike Robinson says, My divorce from my narcissistic ex-wife and the years of mental, physical, and gaslighting abuse. My two daughters saved my life when I stopped eating for nearly two weeks. That's when I reverted back to you and American Overdose that helped me find purpose and push and drive alongside bands like Slipknot, Mudbane, Mushroomette, Spine Shink, and more. Don't fucking quit. Find harder because fight harder because when you reach that other side, the sweet release that you are still alive, breathing, kicking, and screaming your way to a much better life with self-respect and purpose will show you that you are a true warrior. Without these key elements, I probably would not be here today. Thank you, Cody Perez, and I hope this makes it on to the show. Of course it makes it on the shore, Mike. I am so happy to hear that, man. I'm happy that American Overdose was a part of being able to encourage you to keep fighting and pushing through. That is exactly what we want to be as a band, is a band that people can relate to. People can use that as fuel, as fire. Brings up your self-esteem. We want to build self-esteem. We want you to be proud of who the hell you are. We want you to rise above the craziness and know that you're not alone. That these thoughts, that thoughts of suicide, thoughts of hurt, thoughts of addiction, thoughts of wanting to give up, thoughts of betrayal and all this shit that happens to us. We want you to know with our music that we have gone through that. We have experienced it. There's other people out there that have experienced it. And we sing about it, we talk about it, and we try to encourage people to get through it, push through it. It sucks. It really, really does suck. So we we uh we with our music, we hope that it the message is clear that we've been there, we're going through it, you can get through it, you will fight through it, and you will be better at the end of the day when when it's all said and done, and you will find that life life is like a roller coaster. It has its ups and its downs. And right when you're you feel like you're at your ultimate bottom, just know that the only way is up from there. It's going to get better. So I'm glad to hear that, Mike. Glad that you are kicking ass and you're out there being a warrior. Like you said, fucking don't quit. Don't fucking quit. Don't ever fucking quit. Next one is from Melissa Meanley. Half a century of life. All right. And then Steve Meltzer says suicide. Suicide is a that's a touchy, touchy, touchy subject. And unfortunately it's it's something that we're still dealing with today, man. Like everyone out there knows someone or has been affected by someone that has taken their lives, or maybe you've been close to in it. It's a place that is a darkness that I don't wish upon anybody. I really don't. It's uh it's not really something you could put into words. It really is not. It's a dark feeling of a bottomless emptiness, emptiness, darkness, and it's it's something that we definitely need to need to talk about because sometimes people might think, like, am I the only one that's living like this? Am I the only one that's ever felt like this? Am I alone in this? Uh does anyone care? And the the the answer is you're not alone, and yes, people do care. You are the world is a better place because you are in it. And the people that are are around you, there is always gonna be someone that's going to care and someone that is there for you. And if no one else cares, know that I fucking care. I, Cody fucking Perez cares, and I I want you here. I want you to be alive. You have a purpose. And those are not just words, me just saying that. I'm I'm I really truly mean that. You have a fucking purpose. You are here for a reason. When your time is up and expired, it will not be by your own hand. It's not gonna be from your depression, it's not gonna be from you taking your own life, it's gonna be because fate came and it's time is up, and that's gonna be for all of us. The last one that uh we have here is from Courtney Lashevere. Courtney says, Being drugged and raped by a man who I thought was my friend, at first I thought I was consented. I thought I consented, but when I went to this group on Facebook where people ask questions about sexual health, I described what happened to me. A couple of people said to me, I'm so sorry you got but you got raped. You were drugged and that didn't equal consent at all. I felt so mortified, and when I told my late mom, she told me she was so sorry it happened to me. I vividly recall after I met my now husband, I deleted that creep off my friends list, and that creep got so pissed. He messaged me and I didn't respond, blocked him. My husband told me along with my therapist that I didn't have to explain anything to that creep. What got me through it was therapy and my husband, who is so patient with me from that experience, and it made me realize that anyone who refuses to give you their phone number or address isn't to be trusted at all, especially if you ask them where they got where they got their pot from and they refuse to answer. If anyone has ever been raped, remember this. It's not your fault ever. It's the rapist's fault. Rapists rape because they're sick and enjoy degrading their victims. There's hope, and therapy helps so much. Yeah, I remember you sharing that story, Courtney, and I that shit just makes me mad. Any abuse on women is it just makes me angry. And that that's coming from somebody that I've mentioned here before. I witnessed my mom being abused at one point. My dad was being physically abusive with her, and I had to stab him in the back of the pen. So it makes me very, very angry that there is people out there walking that have done things like this and just able to get away with it, and it doesn't they don't stop. They don't it's not like it's like, oh, this is a one-time thing or this happened by accident. There's no accident in that. There was when you do something like this, it's not it's this person's fucked in the head and they will do it again. They will repeat. It's not something that is a one-time thing. And so these these people do deserve to be blasted, they deserve to be put in jail. And uh like I said earlier with the with the comment from earlier, Harma will get get to them and they will pay for what they've done. So thank you for sharing your story. So last but not least, I'll share mine. And I have a couple of different ones. As I mentioned here on the podcast earlier, there is uh there's a few folks that I can think can relate to what mine is, and so for me, the thing that what some of the things I thought I'd never get through that I did get through. So first one was losing my losing losing a family member, more specifically, like parents, grandparents, whatever. Um that that I just never thought I could, especially my grandma. Anyone that knows me knows that my grandma was like my mother, my my second mother, but basically like my mother, because she raised my brother and I while my mom was working. My we live with my mom and my grandma, but my grandma was always there. She's the one that fed us, she's the one that did literally everything for us while my mom was working. And so when I lost her back in 2014, I was devastated. I still am haunted by it and I still hurt by it or hurt over it. And I miss her so, so, so, so damn much. I've never stopped thinking about her. I still remember her smile. It's it's engraved in my brain. Her her smile, how she used to love me and how she used to uh call my name and just the sweetest woman you would ever want to ever meet. And losing my dad, too. I lost my dad in 2006 due to alcoholism. He died he died from alcoholism, and it uh I just I didn't think I'd be able to do it. I didn't think I was gonna be able to live without him uh or losing him. I didn't know how I was going to survive. And it was one of those things with his death that it was I was the first person that I lost in my life that was really close to me. I'd lost family members before, but never lost a parent, so I didn't know how I was going to deal with that. And so I didn't know how to deal with it either. What I did to deal with it was I drank, I partied extra, not not in