My name is Brandon, and I am an alcoholic

00:00Happy New Year everybody, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio 2022. In today's episode I am going to be telling my story, and I have a full intro and everything coming up but I just wanted to start off by thanking some people who who've heard my story, who understand my story, and have supported me throughout. Number one being Jason Ellis and SuperSource. He's been with me since day one. He's been such a good friend and a fan of what we're doing here and I definitely wouldn't be able to do what I'd do without him. Monty Crawford and everybody over at What Chefs Want have been amazing as well. Just completely supportive of the entire podcast and can't say thank you enough to them. Ross Chandler over at Sitex has been just such a great friend and their company has been going through so much. This pandemic is hitting everybody differently and these people are true hustlers. They're getting through everything they possibly can.

01:04Erin Mosso over at Sharpier's Bakery. She's just been absolutely amazing. These people have known my story. I've told them my story. They've supported me and as I've told anybody who sponsors me, like, hey, this is what you're getting. So if you are out there right now in 2022, you want to sponsor this show, please feel free to reach out to Brandon at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. We have a couple spots for people if you do want to sponsor the show and just thank you for listening. Listen to the very end of this show because I'm gonna have updates on some things I missed throughout the interview. This was a tough one for me to do and I'm really glad that I did it. So I hope that you guys enjoy it and Happy New Year 2022. Go make it the best one yet. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now, here's your host, Brandon Styll.

02:11Hello, Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. Joined today with Jenny Chikawa in 2022. How you doing, Jen? Good. How are you? I'm great. I'm a little nervous for today's show, but I'm hopeful. Good. I'm a little nervous, too. Good. Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Yeah. You know, we've had an amazing month. Mm-hmm. Let's catch people up. So today's show, I'm going to tell my story today, but this has been we took the month of December off from doing new episodes. Did you enjoy the break? Did you get to get to rest and relax? No. I don't know rest. No, this this month has been a pretty absurdly busy. My birthday was early December and then my husband's and then the anniversary of my grandfather passing and then my kid's birthday. No, this this month has been a pretty absurdly busy.

03:13My birthday was early December and then my husband's and then the anniversary of my grandfather passing and then my kid's birthday in addition to Christmas and Hanukkah. And of course, Thanksgiving before. And so it's it's been a busy month and then work. We've been slammed and it's been a big, big month. It really has. I am impressed by you. Like I'm I don't think I get to tell you enough like how many balls you juggle, but like I'm I may not say it, but I see you all the things you're going through. And I'm like, I I can't complain. Like I've got it. I got to step it up. There's no way I can complain about anything. And I just I don't know if you know that you give me strength every day. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're you're you're one of the rare people that sees all of my balls like you because you work with me and then you see me my personal life too. So like the other day when we had to unexpectedly close the restaurant on my kid's first birthday party day, it was like, OK, we're going to do this in the morning. And then at night there was the birthday party.

04:14So you just happen to see the whole scope in a way that I think nobody else very few people really do. And you got to pull it off with absolute poise and grace. And I didn't hear you complain. You didn't complain to me. You didn't complain one time. You just you just I think he said there's not enough. If I start complaining, I'm going to miss out on getting shit done. So let's get it done and could not have done it without you. And Megan and Arianne were really big helps also. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, thank you. Well, this month has been it's been good. I've been able to reflect. I've tried to not read like 100 books. I've tried to listen to podcasts. I did, however, just buy Brene Brown's new book Atlas of the Heart because it comes out on audio version on Valentine's Day. And I couldn't wait that long. I love that you're now a Brene Brown fan boy. I've been a Brene Brown fan for years. I think the first day that I worked at Miracle and Greenhouse Grill, I showed the Brene Brown video on blame. Yeah, I walked in. I go watch.

05:14Look at how many people everybody was blaming somebody else for something. And I went, when is anybody going to stand up and say that one's on me? I'll own this and I will get better. And that's kind of the culture I wanted to create based upon her. Like, I'm Brene. I'm a blamer. Then I started reading her books and I was like, wow. I mean, I don't think I was in the right headspace at that time to understand vulnerability or understand her books. It's taken a lot of work to get there. Well, but doing the work is half the thing, right? A lot of people say I'm going to do the work. I want to do the work and whatever that work is, whether that's becoming something or sobriety or or just being a better father, husband, first mother, daughter, whatever. And you're actually really trying to do the work, which is really commendable and very hard. It is very hard. There's another book that I've read recently called How to Do the Work, which takes you down in a granular way and really how to identify where your trauma is and what it is and how to move past it because God bless.

06:22I think I don't know anybody in my world, nobody that doesn't have some sort of trauma in their life that they need to work through. I think that might be a good segue into this thing because I did a podcast with Eric Cacciatore, who's the host of Restaurant Unstoppable, and we did a show. He was on this podcast, oh gosh, like a year ago, and then he came to Nashville around mid-October, kind of late October, and he said, hey, I'd like to interview you. And he came to Maribor and we sat down and it was, I think, three days before my two-year sobriety birthday. And he said, you're celebrating a pretty big day. And I said, yeah, yeah, no, it is pretty cool. And we talked about it. And then he asked me some more in-depth questions about it. I ended up telling him way more than I really wanted to. But I got so many people who reached out to me and were like, man, that was so brave. I was like, I don't think it was brave.

07:22I don't know how in the world that was brave. But literally, I probably had 15 to 20 people reach out and say, hey, look, let's connect. I need help in that area. Or can you tell me more? And I thought in 2022, one of the things I really wanted to do was something that was going to start helping the community. And we've got some amazing people have come to town in the Giving Kitchen and Big Table. There's just a lot of focus around recovery. And we've gone through 2020 and 2021 where every other week, it seems, everything in the world changes and people are not working and they're at home. And it's not I thrive on change for some reason. I enjoy it. Like, oh, look, now we have something to really focus on. Like, that's what gets me going. And everybody's not like that. And so I don't know. I wanted to share. I want to every month interview somebody in this industry who is sober. And I want to share their stories because every time I hear somebody tell me their story, I go, oh, my gosh, that's me.

08:28Or I recognize so many facets of it. And I had no clue. I had zero clue that any of that was me. And so I felt like I can't solicit this information from anybody else until I just come out and tell my story kind of as a hey, look, I did it. Let's pull the bandaid off. And what I want to do is I want to tell my story. And if you're out there and you feel like I don't I don't want to preach, I don't want to sound like I know what the fuck I'm talking about, because I really don't. I'm just talking. I'm going to talk today from my heart and what I have experienced by no means is it. By no means is this a game plan. By no means is this look what I can do. You can't do it. That's no way. And if you're not somebody who drinks or has an alcohol problem or drug or pill problem, whatever it might be, hopefully some parts of this you will understand. So that when you work with somebody because, you know, we had people we have a lot of people that work with us that are in recovery. And, you know, I'll do wine tastings before the shift.

