One Last Hit #7 w/ Matt H | Alcohol, Cocaine and Five Years as a Dry Drunk Before He Truly Surrendered

 Matt H. grew up the son of a cowboy carpenter and an Avon saleswoman, born in 1980s Colorado and raised on ten acres of cow field in the tiny town of Micanopy, Florida. His mom passed away when he was six; his dad got sober a few years later and has stayed dry for 23+ years. Matt took his first drink — a shot of 151 — at 13, swore it off, and stayed dry through high school as a devout Southern Baptist athlete. Then at 20 he picked up in college, and after his high school sweetheart cheated on him and filmed it, he drank to numb the pain, dropped out of the University of Florida, and spent seven years working a downtown nightclub. At 25, cocaine flipped a Jekyll-and-Hyde switch — a thousand dollars of blow a week turned an outgoing, people-loving artist into a hermit crying alone in a dark room. He built theme parks across the country and the Bahamas, drank away the woman he thought he'd marry, and spent five years cycling in and out of the rooms — "dry," but never truly sober.

One of the heaviest moments of his life: watching a 23-year-old coworker — a young father of two, drunk on the job — fall 40 feet through a roof and die in front of him, a guilt and shame he carried for years. Today Matt is sober (date 2/16/2026), competes in Strongman, wakes before dawn to sit with God, and has finally found the peace he chased in a bottle and a bag for decades. His message to anyone still out there: keep coming back, keep showing up, until the miracle happens — because it will. This is the One Last Hit Podcast. 

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Transcript

Meet Matt, Theme Park Builder

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Oh man, I tried that new intro music today. I don't know if I like it better or not, but uh hey, what's happening, ladies and gentlemen? My name is Austin. Welcome to the One Last Hip Podcast, and we are in for a very, very special treat. Have my good buddy Matt H joining us today. Matt, what's up, brother? You another beautiful day, bro. Another beautiful day. Let's go. Let's go, man. So, why is your day beautiful, man? What were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Oh man, uh, well, I have a really cool job. I get to build theme parks. So today I started out playing out at uh Universal's Epic at um Nintendo Land. So the Mario theme music is stuck in my head, and I hear it at night and hear it in my dreams, and that's okay. Were you in Universal today or just building for them? No, I was in Universal today, so I got you know what I'm saying, I got special access. Um show up about I get there before the park opens, and I got it all to myself, and I can frolic and get all the information I need for the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So that's freaking awesome, man. I love that so much. So, all right, so I told you guys Matt is uh a good buddy of mine, he's a very important fixture in our our 12-step recovery family that we have around here. But I, because we don't do a lot of speaker meetings around here, so I've never really heard your story, Matt. And and I'm I'm really kind of pretty excited and intrigued to get into it. And I'll tell you why. It has not failed that everyone that I've had on this show, when I hear their story, I experience like a greater level of intimacy with them afterwards, like a deeper friendship, you know. And so I'm excited to uh I'm excited to go down that road with you. Uh so tell me, where does it all begin?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Oh man, uh it all began in Colorado in the 80s. Uh, I was born to a cowboy carpenter and an Avon saleswoman. And when I say Avon saleswoman, I mean like if if you aren't familiar, like Avon and Mary Kay, if you're the top salesperson, they give you a vehicle. And the Avon one is like this olive green Cadillac. So we were pimping in style as a child. Um, so that's just the background, my history. Um, I come from hardworking folk. Um, in uh a couple of years after I was born, my dad, the cowboy, was bucked off of a horse and it shattered both of his uh femurs. And so in the healing process, the negative, like the below zero temperatures, he couldn't he couldn't handle it. The pain was too much, so moved down to Florida. And that's where I grew up, was uh in a little country town called Maconope. Um my canopy. Um it was uh we were on 10

First Drink at 13

SPEAKER_01 4:01

acres in the middle of 400 acres of cow fields, so it was pretty cool. Um lots of debauchery on my own. Um as part of the recovery story, like I didn't actually touch alcohol until I was in seventh grade when my buddy's dad opened up, uh he opened up the liquor cabinet and pulled out this stuff called 151. I'd never heard of, and we all took a sip, and I said, I will never touch this shit again.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Um, hold on. I we're gonna pause there.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Your first drink was 151. My first drink was a shot of 151.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Oh, it was horrible. It was horrible. And you'd think uh if for probably any normal person, that would have been it. Uh but uh and it was for me at that point. I I'd swore it off. I said I'd never drink this stuff. I don't know how. Um, my dad also growing up, I didn't know it was illegal to drink and drive until I got into high school because he always had a cooler behind the passenger seat full of coors light, and then one sweet tea for me, one of those little uh those little lemon lemon iced teas. Uh so he picked me up from school with the coors light, and I didn't know it was illegal um until uh there was there was an incident when I was in like fourth or fifth grade where he remarried. Uh my mother passed away when I was six. Um and the the her dying wish was to find Matthew a mom. So a couple years later he met uh another woman who's now my stepmother and has been for the last 30 years. Wow. Uh wonderful, wonderful human being. But she's a very, very devout Christian, didn't drink at all, and uh had a huge problem with my dad's drinking. So one day there was a big blow up, and he has been sober for 23, 24 years now. Well, he's been without a drink.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Okay, so let me let me just recap here real quick. So your mom passed away at six, and your dad is 23 or 24 years sober now. How old were you when you took that 151 drink?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I was in seventh grade, yeah, bouncing around a bit. So however old that is. Well, let's see, seventh grade is uh gonna be so like 13?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, 13. Yeah, somewhere in there. Okay, that's a good reasonable age. That's when I first took a drink. Uh so where do we go from here? When let me ask you this actually, Matt, because this is an important, important question. If you were to if you were to name how you felt as a kid prior to alcohol, what feeling would you give it?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Uh disconnected. So I I kind of felt like I was watching myself walk through life, and it was uh it was this this running joke in my head. I never shared it with anybody until I got into recovery, but um, I felt like I was walking through a I was reading a comic book about my life, frame by frame. And I felt I always felt disconnected and I don't know if different is the right word, but not I wasn't here, I was there, wherever there was.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah. Good one. So where do we go from here? What when when do you actually pick up alcohol in like a meaningful sense? At the age of 20.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

