Surviving Substance Abuse: A Veteran's Journey to Sobriety w/ Ryan Baudhuin

In this episode, I interview my friend, Ryan Baudhuin, a Marine Corps veteran and advocate for men's mental health, to discuss his personal growth and his journey of overcoming struggles. Ryan openly shares his experiences with substance abuse, PTSD, and how he found peace and purpose through hunting. His story serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of a supportive community and the therapeutic power of nature.

What stands out in the conversation with Ryan is his candor. He brings to light, not just his struggle with alcoholism and eventual sobriety, but also his battle with PTSD. It's not every day that we meet someone willing to bear their soul as Ryan did. Delving deeper into his life, we discuss the joys and challenges of parenting, his encounter with grief, and his journey towards emotional maturity. Ryan shares insightful thoughts on handling cravings for alcohol, the importance of mindfulness, and the role of daily commitment to maintaining sobriety.

We also explore a range of topics in this episode. From the potential of psychedelics as medicines to the implications of globalization and cultural identity, we hope to provide a balanced perspective on these issues. Our discussion on traditional masculine roles, hunting, and the creation of brotherhood among veterans through hunting experiences is particularly enlightening. We wrap up with reflections on the power of discipline, the importance of staying present, and how every day presents a new opportunity for growth and self-improvement. Join us for this profound conversation and allow Ryan's journey to inspire you towards personal growth and resilience.

Transcript

0:00:13 - John
Hello and welcome to another episode of On Turned Stones. On today's podcast, I'm going to be interviewing Ryan Bouldwin. Ryan is a guy I met, actually through Sean, back in the day, mainly because of our Fat Fox For Life group going to the casino to eat and also going to wow, what's that place? The other buffet that we went to, golden corral. Golden corral, that's just terrible. 

But you know, I don't think we've not necessarily spent a lot of time in person together. I've just been following you ever since those. You know. I met you back in the day we went to, you know, met up a couple of times with the group and ever since then I've kind of been following you through social media. And it's been cool because over the last few years I've really gotten to see, like, from my point of view, a lot of growth, a lot of personal growth, and I think there's probably been a lot even more that I didn't see earlier from there and so on. 

And when I first started thinking about this podcast like, I think a solid list of like three, four people popped up. Sean was one of them and you were one of them and I know specifically it was some of the changes that senior like represent through social media when you got married and like seeing you become a dad to two little girls and then eventually have your own kid and like that that change, like it was cool and like it was one of the reasons that you popped in my mind because of also the fact that you were so involved with like veterans and I know you're very much like on this side of like like men's mental health and what it means and how much it matters. So, like I said, you were one of the first people like that popped up in this like list of three or four guys that was like these people would be great to interview. So I'm actually really excited that you're the very last interview I'm getting to do of the year, kind of the last interview of this first season of doing this podcast. So I'm very excited to have you on and I think it's going to be a great podcast for people to listen to. 

So just kind of kick it off. Can you tell people a little bit about yourself and your background stuff? 

0:02:02 - Ryan
So I mean I grew up in Northeast Wisconsin, sturgeon Bay, just North of Green Bay, little small town of 9000. Pretty typical middle class upbringing, you know. I mean didn't have to struggle for anything but didn't have, you know, weren't wealthy but had a good, comfortable life. Went to high school, joined the Marine Corps November 20th 1999, went right to boot camp like two days after high school graduation and it was pretty much cruising through my time in the Marine Corps when September 11th happened and then shit got real, real fast. But I mean a lot of my story is struggles with substance abuse. So I mean we can go back to that day, you know. I mean that's that's when I was. I was already drinking and then, you know, you do a combat deployment, you come home and a lot of people are struggling with mental health. I mean. So alcohol was definitely a major crutch and self-medication thing that was going on in my life. 

Post combat Got back from Iraq, went to school at UW-Milwaukee and pretty much just did the typical let's get through college, let's party, let's have fun, played rugby, got a history degree, taught high school for a year and I took a job with the federal government. That's where everything really started going downhill. You know, when you're in college, everybody's drinking, especially at college in Wisconsin, and when I got to my normal job, I didn't stop drinking. I was struggling with PTSD summer of 2011,. Lost both my parents two months apart to cancer, and the spiral started and I had. I was so lost I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't want to work the job I was at and, by the grace of God, I was introduced to. I had hunted. I wasn't a hunter. 

I was introduced to a veteran's hunt in October of 2011, hurricane, wisconsin. I didn't want to go. A buddy of mine from the Marine Corps told me hey, like you're going, I know what's going on in your life. You need to get out here and just be with the guys, and that's the. That is the blueprint. The hunt doesn't matter. The hunt is the setting. The outdoors is the setting, which is a great place to find peace and tranquility, but you're with other guys that you know have similar experiences, went on that hunt and by the spring of that following year, I quit my job and picked up a camera to take pictures of ducks that were migrating north. 

You can't hunt them in spring, but the male ducks are all plumed out. So I mean they're just beautiful they're, they're they're putting a show on for breeding season, taking pictures, and got noticed online. Somebody said, hey, your pictures are awesome. I know you like to hunt. Do you know how to film? And I had no plans whatsoever to film. I mean it wasn't even on my radar. I just wanted to take pictures of ducks and hunt. And I said, well, no, but my equipment does it. I'm a quick learner. I went to YouTube college for a couple of weeks, did some tutorials and next thing I know I'm all over the country following around and being in front of the camera, behind the camera editing, doing the whole nine yards for a network television hunting show. And we did four seasons with that. 

At the end of that period I'd kind of realized that like, okay, this is cool, I've built my following. I really exploded on social media. What I want to do? I want to use my platform. I want to use my network that I've built and put on hunts for vets, because that's what pulled me out of the shit. That's what pulled me out of a period of time where I mean it was not good and give that to other people and over the last five years been running high point adventures. We've got board members all over the country. I mean we're spread out. We have a lot of reach put in events on, probably five to 10 a year. It does not mean my struggle with alcohol ended, though. I mean that has been a battle that I recently made a lot of headway with. 

0:06:18 - John
Okay, okay. So just to kind of go back, so you're like 42? I'll be 42 in February. So you were born like 81?, 82. 82, okay, and yeah, you kind of like you went to high school during the 90s and at that period of time this stuff wasn't talked about at all. For you with drinking, like did it start pretty early in high school Kind of like I mean sophomore year. 

0:06:43 - Ryan
I mean I think it started a little bit peer pressure, but I had noticed from an early age that I didn't drink to socialize. I drank to get drunk and I mean I liked the feeling and it was last one up balls of the wall until I passed out and I've never really been able to. I mean they say, drink like a gentleman, I can't, and I know that. I mean when you finally say the words I am an alcoholic, I mean it's liberating in a way because I mean you know, you know, but you just don't want to like there's a stigma to it. And now in my journey, I'm a grateful alcoholic. I'm grateful I've went to the bottom because waking up I mean I get up at four o'clock, four, 35 o'clock in the morning now and like conquering a day without it little things. My son crawls in bed with me, like you know. Five in the morning we turn cartoons on. None of that would have existed. So I'm grateful to have been in such a dark place that the simple little things now are amazing. 

0:07:52 - John
So before, okay, like Sturgeon Bay, wisconsin, obviously drinking is big. In Wisconsin it's even bigger in smaller counties and smaller high schools where there's not much else to do, there's not much else around, so people drink a lot. So, outside of it, kind of being a bit of a pressure, do you kind of start. Do you recall having mental health problems that were starting to like arise in high school? 

0:08:15 - Ryan
that made you want to fall towards that. No, I don't think it was anything to do with mental health. At that point I was a pretty confident young man. I didn't have any problems. You know like 15, 16, and there's a meal on the table and the bills are paid, and I mean you got an expo or I mean it was PlayStation back then. I mean we had everything. I mean there was no struggle. So like I don't think that arise from mental health. I don't think there was any signs of that. No signs of depression, no signs of anxiety, I mean just kind of just going through life pretty easy. So I mean it was more an attraction to alcohol, which you know, there's genetic precursors, there's environmental precursors and there's just people that like from the get go, because it's so seen as normal in Wisconsin, I didn't think anything of it until now. 

0:09:06 - John
Like, looking back, I'm like whoa, like especially even like the idea of like having a couple of drinks a night just like a nightcap. Like that idea in Wisconsin is very it's so accepted. Like, yeah, most people you come home from work, you might have a couple of drinks, you might have a couple of beers just to relax at the end of the night, and nobody thinks much of it or nobody thinks anything wrong with it before. Like it can become enough of a problem that you say, well, could you not have those two drinks when you go home and you're like well, no, like that's it, I can't not have those drinks. And now you start to realize there's a dependency there. Yeah, so like, is that kind of like how it built up for you at first, or did it? Did it kind of come crashing hard because of enlisting and then kind of what you went? 

0:09:47 - Ryan
through with enlisting. I mean it was definitely a crescendo, up to the point of coming home and then losing my parents. I mean that's when things were out of control. I mean I guess I would always just look at it like, okay, you drink too much. But you know my dad, my dad would come home from work. He'd have two Manhattan's that's all booze I mean a little tumbler and he'd read the paper. And mom would have dinner. He'd come eat dinner and he'd have two more to go to bed and he'd be up at three in the morning. He'd go run three miles like completely functioning. 

I mean I was functioning at a high level for a very long time until I wasn't, you know like I never was much of a wake up and drink type guy. But I mean I've talked to people, you know, that have had similar struggles and they say like well, you're not a morning drinker until you are. And it's a progressive. You know some people want to debate disease or whatever it is. I mean there's something there. I mean if you're getting to the point where you're drinking in the morning like something's up, you know. 

0:10:48 - John
So before your parents pass and kind of things like really spiraled for you, would you? You would have just said, yeah, I drink, but it's not a problem, and like you never looked at it as a problem. Just, I drink whatever everybody does it. And like, was there ever any like idea in your mind, or shadow of a thought in your mind, like, hey, I like need to quit drinking or maybe I need to cut down drinking before it became a thing that spiraled so? 

0:11:12 - Ryan
much Before my parents died, I knew that I had a problem. But as long as I was, you know, going to work, paying bills, I mean your rock bottom is an elevator, it can. It's very relative to who you are and what's going on in your life. And you know, some people like, well, I'm not homeless, or I'm not the guy with a paper bag on the street, or I'm not divorced. Well, I mean, got married, I'm not divorced, got divorced. And then things start adding up where, like you know, it's a problem. You're just not classifying it as alcoholism. Yeah, you're just like I drink too much. Maybe I should cut back and, being at a progressive disease, you can cut back for a while. You're always going to leapfrog back to where you were and push your bottom. 

0:11:59 - John
Okay, okay. So when things, when your parents passed and things spiraled, what like consumption went up and was it like were you ready consuming daily and that consumption daily went up, or did you go to start consuming daily? 

0:12:13 - Ryan
at that point I was probably drinking daily before they got sick. I mean, it was two months to the day mom dying, the dad dying, and that is a whirlwind Two months. 

0:12:27 - John
Yeah. 

0:12:29 - Ryan
I mean it was. You know, I've got siblings. I've got my parents home to deal with their assets. I'm still working a full-time job. I don't remember a lot of that. I mean there's trauma there too, that you know. Some people don't remember the actual trauma. It was trauma for three months of just like this isn't happening, like I mean that is, it was a nightmare for my siblings too. I mean they were drinking more, but I don't think they were at the level I was at. I was already on my way there when that happened, and you know wherever they're at. I mean, that's their own personal decision as to you know how much they drink, how much they should or shouldn't drink. I mean, I'm not going to, I'm not here to. My problem isn't their problem until they come to me. But I knew that, like I was already, I was already there. I just didn't want to label it. How many siblings do you have? I'm the oldest and then my sister's three years younger than me and my brother's three years younger than her. 

0:13:29 - John
Okay, Okay, now would you say, like your time in the military did it? You know Marine Corps, like there's a lot of extreme things that come to be in a Marine and the things you go through and the things you do, and do you think like any like that extremeness from that like fed into this? 

0:13:49 - Ryan
you know, like oh, first, I'm not throwing the Marine Corps on the bus. It is machismo, bravado, alcoholic. It's the biggest drunk gun club in the world. Indeed, it is what it is. I mean you throw 18 through 25 year old men who are all Elfos, and you train the shit out of them for a whole week, and then they're frustrated and then now let's go, let loose. But we're also Marines, let's go fight. And I mean that's there. 

I mean that is, you know, you're not allowed to smoke pot in the military. Well, that's not the problem. The problem is alcohol. But I mean it's so accepted as a vice in mainstream culture. It's not going to go away, Because if you still got up, you did your PT and you oh dude, we'd line up, and this is weekdays. So your information you get ready to PT, ready to run, and all you would smell is whiskey, Like every, just every, every guy's would be vomiting and just, ah, you're 20, you know you're a machine, you know like you can get up and do that, Like now if I got wasted and then you wanted me to run a half mile hungover. Nope, so okay. 

0:14:53 - John
So that definitely 100%, then fed into. Oh yeah, and I think that's interesting, you're drinking further to the point where, like what you, what you, what you look at is normal, just kept moving up in that sense, right Through the Marine Corps. And then you went to college after the Marine Corps and in college again. 

You're in Wisconsin college and playing rugby and playing rugby a drinking culture which rugby yeah, rugby players, big drinks, so like that probably just kept pushing like what normal was even further for you. And again at that point you kind of knew you're drinking a lot but you probably still didn't necessarily think of it as a problem as much as just yeah. 

0:15:30 - Ryan
This is what I do, this is what the people around me do, this is what the subcultures around me do. Wisconsin Marine Corps rugby college in Wisconsin everywhere I'm it's normalized, it's romanticized. Yeah, that dude got so wasted. Last night he punched the door, like you know, like that's what people talk about, like it's normal. 

0:15:50 - John
I mean the way we share war stories from drinking in Wisconsin. It seems a little messed up sometimes. Yeah, so through this time, like through the Marine Corps and in the college, was mental health becoming a more you know cognizant thing for you, like yeah, like there's some mental health problems going on right now, or you know how how much of it I guess I'm saying came out once your parents got sick, and how much of it was it already kind of coming up prior? 

0:16:18 - Ryan
I think there was major PTSD issues Again, the machismo bravado, the Marine Corps. You know, years later guys still come to me and they're like hey, you know I'm having issues and I'm not sure if I want that on my record. You know, maybe they're a cop or a firefighter and they don't. I know guys have gotten fired, for somehow they get, despite Hipple and all the stuff there, somehow it gets, gets to the boss and we can't have that. 

