In this powerful and deeply honest conversation, I sit down with David Shamszad, author of I Am Someone You Know: The Fight for Recovery and Mental Health, to talk about the hidden pain behind high-functioning addiction, growing up in an alcoholic home, and the courage it takes to heal.
David shares his journey through childhood trauma, undiagnosed bipolar disorder, suicidal ideation, and eventual recovery, revealing how vulnerability and self-care became his path to freedom.
We explore the power of telling your story, breaking cycles of generational trauma, and how choosing courage—moment by moment—can transform a life.
👉 If you’ve ever felt “high-functioning but secretly falling apart,” this episode will speak directly to your soul.
Action Steps:
- Be vulnerable sooner. Speak the truth — even if your voice shakes.
- Create structure. Build a self-care routine that supports your mental and emotional health.
- Reach out for help. Whether it’s therapy, recovery groups, or supportive friends — connection heals.
- Take one small action today. Success compounds through consistency.
- Remember: It doesn’t have to be this hard. Courage is a decision.
Resources Mentioned:
- I Am Someone You Know by David Shamszad
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
- Dry, A Memoire by Augusten Burrows
- Therapy and coaching for mental health recovery
👊🏼Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
☎️Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
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Transcript:
David, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for bringing me on. Yeah, absolutely. congratulations on publishing your book. I am someone you know. Thank you. What was the tagline? Myth of the high functioning alcoholic? The tagline of the book, the Fight for Recovery and Mental Health.
Amazing. I don’t know where I got that other tagline, but that’s a good tagline too, though. that’s definitely someone’s tagline. That’s a good one. listen, the truth of the matter is, you are an overachiever, I would say. we were chatting before and I was like, yeah, this guy’s got a shit together.
you work really hard. you’re my kind of people. The, overachiever, self-help junkie kind. we’re, we’re gonna have some fun today. We’re gonna talk about, some of the topics that have really been coming up for me and people in my world, issues around dealing with shame.
maybe why telling your story is a great way to deal with, resolving some of that shame. lessons from Relapse Top, that kind of stuff. But I, I always like to start with a little game called the Lightning Round, which [00:01:00] is very slow, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna frontload the,
Okay. Let’s do it. I know considering changing it to the turtle round, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it, but Yeah, no, that’s not as inviting, let’s call it the lightning round. Yeah. Yeah. All right. you’ve been sober nearly 15 years. Mm-hmm. Were there any books that really helped you early on in your recovery journey?
yeah. I spent some time in aa, the big book. Yeah. obviously, also known as Alcoholics Anonymous. Right. there’s a really good book called Dry by Augustine Burroughs. which I’ve read over the years a few times. and it’s always been a very good, kind of affirmation and reminder and something that, yeah, anchors me home a bit.
that one resonated with me. Just the author’s life fit into not this exact same context, but similar kind of communities a high achieving school and college and got into a New York high achieving finance industry scene, [00:02:00] but hid this very deep addiction in a community of people where drinking culture was prevalent and ubiquitous.
the challenge there is confronting this. Addiction in a community environment, where everybody drinks, which was very similar to my, my, my feelings on college. And, I went to a school where I think the drinking culture was, looking back on it now, I think it was insane, you know?
right. I think it was just, it was totally nuts. and at the time it was, it was more inviting, it was more enticing. It was more oh, this is the way to process everything. This is the way to turn a bad day into a good one. This is the way to figure out how to talk to girls and feel comfortable.
This is the way to try new stuff, do something crazy. It was just how to meet people and make friends. It was the conduit towards everything we did. [00:03:00] yeah. you come up in that environment and you just learn to associate drinking with everything.
yeah. Which, that’s a good sort of tipping point into, my story is, I, I started too. Oh. We’re gonna get to your story. Oh, we’re gonna get there. Oh, we’re still in lightning round. We’re in the lightning round. I told you it was slow. We’re in the lightning round.
Yeah, that’s right. You did. You did. You did. Yeah. It’s slow, lightning round. It is. No, I just like to talk about books. Right. I’m a total book nerd. Memoirs are really important for a lot of people in recovery. Mm-hmm. We just need to be able to hear our stories and other people’s experiences. Right. that’s right. if you look at your 15 years of sobriety, is there a theme or a quote or a mantra you live by?
And to give you a little time to kind of think about it, mine’s obviously one day at a time. That’s something that has carried me for over three decades now. Is there something like that that kind of fits for you? Yeah, there is. choose courage right now. Choose courage right now. And what does that mean?
Like, [00:04:00] do it scared. Choose Courage right now means, there are these inflection points every day of our lives, where you can do the harder thing or you can tuck tail and run, or you can kick the can down the road to tomorrow. These happen all the time and they’re as small as. I, I, I wanted to go to the gym today, am I gonna do it?
And they’re as big as, it’s day 29 and I haven’t had a drink. Am I gonna, see day 30 or is 29 to one where I just, I don’t choose to be courageous. I like it. it’s something my coach said, when I was rowing in college, it just reminded us to choose courage right now in the middle of every sort of hard practice or hard workout or whatever.
But it was about something bigger. It wasn’t about, the workout, it was about, a life lesson, [00:05:00] and so that’s what carried me through was what’s the harder thing? What do I want to feel? I’m gonna make a choice and I wanna look back and feel proud of the choice I made.
Yeah. And that’s gonna almost always be the harder one. Yeah. There’s that saying, easy choices, hard life, hard choices, easy life. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that. courage is about leaning in to the discomfort, Mm-hmm. And having that courage and persistence to dig a little deeper, and get the lesson out of life and, and it’s growing pains, really.
So that’s, that’s a really important one. That’s, that’s a one. That’s right. do you have a daily self-care practice, a weekly self-care practice to, really support your mental health? What does that look like for you? Great question. Yes. that’s the cornerstone of everything.
If I didn’t have that routine and really think about and [00:06:00] practice self-care every day, it, I don’t know really where I’d be right now. when I stopped drinking, one of the first things I saw and realized was, it seems obvious now, but at the time it doesn’t ’cause you want to keep drinking.
