I’m Successful—How Bad Could My Drinking Be? | Mike Curry

Success can make a drinking problem harder to see. When you are still working, earning, providing, and checking the outward boxes, it is easy to use those accomplishments as proof that nothing is seriously wrong.

In this conversation, Matt talks with sobriety coach and podcast host Mike Curry about succeeding professionally while struggling privately. They discuss the limits of the “functioning alcoholic” label, the pressure to keep achieving, what alcohol quietly takes from relationships and integrity, and why recovery has to become more than simply removing the drink.

Learn more about Mike Curry and his work:

Website: https://www.mikecurrycoaching.com/

Podcast — Sobriety, Spirituality, and Sales:
 https://www.youtube.com/@livethedreammedia/featured

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikecurryofficial

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-curry-0b7689241/

Transcript

Mike Curry and Matt J: 0:00

the world will give you an identity. You know, I'll show you up with spit you out. You're chasing material things, you're chasing the wealth, you're chasing the better looking wife, whatever that is, nothing, nothing, none of those things will ever satisfy you. Welcome to the sober friends podcast. My name is Matt J and if you've ever wondered whether life can really get better with that alcohol, you're in the right place, whether you need to recovery, have some time sober or you're supporting somebody you love. I'm glad you're here. This is a podcast about sobriety, emotional growth and learning how to navigate life. Well, having to drink over it. And before we get to our guest, my curry, I want to kick this off by sharing a little bit about myself because it kind of ties into what we're going to talk about today. My father was an alcoholic. His drinking caused violence and chaos in my family. I never knew, I knew I never wanted to be like that. So for years, that became my bar. I had a job. I had a family. I wasn't violent. I wasn't doing the awful things that I'd seen him do growing up, but I measured that one wrong. The real evidence was much quieter. Once I started drinking, it was very difficult to stop. Or if I wanted to enjoy it, it couldn't control it. If I wanted to control, it couldn't enjoy it. And I think there's a lot of people who have a version of that. They compare themselves to the worst drinker they know. And as long as they clear that bar, they tell themselves, they're okay. So that's why I wanted to have Mike Curreon. Mike is sober. He hosts sobriety, spirituality, and sales. And he coaches high-performing men who may be winning professionally while struggling privately. Mike, welcome to the sober friends podcast. Hey, thank you, Matt. Thank you for your time this morning. I know we have to reschedule for some audio issues. So I appreciate your patience and throw the beer. Yeah, no worries. Happy to have you. Happy to work around, you know, technology. That's what we live with nowadays. Yes. When you hear that idea that success can become evidence people use to avoid honesty, what do you see in the men that you work with? Yeah, great question. You know, I have some clients who are on paper super successful. You know, they've got, you know, they've checked all the boxes so to speak. And, you know, yet there's one kind of small area or larger of their life that they can't control. You know, and that's alcohol could be other substances. You know, lately, you know, pornography is a bit of a big topic. Marijuana, you know, with the strains nowadays. Marijuana is not what it used to be. 200 years ago. But, you know, focusing on alcohol, it's like, hey, it's legal. It's on every corner. You could pop down this. You know, I've got a circle K at 711, you know, five minute walk from my house. You know, so those decisions can be a little easier. And so at any rate, you know, I think that, you know, years and maybe even decades and just going back on my personal experience and seeing others around me, it's like, if you're used to this routine, I'm very can Ford is six years a night and you've done that for years or done that for decades, you know, there's the term functioning alcoholic. I don't know how functional you are. You know, thriving, thriving sober is something I prefer than then functioning alcoholic. But, you know, it is definitely it is that there's a quiet cost to it. You know, I don't think that people realize how sneaky it can be and how, you know, it can affect your mornings. Definitely year after news, because then you're scrambling to make up for the morning at work that you miss. It affects your relationships with your children with your spouse. The relationship to yourself and that was my experience is the more I used than drink, the further I got away from my true self. And, you know, part of my sobriety journey has been coming back home, coming back to really, discover and be discovered who I am, who I have always been in. And I like to say, you know, my identity is I'm a loving child of God. And, you know, for me, that works really well because of the relationship that I have with a God of my understanding today. And it wasn't always that way. It's been a long road. It's been a long journey. What did trade up for the world? But, you know, really grateful to be on this side of it and to have the focus, the clarity, to have, you know, to be intentional on a daily basis. To know where I'm going for the most part, you know, as an entrepreneur, you kind of never really know. It's kind