So I mean there's a negative stigma there with PTSD and you see yourself as weak, so like there was definitely a lack of acceptance, for I didn't even go get diagnosed until I would say it was probably five to seven years after I came back from Iraq. I didn't want anything to do with the VA, I didn't want anything like Nope, I'm good, like I'm fine, I'm dominating life, I'm I'm. This does not affect me. I mean the rules do not apply, the status quo does not apply to me. I mean I've done that a lot in my life and weird. Then it comes back and smacks in the face Like Ah. 

0:17:20 - John
So through, like those five, six years that was a PTSD making things worse and harder, just like incrementally over time. And you know you must have kind of gotten to some little bit of a breaking point where you decided I need to go see somebody for this Remove alcohol for a second or remove substance abuse of any kind for a second. 

0:17:40 - Ryan
with PTSD relationships, whether they're intimate or friendship, I didn't care what you know who I get punched in the face. If we're not friends anymore, burn the whole fucking place down. Like I mean the amount of for lack of a better term womanizing. I mean that was I wasn't looking for anything because I did not have the emotional maturity yet to get into a relationship. That meant something. I mean I got left the day I left for Iraq and that that a lot of women suffered for the decision of one person. So I mean there was definitely issues to where, like, I was just an, you know, I was an asshole because of, because of what I was dealing with PTSD wise and not addressing it. 

I don't think I went in until other guys were saying like hey, like do you go in and they rate you for this, then you get a monthly stipend. And it wasn't about treatment at that point, which I mean I've never thought about that until right now. I did not go in because I should go in, you know, clinically I went in because, hey, like the VA will pay you monthly for whatever conditions you're having and I was like, oh, beer money, okay. And now I'm glad I did because you know I've got started. This whole process of getting getting here, I mean getting into a recovery mindset, I mean as long as it took. It takes what it takes, but we're here now. 

0:19:17 - John
Now a lot of people, you know, they know what PTSD now is like, what it is nowadays, like there we hear about it more, it's more accepted for it to be talked about and we realize how big, how big of a problem it can be and how like debilitating it can be for somebody going through it. Can you kind of like give a little bit more information about what it is, what it's like going through it? I'm like a more like you know, if you, if you're having an episode where, like it's really coming on and it's hitting you hard, like what is that like for you? Well, what was that like for you back in the day? 

0:19:49 - Ryan
You know, obviously there's, you're probably, I'm sure, like carry a lot of anger and like your ability is is a lot a big part of it, you know I mean so PTSD is a separate diagnosis from anxiety, which is a separate diagnosis from depression. You know depression is is, you know, dwelling on the past and that leads to a sadness and anxiety is worried about the future, which leads to, like you know, just like severe uneasiness, and PTSD is a mix of all of it. So there's a lot of interlocking symptoms between all the diagnosis. I mean I would look at the I think it's the DSM is the diagnosis manual and, like PTSD is, is, is everything you know minus, you know schizophrenic levels of severe PTSD. Sometimes people will have voices and stuff. I never got to that level of things. I've never. I've actually never seen anybody with that severity. 

But definitely irritability, loneliness, to just knee jerk reactions. You know public slander breaks out in the middle of the road because somebody's tail getting you and get out. How stupid is that. It's like impulsive, yeah, very, very impulsive Impulsive spending hygiene, hygiene, I mean just. You know I remember going like I hate admitting this, but like going like days without showering or brushing my teeth and just like because it wasn't important. You're just, you're so like, but you're still trying to convince yourself that that's not you. Isolation crowds. I still and my wife is cool about it because she took it upon herself to go read and research and we take, sometimes take two vehicles to a family function, whether it's her family or mine, because when I've had enough I'm not being rude, it's not because I don't like anybody, I just I need, okay, we're done. I mean that memory, short-term memory loss, I mean I think irritability is probably the you're just, you're just so jaded and lash out. 

0:22:11 - John
Like what you're describing is. I mean, it sounds like it would be insurmountable to deal with it. And, hindsight, like looking back, obviously there was alcohol used to deal with it, but like, how else did you deal with it? 

0:22:24 - Ryan
Because I mean I had no fucking idea, like like I look back and I'm like, how am I here? You know, I was never. I was never to the point of, let's say, suicidal ideation. Ideation is the plan. I never had a plan. There's always thoughts, and I think normal people have thoughts of suicide. Not that they're going to act on it. They may be having a bad day, but hey, like things could. This is terrible. Like what if I? What if I died? What if I killed myself? Nobody's acting on it. So there's never ideation, but I mean there was definitely. 

I got to a point where I didn't care if I lived or died. I mean recklessness. You know we can get into it a little bit down the line here in the timeline, but I mean the major police incident I had I'd have to look at what even year that was 2017 or 18, you know like I got in an armed standoff with the sheriff's department in Brown County and I was going to shoot it out because I didn't care. I mean that's pretty high level of like something's wrong. You know, like the normal people don't do that. 

0:23:33 - John
Like you're obviously processing something so drastically different than what you consider normal for your brain to be at that point, for you to be at that point. So, okay, I had a question from there. So with I'm a suicidal ideation part, I mean you kind of you can look back now and you're not like you don't even, you're not even sure how you made it through some of that. So does it? You must feel like a very at somebody who's made it on the other side of it, and not that there's like you're ever going to be cured of PTSD. 

0:24:09 - Ryan
There's no cure. There's no cure, but there's treatment. But the treatment's on you and getting to that, to the point where you're ready is, can be a decade long battle. But I mean when it clicks and it happens, I mean it is on you every day to. You're not responsible for your trauma, no one's is responsible for their trauma, but you're responsible for doing something about it. I don't know where I read that, but I was like right there. 

0:24:39 - John
So you at least you're not. You're at least on the side of it now where you you know how to live your life sustainably and you found some things that work for you. So do you have a very hard time when you still hear about the amount of veteran suicide that happens. 

0:24:54 - Ryan
I'm going to say it's what? 

0:24:55 - John
22 a day 22 a day, I'm sure it's higher than that. 

0:24:59 - Ryan
I especially start throwing Vietnam guys in there. Yeah, I mean, I am to a point where I'm willing and open to put my shit out there. You know, having a following, having a platform, you know, as long as I am credible in walking the walk in sobriety, I'll put everything out there, because I mean guys do reach out to me and I'm not just fats, Like I mean childhood friends, saying like, hey, man, I'm struggling with this, Like, all right, you know this, this, this is what I did. Here's, here's other options on top of what you know. Here's what people say to try. 

Here's what worked for a guy that I know really well. So I mean I, yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to see, it's hardest to see someone who knows they're down and out, knows they're addicted or knows they're dealing with mental health and they don't want to do the work because I did that for so fucking long that like, oh, I'm not going to, you know, do this program because it, then I have to be sober. I didn't want to be sober for a long time, Even though I knew I was a drunk. That's insanity. 

0:26:14 - John
And I mean that's addiction, that is I mean right, like that's textbook addiction is. You know what you're doing is wrong, but you, you cannot stop it. 

0:26:24 - Ryan
You have to rehabs to appease people, whether it was the court, whether it was a wife, ex-wife, siblings, marine bunnies like the I mean some of them came to me eventually like dude, like you're a shit show and like you need to do something, and they're supportive. But I mean I didn't want to. The day that things changed is the day that I had full acceptance. I have a problem, I can't do this myself and I need to surrender to the disease and and and say, okay, like I cannot control this, what? 

0:27:06 - John
now. So it's almost like a acceptance, like accepting everything for what it is and deciding what. What are the steps to move forward? Now? You said that when you did that very first duck hunt after your parents passed, like that pulled you out of a very dark place, I'm alive because of that. Okay, yeah, because at that point you were going that fast that down, with your parents passing and having to deal with all that stress on top of the PTSD that was still untreated at that point, cause in 2011,. Would that have been like? Would you? Did you go to a VA clinic for the first time, like you said, five, six years after? 

0:27:43 - Ryan
So then I got back to my wreck in 2005. Yeah, I would say, but 2008, 2009, that would be ballpark and from that so even. 

0:28:00 - John
but that dot con saved your life and started bringing it out of the hole, but you still continue to struggle, obviously through the next, like seven, eight years, I'd say so. 

0:28:14 - Ryan
I was looking at the other day, I've got four and a half months of sobriety. Right now. If I'm sober a year, it'll have taken me seven years to get sober a year. There's periods in there of sobriety. I shouldn't say that there's periods of abstinence. I think the mindset is completely different. Sobriety is doing the work, abstinence is just not drinking. And if you're not proactively attacking it every day, I mean you're not changing yourself as a person, which the underlying issues are, what are causing the drinking. You can get past chemical dependency. I'd say about a month and a half you start not being drawn to it chemically, but what else is making you want to go to this? So I mean I lost my try. 

0:29:10 - John
Okay, so you said it's been. It took you seven years to finally get to this point of sobriety. So prior to seven years ago you'd not actually try to quit necessarily. 

0:29:20 - Ryan
I went to rehabs inpatient rehabs. I went to VAD, toxas, which are prisons it's the worst. I've gone to intensive outpatient. I've gone to a couple of different programs. I always put a window on things. I've noticed this most recently. So April I started the 75 hard challenge. I would not be where I'm at mentally right now without that program. So 75 hard is not a weight loss program, it's not an exercise program. It's a mental discipline building exercise, which was what Andrew Fosilla calls it the inventor. 

75 straight days no alcohol. That part was easy in 75 days. That's the weird part about it Two workouts a day, 45 minutes each. One's gotta be outside. 10 pages of reading, strict diet, a gallon of water. So I did 75 days. 

On the 76th day I drank. I knew what I had there when I was court ordered to not drink nine months, I drank nine months in one day. When I've got to go to a rehab for three months, I'll go 90 days and I'm out of there and I start drinking. If I put a window on it, that's what I've noticed. Okay, I can make it. They say I can't drink that long or this is what people expect out of me. I'll make it there and then I'll drink. This time. When somebody says you're gonna stay sober forever, I can't promise that. What I do know is I'm gonna stay sober today. My window's today. I gotta make it through today. If I make it through today, I get up tomorrow. My window's today, one day at a time. That shit works. I read it a million times but I never practiced it. I finished the 75 hard. I drank. 

On the 76th day. I went on a 12-day bender. I went on a trip to Arizona just to figure shit out. I climbed up. I was in Sedona. I climbed up a cathedral rock Beautiful, I think. It rises like 600 feet and a half mile. It's a pretty gnarly climb, but you get up there and you look down over the valley. You've got all these red rocks and colors and sunsets and something else that I'd read multiple times in the teachings of people trying to get sober Ask God to relieve you of the obsession. I was like this is stupid. I'm standing on top of this mountain and I was like God, relieve me of the obsession. I said it out loud. I'm like okay, poof, nothing happened. It wasn't like magic. I got down from the mountain, I called my wife and I said I think I'm done drinking. She goes. I knew you were out there doing something. It worked. 

Then I started 75 Heart, just to get back into it, because that routine and regimen is what works for me. Now Get up at 4.30. Go cardio. I mean, now I've got a puppy. Get up at 4.30. Spend an hour with the puppy, get him all, get all the piss and vinegar out of him, feed him Eat breakfast. Go cardio Eat again. Work on, do some self-work Readings, teachings, moral inventories, figure out where I'm at and then go to the gym. I've got all that done by 11 in the morning. So when the sun goes down, I'm too wiped out. I've put the mindset. I start the day bang, bang, bang, bang. The rest is freaking downhill. Easy. We're ready to go. Let's just get through today. Let's get through tonight. Let's start tomorrow. 

0:32:45 - John
It's nuts that it worked. Did you have some semblance of some of these routines prior? Did you have some semblance of some of these routines prior? 

0:32:52 - Ryan
No, I mean I lifted all the time. I was never pushing myself. I'd say I went a decade of just going through the motions. I'd go to the gym, I'd eat as much as possible. I was getting mentally lazy. To get that mental discipline, that self-discipline, I mean I hate cardio. Within like three, four days I was like all right, my legs hurt, let's do it again. 

There's a hill in our town that goes down to the Fox River and it's pretty steep. I would run that thing. I was training for an L-Con too. That added motivation. I'd run this hill and I mean it's brutal, it sucked. People I don't know in our town we're still rather new to the right stuff. Where we live just South of Green Bay, there People I don't know would pull up and be like how many times do you run this thing? I was like 10. They're like, okay, this guy's fucking nuts daily or not daily, but three, four times a week. I had no routine like that. The body goals came with it, but it was everybody that has come to me and said, hey, I want to try this, but I want to do a modification of it. I'm like, no, then don't fucking talk to me. You're committing to this. That's what builds the discipline. Who has time to do two 45-minute workouts a day with three kids, with a wife? That's mad at you, no matter what you did. 

0:34:22 - John
I did 75 hard last year. You love it. It was great, it was hard, it's hard. It's hard to stay disciplined day after day. I did it at a time where we were training for a 50-mile race and on Sundays we'd go do anywhere from 20 to 30-mile runs to get ready for this race on Sundays. So I'd go do like seven, eight hours of running outside with a group of people and a come-home feeling absolutely destroyed. I'd be like I've got to go do my second workout. It would. 

I'd have to either like I try to do some yoga for 45 minutes in my house or I go for another 45-minute walk outside even though nothing, not a single muscle or strand in my body, wanted to go move another inch. 

After doing 30 miles on an ice-age trail which is just rocky and hilly, I'd feel like crap. But there's something about that when you're like it doesn't how I feel doesn't matter if I want to accomplish this goal, so like there's so much, you build up from that that it's. You never push yourself that hard till you have like it's almost kind of like you said, like I think of it the same idea, like when you said, okay, I got to quit, I'm going to rehab for three months or I'm doing this for this many days. It's easy to like quit for that many days because you have such a hard goal, but those goals are really useful in other aspects where you're like I would never be going to do a second 45-minute workout on a Sunday, but I said I would do it. And how much that means to you as a man to say I said I would do something and I'm going to do it. 

0:35:52 - Ryan
That like builds on itself so much I thought that was very cool and being public about it and doing it, which is what I think is why the program catches on. So many people are interested. You put out your successes and now you're accountable to everybody else and looked at it and said, oh, he's doing this. What am I supposed to do? Like I quit on 66th day. 

0:36:11 - John
You bitch Right, like finish it out. And like you know, people and I mean we all like to think that like we're posting and people are sitting on the other side of social media being like you better finish those 75 days. Maybe they're not, but you feel it. You know that like I posted it, which means I gave public accountability to myself and now I'm going to stick to it. 

0:36:32 - Ryan
I mean, I feel the same way about putting my sobriety out there now is that it's an extra level of accountability, that's a very good way to put it, yeah. 