09:29I used to. I still do wine tasting. I don't drink, obviously. But like when I would do wine tasting, somebody would go, no good, I don't drink. I go, well, you can at least smell it. Like, get in here like you can. And I'm the insensitivity that I used to have was mind boggling. And the I didn't I don't think I had the ability to see it. So I want to tell my story today. And I asked you to be here to kind of help me navigate through it because you know me really, really well. And you can call me on my bullshit if I try and get to pontificational. That's a word. So, yeah. So there we go. That's what today's episode is about. We're going to title today's episode. That's it. Hello. My name is Brandon and I'm an alcoholic. Yeah. Here we go. So I didn't know where to start. And I wanted to start. I want to go back to the beginning. And I want you guys know a little bit about me and where I come from. And I was born in Southern California. Wiley talked about on the show. And I grew up. I have an older brother who is two and a half years older than me.

10:31He's six foot eight three hundred plus pounds. He might. He's been working out. He may be like less than that. I hate to put his weight out there. And I have a younger sister who is amazing. She is. She's six foot tall. I don't know her weight. I'm not going to say it. But she's she's gorgeous. And she is an amazing human being. And growing up, I had this older brother and I had a younger sister and I was the quintessential middle child. Like by all I was like I'd walk into a therapist's office and like, oh, your middle child. Got it. Like they knew exactly what was going on. I did not. And it stemmed from my parents. We went to both of my grandparents live close to us. We spent a lot of time at my father's parents' house and my mother's parents' house. And they almost couldn't be more opposite. Like my father's parents would constantly be telling me you're not good enough. How come you can't ride the big waves like your brother? How come you can't hit the ball as bad as far as your brother? How come you can't throw the ball as hard as your brother? How come you can't run as fast like you're just not as good as he is?

11:33He's the goal. And it was like, man, I tell you what, as like a six year old, that's painful shit. And I think my sister was also in that same boat, but she she didn't fall in line to their their ways either. So she was kind of cast off also from them. My brother was the kind of the golden child in that family. And at my other grandparents house was not the opposite, but they kind of loved everybody the same. And they were the ones who would hold me at night and tell me I was good enough. So I did have that balance. And it's amazing growing up, even to this day, the competitive nature that I have with my brother. And I look back on it and I think like, wow, my brother wasn't necessarily trying to compete with me all the time. I was just trying to catch up because I was constantly told that I couldn't. And so that helped me and it hurt me and helped me because nothing scared me. I was constantly battling somebody who was two feet bigger than me and could kick my ass whenever they wanted. So nobody scared me.

12:34And again, I also didn't feel like I was good enough. You know, I always lost and helped me identify that I could lose and be OK with it. But it also drove me every day because he wasn't going away. So, I mean, there's parts of me and my personality that you get it and you go, oh, I see why that is. I didn't I didn't know any of this really growing up. And so when I was 16, 17, I think I started smoking cigarettes when I was 12. And yeah, so we were the first people to live on our street and they were building houses all around us. So we would go like walk through these houses that were being built and look for, you know, finally one day I found a pack of Marlboro's. Marlboro Reds? I don't remember. I think it was a red. It was Marlboro Reds in the Newports. It was a Marlboro Red. I found a pack of them and I went home and I was like, oh, my gosh, I called my friends who live right down the street. And I was like, I found a pack of cigarettes. You want to try and smoke one? You know, so we like hid and we went in these houses that were being built.

13:35We would smoke cigarettes. And then ultimately, I'm a tall guy. I could like 15, 16, I could walk into stores and confidently just buy cigarettes. I started smoking hot when I was like 15. I was at David Lipscomb. I went to five high schools, never got in trouble. I always knew right before I was going to get in trouble and then I would go to a different school and I had to switch my friends. My parents said, you got to switch friends. You can't really hang out with the people you're hanging out with. So I said, I can't do that at school. So for some reason, let me switch schools, which I think helps me the fact that, you know, people say that you've never met a stranger. You walk in any room because I had to do that multiple times and make new sets of friends, which also was tough because, you know, you didn't get to have these long lasting friends. And I was I was tough. I was tough. I had a really thick skin and I had a hard exterior. I was not going to allow you to push me around. I was angry. I was an angry, angry kid. And I think back, it gives me heartburn and I just get that really guilty, terrible feeling when I think of the way that I was to kids in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

14:41I was such a dick. I was horrible. And it wasn't until I was like 16 or 17, I really got into hanging out with my sister and all her friends that I kind of let some of that go. And I think I started my parents said, you can start drinking in the house when you're 18. So we have a beer at dinner kind of a thing like if you were eight, you weren't allowed to drink anything else, but like you could have a beer at dinner. Very European. Well, you know, it was I think that they were like, hey, look, we don't want to make a stigma out of not drinking. You're going to go do it. We know it. But if we can have you here, you're not doing it outside of there. Then that's a thing. And I always thought that was really cool. At 18, at 18 years old, I took my brother's driver's license to the DMV. I took his birth certificate and Social Security card, which I knew where it was in my parents' house. I took it to the DMV. This is way before everything was digital. And I had them take a picture and I got my own driver's license, a Tennessee driver's license when I was 18 that said I was 21 with my I get pulled over and it would work. Like it was a real driver's license.

15:43Did you guys look a lot more alike back then? Well, there was no like file picture back. Like then it was like, oh, oh, oh, oh. Don't look. No. Well, the funny thing is like two years later, he moved to California for a couple of years. And they did have that he tried to get a license. They're like, this isn't you on their computer. And he was like, it is it is me. Like it took him a while. And I felt so terrible about that. But I could go drinking at bars like full on whenever I want to when I was 18. So I kind of turned 20 when I turned 18, which drinking to me, I started working in restaurants at that time and drinking was just fun. It was kind of a rite of passage. That's what you did. Right. You worked hard. You got cash. And then after that, you went and you went drinking. And I had a roommate. So I moved out of my parents' house when I was 18. And I had a condo in Bellevue, 1997. And my roommate was 26. And he would drink handles of Gordon's vodka. He would drink five, six shots of vodka before he went to work in the morning.

16:44Like it was like that was normalized to me. Was he also in the industry? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We worked at Ruby Tuesdays in Brentwood at that time. And he would he would drink four, five, six shots. And then he would go to work. He'd take the Gordon's with him. And in between breaks, he'd go to his car and he would do shots and then come home at night. And he would buy me handles of early times just to like not drink his vodka. I've never heard of these brands at all. Yeah, they're really shitty brands. I mean, bless your heart, Gordon's in early times. But like if you're buying rock got stuff and you don't have a lot of money, that's what you drank. Would you drink a half gallon of vodka every day? Geez. And, you know, we had all these people that come because all my friends were like 18 when they couldn't go out to bars. They couldn't have my apartment. We could just get wasted. You know, we would smoke pot all night. I mean, it was a grand old time. I didn't think anything of it because that's just what everybody kind of did. And I was somewhat I was driven and I wanted to keep going, keep going. And I finally got a job at Amerigo and that was kind of where it all changed for me.

17:48I mean, I got into management and I stopped smoking pot. I still drink and drinking was one of those things. Drinking is something that is socially acceptable every single place in the world. And I never thought of anything. I mean, you know, I was I think that growing up in my grandparents world, are you bigger, faster, stronger? Are you tough? Was like this crazy masculinity that like was taught to me. Like I don't you know, I don't begrudge people who are that way. I mean, I kind of do. But I I feel like there's so much education that we can learn because I thought to be a man you had to just suck it up. You weren't allowed to have feelings. Right. Men don't have feelings. Men just get shit done. Men just get out there and hustle. So I was under the I could drink all night long till three, four o'clock in the morning. I could be at work at eight o'clock in the morning. You wouldn't know the difference. I can work. I can work. I work sick. I work. Didn't matter. That's what you did.