Right. But within a year, one of the first things that I realized was, holy shit, I’m capable of so much more than I realized I’ve had these handcuffs on me for, Yeah. a decade and change and. I’m seeing success now, at work, and my friends like me and my body feels not like shit, and I’ve, I’ve, I can run again.
and that’s what I latched onto was these little feelings of success and then, okay, cool. I’m doing good at work now. Let me do better. Let me do more. Let me take advantage of the fact that I have my access to my intelligence and resources and I’m not at work bleary-eyed.
and what that’s led to over time, is [00:07:00] creating a feeling of continuity and success wherever I can. Like, that’s what keeps me going. not drinking, is about self care. It’s also about. Stepping out of my shadow and living my best life and doing as much as I can.
and so a part of that isn’t just making it to another day without drinking. That became the key first step and removing the handcuffs. But then it came a disciplined approach to work and a disciplined approach to my physical health. And yeah, a lot of exercise and working out and creating positive feelings and positive associations with other activities.
getting therapy, we talked about therapy before. All the many therapists seen over the years. kudos to you by the way, for continuing to evolve and I feel like that was when you said that, you told me earlier before we hit record, that you had 20 therapists or something, or 12 or something.
It swap, yeah. 12. Sorry, didn’t mean to up the ante for you, but, to [00:08:00] me that’s a sign of growth because, Typically a therapist or a coach or somebody has a specific skillset and the point of working with somebody is to utilize their skillset. And when you feel like you’ve reached the limit to grow and evolve and change and add in other tools that other people specialize in, right?
So I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing as having lots of different, I actually think that that’s probably a really good idea. I’ve had to meet AA sponsors over the years and each person has something different to offer. So I think that’s, that’s actually really wise. Yeah, I had, the last guy I worked with, last coach and LFMT that I worked with, worked with him for three years.
He’s awesome, Mike. Bless his heart. we got to a point where about not that long ago where he said, you kinda know all the stuff that I was gonna teach you. Yeah, we, we’ve done this for three years. Yeah. We can keep meeting. You can, I appreciate your business, but you’re sort of at a point where [00:09:00] my practice has given you Yeah.
What, what I’m, what I’m able to give you. Yeah. And what I’ve learned to teach people. so I’ve, he used the word graduated. I’m like, oh, okay. Cool. That, that’s, that’s great. Yeah. So, now I’m I’ll, I’ll probably see someone else exactly like you said for, for the next thing. Yeah, yeah.
No, that’s awesome. I love that. I love trying to listen. I try all the therapies. I’m sort of like recovery, promiscuous. I’ll try all things, all the things I tried, all the drugs. I will try all the therapies. That is a phrase I have not heard, and I like it. That is good. Yes. It’s, it’s all me. if you could go back to the David of 15 years ago.
What would you, oh boy. Like, what is something that you learned about yourself that surprised you over the years? oh man.
yeah. what I would tell myself if I went back, 20 years is, it doesn’t have to be this hard. Yeah. be vulnerable sooner, talk sooner, get help sooner. that’s what I would tell [00:10:00] myself.
I love that. But I I did not feel like I had the language to talk about mental health. I didn’t feel like I had the language to talk about addiction.
I didn’t feel like there was an open forum or a place to go and at least in my community, and generation to talk about the changes that were happening in my head that I was, that were really, really scaring me and what to do about it. And I didn’t do anything about it until, I eventually landed in the hospital.
I wanna put a pin in that for a second ’cause I kind of, we’re done with the lightning room ’cause I wanna get into, how we got here. And typically I’ll ask you to talk a little bit about childhood ’cause the experiences that we have in childhood really set the stage for what’s to come later.
indeed. So maybe we could start with, what was your family like, life like growing up? Like what did your parents do for a living? Did you have siblings? That kind of thing. yeah. But dad was an immigrant, from Iran and he moved here when he was about, in his late teens,
and [00:11:00] eventually he, started a business as a photographer. I met my mom, and eventually had us, my dad, was an alcoholic and, he’s been sober himself since he was about. Oh, when I was about 15, so he was probably,45 or so.
and amazing for him. But yeah, childhood was rough in my house. and I love it. I was gonna say, because if he didn’t get sober until you were 15, that’s a lot of formative years of living somebody Oh, yeah. With, an issue. Oh, yeah. no, it was, it was scary in my house. and I would, I would tell this to my parents now.
It was very traumatic for me and for my sisters. you have two sisters. Two sisters. Are you the oldest? No, I’m the, I’m the middle. Me too. Yeah. Stuck in the middle. No child stuff. Yeah. Yeah. so yeah, that, that, that was my childhood. he, WW was extremely hardworking and extremely, dedicated.
And, he, he wasn’t without love [00:12:00] for us, but he was. He was addicted to alcohol, and that shaped his behavior and that shaped the way he treated us, that shaped our lives, to be honest. do you recall like specific situations that, made you, you were talking about feeling scared.
Mm-hmm. Can you think of specific, like what did that look like? yeah, I can recall a lot of them. I say like, his temper was, yeah, his temper was explosive. he still has a temper, he’s a fiery dude. and that’s okay. he’s got, he’s, he’s got a very.
Explosive personality for, for better or for worse, depends on how it’s applied. But his temper was explosive and that explosive temper was at the time imbued with alcohol, you know? Right. Which made it 10 times worse. so very little things would set him off. any sign of perceived disrespect would set him off, you know, to a point where, yeah, things could get pretty [00:13:00] ugly.
Did he physically abuse you and your sister was like, was there corporal punishment? Like, what, what did that look like? Yeah, there, there were moments where it got physical. those were few and farther between. it was more of a psychological and fear,
Verbal abuse that was like. Predominant when it did get physical. It was very scary. yeah. You know, I’ll just, I was thinking as, as you asked that, we had a conversation earlier about how deep we were gonna go. Yeah. And I said, we’re gonna go deep. So to answer your question, ’cause I hesitated for a bit.
yeah, I think that the scariest thing that I remember, probably the most vividly. I, you know, I had sort of chose to spend my birthday weekend with friends, I was like 14 or whatever, a freshman in, in high school, had just moved to a new school and made new friends.
