Life After Losing a Full Ride to UCLA, Becoming a Meth Head Dirtbag, and a Fentanyl Wake Up Call

Matt (00:00:03):
I am Matt Handy, and you're listening to my last relapse. So this is Danny D. He's my buddy, works for Monarch. So let's get into it.

Danny (00:00:14):
Right on.

Matt (00:00:14):
All right. So the story.

Danny (00:00:17):
Tell me a story. All right. So I'm just going to fast forward to, well, let's go back. Before I got into my addiction, I come from an outstanding family dynamic. I'm not the guy that had the trauma based background. It's just not my story. I respect it. I totally understand it. It's just not mine. I had a mom who was a teacher, 35 year school teacher. Everybody loved her. She's a woman of faith, just totally grounded service first right in front of me. My whole life, my dad was just like a community icon, just great, a wonderful man from the Midwest. My mom's from the Midwest, so I grew up in Southern California. So we had these Midwestern ideas, very simple, very good people, and my dad just liked to tune it up to party, you know what I mean? The party, the drinking was always in and around. They call 'em what? Teetotalers, not really Teetotalers, but they got after it quite a bit. My mom's a two can screamer, you know what I mean? Just not an alcoholic by any stretch of the imagination. None of it on her side. And my dad just like a party, you know what I mean? But he could continue his lifestyle, raise a family, put outstanding values, ethics, and mores right in front of me my entire life.

(00:01:48):
But just liked to drink. Him and his buddies all liked to drink, very successful families that he was associated with a very good friend group, doctors, lawyers, a prominent businessman, all this, but they just like to get after it with the alcohol. So I was introduced to alcohol at 14. He'd throw a beer at me here and there. Hey, let's have a cocktail. We had a bar in our den, which was kind of like basically everybody come over, all my family friends would come over. They threw a lot of parties, you know what I mean? And they just get lit up, know what I mean? And I never saw any alcoholic behavior, anybody blacking out that my dad's friends were. And then talking, they drink some pretty stiff cocktails, you know what I mean? But they were all composed funny. This was my illustration of alcohol at the time growing up. It was

Matt (00:02:43):
Very attractive.

Danny (00:02:44):
Yeah, very attractive. Very attractive. Conviviality and friendship, you know what I mean? Talks about, and it didn't seem like there was any, no red flags. No red flags for me, because at an early age, I mean, albeit I did the 12-year-old New Year's Eve, nobody was around drinking the whole bottle of vodka. You know what I mean? And just getting stupid and weird throwing up. But I thought everybody did that, you know what I mean? Because a lot of my friends did that. And there was no real consequences as a 12, 13-year-old to that, other than me, we probably shouldn't do that again. And then in high school, it was more like conviviality and friendship. Everybody was just getting wasted on the weekend. I mean, we're talking like girls drinking Boon, Strawberry Farms throwing up, and I'm drinking a bottle of whiskey with the buddies, just keg parties, the whole nine yards. But it was all fun.

Matt (00:03:39):
Yeah,

Danny (00:03:39):
It was all fun.

Matt (00:03:40):
Absolutely.

Danny (00:03:40):
I mean, the atmosphere was not negative by any stretch of the imagination. And there was a lot of community.

Matt (00:03:47):
And this was Orange County?

Danny (00:03:48):
This was Orange County,

Matt (00:03:49):
Yeah.

Danny (00:03:49):
Yeah. I grew up in all my high school buddies. We just got after it, a lot of keg parties. But I'd go to school. I was a three sport athlete in high school.

Matt (00:04:03):
What sports?

Danny (00:04:03):
I played two sport, actually. Varsity basketball and golf.

Matt (00:04:08):
Oh, yeah. So you played golf all day?

Danny (00:04:12):
Basically. Not all day, but I mean, I played basketball in the fall and in the springtime, I'd play golf.

Matt (00:04:21):
I mean, today.

Danny (00:04:22):
Oh, all day today? Yeah. Can you tell a little bit red?

Matt (00:04:25):
It's red. It's red, it's red. What were you playing today for?

Danny (00:04:28):
I was playing for, in the TGA event, which is Ben Hammond, a bunch of good group of guys in recovery. And they got about 30, 40 guys two days ago, and then they cut it down to 20 and made the cut. So we went and played San Antonio Country Club today. It was just a monster, but it was a good time. We just had dinner, so.

Matt (00:04:48):
Okay, let's keep going.

(00:04:51):
Yeah. And basically the ear markings of any type of disaster coming my way, were not there. You know what I mean? I got good grades, you know what I mean? I maintained a solid friend group growing up. I had a great attitude. I didn't have the experience as a kid or a high school kid where I was, oh, this alcohol. It wasn't my experience. It was like it changed my life when I drank it. Yeah. Did I have a lot of fun? Yeah, that's my story. I had a lot of fun, got loose and no wreckage, no real wreckage.

(00:05:29):
So for me, high school was very different. Everybody was doing drugs.

Danny (00:05:33):
Oh, is that right?

Matt (00:05:33):
There was heroin dealers going to our school. Attending our school. Right.

Danny (00:05:39):
Wow.

Matt (00:05:40):
There was daycare at our school for the girls who had kids.

Danny (00:05:44):
Oh, wow.

Matt (00:05:45):
Yeah. It was, I think my junior year. There was 3,700 kids there.

Danny (00:05:50):
Wow.

Matt (00:05:51):
Yeah. So

Danny (00:05:52):
Bif high school,

Matt (00:05:53):
Massive. And it was far enough away from, it was in San Marcos, it was in North County, and it was just far away enough from the city where there was literally nothing to do. And there was two colleges, three high schools and a bunch of middle schools all packed together.

Danny (00:06:11):
Boom.

Matt (00:06:11):
So everybody partied together. And this is a funny thing, is at 16 when a 24-year-old dude is dating a 16-year-old girl,

Danny (00:06:20):
It's just odd.

Matt (00:06:21):
We don't notice it though, at 16, I'm like, whatever. We're hitting on college girls we're messing around and stuff. And it's like, it's part of the deal, whatever. And then you get to 24 and you're like, I had >*$<@ friends.

Danny (00:06:36):
Hindsight's always 20. You're like, dude, that guy was a dirt bag. You know what I mean? Just looming around, dude.

Matt (00:06:40):
No, it was, I don't even want to get into it. There was, looking back on it, there was some not sick shit going on.

Danny (00:06:47):
Sick. Sick, sick shit going. Yeah. I mean, party at the moon town.

Matt (00:06:51):
But high school is like that, right? For a lot of people. High school is kind of the get out of jail free card to mess around. And it is fairly, well, this is not even true for me or my friends either, but fairly consequence free

Danny (00:07:06):
100%.

Matt (00:07:08):
A lot of my friends were in jail in high school and slamming heroin and doing crazy stuff. But I see for a lot of people, normally it is a very consequence free time in their life where they can actually make some bad decisions and not have to go through the ringer for it.

Danny (00:07:25):
Really poor. Very few of my friends were going to juvenile hall. You know what I mean? That's time. I mean, the worst it was is they were transferred to this place called Wintersburg, which was an extension school.

Matt (00:07:35):
Yeah.

Danny (00:07:36):
That had to be repeat offenders, really angry, volatile people. But anything drug related was kept. I mean, there was stuff going on at my high school that I, unbeknownst to me at the time, but I just hadn't been exposed to it. You know what I mean? I had more of an athlete friend group, and I don't know, I wouldn't call us goody two shoes. We were nuts, but there was a lot of weed smoking going on. There was a lot of

Matt (00:08:01):
Orange County.

Danny (00:08:02):
Orange County, OC, OC. So it was happening. I just wasn't in front of it because I was primarily focused on school. And coming from a good family, I kind of had a push in this right direction. I'd like, look, you want to go to college? And I started playing golf, and I started excelling at golf really quickly. So

Matt (00:08:23):
I find that people who get good to golf in high school often do really well in high school, but party really hard.

Danny (00:08:28):
Really hard.

Matt (00:08:29):
Really hard.

Danny (00:08:30):
Really hard. Sneaky. Yeah, it's tough. You know what you are exposed to. You're exposed to a lot of older people. You know what I mean? And they take you down their walk, and you get introduced to a lot of things that are not at normally around your high school. So you're hanging out with literally people in middle age that are successful.

Matt (00:08:51):
Successful. That's what I was going to say.

Danny (00:08:52):
You know what I mean?

Matt (00:08:52):
Normally successful,

Danny (00:08:53):
Normally successful, that they're just in a party phase. They made their money, they got their little slot in life, got their wife kids, and they just want to party. They get out to the golf course and they want to party. And you're just in your early stages of trying to get better and go to college and pursue some type of career in it. And you've got all these wild,

Matt (00:09:12):
Got money.

Danny (00:09:13):
Wild folks out there.

Matt (00:09:13):
Had some success. Stable.

Danny (00:09:15):
Stable.

Matt (00:09:16):
Not addicts, probably

Danny (00:09:17):
Not. Probably some in there. But yeah, soon to be probably an alcoholic tendencies, for sure. But could keep it together. So that was another illustration of like, okay, you can dabble in this and still own a home, have a wife and kids. There's no real trouble as far as we knew that it was even talked about. But everything's a kosher pickle on this side of things. So when you see the cocaine come out at the golf course and you're talking a guy that owns an insurance company know mean, or a mortgage broker, you know what I mean? And it is just like, okay, all I didn't know you did that. You know what I mean? I wasn't even doing it at the time, but I'd see it.

Matt (00:09:55):
So it's got a classy edge, even a little bit?

Danny (00:09:58):
Classy edge, almost a classy edge. So it's all, you don't know what you know until you do.

Matt (00:10:01):
Yeah, for sure.

Danny (00:10:02):
So I mean, it's all experiential for sure. And at the time, I was so focused, and I didn't even know how focused I was until I wasn't.

Matt (00:10:09):
Yeah. Oh, that's a good point.

Danny (00:10:11):
You don't know how focused you are until you just get off the beaten path. So at the time, I was just geared, okay, I'm going to practice. I'm going to play in these tournaments. I'm going to play basketball in the fall, keep myself in shape, and then go get it in the springtime and in the summertime, so my schedules full. So I didn't have any exposure to taking a lid off this thing. And how little did I know that all it took for me was to get my full ride to UCLA for golf.

Matt (00:10:37):
Oh, wow.

Danny (00:10:37):
I got a full ride. I was the number one recruit for UCLA.

Matt (00:10:40):
Wow.

Danny (00:10:40):
I got a full boat to play there.

Matt (00:10:42):
Bruins, huh?

Danny (00:10:43):
Yeah. I was competing against Tiger Woods. I was a player of the year in front of Tiger. At the time, I was winning everything I played in, so it was just like I was blessed with.

Matt (00:10:53):
That's impressive. Golf is not, I can barely miniature golf. And I'm terrible at it too.

Danny (00:10:59):
It's tough.

Matt (00:10:59):
I mean, you look like an athlete. You probably,

(00:11:02):
I lettered in swim and water polo, and I was the captain of my varsity water polo team when I was a Sophomore.

Danny (00:11:11):
Oh, dude.

Matt (00:11:12):
So I was really competitive in sophomore competitive in water polo.

Danny (00:11:15):
See, that's the thing about it. It's like I was really hyper competitive. And so that competitiveness, basically kind of ego driven to some extent, but I just wanted to win. I just like winning. Who doesn't? I mean, at the time I was just like, but it was everything.

Matt (00:11:32):
And at that age, sports can really drive you to succeed, right? Discipline. You've got role models that you're looking up to who are also doing good. And if you've got a good role model in a sports specific, a good coach.

Danny (00:11:46):
A good coach.

Matt (00:11:46):
If you've got a good coach, man, that can be the difference between making it in life or not. I know plenty of people, 100% where it was my coach.

Danny (00:11:53):
Yeah. Well, you get the mentor. They're navigating not just with your sport, but the rest of your life. How are you operating? They've been there and they've seen the roads where people get off, so they're just like, Hey, you got to keep it on the narrow. You got a chance here. I mean, with a good coach.

Matt (00:12:08):
Yeah, for sure.

Danny (00:12:10):
And golf was an individual sport, but I had a lot of people in front of me that had gone to school and played golf. And I was just around a culture of really, really good players doing some things and turning pro, and I wanted that. You know what I mean? I wanted it. And there was articles in the paper, me wanting to be watch his perfectionism, give way to performance. And that's like, Ooh. I look back at that, I'm like, Ooh, wow, whoa. Big character defect. But they wrote it in the paper. It's in print. I'm 16 years old as a sophomore. Watch his perfectionism give way to performance, and they don't know how sick it was. You know what I mean? I look back and it, I'm like, whoa,

Matt (00:12:45):
That's a big statement.

Danny (00:12:46):
It's a big statement because they don't know how negative that is, the negative connotation that we know now. So at the time, I was just driven and I was succeeding. And so it was fun. I was having fun playing this sport, and it was giving me all this big life. And once I went off to UCLA on a full ride, I redshirted as a freshman at UCLA.

Matt (00:13:11):
What does that mean?

Danny (00:13:11):
Red shirt means you take yourself out your own decision to not play on the team that year. So you can reserve a year of eligibility. So what school gives you a full ride that,

Matt (00:13:21):
And then lets you not play?

Danny (00:13:23):
Redshirt, lets you redshirt. That's for somebody that's trying to get in the mix and not be at that level. And I just took the number one slot. I didn't even know what I was doing.

Matt (00:13:34):
What was behind that decision?

Danny (00:13:35):
I wanted to party. And then that's just flat out it, I mean, I got it introduced to, I got to the, went through orientation, met up with the team they gave us, we're sponsored by Nike. I'm getting all this gear, all this gear, all this flooded with this lifestyle. I'm like,

Matt (00:13:53):
What year was this?

Danny (00:13:54):
This is my freshman year, 1991.

Matt (00:13:56):
Okay.