So I graduated

College, Heartbreak, and Booze

SPEAKER_01 7:02

high school and got got into university. Yeah, yeah, there was a long gap where I didn't. I was actually there's the there were two proms that I went to and went to after parties, and I was the DD for um for a lot of people. And they I had a 91 Toyota Cambry, and it smelled like vomit for quite some time after the prom. Um, but I didn't pick up until I was 20 years old. And um, and that was when that we we talk about that uh that that first sip, and you're like, oh, this is the solution to all of my problems from here on out, right? So that happened. Um and uh it made everything better, it made sex better, it made conversations better. I didn't remember any of it, but at the time it seemed better, right? Um and then by the time I was 25, nobody wanted to hang out with me unless they drank like me. So it progressed really quick.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Wow, that's interesting. So from the age of 13 to 20, what was it that was it that you didn't like the taste, or was it that you saw your dad, you know, go down that road, or or do you have a conscious memory of why you kind of you must have said multiple times, no, I'm not touching that stuff, I'm not drinking.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Sure, I got offered it all the time because my friends were all they were all potheads and everybody drank every weekend, and I just wasn't interested. Part of it, I was I was separated. Like I said, I was out in the middle of the country on 10 acres, um, and all my friends lived in town. We called it town, right? In Gainesville. Um, so I didn't go hang out a lot. I played a lot of sports, so I was uh my dad wanted me to be a pro baseball player, so a lot of my free time was was taking up, taking ground balls and doing batting practice out in the in the yard. Right. Um so and there was also the my whole family is very, very, very devout Southern Baptist. So that was that definitely rubbed off of me as a child, so as to not imbibe, if you will. And it just wasn't it wasn't available at home because dad quit drinking. Nobody else in my family drank um that lived around me, because I had this little we had this little uh compound where it was like uh my immediate family, and then 200 yards away, my grandparents had their farm, which was a hydroponic lettuce, tomato, and basil, it's a huge outfit. We also built airboats as a side business, but that's a whole nother story. Um and then a couple hundred yards further, my aunt and uncle lived, so we all kind of lived around each other, nobody drank, so it was easy for me not to.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Gotcha. Okay, so but between the ages of 20 and 25, now was 25 like an important marker in your life, or was that just a random number

Cocaine Flips the Switch

SPEAKER_00 9:36

that you picked that by that point drinking had progressed to the to the point that nobody was hanging out with you unless they drank like you?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

No, the 25. It was actually I was uh two months into my 25th year. Um, and it was on a specific night, it was the first night so I was introduced to cocaine. Um and that was when things got weird. Uh so I just started I started drinking in college. Um, and uh I was a really good student, you know, I had like a 3.8 uh at the University of Florida, and then my high school sweetheart uh uh ended up cheating on me in my bed and um and filmed it. Uh and I found the videos, and that's when I really took off. Um, I remember vividly that night after finding that video, I went to my buddy's house and drank Captain Silver, drank an entire handle of it. Um, and that's when the drinking became, you know, I was trying to numb the pain, trying to numb the pain, and it worked really well. Um and then I ended up dropping out of school and at 23 getting a job working at a nightclub in downtown Gainesville. And um, that's when that's when the debauchery really turned up a notch.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Hmm, interesting. And and I apologize if you said this and I missed it. Did did you graduate from the University of Florida? I did, I did later.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So I took uh my one semester break that I was gonna take lasted seven years working at the nightclub. So I was I was I was real quick to turn around. Um, so I ended up going back and getting my bachelor's degree in in fine arts. So it just uh it went it was weird being in a room as a 30-year-old. I graduated when I was 30. Um, but I was taking classes with 17 and 18-year-olds, and just you know, I've I've got this life experience that they don't, and you know, the professors are younger than me. It was it was very interesting, uh interesting experience, but glad I did it though.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah, I've thought about going back to college, man. I I don't know, I couldn't anything I've ever wanted to do in life didn't require a college degree. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Like my job right now, uh I'm one of few people that have any type of uh further education because it's you know, an artist is an artist, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, yeah. So all right, so now you're getting into the magical uh the magical combination of cocaine and alcohol. Uh because cocaine obviously lets you drink more. Quite. So tell me tell me what what does this look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