of a path of, you know, winding and dipping and all this stuff. But at the same time, I feel fulfilled. I feel like I do have a purpose driven life at this point. and you know, I wake up every day and I'm excited. Yeah, well, I, you know, first of all, I grew up Catholic, you know, I, I- Me too. Okay? So, we've got some commonality there, right? No. It was an altar boy, you know, we went to Catholic school, we went to church on Sundays, you know, the sitting, the standing, the kneeling, and it's like, I'm looking around like, I don't understand any of this. Didn't really care to understand it. You know, part of my short coming, I think, was as a child, you know, your brain's not fully developed into your what mid-20s or whatever they say, but I'm judging these adults because they're not fitting the bill of what a Christian or a Catholic should be. So it, but that's my short coming, right? Because, you know, I've said this before, it's like, hey, sick people belong in hospitals, just as much as they belong in churches, right? So, you know, there's there's, there was one perfect person to walk to earth, he's no longer around, you know, I don't know what the story I had made up in my head or what was going on. But also, you know, I had nuns as teachers. I was left handed and kind of had read here then, not as much now. And I was always in trouble, man, I was always in detention. It was weekly, you know, they would announce it over the PA system, you know? So it's like, oh my god, you know, dude, it crazy. Yeah. And you know, I did some, some, some work with, uh, with one of my guides, one of my mentors, and then I, you know, kind of told them these stories and he goes, well, maybe you just wanted to be left alone. Maybe that's why you wanted to be in detention. Because literally, I'd be the only kid in there. And I'd read my book. I loved, you know, documentary type books or books about presidents and things like that. And it's like, it's like, yeah, you know what? I was really tall. I was about six, two. I didn't grow after junior high on six, two, six, three. And I feel like I got picked on a lot. I feel like I was an odd man out. I'm sure you can relate to this. I just never felt before my own skin. You know, that's kind of a commonality too, with a lot of people that, you know, go through what we've gone through. And, you know, I feel like it was almost like, um, a self-fulfilling prophecy and a sense or I don't know how you would say it, but it's like, okay, if you think I'm in this bad kid, I'm just going to do, I'm just going to do that thing because that, you know, and it was kind of exciting. I mean honestly, like getting in trouble, to me, it was just like fun. We get attention wrestling to get in trouble. And that's probably part of it too, you know, I started getting arrested in junior high and continued on into my into my 20s. And, you know, I can remember one specific story. Instance, excuse me, a story that I tell often too is that I was standing in line at school, Saint Peter Paul, and had to have memorized this prayer, which I did not know because I really wasn't a good student. And I was kind of sitting there in fear. And I thought to myself, you know, if this is what God is, I don't want nothing to do with it. And so that was kind of a turning point where I just said, I'm good, you know, whatever that has to offer. Like, I'm not interested. I want to see what the world has to offer. And I think that was the shift in getting sober, saying, hey, I'm a loving child of God. It's like the world will give you an identity. And I'll show you up at spit you out. You're chasing material things. You're chasing the wealth. You're chasing the better-looking wife. Whatever that is, nothing nothing, none of those things will ever satisfy, in my opinion. You know, that was my experience. And so, you know, being able to wake up on a daily basis and just really have this piece of my heart. That's what I always wanted towards the end when giving another really cool, quick story here. My sponsor, my guide, you know, we did the steps twice. The first time I didn't get 100% honest. The first time I felt like I wasn't even really trying that hard. And he would say, Mike, you know, how you chase drugs and alcohol is how you have to chase sobriety. And, and I didn't do that. And so I ended up going back out. And, but he asked me that first time, what do you want to get out of the steps? What do you want to get out of this process? And I said, I want to BMW and I want to be in the house, right? Like I always stuck in the 3D material world. And the shift was the second go round once I, the second go round was after a three day, four day binge, starting in Albuquerque and ending in Tucson, starting with alcohol at a strip club, ending with smoking meth in a hotel room on the South Side of Tucson. And it was enough for me to say, I'm done, the party is over. He asked me once again, what do you want to get out of this process? After about a month of me kind of just, your brain has to be at a certain capacity to be able to understand concepts that people are helped try to help you with. So he's like, take like a month and just go to meetings and just really sit with yourself. Okay, what do you want to get out of it this time? And I said, I want peace in my heart. You had a very, very patient sponsor '글's that. '글' was that ok'. But I did. I did. I did. And, and you know, my story was, in the beginning, the first, I would say, 'Gosh, 10 to 12, 15 years of my using and drinking career were more like the people that