celebration or of that, but I that's when I started really partying more and getting into the point of just numbing myself down and ignoring the feelings that I had of the loss of my dad. I didn't I didn't deal with it the way I should have. I cried, of course, but I it didn't really hit me until some years later. And to this day, I live with a lot of regret and a lot of things that I wish I would have done, could have done, whatever. But I I try to remind myself that everything happens for a reason, and it you can't help how you feel or how you felt at that time or what was going on at that time for you to react the way you did. And uh so I I I never thought that I'd be able to survive that. I did, and I think that the reason my dad went by went first was probably to prepare me for my grandma who died, you know, seven, seven, eight years later, to kind of prepare me what death was going to be like. And I think by that point I kind of knew that it was okay to cry. I knew that it was okay to feel and let go of everything that was that was hurting inside. And that was probably what the the the reason why my dad went first before my grandma. My grandma died at 92, my dad died at 50. And I I didn't think honestly think I'd ever get through either one of those. I think death is one of those things that we think about, like, oh, we'll never get through it, we'll never be able to get through it. I I couldn't live without so-and-so. But the truth is, yes, we can and we do. The older we get, the more that we're gonna experience it, right? Because your friends are gonna die, parents and loved ones, family members die, and and and that's just the reality of life. The longer we're here, the more that we experience love, the more that we experience death. What kept me going? Well, knowing that, I guess knowing that I didn't have a choice but to keep going. What was I gonna do at that time? I would have upset my family members. That would have been I if I if let's say, for example, if I just gave up and said, I it's not not worth living, I'm gonna go X myself out. What would that have done? It would have done nothing for anyone. It would have been selfish on my part for the mere fact that we just lost my dad, and now you're gonna lose, I'm gonna take my life, and now my brother's gonna be without a brother, he's gonna have to deal with that pain. My mom's gonna be without her son, she's gonna have to deal with that pain. My stepdad's gonna have to deal with that, my siblings, cousins, all that. It's gonna it it would have been a selfish thing on my part to do that, and I just didn't have it in me, and I knew that I just had to had to keep going. Because I meant as I mentioned earlier here tonight, like when our time is up, our time will be up. It's not gonna be by my own hand that that causes me to to go. What would I say to someone that's facing a similar struggle? I would say definitely feel what you're feeling. Try to understand it. If you don't understand it, see what why are you confused about it, what's confusing you about it, and talk talk it out with somebody. Talk it out with a close family member that may be going through it with you. Talk it out with someone that's dealt with a similar situation that you've gone through. So I I always think that it really sucks watching someone slowly die that you know is dying. And I don't know which which is worse. Someone that's slowly dying that you know is going to die and you just watch the process, or when you suddenly get news that someone died and you didn't get to say goodbye or anything. Like both things are are horrible. And there's different ways that people pass. So maybe if you can bond with somebody and talk to someone that has dealt with something similar, whether it was a sudden death or a long-term, like slow death that they witnessed, just talking it out with someone that you trust, someone that you love, someone that might understand helps a lot. Talking really, really, really, really does help. Because it helps you get things off your chest and then you can bounce off their emotions and their feelings of what they dealt with and how they dealt with it and how they feel, and they can validate how you're feeling. And it just I think that talking it out really does help relieve a lot of the pain that you're holding inside and a lot of the questions you may be hiding your emotions, and holding it in does nothing but harm you in the long run. Take it from someone that's done that a lot in his life. Holding emotions is never good. You you gotta let them out, you gotta let them out, and it's the best advice I could give to someone like that. The other thing that I would say that I thought I'd never survive without is I think all of my relationships that I where there was a breakup involved, I always constantly felt like it was the end of the world. Like I didn't know what was going to happen, what what's gonna happen to me, where am I gonna, like who am I gonna be with next? What is life gonna look like without you? And even if I didn't love the person in that way, even if I was already over the feelings, even if I was already over everything, I still felt like I was not going to. It sounds crazy and it sounds weird, but I still felt at that time, right after the breakup, that I didn't, I I didn't think I was gonna survive. Like, how am I gonna live without this person now? I may not love them, may not like I may hate things about them, whatever, but now they're not a part of my life. Like, what does that mean? And I don't know if that means that I just let them be like a such a big part of my life, especially when you live with someone or when you've dated someone since eight years, nine years, whatever. You've gone through this and that. I think it's the scary part that scares people is you don't know, you have all this freedom on your hands now, and you have to you have to learn to live without a person. And then the thought, all these thoughts come into your mind, right? Like you start thinking about what's my next person gonna be like that I'm gonna date. I'm gonna have to get comfortable with them again. I have to re-explain my story, and they're gonna have to get to know me. I have to find out what their quirks are, they're gonna have to find out what my quirks are, what I like and what I don't like. Like you you have all these things and it it it is scary. Change is scary. It's a it's a scary fucking thing, man. It's it's not easy, and it's one of those things that it can make us think that we can't live without the person. And I think that that's why my the breakups that I've been a part of have always felt like that right away. But then I feel like not instantaneously, but pretty quickly I get over it. And I don't know it's if it's because I remind myself that, hey, you've been through this before, you've dealt with this before, you've dealt with worse before. I always think about some of the worst things that yes, we felt like this before, but guess what? You made it through and now you are here with a different story of something similar. So guess what? This is just another opportunity for you to build on your strengths, your emotionals, uh, like manage your emotions and rebuild and build something new. So, what I would say to someone that's facing a similar struggle like that is remind yourself of who you are. Remind yourself of the things that you've gone through, the things you've overcome, and know that it's gonna be okay in the end. Whatever's meant to be will be and it will happen. And you're gonna meet someone new and you're gonna have new experiences, and that person might be your forever person, or maybe it'll be person that is in your life for X amount of time and then they're gone. But regardless, life goes on, you will move on, and they will move on, and life will continue. So those are my two things that I would say to answer this week. Now, please stay tuned because segment two is up next with Vinny, and as I mentioned, we had a great conversation about addiction and overcoming it, coming together with your community and connecting with your faith to help you get by and through the challenges that addiction brings. So stick around for segment two that's up next with Vinny.