18:48And that was incredibly unhealthy. All of that was incredibly unhealthy. And I grew up in a very strict Christian world where the men was the the man was the head of the home and the woman was the heart of the home. And I mean, I don't know. I think that all of that stuff is is so antiquated, honestly. Yeah. I mean, we've now that we've learned more, we do better. Right. And we just didn't there weren't voices out there advocating for anything else at that time. I sit back and I've done so much reflection on why I'm the way that I am and who I am. And I look back at some of this stuff. I don't want to just get into too many of these crazy details. I know I already am. But why I'm the way that I am growing up into a man getting married and falling into this line of this is what you do. You get you grow up. You get a job. You get married. And we waited eight years to have children. And then you have kids and then you raise the children, then you raise. And, you know, I bought this house that we're in right now in October of 2019.

19:52And it was kind of this moment for me where I thought, I'm a man now. I now have this house and have all these things like I'm a man. And it was it's amazing because I had I thought I was on top of the world. And here we are 17 days later and or 18 days after that, I'm resigning my position at my job. And I'm I have to look at my life in a completely different way. Yeah, you know, I think for years and years and years, I've always wondered this drinking like I'm not drinking every night. And I'm like, oh, shit, I'm drinking every night. And through all of the crazy shit that I would see all the time. Somebody asked me the other day at the restaurant said, I bet you've seen a lot of stuff. And I'm like, yeah, I've seen a lot of stuff. I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. I've seen 80-year-old women do shots of tequila at 10 o'clock in the morning. I've seen, you know, guys, you name it. It's it's I'm sure there's still stuff I need to see yet in the restaurant business. But I think all of us out there, we've seen the wackiest, the hardest side, which I would look at.

20:55And I go, well, at least I'm not doing that. Yeah, I was drinking in the morning and certainly have before. That's I love football. Right. Sunday morning football, you get up at eight o'clock morning and start drinking to get ready for that 12 o'clock game. I, you know, I normalized all of these things. Well, so does society, though. Like, don't put all of that on you. Right. Like I went to FSU, which is known for partying. And I'm great. By some grace of God, not an addict. But we did the same thing like everything you're describing. I did. My friends did. That's that's the culture that we are in. So, you know, just not to put all of that on just you and not knowing. Well, no, but for me, understanding. Because, you know, that went through this period where I was like, I am the worst person on this planet. Like, I am just a terrible human. It's really depression hits you really hard. And depression is something that, oh, I cannot even tell you how bad it is. I know a lot of people out there like, holy shit, if anybody knew about the depression that I had, but I I didn't tell anybody about it.

22:00Because you know what? I'm a man. I suck that up. And I just go out there and I just do what I have to do and don't show it. Don't put any of this out there and don't show it. So I will I will fast forward to my wife, who's the most amazing person who's put up with me for all of these years and all of my wacky antics and all of the things going to hockey games. Coming home at two o'clock in the morning after I said I'd be home at eleven o'clock after the game ended. Just wasted. How did you get home? Like, I don't know. My car's here. You know, like even if it's OK, if I was taking an Uber, I got ten times more wasted. You know, I just it was just a when I was allowed to. I started blaming my wife because she would say you're drinking too much. No, I'm not. You just think that because you don't want me to be happy. You know, and you want to control me and you want all these things. And I would blame her for all of this. And it was pretty bad.

23:00Like I was in this cycle of I can control what I can control, but she's causing this in me. And it wasn't until October twenty six. I know October twenty seven, October twenty seven. We had a party of twenty nineteen of twenty nineteen. Yeah, we had a party at our owner's house, Stephen's house. And I made a decision that night that was a terrible decision. I am not going to go into the details of it. Like I said, if you want more details, I'm happy to sit down and talk to anybody. This some of this stuff isn't for the air, but I will tell you, I made a poor decision. And I ended up leaving that night and waking up the next morning. And realizing the thing that I did something very bad, which was going to affect not only me, but it's going to affect my wife and my children and the restaurant, other people. And I told my wife what I had done, and she was very unhappy, to say the least.

24:09I told her that I would never drink again, which I had said, I don't know, a hundred times previously. Sure. So I'm never going to drink again. And there was something about this time that I was like, I don't. I know it is, but I have really fucked up. And Stephen said, hey, don't come to work, just hang out, just wait. I'm going to see what people are talking about. And it kind of went viral within the restaurant. And two days later, he said, hey, look, let's meet in person. And as we met in person, my wife called me and she said, mind you, we bought our dream home 17 days, closed our dream home 17 days before this. I met Stephen at a coffee shop. We're sitting outside and I kind of told this story one time on the show, but we agreed that I would resign my position. And he said that he was going to offer me a severance package, which was going to allow me to figure out what I wanted to do next. And my wife had told me on the way there, she goes, look, I'm screwed either way. You've made a complete fool out of me.

25:10You've made a complete fool out of yourself at these restaurants. If you go back to these restaurants, I'm mortified. I don't want you to go back there. But if you get fired or you lose your job today, I'm completely screwed too. You're the bread, you're the one who makes the money in this house. And at that moment, when I decided, when I said, OK, so I don't have a job. And he said, we're going to, you know, this is your severance package and yada yada. A huge rainbow showed up like I can't even describe. And I'll put it on Instagram. I'll put it on my NRR page. Is the this rainbow showed up and I just started crying. I didn't know what to do because it was like God was speaking to me. You know, it's like one of those moments where you go, holy shit, like this has really come to a head. Like I am I drove there to that meeting thinking that every single person in the world hated me. That there was nobody like me.

26:11That I was I was at my rockiest of bottoms. One of those moments. Right. And the way that Stephen told me what he was going to do, he gave me a hug and he said, I love you. He said, you're amazing. You're the best for our business. And feeling that one person there that said they love me was amazing. Seeing this rainbow, I drove home and I was full of this. OK, God has told me that the flood is over. Go like this is my turn. So I got home and I told my wife what was going on. And I told her, I said, I don't know what you're going to do. If you're going to leave me or if you're going to stay with me or whatever you're going to do, know this, that I will be a better person going forward. So begins the work that night. I found a meeting having one of the things about these meetings. I'm not going to talk too much about a because one of the traditions is I don't want to be an endorsement for it.

27:13I'm not somebody who's like, you should go check this out. That's not what I'm doing. That's not what we want to do as a community. But I do in order to tell my story, part of it has to do with this fellowship. So here goes. I went to my first meeting that night and I was talking on the phone to somebody and like, man, you don't need that shit. And I said, no, I think I do. And I kind of told him what happened. And they go, look, dude, is for people who have like slid into buses and killed children like you're going to be in there. You're like, I don't need to be in this room. And so I didn't know what to expect. I was scared. I mean, I mean, like if I go to this thing, I'm admitting defeat. I'm going to get there and I have to I have to say the words I have to say. I am an alcoholic. Why do I have to say that? Like, I don't want to do it. And I walked in and I walked to the back of this room and they have like all these little pamphlets, all these people in there. Right. And they're all just hanging out, talking because they all know each other. I walked the back of this room and I pulled out a couple of pamphlets and I sit in the very back row looking at pamphlets about which, by the way, that's the number one reason you know who a newcomer is.