Danny (00:13:57):
1991. And then I took the gear all back to my parents and it looked like I got sponsored by Nike. Just ridiculous amounts of gear clubs, four sets of clubs just out of hand. UCLA is deep. They got deep pockets. So I'm playing for a PAC 10 school big time. And I just literally, I didn't really have a girlfriend in high school, you know what I mean? And I was exposed,

Matt (00:14:20):
Focused.

Danny (00:14:20):
I was focused, dude. I didn't realize how focused I was. I just was not interested. I was like, I don't know how, I just dunno how I managed to sidestep that. But when I got to UCLA dorm life and then a fraternity, these guys were like, we're going to join this fraternity. And I'm like, I'm not even a fraternity guy. But I was attracted to the allure of the party.

Matt (00:14:42):
For sure.

Danny (00:14:42):
Consistent partying.

Matt (00:14:43):
Is there like a golf frat?

Danny (00:14:45):
No, there was just a sports lady. There was guys on the football team and baseball team. They kind of said, come with us to this deal. And then all of a sudden, I'm a pledge at a fraternity and I'm locked into 18 weeks of just shit.

Matt (00:14:59):
And this is when they were still torturing people and stuff?

Danny (00:15:03):
Oh yeah. Yeah. But not really. It was happening around the nation.

Matt (00:15:06):
Well, way more than it's happening now.

Danny (00:15:09):
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Matt (00:15:09):
They were doing crazy stuff.

Danny (00:15:10):
They were doing crazy bunch case shit. Just a bunch of crazy shit. I mean, you look back on it, you're like, what the in God's name was I doing? I subjected myself to this

Matt (00:15:19):
And the early nineties, it was that sweet spot. It's definitely a bygone era where things were really good for a lot of people.

Danny (00:15:28):
For a lot of people.

Matt (00:15:29):
And when I, because I was a young kid and I was raised in the early nineties, and when I look at what's going on today, I'm like, holy shit, dude. These kids are so fucked.

Danny (00:15:39):
They're so fucked. It's so bad. Right?

Matt (00:15:42):
Yeah. It's terrible.

Danny (00:15:43):
I really feel terrible. I mean, you turn on the news, you don't need to turn on the news. You can word of mouth, just like, what the hell is going on out there?

Matt (00:15:50):
I got an Instagram for the very first time. My last real social media profile was a MySpace profile in 2006. So I got a

Danny (00:15:59):
Archaic.

Matt (00:15:59):
Yeah, I got a profile 10 weeks ago, something like that. And I'm on there. I'm like, holy shit. The world has changed. And it feels like it changes so quick now.

Danny (00:16:13):
So fast. Yeah. I mean, internet is just taking the lid off.

Matt (00:16:16):
Really has.

Danny (00:16:17):
There's communication going on that should not be going on this period hands down. It's just has a lot of positives. But I think it's just really culturally, we're suffering because of this.

Matt (00:16:27):
There's an evolutionary, I think there's an evolutionary component to this. We were not made to change things this fast.

Danny (00:16:34):
No.

Matt (00:16:35):
And it's really, we have this generation of kids that are about to start entering middle school, and there's huge talks around this generation that's coming up where they are making conscious decisions to be sober. They're looking at the people ahead of them. How old are you?

Danny (00:16:52):
I'm 52.

Matt (00:16:52):
Okay. So the millennials and then the generation after that, dude, we are so fucked. We're making terrible decisions. Half the dudes think they're girls. There's all this stuff going on, and they're watching this stuff like, okay, we don't want to do that. And it's amazing to see these kids are making these decisions. Obviously their parents aren't really factoring into the, I don't think their parents' decisions are a factor in their decisions. And they're that young making good decisions. It's crazy to me.

Danny (00:17:20):
Yeah, it's wild.

Matt (00:17:21):
Okay. So 91.

Danny (00:17:23):
91, I'm at school and then I joined a fraternity. And that basically, that was the pivotal moment of me deciding to set this course awry. I mean, that's really, when I look back, I decided to red shirt not pursue the golf, which I had a passion for, obviously. But I cast it aside for this other lifestyle because all I had to do was get a taste.

Matt (00:17:45):
What was the attraction? What was most of the attraction to you? I tell people constantly that my issue was girls.

Danny (00:17:53):
Girls. It was straight up women. And I mean, you could deny that, but that's be nonsensical.

Matt (00:18:00):
Yeah.

Danny (00:18:00):
I mean, it was the women coming out of the woodwork and as a 19-year-old male, and you're subjected to this lifestyle where you're just flooded with gorgeous women on a consistent basis

Matt (00:18:13):
At UCLA.

Danny (00:18:14):
At UCLA

Matt (00:18:15):
In the early nineties.

Danny (00:18:15):
In the early nineties,

Matt (00:18:16):
Yeah.

Danny (00:18:17):
We're talking like Dion Sanders type lifestyle. You know what I mean? Realistically. And they're literally coming to your door every weekend, you know what I mean? And every weekday. And it was just, I don't know, with the party, it just got so sick. I got so sick with lust and just all of it that goes with it. You know what I mean?

Matt (00:18:39):
It's crazy.

Danny (00:18:40):
It's not a new story, it's just stock.

Matt (00:18:42):
Right?

Danny (00:18:42):
Yeah.

Matt (00:18:43):
Well, I mean, so it's crazy. How much of your life gets derailed from a single, the ripple effect of consequences from just like, oh, I'm not going to play

Danny (00:18:53):
Right.

Matt (00:18:53):
I just want to party.

Danny (00:18:54):
That was it.

Matt (00:18:55):
And when did the party turn into the nightmare?

Danny (00:19:00):
Okay. So had a lot of fun in college.

Matt (00:19:03):
I bet.

Danny (00:19:03):
Right?

Matt (00:19:04):
Sounds like it.

Danny (00:19:05):
You know what was mounting fear? When I would not be drinking, and this never happened to me before. I didn't have any social anxiety. You know what I mean? I was a pretty gregarious guy. You know what I mean? It was all good. There was no fear element. Then all of a sudden, this fear started creeping in about, I don't know, my fourth year, my senior year when I was,

Matt (00:19:25):
Shit's getting real.

Danny (00:19:26):
Shit's getting real. I'm about to get out of here. You know what I mean? I'm still managed to, on cocaine and alcohol, to get through school. You know what I mean? I couldn't focus. I couldn't focus. I started losing my ability. I started developing, I dunno if I had it prior or whatever. I don't know what the clinical diagnosis is, but I certainly had adult ADD. And school was basically, I was doing the very bare minimum. This is when my real big character defects, school was not a prior life, was not a priority, I wanted to party. And then when I wasn't partying, I was looking for the next party.

Matt (00:20:00):
Were you playing golf?

Danny (00:20:01):
I was not.

Matt (00:20:01):
So did you play golf

Danny (00:20:04):
In college?

Matt (00:20:04):
Yes.

Danny (00:20:05):
I played one tournament.

Matt (00:20:06):
Oh my gosh. That's how you got in. That's so crazy.

Danny (00:20:11):
They're paying me to go to school there. And I played one tournament for them.

Matt (00:20:15):
How does that work? What do they say?

Danny (00:20:16):
Totally irresponsible. It took till my junior year to them to, no, actually halfway through my junior year and they pulled the scholarship.

Matt (00:20:25):
Wow. So you made it pretty far.

Danny (00:20:27):
Yeah. I'm just like, dude, they expect me to come back. And I'd go to the summertime and I wouldn't be around all the party. I wasn't a daily drinker. If it was around, I'm getting after it. I would come back every summer and just light it up. The game is still there. It's talented. And I'd back and try out for the team, and I'd qualify easy. They would have to remove me from the team because I

Matt (00:20:53):
So this is true talent, right? No practice.

Danny (00:20:55):
To be honest, yes. I had a really God-given gift to play the game.

Matt (00:21:00):
That is so crazy.

Danny (00:21:01):
I mean, I could just pick it up and do it. It's a blessing. Yeah, no, it was a blessing. But what was a curse was my attitude and my work ethic. I just had none,

Matt (00:21:09):
Young boys.

Danny (00:21:10):
And it was terrible. It was really just a waste. You've been down that road a million times. But realistically, my headspace, if I had any type of environment that would take me away from it, I'm going that way. But you could literally take me and put me in an environment where I'm practicing every day. I come home for the summer and play with my friends that knew I went to school and my friends from high school and stuff. And we'd get after it in the summertime, playing, practicing. And then I would get my game in ridiculous spot to where I could literally go and play professionally. But I'd go back to school and be like, oh yeah, I'm here. And there was a new coach at the time. The other guy got fired and he's like, wait, weren't you an All-American? You don't need to try out for the team. I know who you are. And I'd go out and I'd win the qualifier to play in the first tournament and realized I was academically ineligible because I went to two classes in the spring from the winter quarter to spring quarter. I was like 20 units down, dude. Just irresponsible. My life was completely unmanageable.

Matt (00:22:13):
So was it that you didn't have the parentals kind of guiding you? And this is just you?

Danny (00:22:19):
It was just me left to my own devices. I was a circus, absolutely. I wasn't coddled by any means. I think the disease had run by me and to where any responsible gene type of decision making was out the door. And I was constantly making really piss poor decisions, all the time.

Matt (00:22:38):
So really a high respect for your parents.

Danny (00:22:40):
Oh, a mad two wonderful people. Wonderful.

Matt (00:22:44):
And then you get your freedom. And this was your decision?

Danny (00:22:49):
This was all my decision.This was all my decision.

(00:22:51):
I mean, there was an element to where my dad would, when we'd play, I did have a little bit of trauma because he was kind of a really my biggest fan. But he was trying to live vicariously through me. So if I didn't play well, there would be an argument what happened. So that was there, but I

Matt (00:23:07):
The son of a good athlete.

Danny (00:23:10):
And he did have that. And it was like to the point where I didn't want to play golf. I really didn't want to play golf. It would cause fights. My mom's like, I wish you never played golf. And she would say things like that.

Matt (00:23:21):
So was it like a level of fight? Was it you and him fighting and then your mom was on the peripheral or,

Danny (00:23:26):
Yeah.

Matt (00:23:26):
Okay.

Danny (00:23:28):
That's basically what it amounted to.

Matt (00:23:29):
So the trauma that you're talking about, is it just a perfectionist trauma where if you don't perform, did you get anxiety from it? Yeah. Okay.

Danny (00:23:40):
100%. And I, looking back, only in recovery, I had a chance to look at the scope of it, but at the time it was just like, I just don't want to play. It's just a simple decision. I don't even really want to, I mean, because what if I fail and then there's going to be a fight? Oh, so that was my trigger response, right?

Matt (00:23:57):
Yeah.

Danny (00:23:58):
Trigger at that word. It's just something that causes a feeling,

Matt (00:24:00):
Yeah.

Danny (00:24:00):
So I have a disdain for that word. Okay. I'm sorry. But it's just

Matt (00:24:05):
No, I mean, I just talked to Dr. Shah about this earlier. There was two words when I actually got clean, I had to get rid of two words. I had to get rid of triggers and cravings because all they did was give addicts something to point to. That takes the power away from us 100%. And so I had to be like, I can no longer lean on these two things. For sure. I've gotten rid of a few other things as well. But those are the easiest things for us to point to. Oh, I was triggered. I was triggered. I have no control over this. Or I just had this uncontrollable craving and a next thing I knew I had a needle in my arm. I don't know.

Danny (00:24:43):
Dismissive,

Matt (00:24:43):
Dude.

Danny (00:24:44):
It's very dismissive.

Matt (00:24:45):
And I understand, it's like the scientific community had to attach a word to something that they can't fully define.

Danny (00:24:53):
There's a gray area there. But for me personally, I'm with you for sure. I can't, can't go down that road. And I just found myself saying it. But nonetheless, it was an action that was eliciting a response for me down that road. Just the idea of playing golf and failing. And it carried with me through my life, through my life, and it was really, really powerful for me. And at the time, I'm just like, ah, just put your bootstraps on. You can do this. But I never dealt with it. You know what I mean? I never dealt with it. I was the guy that, I literally was a player of the year in front of Tiger. I couldn't see anybody.

Matt (00:25:27):
Did you play with him?

Danny (00:25:28):
I played with him, yeah.

Matt (00:25:29):
Wow.

Danny (00:25:29):
I played with him against him. One, story is we were down in junior world, which is like 300 of the best players. And I'm 18 years old. I haven't gone to UCLA yet. Right. Or 17. And he'd won junior world five times or four times in a row. And about to win his fifth. I'm playing in it. I go down there and I'm leading after the first round, right? I shot 69 at Torrey Pines. Right?

Matt (00:25:53):
Whoa.

Danny (00:25:54):
At Tory Pines in the wind. You know what I mean? And the next, what do I do? Everybody in that tournament, Matt stayed at Torrey Pines. I hopped in my car, drove home to Huntington Beach because I needed to go drink 12 beers in the jacuzzi with a couple buds.

Matt (00:26:10):
Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't even celebrate with your boys.

Danny (00:26:15):
I just, dude, I'm leading junior world. They're like, junior, what? They could give a rat's ass. I'm just fucking Who does that? An alcoholic does that shit. Right? So I show up the next day for my morning tee time and Tiger, Tiger's there.

Matt (00:26:31):
And then you went, oh my gosh.

Danny (00:26:33):
i went back, bro.

Matt (00:26:34):
Oh my gosh.

Danny (00:26:35):
I'm still in a tournament. It was day one.

Matt (00:26:37):
Oh, that's so funny.

Danny (00:26:38):
Day one. Nobody does that. And I'm 17.

Matt (00:26:41):
That is so crazy.

Danny (00:26:41):
So when I drove back down, I'm on the driving range, and Tiger comes walking down, he's like, Dalton, what did you shoot yesterday? And I'm like, and I'm hungover, dude. I'm like deep in it. I go 69. And he's like, I knew it. And he goes walking down the range. And he's like, dad, Dalton shot 69. He was pissed off. I could tell he was pissed off.

Matt (00:27:03):
That's crazy.