Segment 2

SPEAKER_03 58:41

Welcome to segment two of the podcast on the Liquid Shape. Thank you guys all so much for tuning in. My guest I just literally met about five minutes ago. His name is Vinny. Vinny, welcome to the Liquid Shape Podcast. I'm very happy to have you here and for us to get to know each other and you share with us, you know, your your experience in life and and what have you.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Hey man, uh thanks so much for having me, Cody. And uh yeah, let's let's go for it. Let's see what we do.

SPEAKER_03 59:09

Yeah, let's uh let's start let's start off with uh you telling the the audience about yourself and your story, and then um as I mentioned, we'll we'll ask questions as they come up.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Yeah. All right, so uh I'm 42 years old. I was born in 1984. One of the one of the the things that I would like to start is that that year literally it's so infamous in history just for the fact that so many things exploded in 1984, that creates some type of like situation in in in your mind to be like, dude, man, that year Apple came up with services, MTV started, all of this like pop situations exploded into society, and I was born in that year. So I feel like that has something to do with my life in a way, and I and I see it happening with other people born in that specific year, like just some special things have happened in their lives. But so I was born that year, and I was born in a Christian home. I was raised uh by by a preacher, my dad is a pastor, and uh, he was very conservative, but just a Christian, not doing too many bad stuff and whatnot, nothing to do with politics or whatever. It was he was just a very I see it now as an old guy, and I think, oh, he was he was a true Christian when I was growing up, but I hated it. I like it, I guess any other kid would uh look at their parents and wanted to break the rules or bend the rules, and my dad was like, heck no. So I had a pretty strict father growing up. Uh my mom was just like him, so I had two iron rods at home. We were happy, so it's not like a dark picture. We were really happy because I comply with all of the rules as a kid. I'm the youngest one of us. We're three brothers, only guys in my family, and we were happy. We were very uh a normal family, I will say. And one of the things that that quickly happened when I was like probably six years old is that MTV started bombarding network with video music and whatnot. So at a very young age, uh I started listening to rap and to metal and to rock and all the things that were back in the early 80s on MTV. I think, and that's one of my points, I think that had some influence in the way I developed. I didn't kept it Christian. Pretty quick, my two older brothers they start like showing signs of rebellion and showing signs of like not being too committed to church and my dad's uh rules. So skipping forward, we we got into normal issues growing up. Soon as I turned 12, things got a little quickly out of hand. Uh so my middle sibling is four years older, and my oldest uh brother, he's six years older than me. So they were already hanging out with teenagers, and I was barely on my 10, 9 uh years old, and uh I started imitating them in everything they were doing. Typical younger brother that wants to follow up after their brothers. Yeah, so the problem is that it wasn't really cool what they were doing. This is super late 80s, early 90s. Life was completely different, society was different. Kids used to do really crazy stuff behind the curtain, and no one knew what was going on. So I started hanging out with them. They accepted me, their friends accepted me. Uh, one of the things that happened is that when I was very like young, I kind of got bullied because of my last name, and I guess I was in a bubble kind of uh upbringing because of my parents. So I was very naive, very innocent. While my other friends, they got parents that party and drink, so they were a little more awakened than me to society, to habits and stuff. I would get bullied big time when I was when I was a kid. So as soon as I had the opportunity to be cool, I took full advantage of that, and and that led me to a bunch of problems down the road. So I started hanging out with them, and the bullied became a bully, so I started being mean and I started just just trying to be cool, basically. One of the things that happened is that when I literally graduated sixth grade elementary, one of my friends brought me to their house after the whole thing. We went to his house as kind of typical, and he had beers in his house. So at the age of 12, we didn't have one sip, we had like two or three beers each. So I got pretty wasted and I got pretty freaked out because how was I gonna show up to my house drunk? So things escalated quickly right after that. My my older brothers they were already drinking and and partying underground and whatnot. So I started hiding from my parents really like early. As soon as I hit seventh grade, I was already hiding from them. That year, literally, I tried for the first time substances. And from that point on, I mean, I know this is like to go in detail a little bit, but from from 13 years old, pretty much until I was like 25, 27 years old. I continuously kept on partying heavy and and drinking and doing drugs and whatnot. But everything started there at a very, very young age. I used to kind of feel embarrassed a little bit about that. Then I uh I don't know if you know this uh comic, it's called uh his name is Bobby Lee. He was also like came up from a very like bubble environment, middle for middle class family, but he tried meth like when he was like 11 and he got hooked on on drugs for like all of his teenage and adult life almost. Now he's like 17 years sober or something like that. So he's a he's also somebody that that that I look up to because I'm like, dude, we were kids when that thing was exposed to us and uh he overcame and I'm I'm in the journey also, not 17 years old, sober, but I'm there. So, right off the situation with with alcohol and drugs at an early age, I kept on partying. Uh I I try to get a job as soon as possible, as soon as I could, just to like stop asking uh money from my parents and kind of stop stealing from them. And I started getting money as soon as I could. And all of the money I got, it went directly, like literally specific for drugs and alcohol. So I it became my habit, my hobbit. It became everything basically. And I carried that for for many years. When I was a young adult, I never pretty much I never faced consequences of my actions. I did a lot of bad stuff during those years in my teenage. And then when I was in my 20s, I was still fresh, no, no, no consequences or anything. Uh I start having, well, just to make A short five car accidents in my whole life. It's pretty much like a story of like this guy. I've been down the road of car crashes. So that kind of went down until I almost lost my arm in one of those accidents, which was the last one actually. And uh I spent a whole year coming in and out of the hospital. I had an encounter, and down the road, I kind of faced certain episodes in my life that I realized I got nobody by my side right now. And I started praying. I started like, I'm not gonna reject the power of God or a higher being that that at least still keeps keep it's keeping me alive in this whole mess. So there were certain episodes in my life that I kind of came humble and clean toward my situation because I was already in the mud. Um so life kept on going that way. I did have an encounter with God and and it it I kind of got clean and went to a church and I did the whole like uh young adult uh church guy for a while. But after after a while, literally in church, someone offered me uh heroin inside the church. So it was not like I went out to a party. Uh it was this guy in rehab. That church, it had a lot of a lot of people in recovery. So it was like it was like uh we were exposed to that, and I was and I was a kid and I was involved in all of that mess. So obviously they were my friends as well. So this guy, he was like, dude, uh, I'm strong now, help me out and whatever. So I drove him to a place where he bought the stuff, but when he was buying it, he says if I wanted some coke, and coke was my thing. So I was like, I didn't hesitate, I just went with it. And that was one of the worst nights of my life. I went with him, we hung out the whole night, and that thing was horrible. That trip was horrible, like horrible. I've never experienced something that I that I felt good, stopped breathing. Literally, every time I would stop breathing, I felt so good. When I realized it was like a minute of me like not voluntarily stopped breathing. So it was weird though. Wow. After after that, that took me out of church again. Like I I don't know if it was shame, probably was shame, probably was guilt. And from 25 to 35, I was back again with all of this like partying, excessive partying, excessive drinking. One of the things that happened is that it's a typical story, man. After a while, the friends are gone, job opportunities are gone, and you find yourself like alone and it's still with the addictions and still with the heavy habits. So I I fall into a dark pit. It's kind of like the same story all over again. It's like the the devil or life that just like keep on playing, record and repeat on a lot of people. And that's something that if we could be smarter than that, it will be awesome to realize that what we're doing is not being cool or original or whatnot. We're just following the same pattern of destruction of so many other people behind us. So that led me to drinking alone, doing drugs alone, and isolation and chemicals are terrible for your brain. You start like rotten, you start like becoming something else. Literally, your peace, your smile, it's gone. Your your the the face of the person that you used to be, it's gone. The first people and the only people perhaps that really notice that is your parents. So you're not just killing yourself, you're killing your parents in the process. And and even though they will smile at you, they will look at you, and then still like being there for you as protectors and and and as the role of parents, uh, you know you're hurting them big time. So I was completely ignorant of that, never self-analyzed myself, never went to therapy, never did anything to better myself. And right after 35, yeah, that was 2019, I had I had this accident that that took me out the whole year. I didn't work because I was in and out like eight weeks of rest after every surgery. So I had six surgeries of my left arm. I had a lot of time to to watch Netflix and also to think.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