So the first time I tried it, um it was it was actually after another breakup, oddly enough. Uh the women women seem to uh seem to feed the insanity in my life, uh, ending of relationships and whatnot. Um but the first time I tried it, it was cut really hard. So I didn't really, I just had a clogged up nose. And then a couple nights later, I that first line, um, it's like, okay, this is the new solution because the alcohol is not working anymore. It still hurts. I become the guy that uh that just gets drunk and like cries and complains about the women in my life that aren't there anymore. Um, and then the cocaine, it literally turned me into a different person. It was quite literally a Jekyll and Jekyll and Hyde situation.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

What did you mean by it turns you into a different person? Like social or like asshole?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Um neither, more isolating. So I would um because I'm I'm a fairly outgoing, you know, guy. I like to, I really I enjoy people, I enjoy conversation, I enjoy camarad camaraderie. But when I put that stuff in my body, all I want to do is be by myself in my room in the dark. Um, so it's uh it was it literally created a uh a hermit out of me.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Boy, I get that, dude. I used to so I used to I used to smoke crack. This is when I lived in Mexico. I used to smoke crack and listen to John Mayer and just cry, bro. Like sounds like an awesome time, bro. Sounds like a great time. Oh dear God, yeah, good times, man. Good times. All right, so where where are we at here? Cocaine, alcohol, crying to John Mayer. Um so where do you progress? Because I know you went through God, years of trying to trying to quit drinking and consequences. Like, tell me about some of the consequences you experienced.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Well, I think that was part of the part of the thing that took

Drinking Away the One

SPEAKER_01 14:01

me so long is I really didn't suffer that many consequences. I haven't had any health scares. Um, I lost a job that I was gonna quit anyway. Um, that was probably the biggest one. Uh well, I wouldn't say the biggest one. It was the most substantial one. The biggest one was the loss of a girl that I I thought I was going to marry. Um and probably would have if I could have if I if I wasn't in the depths of my addiction. What happened there? I just drank her away. The short short story. Um she got tired of of me either not showing up because I was either trashed or hungover, and saying in that my thing is I get really trashed and I like to text, and I text the most insane things, not mean. Um, I've never been a mean person, which is good for me. Uh I do hold that candle. Um but I turn into an insane person. And if you know, if it's with a woman, it's purely sexual conversation. Um guys, you know, I want to start a business with you. Let's start, let's start a business tomorrow, bro. We'll start a business selling sandwiches and call it call it nasty sandwiches or something. That was that was a real idea I had that I remember. Uh, we'll buy a food truck and we'll we'll make some sauce. We'll call it nasty sauce. Um go on. That I'm I'm just I'm reminiscing about that one. That one's still a good one. Um, that's probably the only good idea that came out of anything. Um one of the biggest things though is I one of the fears about trying to get sober was I thought I would lose my creativity. And as a professional artist, that's uh that would be tough. And it what's really interesting is it had quite the opposite effect. Um but back to the consequences, like there, I had plenty of conversations with people like Hunter and uh and other guys in our our network that were like, dude, you just keep God keeps giving you gifts and you keep throwing them away. Um and I'm just I'm grateful to be sitting here with you today and say that I've walked through those those times, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I'm grateful for that too. I remember you were you were the guy that was always putting his hand up for under 30 days, and now you're not. And I'm curious, you know, there's like I watched, you know, I watched you pop in and out, right? And and and and it was kind of like, well, there goes Matt, he's in a bottle again, and then but something shifted, like something in a really big way, you know. I I think about that meeting a couple couple Wednesdays ago when that dude's like, he's a really good sponsor, and I was like, talking about our Matt? Like, yeah, bro. So good, so good, dude. So so when does your sobriety journey take on like new legs?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Um, honestly, this year earlier this year. I mean, my my sobriety date's uh February 16th of 26. Um

Dry, But Not Sober

SPEAKER_01 17:03

and I showed up August of 21. So that was my first AA meeting on Sean L's five-year anniversary, was my first AA meeting. Um, well, that's a lie. Let me read let me back up. So in 2017, I had a uh I had a roommate best friend from childhood when I moved I moved here um to Orlando in 2014, moved in with him because he'd already lived here, and I moved here for work to work at the theme parks. And suddenly I had a substantial income so I could drink more and do more blood. Um, and his whole thing was like I I would drink and drive all the time. And he's like, I can't watch you do this. You either need to get help or I'm I'm I'm out of your life. He's like, You need to go to AA, and I was like, What's AA? Um But I ended up so I I found I found the the rooms of recovery and uh was was going to this uh clubhouse meeting every morning at 6 30 in the morning for for 31 days I went. Um and uh and I I was like okay this is pretty cool. Started going back in the gym, is when I first started um uh training for powerlifting. And so I was doing I was going to this meeting and then doing doing the gym, and I was getting really strong really fast, uh, without any assistance, boiler. Right um, but um there was this guy in there, and I I talk about him often when I share the stories, is uh every single day he would come in and complain about how horrible his life was. And you know, it would just turn the room down, everybody would get down, like ah, this guy's sharing again. And then on day 29, he picked up his 10-year medallion, and I was like, if this is what sobriety is, I'm gonna go back to doing whatever I was doing. And then I ended up falling at work and having this horrible accident um that almost took my life. And so I at that point I was laid up in my bed and couldn't go anywhere, so I didn't go back to AA or didn't go back to the rooms um until 21 after I went to my first treatment. My uh and I went, I didn't go to treatment because I wanted to get better. I didn't go because I thought it was a good idea. I went because I didn't want to lose my job, and my employer was like, You you need to get help. Um and I'd spent the previous two years before that first sent in treatment in the Bahamas working, and I was surrounded by people that I'd I'd said, Please don't let me drink. You know, I thought that would work, and it kind of did, right? I the longest I ever put together was about nine months without a drink uh or drug, and it uh uh it was probably you know, I'm in paradise, utterly miserable because I can't get out of my head. I'm insane. I've got that spiritual hole, right? And and it used to be filled with alcohol and drugs and and whatever, and now I'm just working and uh working working myself to the bone because it's all I can do. And I'm in another country. I don't, you know, I don't know anybody, I don't really have any um hobbies there, right? And then I come back to the states to work on a Disney project, and within two months I'm in my first treatment.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