Danny (00:27:04):
And then I ended up shooting 80 that day in front of the cameras. I was just hitting the first ball off the golf course. I had no balance. I'm just

Matt (00:27:13):
Billy Madison it.

Danny (00:27:14):
Just out of control, dude. Just the worst, worst.

Matt (00:27:18):
Happy Gilmore. Happy. Happy Gilmore

Danny (00:27:21):
Or Billy Madison probably does the same thing. But yeah, that was my first experience of, wow, my life's so unmanageable.

Matt (00:27:28):
Yeah, it's so unpredictable, right? By the time it's out of control. The car crashed a long time ago, and you're just waking up. And one of the things that, in my story is that everybody knew I was an addict for years before I had the realization. And I got out of prison, and I was the person that was in prison making fun of my brother for going to meetings. It's like, come on, dude. And I couldn't see a problem. But the problem is, self cannot critique self. And it's nearly impossible for us to course correct something that we have no clue that we're off course.

Danny (00:28:13):
No.

Matt (00:28:13):
And so I get out of prison the first time, and I'm using, right? And I'm like, Mr. Slick, everybody doesn't know and all this stuff. And I call my, what actually happened was somebody was going to tell my parents that I was using just vindictively. And so I was like, oh no, I have to tell them before this person does. And I called my dad at three in the morning and he, I'm like, dad, dude, I got to tell you something. I'm up in Temecula. They think I'm down in San Diego at my house. I go to my aunt and uncle's up into Temecula to kick, and

(00:28:53):
I'm like, dad, I got to tell you something. Yeah, I got to tell you something. And mom can't hear, so get away. They're asleep. Mom's asleep. Like, dad, please go to the other room and I got to talk to you about something. He's like, okay, what is it? I'm like, dad, I relapsed. Right? Not I've been using for months. I relapsed.

Danny (00:29:15):
Just a quickie.

Matt (00:29:17):
And he goes, I'll never forget this. He goes, man, what happened? You're doing so good. You're in culinary school and you're getting good grades. And it's like, he thinks I'm getting good grades, but you're doing great, man. Are you some kind of addict? And I was like, oh my gosh, dude. I'm a drug addict.

Danny (00:29:39):
I remember the first time somebody called me an addict. I was like, oh,

Matt (00:29:42):
Come on now. Come on me.

Danny (00:29:44):
Come on.

Matt (00:29:45):
Yeah. Get over it. Okay, so let's go back to college.

Danny (00:29:52):
So back to college. That was just a precursor. So stuff like that, I completely went off the rails, you know what I mean? I managed to keep it together to get my degree from UCLA.

Matt (00:30:03):
Okay. What'd you graduate with?

Danny (00:30:04):
History. History. It was like a law school type degree. Wrote a lot of papers,

Matt (00:30:10):
Like a political science major?

Danny (00:30:12):
Sociology, political science, same type of liberal arts.

Matt (00:30:17):
And was that the goal?

Danny (00:30:20):
That was like

Matt (00:30:22):
The loose direction you wanted to go Law school?

Danny (00:30:24):
The loose direction. Yeah. I mean, because I realized that I could actually write some. I did well, I did well once I got past the, almost failing out of school my sophomore year. And you didn't make the team, I kind of put more energy into school because I'm like

Matt (00:30:37):
Buttoned up a little bit.

Danny (00:30:38):
I buttoned it up a little bit, and I kind of put it down and actually learned how to write really well. I actually TAed a class.

Matt (00:30:47):
Man. That is a skill. Writing well is not something that you can just do.

Danny (00:30:52):
Nope. I had to develop it, you know what I mean? And the more papers I wrote and the more books that I read, and it was just repetition.

Matt (00:31:01):
Well, law school would've been great. All you do is read and write.

Danny (00:31:04):
Yep.

Matt (00:31:04):
I watched my dad for years. That's all he did was read and write.

Danny (00:31:09):
I mean, down that path. And I developed a skill. I did. That's one thing that I did at UCLA. I got a really good education. I really did. I mean, I didn't blow the whole thing out of the water in a lot of madness. That was a big positive. It met a lot of really great people. And I wasn't so sick that I was burning everything down yet. I was just in my brewing phase, getting ready to get out of college and life.

Matt (00:31:33):
Water was starting to simmer.

Danny (00:31:34):
Wfater was starting to simmer, and yeah, I was doing all right. So I got out of school, and then so the golf thing came back, obviously, that I still could play. And I managed to play in front of some very serious hitter heavy hitters with some dough. And I did my thing. You know what I mean? They're like, we want to sponsor you because you're just wasted talent here. This is crazy. Let's, let's send you overseas to the Australasian tour and let's set you loose.

Matt (00:32:02):
Is that the tour that Japan is a part of?

Danny (00:32:06):
No. Japanese tours won tour big one. And then there's the Asian tour, and then there's the Australasian tour. There's a lot of really good worldwide tours. So they sent me over there to get a worldwide type game and just polish things up. You know what I mean? And they sent the wrong dude over there.

Matt (00:32:23):
Australia?

Danny (00:32:24):
Yeah. No, no, Malaysia, Thailand, Manila, Philippines. And just the roof came off. It was like the worst place ever to drop a bomb like me with my mentality, just dip shit. You know what I mean? Out there, I had a boatload of talent because I'd go play well, and then I'd go to the bar and people would be like, Dalton, what are you doing? What are you doing here, dude? I'm like, this is what we do. What are you doing? What are you not doing? Let's go. So basically what, it ruined it. It ruined it. So it was a very short stint.

Matt (00:33:01):
How short?

Danny (00:33:02):
Five months.

Matt (00:33:03):
Okay. And how long is the actual, it's a year round tour.

Danny (00:33:05):
Yeah. No, the tour's five, six months. And I was there, I think I was there like three. I was there three. I was in and out, just like, and I had all of this opportunity to go just polish the game and get it done. I just could not get it done.

Matt (00:33:22):
The wheels fully came off.

Danny (00:33:23):
Wheels fully came off because I just couldn't, fear had crept in. You know what I mean? So I'd go play really well, shoot 66 or seven, just solid, put myself in position to do some damage, and then get wasted and play Pi G and do nefarious things all night. And then with your morning tee time and just smelling like cocktails and with an hour sleep and shoot 76, you can't do that. But I did it like three out of five weeks in a row, and it's just like, this is just unmanageable. So I hightail it, came back and said, I can't be here. Of course, I blamed it on the environment.

Matt (00:34:06):
For sure.

Danny (00:34:06):
As any good alcoholic would. Oh, yeah. Got back here and I lost my identity. So my persona, my value, my worth, I'd put, I didn't realize how much I'd put in it.

Matt (00:34:18):
In the golfing

Danny (00:34:20):
Into this idea, because I couldn't go anywhere, dude, without somebody asking me, how's your golf game? Still today, still to this day, because of my early experience and success with guys like Tiger and what I'd done prior, I still can't go anywhere with it. People ask, how's the golf game? So I didn't want to hear that anymore. So I just ran from it. I didn't want to take any responsibility for what I'd done. A lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of fear. All the stock makings of just, we are about to have a volcano right now. Oh, all of this. So falling from grace, all this expectations of falling. Oh, my ego's telling me I'm supposed to be my arrogance. I was telling me I was supposed to be this person, and I was becoming this person. And everything in between. Well, we got to introduce methamphetamine into that situation.

Matt (00:35:13):
Perfect.

Danny (00:35:14):
Just perfect idea.

Matt (00:35:16):
Just a little bit of meth. Make it better.

Danny (00:35:19):
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Just a smidgen.

Matt (00:35:21):
Okay.

Danny (00:35:22):
Just to clear my head.

Matt (00:35:23):
Cool.

Danny (00:35:24):
Give me some focus.

Matt (00:35:25):
Yeah.

Danny (00:35:26):
It actually worked.

Matt (00:35:27):
The focus.

Danny (00:35:28):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was out of control, dude. Out of control. So I thought I had a wonder drug.

Matt (00:35:34):
A lot of people think that when they do meth for the first time.

Danny (00:35:36):
Just like, what? And I don't know, it seemed to make my life manageable because I wasn't getting blackout wasted anymore.

Matt (00:35:43):
Okay. Alright. I mean, the logic tracks, right? Because I ruined my life over this, and now this isn't happening.

Danny (00:35:51):
Yeah. This isn't happening anymore. And that's basically a simplistic mind that I had the juvenile mind. That's all I was trying to hold onto, because I was destroying myself with this alcohol thing.

Matt (00:36:02):
So when you came back, where'd you go?

Danny (00:36:04):
I went back home to Huntington Beach.

Matt (00:36:08):
And what year is this?

Danny (00:36:10):
This is 1998. Oh, wow. 1998.

Matt (00:36:15):
So the drug wars had started?

Danny (00:36:16):
Yes. Okay. Yes. The drug wars had definitely started.

Matt (00:36:20):
So were you around any of the Penai guys?

Danny (00:36:23):
Oh yeah.

Matt (00:36:23):
Okay.

Danny (00:36:24):
Oh yeah.

Matt (00:36:24):
Alright.

Danny (00:36:25):
Yep. Okay. Yeah. That's the culture. I dove into all of it in Costa Mesa, all of it. So I became a card carrying member of the meth community and the underworld for six years.

Matt (00:36:43):
When people think about Orange County, unless you're plugged into that or have experienced the California prison system, they don't connect those dots.

Danny (00:36:52):
Nope.

Matt (00:36:53):
And one of the biggest, most heavy hitter prison gangs in the California system came from Orange County, and I'm talking about held the keys for the big dogs, and there's some incredible name recognition that came out of Orange County,

Danny (00:37:12):
Hundred percent

Matt (00:37:12):
From that time period. I mean, it still holds,

Danny (00:37:16):
It still holds. They still tell the stories. I mean, it's very serious. But I was around that dangerous element. I dove right into it, right into it. I wasn't necessarily doing everything I do, but those people were around me all the time. So I mean you can't not, if you have money and you're willing to go into it, and they're not going to push you away from it,

Matt (00:37:36):
Definitely not.

Danny (00:37:36):
They're definitely not. So I just became like a, I paid my bills. You know what I mean? So they love it and they love hanging out.

Matt (00:37:43):
Yeah, those kinds of circles are funny too, because they either accept you or they fucking use you.

Danny (00:37:50):
Yeah, either or. So it was 50/50 with me probably. You know what I mean? Probably.

Matt (00:37:58):
I mean. Were you committing crimes with them?

Danny (00:37:59):
Nope. Okay. No, for sure. Yeah.

Matt (00:38:02):
That is a slippery slope.

Danny (00:38:04):
Very slippery slope.

Matt (00:38:05):
You start commit crimes with those dudes. It's really crazy.

Danny (00:38:06):
Yeah, I wasn't doing that. That's one element. I had a moral compass to some extent. It was getting beaten down by the methamphetamine. That's for damn sure. It was doing a number on me. You know what I mean? So I had just perennial use of this stuff. It was changing me as a human. And I'm like, this is wild. And I just relegated myself to it. You know what I mean? This is how it became very dysfunctional, obviously was a daily user. So I couldn't function, function at all. You know what I mean? It became like my ability, I could walk around and look normal, albeit, you know what I mean? Until you just use a little too much, but primarily

Matt (00:38:42):
Until you're trying to lick your ear?

Danny (00:38:43):
Yeah.

Matt (00:38:43):
Yeah. Meth is an interesting drug. It is one of the only drugs that I'm thoroughly convinced can take your soul. It is a very scary thing to watch a very good person turn into an extremely shitty, dangerous person with just the introduction to meth.

Danny (00:39:07):
Just the introduction to meth.

Matt (00:39:08):
Yeah.

Danny (00:39:09):
It is a door.

Matt (00:39:10):
Yeah.

Danny (00:39:10):
100% a door. And I could feel myself coming. I had spiritual warfare going on every single day. It was like, oh my God. Because all of the elements of the meth world were playing in my head and constantly going, this is not me. And then it was just a tug of war. Okay, spin the pipe. You know what I mean? And then it was just, I'm relegated. This is me. First of all. I can't function without it, so let's just talk about that. And I can't force getting sober because when I stop, I can't think I, I think I fried myself. I think I'm done. I think I'm cooked.

Matt (00:39:44):
There's all of these elements specifically with that drug that it hijacks your personality and then what it actually does to your brain. The chemical effects of methamphetamine on your brain are so tragic when you look at the holes that it's, people say that they're burning holes in their brain, but it deadens the actual matter in your brain. So you see those scans with the black parts of people's brain. It's not a hole. There's brain matter there. It's just completely dead. It's not active. Right.

Danny (00:40:15):
That's scary.

Matt (00:40:16):
It's so scary. It's so scary. It's so scary. And there are a small amount of people that will never recover fully.

Danny (00:40:25):
And I saw on a consistent basis, and I knew I was going there, but I couldn't stop. So I mean, it was powerless, and I knew it. I knew it. I knew there was a rough road to hoe. I just didn't know what it looked like. But I'd go back to spinning a pipe, and then all of a sudden, I don't know what it was or how I got injured. I got in a car accident, and I went through a bottle of pills, and here I am on methamphetamine every day, and I get done with the pills. And I was just hanging out with some degenerates like myself, and I'm like, they're like, dude, you look like you're dope sick. And I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. What do you mean? I just feel like shit, I don't know what's going on. It must be bad meth. And they're like, dude, hit this. And it was a little blue pill, and they were chasing it along the foil, and it was Roxy's the first time. So it was my first element. I took a hit and I felt great. And I'm like, oh, this is my new life too. So now I'm dually, and here we go. So I was a dual addicted for four years.

Matt (00:41:34):
So that dual addiction, people don't really realize, especially for people who go through it, the dual addiction is a completely different ride. They changes the individual drugs, and now when you add 'em together, it does something completely different to you. And for me, the meth and the heroin was, I couldn't do one without the other.

Danny (00:41:59):
No.

Matt (00:42:00):
But if I only had one, I had to only have the opiates. If I only had the meth, it was terrible.

Danny (00:42:06):
It was awful.