I help'. Mm-hmm. '글' was more this, you know, I'm functioning in society. I'm doing what I need to do. But I'm still partying and hanging onto this, this lifestyle that is giving me something, I guess, at that point. It was my solution, right? Like, that's what it does for our solution to our inability to feel like we belong. It's our, you know, whatever that is individually. I mean, I can name off a plefitor of things. But, and then at some point, it just stopped working. And that was that hotel room. That was that moment of clarity where I pull out a methe pipe and I look at it. And I just said to myself, 'Party's over'. And, like, eventually, just, this is not fun, you know, um, had a out-of-body experience walking this thing to the trash can outside of the door throwing it away, thinking almost to myself, 'What are you doing?' You know, three times that same day, I almost go back there to, because I knew what it was at. I was like, as long as the maid has it cleaned the room yet, I can get it, you know, like, those are the thoughts that we went through my head. And so, once again, getting about a month of clarity on my belt really, you know, kind of calm me my brain down and getting out of this fighter flight mentality and just, you know, again, you, you got to distance yourself from the substance for a while to really have the capacity to get honest with yourself and with other people and to understand concepts that that have been beyond your mental capacity for a long time. I love you talking about the substance being the solution. We talk a lot about that on this podcast, that alcohol or the substance is the problem, but it really is the solution to the problem. You have to find a different solution. You ever think that you got sober for a reason because I think about the situation you're in, I would say most people probably don't find their way out of a place where they're smoking meth after a bender yet something happened within you to walk away from that pipe. No, absolutely. I actually feel like everything happened in divine order for a reason to be able to, you know, help other men deal with with life's most difficult challenges. And usually those challenges are between our ears, you know, there's this story. I'm sure you've heard it where a guy stuck in a ditch and, you know, he's yelling for help and a guy walks by and he says, well, you know, I'm a doctor. I can write you a prescription and he will, he drops it down into the hole, right? And he kind of walks off and next guy comes by and he's like, help. Can you help me get get out of this? He's like, well, son, I'm a priest. I can, what I can do is I can pray for you, you know, says a prayer locks on third guy, he's like, help, help the guy jumps in the hole with them. And he's like, dude, what do you do? And he's like, I've been here before and I know the way out. Yeah, I think that that ties into really what I want to talk about is your clients, your people are often winning professionally while they're losing privately. They're in that hole, although maybe they can't see that they're in the hole. You think success can actually make alcohol, the alcohol problem harder to see not because they drink more, but because it removes the pressure that they might have created honestly sooner. Well, I think that it, it justifies and rationalizes the behavior or the, you know, maybe excessive. And when I say excessive, I mean, you know, realistically one or two beers, you know, and I'm not inherently opposed to alcohol or hydrogen drugs. I often say that if I could still be doing those things successfully, I probably still would be, right? It's just again, for me, luckily, it stopped working and I was able to make this major shift in my life, but you know, I think if, if you're able to go to work and get up every day and do all these things, I think it's just so much harder to, you know, mentally come to a place where you're like, hey, this is actually hurting my relationships, it's hurting this because just as much as alcohol and drugs, you know, hurt you, overworking, chasing money hurts you, because you get so blinded by this one goal that you have. Hey, I want to retire at 40, you know, hey, I want to buy this $2. 5 million house in the next three years, whatever in your soul laser focused on that, it's like, you're hurting relationships around you, you know, I saw an anti-aliate ad for, you know, he's having this like mastermind in Mexico at his home and he was kind of talking about, I forget the whole post, but he's talking about how, you know, a lot of these uber, uber successful people, their children are going to end up in therapy and all these different things because they want there for them because they had toxic relationships with their children because of their overworking, because of the societal, cultural pressure to be this successful person. Whether you grew up with nothing or whether you just had parents who weren't uber successful and they had those standards for you, whatever that looks like, it's like, you know, the balance between being a good father or parent and, you know, having a certain amount of success like, but I think you need to step back and define success for, for you individually, which I don't know if anybody's ever done because just like religion is kind of forced on people, this idea of success is also forced on people. And so what is it that you're chasing? What is the validation? Why are you not enough? Like these are all just super deep questions that most people will never ask themselves and that's