So your prog your drinking progression was not was not slow, and I'm I'm kind of I find it remarkable that you were able to get nine months dry, especially in the Bahamas, dude. Which is oh my god, every corner, every corner there's a liquor store. I mean, the straw market, they're trying to sell you blow, like everywhere, dude.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

All the taxi drivers as a side gig sell drugs, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

So it's a side gig, you know, it's a great side gig, they make a lot of money. Yeah, so that's interesting. So that was what you would you had obviously gotten to the point where you knew alcohol was a problem. Like at this stage of the game, what year was that when you went to the Pamas?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

This was uh I went in uh in the middle of 19. So this would be around 20, somewhere in the middle of 20. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

So this is right when COVID hits and all that happy shit. Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

I spent I spent I spent COVID in the on the island. That was that was a whole nother that's that was something.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

But at this point, had anyone ever like explained to you, you know, what an alcoholic actually was, like what that really looks like. Have you had were you were you at that point to where you had gotten that sort of information, or was it just sort of like, hey, I I just can't drink because it's really fucking my life up right now?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

That's that was it. Nobody had ever sat down be there. There was a guy that uh that was in that meeting I went to for those 30 days in in January, uh January in uh 2017, that you know took a liking to me and he tried to help me, but now looking back, I realized he was somebody who had also hadn't done any step work himself, and it was an open discussion meeting, so there was there wasn't a lot of uh recovery in the in this meeting, it was a lot of complaining. So I really I I didn't get exposed

What Unmanageable Really Means

SPEAKER_01 22:02

to really what an alcoholic was until I came in in 21.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Okay. And what pieces do you think had to fall together for you, you know, to to get you to a place of willingness? Like what was it? I know I know I had a ton, like a fucking cornucopia's worth of consequences and information that finally kicked me in the nuts hard enough to make me go, okay, I surrender.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

No, that's a that's a really good question. I've never considered that. Like what really happened? I can tell you that you know, there's there's part A and part B to step one, right? And part B, I didn't my life didn't seem unmanageable. I still had a job, I've got a house, I had a couple vehicles, like life was on paper, I looked great, but inside I was dying, you know. So so it was easy for me to, you know, read through that first chapter and be like and and see myself in the literature, right? And when you say first chapter, do you mean doctor's opinion? I mean the doctor's opinion specifically. Yeah. Okay. So I I the doctor's opinion really it rang out to me. And I was like, I am 100% this person. I'm the hopeless guy. Right. And um, but you know, life didn't seem unmanageable.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