28:18If they come in, they don't talk to me to pull out pamphlets. Well, a guy walked up to me and he said, hey, man, you new here? And I said, sure, I am first time. And he was wearing a Predator jacket. And I was like, you hockey fan? And he said, yeah. And this was a meeting where people were celebrating their birthdays, annual birthdays. And so he goes, you got to come sit in the front row, man. And I'm like, oh, shit. So, like, not what I want to do, not what I want to do. And I sit and I listen to somebody who looked like me who's dressed nice and he was up there and he goes, I celebrate three years today, but I almost didn't. Because I almost relapsed last week. And then he goes, three years ago, I almost lost my family. I almost I lost my job. I almost lost my home. And I felt in that moment like there's never a place I needed to be more. You know, like it's one of the scary moments in life where you go, holy shit, like everybody doesn't hate me.

29:19Like everybody in this room like gets it. They are like, yeah, dude, you fucked up. You fucked up. We all did. This is the first day of the rest of your life. It's one day at a time. It's not how am I going to get three years? This guy's got three years. How am I going to get three years? It's you have a day. You have two days. You have three days. Like, it's OK. Like, it's one day at a time. And so at the end of the meeting, I stood up and I got my old 24 hour chip and I said, my name's Brandon and I'm an alcoholic. You know, the only thing I could really say about that moment is that I imagine it's what somebody who comes out of the closet feels like for the first time when they're able to say mom, dad, whoever. Being able to say that was like the most freeing, releasing moment of my life because I was like, whoa, acceptance. I just accepted something about myself that I was afraid of for 20 years.

30:21I've been afraid that this was me. And now I'm accepting it. And here we go. And I got literature and I started learning steps and something about me is that I like to be in control and I have lots of I have a lot. I was very angry. I was a very angry person. I had no idea how angry that I was. And I learned that I can't control everything. There's a there's a prayer and I've said this 100 times on this on this podcast. There's Randy prayer. God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can the wisdom to know the difference in that small phrase hits me so hard because I can't change anybody else. I can't control anybody else. And they say you've got to give over all of this stuff to a higher power. I think this is the part that scares a lot of people. And again, I'm not saying this because you need to go to a or I'm not endorsing it whatsoever.

31:25I'm just telling you some of the things to me that hit me like a ton of bricks like that just fell on me so hard was I can't control it. Like all these things I'm trying to control that are bringing me anxiety that are bringing me depression because I can't control them. I can't. And so I sat one night and I prayed and I said God I'm giving I'm giving everything to you. I'm not in control. I'm in control of me and me only and through the moment with the with the rainbow. I was like I'm going to give it over to God. I'm going to start listening when God talks to me and this is God the way that I see him. This isn't I'm not talking about the traditional version of God which to me it kind of is the traditional version of God. But the whole thing about it is you find whatever you have to give it away. You have to give away all this fear that you have. And I did and I meditated every morning and I was mindful and I went holy shit like I'm starting to feel OK. And I was at home first and then you know this was October November December.

32:29I remember I had two job interviews with a big food company and I was really excited about him and I thought that I absolutely drilled these interviews. I mean I was like holy shit. I killed it. Like there's one interview where we had to do a role play and it was me role playing that I was a consultant for a restaurant group and I had to bring them ideas as to how to make the restaurant. But it is a real restaurant that had to and I was with the executive their executive team and I was a consultant showing them what to do. And literally like I had a PowerPoint made and I go to a slide and they would go yeah well what about this. And I go it's funny you say that because my next slide covers it like I was I've never hit a meeting. I've never killed an interview so well but before that interview I walked in and I said you know what. No matter what happens I'm just going to let it go. I let it go. I'm going to do it. I'm giving it over to God. I'm not in control of this. And I didn't get it. I didn't get the job. They called me and they said hey look you didn't get the job. And I was like wow OK. That's crazy.

33:29Well no problem. I'll just move forward. And that's when I came up with New Light Hospitality and we came up with I'm going to help people. I'm going to start doing all this stuff. And the logo for New Light Hospitality New Light is based from the John Mayer song New Light. You like that song and this is my new light. This is a new way in which I'm seeing the world. This is my new self and I can take the best parts of me and the worst parts of me and I can continue to learn. So I'm not healed by any means. I'm still well into this process. I have not finished all of the steps. I'm slowly working every single one to get better. And it's identifying all of my resentments and all of my fears and going over all these things that I still hold on to and telling somebody about them and letting them go. Just saying goodbye. So I ended up doing New Light Hospitality and this podcast started. And it's crazy because I kept having these ideas about the podcast and just ideas and ideas and ideas just kept spewing in.

34:30And I prayed. I'd sit there and I prayed about it prayed about it. And then all of a sudden, like the pandemic started and I had already had all of the stuff ready to do the podcast. I prepared everything. I just started talking to a microphone. And it's amazing because I would have stressed about all of this so hard before. But now I'm like, oh, wow, it's kind of fortuitous. It's cool. It wasn't for me. What's going to happen is going to happen. It wasn't that I manifest it just kind of happened that way. So so that's kind of my story. There's so much more to it. Since that day, we've gone through a pandemic that is never ending. We went through a historic civil rights movement, which was amazing for me because this cloud of machismo and all this stuff that I felt like I needed to feel about something and, well, you're just not working hard. Whatever I had like reading the book, how to be an anti-racist was so powerful to me because I was like, holy shit. Like, I'm not fighting for them.

35:31Like, I'm just over here saying, hey, that's not cool or not doing those things. But allowing it when I hear it, not like actively saying, hey, that's not cool. Don't say that like I never did that. And you're one of those people to me that I'm so impressed with because you are you. You are an absolute anti-racist. And I love that about you. And I'm trying every day. But I was able to see that, you know, I was able to see that it was probably my. About the second or third week of being sober, which they call it being dry. You're being sober. But I went to this meeting and I was saying to me, I've never been to before. This is the one of the biggest moments for me. And everybody was quiet, just a quiet, quiet room for like three minutes. Nobody was talking. And so I said, this is the first time I ever shared. I said, hello, my name is Brandon. I'm an alcoholic. He said, hi, Brandon. And I said, I just want to say how grateful I am today for guilt and my lack thereof.

36:35Because when I was drinking, I had no idea. The things that I were doing were totally alcoholic stuff. I kept a bottle of vodka in my freezer. Right. And that bottle of vodka in my freezer was something that I would get home. I would leave work at night and I would take a half bottle of wine. I polished that off on the way home. Walk in the door. I'd walk in my kitchen in my garage, my garage cooler and open up a La Croix. I would take a huge sip out of it, then I would fill it with ice cold vodka. Right. So I put three to four ounces in there. I put the lid back on. I'd walk inside. My wife go, have you been drinking? I go, oh, no, we had a wine tasting at work. That's it. I'm just drinking La Croix now. And I would drink La Croix. And then I would quickly open a beer because that La Croix and all that vodka breath. Now I had beer. Oh, yeah. Now I have had a beer. And I would go to my bonus room and I would stay there and watch TV while she went to bed. And I would drink four or five more beers. I thought that was normal. I was like a lot of people do this. Right. And the way that I would keep that vodka, because I would finish off a half gallon of vodka fairly quickly at Tito's.