Were were these accidents that you were getting into, were they where you were under the influence, or did it just happen coincidentally, like around the time that you were using, or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:23

Most of them were like uh while being drunk. This one, this one, the one that I had on 2019, I was high and I was drunk. So I was trying to drive back home and it was like one in the morning. I got like disoriented and I lost like the way home. And uh I hit a wall. Like literally, I hit like in an alley, I hit a wall, but it was heavy. The the accident destroyed my car, it fractured and dislocated my my left elbow. So it was a mess. It was a mess. I didn't hurt nobody but myself. The car was total, and uh that's that was pretty much it. I had to report it and and that's it. But yeah, it was it was uh it was a mess because the complications after they were like pretty messy. Like my arm kept on rejecting the procedures and they put screws and metals, my body rejected it, so they had to take them out. It will get so infected like a football. And and I was like annoyed and frustrated that my arm didn't heal. They told me like after the first surgery, six weeks, you're good to go, and that didn't happen. So, right after that, on 20 at the end of 2019, the procedures were over. I just had to go to physical therapy. I couldn't move my arm. My arm was like stiff and stuck in one like diameter, very tight. So it looked so bad though. I had to like put effort in the physical therapy to release the the tendons and muscles. Um, but right after that, the pandemic happened, uh, COVID-19. So instead of like be finishing the year and finally coming out and start socializing again and start doing life again, I got wrapped up back into my room again. So I I stayed 2019, 2020, and some of close to 2021 inside my house. So isolation, chemicals equals depression, but dark depression. Like you really just get out of your bed to go to the bathroom and you come back right back into. So I was pretty depressed. I kept on using, I kept on drinking, I kept on being isolated from everything. It took me a it took me so much time to like being able or have the courage or the energy to even get out of there. And one of the things that happened is that I started praying. I went on and realized that that I really couldn't do it by myself. Uh my parents were not too nice to get too involved in my life. So they kind of like we were kind of like independent at at that point. So nobody really had the chance to approach me and to break down some walls that uh that I obviously was living in. So it was just God. And I and I started praying little by little. I didn't stop drinking, but my mind began to clear a little bit, and I seek help. And the only thing I really knew how to well, I did hire uh a life coach like in 2022. That person really helped me, gave me a lot of a lot of vocabulary for my feelings, a lot of perspective. It did help me a lot. But after and it's kind of expensive, so sometimes you can, sometimes you really can't. The other thing is that uh after that life coach, I went and looked for a church. I was pretty much in need of community. So that was what happened. I I have some skills. I I played drums because when I was a teenager, out of the whole crazy world, I did learn to play drums, and this was in church. My my dad paid for a guy to teach me how to play, so I learned that. And he my dad saw that I was like kind of fighting to recover myself. So he wanted to help and he hired uh well, he didn't hire, he told uh one of his friends, pastor friends, if they needed somebody to play drums at his church. So he said, yeah. So I started playing drums at church again, and uh that was for like maybe three years. After that, I was pretty busy working, and w too many hours of work kind of led me back to the liquor store. So it was like now I'm I'm kinda getting back into my like feet and being healthy, but I'm working like 12-14 hours a day, and when I'm getting out of there, I'm stressed out and tired and frustrated. The first escape is going to a liquor store. So the cycle kind of like be like it began again, and I started drinking again and whatnot. So uh that was that was bad again, but I was already a little more wiser not to just go all out. Anyway, two years ago, I really like decided to stop and I began a journey to recover myself and and to clean myself. And I I found a a good community of of people uh that have put up with me probably two times that I've that I kind of like went off the wagon and and they had to they they had a lot of love to accept me and and be like, dude, no worries, no problem, we got you. And that helped me. I guess love is what really put me back on track into like better myself. I started loving myself. Uh so all of that is uh kind of like what happened up until 2026.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:30

I love that, man. And and you're right, it's it's it's I I've heard that before from other guests where they said that it it took them being around people that love them and people that accepted them and that were were not judging them and understood that you're there's gonna be times that you slip up and you fall, and judging someone or shaming someone, that doesn't that doesn't help anything. Of course, of course, uh it's good to have I think conversations about if you notice that someone to see what their plan is to get back up and going and and encourage them that they don't need to they don't need to go down that path. It's crazy to hear your story just because I it it's very similar to mine. I can relate to that. I was born in 86 and I was definitely an MTV kid, and I grew up with cousins that I older cousins and older friends that were all partying and drinking, and what we saw on TV was always the guy with all the chicks and the beer and the joints, and what we see in movies and MTV get encouraged that that's the way to live and that's what you need to be, and then then especially when you get into like uh middle school and high school, you get under the pressures of people are partying, you want to be social, you want to fit in. And like you said, you like you went from being bullied to being the bully because now you're being accepted and you gotta be cool and you have this image that you have to protect, or or to be, and you think that's the way to be. And I man, I can relate to all of that stuff. I just what you were saying there, I'm like, man, that's this guy's saying my story.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:01

But yeah, I I can relate to all of that stuff. How many times did you try to get sober before um this recent time where you were just like, All right, that's that's it?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

It was many times, man. It was like, okay, this time is over. After after a you know, kind of like a couple of sick days, you kind of feel like, dude, this is enough, this is it. You're like hang over for like two, three days, and that's when you kind of have a a thought of like getting your life together. But then I will like stay sober for two weeks, I will stay sober for a month, and I will just like forget about it, just literally keep going. So it was many, many attempts, man. I tried and I tried. It never really stick. And like I like I was telling you before, I really never went to AA. I really didn't, I I read the entire book actually, because they have a book with their rules. I read it and I was like, this is pretty Christian-y, kind of. It it has a lot of foundations in Christianity. So I was like, okay, that's cool. Uh I I didn't like the label of hi I'm beanie and I'm an alcoholic. I really didn't like that though. Yeah. So I was like, nah, I'm not gonna go there. I think sometimes you think you're too cool to to search for for help like that. I really didn't go with that, and all I really did was praying, man. Praying, and and God began to kind of like open doors here and there so I could find community, so I could find like people. And and what that's that's the funny thing though, that after and it's and it's so crazy that after all of the partying and drinking, you end up by yourself. That's the trap. It's like it's like you're completely trapped and and you got money enough to keep buying cheese, basically. Yeah, but you go back into isolation, and I mean, we were not meant to to be alone, literally. And I'm still dealing with that because after so many years, dude, it's like it's not uh it's not a quick fix, it's not a it's it's not a magical trick, it's a journey, literally. And a journey most of the times is long.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:56