So I was kind of trying to explore that. And one thing that he’s very self-conscious about is his language and English. and, it’s his second language. So it’s like just little grammar mistakes that people make. Just it does, [00:14:00] those little things that don’t quite connect and it’s, it can be funny.
but to the person it’s probably not. Right. it’s, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And so, language always was a trigger point. like if you corrected him? Yeah. Or like showed him up, So I was at a, private school and I was like getting into doing well at school and, I, there’s something, I, I use the word gregarious and like.
I who uses that word? I had just learned it and I’m like, I went out with friends and that made them so upset and was like, I’m sorry I’m gregarious,
But I sat in a way that was meant to use a word that he didn’t know. I knew that I was doing that, and he knew that I was doing that, and that just set him off. And, the real underlying issue was that I chose to, instead of doing a birthday dinner, which was probably more our custom, I chose have a, I was at a park with my friends and we were probably smoking weed and drinking beer and eating [00:15:00] food.
that was the real. issue. Hmm. And that was just a thing that they just couldn’t really deal with. that hurt them like very, very much. my dad like sprung out of his seat. he was fast. he moved very fast. He moved like player, was an athlete.
Yeah. Yeah. And he’s like, he is, he is like much smaller than me. but like fiercely quick and, and just like, flew towards me and I’m like backing up in the kitchen and, and he corners me against the counter and the adjacent wall. and he like takes a knife, right? a big old knife and he turns it towards himself, like right here and then is pulling me towards it.
So I’m being pressed against like the, the counter behind me and like the butt of this knife. Right. Do you wanna hurt us? Do you wanna kill me? Do you wanna hurt us? And I’m petrified and can’t move. I mean, I’m seeing the blade of this knife, poking at his like shirt, you know?
[00:16:00] Yeah, yeah. that’s the physical side that I think of it, it wasn’t so much a daily routine of like the belt, it was more these very intense moments that were physically, Yeah. Very traumatic. the, that to me is something that’s Yeah. Extremely, hard to forget and probably had a very lasting impact.
Right. yeah. No, that’d be super traumatic. Yeah, that was a tough one. I mean, you know that for sure. And, my dad’s great. He’s come a long way. he’s set the stage He showed me a template for quitting. Right. And he was the first one in his lineage to, ’cause he grew up in an abusive household.
I’ve, I’ve learned later. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve learned later from my mom, more than him, what he went through as a kid, which was probably 10 times more intense and frequent, and abusive and violent, and a lot of alcohol [00:17:00] in his house. And so, you know, there’s, there’s less blame for that and more understanding, you took steps towards putting a stop to the generational trauma that our lineage mm-hmm.
Has, has, has put forward. And then I took steps past where you went. Right. And instead of quitting drinking when my kid was 15. Which is better than not quitting at all. I quit drinking before I had a kid, and maybe his formative years will be a degree better than mine, which were a good degree better than yours, and we can keep this thing going.
So that’s how I think of him, not as, you know, this, sort of this haunting memories from the past and more of that’s a reality. And him and I both have to reconcile with that. It’s, it’s the truth. It’s not going away. Yeah. yeah. But looking at his own arc and seeing where it was incredibly difficult and had its own [00:18:00] redemption, right.
And, value that, and I value that immensely. Now I always say that, you when we talk about our past and our parents, it’s not an indictment of them. We’re just simply stating the facts and sharing our experiences. The truth of the matter is, it’s our parents grow and evolve too over time.
I had some, I had very similar stories from when I was young with my mom, and by the time she died, she and I were best friends. She was a completely different person. I, I will tell, you know, I’ll, I’ll share stories with my husband about what my mom was like, and he just, he doesn’t know that person.
He literally cannot reconcile the stories I’m telling with the woman that he knew. ’cause she was so loving and positive and I would imagine, oh, totally. Your dad’s a, you know, sober. Did he go through like a recovery program or he he found his own way or, yeah, he was, I think he was going to meetings every day.
Alcoholic’s Anonymous. Okay. Yeah. He was [00:19:00] very committed to aa. Yeah. And then he had a therapist and a counselor as well that focused on addiction. That’s amazing. Alcohol recovery. Oh, yeah. And then he was locked into that for, a long, long time. Yeah. he moved out. I mean, my mom, yeah. My mom kicked him out, basically.
and he ended up, you know, and said, you’re not, you’re not coming back here unless you’re sober. You know? And, and of story, for her. Yeah. And so shout. Yeah. Right. And so shout out to her, and I’ve talked to her a lot about this too, how did that, because my first feelings on that were how did that take so long?
Right. And then learning more about it and understanding the perspective of, it’s not quite that simple. it’s very complex. Yeah. Yeah. We’re in a family. He is. We have a house, you guys are, we, we need food. You guys are in school. It’s not just like flipping a switch. They, they love each other. Yeah.
Yeah. There’s deep love there. it’s not just this simple thing and, and [00:20:00] understanding that more, but eventually she did say yeah, you gotta go. and you can’t come back until you’ve, you have made this change and you’re not drinking and are seriously working on a long pathway towards recovery and changing your behavior and psychology.
Yeah. she, you know, she started that off. She, got that the ball rolling for him. and I remember for the longest time, he, He had this, and my dad is super cool. people that meet my dad now, think he’s this very, zany, I’m in Berkeley, California.
He wears cowboy boots. That’s his, he, he lives a few miles from, from us. he wears cowboy boots most days. He goes to yoga for, he is 81. He goes to yoga for an hour and a half every day. He’s 81. Yeah. and he does yoga. That’s amazing. He does the hot, the Bikram where it’s Oh yeah, yeah.
Hot fucking 105 degrees. Dude, that’s my jam. He does every, every day. And he’s, he’s fit and he’s got, acuity. He’s yeah. He is doing really good. it’s amazing what happens when you quit [00:21:00] drinking and go to therapy. Totally. And people that meet him now, think he’s the incredibly interesting charismatic Yeah.
person and they’re drawn to him and in a way, and I totally get it, Yeah, I see it too. I’m oh man. if you only knew there’s, there’s there’s plenty more where this all came from, but yeah. This is great. I love that you’re resonating with people that way. that’s super cool.