fine, but when you get to a place in your life or you're imploding, because my personal experience was I had a lot of trauma as a young kid. I was mod, it was modeled to meet by my folks, by the people around me. We don't talk about things we just, we just push through, right? And that stopped working at some point. So when you hold things in, eventually they come out sideways, you don't get to choose when they come out and it's typically at one of the worst times possible. It comes out, it's like pressing on like a balloon dog, eventually it's going to pop if you press somewhere but the pop usually happens, we're released, expect it. This is kind of fascinating because we had an episode about two or three back with Brook Taylor and she talked about it from a female perspective, but you guys are telling kind of the same story about the success, kind of being the addiction. And her theory is above a certain professional level, those people are addicts in some way depending on how high up like the sea suite people, you get that high up, there's something that you might be sacrificing already, which if alcohol isn't the disease, maybe running for success is or pushing yourself hard. What do you think alcohol quietly takes from these people before it's visible? Man, that's a great question and to kind of add to that point that the young lady was talking about funny enough, I had a young lady on my podcast who kind of said the same thing just a little differently. She said we're all prisoners to something. Her son passed away of an overdose and she was a suicide prevention therapist or something to that effect and she came on my show and sent some of the most powerful things I've ever heard and one of them was, I'm this person that can supposedly help people and I couldn't even help my own son, you know, not the heat committed suicide, he overdosed, but the techniques to help somebody to walk them off of Cliff are probably the same to walk them back from drugs, I would imagine. And so what does it take from somebody who is successful or has as attained a certain amount of success? I think you kind of, you end up disassociating to a certain extent. It sounds like I think that's probably the biggest thing. You know an alcohol provides this taking the edge off, you know, for a lot of sales people, I was in sales. I was one of the top salespeople year after year. Once I got sober, before that I had all the potential in the world and there were potential. It's typically if someone's saying that around you, it's not a great thing, right? What I saw around me was the inability for people to shut off after work. They were still performing. their high energy, high performing individuals, and they need substances to continue that on after work, whether that's to calm themselves down or have enough energy to go out that night. And the substance is very on what they take. And to a certain extent, okay, what's the difference between a broken homeless person like I was or you see out there on the street and somebody who's doing those same substances, but they have a job in a house and they can sleep eight hours a night or six hours or four hours or whatever. It's like there's not a whole lot of difference other than to me what that person has from a material aspect. And they're able to just hold it together a little bit more. But those people that hold it together eventually implode big time, you know, whether that's in their marriage, whether that's in their you know, doing something at work that causes them to get fired. Whatever that is. And I think, I think ego and pride is big. It can't inflate ego a little bit more. You know, like you said, hey, I'm not like that guy. Like I'm not like that homeless guy. I'm not like that guy down there that you know, he's drinking three more drinks than me every night. So, you know, I make it $500, a year. I'm not that guy you know. And so my fear was always that I would get to the end of my life and I wouldn't truly grasp what life was truly about. Wow, that's such a that's a deep thought. I think about that sometimes. I have this nagging feeling that I'm on the wrong path or I haven't achieved enough and I think about it on a professional aspect, but miss that whole, you know, and all of a sudden done at the end of life, what is it that I truly accomplished that's important? And I think that's that's a really good reframe. I think a lot of these people, because I think about myself that I could push through the worst of anything and I had that willpower for everything but booze. And I wonder if that's a thing that actually causes people who are really successful to delay finding recovery, because they can push through anything and they have superhuman muscles for everything, but their addiction. Yeah. Yeah. And the crazy thing to me is like think about the success that you could potentially have on the other side of drinking every day, on the other side of changing a relationship to alcohol or to substances or or tipornography or whatever that is. I mean, think about it from this perspective. I always have broken homeless individual who had just got out of prison who had surrendered rights to my daughter when she was a very young baby and look at where I'm at now. So if I can make that major of a change, think about somebody who's already over-successful and then putting that down and really getting right with themselves, really going deep and doing some work and fundamentally changing as a human being and where could potentially take that person. Yes. Just the example of overcoming