And you know, like, who am I to sit here and run my mouth if I'm not walking the walk? And who am I if, six months from now, I'm drinking again? I mean, I just know that I'm at a different spot now that I've ever been, because I'm doing the work. I've created a program. I didn't create 75 hard, I've taken aspects of 75 hard and continued it. And you know, like I'm doing it and I'm not just abstaining, I'm sobering my mind. 

0:37:15 - John
So, then, the first time you did the first round of 75 hard was this like the pie. The first time you actively chose not to drink for a period of time, as opposed to like having to go to rehab or having detox, or maybe possibly a quarter order, or order other times that you had chosen it. 

0:37:32 - Ryan
I mean I had chosen it but I would last a week. Okay, I mean I never, I never on my own, said, okay, I'm done. I'd never committed to myself, I'd never put that commitment out there. I was always like, okay, I guess I'll do old patient rehab because everybody's mad at me. It sounds silly. But I mean that's where I was. I'm like, okay, I'll shut these people up for a while. And now it's like, all right, like what do you? 

0:38:03 - John
want in life. 

0:38:03 - Ryan
Doing the 75 hard the first time showed me what I was capable of. I could not believe what I was accomplishing in a day. I could not believe how my relationships were improving because I wasn't seeking the next drink, I wasn't worried about other shit, I was worried about accomplishing and doing and existing and enjoying and being present. So I mean, I don't think I ever to fully answer your question. I don't think I ever, more than a week on my own, chose to quit and to commit to 75 days. Was that was it? That was the ticket. 

0:38:38 - John
So now there are no first 75 days. There must have been such a level of mental clarity that you reached. So can you talk a little bit more than about that 76 day and choosing to have that drink. 

0:38:53 - Ryan
I knew it. I knew it going in. I knew I was going to do so. I knew I'd finish it. And anybody that knows me well will tell you that if I commit to something, no matter how crazy it is, I'm going to do it. And as soon as my wife saw that I was fully committed, she's like, oh fuck, this is going to be it. She had to make sacrifices for me to accomplish it. I mean, hey, I got to go get my second workout and kids are screaming they're not fed. She made sacrifices, but she knew I was going to do it, anything to drink. 

On the 76th day I wanted to celebrate finishing it. That was an excuse to drink. And I knew that as soon as I started drinking I would go right back to the same patterns. And I did. I mean I went on a 12 day bender. I mean I'm talking like drinking 175 or Captain Morgan in two days I was putting down some booze. But I also knew that I needed to find a spiritual connection. I knew that 75 days that I just had the mental discipline. I mean just the level I was operating on daily. I mean I was improving as a parent, as a spouse, as a person, I mean just feeling accomplished every day. I knew I wanted that. So I mean going to Arizona. 

I flew into Phoenix, ran in a car and in six days I went down to Tucson, did saguaro national park. Being a photographer I went and hit all the national parks, did a petrified forest, went up to the forest gump point where he's running and he stops, and then did analogue canyon. I don't know if you've ever seen that it's two slot canyons on the Navajo res. Yeah, okay, yeah, so I'm drinking every night but I'm out there accomplishing during the day. And I did the slot canyon. 

You have to have a Navajo guide and I really connected with my guide. His grandfather was a World War II code talker Marine. You know the Japanese can never break the code because they're speaking a Navajo language and we're walking through these slot canyons. It's this beautiful orange and red and sandstone and this dude bust out this flute it's a hand carved traditional flute and starts playing some Navajo tune with the acoustics in there, blue, red rocks out of the water and the hairs are standing up. Like I knew, like I was having some like cosmic, spiritual. I mean I was on this journey, I was finding myself and then you know, talking about Sedona, I mean that was it. God relieved me of the obsession I had, my, I did this track and came back home and I mean got off the plane and as soon as I got up the next morning, let's go. 

0:41:42 - John
Did you start the second round right away? Yeah, as soon as you're back home, then yeah, so you got done with that second round and now you're just continuing on. 

0:41:50 - Ryan
I finished the second round. The last four days around a mountain and I was El Conning in Wyoming, so definitely got the 45 minute workouts and climbing climbing the big one mountain. 

0:41:59 - John
Especially being outside in nature. Now, like a big thing I'm trying to think about here is like through your story too is like I think men we go through a lot of men go through some like some level of similar journey on the fact that in our early twenties into, like our late twenties, like a lot happens and like we have to kind of go from being boys to men through that time, our thirties. I think to me it's in my early thirties right now, but like it I feel like my thirties are like this we're like now I'm trying to like I'm refined into type of man I am so for you would like through some of your twenties and thirties and this was probably like your late thirties, is you like really start to like get on this? You know you said it's been seven years of trying to get sober, that like you kind of discovered what's going on. So it's probably like you're 35, maybe right around that time, like you're probably started like decided to like tackle this as like something that needed to get better. 

Do you think you could have ever gotten to spot you're at right now in your early thirties. Do you think it was possible for you to get? 

0:43:00 - Ryan
there. No, no, I mean I like the phrase. I mean it takes what it takes and the downfalls. I tell my kids, I mean especially my two oldest daughters. I raised them as mine, they're my stepdaughter, so I wasn't there for the early formations of who they are and you know, one of them would be down on themselves, that you know, fail the spelling test or something just trivial, and I'm like, look, everything I have in my life is because I fucked up and I failed. And then I found what it took, and even my marriage to their mother I mean my first marriage was an absolute disaster and most of it was my fault. I mean I don't hold any ill wills, it was a. I took things and when I got divorced I looked in the mirror and I said it didn't matter anything that she did. What did you do to get your ass here? I mean those were the things that had to change. I mean they didn't change overnight, they changed over a decade. I mean. But you gotta fail to learn anything. 

0:44:05 - John
Like I'm. 

0:44:05 - Ryan
Michael Jordan. I mean, I used that example all the time Like what do you get cut as a junior from varsity? Yeah, the best fucking basketball player in the history of the game got cut from varsity as a junior. Most of these guys are playing varsity ball as a sophomore, you know. 

0:44:20 - John
I don't know if this is true, but I feel like I heard this once, which like it's not an argument to that quote, but it's I guess he got brought down to JV because they knew he was good and just needed more development, and like they cut him down to JV just to help him develop on a JV team. But I don't know how true that is, because you hear the story a lot now. But he wasn't good enough to be starting on. Varsity is the main point that he needed to develop before he got to be the best. Now, when was that first marriage and divorce? When did that happen? 

0:44:50 - Ryan
Oh man, I just look at timelines, like in your 20s. I got married after my parents died, so I got married probably in 2012 or 2013. It didn't last long. And you know, I was toxic and we were toxic together. No ill will towards her whatsoever. I wish her the best. I wasn't. I mean I said it earlier in the discussion, I was not emotionally matured yet and that took a long time. I mean, I feel emotional maturity levels right now that I have never had. 

0:45:35 - John
And a lot of that has come from like that maturity obviously hasn't just happened with. There's been maturity strides for you, probably doing 75 hard, learning what you learned from that, learning how you operated better without the alcohol. But like what are some of the other big things that really contributed to that maturity? 

0:45:53 - Ryan
I mean that mental clarity when you can start looking at things. Instead of having impulsive I mean back to PTSD impulsive, irrational, irritable emotional responses, it blows my mind that I can sit back in an argument and be like, okay, and like you know, maybe this person's having a bad day, and instead of being like fuck you, you know, like I mean it still happens. I mean I still get to that level of anger in people that were human, but the amount of times where I'm not is crazy. Having that mental clarity I was able to feel feelings again. This is I'm not admitting this, but I mean I want to be transparent and true. The other day I got in the truck where we had a family Christmas party with my dad's side of the family. We were in Wisconsin Dells and it's got their Friday night. I got my work out in Friday morning. Saturday I'm looking for a gym. It's all 24 hour gyms that don't have somebody staffing in on Saturday. So I had to drive all the way to Madison from the Dells. 

It's 40 minutes and you know it's 4.30 in the morning, 5 o'clock in the morning and I'm driving and Phil Collins in the air. Tonight comes on the radio and I'm you know, the drum solo. I'm feeling it Like I actually was like crying from the music. I was feeling the emotion of the music and I haven't felt like that. And then I started laughing at myself. I was like holy shit, like like I mean it was, it was okay, it was okay, I was feeling the music and then that song got over and Adele came on. I was like nope, we're not doing this we are not doing this twice. 

0:47:38 - John
That feeling of like when you're going through a hard time. But then, like you get back, like you like music has like a draw on you again, like it like draws, like a real emotion. I feel like that is such a it's like a wholesome feeling, like it reminds you, like it's almost like you're a kid again. You're like something as simple as music can make me feel good, because you don't need something as hard as alcohol to make you feel good anymore. Right, is that? 

0:48:00 - Ryan
kind of like I thought for a long time, like I mean, thc is to me is music appreciation and flavor enhancer. But alcohol is the same for me, like if you get drunk enough and you're at a concert, like you're feeling it. Like I never thought I'd be able to feel that without you know some mind altering substance, and I mean that's why I was crying. I was like, oh my god, like I'm not embarrassed to that at all. I was like holy shit, like feelings Like this is weird. I haven't felt this since fifth grade, you know. 

0:48:37 - John
Well, have you with the process of quitting, like, do you feel, like when you, when you initially first quit, in those first 75 days, like and I mean you have had obviously other periods where you quit, but how emotionally numb did you feel during those periods when, like, you're used to getting this thing that lowers During the first? 

0:48:56 - Ryan
75 or during the other periods where I abstained. 

0:49:00 - John
And mainly during the first 75, because that's the first time that you really chose to go after it, as opposed to like I'm doing this for somebody else, I'm doing this for a chore or whatever it is. This was the first time that you chose to do it for yourself. You did it strictly off your own willpower, strictly off your own desire to do it. That like was it hard to have, like this feeling of because, I mean, I imagine there must be some emotional numbness that first comes out of like this anodonia that like you're used to getting something that makes you feel good and now you're like initially kind of go below baseline and then your body probably tries to like get back to home your stasis almost by like numbing you for a while. 

Like was that is that? Did you go through that? 

0:49:36 - Ryan
I'd say the fourth day. I mean the first three days are like let's just fucking hammer this right, I'm doing this. There's extreme motivation. I mean I wasn't really feeling anything. Emotional physicality was fine, but like the fourth or fifth day, like it becomes like part of you, the discipline starts showing up and you're like, oh, my God, I'm going to do this. I don't know why and I've talked to other people who have done it too Like, yeah, like fourth, this six day, like also in your machine, you're motivated. 

You're internally motivated by your own discipline, and that's been years I probably sense the Marine Corps since I'd done that, or rugby, when I had to put weight on to get a starting position. I mean I wasn't working towards anything, and now that I had direction, what's weird, too, is when you finish. I mean that's why I drank on the 76th day, I mean, amongst other reasons when you finish, then you lack another thing to pursue, and so I'm now constantly trying to find new goals. I'm putting goals on paper too, and it doesn't have to be some social media challenge or fitness challenge. Hey, I want to spend this much time with my kids this month. I'm taking all of December off because I've been on the road since August Bam, bam bam, back and forth, back and forth. So I mean putting goals on paper and, as dumb as that sounds, is to write them down. It works. 

0:51:17 - John
Now, through that period, like the first 75 heart, cravings come right. Like you deal with cravings, did they get substantially less over time. Did they like or do cravings? Can they still come out of nowhere and be just as bad sometimes. It's just that you know you have the better mental tools to like not stuff that craving away because you don't. At this point you don't want to just stuff it away. You want to kind of take it head on and accept it for yep, it's a craving, it's a disease I have. I'm not just stuffing this disease away anymore. I'm looking it straight in the eyes and I'm trying to tell I'm not avoiding it. 

0:51:53 - Ryan
I'm not avoiding. I mean, in my family Christmas party I'll go all over the place. You know, it's just that, a bend of bourbon street. Since being sober, I get me, it's good. I keep telling myself my problem is not everybody else's problem, so why should people have to adjust to me? I want you to live your lives. I want you to be able to enjoy yourselves. You want to have cocktails? Have cocktails. I mean hunting camps. I mean a lot of guys that's their vacation for the year. They're hunting but they're drinking too. 

Like I said, I'm not going to avoid it. And then you know, some people can't. I mean so like yeah, if I'm around it, of course, like if you got a beer right there and if it was happy or I'd want it, I just can't. I can't have the first drinks. Not going to give me a trouble, but the first drinks going to lead to the hundredth drink, and I know there's no stop. So cravings do lessen over time, they'll always be there. 

Some of you would refer to it as stinking thinking and something as simple. As I'm on the road and all right, I got an hour and a half before I get to the hotel, I'm done for the night and go get a steak dinner. Oh, there's a bar at the hotel. I know I can't go to the bar, but your mind goes oh, nobody will know, or maybe I'll just get a six pack for the room or I'll go buy a little bottle of room. That shit doesn't ever go away. I mean that is constant. There's always like, well, what, if, what, if, what, if? I know how it ends and it ain't good. So I mean it's just not having that first drink. 

0:53:37 - John
So it's almost like you never really lose that voice that's in your head, that bitch voice. That's what it is, yeah, yeah, I mean, could it be like a weaker side of you that wants to just give in to the temptation of what it wants and not just like deal with things head on? So that voice she's just gotten better at controlling and kind of putting it in its place. 

0:53:59 - Ryan
I mean there's mindfulness as a tactic that, throughout the course of rehabs, was my least favorite freaking thing to do, and the mindfulness instructor is always some like absolute, like hippie yogi. 

0:54:15 - John
Yeah. 

0:54:16 - Ryan
I mean, she looks like she lives in Boulder, Colorado. 

0:54:19 - John
You know what I? 

0:54:19 - Ryan
mean they're good people. I mean that's okay, you know, let's breathe in and feel your feet on the ground, feel your breath, and I'm like this fucking is stupid and I hated it. And then Bourbon Street. Surprising, because the first time that I had, mindfulness happened to me. I'm walking down Bourbon Street. I have got two veterans that are we're in Louisiana for an alligator hunt and I feel like if I do not bring them to Bourbon Street, we're robbing them of a full New Orleans experience. So we went down during the day. I'm also transparent with them. They know what's going on in my life and hey, let's go, I'll be fine. And we're walking down the street. We've got some food made, some oysters, had a good time, but as we're walking down the street, all the lights and it's daytime, so I think it's a weekday, but I mean Bourbon Street can be packed. 

0:55:09 - John
Stimulating. There's a lot going on. That's the thing. Strippers are outside of the street. Yeah, they're coming to the dark strip. 