My friends and coworkers and people in my circle who’ve met him and crossed paths, it’s always very fun for me to see that happen. Ah, because he’s so DI love that. That’s cool. Let’s, let’s kind of switch gears a little bit ’cause you’re talking about by the time you were 15, you have this birthday.
Yeah, I’m only 15 now. there’s a lot.
Experimenting. Was it around that 15, 16-year-old period? No, 12, 13. Okay. It’s in the house. So you had access to alcohol and Yeah. I mean, when, when your parents drank a lot, you just assume things are normal. Yeah. that is normal for [00:22:00] you. Yeah. I, I just sort of grew up assuming that all adults drank.
Yeah. Full glasses of alcohol with dinner every night. Like, not, not a, not an on the rocks small drink, but just a glass of it like you would drink, Long Island iced tea. Yeah. I thought that was just sort of a thing. I thought people drank when they drove like that, because that’s what I saw.
I’m serious. I just figured that was kinda oh, when you’re older this is sort of a thing. Wow. yeah, there was a comfort and familiarity with it. I was also, did you have that experience in the beginning where you have immigrant, I don’t know if your mom is an immigrant as well, but No.
No. So y yeah, so I, I had sort of a similar situation where my mom is an immigrant from Mexico City and my daddy was from Kentucky, but it was this disparity in my own family. I go to the Mexican side of the family and they look at me like I’m white, and then I go to my white side of the family and they look at me like I’m Mexican.
So it was kind of interesting, even, even in my own family, it was kind of weird. Did you have a similar vibe [00:23:00] to that? Yeah. you said it. I, I like kind of being other, I didn’t know who I was as a kid. nobody does. Yeah. Yeah. It was. There was like, it’s confusing. It was confusing and, and, um, yeah, being in, yeah, being in a household with, kind of this mixed biracial family and then a parent, one parent that’s an immigrant, another that’s, just a long line of, multiple generations in, in the States.
Yeah. yeah, it was weird. I had kids that were like, you know, there’s like a, there was like Aladdin, Aladdin jokes were very prevalent. Oh yeah. That was prince, prince of Persia was big back then, Oh, yeah. it was a lot of that, and it was from the mean kids, it was to be mean from my friends.
It was in jest, but it’s all still very not okay. I don’t belong and who am I? Yeah, that’s confusing. Yeah. I always was. Gregarious, I always had a pretty easy time, fitting in and kind of sliding in with, a cool crowd and, being [00:24:00] social. And, did you have that chameleon ability to sort of blend in?
I think I did. think I was able to kind of, figure that out and yeah. talk and comport myself in a way that sort of, yeah, fit nicely with whatever kids were doing at that time. But, it wasn’t so much the biracial thing, it was that I was using that skill to, of chameleon a bit or blending in or whatever.
It was more, yeah, it was more concealing, sadness. I was a very sad I felt very, a lot of sadness when I was a kid. home was very traumatic. I felt extremely insecure. A lot. I felt, yeah, I felt like a very constant disappointment, to my family. That made me feel shame every day.
that was sort of what I carried around and what I was covering up, with the drinking, with, with trying to fit in. That was the thing that I was [00:25:00] concealing with laughter and eventually, yeah. I think that’s why I, I remember the, when we first started drinking, it wasn’t, that immediate trepidation or a sense of oh my God, this is, this is crazy.
it gave way so quickly, I was intoxicated, You’re intoxicated when you drink. I was intoxicated, in the more emotional sense of almost like love. it was the, I was like, oh my God, this is the thing that makes all the pieces fit for me. yeah. And yeah, I the first time I blacked out was the summer before ninth grade.
and it was, oh man, got into a lot of trouble. That, that’s the other thing is I, I had reason to feel like a disappointment. I was doing very badly in school. I’m hard of hearing, I grew up with hearing loss and oh, and a hearing aid, it was so hard to get through school and oh, wow.
Hear teachers and pay attention and get, I struggled. I struggled as, even in fifth grade, struggled too. Focus and stay in class. [00:26:00] I got in trouble. I couldn’t really hear, I couldn’t, it wasn’t coming together. I was always getting in trouble and then drinking. What did, how did you have hearing loss?
Was it just congenital? Or? Congenital? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I still have, yeah, I still have hearing aids today. and yeah, it’s not a thing that bothers me now, but it made it hard going through school. Sure. That makes a lot of sense. your parents are mad at you for not getting good grades and you’re disappointing them.
Yeah. They’re paying for school and then I’m getting shitty grades. Right. And spending time in the hall because I’m can’t focus on what’s going on. I’m acting out and joking around and then I’m in the hallway and then I’m not learning anything. And this thing keeps repeating. So I was doing very bad in school.
Drinking and smoking weed became a very safe place to feel an escape from what I felt at home. And sort of the, the shame of being a constant disappointment. and yeah, it was it had a lot of allure. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We’ve developed these coping strategies to cover up the shame that we [00:27:00] feel.
When did you, I’m sure it escalated. Were you, did you get into any legal trouble or did you have a rock bottom moment? What did that look like for you to make you decide that you should quit? Oh, quit drinking. I thought you meant when I was in eighth grade. I’m future pacing you a little bit, because it’s usually lightning, lightning round.
I just zapped you with the future. Yeah, yeah. but you went through a period of where, where it was manageable? ’cause I know you mentioned drinking a bit in college. Yeah. Let, let me go, let me actually, let me go lightning round, ’cause I’m only 14, this will interview will take forever. Okay.
Almost got kicked out of high school and they said, Hey, you gotta go to summer school. You gotta make up the classes you failed and you gotta come back and do, do okay at least, or you, you’re not gonna go here. and I, and I was lucky to even get into this school. It was, I was on the wait list and I got in, it’s a, a private school in sf.