You yeah, I was about to say, so part of that journey is, and I'm I'm sure you can relate to this, that people, even if you don't push them away, that once you stop drinking or once you stop using your friends or the people that were partying with you or or hanging with you, a lot of them will just disappear. Like all of a sudden, like they think that like they can't hang out with you anymore, or maybe you're not cool enough anymore, or maybe you're a square or whatever. I lost a lot of people in my life um and around me because of that, and I don't get invited to certain things. And I'm like, I uh and everyone's different. I know some people can't be around it once they quit. I could be around it. I I have I have alcohol in my house because my girlfriend drinks, but I don't I don't get tempted by it. But I know there's people that that would be a trigger and they can't be around it. Oh, yeah. But me, I I said I can still go to bars, uh, I play in a band, so I have to I have to be in like an environment and my band members all drink. So I'm like, I I knew when I quit, I had to accept the fact that I'm gonna be around it. It's gonna be tempting, that there's gonna be people around me that do it. I have to be stronger than than than my addiction or stronger than my head of of saying that yeah, I can do I can have a drink or I I I want to try this, or I maybe I can do it and then be fine and and overcome that because the reality of it is that no matter where you go, alcohol is gonna be there. Drugs, they're they're everywhere, but maybe not as frequent and as common as alcohol when you go to the you go to the grocery store, you go to a restaurant, you go to a wedding, or you go to a birthday party, there's gonna be alcohol. I I've come to that realization. So for me, I lost people. And another thing that I've I've been talking about recently on the podcast, and no one warned me about this, was and it took about two and a half years, two years for this to happen, because I'm I'll be sober three years in September. It took me about two years before I started feeling things again. And I don't mean like in a I don't mean like in an overly sensitive way, but yeah, maybe in a sensitive way where like I'm actually able to feel again. I was numb for so long because I've been drinking and partying since I was uh in high school. And at my first time drinking was actually when I was 12 when I was hanging out with some friends. Um but I've been consistently partying since I was 15, and that's a that's a really young age to to be putting chemicals in your body and then to be doing it consistently.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:10

I and up until I was I started getting sober, I started getting feelings that I hadn't felt in so many years, and then even feelings that I haven't felt. And sometimes I have to stop and think. I'm like, am I overthinking this or what's going on? And then I I realized that I'm starting to feel again, and I I just had been numbing myself for so long, and so now now I'm like I'm questioning, like, am I am I in my feelings too much right now, or what the heck is going on? Like, why am I why am I taking this so personal? But it's it's that I had been numbing it so much and I just didn't I I think I didn't care. Alcohol was a main priority for me. And no one warned you about that or tells you, like, hey, guess what? Once you get sober, there's gonna be there's gonna be steps and things that come along, and it's not gonna be instantaneously.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

Yeah. Yeah, nobody, nobody really tells you like the consequences of it, and and society and marketing, they they just straight up lie to people. Like the consequences, not just mentally, emotionally, but physical. Like people literally get sick. Like, it's no joke. Like, I ended up with with consequences of high blood pressure, fatty liver, out of like years and years of abuse. Yeah, so they don't tell you that. And and those are they're definitely wake-up calls, but it shouldn't be that way. Like at this point in time, with so much information we have via the internet and everything, society should start waking up to the realization that it's not something to to celebrate, that it's not something to like enjoy, but the the actual consequences like medical bills and and mental problems and emotional problems, and yeah, no, no one really tells you that.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:46

And all the depression that it comes afterwards, too. Like I developed anxiety because of my drinking.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:52

And uh well, I mean, I I always had depression. I have that still, but I feel like since I stopped drinking, it has really reduced big time and uh it's also shifted how I think and how I see things. So I don't know if you're like this or not, but now I appreciate everything. Like I wake up early in the morning so I can work out. I I the first the very first thing I do when I wake up is I count my blessings. I literally think about all the things that I and I'm talking about just being thankful to be alive again. Yeah, that I have a a roof over my head, that I have a job, that I have my girlfriend, I have my dogs, I have my family, I'm in good health. Like I start I start thinking of all those things and kind of like mentally listing them in my head.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:34

It's the first thing I do, and it really sets the tone for the day for me. And then the next thing I do is I get on the treadmill, I start running before work, and then even when I'm when I'm when I'm on my way to work, it's a good chance for me to be alone and reflect and just think about all the the good things I have in my life, and that makes it so much easier for me to not want to drink because then I think about if I was to have a drink, I know exactly where that road takes me, and I know that it's gonna be chaos, and I know I could lose everything that I'm thankful for, and it's not worth it to me at all. Do you ever get tempted or do you ever get like like that that voice in your head that says sometimes like, well, you could be fine if you do one drink or anything like that? And and if so, what what helps you like push that away and say, No, I I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not giving in.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:24

Yeah, I think I think with with what you said, I do have to agree with some of the the ideas of AA, in which they said that you will be in addiction for your whole life, basically. Because I think that that little voice never goes away. That temptation, desire to kind of sneak around, go behind and and and and do it. I think it doesn't go away, but you become kinda wiser and smarter than that. One of the things that it because I mean I could tell you, like last Friday I had a thought, I got some money, I should stop by a liquor store. So that little feeling, that that thought never goes away though. But yeah, you you become clever to realize, nah, this is this is where, like what you said, this is gonna lead me back to this whole mess. And that is something that I do put into perspective and I and it has worked. The other thing that has helped me, it's the fact that I have plans. I started, I started, I started realizing that if I'm gonna go to church, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna mess up from Wednesday. So I'm gonna I'm gonna be like completely focused. I got church on Sunday, I'm gonna go to church on Sunday, I'm gonna go to church on Sunday. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, every thought that is coming, I'm like, nah, man, you got something to do. You have a place that you have to go and not show your best, because really church is not to be there because you're the best. You are a mess. And that's why you need church. But it has helped me and getting involved in other communities like volunteering and stuff, it has helped me big time. Just for the fact that I need to show up. I don't have kids, unfortunately. And I think if I have kids or for people that that has dealt with addiction and they become sober, I think that their kids are a a gear, an engine to like, I gotta show up for my kids. In my case, since I don't I I have to remember that I got church on Sunday or that I'm gonna do something on Saturday. And it's just it's also a matter of like what you're saying. Dude, waking up in a bed under a roof after years of abusing your finances, your your body, you know, with with substances, and you realize you didn't end up dead, homeless, or in jail, that's a huge reason for you to be grateful every day. So I think I think we went through all of that, and now we appreciate life a little bit more than than the rest because we we overcame those those dark days.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:52

100%. And I always tell myself I can't get cocky, I can't think that I beat it because the minute that I think that is the minute that I'm vulnerable to think that I can have a drink or give in and think that I've conquered something. So I don't like to, like you said earlier, I don't like to tell myself that hi, I'm Cody, I'm an alcoholic, and and and identify myself as an alcoholic as far as like that's my personality. I I don't like to look at it that way. But I'm a person that has an addictive personality, so that's like a trait that I have, and so I recognize that. And I'm one of those people that I cannot do something and not just go full balls to the wall. Like it's either I do it all and I go to the extreme, or um, I don't do it at all. And that's the way I I did it with drinking and when I was partying with drugs. I was always usually the last person. Yeah, last person drinking, and I and and when I'd run out, I was already looking for ways to get more.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:46