So you bring up an interesting point. And and you know, we try and respect the traditions and not identify particular uh 12-step fellowships if we can avoid it, which I often can't. But there's there's two there's two examples we get in the book, right? One is Jim and one is Fred. And if you if you look at these examples on how they describe Jim and Fred at the beginning of these paragraphs, it says, you know, uh Fred was a you know a partner at a well-known accounting firm. He has fine income, has wonderful children of college age. If anyone there, if ever there is a successful businessman, it is Fred, right? Yet he is an alcoholic. And and they do that with Jim, too. They do the same shit with Jim, you know, a decorated World War veteran, great salesman, normal so far as we can see, except for a nervous disposition. And I don't think it's by accident that when they describe these two people, that they say, Hey, look at all these great things about their life, yet they're an alcoholic. You know, and I think a big misconception, and and you know, this may start the banter here. A big misconception that a lot of people have is that my life is unmanageable or not unmanageable based on my bank account and my house and whether the dog ran away and whether my wife still likes me. Well, you know, but the perception, yeah. But but the truth is, I think for me, and this may not be the same for everyone, I think for me, my life is perpetually unmanageable because I have a body that can't take alcohol and a mind that refuses to leave it alone without a spiritual experience behind it. Because if my life's unmanageable because of the dog and the wife and the house and the kids, you know, well, what happens when I get all that shit back? Is my life manageable now? Does door number three open up? Right. And I side look, we went on a little side tangent there, but I think it was uh one worth worth having. Do you got you have any take on that?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh, absolutely. So the the definition of unmanageability has changed a lot for me because that what you just said was where I was at. Like I was okay on, like I said, on paper, things were fine, my health wasn't in in jeopardy. Um, you know, I was progressing in my career. Um, I started the the powerlifting thing at the time was was uh I was progressing in strength. Um the only thing that seemed the the I would get blips of a manageability when women would come into my life and then they would suddenly disappear, right? Like everything would be great because I'm a pretty cool dude, right? I'm fun to be around, so I attract some really awesome women, but then they hang out with me for a little while, and then suddenly they're like, Whoa, this dude is a train wreck, and I'm like, No, I'm not, I'm not a train wreck at all. I just do a thousand dollars a blow a week, no big deal. Um, and uh, and but now that unmanageability, just like you said, it's like it's here. This is unmanageable, and I didn't have any spiritual experience. And you know, as somebody that grew up in the church, I thought I knew who God was, and I just know stories about God, and it took me a really long time. It took the you know, that five-year stint of sitting in the rooms listening to other people explain their conception of of God, of their higher power, for me to realize that I had no idea who I was talking to when I prayed. It was just a story for me, and so I think I mean you earlier you asked, you know, what you know what fell into place. Like for me, my higher power was work, it was always work. Um the better I was doing it at work, the better my life was, right? Like, if I'm if I made a mistake at work, it ruined my entire week, little on the day. Um and it's been pointed out to me multiple times in this, you know, in the in the five years that that I was sitting in the rooms and not doing well, is like, well, you don't have a higher power, you worship your your career, and it was true, and it took me a long time to not not necessarily admit that because I could see it, but to understand it and make it make an adjustment, right? Um and Richard V, every time I would share about uh every time at uh we had a Sunday meeting, and uh, if I would bring the topic, it would typically be about Christianity, right? And he would end up ripping me a new one, just verbal, like like borderline verbal abuse. Uh yeah, and I didn't appreciate it at the time. And you know, uh a few of those happened, and then the the best one there's a guy named Abe that uh pulled me aside after a meeting one time and uh was like, Do you have a God in your life? I was like, Yeah, I'm a devout Christian. He goes, Okay, what'd you do Christ like today? And I had nothing. Was that California Abe? That was California, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah, and that was a big turning point for me as well. So so kind of I and now I wouldn't even say that I know God. I just at least at least I have a relationship with the dude I've been talking to for the last 40 something years, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So oh yeah. I just I just finished a podcast with somebody. We were we were kind of going along these these lines, these spiritual, you know, she had she had asked me what my what my uh what the hell was her question? What was my spiritual journey like? Like how has my concept changed over the years? And it it's constantly, constantly changing. And I think a lot about that line, that Carl Jung line that that essentially is while your religious convictions are very good, they don't spell the necessary vital spiritual experience that we're talking about here, right? And I, you know, I I think what I rely on more than anything are actions that I can fairly reasonably assume are going to produce the result that I think I want, right? Which is like, which is like, you know, making amends, for example, right, is a very spiritual thing. It's it's not an easy thing to do uh by any stretch, right? Saying that that I'm wrong and kind of deflating that ego. But in the midst of doing that, I trust that it's going to help fortify my sobriety because that's what the book says to do. Or that, like if I'm kind to people, right, if I put myself in that position to keep close to God and perform his work well, that he'll provide what I need, that that promise out of the book. And so I think my concept of God is not so much the religious God that I was raised with, but it's more this set of principles that, like, if practiced, you know, can can expel the obsession to drink and use drugs, right? Like I think we read that in the meeting the other day with the four to the 12 and 12. Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting. And and so, okay, so we're at 2021, 2022. What was your longest period of sobriety during that time, like leading up to this year? Two uh two days short of six months.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Um, okay, so you had some. It was it was that well, once again, it was it was a dry thing. Like I showed up, I had the girl, I had the job, I had all the things, and then I walked into a room. Like I said, it was on Sean L's uh five-year anniversary, and these guys were talking about literature and talking about perception and talking about willingness and stuff instead of crying about their dog made them late for work. And I was like, Okay, I can get it, I can get after this. And so I would go to I'd go to two meetings a week with the same group and I'd sit in the back and be quiet and whatnot and participate. I'd call my sponsor once a month, um, typically it would just a complain about a roommate or something like that. And he would he would question if I was an alcoholic or not, um, because I just wasn't I wasn't participating. But then in 2023, uh January of 23, the girl and I split. And then suddenly life wasn't manageable anymore. And uh I picked up and um from

The Death He Witnessed

SPEAKER_01 31:02

January of 23 until February of this year, I barely put together over a month. Yeah, I'd say there are a couple times I'd do too. Um, I'd get like 60 something days. Uh, and then I ended up having to go to treatment two more times after that as well. Um wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So took some trips. I want to ask you a question that I don't know if you'll want to talk about on camera. And if you don't, just tell me no and I'll c I'll snip this part. But you had mentioned a really like pivotal thing that you kind of shared and came to terms with that had happened at work that you watched somebody go through. Do you know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Is that anything you're willing to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 31:40