I went to summer school, realized that Oakland tech summer school, oh man, okay, I don’t wanna finish high school here. got [00:28:00] back to school. I had one amazing, I had many amazing teachers, but the first amazing teacher I had, it was like the first time I ever was oh my God, this class is awesome.
It was a Shakespeare class. And I was whoa. Henry iv. I felt myself excited about the school for the first time reading Henry the fourth part one. Wow. and if you ever read Henry the fourth part one, whoever’s listening. You’ll see why his story was one of drinking and fucking around with fall staff and being a disappointment to his family.
until he ascended. Yeah, literally. And, so I started doing really well in school, thrilled about school. I start, I was happy for the first time I think of junior and senior year as some of the happiest times of my life because I was getting straight A’s. Wow. My parents loved it.
It also coincided with my, when my dad wasn’t drinking anymore. So the whole house was feeling a lot of success. Right. and then I got into Dartmouth, which was super [00:29:00] cool. I went there and, was, was rowing, was doing cool stuff, off to a really good start. And then like my sophomore, junior year.
yeah, I just started to mood swings. I started to get, I started to feel out of my head level of sadness. I would have days where I depression. I, well, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t going back to not knowing the language of, of this stuff, but I was yeah, I was, I was feeling depression.
But what it felt like to me was just why can’t I move? Why can’t I get outta bed? Why can’t I brush my, why does brushing my teeth seem so impossible right now? Why can’t I talk to someone without feeling like I’m miles away, yet we’re face to face. I have these, these days that I felt like that.
And, then it would go away and then it would feel like total exuberance. every crew practice was like this electric experience and every party, every, bout with friends was just like. [00:30:00] I was just so alive and I just sort of just, these, my moods just kinda swung,
And I’m 20, 21 or whatever. I got extremely, I got so comfortable with drinking, particularly when I felt out of place, when I felt sadness. Yeah. and that was just the, there was the way I mentioned in the beginning, just the way I learned to cope, the way I learned to sort of redirect my, get my mind away from feeling sad.
and then I got outta college, I was actually working with, I’m drinking a lot. I don’t really know what’s going on with my head. I know something’s wrong, but I’m not talking to anybody. it was after college, in that first year, it’s the first time I remember actually starting to think about.
I started to think about being dead. There was times when this sadness would get so bad that I actually was thinking about, not contemplation, but ideation at that point. Like, [00:31:00] I think being dead might be better than this if this never stops. I think, I think not being alive would be better than this.
Never stopping is brutal. Yeah. Yeah. And, and and that was scary. And I’m, I’m still not going back to what I would tell myself. Doesn’t have to be this hard, I wasn’t talking about this to anybody. and then I had a job working, I was, I, I worked in a residential, treatment for kids.
So I was working with juveniles. most of them had been, in. juvenile hall. they were incarcerated kids. Mm-hmm. It was in Rhode Island, so it was called Training School, which was a funny name for it, but that was Juvenile Hall and Rhode Island is the training school. or they were foster kids and they were in this program.
and in working with these kids who had their own trauma, this is a trauma filled place now that I’m in and I’m still, I’m having mood swings that are getting outta control. I’m thinking about, I, I’m thinking about hurting myself a lot. I’m wondering [00:32:00] how I can keep moving forward, feeling this.
’cause it’s when you’re having an episode, and I didn’t know I was having an episode. I didn’t know what bipolar disorder was. I didn’t know any of this stuff. Mm mm-hmm. I only know it now, but when you’re having an episode Even if you’ve had a bunch of episodes, the, the characteristic thing to me about them, one of them is you don’t think they’re gonna end.
Yeah. in the moment of having an episode, you actually lose sight of the fact that they have a beginning, middle, and end. Okay. You, you, you just sort of forget that, okay, this is an alternating phase of depression and mania. this is like a cold, this is a few days or whatever it is.
It doesn’t feel that way. You just sort of forget and you think, okay, this is the time where I’ve completely fucking lost my mind and it’s irreversible. Yeah. so I was feeling like that a lot. It was very, very scary. Yeah. but then I would feel great and I would feel on top of the world and I physically, mentally felt like I had endless amounts of energy.
and one time I [00:33:00] was feeling so high and this, this was the inflection point I was feeling so. Euphoric. I had a day off. I had been working two weeks straight, nonstop, little sleep. I didn’t need to sleep, little food, didn’t need to eat much. and I’m like, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna ride my bike all day.
I’m gonna go do a 50 mile ride. and I was in, I ran in bikes, but I wasn’t, that wasn’t like a normal thing for me to do. So I’m gonna to go ride 50 miles. I’m gonna go crazy on it. I felt like I wanted, I had so much energy, I thought I could burn off this energy and finally get sleep without having to drink to fall asleep.
I went for this bike ride and I wasn’t, I, I still have this energy and then I was like, I’m gonna go to the track. I’m gonna run, I’m, I’m gonna test myself and see if I can run a five minute mile. I’m gonna go all out. And, I did that and I’m like, still have this energy and I finally start to wind down.
I’m like, oh, [00:34:00] this is cool. I feel peaceful for the first time. I feel like my mind is quiet. This is nice. I could, I could even go to sleep and not need to drink. I could just, I feel normal. And I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up and within 30 seconds, I immediately knew that I was having the worst episode I’d ever had.
I knew I woke up and I knew this was the worst day of my life. Woke up on the couch and sun comes through and I opened my eyes and I know that I’m in hell. And yeah, I was, it was, I was terrified. Yeah, I, my mind was, was turning on itself. it was, I thought I, and I just thought I had gone insane. I still haven’t really, at this point, I hadn’t talked to anybody.
I was kind of looking for someone to talk to. I’m unable to speak. I find my boss because I just needed someone near me. ’cause I was scared. Yeah. And he realized I can’t even talk. he’s let me go get the counselor. ’cause there was a [00:35:00] counselor there that worked with the kids.
He’s let go get him because I’m not, I’m not set up to deal to talk to you right now. You need Right, right. You need a professional. but I, I can’t sit in his office alone. So I just start moving, you want, you want to move, you wanna you wanna not sit still. So I ended up, this was an outdoor facility, so there was a wilderness based therapy.