37:41Right. And the other thing would be half empty in like, you know, three or four days. So I had a full half gallon that I would keep in the grass catcher for my mower so that, you know, she would never look there. So every once in a while I would refill it. So she opened the freezer. She would see that bottle very slowly go. It would always stay pretty full. Well, he's not really drinking out of that. It can't be that bad. I wonder why he smells like I thought that was normal. I had normalized that in my life. I normalized putting six packs of beer in my work backpack that I would take upstairs immediately so that she wouldn't hear it, see it. And then when she would go to bed, I would drink lukewarm beers. Like so in this meeting, I said, I'm just excited that I don't have to lie. I was lying so much, Jen. I had no idea how much I was lying to her. I had no clue how I kept up with all the bullshit that I was spewing. It was this big epiphany, like, oh, my God, when you're honest, you don't have to lie.

38:45You have to worry about her every time the phone would ring. And it was like in a busy time or some of the restaurant, I'd be like, oh, shit, she found the vodka. She found that two cans I hid under the couch. She'd find my gummy bears. She found something like every time the phone rang, I thought I was in trouble. And that doesn't happen anymore. It's the craziest thing. Yeah, they say you're only as sick as your secrets, which I have said, I mean, my husband's in recovery and I've said that to him many, many times. And, you know, it's it's a thing. So what I want to talk about, I think, is that I mean, I know we don't want to harp on the AA portion, but it is a free outlet for anybody that is struggling, which I think is great. It's nonprofit. It's not they don't expect anything of you. And I know that going there, there is kind of this like people said to you, like, well, you're not like them.

39:45You're not like them. And that's a really common thing. I think that you hear in the industry or outside the industry, you just hear that you're not you're not that bad. And we do that to ourselves. Right. Like, I have always struggled with body image issues. And I used to watch I used to watch my thousand pounds sisters or whatever, because I was like, OK, well, I'm not that bad. Like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Which is crazy. Crazy. But anyway, that same idea, right, of like that comparison of why not the guy that's homeless on the whatever those things are called the media and holding up a sign. That's not me. I can't be that bad. But there's different levels. Right. And so how did you get past the us and them? Was it just seeing that guy come up and speaking and him looking like you or that was the first thing. And then as I continue to meet people, I mean, this is my best friends in the world right now. I was we started a pandemic really soon after I got sober, so I wasn't seeing people.

40:46And the only people I was seeing were these people. And nobody judged me and nobody cared. The only thing they cared about was helping me. And to me, it was it was just amazing. I didn't know people like this existed. I just everybody in this world is cutthroat and it's business and it's I'm taking this and whatever you get, you get. And like, that's the opposite that I feel from my community right now. And it encourages me to want to give back as much as I possibly can. The stigma of what that was, was I just got into it. You know, one of the things I started doing was I started going to start going downtown. My sponsor tricked me. They say he tricked me into going to a room in a room with an end room in the end. And I went every Sunday morning to like a meeting there for like months until the pandemic ended and being in that room with everybody. And I mean, I'm in that room with Titans player.

41:46I mean, there's it is truly an honest, but there's some of the most amazing people that you just talk with and you just it's a time to shut up for me. I talk so much that it's time for me to like sit and I listen to other people and I go, wow, there's really good stuff here, which is what inspires me. I hear so many people tell me a story where I was I was a bag of shit. I was this guy. I did this, I did this, this. But now I'm leading a company and now I'm doing all of these things because alcohol clouds you. You know, I didn't think that alcohol did anything to me. Like I was hiding from everything. I was really unhappy with myself in so many ways, and I wouldn't drink because I didn't want to be around me either. You know, I I people say that drinking is your problem drinker. I, you know, I made this comment. I said drinking wasn't my problem. Drinking was my solution. I didn't know how to deal with myself.

42:48I didn't know how to handle situations. I didn't want to feel. I was never grown up and growing up, nobody let me feel. You just get through it. I mean, to this day, I go, you know, to my parents' house for barbecues and it's all a bunch of dudes with bottles of bourbon talking about bourbon. And it's like my wife's like every time we go up there, you just leave. I'm like, because it doesn't do it doesn't do anything for me to sit around and just talk about bourbon for like it's so shallow. Like I just don't want to do it. And I'm not calling my family and friends up there shallow. But like it was a common. I recognize I did that, too. Like I'm just I don't know. I didn't I didn't know I didn't know how to handle my feelings. I didn't want to have feelings. And then when I stopped drinking and I started having feelings and went, oh, shit, what do I do now? My resource for for dealing with stress, dealing with people, dealing with any feelings, insecurity, anything at all. Well, I just go get drunk. That's gone.

43:51What do you do? So I picked up hiking. I picked up listening to podcasts. I started I was able to read really really talk about daring greatly, like learning how to be vulnerable in a way that like it's OK. It's been the most powerful thing to me because I'm learning how to feel again. Like I don't know if I'm able to talk to my children in a way that isn't surface level. And I'm it's hard as shit. Like I try and meditate as much as I possibly can. I don't know how to do stuff. Now I try and pray or I be mindful and I stop and I think I can't just go drink. And it's been the most amazing thing because I actually have to face the demon and go, look, motherfucker, it's on. And I'm going to challenge you. And that's where that work is done. That's where that growth happens. I can't run from it anymore. And so another big part of wanting to this podcast is I just love talking to people and learning. I've just really this was a way for me to connect with people and to learn about this craft and to share it with a bunch of people.

44:54But yeah, I had no clue. The fog that I had and how I dealt with problems and how I dealt with anything was so bad and they call it an allergy. That's the thing that I learned a lot was that me and alcoholism has so many different looks and faces to it. But for me, what it looked like was I'm not possible. I can't just have a drink. If I have one, I'm having ten. It's not a bottle. It's not like a glass of wine. It's like a bottle. And then I've got to open that second bottle, which means I have to finish the second bottle. You know, it's drinking until I pass out at night. That's what I do. I would I would take like an ambient or something. Then I would drink four or five high gravity beers until I'm watching TV and I fall asleep on the couch and wake up at two o'clock in the morning. Then go upstairs, brush my teeth real good and get into bed with my wife. Like I didn't have any way to cope. And now I don't do any of that. Like I said, I'm not I'm not healed. I'm not some superhuman now. I just feel a lot more shit.

46:00I hurt the same way, but I work through those feelings and I'm still angry. I still get mad. I'm still like, oh, I get manic. That's who I am. Like I'm I'm trying to get past that every single day. But I mean, shit, I'm two years and two months in and I wanted to wait until I was at least a couple of years. I want to be like, hey, look, I got 30 days. Listen to me. I'm a sober guy like and that's a 30 days is nothing to shake a stick at. That's really impressive. So it's the same one. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, because this is a rampant issue within the industry specifically and you did a very hard thing in coming back to your position, coming back to the restaurants and specifically the restaurant you were you resigned from, which I got to witness with you because that's when we really met. So I never knew you at you drinking. I've only known you as a sober person, which I think is a great privilege of mine to know you in that way.