100%. 100%. You're talking about the death, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So uh I came into work one morning into the office. We had a uh a like a six, seven thousand square foot office attached to a 30,000 square foot warehouse space where we stored all of our material and our equipment, and it had a 40-foot ceiling. So came in one morning about I was there about seven o'clock, and I was unloading my car, and I heard a big bang, and uh people started running. And I came into a scene of a guy had fallen through the roof and landed headfirst on the concrete floor, and it was um as as gory as you can imagine somebody hitting their head on concrete from a 40-foot uh fall. Um, if you've never seen what's in the inside of a inside of the human body, it's very thick and it's purple, it's not it doesn't look like blood. And everybody scattered, and I found myself standing there with this guy's two brothers as they bawling their eyes out, not knowing what to do. So I called 911 and um maybe emotional. I was and uh they walked me through, you know, trying to give this guy CPR. And the story I used to tell is I gave him CPR and I literally watched the lights go out. I watched him die, and that is true. Um, I was staring into his face when he died. Um but the thing that I was carrying around for so many years was that like I was too afraid to give this guy CPR because I didn't he was I mean he was he was gone. He was for sure not gonna live through this. But the fact that I didn't try to help him it just it aided me, it would keep me up at night. And obviously still, like that's a it it's something that I've you know I've walked through with a sponsor and you know I shared with the group. And it's um it's it it was a shame and uh and a guilt that has now been taken from me, but that pain I could see in his brother's eyes is really what still gets me emotional because they uh he's 23 years old and had two two children under the age of two. Um just moved to America and was trying to start a new life. And the biggest thing, because I was I was in, you know, I was in a uh in the rooms of recovery at this point. The biggest thing was is he was hammered drunk. And he had been they'd been working on the roof for about a week, and he uh my coworkers said every day they that he showed up, he smelled like goose, he couldn't walk. And there was one day that they made him sit in the truck because he was too drunk and he can climb up the ladder. So it was a that was a very, very heavy moment in my life without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Wow, thank you, thank you for sharing that, man. I know that that was I mean, probably as recent as six months ago, that wouldn't have been something that you could have gotten through. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

No, absolutely not. And it's it was something that was hard enough just to talk with one other person, let alone a group or uh you know, on a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

So yeah, for sure. Thank you for sharing that, dude. So I'm um I'm curious. Having, you know, I've known you for probably three years now, right? Close to something like that. Somewhere there. Yeah. And so, you know, having watched you, and I know, you know, you're you're one of those guys that's just well loved, right? He's big fella. I don't know if you can tell by looking on the camera, but when I see Matt, and I'm I'm a I'm not a small guy by any stretch, and he like bear hugs me and picks me up when he sees me at a meeting, um, which I just love that, right? I I go to I go to Suspects, which is our home group, and just something fires up inside of me, and I just want to run around the room and be like, there you are, I've missed you, you know, to like everyone that I see, right? Love that shit, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Like you're a five-year-old, you see your your childhood buddy, you know, it's like that every week.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yes, dude. But you know, I never like that's the thing my heart wanted more than anything else in this world, like forever. And I I A, I didn't know that that's what was gonna set me on fire, but B, the way that the way that we get that is through like you sharing your story, right? It's through that intimacy of hey, I'm gonna share this with you, and it's it's not something I want to share with you, or it's not something that's gonna make me look good, but it's something that is going to let you behind the curtain, and we build that bond, you know, and and doing that week after week after week with the same people. I remember first coming into Suspects and John, who I'm trying to get on the show, but he's he his damn company blocked StreamYard for some reason on their internet, anyhow. We'll get we'll get John on here. But he was he was going through something very personal in his life, and he had six or seven years of sobriety and he was sharing about it openly, and it gave me permission to go, okay, this is how you get in with this group. So, you know, now I'm gonna scan my life and try and bring these intimate personal details of myself to the table, and uh and it's been a remarkable experience to to just just to experience personally, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So and that's that's a that's a tough thing for me too, right? Like the the principle behind step one is honesty, and I always I always used to think I was an honest person until I walked in and saw what honesty and real transparency looked like. And it's something I crave, and I've I still I still struggle with it a lot, just uh being open and honest about what's going on, even to myself. And that's one of the biggest things is that that delusion still that like I I I liken my my life sometimes to that meme of the dog sitting in the kitchen and the whole house is on fire around him. He says, This is fine, this is fine, yeah. And and that's totally that's totally what goes on in my head a lot of times. Like, I'm wild, I'll be wildly overwhelmed uh with you know work, finances. You know, I'm family members are getting older and starting to get sick. And I'm like, this is fine, no big deal. And people are like, dude, we can tell you're not okay. And I'm like, no, I'm fucking fine. Get away from me. Yeah, uh, you know, it's it's uh it's it's been an interesting walk, um, for me personally, just trying to trying to learn what it really means to be genuinely honest to the men in my life that care, that want to know, they want to help, you know, and just like you said, you we show up in this room and it's like all the friends, and all the friends that I that I never knew I needed. You know, or wanted or wanted for that matter, because they not only not only are they always there for me, but you guys always call me on my shit, and I don't particularly care for that all the time. I we hate that, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 38:28

I hate that joke. I don't need to be correct. You know what's very interesting though is like you know, I could go down off of OBT down here and find some crackhead and say, dude, here's what's going on in my life. What do you think I should do? And he he might 50-50 shot how high he is, but he might give me a better answer to what I should do than my own brain will come up with most of the time because because other people can look at our lives objectively, whereas we look at them emotionally, and and and that's been a weird experience for me is to learn that I think I perceive truth, I think I'm seeing the truth about my life, but it's always driven by emotions, which I'm are pretty much inescapable as human beings, and other people will always see my life more clearly than I will if given the information, but I don't like it in the moment. I hate that shit.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

No, it's awful, it's awful, specifically not being called out, but recognizing that you aren't as doing as great as you think, you know. And that's it. That's that's been the heavy one where it's just like, yeah, I'm finally killing it, I'm doing well. And people like, dude, you are fucking up. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 39:41