It was, the name of the game there. Mm-hmm. I wandering around the woods and end up in this part of the woods where we would go to have a smoke or a coffee or, whatever we did for a break. It’s just old. There was three camp sites, but there used to be four. So I was in the empathy one that we used to mess around it.
And we always had a knife on us. ’cause it was, we would use it for the counselors wore camouflage pants and had a knife to cut lashings and do all this activities and stuff. I was in that mindset of I feel I’m in a house that’s burning down and it would be better to jump out of the window than to just burn here.
Right. And that was the best way I can describe my mindset. And so I took my knife out and I [00:36:00] hold it against my wrist and I, I’m thinking that’s the only way this pain would end. And then, this counselor Mike, who’s just like an angel in my life that ascended and thumbs up from behind me and grabs my hand and pulls it away from my wrist and he takes this knife and he puts me in a bear hug and he pulls me to the ground.
And I passed out. I don’t remember anything after that except for waking up in a hospital. I just was passed out in his car. and I woke up in a psychiatric hospital and that’s where, over the course of two weeks and talking to doctors and being medicated with anti-psychotics. So I, just kind of in a stupor and talking to these people about what might have been going on, they’re like, yeah, it’s appears to us is that you’ve been suffering from bipolar disorder, that mm-hmm.
Those are the alternating phases of mania and depression that you’ve been Yeah. Feeling. and I left there with some instructions like, here’s your medications. [00:37:00] And I had a mood stabilizer and an SSRI and I also had these antipsychotics to really slow my me down. yeah. I was, event I took my pills.
I was like, okay, I’m gonna take these pills ’cause. I don’t ever want to feel that again. that was terrifying. I know that. but they’re also like, you can’t drink and do drugs those fuck with the medication. Those also can trigger episodes. they’re not good for your brain. Yeah. and I’m like, oh, don’t go there.
I’m not make, I, I don’t, I don’t believe that that’s a commitment I’m gonna make. therapy and treatment, going to, going to groups, learning about dual diagnosis. There’s all these things they’re telling me to do. Dual diagnosis being substance abuse disorder and mental illness. Right. And I’m like, I just, I did not, I did not embrace treatment at all.
And I also, the only people that knew what was going on were, my, my girlfriend who I had just been started seeing within the past six months or a year of this happening, [00:38:00] who I had not told what was happening in my mind most of the time. She knew, and then obviously this counselor knew, and my boss, who I had run into, knew.
and I think I told my best friend. and that was it. that was it. And for the next 10 years, we worked there for two years and then me and her moved to San Francisco, for the next 10 years. I lived in this space of having this illness that I did not take care of, and I self-medicated with alcohol.
Mm-hmm. And I drank all the time and I drank amounts that were so dangerous. I started taking pills, Vicodin at some point in the later years, that decade. Oh God. I got in fights. I got arrested three times. Got my ass kicked in jail. I got, I got hurt a lot. I hurt people. I drove [00:39:00] drunk.
I drove, blacked out. I, I drove to where anyone crossing the street was in serious fucking peril, Yeah. and there we go. There’s the answer to your question of, and, and I’m, and I’m thinking about my life co. My, my, I have no, my career is not taking off. I had started real estate, but I couldn’t, I was also working part-time jobs.
’cause I wasn’t really making enough money in real estate. It wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t successful at all. thinking about my life and how much I’ve valued, it was a real thing a lot. I was in immense sadness and a sense of despair. Lot and drinking only stopped that for a day or two. Uh, but when I drank, it’s not a happy drunk.
It it, the pain turned off in, in one way, but it turned on in another. yeah, it was, it was anger, it was rage. It went outward. It projected from me. I was not safe to be around. I got my friend arrested one time just for being with me, [00:40:00] Oh, you know. Yeah. Bless his heart. He’s still my best friend, but Wow.
Uh, and yeah, so the rock bottom, I, I suppose, if you can’t see it already, it was the last night I ever drank was one night I went out. I remember no one really wanted to. People kind of, I think were staying away from me, it’s like. How much could we be around this dude? Yeah.
We like, we love you from who we know you are. Deep down the person we knew when you, we were 20, on the crew team or in our fraternity or whatever. You’re this sweet kid with a big heart, but you’re fucking a mess. Yeah. And so I’d go out a lot by myself. I would end up drinking by myself a lot.
I’d go out and, it was this Barbara, myself, I met up with some people I hadn’t seen since college. So they didn’t know me. They thought I was still kind of like normal, a little bit more, just sort of tempered person. And, I was in an awful place. I, I, I thought that my girlfriend, same girl was.
She had told me [00:41:00] recently, like, I don’t know if I could watch this anymore. Like, I can’t not know. Yeah. If you’re in jail, I can’t not know where the fuck you are. This is scary. And so I thought she was leaving and I’m stopped. I’m starting to really not care. I can deteriorating and I’m starting to feel okay with that.
And I’m thinking that the only real partner I have in my life is alcohol. I felt, I felt connected to alcohol in the same way of like, if it was a companion, hundred percent. And I’m like, it’s very loyal. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t, it won’t leave you. It is always there and plentiful and available whenever you, whenever you need it.
I was starting to feel like I’m okay, this can be my best friend, this can be my partner, this can be my companion, and we’ll ride off into the sunset together. And if I die, I die like one way or another. But I was starting to become okay with this in a way. this one night I had just was in an awful place and I just was like,
I’m gonna just gonna drink and see how much, I can see how drown myself in alcohol and just see how deep it goes. [00:42:00] And last thing I remember is I was outside having a smoke, having a cigarette. And it was the last thing I remember. I woke up in my apartment and I’ve got I got blood all over me.