0:55:14 - Ryan
I picked up on the stimulation. I was walking down the street and it was. This sounds so stupid, but Bourbon Street smells. It's a sewer, it's underground, I mean, or it's undersea level. So you've got these old cobblestone streets, these old French Quarter buildings and I was smelling the smells of the baguettes and the sewer and watching the people feeling the air, I stuck my hands out and I felt the air come through like a draft in an alleyway and I was just like OK, I guess this is mindfulness. 

It allowed me to be present instead of going like, oh, when's the next drink, when's the next drink, when's the next drink? And that is something that an alcoholic, when they're drinking, or an addict of any sort, you're chasing the next high or the next drink constantly that you don't become present. You go to a Packard game. Look at the average Wisconsinite that goes to a Packard game. All right, we need alcohol for the pork a lot. We need to get a drink at this little stand over here before we get in. When we get in, we're going right to the beer stand. Oh, here's the beer guy. Make sure that Joe's in the bathroom, make sure you get him a beer. It's constantly. I went to a game sober and I was like holy shit, like there's a lot of stuff that goes on here that even playing football I was able to enjoy and be president-watch. 

0:56:39 - John
I mean, I 100%. That's me. Every game I've been to it's been an event. So you want to get drunk, you want to bring the cooler, you want to shotgun a couple of drinks while you're tailgating and then you got to grab a couple with you while you're walking over to check in. So you can pound them quick before you check in. So you get a couple more drinks before you get paid. 

Every time I've been that guy not many times, I've only probably been five or six games, but I've never been to a game and stayed sober the entire time, and I can imagine it is a completely different experience, the way that you take in the environment, the way you're going to be noticing different things instead of just keeping that buzz going. 

0:57:20 - Ryan
I watched everybody's rushing to piss at halftime. We're going to drink right before. You know they think they stopped selling at the third quarter. But I watched the Lodi fourth and fifth graders or fifth and sixth graders Pee Wee football game that they play. You know they're going from the 10-yard line. These kids are doing the Lambo leap. I was having more fun watching them and then at the end the kid scored a touchdown and he grabbed his whole offensive line and had to them go do it. Watching these kids jump up into the stands I was like, oh my God, this is so much fun. 

0:57:48 - John
That's awesome. 

0:57:50 - Ryan
That's the shit. I'd noticed now that I would have been like we're going to whatever the bar is. There's a bar that people meet up at halftime. You miss half the third quarter. 

0:57:59 - John
Yeah, or you got to go piss out the hundred ounces of beer that you've drank so far, and even people on the way out. 

0:58:05 - Ryan
that's when it really stuck. I'm walking out with my wife, and the couple that we're with doesn't drink anymore either, which was random. It was just random. I mean, that's divine intervention right there, because this was pretty early on my Friday. We're walking out. 

you know, people are just puking in a planner or like guys are like I'll fight you and I looked at my wife and it's like I know the answer to this. But do I look like that? She's like worse and I was like, yeah, warranted. I went home, picked my kid up from his grandma's and ate dinner and got ready for the routine the next morning. 

0:58:41 - John
How do you deal with the I think I've heard this, maybe through shows or movies, not necessarily anybody in person, but like a big hard part for somebody when they accept that they're an alcoholic is the fact that we romanticize those nights of drinking. Right, we romanticize how much fun we had. How do you deal with this idea that well, that you did have fun when you get drunk and you did have fun with a group of guys getting drunk while they're like hunting out in the wild, Like I'm sure there's, like there's. It's easy up to romanticize that and to then say, well, now it's not something, it's just not something I do. How do you accept that and come to terms with that in a way that, oh, that's a tough, you know? 

0:59:31 - Ryan
We're always going to romanticize it. That's society. And so I've got a million stories that I could tell if I wrote a biography that alcohol is involved. But alcohol is involved. I've never been arrested sober, you know. I've never done anything extremely promiscuous sober, questionably promiscuous sober. I've never. 

You know bad decisions and huge blow ups and everything, pretty much everything that is controllable that's gone wrong in my life has been alcohol related and that's common for a lot of people. We just okay, well, remember the time that we, you know, we're back to back in a bar fight and we knock those guys out. I mean we're talking about it like it's like cool. I mean I just I gotta look at. I remember the time that I vomited in my sleep and my ex-wife had to roll me over or I would have died. I remember the time that I had that arm standoff with the sheriff's department. Remember the time that, you know, like I mean just all the things that are like extreme I'm comfortable with leaving any good that comes with alcohol behind with any of the bad. I've gone to a couple of events without it and had fun. That had never happened before this period of trying to become sober. That was pretty cool to them and be in a drinking environment and be just fine. 

1:01:21 - John
Now I know like a big part of you are probably accepting it and saying like I have a disease, I'm an alcoholic, like there's so much power to saying that and accepting it that you're aware that, like you don't get to be somebody who you know. Once a month there's a big celebration going on and you get to get drunk once a month and you control it and that's it, and you don't drink any other days in a month. You accept it. That's not you, do you like? Look at people who can do that in. Like I don't want to say envy or jealous oh, I'm jealous, yeah. 

1:01:50 - Ryan
I'm jealous of the person that can like have two nightcaps and not have one on. That was on Tuesday, not have one on Wednesday. I am jealous of the person that can go out to the bar at a social gathering and stay an hour because I'm the last motherfucker there, like I don't stop. I mean there's extreme FOMO when I'm drinking. There's no FOMO when I'm not drinking. I'm not missing out. I'm not missing out on the hangover. I'm not missing out on waking up in Milwaukee County, which has happened a couple times. I'm not missing out. I am able to go there and have fun and the appropriate amount of time. 

1:02:36 - John
Do you feel like like did you ever have any other vices? 

1:02:40 - Ryan
I mean I've tried everything within reasoning. I've never done heroin or anything meth I mean coke but I've never had severe addiction qualities towards any of that, like all that stuff, has been like one off as opposed to a daily need. 

If I was offered an edible which I do, I do like edibles If I was offered edible right now, I wouldn't take it because I don't feel like I'm strong enough yet. Thc is not the gateway Drug. Alcohol is. I mean, I really believe that THC to me. If I took an edible that was like not a 20 milligrams let's get high and watch Neil Tyson de Gracie for four hours like I don't want to be that high If I took one as a relaxation thing, I'd be absolutely fine. I wouldn't have to have one tomorrow, wouldn't have to have another one. But I don't feel like I'm that far into my sobriety to where I'm strong enough, to where, like you're using advice here. Still, I don't know that I ever will be, but I'm comfortable with not using it right now Because at this point. 

1:03:54 - John
You don't want to risk taking something that's going to alter your state of mind, that's just going to possibly bring you back to wanting to alter it. 

1:04:00 - Ryan
I mean I don't think I've ever gotten high. I've been like, oh, we need to get drunk, but I've gotten drunk, I've been like we need to get high. 

1:04:07 - John
Yeah, that's very fair. Okay, so then, have you been to AA or has this been all through? Just like you working? 

1:04:22 - Ryan
with yourself, I have. I mean there is a policy within AA that that remains anonymous. So I mean I have gone and I do go. 

1:04:32 - John
Okay, I just want to leave it at that. Okay, yeah, okay. 

1:04:34 - Ryan
Sorry, I wasn't sure if that was a I mean I should have covered that with you beforehand. I mean it's fine to state it. 

1:04:41 - John
Yes, I do, okay, okay, okay. Now you've One big thing that you said before that I think really I can see how powerful it is. It's this idea that I'm going to be sober today, I don't know what tomorrow's going to look like. But then tomorrow gets here and you get up and you say I'm going to be sober today again. Did you like till you had that? What made you come to that realization that, like, that's the way that you have to approach this? 

1:05:15 - Ryan
I mean I'd read it a million times, I don't know why. I mean there's things I read now that I've read before and like it takes a different foothold. It can be something I've read at the Lord's Prayer. I mean there'd be something in there that you're like pooh it's been here smacking me in the face the whole time but it applies differently because of what you've gone through to get there. I've got an app. It's a sober app and it's kind of like social media. You can post, you can follow people, you can comment on anybody's. All posts are public. You just can't message, and that's by design. Then they tell you when you're in treatment not to get into a relationship within a year, which, whatever I mean. People do what they want, but there's people that are vulnerable. I had a Marine buddy who's a single guy and he's like so there's chicks with daddy issues on this thing and I was like, yeah, and he's like what's the app? And I'm like, dude, you're not even a driver. And I'm like you are not above that are you? 

1:06:17 - John
He's like no. 

1:06:20 - Ryan
But there's men with abandonment issues so I mean they don't allow you to message. But I'm just staying within that community and encouraging people and seeing people that are like, hey, I'm struggling today and everybody's like, hey, man, get through today, Get through today. And then you see them post the next day and they're like maybe through the night and like, oh, today's awesome, Just make it through the night. You cannot drink for a night. You cannot drink for a night, the rest of your life. I mean I hope I can do that. I don't know if I will or I won't, but I'm not going to drink today? 

1:06:55 - John
What about the mindfulness stuff then? Did you practice meditation, Like, did you pick up any meditation? 

1:07:00 - Ryan
Oh, I was actually going to cover that. When I brought up mindfulness, I've never been able to meditate. I took a yoga in college I think it was yoga or African dance. You had to take that stay eligible for rugby. It was one of the you know elective requirements. So me and your, john Hubbard, that sounds super familiar John's, a big boy yeah. 

And I think Alex McCray, we were in the back row, we were there to stare at yoga butts, you know, and she'd be like covert position and we're like we got thrown out every, every. But the last part of the class is a meditation. You laid out and all this, probably hungover, are sleeping and snoring, but I've never been able to meditate because I'd never been able to really get into a relaxed state where I'm successful. Meditation is like is being out of your own mind, which, you know substance used to do that for me, or many I'll put on. 

I sit in my bed and I put on a YouTube loop of rain and soft, like soft thunder, and I pick a random word enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment, and I repeat that until I'm not even thinking anymore, and then it's almost psychedelic, if it's done correctly, that you can outer body a little bit. I only do it for about 10 minutes. I try to do that nightly. I mean the house gets a little chaotic when I do 75 heart. Again, I'm going to add some tasks that I think. Phase one is another program by Andy Fosilla that has five critical tasks, so I might incorporate that as my meditation practice like 10 minutes of 10 minutes of meditation. 

I'll probably do even longer, just to, I mean, but as long as the kids are already in bed, it's chaos in that house. 

1:09:10 - John
I've definitely. I've delved into meditation quite a bit in the past and like I 100% struggle with trying to keep it consistent, but I know that when I was very consistent about it. It is it's crazy how much you can separate from your thoughts and like realize like here exists this, like enigma in my head of who I am, and then there's these thoughts I have, but like I can be so happy and like in such a content place when I'm just existing as like who I am and like I separate from the thoughts and it was it's cool to like be able to do it. It's hard, I feel like it's hard. It's. I've had a hard time getting back to that place without consistent meditation because like one session alone I can't get back to it. I feel like I had to do it time after time and also, like 10 minute sessions are good, but you do kind of need like 20, 30 minute sessions, like day after day, to like learn how to get into that state further. 

But for me, when I first learned it, I found it amazing because I have like my own vices that I've gone like I've had problems with and I try to quit and I go back to them. I'm going to try to quit and go back to them. But it's that like separation of mindfulness, like when you can like pull back and like you're like, wow, I like really want to do this thing. I said I wouldn't do it. There's a reason. I said I wouldn't do it and but like the urge is so strong that you're like I'm just going to do it anyways, fuck it. But like how you can like separate from that, like it's it feels like a superpower and like it's a skill, just like picking up a weight and curling it. And you might pick up a 20 pounds at first and only be able to curl 20 pounds, but if you keep doing it, eventually going to be curling 80 pounds. I mean, look how far. 

1:10:48 - Ryan
Western society has come from tribal healing and shamanistic ways of doing things, where people I mean Joe Rogan goes into depth on that. 

I'm fascinated by his episodes on DMT and, you know, separating your mind and again, I'm not ready to go into whatever the chamber is he's got and do DMT right now. I'm just not in that phase of my life, but that's stuff fascinating. I'm actually reading a book right now called Food of the Gods. I think it is, and it goes through, like you know, mushrooms and stuff that people are using to for meditational and spiritual purposes and I mean from an academic standpoint, though I mean it's not like, yeah, let's get high and go to a fish show, you know, like it has nothing to do with that and that's what Western society has put on that. It's funny to be an addict and reading about like the science of it. But I feel like I'm mature enough now to do that, whereas before, like if you had that book at a rehab, there'd be a guy in the corner like, yeah, these guys were sweet back in the Peruvian jungle of 800 BC. 

1:12:02 - John
So have you ever done any psychedelics? Yeah, okay, and you were like, I don't know, I'm not like a while back. 

1:12:07 - Ryan
I wasn't ready. I mean, that was a long time ago. I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't there intellectually. 

1:12:15 - John
And you probably did it like. Did you do it more in a party setting? Yeah, yeah, okay, it was the party. 

1:12:18 - Ryan
It wasn't there. I mean, if I were to experiment with that now which I again, I don't think I'm ready, I don't know if I ever will be it would definitely be more of a spiritual connectedness disconnectedness, if you will. 

1:12:35 - John
Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sure like you're like cause you're probably very aware then of how you know nowadays like there has been use with mushrooms and psilocybin to, you know, to treat PTSD but as well as addiction problems, that, like, some people have been able to use it and like after like a really good trip, where it's not, it's not a party trip. This isn't. It's not to have fun, it's to get really introspective, is to get into your own brain and like kind of what's the one that Aaron Rodgers did like ayahuasca, ayahuasca, yeah, and Ron White from comedy tour, yeah. 

Yeah, blue collar. 

1:13:11 - Ryan
He's got a drink in his hand at every quit drinking after you know, 50 years from ayahuasca, you know I did so. I mean there's something to be said about ancient medicines that weren't developed by a pharmaceutical company trying to stick their hand in a money jar. 

1:13:26 - John
I know the fact that these are medicines. They're not. You can use the word drugs, you can. 

1:13:33 - Ryan
you know they are medicines and if used properly, they can have a medicine-like effect on the mind and the body in different ways, Like I mean it's there's a lot of growth to get to the point of, as an addict, as an alcoholic, that where I can look at like hey, lick this toad, you'll get fucked up. But look at it from a technically, it's clinical. I mean, if you get a doctor that does the research on it, they can do it from a clinical standpoint and we just society and governments, have pushed that out so far from the original uses medicinally. 