47:06You would not have liked me that. But it has allowed us your journey and what I'm in with my husband and all that has allowed us to become close. I'm grateful for that. But that was a very hard thing for you to do. And even even if you hadn't done that, you're still constantly around alcohol, right? I mean, you and I sat and price liquor the other day and we were talking about allocation and we're talking we're trying to teach the staff stuff about wine. And so how being around that, because people that listen to this are likely in the industry and will likely stay in it. Some of us are just lifers. So how do you deal with that now in a way that makes you feel safe and comfortable in that environment again? That's a great question. I was pretty fortunate that when I stopped drinking, I wasn't in a restaurant. I knew that I was going to get back into a role where I potentially would have to travel. And that role with the food company was one where I would be gone three or four days out of the month. And that's the thing that scared me the most.

48:07Like, how am I going to go on a day trip and stay in a hotel for three days and not drink? I found out that you can go to meetings anywhere around the country. Whenever else goes out drink, I go to a meeting. And what I did was over time, I have a sponsor and you call your sponsor and you ask questions and you go, hey, this is what I'm feeling. And they can help you. I think a support system is one of the things that you have to have. And then once you get a little bit of time and you learn how to really pray and meditate, you realize how you were using alcohol. I've realized how I used alcohol and how toxic it is for me. And that if I have one sip, I'm right back in. Like, there's no, oh, I can just taste this one time. I can do one thing. I know if I have one, it's that first drink for me and I'm gone. I lose everything. Right. It's gone for me. So I have that.

49:07But I think there's a lot of things I've learned over that year and a half being outside a year and two months being outside of the restaurant that allowed me strength to go back in. So I was I kind of cheated. I didn't have to get sober and then go right back to work in a restaurant. But there are definitely having a support system of people around you who care about you and anybody who's, you know, it's one of those things. I drink mocktails now. I've just started drinking non-alcoholic beer because I do. I love IPA. I love these things. And I've I've got it. I didn't I couldn't do that the first almost two years. It was right at the two year mark that we were on a trip. I went to on a food trip to Asheville of all places. We ate at like nine restaurants where every single person on a trip was drinking. And I didn't I didn't drink. I wasn't even really tempted. I had I had a non-alcoholic beer and I was like, oh, that was really nice. Like it didn't make me want another beer. It was just kind of like, hey, that was cool. It's frowned upon in the community to drink non-alcoholic beer, at least until you get a little time under your belt. But for me, I think that one of the things I want to do, I want to champion normalization of not drinking.

50:14When you go out somewhere and you say, oh, no, thanks, I don't drink like these bars. You go to any bar that doesn't sell mocktails, that doesn't sell non-alcoholic beer. You're like, really? Like you don't do something for people that don't drink. You don't make anything at all. It baffles my mind sometimes. Or when you say, oh, no, thanks, I don't drink. They go, why? Yeah, I was going to say. I don't need to answer why I don't drink to you. Right. Because I don't drink, because I'm sober. And what I say now is I go because I'm an alcoholic. You're like, oh, shit, he just says he's an alcoholic. And I go, hell, yeah, it's part of my identity now. I'm proud of it. I'm OK to say I'm out of the closet. I'm good. I know who I am. And I know that that's deadly to me. If somebody gets into my grill, well, dude, just have one. I'm like, I'm an alcoholic asshole. I'm not going to do it. Which is very, very, very rare. Maybe one time in two years I've had anybody be like, oh, dude, you can have one. Or you could smoke weed. I'm like, I don't do that either.

51:15I don't do anything. No mood altering. I just don't do any of it. So that's helped me a lot. Prayer. You know, I don't think people see me in the restaurant when I go spend time alone somewhere. I just go, God, this is really difficult for me right now. And I don't know what to do. But I'm going to put it in your hands. And I'm going to walk out of this room and you're going to give me some sort of sign. You're going to tell me what to do because I don't know. But I don't know what to do here. So I'm just going to give it to you. And it's amazing how immediately there's a clarity that goes about you because you stop worrying about it. And all that worry goes away and you go, oh, well, now I know what to do. I've stopped worrying about it. Let's do this. And if it's right or wrong, it's OK. Like, it's just so I do that a lot now. And it helps. Yeah. I don't walk around the building bumping a Bible. No. But typically, if I can't find you, I know you're either having a moment where you've you've Irish two options, really.

52:16I also think it's important to be I think there are more supportive people in the industry than people realize. And, you know, seeing like I've said to my husband, I think I've said it to you, too. Like, if they're not up here for your sobriety, then they can't be in our lives. Like, they just can't. If it's somebody that says, like, hey, let's go out drinking. No, no, no, no, no, no. Like they have. But there are people that are really, really supportive. And you have to there does come this like with any change and growth comes other growth and other change. And you do kind of have to there are certain people that we don't hang out with anymore, meaning me and my husband, because they weren't people we felt safe not drinking around and or that it was just became uncomfortable. We realized our whole relationship was based around drinking and things like that. So those are not people in our lives. And I think that that is a scary thing for people that are on that ledge of getting sober.

53:17Oh, no, my whole life's going to change. I can't go out anymore. I can't see my friends anymore and just think it's important to know that that's not true. Right. Like you've gone you and I have gone out for my birthday. And I don't drink around you unless you're like, hey, it's OK. You can drink. And I do the same thing with my husband. And you have to feel safe to allow people to do that. And I think that that's OK. And I don't want people to think like, oh, no, there's no fun anymore. You have plenty of fun. So does he. It's just different. And I don't want people to be like, oh, they're sober. It's not fun. You know what I mean? You know, I bought some they have some really good IPA's untitled art makes them good like IPA's and a floor device and a juicy New England style IPA. And I got some at Red last night for New Year's. And the lady I was checking out, she's a good idea. And I go, sure. But it's a non-alcoholic and lady goes and the lady that was like bagging everything stand there. She said, oh, you're going to try and do you're going to have fun tonight without alcohol. And I go, I have fun every night without alcohol.

54:19And it was just as weird like she looked at me like, how the hell do you do that? And I was like, I don't have to worry like I can just be me all the time. The fun part is that I wake up the next day and I don't go, who the fuck was that guy last night? And why did he come out? And God, I hope that he never does again. We had a name for him. His name was Brandemonium. You've never met Brandemonium. No, I've also never heard that because I definitely probably would have made fun of that. Yeah. Brandemonium is a rest in peace. He is the drunk alter ego of Brandon. And I will tell you the person that for me, you said you got to stay around, stay away from people who are unsupportive. My wife quit drinking when I quit drinking. She said no more. Like I will not do that around you. And I can't tell you how much that means to me. Yeah. The fact that she was like, look, I'm asking you to do this. I don't need it. I'm not an alcoholic. Like I don't need it in my life. And is it all hard for you?

55:19Now, if she's going out for a girl's night or whatever, have a glass of wine. Do it like I'm not telling her one time you know anything. But like she just does that. She just does not drink around me at all. And for a year plus, she was the only person I was with because we're in the middle of a pandemic. So I'm around her only and my children. So it's really easy for me to really learn a lot. I kind of got to cheat. You know, I went through what some people thought was like the hardest time in the world. Yet I was having all these amazing personal discoveries in my life with feelings and emotions. And like just like every single week, just all of this stuff. It was amazing. And still to this day, like I'm still learning more podcasts and I'm still talking to people. And that's why I want to share more of these stories. I want to have more people. If you're in the industry and you're listening to this and you go, damn, man, I've been sober for a few years. And you want to tell your story. My goal here is to normalize this.