whatever the addiction is is an amazing example to somebody else that could be helpful. I give, I talk about this every once in a while that I was really struggling to get up in the morning to go work out until I got a pattern and I told my friend, Chris, that I can't do this. This is really too hard and he told me, you quit drinking. Isn't that a lot harder than getting up in the morning to go work out? If you could do that, you could do this. I mean, it's a small thing, but I looked at him like, you're absolutely right. Quitting drinking was a lot harder than just getting up at 6 a. m. So that was sort of my kick in the ass to say, yeah, I guess I can do this. Well, and I think that's key, is 'cause what you're saying is you'd already built this resiliency muscle surrounding games over. So we we lose sight in the day to day, then and that you can be now to be able to achieve whatever goals that you have. And I truly feel that for me, the two biggest things that created the most amount of resiliency in my life were playing sports as a young person. I was a basketball player. You know, never the starter, but I showed up for practice every day. I did all the drills. I ran on my own. My dad was a college tennis coach. I was always in the gym. Always working out. Before I even saw any kind of, you know, improvement really because as a young person, you know, your muscles are developing, et cetera. But then also, I sold educate professional football and education books door to door for six summers in college to pay my way through school before my life fell apart. And that was the by far the best professional experience I've ever had in my life. And I would highly recommend that to anybody as a young person, you will learn so much about yourself. You will learn so much about your, your, your fellow man and woman. And, you know, the skills that you sharpen the skills that you develop through. Or not known who's going to answer trying to sell it. My product, being successful at it. I mean, it's, it will change your life. I applied for a job to be a stockbroker and I had to do that as my job interview is spend the day going door to door. And I actually did well. And I tapped out of that one. I'm like, I am, I am not doing this because by the end of the day, it was like that one last no. So whatever I was knocking on the door for was like, I've had it, but it was a pretty great emotional dopamine hit for the people who would talk to me. And that's why sells people typically they are addicts and alcoholics because we chase that dopamine. We love that. You know, for a salesperson selling something, there's no greater hit than that. It's free. It lasts longer. You don't wake up home over. But unfortunately, people that can't turn that off again end up turning for other substances. And I think once you have the tools to really, to really understand what you're trying to achieve. It becomes a little easier. But it doesn't affect makes any sense, but it does. Once I heard you talk about doing like sales and stuff. I'm like, you remind me my friend John in the program who is a sales person. And the way he talks about is he gets so ramped up. And it's like that dopamine hit and that I could see where it becomes very difficult to come down after that that you need a lot of time or you need a little help. You're helping other men. Tell me a little bit about your coaching. What does this look like? Yeah, so so I do one on one sessions. It's over a 12 week or 24 weeks ban, just kind of depending on the schedule. It's on it's through Zoo or I even do you know VIP meetups for a week where I'll just go like super in depth with somebody and get them just a really good head start. And that came about because I was talking to a client who was considering going to rehab in Milwaukee. And it was $50, 000, but he said, well, they'll let me take my phone and work, you know, that was the, that was to him like the thing that was, he's like, I'm really considering it. And I thought, you know, if I could provide this service where I go to you, you know, I get a hotel by your house or whatever, and then we just work for for a whole week and just set this foundation. And you're still able to go home to your wife at night and still able to run your business to a certain extent or do whatever you need to do, because, you know, I've been to the rehabs. I've done everything right like I've tried everything to get sober. So I have experience in that and it's like, you know what they tell you to do when you're done with rehab, go to meetings. They tell you to go to AA. And really they're just trying to set a foundation to. But I think if you can get really intentional and really focused for a week one-on-one with somebody, I think they can have a lot more success. You know, because when you're just getting sober, let's say you're in day dry and you go into this rehab and you're like, what, there's so much going on around you, you're just trying to get your bearing straight. You know, it can be a lot for some people. And it was for me, you know, and I never had a lot of success going into rehabs. It was just finally when I started sitting down putting pen to paper and just I had a spiritual experience, you know, out of the whole thing. I think. I think one of the hardest things for men to do is getting really honest, not only with other people, but with themselves, because again of ego and pride. So once I was able to just super get honest with my position in life, you know, that's where the foundation started. Then I could build off of