1:14:15 - John
Like a big one that they've been doing a lot of research on is MDMA and like, again, there's been a lot of research has been done for PTSD. But like I've had opportunities to do MDMA in the past and I haven't because they say the first time you do is the best and I don't want to do it just to party, I like I want like the first time I do it, I want to do it in a clinic with a therapist, I want to do an eight hour therapy session Because I'm like you could take MDMA and have a great ravey time right. But like I'd rather take it and like reap, especially the first time reap, those like really altering benefits of like that self acceptance that like that can come with them, like the ability to like heal what are kind of like emotional past traumas you have in you from whether it's childhood or adulthood or whatever it is. But you know you hear MDMA and you it's so, you know it's so tied to this ideal like it's party, yeah. 

Like it's literally a rave scene. That's what they do, but like it's a medicine and it can be used as a medicine. And I think it's very cool nowadays that they are like doing research and trying to like push it towards that. I'm excited for the potential impact they can have for PTSD because I mean, I hate the thought that 22 veterans take their life every day when they can. It's very likely that if they had the resources the right resources reach out to them that that would not happen. 

1:15:39 - Ryan
The states that are starting to do it from an, you know, from an approved clinical standpoint, I think Washington state, you know, they're pretty progressive out there. So I mean Colorado too. Yeah, colorado wouldn't surprise me at all. Yeah, that are looking into CYBACILIN. I don't know that the VA itself is doing it, but I've heard that I mean that they're at least looking into it. The conversation has started. I mean, just look at the legalization of THC across the country. I mean growing up in the 80s and 90s I've been like yeah, right, you know. Now I mean I wouldn't be surprised if Wisconsin is, you know where it's legal. 

1:16:15 - John
All right, let's talk about this. I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I think it's great that we and THC is legalized and it's becoming legal, but I don't know if I think that, like it's the greatest thing in a society where everybody's so lonely and depressed and they can take this thing, that it's less physically addictive than to drink every night. 

1:16:40 - Ryan
It's going to have less physical like negative. There's no physical dependence. It's the chemical dopamine. There's no dopamine dump with THC, Well there is. 

1:16:54 - John
It's just not as bad because it goes through the cannabinoid system, which is a system we naturally have, as opposed to where alcohol increases your GABA as well as dopamine dump and all that stuff. But I worry that, like I used to be a very big favor of the fact that legalized is, people can make their own decisions, but like People are going to get it either way, yes, but I mean, I guess, from a standpoint of I don't know I mean the older I get, the more and more I just want a libertarian, free of government society I mean libertarian is my political point of 

view at this point in life, I believe people should do whatever the hell they want, as long as it's not hurting anybody, but you might be giving access to someone who would otherwise have it. But I mean, well, it's not even Okay, I want it, I think it should be legal, I think the access should be there. I think education on it needs to be better, the same way that, like you know, in Wisconsin education on alcohol is in bad grade, like that's like we do have a lot of people drink alcohol. 

1:17:58 - Ryan
Look who we have in office across political parties and spectrums. It's all people in their 80s, they don't. I mean the world is the world view towards things has changed so much. I mean it's a you're never going to get. You know, if Strom Thurman was still alive to sit down and be like, yep, we're going to put THC on the ballot, but talk about it from a scientific standpoint. That's never going to happen with that era of people. You know the baby boomers are starting to get in and he might have a little bit more push. But I mean from a scientific, medical standpoint, I mean I don't think that's going to be priority. I mean, look what happened to Colorado. 

From Colorado, it was probably the first state to legalize it. Recreation wise, yeah, yep, mm. Hmm, that state has fallen apart. I mean it is number one. Colorado and Florida are either one and two, vice versa for rehab facilities in the entire country. If you're moving to a state just because POTS legal, you probably have other issues. If that's your number one priority in life, like hey, pack everything up. We're moving to Boulder because POTS legal, I think getting weed in Wisconsin and Sturgeon Bay it's not hard to find. 

1:19:25 - John
It's even the way that somebody might want to tie an entire personality to a substance. It's just as negative to tie a personality to E as it is to tie a personality to drinking. You should not revolve the entire life around the substance that you look for to make you feel a certain way. I worry that there's this pandemic of young men, that this is a big thing that you hit on earlier, which is the reason that the hunts are so important. Isn't necessarily the hunting itself. The hunting is great, but it's the camaraderie, it's the brotherhood, being with other men and talking and realizing now I'm building up a friendship with somebody else, so maybe I can reach out to them at a later point. 

I think we have so many men who are lonely, especially young 20s men who are lonely, living by themselves. They watch a lot of porn, so they don't go to seek women because they get enough gratification from porn. They don't seek socialization because they can smoke weed, whether it's drink or smoke weed. But I think my personal opinion is that weed is becoming so highly accepted and popular that just get high and watch some Netflix. Now you're not feeling sad about not going out to socialize with friends. I feel like that's just getting worse. That's where my little fear with it being fully legal is that people are not finding ways to be social. They're not finding ways to be part of a community anymore. I think we men, without a doubt, intrinsically need community. That's why men being on sports teams, that's tribe. 

I think that's why the mill, a lot of guys, get out of the military and, I think, have a very hard time with going from being surrounded by a bunch of like-minded people that they're with all the time to all of a sudden you're at home by yourself and now you're dealing with the brain effects of what your brain had to go through while you're deployed or what you went through with those guys. You don't have them there as a support system anymore. You don't even have them there to just shoot the shit with you every morning when you guys all get up and you do the same shit together. That's why I have a big concern of young single males and what's happening. 

1:21:30 - Ryan
I would definitely follow you there and see that that is potentially concerning. Just looking at my teenage daughter and how her and her girlfriends interact and now the boys and girls. There is complete lack of personal interaction. Everything is Snapchat. I told her because I can be a little intimidating without even opening my mouth. No, she said that she's in the park behind her house one day with a bunch of girls and the boys were out there and I walked out with my son and they scattered. She's like I'm never going to get a boyfriend. I looked at her and I said the first one that walks up and shakes my hand she's yours, pal. 

I mean jokingly, but that was a statement on these kids, the boys especially. They don't socially interact verbally. Everything is online. Everything is dissociated. Talking to a guy at the gym the other day he had just got out of a long-term relationship and he was talking about Tinder and he's just like there's no game, there's no building a relationship, there's no courting. So that has started at our level and is going down and it's going to be even worse for these kids. So, yeah, let's smoke pot and swipe right a few times and see what happens, and if nothing happens, I'll play some video games and get high and watch porn hop. 

1:23:16 - John
Exactly so, okay, okay, speaking about your daughters, I'd love for you to tell me more about when you first met Jessica, right, yes, when you first met Jessica, and how that was for you to change your life and getting married. I met her while I was in rehab, going back. 

1:23:36 - Ryan
They say don't get a relationship. For the first year my ex was not on paper, it wasn't adjudicated by the court yet. It had been done for a long time. I was not looking whatsoever. Marriage was not a thing when I first got married to my first wife. So I was having fun I would just put that in generalities and I was having a lot of fun, but I was having too much fun drinking. I had no spouse, or I mean not even from a romantic standpoint. I had no person in my life, in my household, keeping me accountable, so it was just party, party, party, party, party, to the point where I spiraled and family members were like dude. So I go to rehab and I'm not looking for a long-term relationship. 

I was living in Milwaukee. I changed my dating profile to Green Bay because I had run through everything in Milwaukee, I'm in Florida. And we start messaging. She said so where do you live in Green Bay? I was like well, I don't. And she said well, your dating profile says Green Bay, I'm from Milwaukee, or I live in Milwaukee, and she goes okay, cool, I said but I'm in Florida. She's like what are you doing in Florida? I'm like taking classes, which a little bit of yeah, a little bit of the truth. 

I leveled up with her that night so we texted back and forth. It was weird. There's a rehab that you could have your phone within reason. You couldn't just be sitting there in class and, being that my job is social media related, I needed my phone. So I was texting back and forth with her. One of the first things she said to me she said do you want kids? And I said yes, absolutely. And she goes well, I'm not the person for you. I already have two, I don't want any more. I was the first and only time I ever lied to her. I said that's not a deal breaker, I really wanted my own children. I had no idea what I was walking into step-parent-wise, so talked that night. 

I knew that night that I was going to marry this woman. I knew and even the guy that was in charge of her a little for lack of a better term a little halfway house that we were staying in. I walked back in from the porch. He's like, holy shit, you're alone. And I was like, oh fuck, I was not ready. But in the conversations we had, she had been through a parent with a severe alcoholism. She had definitely had her own issues and she said to me. The fact that I would be looking for someone while I'm in a rehab and be willing to admit that shows that I want to better myself, checked out a rehab, flew to Milwaukee. She picked me up, stayed there for the weekend and then she went back to Green Bay and I think I let her be alone for one day and I drove up there and sold my house and sold her house and bought a house, and the rest is history, so to say. 

But I mean walking into having. Oh shit, I'd have to look how old the girls were when I got there. I mean they were young. I mean they're still young. They're 14 and 11. Because how long have you guys been married now? I don't even know. I don't even keep track. We don't do anniversaries or anything. We save money from presents and we take the kids on trips. I mean I would say 2016 or 2017. Yeah, that would make about sense. Okay, I don't think we officially got married to like 2018 or 2019. 

We honestly consider the date of our relationship, starting the day that we talked on the phone, because I knew right away it's love sheet. Yes, clay, that was unbelievable, it was unreal. I'm like, oh my God, don't get me wrong, it's still marriage. I mean there's ups and downs and fights and love and tears. But I knew I had found my person. I knew right away. 

I thought that was bullshit when people would say that, yeah right, it wasn't for sight, but it was. I fell in love with her for her experiences, who she was and how she treated me and how we engaged before we ever even physically touched or even in the same room, and that was pretty freaking cool. And after being a drunk womanizer and actually finding love, what do they say? Love is a choice bullshit. Love is a feeling and a choice. I think it's both. You have to feel the emotions of it, but you also have to choose love when it gets hard. And I knew I had that in her. I knew I had somebody that would never quit on me, which I mean look at all that happened in between us meeting and me getting sober. I mean I said to her the other day I was like why did you stay? And she's like I knew there was a person inside there that you just had to find it. I mean that even wants to choke me up. We're meant to be together. He's just as fucking nuts as I am. 

1:29:01 - John
Now, when you guys first got together, were you kind of like was this the start of you like really wanting to quit drinking and you wanted to kind of face this problem with more head on. 

1:29:14 - Ryan
I was thinking about this the other day, so I didn't think it was. A week after rehab I started drinking and so she drank with me and I don't want to say she enabled me, because I think my need to or my want to drink also played on her want to drink and that's why I'm here. 

They say don't get together. I'm with two addicts that are in recovery, but my greed and my selfishness towards drinking probably influenced her a lot throughout the years. Again, she stayed until one day the light bulb went on. I don't think a lot of people know that. I mean I probably had a lot of people fooled coming out of that rehab. Oh look, he's in love, he's got she's letting him around her kids. Who is this person? And then seeing me interact with the girls and the girls are mine, I don't care about anyone, those are my daughters. 

1:30:17 - John
How is that transition for you from not having kids to now you have two daughters Going from marine? 

1:30:24 - Ryan
drunk, punch a hole in the wall to like holy shit. It's definitely a learning curve and I'd say it's still a learning curve. I mean you learn as a parent, whether it's your biological kid or your stepchildren. I mean it's a daily learning experience. But it was definitely, I'd say, a good year of like finding where my role was especially because I'm not the biological parent where my role is, where my role is as secondary to Jessica and finding that balance and where we found that you know, if the kids need a tune up, she just comes, grabs daddy. 

1:31:08 - John
So, like was the first year probably the biggest struggle, like was the year the biggest struggle with that as, like that, that adjustment in like the following years, Obviously, struggles are still there. 

1:31:19 - Ryan
It's harder as they get older. 

1:31:21 - John
Okay, Because they're both under 10 when you guys first. So yeah, okay, and now they're both like in teenage or like young teenage you spank a 14 year old. 

1:31:31 - Ryan
No, you don't Like every year. There's no point. 

1:31:34 - John
Yeah. 

1:31:35 - Ryan
I mean, and parenting styles between mom and dad are going to be different still. I mean, I'm much more like there's no bullshit and she's much more like nature and nurturer, which is fine. You need a balance. Yeah, I laugh when my son I'm above the discipline and he's like she's not even in the room. He's like mom. Oh my God, hell, no, he knows, he knows where to go. 

1:32:01 - John
Mom's like I'll let dad hit you, yeah. So this is something like I very, very much believe, which is and this I think this is especially true for men because men emotionally mature slower than women, and that through I mean most men in their twenties are not actually mature. 

1:32:21 - Ryan
The most mature looking men in their twenties are still not mature. 

1:32:25 - John
But the level of maturity I had to go through and gain from accepting that I'm now living with my wife Because, as somebody else, that every single day I cannot just care about what I want and what I need, but I have to care about them. I have to like always prioritize their needs and wants along with mine. That till I had to like go through that and had to truly accept that I was not the only person in my life that my decisions affected anymore. Like that made me grow so much so for you. You had been married prior, but it was a toxic relationship. You'd obviously had to, but like had you lived with somebody prior to living with Jessica? 

1:33:03 - Ryan
Yeah, I mean not prior to my first wife. 

1:33:06 - John
I mean besides, like male friend roommates, which is, yeah, it's two immature guys looking together is not, yeah, you're not going to get that, but to me it was. The movie is like living with somebody every single day. You know, like you really like that, the way that changed me, and like the fact that I cared about this person enough that, like I really wanted to change the little things about myself so that I was easier to live with, but also because it was beneficial to me. Did you feel like you went through? 

1:33:32 - Ryan
that In my first marriage my alcoholism was so dominant, so prevalent, which is essentially selfishness. I mean I didn't give a shit. I treated her very poorly. Moving in with Jess anybody that knows her she's a firecracker, she's a pistol and there's definitely a lot. There was a line of what was expected of me. I still get away with a lot, I'm not going to lie but there was definitely like, hey, this is what I'm going to tolerate, but I needed that, I needed that, or I was just going to continue to crash course. This is what I'll tolerate. And you know we made it through it and you know I mean there's still a level, even in sobriety, that she expects, and I mean she's a woman, so she's constantly pushing for more. 

1:34:33 - John
There's always more that can be done. 

1:34:34 - Ryan
Yes, yeah, I mean, she's not wrong. 

1:34:36 - John
Yeah, yeah, I mean, if we didn't have somebody pushing us sometimes a bit, it's hard to constantly, to always just be pushing yourself. You can only push yourself for so long before you need that external motivation from somebody that you care about that wants to push you. So now, another belief I have and I don't have kids yet is that the next level of maturity I'm going to reach is going to come from having kids. Because there is, my feelings have to get put to the side or not. Even my feelings now matter just as much as my partner's feelings. So I live with it and I see them every day, I deal with them every day. So, like, our feelings have to both matter and be valid. 