And I'm like, oh let's go make some nasty sauce. Let's uh bathe in it, rub it on my nipples. So what has been you know, what is your what is your sobriety look like today? Like what you know, since we're still kind of in the interview Matt uh phase here. By the way, I really want Matt to be my co-host for this podcast, and that's part of why I'm bantering with him is to see if if that's something he wants to do. Yeah, those of y'all who are just listening on Apple or Spotify, you're not gonna see the beautiful man that just put his what are those things? Are those Oakley's or some shit? What are they?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

I think they're fake pit vipers. So these funny enough, uh a uh the first men's retreat that I went to was in was in West Virginia, and we went to Harper's Ferry. And uh at the time I was 275 pounds, um, and I was too heavy to ride the zipline because apparently a 5,000 psi cable cannot hold a 275-pound man. So anyway, I went to the gift shop and found these stupid things. So I think I paid like 25 bucks for them.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

But um, that was it, that was a step brothers, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

That was Step Brothers. These they're my they're my Rick Flairs, my woo.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Bro, they're bangers. I went to that. I went to that zipline, and uh, I'll be honest with you. I it was the only time I've ever gone ziplining, and when I climbed to the top of that fucking telephone pole that is like I went to that exact same zip lining place, yes, and and you're standing up on that platform, dude. I was regretting my life choices.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Oh, yeah, it's like 50 foot up in the air, and you're like, oh okay. This is stupid. Oh, it was so funny. Uh, I don't know if you know David M that uh was one of he's one of John's sponsors you moved to Melbourne.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

But he's utterly oh yeah, of course I do.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Of course I do.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Right, yeah, yeah. Right, right. So he's utterly terrified of heights, and so what I cheat, I you know, I I have a YouTube channel that I really like to it's more of a vlog thing for me. So I took the opportunity to kind of film the the walk through that weekend with obviously without the actual men's retreat itself, but just us as as a fellowship, what we were doing, and so I filmed these guys with a drone going through the zipline. And David, I swear, I watched him fill his underwear

A Day in Sobriety

SPEAKER_01 42:02

up, like he was so scared, but it was in and it's on the internet for everybody to see.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Yes, dude. Oh fuck, I love that so much, bro. I love that. So back back to the question. I think I asked the question, or I'm A D D and I didn't, but what is what is your sobriety like? Like in a in a real granular, granular level. What is what is a day in the sober life of Matt look like? Like what do you do for your for your recovery today?

SPEAKER_01 42:29

So I typically wake up between like 3 30 and 4 30 in the morning. Um why? Oh my god. Yeah, I I could wake up, I wake up like this, ready to get after the day, you know. Um, it's not even like I wake up and I can go back to sleep. It's like you're up now, go get your coffee and get after. Um and you know, I'm okay with that because I get to sit with God for a little while, right? Like meditation is something that I I struggle with deeply, but um, there's a couple books that I read in the morning, like morning devotional type things, and then um I'll sit with God and just talk to him. Uh do I do a lot of all the talking, right? I don't sit and listen to him very often because it's still difficult for me. Um, because the squirrels that go up in here, they don't it's at 3 30, they start firing off. Um, but then uh you know there's a couple guys that I call every single day around the same time between you know like 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. One of them's craggie. Um the hammer source, Cregatron. Craigolingus. Uh I try to come up with a new way to say his name every day, and I'm I'm I've started to run out after the last couple years. Um, so they're on recycle. Yeah, Craig Cregaroni. That's a good one. Cragaroni, yeah. But anyway, we just uh I share my day, but in the morning, uh before I leave the house, typically I didn't do it this morning, and I will I'll call myself out for that. But I do my nightly because it just seems to work better for me in the morning. I can review the previous day and all of the nonsense that doesn't matter, I typically forget, and I just remember the what the real parts of what happened, right? What what's worth being shared, and that's something that I've really taken time with uh with sponsor. My sponsor is Jordan M. And um he's put a uh he's put a lot of weight into me being really thorough because of that that lack of transparency, right? So I try to be as thorough as possible. Like I even share my calorie count because I've got a oh let's go. I compete in strong man, and I have a coach, and he gives me you know my weekly training regimen, and he also tells me I want to at this many calories, and I have the same relationship with food as I did with alcohol, like any size pizza is a personal paying pizza, you know what I'm saying? So I didn't I didn't get this big by by uh you know eating healthy, right? Right. I'm 6'2, 320 right now. So um and you know, there's a substantial amount of muscle in there, right? But there's a lot of not Um, so that's why I add that calorie count in there is to to keep me accountable with people like like Tony. I share it with Tony. Tony's like got this Adonis figure right now and always calls me out about he's like, You're lifting too heavy, you're gonna hurt yourself. Stop eating McDonald's. Why'd you talk about it? And that's the thing. Like, I'll be like, I screwed up and I ate Taco Bell today. Um so there's that transparency. But then uh I I don't go to a lot of meetings right now. I just go I go to a couple a week. Uh Wednesday being our home group, I try never to miss that one. And then um on Thursdays, if if it's available, I go to Orlando Recovery Center with a guy named Brett, and we get to carry the message into there. And I haven't been able to go the last couple weeks. Um because he'll have he brings other people as well, right? You don't want the same story every week, yeah. Yeah, sure. Um so I'll get to do that. Um but the biggest thing for me is is doing that that morning, the morning routine, and then having those phone calls. If I don't make those phone calls during the day, it's especially then calling Craig. Like Craig, Craig knows more about my life than probably anybody. Um and it's it's really cool to have that road dog that you know he'll he'll uh I'll send in my nightlies and he'll answer the phone when I call him like what's up, Craig A Lingus, and he calls me Mattheus Helios, and uh and then the first thing he'll say is like I read your inventory, what the fuck is going on with this? Yeah, yeah, immediately, right? So those are the things that really seem to be clicking for me at the moment. Um, because there's some peace, like I've got that. That's the one thing I always wanted, and I tried to find it in a bottle and a bag for so long was peace. And I have a little glimpse of it right now, and it's pretty cool, and I don't I don't care to lose it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Yeah, dude, I love that so much, man. You know, for anyone that's listening, obviously, a lot of you are not gonna know Craigy. We should describe Craiggy just to just for the people. Um, how how old do you think Craiggy is? Craiggy is 69 years old. 69 on the dot. Craigie just retired. He uh, if I were to do we call him the hammer. I don't know why we call him the hammer. Oh, you don't know the story. Is well, is it is it because of him sending his his ding dong accidentally to someone else?