Matt (00:42:06):
Mental

Danny (00:42:07):
Awful.

Matt (00:42:09):
But you then have two different monkeys on your back, and having one is hard enough, having two is a whole different ball game. Now. People don't even realize this, that don't have to deal with this. Those are two completely different crowds of people, typically.

Danny (00:42:27):
They absolutely are.

Matt (00:42:28):
And now you're dealing with meth addicts and opiate addicts on two different ends of that spectrum. They're two different types of people.

Danny (00:42:35):
Just a party for Thanksgiving, everybody you want at the table,

Matt (00:42:38):
Dude. It's terrible.

Danny (00:42:39):
It's awful. So I mean, it was interesting. You're right. The dynamic shift of the crowds and the people, one was extremely dangerous, and the other one was just very depressing and also dangerous, because if they were out of opiates and there was a massive crossover, you know what I mean? So it was just like the community, the underworld, I call it, is very, very, very strong in Southern California. Yeah. I mean, it's big. It's bigger. It's bigger than I thought. I kept peeling another onion layer every single year that I would be involved in it. I'm like, oh my God. And I'd just be going further into Tustin, into Fullerton, all the way up to LA.

Matt (00:43:23):
Oh, yeah, no, there's an epicenter of everybody's addiction. And then you watch the ripples and the world gets bigger and you get smaller, but the world gets bigger. So you're in these two different elements. And this is where shit started hitting the fan.

Danny (00:43:39):
The shit really started hitting the fan because, well, number one, I couldn't go anywhere without having drugs on me. And then I started mounting charges. I got a DUI in 2009, and

Matt (00:43:49):
Pretty quick after you come back.

Danny (00:43:51):
Yeah.

Matt (00:43:52):
Okay.

Danny (00:43:52):
Yeah. So I mean, the blacking out. I mean, I'd never normally got in a car, but I say that. but I probably did. I don't know. This is bullshit. But I mean, I literally got a DUI in front of my apartment, just cocktailed out. My buddy took my keys, locked me out of my own pad, and I slept in the car. But all they had to do was knock on the window at four o'clock in the morning in HP and rolled down the windows. Whiskey just done. You're hemmed up. We don't care if you were driving or not. And they had every right to, but that started my engagement with the law. That was my first engagement with the law. And then they waited the full year to not file the case, but filed it on the last day. So I'm now out

Matt (00:44:38):
364.

Danny (00:44:39):
Yeah.

Matt (00:44:39):
Yeah.

Danny (00:44:40):
364. I got 364 for sure, because I'm out in Tustin and I'm tweaking, and I'm trying to write this business plan with this other tweaker, tweaker. We got great ideas. Of course, he wanted to show me his business model of, it actually wasn't a bad plan, but he had these vending machines where they'd give away iPads and iWatches and the games, right? Dollar a pop and all this stuff. But I was going to say, we should take you nationally and get you into some bigger malls. So I went to go scope it out. Nonetheless, found myself in a parking lot in Tustin high as shit.

Matt (00:45:17):
Completely not what you were supposed to be doing.

Danny (00:45:19):
Not, I mean, we're not, it's three o'clock in the morning. What am I doing here at the Orange Mall? This is stupid.

Matt (00:45:26):
You're like, no, no, no, officer. I'm about to propose to this mall that we're going to put these vending machines with these stolen iPads. I mean, they're not stolen, but we're going to get these iPads when we put 'em in here.

Danny (00:45:38):
This is what we're going to do. So he just shaking his head, and he takes my license, and I think it's just another, all right, because he was actually a vendor, so I thought we were going to go home. I immediately go to jail for a warrant for DUI and possession, because I had shit on me, obviously. So it was my first possession charge. Got another one. They just started coming in spades. So I got five possession charges in a matter of a year and a half. They just spent all kinds of time in the loop, just horrible. You know what I mean?

Matt (00:46:07):
What's that Orange County jail that everybody took it?

Danny (00:46:09):
The loop? Just the loop. They do it so that you don't go back, but if you're so sick, you're going back. Of course, you're just going back, whether you like it or not. And I'd get hemmed up in Huntington, or I'd be in Fuller. I was hanging out everywhere, and I always had meth on me. And then dope now. So I just accumulated, and then I'd go into Walmart with this skin bird girl who was just stealing everything off the racks nightmares, just nightmare. And she comes walking out with all this shit and gets in my car. So I got a petty theft on there. Now I'm just racking charges. I'm like eight deep, you know what I mean? And I'm running from the law, not going to court, getting bailed out of jail. My mom's spending money to bail out of jail. I'd spent my money. So my mom spending money to bail me out of jail. She didn't want her son in prison, in jail.

Matt (00:46:58):
Right.

Danny (00:46:59):
Then I couldn't make it to court. So I'd be, I'd like six years. No, it was like 10 years. 10 years before I actually got to court to face my charges.

Matt (00:47:10):
Wow.

Danny (00:47:11):
10 years. I would just bounce. And then every time the cops would see me, Dalton, you're not on probation. Oh, we're going to put you on probation, and they're going to put stuff on you and walk you into jail. So now you got a felony. You know what I mean?

Matt (00:47:24):
Isn't that interesting? How long until you get to the gates of prison, they allow you, I mean, the California court systems, they will allow you to rack up charges. And now you get to prison the first time, it's like, how is this your first time in prison? It's like, I don't know. I really don't know, but I'm here now. And it's like, they're like, yeah, you look like, dude, I've been to prison for all these things. I'm like, I don't know. Jesus.

Danny (00:47:54):
It was unbelievable. I mean, I'm literally eight charges deep, and I'm still on the streets rolling around Huntington Beach. Cops knew me by face name, Dalton. Go get him. I'm pretty sure they had GPS on my, I couldn't go to McDonald's. You know what I mean? Anyway, so let's just fast forward. I just lived in that world dying every day. I was watching the world go by, and I felt like I was never going to be able to get back in.

Matt (00:48:20):
Dude on fast forward,

Danny (00:48:22):
Yes.

Matt (00:48:22):
The rest of the world is succeeding and moving forward, and you're in the same spot. Crazy.

Danny (00:48:28):
And going backwards. Friends are calling. And then here's the crux. Finally, I knew that people had an idea of what I was doing, but I took off, dude, I just took off for five years because nobody from Huntington, my people that I grew with, nobody from UCLA or even high school that I went to. Nobody was doing what I was doing.

Matt (00:48:48):
Nobody I know.

Danny (00:48:50):
And that was always weighing on me. I'm like, what have I done? What's happening? What in the world is happening? So it was a very scary place to be. It was in this head, and I would run from everyone in everything. I was full flight. I was full flight. I was booking. So hiding in hotel rooms in every city for weeks. You know what I mean? And then by the end of it, it was 2017.

Matt (00:49:16):
Whoa.

Danny (00:49:16):
2017. So I just went on a sick run for a long time, a really, really long time.

Matt (00:49:21):
2003 to 2000. That's longer than mine. Yeah. My last run was 10.

Danny (00:49:25):
Yeah. I became a daily user in 2003. Of meth. And then the last four years were meth and heroin. So that just took me, I was sick every day, totally dysfunctional. No job. So I was on a sick one for a long time, but I literally was, I went down to help a friend, you know what I mean? She got beat up and showed me the picture, and it was horrible. You know what I mean? Went down to get, and I had this time, I had known a bunch of gang bangers at the time. And I had relationships with some of these gang bangers

Matt (00:50:01):
Yeah. I mean, they kind of rule the underworld.

Danny (00:50:03):
So I knew a bunch of

Matt (00:50:06):
Those guys.

Danny (00:50:07):
Those guys, and in all gangs, like Southsiders, these guys.

Matt (00:50:12):
And you know what? There's some really notorious South side gangs from El Toro and Santa Ana and stuff. Oh yeah. Those guys are crazy. And they've got people.

Danny (00:50:23):
They got people. So they were coming over to get this because she had stolen all their stuff. And she called me Distress Call. So I came over and I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm like a buck 50 at the time, wet. You know what I mean? So I rolled up some quarters and I hid in the garage, and I popped the guy coming through the door, and then the other guy had a gun. Second guy threw the door, but he's all Dalton? He's all, dude, get the fuck out of here. She just stole all our dope. This is your pass, bro. Go. Don't be here when we come back. And I'm like, oh, shit. All right. So I'll hear these keys. I went over there. She had dope, right?

Matt (00:51:03):
Their dope.

Danny (00:51:04):
Yeah, their dope. I didn't know their dope, but she had something for me. You know what I mean? So help twofold, right? It really was because she was cool, so to speak. But I felt bad for her. She was loading me up something up there, and then all of a sudden I hear this rustling. You know what I mean? Up there. And I'm like, wait a minute. I walk into the kitchen, I throw water on my face. I'm like, what the hell's happening? Dude, this is crazy. I got to get out of here. She rips out the door and jumps in my car and bails.

Matt (00:51:32):
In yours.

Danny (00:51:33):
In my car. I'm like, oh dude. So I take an Uber, take Uber to this hotel in Tustin. And I'm like, because I didn't know. But she gave me a Fentanyl shot, but she didn't know I didn't do fentanyl, so I would've killed me.

(00:51:52):
I'm like, I'm looking at it. I'm like, maybe I should do this dude, because I'm sick. I was sick and went to the hotel hoping I could find somebody that I knew, but they weren't there. And I'm just kind of sitting there in the room with a bag of meth, dope, sick, looking in the mirror, big bottle of vodka, just waiting on it. And I'm like in the fentanyl shot. And I'm like, I look in the mirror, dude, and I see Smeagol from Lord of the Rings, bro. That's what I look like. Just eyes bugged out, dude. Nasty, precious. Take the shot. You know what I mean? I'm like, holy shit. And behind that cascading, there was a picture. My mom and I had taken a picture at Junior World. I was 18 years old, or 17 years old and healthy, and was with my mom.

Matt (00:52:40):
So just the

Danny (00:52:43):
Dichotomy,

Matt (00:52:44):
Dichotomy of just you and you.

Danny (00:52:47):
And me. And then, I mean, I dunno if it was delusional or what, but it was there. I'm telling you, it was there. And my eight, 17 year olds had just went like this. What are you doing? What are you doing? Don't do that. Because I had in my hand, I was, take this, take a shot. I was so sick. I'm like, maybe I'll just take a little, it'll kill me.

Matt (00:53:05):
It would've killed you.

Danny (00:53:05):
It would've killed me. And I knew it. So I literally said, God, help me. I said, God, help me. God help me. And I threw the syringe in the trash, and I threw the meth in the trash. And I bolted out of the room, and I don't know where I was going, but I was going to walk home to my mom's house.

Matt (00:53:24):
Okay, how far? It's something c

Danny (00:53:28):
razy. It's like 15 miles, 20 miles. But here's what I do. Because of the way the hotels by the interstate down there, I was so fucking delusional that I walked the wrong way on the freeway. I was trying to get to the 6 0 5, you know what I mean? Off the 5, 6 0 5 or 22 or some shit. I just knew I had to go that way. But it twisted me around. So I thought I was going home.

Matt (00:53:55):
You thought you were going north and you were going south?

Danny (00:53:57):
I was going south, bro. And I stayed walking, dude, for so long, dude. I was like, and the sun's not up yet, but I'm on the freeway, dude, just begging to be caught. But there was no cars, no cops, nothing. And I walked in and I saw Crown Valley Parkway. I'm like,

Matt (00:54:15):
Oh my gosh.

Danny (00:54:16):
I'm like, dude, you have done it now. And I'm so sick. I'm so sick. And I just was moving, dude. And I was just crawling on snail's pace. And sometimes I get bursts of energy and it was all like something was carrying me, dude. And the sun had started coming up and I

Matt (00:54:34):
Up over those hills.

Danny (00:54:35):
Hills, dude. And I'm like, God. I'm like, what have I done? I'm just so out of my mind, dude. And I just kept moving and I walked all the way from Crown Valley all the way down to the beach because the only one way to navigate, I'm not going back to the freeway. There's people coming by now. So I got to go be amongst humans that's, what are you gonna do. And then I walked all the way up PCH, all the way up PCH, all the way through Newport, Laguna, Laguna Newport

Matt (00:55:02):
To HB

Danny (00:55:03):
To Huntington Beach. No way. It took me like 10 hours, dude. 10 hours.

Matt (00:55:07):
That is crazy. It's like that is a long walk.

Danny (00:55:09):
It's a long ass walk.

Matt (00:55:11):
Dude, that is a long walk.

Danny (00:55:11):
I don't even know how long it took go. I just know that the sun was going, sun had gone down by,

Matt (00:55:15):
It's like a military punishment march, right? That's crazy.

Danny (00:55:19):
Dope sick. And I tried to get on the bus down in Laguna, and he's like, don't do. He's like, this bus is for humans, bro. Yeah, sorry. And I was like, oh. And I just kept moving. And then I got, finally got a hold of a bike, at Back in the box off Warner.

Matt (00:55:38):
A stolen bike.

Danny (00:55:39):
Stolen bike. And I rode a bike from there. Why didn't I get on a bike somewhere else? And just rode it half a mile to my mom's pad, showed up on a bike, tossed it. She opens the door and she's like, oh my God, lay down. And I just laid there and I detoxed. She took care of me. I don't even remember after that. I got in there and I was just so sick, dude. For a week.

Matt (00:56:05):
Yeah, I was going to say. So detox is like that, they are, so historically when I would go to jail, I was kicking meth and heroin and the sleep alone, from just being so sleep deprived, I was able to sleep through a lot of the kick.

Danny (00:56:22):
Really?

Matt (00:56:22):
Typically. Yeah, typically.

Danny (00:56:23):
I think I did too. I'm pretty sure I did too.

Matt (00:56:25):
I can't remember probably 90% of my kicks. I mean, I've been arrested 50 times, so I kicked a lot in jail, but I don't remember most of them. And that is like, but the ones that I do remember, oh my gosh, they're so bad.

Danny (00:56:39):
My God, dude, there's a reason why people do drugs and stay on drugs.