But then when a kid comes into play, now, both of your feelings get thrown off the fucking trash and like now, this child, this kid, they're, like, they're the number one priority, like they have to come first in a lot of senses, not, I mean, I believe that in America, like I do, believe you should still prioritize your partner and like your partner, you know, like your kids shouldn't be prioritized over your partner. But when kids come, all this like the level of responsibility you have and the way that you really have to like put yourself on the back burner. To me it seems like that's almost like necessary for us to like get to the next level of maturity, whether it's for men and women or just for men. Like, did you feel like, on top of the fact that you moved in with Jessica and you had somebody who wanted to push you to be better, but now you're also responsible for these kids and then eventually came your own kid that, like, how did you feel? Like they were steps in maturity through that time or no? 

1:36:05 - Ryan
I don't think I would have been ready for my child without having the girls, as, like, I mean, and you're getting them at that age, you know, like they've already got some life experiences and norms that they expect. So it was like I mean, it was culture shock for last for lack of a better term like, oh shit, like am I ready for this? No one's ready. That's the honest truth. No one's right. And even after having them and then getting my, you know, having my son be born, I mean I remember she had a C-section, it was a high risk pregnancy, and so they're still, you know, trimming her up and so on, stitching her up, and they hand you this baby and you're, I mean, you're like fuck, like that was my first thought, my first thought that I looked at and he has my mom's eyes over Holy shit. And then I was like, holy shit, you know, like what now? No one's ready, no one's ready. 

And again, it's a constant learning curve and adapting and improvising. My wife and I got in a fight at 3am this morning because we had a sick kid crawling to bed and we had differences of opinion and we got a little testy. And then, on the way here, I texted her. I'm like I am sorry for yelling. She's like hey, we were both tired. It's 3am. You know like frustrated we're over it. You know it's a learning learning each other. 

1:37:26 - John
You're constantly learning each other and you learn how to work with, like you do you feel like that mindfulness ever comes into, like the relationship aspects. Then, like we're like you know you have to step back and be like, okay, she's mad because I did this. Okay, I can understand why she's mad and I know I can be mindful and come and like step back a little bit and realize like it's not just my, it's not just my reasoning for why I'm mad here. She has her very own logical good reasons or whatever it is you know, like how has that? 

1:37:55 - Ryan
Mindfulness is not in a traditional sense of being extremely present. You have to step back to find find the presence of that. That makes sense. Yeah, you have to pull back. You know, breathe, put your feet down. Okay, why is she reacting this way? What did I do Like? What did I do wrong? Not from a like I don't do anything wrong, sense, but like from a like what, what? What is she feeling ill towards and why? And so that, from a mindfulness standpoint, yeah, if you do step back, I am a person that needs immediate conflict resolution and I have learned in a marriage and with children, that is not an option. I mean, there's multiple times where you just have to pull back. I mean this morning, I think it was like eight, eight, 39 o'clock when I texted her, but I wasn't. I wasn't sorry yet. 

1:38:49 - John
Yeah, yeah, you get there, yeah, and as long as you get there eventually. So like do you and this is obviously it's a, it's a real like do you think pepper question, but like, without the kids and without marriage, do you think it's possible? You're going to this place where you're able to realize the benefits of sobriety and how much it can pay into your life? 

1:39:17 - Ryan
Okay, Not, I mean, that's a, that's a reason. Um, you know, like will I drink the day all the kids are graduated out of high school? Maybe I drink when she's retired and I retire to me by an RV, maybe, but like I want to at least make it there. You know, losing my parents, even in my thirties, so painful that like I can't imagine. I mean, I've got friends who lost their parents when they were grade school and high school or lost a parent, and it's, I mean, just the amount of traumas that come from that. I, you know, I want to be around to set these kids up for success, whatever happens. When I'm gone and drinking ain't going to do that, you know I'm not present and I'm not going to be even physically present, you know, before I'm 50, if I keep on the pace on that, Because I mean, yes, the kids and my wife are a major reason, I just had to find my own internal motivation to start that process, okay, do you? 

1:40:29 - John
okay, and now you can feel free to like, go as in, as, as depth, or like not depth as you want on this subject, but with your parents passing, like I think a lot of people haven't experienced that and don't like, especially like in your thirties, like what, what would you have to say to people about that? Like that time for you and how, how hard that was. Obviously you, you were spiraling through that time and like you were using alcohol to cope a lot. But you know, can you talk about some of the emotions you felt? 

1:41:00 - Ryan
Let me first say though If my parents wouldn't have died, I'd probably still be married to the same person, I'd probably be drunk and hate my job that I was working and I'd probably be going through the motions and just be that guy that goes nine to five and comes home and sits in the driveway for 40 minutes and stares at a steering wheel. That was the motivation. My dad died the year before retirement and I was like, wow, you're going to work till you retire and then die. It had a lot of motivation for me to jump into a world that I had never even thought of. That's taken me to Africa, to China, to all over the US on a regular basis, and it gave me the guts to take that chance. That being said, without those incidences in perfect storm, I'm still probably locked in. Then I call my parents every day, which I'd love to trade any amount of money, any amount of success, to have phone calls with my parents. I think the events itself set me on a path of a perfect storm as far as emotions and feelings. 

My mom died. She was on her third or fourth round of cancer. She had ovarian cancer. The first time she had adult children Ufa hysterectomy, or whatever they call it when they rip out. I basically got her a female reproductive system. She was in remission, she looked great, but then she got it again and got it again. 

I was in Baltimore for a work thing when my dad called me. Actually, I was at Ground Zero of all places. I was in New York for the weekend, experiencing Ground Zero, feeling the emotion of that my dad calls, and I was like I don't really want to talk her down at Ground Zero. He's like your mom's on hospice. He just blurs it out. I was like, oh fuck, I didn't even know that she had gotten cancer again. They didn't want to tell me because I was at a school for work, going home and seeing her when I left. She looked normal, she looked beautiful, seeing her as an absolute skeleton. That's where…. How many times can you cry? How many times can you curse God or your existence? How many times can you…. Oh, now dad's dying, losing them. It becomes the point where it's so numb that I got tired of people coming up to me. It's all 9,000 people. There's people to this day and they mean, well, I'll go home and spend…. It's 2024. 

This was 2011. At the grocery store, my family's camping in Dora County and people are like, oh, I'm so sorry about your parents. I'm like, fuck me too. You become so numb to it that there is no more feeling. I was drinking to feel. I drank alcohol to cry. I drank alcohol to access emotions. I mean talking about the… In the air tonight, phil Collins. 

I didn't feel anymore. I felt the only thing I was able to access was anger. I was anger and irritable because PTSD. I was anger and irritable because I was waiting for the next drink. So I didn't feel happy. I didn't feel sadness anymore. It would become so numb. That's a lot to put on your plate for…. 

I call it my Lieutenant Dan moment. He was up in the crow's nest. You can call it a storm. I mean losing both my parents. The day my dad got diagnosed terminal, I had two dogs hit by a truck and killed. This is all one fucking day. I haven't even seen my mom yet. I dropped dogs off at a family friend's farm. So this all happens in one day. Going to see your mom on hospice for the first time. Dad's diagnosis terminal lost two dogs. That's my Lieutenant Dan moment. I was walking through a woods, drunk that night, just screaming at the sky. This is all you fucking got. I'm questioning God, my existence. So I mean, yes, about the feeling. It becomes to a point where there is no feeling anymore and that's what I was drinking to access. And now, you know, four or four and a half months into sobriety, I'm able to feel. I'm not embarrassed to cry, I'm not embarrassed to… I mean, I'm having fun. 

1:45:56 - John
To you. I mean, I can't imagine that, that going through that and what do you feel like, even kept you going. 

1:46:09 - Ryan
I don't know. I don't know. I mean we talked about suicide. I mean I was never suicidal. I just I was just going to drink until and be reckless until until the good Lord said all right, that's enough, until I did something. Reckless enough, I mean even when finding hunting. I mean I was doing some dangerous ass hunts, like going to the Bering Sea in a duck boat and watching the guys from WS Ketcher coming into shore as we're going out in these little zodiacs and like these idiots, you guys die all the time Hunting. You know, cape Buffalo in Africa they kill 200 people a year. I mean I enjoyed…time. 

We hunted a Cape Buffalo, one of the younger pHs that are called professional hunters. Actually they're Africans which are Dutch and German heritage, white South Africans. They go to a school for pH for professional hunting and I mean it's a very lucrative job. So these guys, you know, hunt the stuff all the time and we're hunting Cape Buffalo which are dangerous and the client wounds, one hits it in the brisket. So now you've got no major arteries, no organs and no joints. So now you've got a pissed off 2,000 pound animal. You know probably even more than that as we're going into the thick shit to go try to get another shot on this animal because it's wounded like the younger pH looks at me and he's like you're really enjoying this and I was like I'm having fun, man. He's like you realize this is fucking dangerous, right, and I said, no, that's what I like. I enjoy the danger because it made me feel alive. That makes any sense. 

1:47:54 - John
Yeah, because it kind of like…so when you weren't drinking you would feel anger and you'd feel irritability and anger. And when you drank, that actually let you feel other emotions. Even if it was sadness, it was still better than you just feel angry because that's… or empty. Or empty, because that's a hard place to be, and you're like for this. It made you feel alive because you felt something. You felt something, some adrenaline rush. You almost have to be present. Then You're like, forced to be in the moment. Yes, right, I'd better be sharp. 

1:48:24 - Ryan
I mean hog dogging. Have you ever seen that? No, you chase the wild boars with hounds. The hounds bay them up, then you have a pit bull that's on a chain with Kevlar because the pit bull is going to engage. So as soon as you hear the hounds bay up the hog and it's like 200, 250 pound boar hogs the big old cutters drop the pit bull, he goes in, he grabs the hog by the face, so then the hog can't swing anymore. But then someone has to run in tackle the hog while the pit bull is attached, while these hounds are going nuts and it's usually in Florida or Texas, so it's like brushy sawgrass palmettos. Someone has to flip that hog over and somebody runs behind and stabs it in the heart and it dies in like six seconds. And it's like this adrenaline filled, like we almost got fucked up by this hog. So you've done this, oh, I've done it like seven, eight times. 

1:49:12 - John
Oh Jesus this sounds awesome, slash, intense as shit. 

1:49:15 - Ryan
The first time I ever did it. I mean, I've got blood all the way up to my elbow. When I film this I don't put anything up to the point of penetration. I cut it there. We don't need to show the gory. It is gory but it's primal and it's efficient. It dispatches that animal. It puts that animal down very quickly. If you get the heart, look six seconds. But I mean that heart explodes and the dogs are going nuts. People's got blood all over his face. Everybody's like ah, I'm like and you're like that was the dumbest thing I've ever done. 

Maybe let's do it again and I've done it seven or eight times now where we've done five to six hogs each time and the first one is as exciting as the last one. I'm going to get fucked up by one of these pigs, man, okay. So I mean I've always been drawn to that. I mean I didn't ever think about it until you articulated it that way that like I was able to feel I was able to be present. I never thought about it like that, like that, definitely I like that analysis. 

1:50:17 - John
Yeah, I didn't like I wasn't as aware of this back in then but, like in my senior year of high school, is when, like my anxiety started getting really bad and I I realized how bad it was and I didn't know how to control it. But one of the things I used to do when it got like it get like real bad at night sometimes is I'd go get in my car and I would like recklessly drive like 120 miles an hour for like a minute, and that minute of being 120 miles an hour meant I was doing nothing but focusing on the present. It took me completely out of my mind and I would do it like at night randomly just to get my anxiety go away. And in retrospect now looking back, I'm like, oh yeah, I guess it's because it literally took me out of the thinking mode into I am present and I am only aware of what's happening in your survival, reactionary flight or flight. 

You can't afford to be thinking about something else when you're doing something that could potentially really hurt you or end your life in the moment. Yeah. 

1:51:15 - Ryan
I mean, what's more primordial existence to humanity than that struggle for survival? Yeah, that's why war is attractive. And I forgot to give you this definition. And I read it. There's a SF community guy that writes under a pen name called Grifter, and he wrote when the music stops. It's the name of the article and it's a phenomenal article. I'll send it to you. 

But he talks about PTSD differently than clinically and he said PTSD is the realization. You'll never be this fucking badass again. There's truth to that. Going to a cubicle job like I did, I got on the elevator and people would be like happy Monday, I'm like fuck you, karen. Or hey, thank God it's Friday. I'm the elevator down the way. Tina, you're going home to eat hog and dust with your cats and watch Lifetime movies. Your life sucks. And Monday through Friday I'm sitting in this fucking cubicle going like, wow, wouldn't it be awesome to go blow the doors off the fucking house and do a raid? No TPS reports. So that's seeking that. 

Because combat is easy. Don't die, that's it. Survive Don't die. Try not to let these two die, that's it. Fuck the country. Fuck the country we're in. You go there as a flag, waving like pledge allegiance to the flag, blah, blah round a ring. It's funny in my 40s now I'm like, well, I look at Ukraine, I look at Russia, I look at Israel and all this shit and I'm like, why are we even involved? And we're just, it's all politics at this point, I mean. But in war, when you get stuck, there is the wrong word, when you made the choices to get yourself there and the guys next to you made their choices, and the light bulb goes on amongst all, you're like, well, we're in this to fucking gather, survive. That's easy. So I mean, there's definitely an attraction to the danger and an nostalgic feeling of wanting to be back in combat, where life was easy. What are we going to do today? Shoot the motherfucker that's trying to shoot me and find food and water when we need it and sleep when they let us. 

1:53:34 - John
It's like life at its raw, simplest form. Right, like nothing else, fucking matters. It doesn't matter how your hair looks, it doesn't matter what you do for breath, nothing matters. Are you going to die or you're not going to die in this moment by making, continue to make the right decisions right now, being focused. But like that I feel like that really, it goes along the side, like how, like we as a society, we've gotten so much comfort that, like we have the luxury to spend time thinking about such unimportant shit all the time. But there was a point in time I mean even 100 years ago where 1920s, you know like you had to survive. You had to figure out how to make money so you could put food on the table, not make money so you could buy a bigger TV. 

1:54:18 - Ryan
You know like I imagine being a female in an era where you're alone and you have a choice of prostitution or starving. You know, like I mean no one. I mean I shouldn't say no one. I'm not sure if you're dead, but the vast majority of people in this country are not to that point and they've all got smartphones. You're not poor. You are not struggling. You know there are easy ways and I like that you bring that up, because I say the same shit to my kids. I'm like you have never had to struggle. I'm a pussy compared to fucking the frontiersmen. 