SPEAKER_01 47:22

No, so it was on a and this is this is the story I was told, right? So uh our group, uh for those listening, our group goes to about between four and six men's retreats a year, and on one of these retreats, uh apparently the hammer was exposed due to some uh like um sleeping medication that got it. He got up in the middle of the night to pee, and apparently the dude is packing some heat. Um, and this is a man that's you know, he's five, six, probably a hundred and fifty pounds. Um weigh a lot, just walking around with elephant trunk.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

So wow, good for him. See, Craiggy, look at that, you're immortalized now, bud. We love you. Oh, oh meat musket. Man, I love that so much, Matt. Dude, what a what a what a solid story, dude. And I know, you know, like it's really interesting because there's we as alcoholics we're not we're not unique in in the way that we drank, but some of us are unique in the way that we get sober, um, which doesn't really make us unique, it just makes our experiences unique, right? Sure. And uh and yours was definitely, you know, yours was definitely unique. My my relapsing, which I had many, right? I have I have had like six stints of more than two years of sobriety at a time. So like I've had a lot of little stints of sobriety with relapses, and I've had big stints of sobriety with relapses after. And the thing that I can really like honestly say more than anything else is that there's no amount of work I can do on Monday that's going to ensure that I stay sober on Friday. Like, there's there's no amount of, well, I did it really well for five years, I'm gonna go ahead and take a break now. That doesn't inevitably lead to maybe at year seven, me going, you know, I think I could probably do this normally now. You know, I think it was a phase, right? Like, there's just no the disconnection. When the disconnection happens, like eventually that one brain cell that just sells bullshit will sell it to the other one that's gonna buy it, and I'll go, Well, that's a great idea. Let's let's go take something that's gonna kill us.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

And uh, and so for me, it's got it never looks like that, right? It never looks like let me take something that's kill us. It's like I just want to feel a little different right now.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Maybe it's a bit unwind that spring that's wound up so tight, right? And 100%. And so I have learned that the program is designed to do for alcoholism the same thing that the steps are designed to do, but it's designed to do that over time in a you know, a way that is not instant, that does take work, it does take addressing those those things that scare me so much, like being honest with you. Uh, and uh, but it does work, you know. So for if anyone, if anyone comes across this particular episode that is, you know, still actively drinking or newsing and thinks wow, there's just no solution to that, there really is a solution. Um, but the problem is you, just like the problem was me, you know, 100%. So yeah. And just you want to close us, uh you want to close us out, Maddie? You got you got final thoughts with Jack Handy?

Keep Coming Back

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Deep thoughts. Final thoughts with Jack Handy.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Um I guess the the most important thing for me that I heard uh in in all of my struggles in the rooms was keep coming back, never ever stop showing up. If you if you're anything like Austin and I, if you drink like me, if you use like me, if you think like me, find a 12-step recovery, find a room, and just keep going until the miracle happens because it will eventually happen. And something has happened in my life, and I don't know if it's permanent, but I know it is for today.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Yeah, yeah, dude. And you you know, you reminded me that like have I'm sure you've had this experience where and maybe maybe you haven't had it directly, but I've had multiple times in multiple different stints of sobriety that somebody tells me my story, but doesn't know my story, right? Like they tell me their story and it hits me between the eyes because he just told me mine, yeah. And and and that that feeling of not being alone is just fucking magnificent. Like it's it's very palpable, absolutely awesome, Matthew. Dude, I fucking love you, bro. Thank you so much for being on here with me today. And I look forward to bringing you back on just for a banter episode. Like, and let's see where this goes. I I I truly want you to co-host this show with me. Like, I want you to be in the game with me, dude. Let's fucking down, let's do it, let's run this thing. Amazing, bro. Amazing. For anyone that's listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube. Like andor subscribe or leave a comment. Do do something nice. Uh, I would sure appreciate it. Matt would sure appreciate it. And uh, that's it. We are going to get the hell out of here, my friends. My name is Austin. I'll catch you guys on the next episode. Take