Matt (00:56:44):
You know what? I talk about that, right? That it's like after a certain point, heroin is not fun. No, it doesn't feel good.

Danny (00:56:52):
No,

Matt (00:56:52):
It feels terrible when you don't have it. But what it really does is it teaches you to fear not having it.

Danny (00:57:00):
Oh yeah.

Matt (00:57:00):
A real healthy fear.

Danny (00:57:02):
And that fear is really strong. Really, really strong. Yep, very strong. I'd never been through anything like that in my life. You know what I mean? Experientially, it was, I had nothing even close. So the most powerful drive was to not be sick, for sure. In my life. I had more motivation to do most things. You know what I mean? And I would garner up energy just for fear of not wanting to feel that. And it's insane. Brutal. So yeah, I detoxed for, I don't even remember how long, seven, eight days, just on my mom's couch and in the bathroom just doing my thing. She'd literally walk out and walk by and she's like, oh my God, there's a demon in you.

Matt (00:57:44):
Then not showering. And your body starts rejecting things inside of your body. And that first shit is always a monster. And it's won't come out. No, it's terrible.

Danny (00:57:57):
I had a toilet for eight hours, hours, serious. I was like, what's happening, dude? Can you call a paramedic? This is an issue. This is a big issue. I got multiple issues right now, so it's just such a bad stretch. That was a bad stretch. So at the end of it, my mom said, we're going to court. We're going to court. And I'm like, okay. So that was my first real level of surrender.

Matt (00:58:22):
And what was the thought behind the court? Just you had so much shit over your head?

Danny (00:58:25):
Well, there were so many mounting cases, and I didn't have a residence, and all this paperwork was coming to my mom's house, and she'd be calling me and be like, look, I don't know what's going on with you. You have more charges and you have more charges. And the poor woman was just getting beat down with paperwork from the judicial system.

Matt (00:58:42):
Yeah. Were you doing the mom I'm arrested. I don't know why. I don't know what happened. They racially profiled me and your white. Were you doing that kind of crazy stuff?

Danny (00:58:53):
I was just lying about what I was doing. I couldn't tell the truth for 10 years. I mean, I don't even know what I told my mom. I said, you're not going to believe this when you start. She's like, are you in jail again? Yeah. It wasn't my fault. And then she's just like, oh my God, I'll be down at the bail bonds with, but she wasn't, I don't think she realized the enabling that was going on.

Matt (00:59:17):
This is something that I talk about all the time. First of all, we're liars. And when you have a parent that loves you on that level, and they've never dealt with this,

Danny (00:59:30):
Never dealt with it.

Matt (00:59:32):
First of all, we can spin people up so tight. It's crazy. But they often, when they're unaware, they often love really hard. And unfortunately, the way that they end up loving is it's always with their money and with their time. So they spend a bunch of time with a person who doesn't deserve it, and then they spend a bunch of money on somebody who's cheating them out of it. And then by the time the realizations happen for a lot of people when the realization happens that this person, first of all isn't my son, and second of all this is all false pretenses, they're so angry. They're they're so pissed. And that is also a damaging part of a lot of people's recovery is you burn these bridges, they didn't even know you were burning. And it's like you're burning the bridge with them on it. And then by the time they hit the ground, you're so lost in the sauce. You're just, everything that you say is a lie, is a lie. But the family doesn't know that there is such thing as codependency and enabling. And unfortunately, it's like 99% of the way that they love an addict is codependency and enabling.

Danny (01:00:50):
Hundred percent. And I was like, she's such it. It's so difficult looking back because she's such a loving woman. I mean so kind and so selfless. You know what I mean? That she actually tried to go to an Al-Anon meeting and she's like, I can't hear all this. I have too much to deal with. So it was very difficult for her. And I understand that. So the is, I went to court and the court told me that judge told me, granted he's been dealing with me for eight years. Eight years. And he said, Mr. Dalton, I want you to pay attention to something. I was in felony court. He goes, he goes, I want you to understand that you are by far, are you listening? The most dysfunctional person in this courtroom. Do you understand that Mr. Dalton And the courtroom is lined with guys and shackles? And I was like, Ooh, the judge kind of hurt my feelings. He was right. He was right. Yeah. And he goes, I wish you the best, Mr. Dalton. We don't think you're a criminal, but we know that you have a very serious drug problem. So here's what we're going to do for you. I was facing seven years in jail, and then they gave me 90 days in treatment. They gave me a 90 day offer in treatment.

Matt (01:02:03):
Okay. Where'd you go?

Danny (01:02:04):
I went to Monarch Shores.

Matt (01:02:06):
Is this where the name Monarch comes from?

Danny (01:02:08):
No. That's ironically. But I went to Monarch Shores, and that was where I began my journey of abstinence. Yeah,

Matt (01:02:15):
Okay.

Danny (01:02:16):
Yeah. You know what I mean? And the actual freedom from the toxicity for a while, and a place where I could change, I could change a little bit. You get some space from the old me because I didn't know how to do anything any other way.

Matt (01:02:30):
Yeah. Is Monarch Faith-based?

Danny (01:02:31):
No.

Matt (01:02:32):
Okay.

Danny (01:02:35):
Just a good treatment program. A really good treatment program. It's down in San Juan Capstone.

Matt (01:02:41):
Beautiful.

Danny (01:02:41):
Yeah, beautiful place. So I literally, I lied to my probation officer. I was supposed to go to one of the court order ones, but all the guys I knew were in there, and my sentence was, I can't relapse or go straight to jail for seven years. There was no hiccups based upon my lack of ability to get to court. And they had no lenience whatsoever for me. So those were the conditions. You're either going to stay sober and get through your probation, or you're going to go to jail for seven years. That's the conditions. And I knew it. So I went there. And to be honest with you, it was an amazing experience. The craziest thing happened to me there. My name's Danny Dalton, right? My dad's name was Tom Dalton. I went to church on the second day when I was there, and I hadn't been to church in 15 years. So I went to church, just the van's going, I'm in residential, and I went to church. I sat out with the pew, and I cried my eyes out.

(01:03:42):
Are you willing to accept the Lord in your, I started just bawling. I was just like, what is happening right now? What is happening? And I just, overwhelming outpouring of emotion was coming from me, and I didn't understand it. I was just like, this is wild. So then I went outside to the little God box, and I grabbed one of the pieces of paper, and all of this was just like, not me. And I wrote down, heal me, help me be inspirational.

(01:04:06):
And I walked up to the pastor and I put it in his pocket, and I said, I tapped him on the shoulder. I said, please go to work, bud. And he goes, Danny, I will. We will. God bless you. You know what I mean? On the way out. And I'm like, so two days later in residential garage, the treatment, we do groups in the garage, and there was normally four chairs there. All of a sudden there's a fifth chair. I'm not really paying attention. I'm just too ADD. I'm doing the paperwork, just trying to go through what we're doing for the day. And my dad had passed away, which is what sent me on my really sick one in my disease. And I thought I killed him. You know what I mean? Because he was just a great man. Just a really beautiful man. So he died of dementia and diabetes, heart attack and stroke, just like it all just expired. So the dementia really took him rapidly. And I was there with him at the last moments, taking care of him on methamphetamine.

(01:05:01):
So that was going to kill me, knowing that I'd been that person to my dad who loved me with all of his heart, and just gave me all of these gifts and all of these character traits, which I could have carried into a very successful life, and did amazing job as a father, right? I'd done this. This is what I've done. This is what you've done. So that's why I went on a sick run. I got down to 138 pounds in that hotel room.

Matt (01:05:26):
Jesus. How tall are you?

Danny (01:05:28):
I'm six feet.

Matt (01:05:29):
Whoa. Yeah. Skin and bones.

Danny (01:05:32):
Skin and bones. Just dying. Flesh gone. Just a demon inside me. Point being went to monarch shores, went to church, did that. I'm in the residential garage and in walks this guy with a cane. Granted, it's two days after I just did that thing in church, right? And I'm sitting down and all of a sudden he knocks the papers out of my hand. He says, Hey, how you doing Danny, Tom Dalton.

Matt (01:06:03):
What?

Danny (01:06:04):
Right? The therapist, I just did a role play with my dad back to back. She goes,

Matt (01:06:09):
Oh, no.

Danny (01:06:09):
Holy shit. She said, holy shit, Danny. We have to go outside. She's like, this is so cool. This is so cool. Do you understand what's happening? That's your dad. It was my dad. It was my dad. He came back, dude, in treatment, Tom Dalton called me Sport. How you doing sport? And he winked at me. Tom Dalton, same sense of humor as my dad. Same size build.

Matt (01:06:34):
That's so crazy.

Danny (01:06:35):
It's out of control.

Matt (01:06:36):
Yeah,

Danny (01:06:37):
Out of control. But it happened in front of other people, and it happened in front of my sponsor now in AA. So I ran outside and the therapist runs out. He's like, do you understand what's going on? This is so cool. She runs over to the guy who was running the treatment center, Derek, and he's like, he looks like Will Smith, just an older Will Smith. And she goes, his dad is in there. This is so crazy. And Derek turns to me. He goes, well, it looks like we got some work to do, cool as a cucumber dude. And he was right. He knows. He knows it was my dad. He's a faith-based man. He was sent to me to heal my soul. He said, you know what, Danny, I love you, and I'm very proud of you. This man that I don't know, Tom Dalton. Right?

Matt (01:07:18):
That's so crazy.

Danny (01:07:19):
Sent to me to heal that space so that I could have a chance immediately after I prayed.

Matt (01:07:25):
Wow. I can see why you never relapsed. For sure. That's pretty powerful.

Danny (01:07:32):
It was the one thing that I needed at the right time.

Matt (01:07:36):
Isn't that crazy?

Danny (01:07:41):
What changed inside of me after three days, he was there for three days and then he was gone. Yeah. Nobody knew what happened.

Matt (01:07:47):
It's like moments, so people talk about these God shots, right? Yeah. People talk about these moments of clarity. People talk about, and everybody's got their own journey. Everybody's got their own spiritual journey. Everybody's got their own recovery journey. The one thing that I find super interesting is that, okay, I'll speak from my experience. God knows all of us, and I tell this joke. I know that God knows me personally. He made me five, five. If I was six foot, I'd be a fucking problem. But

Danny (01:08:26):
You're a problem now, dude.

Matt (01:08:27):
Yeah. But the small, not even small. It seems totally inconsequential to other people, but the small things that happen to us, these signals, these signs that touch us in those perfect moments, that changes everything, changes everything. And we are some of the few people on the earth today that have these real moments. Addicts are a special people.

Danny (01:08:56):
They are.

Matt (01:08:58):
And I always tell people, dude, if you can kick this, you can do anything.

Danny (01:09:01):
You can do anything,

Matt (01:09:02):
Anything, anything. It's got to be one of the hardest things that man has ever had to do is quit heroin and meth.

Danny (01:09:08):
Oh, yeah. It

Matt (01:09:09):
Has to be.

Danny (01:09:10):
It has to be. I mean, it has to be.

Matt (01:09:14):
I don't know how to, there's nothing comparable to it. It's something that scars you for life. It's like, I get it that maybe a doctorate is very difficult to do.

Danny (01:09:26):
Tedious wise.

Matt (01:09:27):
But it's on a whole different level. We're talking about something that it becomes, you become a

Danny (01:09:34):
Different animal.

Matt (01:09:36):
Yeah. It's so hard to explain. Right?

Danny (01:09:38):
It's really hard to put to words. It is. You know what I mean? And that's why we can identify with each other.

Matt (01:09:42):
Yes, for sure.

Danny (01:09:43):
And that is the most powerful thing that we have, because knowing that someone, you and I have both been through that, we're boys for life.

Matt (01:09:51):
For sure.

Danny (01:09:52):
That's just the way it is. For sure. Kudos unbelievable what we were doing, and we could just take a cross section of what we were doing and just look across the board and be like, wow.

Matt (01:10:03):
Yeah, look at us. And it's very difficult to sell people on the idea of recovery. It's very unattractive to a user. And it's so hard to try to explain to somebody that's still on the other side of the street why it's worth it. And recovery sucks.

Danny (01:10:28):
It does for a while.

Matt (01:10:29):
Upfront. It sucks so hard. Shit gets so bad sometimes in recovery. And it's like I hit those friction points in my recovery many times. Whereas once I hit that friction point, I was like, I'm just going to use again. And I did. And for a good reason, drugs are really good at what they do. Really good. They're really good solutions.

Danny (01:10:49):
Very consistent.

Matt (01:10:51):
Okay. So I talk about this. I found more consistency in substances than I've ever found in humans. And a lot of why I used for so long is it is good at what it does and

Danny (01:11:03):
Really good at what it does.

Matt (01:11:04):
You find peace in a very unpeaceful place. Yeah,

Danny (01:11:08):
You do.

Matt (01:11:08):
And people who hear this that have never struggled with that.

Danny (01:11:11):
People need to understand that there's a reason why the mental space needs to escape. They're going somewhere at least safer than where they're at right now.

Matt (01:11:19):
For sure.

Danny (01:11:21):
So there's the allure, right?

Matt (01:11:22):
Yeah. But yeah, just the consistency and the comfort. There's real comfort

Danny (01:11:27):
There is.

Matt (01:11:28):
It sucks, especially on the back end of this. It's like I look back, people ask me all the time, do you regret it? Do you regret anything? What do you regret? It's like, I have times in my life where I can point to and say, I was living in regret for sure. But on this side of it, it's like I really can't honestly justifiably say that I regret any of it, because every single painful moment contributed to this person sitting here.

Danny (01:11:54):
100%. And that is really hard to see. But if you've been through it and you are in a situation like you are right now, like I am.

Matt (01:12:04):
Yeah, we are. Right.

Danny (01:12:05):
It's a beautiful thing. It really is. So that was an experience that gave me, it wasn't going to keep me sober.

Matt (01:12:15):
Yeah, okay. Motivation.