that. I'm an all of the above type of guy. I am a product of AA, but I also know that the program doesn't claim a monopoly. And if you need to have one or the other, or you're doing all of the above, altogether, because that helps you, I think that's a great thing. And I love that as a result of the pandemic, we have zoom now and you can have these different ways to attack sobriety. You don't have to have just one option you can find the thing that works best for you. Tell me a little bit. I'm glad you mentioned that. I mean, you interview tons of people, so you have that experience, same as me, you like, I've interviewed 35, tremendous business people who have all gotten sober and they all did it a little differently. And some say AA wasn't for them and they did it this other way and more power to those people. Some people read a book and it was enough for them to make a change, you know, there was a guy who I interviewed who he went to a clickFunnels event with Russell Brunson and Idaho met some way to you wrote a book called something about changing your relationship to alcohol that was enough for him. He said initially he wouldn't talk to her. He was kind of scared of her, right, because he knew he was drinking and he wasn't sure if he wanted to stop. And so just just really powerful stories of like you said, nobody has monopoly on it. The man that I work with, they don't resonate with AA, just like just like those same men are like, I'm not like that guy. He drinks more than me. They're like, I'm not like those guys in AA. And so it hinders them because they know that deep down inside they know they need help those 6 a. m. conversations with themself in the mirror. It's like, I did it again, I did it again. But they're too priceful to go to meetings. Maybe their aunt never got sober and they have a resentment against a whatever that is. But I think it is important to find people that are like minded or have the certain maybe position in life that you respect and you're like, okay, now because that was also my experience, right. Like I lived on the streets for a long time. Right in my addiction, I grew up on the streets here in Tucson. And so I would go in these meetings and I would see these old time versus as we call them and I'd be like, I'm not like these people like this is lame. And then I saw a couple people, either one of them are sober by the way today to my knowledge. So, but I respected them because they had been on the streets, they ran the streets and things like that, I was like, okay, if they can be here, I can be here. It was like that, it was like that just light switch moment where it was like, okay, I can do this if they're here and you know, so I think in that same sense, if you walk in with a suit on or if you walk in, you know, with a certain look, you know, people that that are high achievers, I think they just have a certain look. They're certain walk to them. You know, they're out there to BS around, you know, they value their time. You know, they don't see other people that are out and they're like, I'm out of here. You know, so I think it's important to find people that you really resonate with. Yes. Maybe that have been where you've been or that have done what you've done. Or that you can just trust in because ultimately, if you decide to work with somebody, whether it's me as a coach or somebody else, you have to really fully put your trust in that person. I don't know how to tell him this guy, this stuff. Like, for fear of what they'll think, for fear that they'll tell somebody that whatever that fear is,'cause I know that was my experience, that first go round working with this guy, you know, I had been sexually abused as a kid and I wasn't even telling him about that stuff. You know, I was, I was afraid, I was fearful, maybe he'd think I was gay, maybe whatever that was, and I became so desperate on that second go round after a four day binge or where I was like, I'm telling him everything. I don't care. Like, I, I really want to live, uh, live an abundant life. I want to have long term sobriety. I'm tired of getting six months or getting a year or getting a month. And then this, this repetitive pattern, you know. And so I think you mentioned something earlier. I just wanted to touch on life beyond sobriety. It is truly about finding other things besides just 12 step. Besides just smart recovery. Besides just, um, your, your faith. It's like expanding your consciousness. It's expanding your, your learning into things that really develop your spiritual core. And that's why my podcast is called sobriety, spirituality and sales. I don't resonate with religion. Religion comes from man. Yes, spirituality. Spirituality is, is, is a God given ability to decide what your relationship is going to be. There's no rules. And I think that's super important. And I think a lot of people have strained from religion or from church or whatever they grew up with or whatever they're right because they saw things that they didn't like and they let that, that's, that's the ego with mind to trying to keep us separate. And really recovery is about connectedness. Recovery is about finding a community of people that you feel connected to. And today I feel so connected with my community. And it's absolutely terrific. Tell me what you have taken away from the podcast. What is something that has been an aha that you've even learned or has been a pattern. Well, everybody has just an incredible insight into life and had this like this vital transformation of thoughts and ideas. This perception shift