I’ve got these cuts in my head and I’ve got these bruises and I’ve got these cuts on my hand. I’ve got these bruises on my body. I have no idea to this day. what happened that night. I, I was terrified. I mean, you usually remember a couple little details of these nights,
Like little things to just sort of know little flashes. Where you’re like, you could kind of connect the dots to sort of see a path of, all right, I went here, then I went here, then I had pizza, then I went to bed. You know, hopefully nothing too weird happened in those intervals. I can’t remember, you know, but you sort of trust that if I remembered pizza, I definitely would’ve remembered if something insane had happened.
but this one is different. This was the first time, I, I, the, the pages were missing from the book is like the metaphor. I, there was not a shred of memory, and so I’m terrified and I’m starting to wonder what happened and is there someone, I’m like, is there someone I else [00:43:00] hurt on the other side of this?
I clearly got into, did I get, I either fell on the stairs or got into a fight or got my jumped, I have no idea. But the way I acted when I drank, always led to me getting into confrontations because I was. I was, I was hurting. And so I acted that way. You angry? Yeah. And so then I’m starting to wonder how I got home and I’m like, I’m like, damn, I have my keys on me.
there’s no way I drove, even in that state, I would’ve known not to drive. ’cause I was seven miles away from my apartment on the other side of town, across a crowded Saturday night city. I’m like, there’s no way I drove, but I’m trying to figure out how I got home. I have no cab receipts. There’s no way I could have walked because it was seven miles.
and I’m I’m doing things checking my wallet for receipts and or checking my phone to see who I called, going online to see my Wells Fargo. did I pay for a cab? what the hell’s going on? And, and then I’m like, I need to go outside. I gotta see if my car’s outside. So I’m wandering around the neighborhood, just praying that I don’t find my [00:44:00] car, you know?
And I’m like, go a few blocks, and my heart is racing, and I’m like, sure enough, I find my, I see the bumper, you know, I see my car, in the spot, and I’m like, pet? I’m like, I’m terrified. You know? It gets in my car and there’s blood on the handle and inside the car and Oh wow. I’m like, yeah.
now I’m starting to wonder what, what happened? Did I hurt someone? whose blood is this? what the fuck is going on? Yeah. It’s go inside. And I’m I, I, I remember going online to see if there was reported hit and runs. that was how completely separated from any memory was.
I wouldn’t, I didn’t, I had no idea. And so that was. That, that cigarette outside a bar after finishing it and that last drink was the last drink I’d ever had. And I remember it, it should have been obvious already. enough people had told me and enough things had happened to where it should have been apparent that I was putting other people at risk.
Right? Yeah. but that’s the thing [00:45:00] about being addicted to a drug or alcohol. It’s like you just talk yourself into whatever you need to talk yourself into to get to the next day. You convince yourself that you have a plan to quit eventually, or that you can manage it, or that it’ll become, you could moderate it or that other people are just wrong and they don’t get it.
Or you convince yourself of these things to just keep going one more day, one more day. and then finally that morning I was I’m not only gonna hurt myself, I’m gonna fucking hurt somebody. Yeah, I’m gonna I’m gonna put my girlfriend in a place where I’m changing her life for the worst forever.
Yeah. I’m gonna be the reason someone gets a phone call from a hospital that someone that their son or daughter or whatever is hurt, Or worse. Yeah. This isn’t about me. I am a, I am a menace, is, and, and I, I knew, I just had clarity for the first time. and, I’ve went to, I, and I told my girlfriend, don’t leave.
I’m gonna do this. I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I’m gonna do [00:46:00] this and just don’t leave. Give me a chance. I’m gonna fix this and I know I can. And I had a sense of purpose and strength and clarity that I had not had in a very, very, very long time.
And she took me over to an outpatient chemical dependency recovery program, outpatient rehab basically. And, I talked to a counselor there and I told her, she was a clinical psychologist. This was her focus was drug and alcohol addiction and recovery. I told her what my life had looked like for the past.
I told her everything I told you up to this point of what I’d been doing since I was 18. she looked at me square and she’s like, Dave, if you don’t stop drinking, you’re not gonna survive. she told me straight up, this woman told me straight up that I was gonna die.
she put, and she said it with a sense of certitude and of this calm, composed clarity. I just believed it. Yeah, she believed it and I knew she was right. Yeah. and she’s like, you have to stop drinking if you wanna live [00:47:00] that. that was the message, right? And I’m like, and I’m barely.
I don’t know. I was 29 or 30. I mean, I’m like, my life is, is so early on and she’s talking about me perishing, And I believed her. And I left and I drove to my office and I just, the, the, the sky, the, the, the water, everything changed color around me. And I, and I could see something for the first time in a while that I could do this and I could do something.
And I got to my office and I had this idea. I’m like, I can’t, I, I’ve let myself down so many times in this ’cause it’s not like over that past 10 years I hadn’t thought about stopping. I had plenty of points of slowing down and even some periods where I’d slowed down pretty successfully and had limited.
I am only having 10 drinks tonight, which is still a lot, but it was a limit. And then at some point I was only having six drinks and I had, and I was running again, and I had these periods of [00:48:00] success, but I never believed that they would sustain and they never did. I, I could let myself down,
I had this idea that what if I made the commitment to everybody around me who was still a part of my life? What if I made this commitment out loud? ’cause I knew my str, I knew that a strength I had was loyalty and commitment to other people. And I would, I knew I didn’t let down my teammates.
I knew I was always there for my friends in whatever shape I was in. I was a loyal friend. And so I just said, what if I tell everyone, what if I tell everyone that I’m stopping and ask for their help? And for them to just be aware and support me in any way they were willing to do and to shout this out and be super, basically be vulnerable and do what I probably should have done a long time ago.
And so before I could think twice about it, I wrote this email, I said, I know I have a problem. You know, I have a problem. And I know that I, I [00:49:00] started with telling everyone that I had woke up and blood all over me and in my car. and I’m so scared. And I know I need to not have a drop of alcohol in me for a long time and maybe forever.
And I wrote that. I wrote maybe forever. ’cause I knew, I really knew. And I hit then before I could think twice about this. that is, talk about courage. It’s nine 30 in the morning before I could lose this, clarity. let it subside again and convince myself that I could somehow continue this.