Danny (01:12:17):
But massive motivation. So here's what I did know. It gave me the idea that, oh, there's something bigger going on here

Matt (01:12:24):
For sure.

Danny (01:12:25):
Than just me navigating this world by myself on auto self propulsion.

Matt (01:12:28):
Which is an important thing to realize.

Danny (01:12:32):
And that was really what, there's so much more going on here. And there's an element of something else that is so powerful that gave me peace amidst chaos. You right, once we get sober, it's just

Matt (01:12:52):
Really gets sober, right?

Danny (01:12:53):
Yeah. It really get sober.

Matt (01:12:54):
Because you never relapsed, which I'm very happy for you for that. You know how many times I got sober? I got sober, I don't know how many times. And it's like there's a difference between getting sober and having your last relapse. And that's why I talk about my last relapse all the time. It was the most important thing that ever happened in my life. My last relapse was. Right. Okay. So you have these experiences and it puts you on a path.

Danny (01:13:19):
Yeah. It put me on a path. So realistically, but I was still so self-centered, you know what I mean? But I had an understanding that there was something bigger, a bigger calling. Because after those three days, I started connecting to something. I'd go run in the ocean. You know what I mean? Every morning I'd start working out every day hard, working out every day, paying attention in groups, staying away from women. You know what I mean? I don't know where that came from. And then I started, I didn't start going to the meetings per se, with any type of, I was just more involved in the, I was more present.

(01:14:00):
I was more present. The fear wasn't consuming me at the point, at that point in time. So I got out of there and I had a community there. This is what had, it was really effective. I had a community of people that were just like me, that I didn't have to hide anything from, I didn't have to tell a lie to, and that were proud of me all of a sudden.

Matt (01:14:21):
Okay.

Danny (01:14:22):
You know what I mean?

Matt (01:14:23):
Massively different.

Danny (01:14:26):
They were proud of me.

Matt (01:14:29):
The motivation does not last. And if you're trying to base your recovery off motivation, you're going to fail. Right? It's a discipline.

Danny (01:14:35):
It's a discipline. 100%.

Matt (01:14:38):
And I tell people, recovery is a superpower.

Danny (01:14:40):
It is.

Matt (01:14:41):
I think there's three real human superpowers. It's recovery, giving, birth and math. I think they're all three superpowers.

Danny (01:14:49):
They're superpowers.

Matt (01:14:51):
But motivation never lasts. I tell people constantly, you got to have two things. Make for a good recipe, for a good recovery is discipline and dedication. And you can be one or the other until you're both of them, which is good, because I know that's ideal. Disciplined with no dedication, and they can be disciplined enough to become dedicated. And then I know people who are dedicated enough with no discipline,

Danny (01:15:15):
With no discipline,

Matt (01:15:15):
And they can stay dedicated enough to get the discipline.

Danny (01:15:18):
They're symbiotic. If they can be symbiotic, they can be.

Matt (01:15:23):
Recovery is the most perfect, for discipline and dedication, the best symbiotic situation for those two things is recovery.

Danny (01:15:33):
It really is. It really is. And I had to learn all that. So that was my journey. I became open, I guess it was the open-mindedness to something different and a different way of life, a discipline that I needed because my life was unmanageable. The first step. Of course, I learned I was powerless, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what powerlessness meant.

Matt (01:15:57):
Right. You feel it. You feel it. But the definitions that people, when you don't have a lingo or a verbiage to put to what's going on, it's very hard to express.

Danny (01:16:08):
It's hard to explain because you, I mean, you're insane. You are insane with respect to drugs and alcohol.

Matt (01:16:13):
I mean, legally, we do a lot of really crazy shit.

Danny (01:16:17):
It's like they call it, they define it as a lack of proportionate thinking. Right?

Matt (01:16:21):
That's very true too.

Danny (01:16:22):
It's just with respect to drugs, I don't have it. And I still, I'm just as powerless today as I was, right when I walked in that door of treatment, that's one thing that I do know

Matt (01:16:34):
Over what?

Danny (01:16:34):
Over substances, I'm just as powerless. But I do have, now I've developed a power greater than myself, a relationship with a power greater than myself. Now, everybody can call it whatever they want.

Matt (01:16:48):
For sure.

Danny (01:16:48):
You know what I mean? You can call it a group, a discipline, a lifestyle, anything really, as long as it's not just you navigating the world.

Matt (01:16:57):
Yeah. So have I told you about my mentor? So I got this mentor. He's the only Navy seal in the history of the world.

Danny (01:17:04):
Oh, you did. Yeah.

Matt (01:17:06):
And him and I constantly talk about this, specifically the social calibration of our moral compass. It's so important. The group has to guide us because I know me. I know my moral compass is skewed, and I know that I cannot critique it if it is up to me to, especially in those early days, it's like I'm able to, willing to and have done things that 99% of the world will never do. So leave that person to try to guide the himself back into health, who doesn't know how to be healthy, who doesn't understand what it means to be healthy. He's going to fail.

Danny (01:17:45):
He's going to fail. Set himself up for failure.

Matt (01:17:47):
Yeah.

Danny (01:17:48):
Yeah. So literally, I got out of treatment, and here's the scary part. I lost my community, and I was back at mommy's place, and I'm 43 years old.

Matt (01:18:01):
How'd you lose your community?

Danny (01:18:02):
Well, I never really developed one per se, through the rooms, or I really wasn't all that plugged in. And everybody that I'd gone to treatment with, I considered my community.

Matt (01:18:11):
So you were insulated in treatment,

Danny (01:18:13):
Insulated.

Matt (01:18:14):
And then after you left nothing.

Danny (01:18:17):
Nothing. And that I was told to go get plugged into a program and go to find a home group. And I didn't do it right away. But then guess what came in, kept creepping in the fear, anxiety, depression. My emotional state started getting all over the barnard. I was generally unhappy, and I could feel it coming. The disease of alcoholism was coming for me big time. I was suffering the bedevilment of life. They were hitting me heavy. Couldn't think straight.

Matt (01:18:46):
Did you have that impending doom?

Danny (01:18:47):
Yes. Okay. 100%. It was on me just so heavy. And I'm like, oh, here we go again.

Matt (01:18:52):
How long did that last?

Danny (01:18:54):
It lasted about two weeks. And I knew the obsession was coming. It was coming. It's directly linked to that. And I learned that in the rooms. You know what I mean? With the book and in the rooms, I learned that I have a physical allergy. I do. I have an obsession of my mind, and I have a busted spirit.

Matt (01:19:15):
Yeah, a total decayed.

Danny (01:19:18):
It's just busted. It's broken.

Matt (01:19:20):
I see alcoholics who, the drug journey is much different than the alcohol journey. I'll say that. And I see these alcoholics, I feel bad for them. Socially acceptable to drink, easily accessible. Drugs are a secret society.

Danny (01:19:35):
Oh, 100%.

Matt (01:19:37):
But people don't understand the toll that it takes on your soul, the drugs, right?

Danny (01:19:43):
Oh yeah. It's so dark.

Matt (01:19:45):
It's incredible. It's really crazy.

Danny (01:19:47):
I'm telling you, I had demons in my body. I'm well aware of the fact that, and will tell you, to this day, I've seen the demon in my body manifest. And I could say that with 100% conviction because I lived it and it scared the shit out of me. You know what I mean? But I lived with it. I lived with it.

Matt (01:20:05):
Have you ever heard these stories about the doing voodoo, spiritual, dark, magic, blessings on the meth when it's coming across so it doesn't get

Danny (01:20:14):
I have heard of it, but

Matt (01:20:15):
Okay, so I have this, I've had these acquaintances that swears this is, well, because a part of that world, the reason why everybody goes crazy is because they're cursing these drugs. And everybody has the same story. If you do meth, you go crazy. And they all attribute it to demonology.

Danny (01:20:37):
Oh yeah.

Matt (01:20:39):
You ask them specifically, why do you say that? Why do you think they're like, no, no, no. You don't understand. There is demons inside of you when you're taking this drug. And it's unique to that drug, just that one. It's unique to that drug.

Danny (01:20:52):
So I was living in that, if you will, that malady for a couple of weeks. And then I immediately went and I was told in treatment to go get plugged into a homeroom. And I went to a place over by my pad, and I got plugged in, sat down, and my first meeting was a meditation meeting.

Matt (01:21:08):
Great.

Danny (01:21:10):
They shut the lights out. And I said, okay, good deuces.

Matt (01:21:14):
Good night.

Danny (01:21:14):
I'm not about it. And I walked outside and this guy grabbed me by the arm, was like, dude, they're not all like this. Chill out. You need to go back in there. You look like you're about to go do something.

Matt (01:21:24):
You're on the edge, man.

Danny (01:21:25):
You do something stupid. You know what I mean? So I said, oh, really? Okay. So I made my way back in, and all I did at that point was sit in meetings. That's all that I did. I mean it, it's just how it rolled out for me. And I just lived there. I lived there, and I would hit two, three meetings a day, go home and then take a nap cuz I was exhausted and the disease was on me. I hadn't experienced any real change yet.

Matt (01:21:54):
So just straight and white knuckling.

Danny (01:21:56):
Wide knuckling, just to the bone, not realizing I'm white knuckling, but I wasn't working a program. I was just there.

Matt (01:22:04):
That is such a good point is how many of us experience that? It's like the white knuckling part, and it's just an ignorance.

Danny (01:22:13):
We don't know. Yeah. I mean, you don't know. Like I said, we don't know what we know until we do. But I managed to stay there and stay sick until I started doing the work at about four months. You're right. Just hanging on and then not really doing the work with some resistance, with more resistance some days than others.

Matt (01:22:35):
Was it reservations?

Danny (01:22:36):
Reservations. Like reservations. Because I mean, I'd heard my story. I realized that, and it was the identification that really helped me out. But I didn't know what willingness looked like. You got to be willing, but I didn't know what willingness looked like. I wasn't really, wasn't really that dedicated yet. I should have been more desperate. I should have been more desperate based upon where I'd come from. Right.

Matt (01:23:01):
Are you on probation?

Danny (01:23:02):
I was on probation.

Matt (01:23:03):
Okay. What was your tail? How long?

Danny (01:23:06):
Three years. Okay.

(01:23:07):
Yeah. But I stayed sober. I lost it after a year and a half of staying sober.

Matt (01:23:12):
Good time. Yeah.

Danny (01:23:13):
Yeah. Just boom. But they were checking in on me, but he realized I was going to meetings. I was doing the do supposedly, but to be honest, I had one foot in and one foot out. I was just stuck guy. You know what I mean? I had another one in me, and it was coming.

Matt (01:23:24):
Dude, everybody does. You hear all these people. I don't got another one in me.

Danny (01:23:29):
Everybody does.

Matt (01:23:29):
It's like everybody does.

Danny (01:23:30):
You're an alcoholic. You got another one. So I wasn't aware of any of this. I hadn't been around and listening to the solution enough, or at least as they presented it. And I started getting really sick, and I was on my way to get a bottle. And once again, one more time, God intervened. And this guy stopped me and said, Hey bro, where are you going? You know what I mean? I'm like, Damnit. You know what I mean? I was bottle bag dead. I would've put fentanyl. There's no heroin anymore at, so I was just like, would've been, that's a death sentence for me. You know what I mean? Because I will use, I'll go through my chain of command. You know what I mean? My drug bones connected to my alcohol bone.

Matt (01:24:13):
For sure.

Danny (01:24:13):
For sure, for sure. It's academic and I know it. So at the time, I just rededicated myself. I said, you know what? I said, God, give me the willingness. Please give me the willingness.

Matt (01:24:24):
How many times did you have to say

Danny (01:24:25):
That? I said it every day for a week. Please give me the willingness to open up this book to pay attention more in these meetings. Walk towards people cuz I was getting social anxiety. Stop worrying about what they're thinking about me and just do the work. Just do the work and see what happens. What do I have to lose? What do I have to lose? I can feel like this the rest of my life, but they're telling me in those rooms I don't have to. So what are they doing? So all the cliche stuff, I followed somebody that did what I did and was peaceful. That's what I was attracted to.

Matt (01:25:03):
It's the cliches that really work.

Danny (01:25:05):
Yeah, dude.

Matt (01:25:05):
Right. It's really funny. It's really crazy. And it's like some of the cliches are so corny, but that's where the power is.

Danny (01:25:15):
There's so much power in it that simple. When you dummy things down, it makes it seem like it's just mundane, but it's not. It is that simple. And when I'm looking back on him, he does it first things first. First things first. I needed to get to work. You know what I mean? I needed to shed the skin and I needed to change that mindset, and I needed to get accountable.

Matt (01:25:35):
How long had it been since you worked?

Danny (01:25:39):
Eight years. Yeah. I was totally dysfunctional. Still big time. I would give golf lessons. But as far as being able to hold down a job in that first year, I couldn't think. I couldn't sit still. I was so sick and I didn't know how sick I was. I didn't know how sick I was. I was just fringing. I was being protected by the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And by God. For sure, from myself, for how long? I don't know. But he would give me so much pain. Let me allow me to have so much pain and self-centeredness that I finally started praying again. You know what I mean? I did with diligence before I meant that in that room, God helped me. That was a soul. Surrender everything you can have, all of me. And then it went away,

Matt (01:26:25):
Of course, because its motivation doesn't last.

Danny (01:26:27):
No, to your point. It just didn't last. So the desperation was gone. I had the heat off from the family. They thought I was staying sober. Oh, Danny's doing great. He's going these meetings. But Danny was really dysfunctional and Danny was not doing the work, and they didn't know that. But to them, me, my mom, having a sober son and my brother-in-law and sister allowing me back in their house at four months sober was like, they're all watching me with a corner of their eye. But nonetheless, I was sober United States as long as I'd been sober. I hadn't been sober for five minutes in 10 years. You know what I mean? So to them it was a big deal. And so I got busy and I got into the book, and then I worked my steps, and I started changing. I had this experience of change, and I felt better. I can't explain that. It's just my spirit was lifting. I was in less fear. I started to have a peace and calm and clarity about myself that I hadn't had since I was 18. I was starting to get my personality back.