Look at all this On my Elkhart. We were talking like between me and the two other guys there. I was like let's total up how much gear we have dollar wise and how much technology we have. And if I don't get one, we just go to Arby's, you know, like the gas station or the supermarket. These guys they don't get one with a flint arrow. They don't eat or their offspring don't eat and everyone dies. And I'm just like, wow, we've got no skin in the game. Strong times create, you know. 

1:55:27 - John
Strong times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. 

1:55:32 - Ryan
And we are in the weak men stage of that rotation right now. 

1:55:35 - John
And like it's crazy how like that statement, that saying sounds like it sounds cliche and it sounds like it's just you know, it's an artsy sounding kind of, but it's so goddamn true it is. 

1:55:49 - Ryan
I'd be interesting to see who originated that. I would guess it Roman era philosopher. 

1:55:56 - John
I do think it's that old. It's not like a 1900s one, it's like an old saying from the fact that, like they've seen civilizations come and go you know, the Romans collapsed. 

1:56:05 - Ryan
Basically to what we're doing internally. 

1:56:07 - John
We're we're collapse with a lapse of culture, because people are allowed to have too much culture because now your identity is literally the biggest thing to focus on, instead of do you have food, do you have shelter? And then are you taking care of the people around you? Nope, I want you to identify me as this specific thing, otherwise it hurts my feelings. 

1:56:28 - Ryan
And if this person gets elected, we're all going to die. And then screams at the big, like stop it. 

1:56:32 - John
It's like, how are you? Like? I mean, I'm in this generation, I'm in this culture. I know I'm very much a part of it, but I do my best to try to always think in hindsight. Now, for me, I did have the benefit of growing up in the Middle East. So I had the benefit of growing up and I considered where I was from a second world country. It wasn't a first world, yeah, definitely wasn't third world. 

I was like I'm not really plumbing, but like I went back there to summer and took my wife for the first time to like see, that's cool, amon Jordan, and it's it's just like you realize life is different, like the way that they live there right now, even with technology and everything that's happening in the world, it's there's still just a sense of like people are just surviving over there, like people, and like the way people care about their families and whatnot. It's so different. You come to America and it's just we have so much comfort that like we focus on the dumbest shit sometimes and I'm I feel fortunate that I had the experiences I've had while still getting to end up being in America, because America is a great country in the world. I think the freedom we have here cannot be understated, even a fucking smidge. I think whenever people look at America and say anything negative about it, I'm like you don't fucking know what you're saying. People are from here. 

1:57:44 - Ryan
Let's say it oh yeah. 

1:57:46 - John
Yeah, people are. Yeah, people are from here. You're just saying words that you heard somewhere. 

1:57:52 - Ryan
That's fascist, like really you, what you know what fascism really is. 

1:57:56 - John
You know there's parts of the world where you could be arrested for what you say. Right, slavery is still legal in Mauritania. There's more slaves in Africa right now than there ever was in 1817 hundreds you know, like Chinese and the Uyghurs. 

1:58:08 - Ryan
I mean like it shit's going on all over the world. I mean just watching. I mean I like to watch some of the to keep a numbness. You know, I don't want to lose that numbness to the savagery of the world. I like to use they used to be called Live Leak and then it was like they're gore websites, but it's watching real time videos of combat stuff. Or, like you know, some lady on a moped in Vietnam getting hit by a cement truck. It's all like CCTV or, but it's reality and I'll watch some of the stuff going on in Ukraine just to keep an edge. My wife will walk in and I'll be eating a sandwich, you know I'll get in the office and she's like what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm just like yeah that guy just got oh, russian sniper got him. 

You know, but it's. I mean, she's blind to it and I make her watch some of it. I'm not going to make her watch like cartel executions, because those motherfuckers are like oh boy. 

Yeah we haven't seen this. You know the materials, like I got a chainsaw. I mean just seeing her and she's one of the smart. Her intelligence is in sociology, human interaction. She's very good at reading people and reading situations and she's even blind to what goes on in the world. I mean just sex trafficking, and you know just the amount of debauchery and hedonism and evil that's out there. She's just, she has no clue. 

1:59:44 - John
Yeah, and unfortunately the internet has made it has made us more aware of it, but it's also spread it and I think it's unfortunate. But you know, it's one of those things like the internet it comes with so many positives and it also comes with so many negatives. It keeps us connected but it also lets things spread like wildfire that sometimes are not good for anybody that is being sucked into that wildfire. 

2:00:11 - Ryan
And anything you have out there as a tool can be used for good or evil. You know, we, I think there's been throughout. I mean, you look into ancient history. There's some brutal shit that went on. We've always been a savage species, but you, it's accessible now, like you can see where it's happening all over the world via news and underground sources. It's accessible and there was always school shootings. Now you just know about it within minutes. 

2:00:45 - John
Yeah, Well, there's a when they there's that like study or book or whatever, like when they did like experiments on monkeys and they determined that we have a very similar thing with monkeys, where we're only able to basically like conceptualize the idea of like 150 people. 

Because we came up in like 150 person tribes, like back in the you know way back in the day. That, like people forget, like you know, people think that there's this utopia we can live in, where everybody in the world lives peacefully and loves each other and does everything for the sake of everybody else in the planet. Where I'm like, that's literally just not genetically possible for us. We're always going to only care about a certain number subset of people in our lives that we can like form lives. We can literally think of them and be like, yeah, they are real person. I could think of their emotions, I could think of their feelings. Like I can't think of that. 

When I'm thinking about somebody living in China, you know, I can think of them as much as I can and like be like, yeah, they're real people. They have real different circumstances, they live under the nose, but like, when it comes to making the decision that's going to benefit my people or their people, we're tribal as fuck. We're never going to lose being tribal. But the internet has connected us in a way that make people think that we are one big tribe. But no, we're not. The internet just connected us all and just let us connect all our tribes together, but we're still tribes and we're still going to…. What book was that? Was that the? 

2:02:06 - Ryan
Way of Men. I don't know which book it's from, Because it's mentioned in the Way of Men. Okay, I just read that in my second round of 75 Harden. It's the best book I've ever read. It covers all this. The Way of Men, yes, I will definitely…. The follow-up book to that is Becoming Barbarian and it talks about creating… it talks about how the world is now and new tribalism. We're spread out. There's no geographically local…. I mean I look at my neighbor. I'd love to punch that guy in the face. He's not my tribe and he's not going to be my tribe just because of geographical connectedness. I mean my tribe is spread out, but I mean it talks about that within a modern sense. It's a fascinating book. The Way of Men, oh my god. It talks about monkeys and it talks about bonbos and chimpanzees and one is matriarchal and one is patriarchal. Society and the loss of male dominance within leadership. I've had women that I know are very intellectual feminists read it and take away from it. It's pretty well-written. 

2:03:22 - John
I will definitely pick it up. I've been needing a new book to read. So the Way of Men, the Way of Men, jack Donovan, jack Donovan, oh okay, that sounds familiar. He sounds familiar, it's phenomenal. 

2:03:33 - Ryan
I'm rereading part three. I don't remember the title of part three is but real. Soon here, after I finish the Food of the Gods. The food, do you know… I don't know, I just started. 

2:03:46 - John
It sounds familiar and I can't…. 

2:03:48 - Ryan
It was talked about on Joe Rogan's podcast. 

2:03:50 - John
That's where I remember it. 

2:03:52 - Ryan
He had this little weasel guy out who was actually super funny and kind of abstract and obtuse at the same time. He was an interesting guest. I can't remember his name though, either. Food of the Gods is the use of plant medicines, tribally and shamanistically. 

2:04:17 - John
I feel like the name kind of popped in my head there a little bit, and Bob and I are not going to spend too much time trying to remember it. So, okay, do you think that there's a solution for men? With the fact that men have become… Men have felt less needed, they feel less… they have less roles and responsibilities nowadays. Back in the day you hunted to feed your family or whatever you farmed, you had some physical work you have to do. That's why I think we really desire physical work in some sense and we work out now to kind of get that. It's modern day. We use training, we use working out to get it. But do you see a solution? Do you see a way that men can get through this time? In a world now where everything's online and everything's so segregated, the idea that a man is a guy who stands up and does this and does that is… it's being kicked down a notch and it keeps getting kicked down. Do you see a way out of that? 

2:05:18 - Ryan
When I said before that the hunt is not the main thing. That's the reason why the veterans gather. But for me, I hunted. I was not a hunter until now. I do it for a living. I had so little exposure to it. My dad came with me when I shot my first deal. I was like 14. It's dad that's on the ground and we look at each other like what are we doing? Next he's like do you have a knife? I was like no, so we had to borrow a knife to gut an animal. I had no idea. 

And butchering, I take away a lot. I do a lot of nose detail eating as much as possible. I mean you're not going to eat the butthole. Learning how to butcher and hearts and livers. I mean on a bird most people don't even take the thighs and the legs because it's kind of a pain in the ass to do. There's not a lot of meat reward. But going out there and hunting, even if you don't have access to that, raise some chickens and butcher your chickens and process it and do it all yourself. It's amazing. I go out and scout, I find the birds, I shoot the birds, I pluck the birds, I butcher the birds, I trim the birds, I cook the birds and then they're on the table. I've done that whole process. There's a lot of and it's not even like oh you know, see, I'll kill. The kill is so minimal in that it's the pursuit and the providing. 

2:07:03 - John
The providing yes, yes, because you feel like it gives you such a high self-worth, right? Yeah, like it really increases your own way of viewing your self-worth. 

2:07:14 - Ryan
How much can I put in a freezer that can, or even you know, process and dehydrate or process, and can that can feed my family throughout a year of hard work? I mean hunting is hard work. I mean I hate dragging a deer Like it sucks. 

2:07:36 - John
I mean, have you ever done elk hunting? Yeah, I feel like I've heard of that one. Like you got a dragon elk out. If you shoot an elk, I have not. 

2:07:43 - Ryan
This last elk hunt was a trophy zone. I waited 13 years for a tag. I went in. It was public land. I went in the best shape I've been in a decade. I was finishing round two of 75 Art. I mean, I was rocking and rolling, went in knowing that if I didn't pull my binos up and put eyes on the elk, that was the one I wanted, it wasn't shooting. I didn't need the meat, it was. Also, it took a lot of discipline of seeing other ones and knowing, hey, if I shoot this one, we're in a place where it's not that hard to get out. But I have helped people pack out before and it sucks. Going down is worse than going up. You got weight on your back and you're hammering down. 

2:08:27 - John
It's hard on your hands. Yeah, yeah, it's the shit out of your quads and knees. It sucks. Okay, so can you, because I definitely would like to talk about so, ryan, off the grid, you started that business like in 2011, 2012, then About a bit During the 2012,. 

2:08:46 - Ryan
I started doing photography and I did that for two years. I'd have to look it up, I bet you, as 2014 is when I started. Ryan off the grid is when I got asked. I had about two years of photography under my belt. I was making waves with waterfall photography when a Facebook acquaintance had gotten picked up with a network television and said can you film? So that's kind of when Ryan off the grid was born, which was an offshoot of off the grid photography, which I keep them separate. 

2:09:23 - John
And when did you stop working in an office shop, oh boy? Was it before that or after that? 

2:09:29 - Ryan
It was before that. I was about 2013 or 2014. 

2:09:33 - John
And then you were full time, because what's the show that you guys filmed for? 

2:09:39 - Ryan
The show that we were on I think it was three seasons worth was the Den was a show where there's four teams competing to win in the winter, one a year airtime. We won, so backcountry traditions came out of the Den and then we had two seasons as backcountry traditions, so three or four total. That was pretty early on, to be honest, I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing filming wise it was all trial and error or talking to people that I knew that were good, production wise and editing wise, if they had patience to sit down with me or answer a question or at least point me in the right direction. Utilizing your human resources and just YouTube college tutorial, tutorial, tutorial. This technique looks cool like smoke fading in, or just learning how to do it. Via YouTube. There's a tutorial on everything, everything. 

2:10:45 - John
So then at that point you're full time, like 2014, 2015,. When did High Point Adventure? When did you bring that concept to life? 

2:10:54 - Ryan
That was four years ago we're on our fourth year A guy from Colorado had messaged me and said hey, instagram never really talked to him before. Would you like to come out and shoot a mountain lion? And I was like, well, fuck, yeah, okay, I had already shot a mountain lion in New Mexico, shot the 30th biggest mountain lion of all time. I mean, the dogs did the work, I just pulled the trigger. You know like I got lucky. So this thing is massive. I mean it's in my living room, it takes up. I mean that is our peace day resistance in the living room. I think. 

2:11:30 - John
I've seen your post-pictures. It's huge yeah. 

2:11:32 - Ryan
I mean there's a picture of me holding this mountain lion. I mean, I'm not a small man, I am struggling to keep. I mean, it's a horse, so I'd already have a full body mountain in our living room. And mountain lion meat is actually really good. It tastes like pork, it's super lean. You're going to cook it well done, but Colorado style green pork chili or I mean anything pork related. I mean, you just substitute it. It's very good. So I would obviously eat the meat. 

But if I shoot a mountain lion like, I'm not going to not mount it. You know, to pay someone to run dogs is going at about eight to 10K right now for one mountain lion. Wow, that's what people are getting paid. Well, because the dogs are expensive. These are $40,000 dogs that can drive track and the guys are running full packs and dogs are getting killed every once in a while. Or you know, there's turnover and age gas food to feed these things. So he says, hey, do you want to come shoot this mountain lion? Hell, yeah. And I'm laying in bed and she's next to me and I'm like, god Lee, if I kill this fucking mountain lion, I'm going to mount it. And then we got two full body, mountain lions, like she's very patient with the amount of stuff we have in our house. I'm like this is not the hill I'm going to die on. So I mess this guy back in the morning and I say, hey, you know what? Let's do a veteran's hunt. Are you cool with doing a veteran's hunt? He's like hell yeah. I said we'll get a Purple Heart veteran. 

And sure enough, you know, people kind of came out of the woodwork and we formed a team out there and ran it, filmed it for the TV show. It made the show. It was one of the best episodes ever and in my opinion. And then on the side of that mountain we just said, you know, why don't we start an organization? And it was born right there and we know we've done it all over the place. 

So how many people are part of the organization? I've got five board members, okay. And then my wife is treasurer and which she will let me get away with less than anybody else would. I mean there's checks and balances to make sure that it's run correctly and I never want to be accused of, you know, buying anything for myself. I mean, every single person in my organization is volunteer. No one's paid, and that includes sometimes we can't even reimburse them for their travel or their hotel or gas. So everybody is part of it wants to be there. We have five board members and then we've got people all over the country that are ready to help regionally when we have something to help by them. 