56:20I don't want people to go, oh, you're an alcoholic or oh, that's weird. That's taboo. I want that to be just like, oh, cool, man. No problem. Like that's it. No questions asked. That's awesome. I want people to have non-alcoholic options when people go out. If you're a manager and you have somebody who's in recovery, I want you to understand what they're going through. I want you to go, hey, man, I'm not going to push them so hard on this or pull them aside and have one on one to go. Look, I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable about this. Can I help in any way? Like anybody who stops you and smiles and tells you like, hey, man, I support you. I like get crazy. I had a guy. I had a guy last week. Let me tell you something. We went to big breakfast and we're meeting with the president of GFS. And it was amazing. We had this big breakfast and we got up and left. And Stephen goes, hey, I'm right at the restroom and I'm standing there with Christopher. And a guy walked up to me and he goes, hey, are you Brandon? And I said, yeah, yeah, what's up? He said, you gave me an Uber ride like a year ago. And I go, yeah, because that's what I drove Uber most of the time when I wasn't working.

57:22I just love doing it. And it was a way to make money. And he goes, you drove me from Franklin to downtown. And we talked all about the restaurant industry and I wanted to get out of the restaurant industry. And after our conversation, I was like, maybe I'll give another shot. And then I've been listening to your podcast ever since. And I've dug in and I have got so into what I'm doing. I just love it now. And I want to tell you, thank you. You've inspired me. That's amazing. And you just get those. I get that every like I have those type conversations every once in a while. And it just like I can't tell you what it does for like my heart. Like I can feel that. That's actually not the story I thought you were going to share because that happened to you then recently. I don't remember who you were out with, but a woman passed you a card. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought you were going to say. No, that was another one. Yeah, I was I was meeting with somebody who had reached out, heard me on the show and said, hey, look, I'd like to have lunch with you. And I sat down with him and he said, first of all, I quit drinking. And I said, what? He goes, I heard you on the podcast and I just want to say that if you can do it, I can do it. And I've been thinking about it for a long time. So I quit drinking.

58:23And I said, wow, man, that's amazing. Like, that's awesome. I'm here for you. Like, here's my phone number, anything I can do. And he was a director of operations for a restaurant group. And he was like, look, I just want to connect. I don't have much more. But we talked about his job and all the stuff. And we had a great conversation. But we were kind of done. A lady walked up and passed me a note and said, I was listening to you guys talk. I'm sorry, but here's a note. You have to read it now. But give me a call. And it was basically I heard you guys talking about this. And I have a friend who's quitting drinking and it's really hard for him. And he just feels like it's the state like if he goes to a meeting, then he gives up. And he's like, but hearing you talk about it so effortlessly, like, I'd love for him to come to where you are. And will you call me? And I was like, sure. I'm happy to. And again, like, it's not you need to do this prescriptive way to do it. But it doesn't have to be this thing that you feel like, oh, I'm admitting defeat. Because you know what? I feel great every day when I wake up. And I have more money. I have a little calculator. I'll pull it up real quick because I have a it's an actual app and it's called Nomo Nomo sobriety clocks.

59:31And this tells you all of your stats since you quit drinking about that. I have it. I use you have the app. I do. I have it for my husband. Oh, very nice. Very nice. I'm trying to find it's like not pulling up right now for some reason because it hates me because it knows I'm recording. But I've saved like thirty thousand dollars or something ridiculous in all the time and calories that I've saved. Not to mention my phone bill from calling and apologizing to people the next day and text that I've deleted because I've said I'm sorry. I acted that way and not wanting my wife to find out that I was a complete jackass the night before because she would be mad at me because anything I did reflected poorly on her. And that's a lot. Well, and I want to I want to mention briefly, too, that we've talked a lot about your wife, also named Jen or Jennifer. And she and I have gotten to talk a little bit about what it's like to be married to an addict and things that we did that we didn't realize we did.

01:00:37And, you know, look smelling water bottles randomly or like looking in bags when, you know, and and it's it's freeing to know that somebody else did those things, too. Right. Because you do as an addict, as both of us married addicts, you do feel gaslit. You're like, no, I don't think I'm crazy, but they're making me feel crazy. And that's a very hard place to be as your partner that just wants to love you and support you and all of those things. And so I know something that I have done on and off for years now is Alan on and I don't think people know about Alan on as much either. And it is like the sister of a is for people that are not addicts but are in relationship with addicts. So whether that's your romantic partner, your work partner, your mom, your dad, your brother, whoever it is, like, that's also a place where you can go and understand that you, too, cannot control your addicts, which is so hard.

01:01:38I mean, it's so hard to know. I can't do anything to prevent you from drinking like you have to make that choice. My husband had to make that choice. That is a very, very hard place to be. And so anyone listening that maybe feels that or is in that in that space, you are not crazy. And there is a place for you, too. 100%. No, that's a very good point. And if you work with people who are in recovery, I mean, if you're just a manager and you want to understand it, anybody is allowed to go to these things. You know, to go to, I think that the only rule to go to an A meeting is that you have to have a desire to quit drinking. You go to any meeting, any meeting anywhere you can go to, they're welcoming anybody. And it doesn't cost anything. You have to pay in time. Just go and sit in a corner if you want. And there's also meetings that are specifically for women, that are specifically for men, that are mixed. So you can go to a group that you feel comfortable. Al-Anon does the same thing. I used to go to an all-women one because that makes me feel more comfortable, which is great.

01:02:40So you don't have to feel alone in any way. There's always somebody there. There's treatment centers. There's all kinds of stuff. And one of the things I want to do with this episode is I want to bring in I don't want to have sponsors where we bring in any ad money from this. I want to have people sponsor this show when I interview people. And Corey Coleman has said he'd like to be the first one to come on and share his story, which I love that he's become a friend of mine through all of this. And it's a major support network. I think that some people don't realize how many other people out there are sober. If you want to hear more, there's an episode I did with Jeremy Lister. Jeremy Lister is a musician and he did a cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which was my favorite thing. He's just the most amazing musician, but he sang this song on the podcast and maybe I'll rerelease it. But it was just him singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And I like started crying in the middle of it because that was one of these amazing things for me this morning.

01:03:40I've taken down my Christmas lights and I look it starts raining and I turn around and there's a huge rainbow. And I was just like, wow, I don't know. Sometimes you get in your feels and you look around and you're like, I need a sign. I need something. And then you go New Year's Day and you look up and there's a huge rainbow going over your home. And you're like, it's going to be OK. Everything's going to be just fine. And it's a no, you got it. You got to say God doesn't talk to you. How do you know that? And I go, oh, no, he does. She does whatever they are. It's just a you got to you got to know how to listen. You got to listen. It's funny about this whole thing with the covid and everything. And there's a story about a guy who was in a flood. And there's a flood and a big truck comes by as the flood is coming in. The guys go, hey, man, hop in. We'll take you away. And he goes, no, my God will save me. And then as the floodwaters get up to like his front door, a boat comes by and says, hey, man, it's getting worse.