And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:48

It was it was just um it was it was always chaotic. I never knew what was going to happen. Like it the nights were always always unpredictable, or the days, depending on if I was day drinking, but I always knew that it was gonna end. In the next morning with regret and anger with myself, embarrassment, I was going to uh be hurting a lot because I the hangovers as you get older, uh, they only just get worse. I turned 40 in I turned 40 in uh on in May. So my my hangovers were lasting two to three days. And when when you keep yourself busy, it I feel like it you you basically it's not that you have an excuse, but you have a reason and a purpose to make sure you're showing up the best way that you can. You may not always be able to give it 100% because like some days, like like I was just saying right now myself, I'm sick today, but I almost called out of work today just because I wasn't feeling well at all. Like I woke up with the allergies that were just killing me, and my throat was just really itchy. But I was like, what? I need to push through this. I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna go do my job, and just I'm gonna push through. And and so if I I know that if I had been drinking the night before, and then on top of that, I was feeling like the allergies were hurting me. I would have definitely called out today and I would have been like, nah, it's screw it. And and that's just basically how I lived from like when I was 15 until I think I it was about 30, what, 36, 37 when I stopped drinking. Uh I lived my life where drinking was just it was literally everything. Whatever I was doing, if I was going to a show, drinking was a priority. So we had to figure out where we pre-funk in, where let's go get beers. If I was going to a sporting event, if I was going to a birthday gathering, if I was going to anything, the only thing that mattered was drinking. And now, I don't know if you noticed this or not, but now that I'm sober, I anytime I'm doing something, now I feel like everyone around me is doing those things. And I'm just like, really? Like people, like society has really normalized it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:42

Where I feel that I don't think they even realize it. Yeah. And and I a lot of what uh I I've heard from from podcasts or from speaking to people is that a lot of the times people will don't they don't think they have a problem because they compare themselves to the extreme worst cases that they they know or that they've read about. So they're like, Well, I know I drink every day, but I don't I'm not out in the corner and and living under a cardboard box. I'm not getting arrested. I'm not I'm not I'm not getting arrested for domestic violence, I'm not uh going to in and out of jail. I still have my job. So they justify their use because they're not at the level that they've set that's the lowest you can get. But it's like I always tell people, I'm like, well, compare yourself to somebody that doesn't drink and then look at what your situation is, and maybe you'll look at things a little bit differently and you'll see, like, wow, I compared to that person, yeah, I'm I may have an issue. And and I'm no one to tell anybody that they have an issue, so I don't ever tell my friends or anybody like, hey, but but when people come up to me and talk to me about getting sober, they ask for tips or things like that. I I always try to bring it back to them and ask them, like, well, do you think you have an issue? And then I let them basically tell me what what their scenario is. And I'm like, well, be honest, like, if you're drinking every day but you're only drinking a six-pack, can you stop drinking for six months? If you can't stop drinking for six months, maybe you do have an issue. I don't know. Who am I to say? But it it's it's easier for folks to say, like, oh, I can quit whenever I want. I used to be that guy. I used to say that. I used to say, Oh, I can quit whenever I and that's what delayed me from getting sober.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:16

You just forget after a while, that whole thing about like, oh yeah, I can't stop anytime. I forgot because I used to say that, but after a while you realize, dude, it's been three years and and you have not stopped.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:28

Yeah. And and it becomes habit. It's like, it's it's like you don't even think about it. Like it's like you go, like you said, you get off work, you have this habit of, okay, well, I'm gonna hit this bar, yeah, I'm gonna go after that, I'm gonna go pick up some beers so that when I go home, I have some beers to drink, and before you know it, it's like three o'clock in the morning and you have to get up for work at five.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:46

And you're not 20 anymore, so you can't really go with that. No, not at all. So it's just one of those things where unfortunately, like you said, it's been it's been normalized so much and it's it's everywhere. The marketing behind it is just they don't have enough campaigns to talk about the bad things. And and I'm sure you had this when you were growing up, but like the DARE program that would come into the schools and they talk to you about if you see that, but I think that those things when they teach you those, it's like I don't think they went about it the right way. It was it to me, it w I didn't really learn much about it. It was it was like scare tactics almost. Yeah and they didn't really talk about like the reality of it. They just took it to like a it almost felt like they were telling like a horror story.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:33

Um they don't tell you the truth about how it's gonna be normalized, it's gonna be around you, and it might make you feel good, and but then eventually it's gonna cause problems for you long term and health-wise.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:44

And they don't they that problem that campaign didn't show you that you could be a social part or a a member of society, having a a a job, having a home, and and being productive, but still going and and drink a lot. So they don't really put that, they just show the crack house. Yeah, they show the extremes, and so totally, totally destroyed. But there's the other half of the people that actually are paying for for the product on a daily basis because they got jobs and half of their money goes to waste. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:14

I I mean it was for me, I I just remember I was a bartender um when I turned 21, and it was always I would I would I would take a couple of drinks before my shift, I would work because it would help me be social. And then once once I closed up the bar, because I we we closed early, we'd close by like 10 or 11 during the week, and right as soon as I got off, I would go, I had like four different bars I would stop by at, and then I would stop at a strip club that was right down the street from where I lived, and it was literally like that every single night, and I would blow money like crazy because I was I was drinking, I was driving like an idiot. Yeah, and then I would I would I had all this disposable income because I'm 21, I didn't have any real responsibilities, yeah, yeah. And blowing money on on gambling, on dancers, would sit there at the tables while they're dancing.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:05

You feel you'll feel you'll feel so cool that the bouncers know you at places. Exactly. And and and you can buy bottles and and you bring people in because the bar knows you. I I did that for a long time. All my twenties, I did that. And it and and it's ridiculous, man. I mean, you're a clown.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:22

I think I I think that we get that that high that you get, not not not specifically the high that you get from the drinking, but the high that you get from people treating you like you like you're like this like you're somebody. Yeah, like you're the somebody, but it's like really that what they know is that that you're gonna be consistently coming in there, you're gonna be spending money, you're gonna bring more people with you because you have your party crew, and then they just see you as like, oh, that's that's money right there. Let's just be playing one of his favorite songs on the you know on the thing on the on the jukebox that brings him in, that keeps him in, or if I I buy him a drink, he's gonna feel like this is home. And it's just it's it's crazy to reflect back on on that life because it almost feels I don't know if you feel this way or not, but it almost feels like you're a completely different, you're living a completely different life than you were when you were drinking or using because you see things a lot differently and you're you're kind of now in a clear head. And how long did it take you um from when you stopped drinking before you started noticing that like your your thinking was clearer, you were able to feel emotions again and and all that. How long how long was it before?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:27