2:14:01 - John
So when you guys take somebody on a hunt, you guys it's being financed from donations that come in, so do you have to actively go out and work with people to get these donations? 

2:14:15 - Ryan
Yes, I hope one day that I don't even have to worry about that and I can continue to be the face, the host, the media side of it. But yeah, I mean there's. You definitely have to Buddy up with some people, cookie jar hand in every cookie jar to kind of make it. And opportunities come randomly too, the right when the right. That's why we put videos out. 

Every once in a while I get hey, so-and-so wants to talk to you and checks in the mail. You know, because they saw the video and it struck a chord with them. I mean, I have the veterans come on. I sit them down beforehand, especially guys that have visible wounds, amputees and stuff. So, look, I'm not here to parade you around, I'm not here to dog imponite you. I'm not here to get a gold star and pat on the back for taking you guys hunting. I know what this does because of what it did for me. I want to give this to you. 

And when we sit you down to do your interview, what's your name, branch service, where you're from? And at the most, I was injured in Iraq in 2004. I don't need you to tell me you got your foot blown off. I don't need you to tell me you got shot on the shoulder. That's all we're gonna talk about, about your injury. The only thing I want you to talk about and this. And usually I kind of guide them through most of the questions and then I say tell me what it's like to be on a veterans hunt and why this is important to you. And that's where, organically, they just drop like these emotional nuggets. That's all I want them to dive in. And the testimonials are what people see. They're like holy shit. 

2:16:02 - John
Seeing like the raw emotion behind what it means to be out there with I can't replicate those guys. 

2:16:07 - Ryan
No, I mean, you know Josh Ebert? He's a tattoo artist down in a. I don't think so. No, so he's an Army vet never hunted before and he was on a cool, he's my tattoo artist. He's down in a. Was that fifth ward or third ward? But he had never been on a hunt before, did hogdog with me and he got like super emotional and I've known him a long time and I was not ready for it as the cameraman, but it was so raw, it was so real. I actually got off behind the camera. We like like I didn't even forgot that I was filming. I was like man, I'm like this is fucking. This is what this is about. Cause he's like this is I came here for an experience and he goes this was so much more. You know that's cool, that for me, every hunt you'll get one guy that really sticks out that it affects deeply, and then they almost have a spiritual experience. 

2:16:59 - John
It like feeds the soul. 

2:17:00 - Ryan
Yes, but yeah, and that feeds me. If I'm not doing this like I don't know what the fuck I'd be doing right now. 

2:17:07 - John
How do you find the veterans? 

2:17:10 - Ryan
Depends on the hunt, depends on the requirements, depends on what the if the outfitter that's donating the hunt wants something specific. But I mean, usually we'll put it out to the public, hey, I mean I'll drop some media, some flashy little picture with lettering on updates, and you know, I need you to submit your discharge documents and submit a. This is all. I ask for A paragraph about one paragraph about your military service and one paragraph about your hunting experience and one paragraph about why you want to be selected specifically for this hunt. And that will usually show me enough to see who's fitting and we'll sit down in front of the board and discuss it and then there's a selection process there. Okay, some of it's word of mouth, some of it. 

I have a guy in mind, I mean Josh the tattoo artist. Hunting was not on his radar, but I knew he was an adrenaline junkie, to the point where, like the hog dogging that, I mean he was perfect for it. So I mean he, I captured it and I didn't notice until I was editing the pit bulls licking his face and he's I mean this is a nasty ugly boar hog thing and he's petting the boar, the boar's dead and he's coming to terms with killing something, but knowing that he's coming home with the food he did the killing not somebody at a you know a pork plant that's running electricity through a pig's head or a bolt. You know a bolt. You know he was coming through the. As an adult, you'll see kids that first hunt go through this. But as an adult, with all these life experiences petting this hog out of respect and coming to terms with all that and like he's processing all this, I didn't even notice. I'm just filming it. And then I went to edit it. I was like whoa, like yeah, you know, like that. 

2:19:07 - John
Yeah, I mean that's like that's probably instrumental in what you're, the experience you're trying to provide. It's like being aware that, like there's the action you're doing and there's what's behind that action and the meaning of it and the consequences of it, and coming to terms with that in a way that can be fulfilling to you but also respectful to the animal and to nature. 

2:19:28 - Ryan
The kill, the kill, the kill and this is as you grow as a hunter and grows a human being and an emotionally mature is the least important part of a hunt, even though you know eventually, if you got bad enough and you had a kill for sustenance, then it's obviously very important. Yeah, I mean there's so much more to hunting historically. And then you know, going back to you know tribes, I mean when you had to provide, there's this like historical pull from your body as a man to that, that like that draws me, that draws me to hunting. It's like I'll be on a hunt up in a mountain. I mean just like talking about the guys with all this tech technology we have, and I was like man, you know, I'm like I'm sitting them up on this fucking ridge with these $3,000 binoes looking for shit and I'm just like you know, like imagine back in the day like how many people have stood on this land before me and hunted these elk or hunted sheep? 

I mean, I do research where I'm at to look at indigenous tribes that were in areas and look up their customs and like how they survived and I think it's cool that you know I'm a guest on these lands, you know. 

2:20:45 - John
Yeah, Doing something that's been done with much less way longer. 

2:20:52 - Ryan
And the costs and the consequences were that much higher. 

2:20:59 - John
I mean like that it's a way for men. I mean it's a way for men and for you to connect back with something that we, most of us, have lost and don't ever really get a chance to connect with. And as much as somebody can do something outdoors till you do something outdoors that reminds you that we lived outdoors and had to survive outdoors at one point in time, that like that's huge. And I mean the brotherhood camaraderie part of it. I mean I go back to that. 

So the older I get, the more I realize, like man, how important it is that you have to like we desire being part of a group of people and we desire being around like-minded guys, for us to feel like a place in the world. That like when you give that to a veteran and they can feel I mean that's, it's gotta be so it's just so gratifying to know that somebody got to feel that because you're able to put on this event for them and like, let them feel what it's like to be around others and just be as raw as you can. I mean I feel like that's why guys in the military you build up such a close camaraderie with others is because you are in such a raw, in such raw situations that, like for the rest of your life, these people are tied to this, very like these raw experiences of your life, and this is, just like another, a different aspect of doing that. 

2:22:21 - Ryan
And I try to get guys that didn't serve together an event because they can build that. They can, you know, carve out another little brotherhood, another little support network, and it's built. You know, on that hunt weekend They've already got shared experiences. You know, it may not be the same, but it's very similar shared combat experience, shared military experience, you know where they travel to. So they already know each other a little bit, just based on they know how they're gonna interact. And then you mesh these personalities and you put them on a hunt together. I mean you've built a little network, you've built a separate little brotherhood and that keeps growing. 

The guys that come on hunts, they wanna know, like hey, can I volunteer at the next one? Like, you need me to pick people up from the airport? I'll be there, you know, like, so you can get things set up. You know, like they wanna be part of it. I mean some guys just come hang out for an hour or two. They don't even know the guys that are gonna be on the next hunt. They just wanna come hang out. 

And it's cool to see those bonds built. And that happens between the volunteers. Though, too, they don't know it, I'll have outfitters that'll donate a hunt. I mean, this is at prime time of their season. They are losing money, big time losing income to donate this hunt. And they'll say, well, I don't want this to seem like an advertisement, like don't put my name in the video, and I'm like fuck you, you're getting in the video, like you're donating this, and they leave. Those are the guys, the ones that are genuinely doing it because they want to and are not trying to benefit from it. They leave and they're like holy shit, that was the best hunt, that was like the most exciting experience. You'll see the guide or the volunteers two, three years later on Facebook still interacting with the guys that are on that hunt or going on a hunt together, like it's cool. 

2:24:13 - John
That's so like it's building lifelong friendships, lifelong connections. Do you kind of like have any ideas in mind for the future of High Point Adventure, if things you wanna like, how you wanna possibly spread out more or do more, or do you? 

2:24:26 - Ryan
As far as events, we're pretty loaded. We do need to figure out more streamlined funding, which I think is gonna come here. We just now that I have all the events that I wanna do. Some are every other year, some are yearly in the calendar year. I'm full, I'm gonna start having board members or vets run their own hunt. I'm not gonna go film it, but if I have confidence in them they know the drill, they know the blueprint that I'm totally interested in. You know. Just tell me what you need funding was. Then I can focus more on figuring out a yearly fundraising events which I think are more important for long-term sustainability. And if we get to the point where I can get a corporate sponsor and I can pay my volunteers travel cost, they're already donating their time. You know if I can pay their plane ticket or pay their gas huge. 

Huge because I mean it does add up. I don't even wanna know what I've spent out of my own pocket on this. I don't wanna know, cause I don't want my wife to Don't worry about it. Jessica, it's all good, it's all good. 

2:25:48 - John
So kind of just to. This is like a question to kind of like bring things to kind of a bit of an end here. Do you feel like prior to this period of time now where you've had such clarity, with sobriety and sobriety coming from a place where it's truly from within you that you've chose to do this, it's you you're driving it through yourself, not just for others, other people's sake, and the clarity that comes with that? Did you used to think about the future as much, and do you feel like you think about the future more now, with the level of clarity that you have and the fact that you feel like you can get so much more done? 

2:26:26 - Ryan
I think about the future in terms of being around for my children and wife other than that, like short-term goals, maybe a long-term goal or two, just like we talked about putting goals on paper. So I have something to actually work towards, but I don't have the anxiety over the future that I had before. Like I'm just, I'm okay, like I'm not, I can't control the government's bullshit actions. I can't control the media's bullshit actions. I can't control others or fate. So why am I worried about it? See, I don't control my own sphere of influence and the people that influence me. 

2:27:14 - John
So you kind of apply that same thought of well, I don't know if I'm never gonna drink again, but I know I'm not gonna drink today, and then it's gonna be the same thing tomorrow. I know I'm not gonna drink again today. So it's almost like applying that same thought with the this of like I don't know what's gonna happen in the future, but I know I'm okay today and my family, my kids are healthy, my wife is healthy, and I'm just gonna get through today and then figure out what tomorrow is. So it's almost like applying that same concept Whether it's alcohol, whether it's family life, whether it's the future, I'm good today and I'm just focusing on today and I'm gonna, when tomorrow gets here, I'll focus on tomorrow. 

Wash, rinse, repeat, Wash, rinse, repeat. I mean, that's the best thing you can possibly do. Is there any words that you think you would give to somebody if they came up to you right now and told you they were struggling with addiction, and not just alcohol, any addiction at all, any substance abuse? What words would you give to somebody if they were to ask you for? 

2:28:08 - Ryan
advice or help Better every day. There's a way out. What do we need to do to help you? Let's start with a plan. So I don't care if it's a stranger if they came to me like we're going to figure out a plan of attack. 

2:28:23 - John
There is a way to figure it out. We just have to sit down and figure it out. That's awesome, and I think the idea that things can get better is probably where a lot of people stuck in substance abuse or addiction is like. They almost can't comprehend the idea that things can get better. So it's trying to just bring them to awareness that things can get better. I've been in your place and now I know things can get better and there's no reason that you couldn't as well. 

I really appreciate you coming driving down today, especially driving down from Green Bay. I hadn't realized you're living up there, but I really really appreciate you driving out because this conversation was great and I think a lot of people will really benefit from the fact that you're willing to be so raw and real about what the effect alcohol has had in your life and the effect that sobriety has had in your life. People need to see examples of what, how change can happen and how it looks like for them to realize it's possible. That's a big purpose for me with this podcast is to talk to people to then give others like not a blueprint, but tools or even just validation that like what you're going through. I'm talking to somebody right now who's going through it, and they got through it and they're trying to tell you I'm not somebody special that I got through it. I got through it because I'm a human just like you, and all humans have this capability to go from turmoil to try and figure out a way to prosper and find a way to find that clarity in life and just keep putting that foot in front of another. 

I think you're a great example for men, because men also need a good example of a man to look up to. I think you're a great example of that. I think you encompass that on the family side. You encompass that on you know what we want to traditionally call a masculine man. You know a big, bearded guy with tattoos who lives but also hunts and does this cool stuff. I think you're a good role model for men, young and old, of what that means. So I I'm for whatever it means. 

I'm proud of you that you've been able to get to this place and I think it's fucking awesome. Like I said, I've noticed it over the past few years of your journey and I've seen little changes just from social media, from you that made you somebody that popped in my mind when I was thinking about men's mental health and all this. And when you start post about 75 hard more recently too, I was like man, he really is, like he is on that path. I'm like it was awesome to see. And when he said you were doing a second round on social media, I was like dude he's like he's really on it. 

He's kicking ass Like this is great. I think that you're again a great role model for people to see what it means to go from things being hard to working on them to be better, and a lot of it is effort and a lot of it is effort. Just focus on the next day or this day and the next day, not what's going to happen in two months. Fuck, what's going to happen in two months. What's going to happen today or tomorrow? 

2:31:26 - Ryan
Well, I mean, when you asked me to be on, it was I do a podcast for the hunting world, probably at least three a month. Okay, and some people may be aware a little bit, but that's not the line of questioning and that's why I was excited to be able to put my story out, have people know the background and help anybody who it may help know that people more than I answer everything within reason on social media in my inbox. But I mean just to tackle this subject and put it out there is huge. I mean I know how bad it can suck, but I do want you to do the outro. Put on a Team America the man song now is a man, a man, man man. 

2:32:23 - John
That I can do. 

2:32:24 - Ryan
That I can do. I just popped in my head. I'm like you should do that for everybody, though, right? 

2:32:32 - John
If YouTube wouldn't kick me, probably some kind of copyright bullshit. 

2:32:35 - Ryan
They all would. No, you'd be all right. Yeah, yeah, I'll find a right audio clip for it. 

2:32:41 - John
That's great, team America, fuck yeah. Well, thanks again I appreciate you coming out. 

2:32:44 - Ryan
It's been a pleasure. This was an absolute pleasure, man. Yeah, of course. 

2:32:48 - John
If you guys enjoyed today's podcast, tune in and subscribe. This is the last podcast of the year and next year I'll probably I'm probably gonna start doing a thing where I'll drop one a month. I'll probably do like 12 episodes a season and drop one a month. But so if you guys enjoyed this, please like and subscribe and otherwise have a great rest of your day. 

2:33:10 - Ryan
Sweet Fuck yeah, brother man thanks again. 

2:33:13 - John
This was good America. 

2:33:17 - Ryan
America, america, fuck yeah, coming again to save the moment, thank you. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page