Matt (01:27:33):
Great personality, by the way.

Danny (01:27:36):
Mine?

Matt (01:27:37):
Yeah.

Danny (01:27:37):
Well, I mean, I was like this when I was young, and then I was completely different, gone. And then my eyes were black for eight years. My eyes were black. And that's the first thing my mom said. She says, your eyes are blue. They're blue again. You must be sober. I'm like, I guess so. I forgot about those eyes. There's that demon. So I literally, I just got to work. And it came right after that repetition, that dedication. You were talking about the motivation and the dedication. I wanted something different. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I knew that what I had sucked so cliche. Again, I had to get to that point. Pain was a great motivator, touchstone a spiritual growth. And it was for me, I'm textbook. I'm textbook. So I did the work. I got the results. My actions started changing. I started doing things that I was unfamiliar with, contrary to everything that I was doing. I got busy with that sponsor and he walked me through the pace. I started developing a relationship with God that I have

Matt (01:28:41):
So important.

Danny (01:28:42):
So important. It's just like my faith is everything. And the foundation of that self searching, leveling of pride and confession of shortcomings, just shed the old skin. Get accountable. Who are you really without these drugs and alcohol? Who is Danny? And I started to ask these questions, and I started liking the person. I was becoming

Matt (01:29:00):
Cool.

Danny (01:29:00):
It was very attractive to me because I didn't know who I was. I'd lost it. I thought it was never going to come back.

Matt (01:29:10):
And a lot of us, we meet ourselves after we get sober, a lot of us use through the development of who we are. And you're 18 when it kind of started to go downhill.

Danny (01:29:24):
31 when I started using meth.

Matt (01:29:27):
But I mean, you're still making these crazy decisions. And it's like there are glimpses. You can see glimpses of who the possible you was, but it was never the full you. And so it's like a lot of us are introduced to ourselves in recovery.

Danny (01:29:45):
That's amazing, by the way.

Matt (01:29:46):
Yeah.

Danny (01:29:48):
That's an understatement of all time. That's a glorious thing. When you get, you're authentic.

Matt (01:29:55):
Because my entire adult life, I was on the needle, and then a lot of my formative years were spent, I was exhibiting addict behavior as a child. I was sexually abused, I was exposed to a lot of crazy shit. I had a really good foundational home. I'm the only person, I'm the oldest of 10 kids. The only one that went down this direct, this hardcore. I have a brother that kind of dabbled for a little while, but

Danny (01:30:25):
That's wild.

Matt (01:30:25):
It is wild.

Danny (01:30:26):
That's wild, bro.

Matt (01:30:27):
So it's a testament that it's like it wasn't my family's fault. There was things that maybe could have happened different, but it didn't. So I never knew me, never knew me, ever.

Danny (01:30:40):
That's wild.

Matt (01:30:40):
And I was chasing things that were not becoming of the potential me either. Really, really young. So there was no, I literally got introduced to myself five years ago.

Danny (01:30:54):
That's so awesome.

Matt (01:30:55):
I'm 36.

Danny (01:30:56):
That's wild. It's awesome though. It's just wild and awesome at the same time. Just so beautiful.

Matt (01:31:03):
Yeah.

Danny (01:31:05):
Yeah. I mean the net net is, that was my journey of change and development. My personality was changing sufficient to recover from this other entity that I thought I was right. And I was waking up. I was waking up to the world, and I was starting to live again, albeit so many years of damage. So in a sense, we straightened out spiritually and then we straightened out mentally and physically, but I had some physical things that were in my spine. You know what I mean?

Matt (01:31:40):
So a lot of meth users do end up with these spinal issues after a lot of it's dehydration, right? A lot of it is also the chemicals are really harsh on your bone structures. But another part that a lot of people don't think about or really talk about is the posture.

Danny (01:31:56):
Posture.

Matt (01:31:56):
Yeah.

Danny (01:31:57):
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. So it was just like there was all these changes going on, and I feel like I was going through this metamorphosis, but I was really a big part of my recovery and was working out and eating right.

Matt (01:32:12):
Man, that's been my recovery. And that

Danny (01:32:15):
Huge cannot speak to it enough. And because I was going, I had to have people with the same amount of time as me, and I was feeling way better than they were. But because I had a regimen, I had dedication, I had motivation, and it was albeit towards, but it was body, mind, spirit for me. I kept saying, that is not cliche. You know what I mean?

Matt (01:32:36):
No, dude, I have this model. I'm going to make this a chart someday, but we're men. Okay? So I speak from a man's perspective. We're four part beings, right? Emotions, mind, body, spirit. And one of them, if it is off, if you're lacking in it, it has gravity. So if we're supposed to be level and one's down here, it will pull everything into it.

Danny (01:33:00):
One hundred percent.

Matt (01:33:00):
And we start spiraling around that.

Danny (01:33:02):
That's a good metaphor.

Matt (01:33:03):
And everybody always said, oh, and you probably heard this way. Oh, now you're sober. Now you should work out and eat better. But they never show you how. And they never tell you why. They just say, this is something that you should do. And I met Taylor, we put that piece in place and it completely changed the trajectory of my recovery. I was now happy.

Danny (01:33:23):
Huge believer,

Matt (01:33:24):
Dude. It's amazing what that piece alone can do.

Danny (01:33:27):
Huge advocate. Cannot be overstated. Cannot be. Yeah. Because you can get yourself to a point spiritually, right?

Matt (01:33:36):
Yes.

Danny (01:33:37):
But you're going to have a physical ramification to apathy. And it takes its emotional toll on you. And then we overthink everything anyways, for sure. How are you going to give yourself a reason to not have a natural dopamine hit? Or your body's trying to level itself out. It wants more.

Matt (01:33:55):
We've already fried that part of us. We're like, we can't level off chemically anymore and we stop producing healthy levels of a lot of different chemicals. But dopamine's a big one. Serotonin and your dopamine really suffers. And people don't understand how working out levels that so well. It's really important. Okay, so you started working out, you plugged yourself in. You did the work.

Danny (01:34:23):
Did the work.

Matt (01:34:24):
You got on a straighter path, right? Obviously straighter path. So let's talk about how'd you get to where you are today?

Danny (01:34:32):
I'll tell you one thing, it I had levels of my sobriety, right? For sure. I look back and it's like, they say, how free do you want to be? And I didn't realize how in bondage, I still was in these areas of my life or that area of my life. And it was all because of my spirit. There were some things I was having some secrets. I hadn't really fully let go of some stuff. And there was stuff that more was going to be revealed during the process. And I had layers. I was changing, you know what I mean? I was discarding. I was uncovering, discovering and discarding. And it's been a journey. It's been a process. So getting my mind back to where it's sharp, you what I mean, it is been a process. Wasn't just immediately.

Matt (01:35:21):
You can't undo decades of damage. Decades of damage in a couple of days.

Danny (01:35:26):
The neuro pathways have have to start reforming it. The brain is amazing because I mean, I literally thought I cooked myself. I remember a girl that I used to go to meetings with. She said, you were mute. And then all of a sudden, I see you two years, three years later, and you're like this whole different person. And that's the beauty of recovery. But it took a lot of work. I put everything. I put my program 100% first, and I still do to this day.

Matt (01:35:50):
Cool.

Danny (01:35:50):
Everything comes as a net result of it.

Matt (01:35:53):
Right? It's second. Everything else really is secondary.

Danny (01:35:55):
Everything else is cream cheese. You know what I mean? And I get the blessings from God when I am actually fulfilling that lifestyle that has been ordained for a long time,

Matt (01:36:05):
For sure.

Danny (01:36:06):
And I'm, I'm just doing my homework. I'm doing my assignment. And if the dog ate my homework,

Matt (01:36:13):
Do it again.

Danny (01:36:14):
Do it again. Or I pay for it.

Matt (01:36:15):
Yeah.

Danny (01:36:17):
I pay for it.

Matt (01:36:18):
This is also something that I talk about constantly, is that me and my God have a deal worked out, and I'm thoroughly convinced I'm not going to be one of those special people that gets to hear God's voice. Right? I'll never get those magical, I'll never have an experience like you, but it's for a reason. My God knows me. I wouldn't recognize it anyway. But I have this philosophy and this whole thought process that I've come to, and I'm pretty sure it's just these conversations that I have with my higher power that there's somebody out there, one person, there's just this one person out there that I'm supposed to help. And I'll never know when that interaction is. I'll never know where it's going to be. I'll never know when it's going to happen. But in order for me to be in a position to help that person, I've got to do everything that I can do to help everybody that I can then. And it's like I'll never know when that debt is paid. And I talk about the debt of recovery pretty often. It's like we have this balance that the thing about this balance is there's all this shitty stuff that we have to repay back. There's all this debt that we've accumulated through our addiction. But then you enter recovery and you get an even bigger debt.

Danny (01:37:30):
You do

Matt (01:37:32):
Through the blessings and all the stuff that we don't deserve that's going on our tab.

Danny (01:37:36):
It's on the tab just dragging it up.

Matt (01:37:39):
It isn't like we have this huge bank of goodwill stored up. It's like we've depleted ours and our families and everybody around us,

Danny (01:37:47):
Everybody.

Matt (01:37:48):
And so I treat my recovery like a debt, it gives me purpose. It gives me a real purpose, and it's me onto the path that I'm on.

Danny (01:37:56):
That's good.

Matt (01:37:59):
And I don't subscribe to a lot of mainstream recovery, but it's because of what I've found for myself. And I do still practice the principles. It isn't wrapped in the same package. It looks different, but I'm still doing the same shit at the bottom line. At the end of the day, what I'm ultimately doing is just trying to help other people.

Danny (01:38:22):
There you go.

Matt (01:38:23):
And so you've got something going on like this too, right? Your story is, it's funny, I tell people we all have different stories, but at the baseline of it, it's all the same.

Danny (01:38:34):
It's the same.

Matt (01:38:35):
And the solution is the same, and the problems were all the same. And it might be packaged differently. It might be sold differently. You might come across it in a different way. But there are certain things that you got to do in order to maintain this gift.

Danny (01:38:51):
Bare minimum.

Matt (01:38:51):
Bare minimum. The biggest part for me is being in a position to help, right?

Danny (01:38:59):
Yeah.

Matt (01:38:59):
So what's your experience with that?

Danny (01:39:02):
Well, here's what I did. The program tells me my real purpose is to fit myself, to be a maximum service

Matt (01:39:09):
For sure.

Danny (01:39:09):
To God knows about me. And that my life depends on the constant thoughts of others and how I'm going to meet their needs. So easily glazed over in early sobriety, but never been more prominent profound in my life right now. Because what they don't tell you is why? Because I believe it's the fullest extent of my acts of faith. You can say, faith, I believe in this, but show me that you do. Because what does my will look like?

Matt (01:39:35):
Faith is an action word.

Danny (01:39:36):
Absolutely an action word. Yeah. It's absolutely an action word. Gratitude is an action word

Matt (01:39:40):
For sure.

Danny (01:39:41):
You know what I mean? And it's just like acceptance. It's all action. I can't just say these things and think these things. What am I doing? Nobody cares what I say. How do I operate in the sandbox? How am I treating you? Do these people get my attention? Or is there some self-centered motive behind why I'm paying attention to this person? And not seeing everybody, seeing God in everybody is that you can read, you can just see the people. It's abundantly clear who's not really doing that.

Matt (01:40:14):
Very.

Danny (01:40:14):
And I don't like having the idea to see,

Matt (01:40:17):
Well, I mean, it's a discernment.

Danny (01:40:18):
It's a discernment. It's certainly discernment.

Matt (01:40:20):
It is experientially gained that discernment.

Danny (01:40:23):
Right. It wouldn't be something I would've turn my attention to before. But now it's everything to me. I meet a guy like Matt Handy, and he's doing the do, and I get mad respect, and I'm proud of you, and I wish the best for you because I know where your heart is. You know what I'm saying? It just comes down to who, who's doing the do you know what I mean? After having had the experience, who's really taking that and shaping that and turning it into something beautiful? People they haven't met yet. They haven't met yet. How can I do that? And that's where my life is right now. I do it through sponsoring 15 guys in day. I got 15 sponsees. I stay tethered to other people in their lives. And it's a beautiful thing to just talk to my friends about what the devastation, what my recovery look like, what not to do, so that you don't have to go through the pain that I went through for you. And there's freedom and there's peace in it. And then you get to meet your higher self.

Matt (01:41:20):
For sure.

Danny (01:41:21):
And it's building blocks, but mine came and mine wasn't linear. Mine popped all over the place. I never got loaded, but it certainly wasn't linear.

Matt (01:41:31):
I think that it's a pretty common thing, right? Recovery isn't linear.

Danny (01:41:36):
I can't read. These steps are linear, but that's not really.

Matt (01:41:38):
Yeah, I mean, that is a structure. Structure,

Danny (01:41:42):
But it's not, certainly not linear for me.

Matt (01:41:44):
But when I hear really convincing stories of recovery, it's layered. It's totally layered. It is totally layered. There's no, this constant string of change that was one thing led to another, led to another. It's typically one thing gets kind of mastered, not even mastered, but one thing gets accomplished and a door opens where fuck, now all this shit's fucked up and I got to go over here and fix this. And then it's like this other door, and it's like this hodgepodge of fixing and then succeeding, and then the building, the self-worth. And my mentor, Taylor, he says all the time, you cannot think yourself out of a problem you acted where you're into. It's impossible. And it's these actions.

Danny (01:42:30):
It's all actions.

Matt (01:42:31):
For me, it's all actions.

Danny (01:42:33):
And that's where we're very similar. I mean, I could see it on you. It's not too hard to see. When you have a conversation with you, you see where your heart is. So it's like that's my day to day-to-day. Because if I am in that mode, that means there's been some change that's happened to me. And that's my only evidence on a daily basis of what's my, because you question, what are my motives? Have they changed? Have they slipped back into self-centeredness? Am I really utilizing this experience that was God-given from my dad? Why did all these things happen to me? Like you said, everything that I went through, I went through to become the man that I'm today.