due to due to dark moments. And so how can you truly know the light if you've never been sad in the dark, right? Right. And so some of these people were successful prior to getting sober. Some of these people were kind of like me where they had glimpses of it or they had that potential. But, but either way, it's like you get catapulted. And I hate to use this a term, but you get catapulted into the fourth dimension of existence, which the material world is only what we actually physically see, but it's not what's real. It's not what what is actually in this in this in this world. And I truly believe that with my whole heart. And I think when people can get beyond focusing on material things and treating people a certain way in living fundamentally different but with core values that are really important to them not just saying these are my core values actually living those core values out. They they they live with this purpose in this figure and have this fulfillment in their life. And they just have this spark and this joy to them. And I would say to answer your question. All the guests, I haven't had one guest that I've asked that said no to me. They're all like, yeah, I would love to. I would love to because they know sharing their experience is also creating a healing atmosphere for them moving forward. But they're passing the message on in hopes that that somebody else will hear. And my prayer every morning before the podcast is Lord, let us help just one person. Yes, one person hears this message that allows them to have a change in their heart, you know. There are times I look at like podcast numbers and stuff. And like, well, that one didn't do as well as I thought it was going to do, or this is not at a level I see other people. And I think we do really good work. And I get myself on that place of that superficial. That's the time I get an email out of the blue from somebody who says, Hey, I'm from, I've gotten them from like Britain. I live in England. I listen to your podcast every week. It helps me. I'm really glad you're here. And I'm like, son of a bitch. I got myself in the trap again. That I'm looking at all these numbers. And really that success is there was one person who was on the straight and narrow who might not be. or have that ability of the technology, if there's something in your pocket you can take with you, to get you past that next drink that you might want to take. I think I'd love that you said about the values. I think those real values are, am I willing to sacrifice something because of my value? And if I'm willing to do that and I'll walk that walk, then I guess I'm doing the right thing. Yeah, I had a client in Pennsylvania and he was like,"Well, I just want to be a better person." And I'm like,"Okay, well, let's break that down." What does that actually mean to you? It was really hard for him. It was really hard for him to come up with this definition that worked for him. And I've been there, I think I'm still there to this day in certain ways. I'll give you a prime example. This morning, I do a breathwork session. I'm getting certified in elemental rhythm, which is a guy who learned from Wim Hof and he's got his own kind of technique now. And it's just incredible the transformation that I'm having from that. And I think just the continual growth is really what that beyond sobriety is about. But it's like this morning, I'm trying to get in. It's a future self meditation after the breathwork. So I'm trying to let, "Okay, so what am I imagining a year from now?" And it's like it was so hard for me to do in that moment, right? But I'm in this meditation, I'm not trying not to overthink it. And it's like same with this guy in that moment. It's like he couldn't define what that was for him. And so I think part of what drinking and drugging and whatever escape is, and let's call it, what that does is it prevents us from really finding what's truly important for us, who we truly are inside and what's really important to us. Because it's easy to say, all this is what I believe in. This is because it makes you feel good. But yeah, we go against that, you know, every day. Awesome. Mike, I'm so glad that you spent some time with me today to tell the story from a different angle. And really, if you break this down, this is really, this is really no different than the low-bottom drunk who's in the gutter. It's still all the same feelings. And I just feel like we got to hit that guy who has really the extra barrier of success. So if you're interested in doing some coaching with Mike, you can find them at miccurrycoaching.com. The link to the podcast is there. I'm jealous of his thumbnails. Thumbnails for the podcast are fantastic. You know, I found a diet in Bangladesh to actually help me with that for some of these. So I'll have to hook you up with them. Also, I wanted to mention my Instagram miccurry official for anybody who wants to follow me there. That'd be awesome. Yeah, I'm going to put all the links as well right below in the description so that you don't have to scan and write this stuff down. Technology's there. We're going to put that there. Mike, thank you for spending a little time with us this week. Matt, it's been incredible. And I just again want to thank you and honor your time. I know this has been a long time coming since the last time. So I appreciate your patience with me once again. The way it was worth it. Love what you do, man. Looking forward to seeing what comes next with your stuff here. Awesome. See everybody next week. Yeah, you too. Bye, everybody.