01:04:43Get in the boat. Let's go. And then now he's on his roof. And another boat comes by. I said, remember the last boat you got to get on. He's like, my God will save me. And then the water overcomes him and he dies. And he's in heaven. And he goes, God, I thought you were going to say. Because I sent you a truck in two boats. Like, what are you doing? Sometimes you have to listen. You have to look for it and you have to go, you know what? I get it. I'm going to I'm going to do that. So, well, I just want to end this a little bit by saying to you that, again, not knowing you as brand ammonium, you are the thing I love most about working with you is you are now so in tune to my feelings as your peer. When like there was something on Christmas Eve where you're like, hey, I don't want to rehash this. It's fine. We'll talk about it later. And I was like, OK, I thought nothing of it. And you did. And you text me and you're like, hey, I hope I didn't come off disrespectful.

01:05:44I didn't want you to feel like you didn't matter in that moment. And I was like, oh, that's very kind. I didn't feel that way. And I just I love that you are that aware of. And when I'm not feeling well, you can tell when I when I am frustrated. Like last night we texted and I was clearly a little frustrated. And you're very aware of that. And you're like, OK, let me address this. And you're very good at addressing the way people feel, not just me, our coworkers. I mean, you've been great for my husband, too. And for so many other people, you're so good at allowing other people's feelings in now to where you can remedy if possible or just correct if possible. And you take a lot of ownership over that. And I think that that's a really huge thing to be able to do that. I don't know if you could do prior, but I know you do now. And so I think that's a huge step in your growth. And I just want to compliment you on that, because that's very hard for most people to do. That means that means the world coming from you.

01:06:44And it's a new it's a new thing. Learning feelings. And I love it. I think it's amazing. I don't know. I value everything that you do. I see you for being an amazing person in all that you do. You're hardworking. You're intelligent. You stand up for the right thing. You do so many things. I'm just like so impressed with. I was like, I want her to be on the show. Like she's the people that I get and she'll call me out when I'm when I'm acting away like and I love that. I like the fact that that you do that. And I value and respect the hell out of you. And I thank you for all that you do. All right. So on that note, I think this is a good time to wrap it up. If you do want to learn more about any of this or you want to sit on talk or any of that stuff again, I'm not an endorsement for AA or any of this stuff. It's just it's such a major part of mind that I kind of feel like I need to talk to some of that kind about me coming to the place of acceptance that this is a thing was really was really part of it.

01:07:50So I wanted to share that. And thank you for being here on this. It was a little tough for me at times because I still feel a lot of emotions. But hopefully if you're out there and you're listening, I don't know, I don't know if this helps you. I don't know whatever it is, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it. And it's the best part about it is just begun. Like I'm two years like I gosh, hopefully I've got 50 more. I don't know. Yeah. But this has been pretty fun. And I tell you, I have twice as much fun now because I remember the fun that I had. So it's like I get to have the fun and then I get to remember it, which is fantastic. I didn't. Yeah. And you know what? The thing that I've learned also is that it's OK to make mistakes. It's OK to meet so many people who have relapsed. Some people like it's OK to mistakes like just pull up your bootstraps up and learn from them. The major thing that I've taken away from all of this is that I made big mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.

01:08:52But I'm an adult and I can say, yeah, that one's on me. I did the wrong thing there and I'm going to own that and I'm going to get better and then actually get better. Then actually go and figure out why you did what you did and try and get better. And it's easier to do that when you have all your capacity. So that's something that I have focused on a big way. Hiking does that for me. I love hiking every day if I can. And working in the yard, that kind of stuff. But we will we will move forward. We got a lot of fun in store for 2022. We've got an actual studio. It is a done deal. We are going to do it. We've got a studio that's going to be in Hillsborough Village. I'm going to be creating it over the first couple of weeks. Probably our first episode will be I'm going to say beginning of February, late January. We will have an actual studio. We'll be doing this in live guest in studio. I am super pumped. National Restaurant Radio ain't going anywhere. I mean, pending it. This takes off and people hate me from now on. Like I knew the brand pneumonia guy and he was a dick. Like, yeah, I was. I certainly was.

01:09:54But hopefully you guys will show me some grace. My word my word for 2022 again is going to be gratitude. Because I think that's something that we we don't have enough of on a daily basis. I'm in my nice air conditioned, heated home with electricity and a family. And when my mom calls, I get to answer it and talk to my mom. Like so many people that don't have those basic things that I think gratitude is something that I'm going to find a lot of this year. And again, I just I can't stop with it. It's so fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Well, thank you for sharing your story. And we're looking forward to the rest of them this year. Yep. All right, guys, we'll be at you soon. Thank you. Thanks. All right. So, wow, thank you. Thank you for listening to that, I guess. We recorded that New Year's Day and I was pretty emotional.

01:10:55I'm going to put the video out there. You can see I'm just like tearing up throughout the entire thing because it's hard for me to talk about a lot of that stuff. I still don't quite know how to have emotions. I cry a lot. It's a crazy thing. I'm going to stop doing that at some point, I promise. And we got a little long winded there about people and what they should do with other people and alcoholics and all. You know what? Don't listen to any of that. Do whatever you want to do. I was listening, I was like cringe worthy, but I left it in just because, hey, we were riffing. I said I was going to add on just anything that I kind of missed. And there's one area that I started talking about. I talked about alcoholism being an allergy. And that's one of the things that I learned early on is that some people have allergies. Jen is allergic to shellfish and seafood, all seafood, and tree nuts. And that just means that she can't eat those things. Her body responds differently.

01:11:58And some people have an allergy. You can't just have one drink. You continue to drink and drink and drink and drink. It's kind of the way that it's looked at. And it's okay. It's okay if you have that allergy. It just means you can't do it. Some people have that. And it made a lot of sense to me when I learned that. When I learned that, oh, I have the allergy that I can't just have one drink. That's what it is. And you know, you wouldn't tell somebody, oh, just eat shellfish one time. You can only do one. Like, no, I'm going to get sick. Like, it's bad. And that helped me understand a lot about my own disease. What it was and why it was the way it is. So hopefully there's something you guys are able to take from that. I'm sorry it was so long, but it felt good to get that off of my chest. Again, if you want to learn more about it, send me an email. We are going to be back with all new interviews.

01:13:00And guys, I also, you know, I have liquor companies on here. And I've interviewed Master Distillers. And you know, Charlie Nelson's been on this show. And the Penningtons. Those are great people. I don't begrudge any liquor company. That's like Jen hating seafood, you know. It's like, you have an allergy towards it. It's okay. Like, I have nothing against alcohol itself. It's all me. It's not the alcohol's fault. And that's something I also wanted to get out there. Look, I think that there's a lot of people out there that use alcohol responsibly and that don't have an allergy. That's awesome. I'm just jealous that they can do that because I can't. So if you hear me talking about liquor companies, if I have a liquor company who's a sponsor or anything along those lines, it's not that I don't like liquor companies and I don't advocate for alcohol. Responsible alcohol use is fantastic. If you could do that, then amen, brother. That's great. I just can't. So just to clarify that a little bit.

01:14:01So guys, happy New Year. Happy 2022. We, hopefully, I have great, great feelings about this year. Like I said, saw a rainbow, day one. It's, only can go up from there. I'm just, I'm super pumped. And thank you for listening to this entire show. I hope that you guys are being safe. Double mask. Dude, this Omicron variant sounds terrible. Please be careful out there. And I love you guys. Bye.