(01:43:09):
My mom, the one that was spending all that money to get me out of jail, all those sleepless nights, all that devastation, all the money that I took from her, and all the pain that I gave to my sister and just ripping apart the family dynamic all of those years, she said I would do it all over again to see the man that you are today.

Matt (01:43:27):
For sure.

Danny (01:43:29):
She blew me away for sure. And I was just like, it brought me to tears. And she's like, I am dead serious. And I'm like, that's just the power of recovery for sure. Power of God. It just has, my only stake in this was like you said, is the dedication and the motivation to stay the course. What did it look like? It could be changing a little bit, but you got to move with the ball. What does it really look like? And I got to be constantly self-aware for sure. And God conscious

Matt (01:44:00):
This is definitely an on your toes game, for sure. Recovery isn't on your toes game.

Danny (01:44:03):
It's on your toes game. Yeah, for sure.

Matt (01:44:06):
So I talk about suffering, right? I talk about suffering and the benefits of suffering, right? People don't talk about that enough.

Danny (01:44:14):
They should.

Matt (01:44:14):
The benefits of my own suffering, it all led to this. It all led to these moments. I wouldn't be here talking to you if it wasn't for the amount of suffering, the depth of suffering, and then ultimately the consequences that came from my terrible decision making process. When I think about it. You can never taste the pain again, especially when we're on the side of it. It'll never feel the same. What do you do to stay fresh about it?

Danny (01:44:47):
I share a lot. I'm constantly vocal. I'm very loud about my recovery. So somebody else doesn't have to suffer anxiety

Matt (01:44:53):
For sure.

Danny (01:44:56):
And I don't know whether that comes, I open the door to my past without people really even asking. You know what I mean? And I do it subconsciously and consciously or subconsciously. It's a pattern. It's a fabric of who I am because I realize the importance of it. Because more often than not, I don't even know I'm doing it. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to just open a door, but it'll just come out and it's freely comes out. And it's met 100% of the time with, oh, I have a story. Because we're just trying to bring out it's addiction. It's addiction. It's as real as this chair. And it's a frigging pandemic. It's a pandemic.

Matt (01:45:43):
It's super pervasive in today's day and age. And about the stories, there are stories, but they belong to everybody that can benefit from it. And one of the things that really convinced me of this was you never know. You never know who's going to hear. And they might not be vocal about it, but you never know who's, our stories kicked the door open for people. And we had to experience all this. And have you ever heard that thing? Or people say, smart people learn from their mistakes wise people learn from others. Well, I wasn't neither.

Danny (01:46:21):
Yeah, neither.

Matt (01:46:22):
I didn't learn from any mistake.

Danny (01:46:26):
I didn't either. I really didn't either.

Matt (01:46:28):
We are vessels of pain and change, and

Danny (01:46:33):
That's really all I can be. You know what I mean? And like you said, the ball moves. If I stop, if I think I have this licked and I'm not willing to change, I'm in big trouble

Matt (01:46:45):
Even from today, right? Yeah,

Danny (01:46:46):
100%.

Matt (01:46:47):
People don't realize how much of a moving target recovery is. You might have it one day, you can repeat the same day and be in a totally fucked up place. It's super important to stay on your toes, but it's also important to, as far as the empathy for the other people, right? It's really hard for, I see this, right? People got a few years clean and they start to shut the door on people. They start to,

Danny (01:47:19):
I'm good.

Matt (01:47:19):
I'm better than that. I'm only going to sponsor people that look like me or dress like me. And it's like, well, what about the crack head in the corner?

Danny (01:47:29):
I saw you walk right by him.

Matt (01:47:30):
Yeah. How important is it to you to not do that kind of stuff?

Danny (01:47:38):
Because I don't know, like I said before, I don't know where this humility came from. I really don't. Because I was a very self-centered, ego-driven person. Not a mean person, but the level of self-centeredness, like everything was a byproduct of something that I was doing or I wasn't doing right? That type of self-centeredness.

Matt (01:47:57):
Like literally the center of the universe.

Danny (01:47:59):
Yeah, the center of the universe. And I didn't know how sick I wasn't until wasn't. And so realizing that everybody deserves a chance because you don't know if There's one thing I've learned about recovery. I've seen homeless people change with one conversation, one smile, one act of kindness. No matter what it looks like, any expression of the fact that they're not alone

Matt (01:48:27):
Or that they're human.

Danny (01:48:28):
They're human. Humanizing the situation, it's okay. It's going to be okay. They could be sent there by God. You know what I mean? 100% probably are, you know what I mean? Let's just test this person, see where they're at for us. Let's just see where you're at. And I don't know where I'm talking. And then the main thing is if I can see God in everyone, right? Then that gives me the ability to talk to anybody and offer some type of solution, some type of support and all that, and do with a tremendous amount of humility, because I could easily be there. I was there. You know what I mean? And that's what the experience gave me. I was always a smigel. Nobody, the only people who wanted me was every county.

Matt (01:49:23):
Yeah, for sure.

Danny (01:49:25):
Who's going to want that around? But there was one experience I had with a Huntington Beach police officer, and this was like, oh, I forgot to mention this. They would put the cuffs on me. And then with the dope on me, he's got this one ring. And then the one guy knew me. He's like, what's your favorite golf course? I'm like, what? So he knew me and then he says, I'm taking him to the station and let the other guys go. They just always messed with me. They had every right to, I was a dirt bag just running the streets. And he's like, spread your legs. And he takes the dope out of my pocket and throws it on the ground. He says, are you done yet? This is not you. I hope you get yourself some help. And that was before I went down and got my car stolen and all that stuff. But that experience stayed with me. So he made me feel human. And I think it's little experiences like that that I've been, I had to see the face of the other side and what it really feels like to be walked on, walked over, disregarded and dismissed. And I can't even have it in me to not walk towards, I don't care what you look like. I mean, you're in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You're asking for help.

(01:50:38):
You are around recovery, you're wanting recovery, and nobody else is talking to you? I'm always the guy to just walk right out. And people are like, Dalton, you can't take any more sponsees. I'm like, I can't get enough sponsees. You know what I mean? And it's not about me. It's not about me. It's because they need help. You know what I mean? And I've been given a huge gift.

Matt (01:50:58):
Dude, you owe debt.

Danny (01:50:59):
I owe a huge debt. I can't even repay my debt if I sponsored everybody in this room. I can't. I can't. It's near impossible to be given vitality back. My brain, my body, my physicality, my golf game.

Matt (01:51:14):
Man. And people like us are so blessed. We come out of, I mean, people don't come out of it, right?

Danny (01:51:21):
No, they don't.

Matt (01:51:21):
To come back and be intact still. I feel fucking fortunate.

Danny (01:51:28):
Oh God, dude. So blessed. So blessed.

Matt (01:51:31):
Yeah. So tell us about Monarch.

Danny (01:51:34):
Monarch Diagnostics.

Matt (01:51:35):
Tell us about how you got involved.

Danny (01:51:36):
I got involved, I was speaking at a meeting down in San Juan and then the operations director for Monarch Diagnostics. And I was working at an IOP at the time, and it was just chaos. It was men and women in the same building, just early recovery circus, girls coming home with dogs with their underwear and somebody relapsing every day. It just totally unmanageable. So that was my first experience in treatment. And that kind of set the stage for like, ugh, I dunno how long I can last in this.

Matt (01:52:07):
A lot of burnout.

Danny (01:52:09):
I had three years of recovery and I was still challenging. Mean 10 years of recovery. This situation was challenging the way it was ran. So it was unfortunate that was my first experience. But nonetheless, I was speaking down in San Juan Capistrano, telling my story and talking about the message, the hope of recovery. And then he approached me after, and he's like, I think you need to go work for Monarch. I think you need to meet Mike. And so I went and interviewed with him, and of course it was on my resume, I was a professional golfer, and he is like, oh, a golfer. He's like, I need to see the resume. But obviously I told him I had a sales background. So just been working. What an unbelievable place to work because we all come from recovery.

Matt (01:52:53):
Yes. That's what I love about you guys.

Danny (01:52:55):
And the culture there is, and it's principled. I mean, how many different ways can you say it? We say we're going to do something, we do it because we wouldn't stay sober. You know what I mean? And the model that Mike has built with the team, really, really good people, just good people doing good things. From the scientists to the customer service to the deliverable. It's more expansive than anybody else. It's quicker. I mean, what you need. So I mean, going out and talking about, it's not that difficult. It's not rocket science. It's like, okay,

Matt (01:53:30):
Very sellable product.

Danny (01:53:32):
Yeah, this job makes my job easy. I just communicate. People don't know what they don't know that these things are available. Well now you know, and being working in treatment, you see the discernible difference between somebody that's got your back, like an extension of your clinical team, and then one that just doesn't, to the fullest extent, maybe somewhat, but the added push from our end to be there on call and just do multitude of different things. It's immeasurable.

Matt (01:54:03):
That's awesome.

Danny (01:54:03):
It's immeasurable. And it translates to just a really, really good service offering and a really good compliment to a treatment center. I can stand by that and not have a problem with that at night when I go to bed, because I can't do that anymore. I can't speak to something that I can't literally invest my heart in. I can't. It's just not possible. I couldn't do it.

Matt (01:54:25):
It would be a level of dishonesty.

Danny (01:54:27):
Yeah, level of dishonesty. I have to make a move. I have to make a move. I'm not selling a snake oil here. It's just educating people. And if there's a need than when more often than not there is. And it's just we get to meet a bunch of great people. We've got a great team, and we're expanding out into Dallas and things are going really well. Staying small.

Matt (01:54:48):
Yeah,

Danny (01:54:48):
Staying small, getting bigger, but staying small.

Matt (01:54:50):
Yeah. That's awesome. So you work in the industry, right? So let's talk about friction points in recovery. Friction points. Yeah. Have you had friction points in your recovery?

Danny (01:55:04):
A multitude.

Matt (01:55:05):
Okay.

Danny (01:55:05):
Yeah. And here's where mine come.

Matt (01:55:07):
Okay.

Danny (01:55:12):
Relationships.

Matt (01:55:14):
Okay. Women.

Danny (01:55:15):
Women. It's women. Yeah. Everybody thinks they're ready for one until they get into one. And I literally went five, six years without even being in a relationship. One of the better decisions I ever made was not to involve somebody else in my my mess. So I went a long time, not five, six years, seven years, just not even, we're not going there. But I felt it about three years. And of course my picker was off. You know what I mean? I'm not developed emotionally. I have issues that I have not uncovered. And until I get some awareness with that, a relationship will expose your character defects.

Matt (01:55:57):
For sure. Real quick, really fast,

Danny (01:55:59):
Real quick. And I had a lot of work to do, and not to mention my picker was still really shitty. So I would,

Matt (01:56:06):
There's two a lot of the time. Two broken pickers.

Danny (01:56:09):
Yeah, two broken pickers.

Matt (01:56:09):
Can make a big mess.

Danny (01:56:11):
And water was seeking its own level at the time. I'm sure you know what I mean. So I wasn't really ready and I got involved in one. But I tell you one thing, it took me out. I was obsessing on just what this person was thinking about. They were not thinking about me and just tied up and all this resentment and shit. And we got really sick. I remember going to work one day and being like, dude, do what's up? What's wrong with you? You're not here. Way too much invested in this. But I caused it. It was my wreckage, you know what I mean? I'm not here to point fingers. What was my part? What did I do? So I had to, that was a big one because I could have gotten loaded over that for sure.

Matt (01:56:50):
That is the easiest, the best grease to derail the recovery train is a fucked up relationship.

Danny (01:56:57):
Fucked up relationship. And it really took me down. It took me some dark places and preoccupied blocked me from God blocked me just 100%. I'm going to call it what it is. I got blocked.

Matt (01:57:08):
Yeah.

Danny (01:57:08):
I'm supposed to face and remove the things that are blocking me. And I put one big animal, great wall at China in between my,

Matt (01:57:15):
We idolize our relationships. They become the thing that preoccupies all of our thoughts. One of the things that I talk about pretty often is the mind of an addict still has, who has reservations. We can never offer ourselves a hundred percent to anything. We still have one or 2% that is constantly just focused on that thing. And then when you get rid of that, the easy next thing to occupy those two or 3% of your brain is a girl.

Danny (01:57:52):
Is a girl.

Matt (01:57:53):
Right?

Danny (01:57:53):
And for a girl, a man,

Matt (01:57:55):
I mean the opposite.

Danny (01:57:55):
Conversely.

Matt (01:57:55):
The person that you're attracted to,

Danny (01:58:01):
It's just got bad news written all over it. Because you're introducing them, and another thing I realized is it takes a while in recovery to understand who you are and to demonstrate principled behavior in the face of adversity, adversity in your house with your partner. That is the biggest challenge of all time. You're just not there yet. And you may be able to weather the storm, but you're asking for one big challenge because the honeymoon ends and then the relationship begins. And do you have the skillset to stay in it?

Matt (01:58:41):
And it's like we are for us, right? We're expected to do 15 or 20 years of maturing in three years for you. And it's like normal people mature steadily through their life. It's

Danny (01:58:56):
Like a natural progression.

Matt (01:58:57):
We have this block of time where there's digression. I mean, just child turning into a baby.

Danny (01:59:06):
Baby in a high chair. For sure. Very dangerous.

Matt (01:59:13):
Thanks for listening to My Last Relapse. I'm Matt Handy, the founder of Harmony Grove Behavioral Health, Houston, Texas, where our mission is to provide compassionate evidence-based care for anyone facing addiction, mental health challenges, and co-occurring disorders. Find out more at harmonygrovebh.com. Follow and subscribe to My Last Relapse on YouTube, apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you like to stream podcasts. Got a question for us? Leave a message or voicemail at mylastrelapse.com. If you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling, you don't have to face it alone. Reaching out for support is a sign of strength and help is always available. If you or anyone needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 888 - 691 - 8295.