It it's it's it's been a constant of almost like two years, but last year, summer of last year, I went to I I like electronic music, so I bought tickets for a festival. I went down to the festival sober, and it was it was not the coolest experience because I went there and and I and I got there kind of like late, so everybody was already on something. And I stayed there for like 20 minutes. I I got a lemonade at the bar and I started trying to enjoy the show, but all around me was all of these kids, like 20, 21, whatever, uh wasted, and I started feeling uncomfortable. I was like, man, it's not my it's not my scene no more, it's not my my vibe no more. So I started walking my way out of the of the Coliseum of the place there was the event. And as I was walking out, dude, literally there was like girls throwing up on one aisle, like in the dark. There were like girls like knocked out, like on the floor. And I started seeing all of this, and I start I started feeling like, bro, you you those days are over for you. You you're you're done with this. And and I guess my eyes were open to see that because I was like, this is so sad, this is so messed up. And and and not feeling like judging them, but I I came out of that. I was there, I was on the floor or throwing up in a in a in a dark place. And and yeah, man, like I that's that's one of the pla the the situations that I was like, nah, this is it. I was uh I was literally afraid to talk to people because I was like, dude, I'm only cool when I'm drinking, I'm only able to like put well thoughts together when I'm drinking, so I sound smart. So when I stop all of that, I was like, I I feel dumb right now. I can't talk to people. So it took me a while to realize like, and and I just realized, but literally your brain begins to like exercise again. So your memory comes back, your ability to socialize comes back, and you begin to be like, dude, I really didn't need alcohol. Alcohol was a lie, an excuse. And in for me to talk to a girl, for me to talk to people. I've had at this point, I've had a list of so many good experiences, like Thanksgivings and stuff like that, in which there hasn't been no alcohol, and I've been like, Oh, cool, I'm this this was fun. And I and I think that like what you were saying, not to sound preachy, but you go through all of that, and if someone needs help, you you have the experience to help them. That has helped that has helped me a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:59

For sure. And I I love I get excited anymore. Like when people talk about it, like like even having this conversation with you, I love having these conversations. Actually, why I started this podcast is I love talking to people that I can relate to on that level because it helps me. Because then I reflect on I reflect on what I went through. I get to hear what you guys went through, and then I know that other people are listening and they can relate, and I know they can pick hopefully something up from this and maybe apply it to their lives. But I've had a lot of friends that I grew up with uh that they reach out to me and they'll they'll ask me like, what made you get sober? And usually when they ask me that, I know usually they want to know if like something crazy happened, which in my case nothing nothing crazy happened. I just I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. But usually what it ends up leading into is they end up saying, Well, I'd like to quit someday, or I'm thinking about quitting, and then they start asking me questions about how I did it and what what might have worked for me. And I always tell them, I'm like, it really what it really was is it took me just being sick and tired of feeling that way. And I'm a I'm a stubborn dude, man. I I am very stubborn. Once I set my mind on something, I will go for it to the extreme.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:09

Like I just have an extreme personality and what what one thing that that people don't talk about that much, I think, is that the more you keep something in the dark, the harder it becomes to break it.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:23

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:23

Like the shame of not telling someone, you know what, I'm dealing with pornography. So that opens up a door for for for you to be like, I'm exposing my darkness, and and it it does something in your body. Like you I'm dealing with heavy drinking, and and the more you tell, especially if you have someone that is mature enough to like listen, not judge you and and help you just by being there, by being present with you, that exposes and breaks the power that the things have on you. So this this type of conversations, it yeah, like what you're saying, it helps you. It's it's literally for for for you to keep being free and and for the person you're talking to to exercise the same freedom to not keep things in in the dark, but to expose them. And once you expose them, you're no longer a slave to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:15

100%. I I agree. And it's when you were talking about going to that festival and seeing it with sober eyes, man. I related to that so much too when when you were saying that, just because earlier this was it no, it was last year. Was it last year? Oh, it was yeah, I think it was last year. My girlfriend and I went to uh we went to Mexico, and I've gone to Mexico so many times. I always go down there, get the all-inclusive and partied hard, and always it was always just like non-stop partying because you get all those the free drinks, and then drugs are yeah, it's cheap, and drugs are like literally on the corner everywhere. So I every time I went down there, it was always just a party, party, party. But the last couple of times I've gone there, I've gone there since I was sober, and the first time I went there sober, it was just uh crazy to see with my sober eyes everything that's going on around me. Like everyone, all these tourists are all completely like just getting trashed, and now I'm seeing like the the the corruption that's going on. I'm seeing the street walker girls that are out there, I'm seeing like the the the pimps that are on the side that they're flashing lights across the bars to each other to give signals. There was just there was a lot of of craziness that was happening, and I'm just like I never saw this before. Like, or maybe was it that I was drunk, and it was because I'd been drinking every single time. And I think about how many times I was down there that I was I could have probably got myself killed or in a really bad situation, and I would have had no control because I was drinking and I would have not realized it. So it made me be a little bit more protective and weary of my friends and I, my girlfriend when we were down there, because I was like, I'm I know you guys are drinking and whatnot, but I'm gonna keep an eye out for things because um someone's got to. Yeah. But it it you're right. Like, I I I still hang out with my friends, they go to bars sometimes, but when I'm there, it is a little awkward for me as far as when I see people getting too drunk or when they get too comfortable. Usually that's time for me to be like, all right, I'm out of here because I know that the conversation's gonna go nowhere. And usually nothing good of that comes. It's usually there's fights or drama and shit like that. So I'm just like, I avoid that. But I always offer my friends, I say, I always tell people, I'm like, if you're drinking, let me know. I will drive you to your house, drop you off, do not drink and drive, or if something comes up, I don't care if it's three o'clock in the morning and I'm at home. If I have to come get you, it it's better than you getting behind the wheel, risking your life and risking other lives out there for something stupid as just one night that you you were drinking and you wanted to just get home. Luckily, now we have Ubers and all that kind of stuff. But I do a lot of reckless things like before Uber and all that, and drinking and driving, and it was just really stupid. But like you were saying, it it is hard to social to get social again and figure out who you are because you're kind of relearning who you are. That that drinking becomes an identity, it becomes who you are, and and it's it's it's hard to break that habit. And once you're once you're sober, you're like, well, am I gonna say something stupid? Am I overthinking things and it's not I'm not fun anymore? And it's like, no, you gotta get that out of your head. When you look back, after a while, you look back and you're like, Man, I was really stupid. Like I got really drunk, and I would say stupid things or do stupid things, and it's embarrassing. But I I try not to dwell on it, but I I kind of refresh my brain sometimes just to remind me that I'm not that person anymore, and I don't ever want to be that person ever again.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:25

So I I just I just feel like alcohol is such a it's such a negative energy on yourself, like on your mind, on your little physical brain. Alcohol, like that's why that's why people black out because the brain is completely saturated or or overwhelmed with alcohol. So you you just forget who you are. And yes, it takes to me, it has taken long seasons of relearning to love myself, to know myself, to to be with myself. And all of those things that you're working on, like physical workout, but mental and and emotional and spiritual, it begins to elevate you. Like you, you, you now you're able to see things from a different altitude, and you look down and you're like, bro, yeah, this is a mess. So I think I think that's part of the the the healing process. The fact that you start like not being better than others, because it's it really not, but you just start seeing things from a different perspective. Uh your brain is clean, so now you can see things differ.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:24

Much different. And I feel like once you once you get to that point of your brain finally clearing up from the abuse and all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:33

The scars, man. You have, like I said, like the you have those emotions that come back, but I feel like you have more empathy too, where as when you were numbing or I when I was numbing, I just I didn't care about anyone else but myself. And now it's like I care about I care about like my I care about my family. I've always cared about my family, but I feel like I I feel like it was like I cared about them from a distance. Yeah. And now it's like I really care about them and I care about, you know You show it. You show it and and and it's and it's there and um I'm a I'm a I'm a better person in all aspects as far as who I was. I'm a better person than who I was. I don't ever make myself to be better than anyone else, like you said. Uh did you find that you started to grow a a new passion for things or get passion again for things that maybe you lost passion for when you were when you were drinking and using once you got sober?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:23

Yeah. I I always wanted to surf and it was something that for I mean almost a decade, I just had the thought I want to learn to surf. So I'm I'm in the process of getting my gear. It's it's it's a little bit expensive, a little bit, but I'm in the process of like getting into surfing. So that's something that I want to do in the in the future. So it's it's it's a plan that I had when I was like 20. I really never was able to like make it come alive. But right now I'm in in the process of that. I'm I'm enjoying a lot of things, man. Like life is it it really, I mean it it's it's not uh an exaggeration. Life changes and and the way you see life, it it it changes. Even in the in the mundane and the normal, life is different and it feels better.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:10

Yeah. I was talking to my girlfriend about this uh the other day, is that I can't remember the last time that I said that I was bored. If I ever did, it was during my partying and drinking phase. And it was because I had too much time on my hands and I was drinking and I was just looking for the next party. Yeah. And uh since getting sober, like I I I keep like you said, keep myself busy to because I I'm just I have a I have a new love for life and appreciation for it. And it's like I feel like if I'm not getting something that I want done, I'm wasting time and it's moments that I won't ever get back. So I love hearing that you're doing you're you're getting into the the surfing and and trying to get to that to to get that goal of of getting into it and getting your gear together and all that. That's I think that'll be fun for you. Everyone that I know that's ever surfed, they they love it and they become obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:02

So Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the one the one thing you need to try is not to stay alone and get bored. Because like if I right now that you mentioned that, if I look back a lot of times, like hundreds of times, I started drinking because I was bored. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:20

Yeah, if you're bored, you're wasting time. I mean, that's it's there's time is a precious thing. We're only here for so long, and it's like you make an impact. And I love how you said that you're doing uh you do charity, charity stuff and volunteer stuff. That's uh that's uh I think that's important to give back. And um, I was on a podcast one time that it was a sobriety one, and the host asked me what I want my legacy to be, and man, that set me back. Like I think about that every day now, and that's one of the motivating factors that I have as well that I I always remind myself. And I always think back like I'm like, I don't want to be that guy that is known for the partier or the guy that was an alcoholic or a drugie and that was always wasted and burnt bridges and all that. Like, I definitely don't want to be known for that. That's not that's not who I want to be known for, and I don't want that to be my legacy at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:10

And then I I don't I don't know how if you had any family members or whatnot that dealt with addiction, but for me, my dad was an alcoholic and he died from it. And then his dad, my grandpa, also was an alcoholic and died from it. He died at 45, my dad died at 50. Wow and I was not like that was another motivating factor too. I was like, I don't want that to be my legacy. I gotta break that family curse.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:33

I got to, I gotta be show that there's a better way. And now I have a nephew. I don't have any kids myself either, but I have a nephew that I love to death, and I want to I I want to be a good example for him, and I don't want to pass along that uh that example to him, and I want to show him that the older kids or whatever can be cool and not be drinking and could be there's a there's different there's a different way to live. And it's it's nice to hear. I've I've been hearing a lot and seeing from friends that friends that friends of mine that have kids that are teenagers, they say that the the younger crowd, the younger kids don't drink anymore, and so like the sales of alcohol have actually declined.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:08

They're dropping, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:08

They're dropping, which is awesome to hear.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:11

Just because I think that they're probably seeing that our I think our generation was the party generation.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:16

We're the bad example they don't want to follow.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:19

Exactly. And and it's funny because Gen X always just talk about how they were the the hardcore like partiers, and then there was the boomers that say that they were I'm like, no, I I I think that like the millennials, yeah, if you were born in the 80s, man, that was that was a generation where shit hit the fan and people took it to the max. Like I don't even know if like there's even clubs anymore around here where I'm at. Like, I don't think that there really is any. I think sometimes bars will have like on certain nights, like they'll have dancing going on at certain time. But like I remember growing up, I man, like all the like when I was a when I was 21, like everywhere I'd go, like that was around in the city, there was just bars that would there were clubs and dances, and they'd be packed with people and and all that stuff. So I just feel like our generation definitely turned up the notch. Whatever people were doing before that, you know, it may have been it may have been extreme, but I think that we took it to another level.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:14

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was success, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:17

Well, Vinny, we're about to uh at an hour here, and I want to thank you for being on here and telling your story and your motivating uh words. Uh do you have anything that you want to say to the audience and any words of wisdom or anything you want to leave behind with them?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:32

Uh no, man. Thanks for having me uh to open up the space to have this conversation and whoever listens to, and if there's anything that resonates, uh that's what it is for. And keep keep it up, keep your head up, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:46

I love that. I love that. And I I I am uh I'm thankful that you came on here. So I want to thank you again because there's stories like yours, they do help people, and there's gonna be someone out there, I guarantee you, more than a person, one person is gonna relate to what we discussed here, and hopefully it helps them to make their the changes they they need necessary necessarily in their life to uh to better their lives. So yeah thank you so much for being on the show, man. Hey man, appreciate it. And that is the end of segment two. Thank you guys all so much for tuning in to the Liquid Shape podcast this week. Want to give a huge shout out to our monetary contributors, Eric Sheets and King John. Big shout out to you guys. Thank you guys so much for helping keep this podcast going with your con uh contributions. Anyone else out there that wants to throw money at the podcast, it does cost us to run this and cost not just costs us our time, but also costs for the software, for the uploads, for the hosting and all that. So we appreciate anything. If you want to donate a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, whatever, we appreciate it. Thank you guys all that contribute to the questions of the week. Thank you guys all who listen to the podcast, who share it. My guests have all been awesome. Thank you guys all for being out here and sharing your stories. As I always mention at the end of the podcast, I'm very thankful for all you guys. I learn a lot and I love that. I love the conversations, and I want to wish you all a very great kick-ass week. Hopefully, you're gonna see some sunshine wherever you're at, uh, since we are now at the end of June, going into July. Uh, hope you get some sunshine and some great memories with the friends and family, and stay safe out there. I fucking love you, motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:22

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