I was there. That was the last drink I ever had. The people wrote me back and many of them are still in my life. My girlfriend is my wife now. She’s the, my, my, she’s an angel. She’s, we have a family, we have a life together. She stayed by my side through all this and, came out the other side with me.
And it is the only reason that I am here right now talking to you. I’m sure of that. a lot of my friends and my sisters and my parents and everyone was like, we’re here. Like, we’re still [00:50:00] here. this is so wonderful to hear. And we’ll go to, let’s go to a movie. Let’s go. Let’s go shoot hoop.
Let’s go run, let’s go. Whatever you wanna do. Not at a bar we’re in, we’re locked in. Let’s do it. That’s so amazing. Yeah. So that’s it. That was the, that was the, that was the descent and then what was at least my rock bottom. I understand rock bottom is a phrase that’s used a lot and a lot of people’s rock bottoms are worse than that.
the true rock bottom is not making it. And that’s, it can get worse, yeah. But that was my rock bottom and when I stopped, yeah. Rock bottom is typically when you decide to stop digging. Right, because there’s always, there’s always an escape hatch below that. There’s always for sure there’s 50 feet below it.
but it’s when you decide to stop. And it sounds like you had, in recovery they talk about post-traumatic stress growth. Yeah. Right. that’s what I feel like a rock bottom represents. It’s a traumatic experience followed by a profound level of growth. [00:51:00] you acted on a moment of willingness.
You demonstrated courage and got accountability, you did all the right things. Mm-hmm. And you and I had talked before and you mentioned that you participated in some peer support group, maybe 12 step a little bit. And that was good for you for a while, and that you’ve, it doesn’t sound like you’re really participating in those communities, but it sounded like you really benefited from it.
Is that a fair statement? Yeah, I started, within the first week I was like, I gotta go to aa. that seems like the thing. I knew my dad, had done it. And that’s just was like, that’s a thing that you do, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty common. Yeah. And I, I didn’t know much about it.
I went, I went to meetings for a, for a little while. it didn’t, I didn’t, if I was a little bit more mature, and I was a younger person, I, I, my approach to quitting was, I did it and I’m here, but it, but it wasn’t with the same clarity and, or, or sorry, it wasn’t with the same maturity that I have now, obviously, I could have gotten more [00:52:00] help.
I could have used more resources. I, I, I use my tools, I use my, my toughness, I use my sense of when a workout is hard, you keep pushing. Mm-hmm. I used that, that I had learned, over the course of my life to get through hard stuff. but I didn’t take the easiest pathway. I mean, it was the white knuckles approach for sure.
I mean, I just grip my teeth and, and, and wore it quite a few days, quite a few nights. yeah, I went to the gym at, at 11:00 PM on weekends, to be at a place. That wasn’t the bar when I was used to drinking. which is a good thing. I’m glad I did. It just wasn’t, I didn’t always take the easier, the easiest route.
Yeah. I hear exercise for a lot of people is, a very, it’s very helpful. Oh, it’s different things. Different things work for different people. And I just wanna clarify, meetings in the program are two separate things and they’re both helpful. Yeah. Right. And it sounds like you got what you needed.
even sober, I got what I needed. Yeah. I got what I needed from it. yeah. Could’ve gotten more. I started going to AA again later. yeah, [00:53:00] up until COVID actually, and then kept going, online to some Yeah. Zoom AA meetings for a while. and yeah, I, I, I feel I got what I needed.
the community’s amazing. I, yeah. But I, I was we talked about, a bit earlier, Stop drinking and you remove that from the equation. And it’s we have so much, we have so much intelligence and creativity and drive, humans are amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Your our heart and soul and mind are fucking incredible.
Yeah. And if we let them be at their full potential, amazing things can start happening. Yeah. And I just started to within a year, me and, my wife, we were engaged, and I’ve got a dog and love these dogs and I’m doing great at work. I didn’t quit drinking to do good at work, but it was a byproduct of it.
Yeah. And I’m like, success starts to become, success became addictive. Success became the thing that I realized oh wow, I can, I can do so much now. I’m kicking [00:54:00] ass now. It’s amazing. Once we did, it’s we have all this energy that’s sort of a tornado and then when you drop the alcohol and you put blinders on, oh, suddenly you have principles and goals and you have the ability and resources to focus your energy on something.
That energy can propel you very far and amazing things can happen. Totally. and that’s my message to people about drinking it’s not that it’s bad, that it’s evil, that I judge you for it or that you aren’t enlightened and don’t get it. It’s not that it’s just it’s your, it’s it, it’s simply that you’re amazing and you can do amazing things.
but you are standing under a shadow. there, there are. You’re putting handcuffs on yourself. Yeah. And that’s what I was just thinking. The handcuffs analogy is really good. Yeah. It, it, it’s sim it’s as simple as this. it takes energy from you. Yeah. It takes energy. Your body [00:55:00] has to do work to get rid of it.
Your mind, instead of being locked in at work, doing the next thing to propel you at 3:00 PM your mind is using energy to think about a drink. Mm-hmm. And what if that energy was repurposed and used towards one more fucking cold call or project, or Right. Meeting or whatever that, that, or the gym or whatever, or painting or whatever your goal is.
What if, what if that energy of thinking about. Your next drink was given back to time with your family time at your job time with your passion and all those hours of better focus and better energy compound over a lifetime, over a year, over 10 years, what’s the end result of that? It’s your full bloom.
It’s the, yeah, it’s, it’s everything that you can do. And that’s my message about drinking don’t do it. [00:56:00] It’s what if you didn’t, what would that look like? Yeah, yeah. No shame. All no possibility. No. I totally get why people drink untapped possibility. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, me too. I understand.
Yeah, yeah. No, ain’t right, but I understand. Right. Right. Yeah, I thought that message, David, I, and I’m so glad you wrote this book. I really do feel like this is going to, shortcut the suffering for people. Hearing your story of, undiagnosed bipolar childhood trauma, growing up with an alcoholic parent and having all that and being able to overcome something that’s so challenging, right?
You’re the, you’re the guy that makes the hard choices so you can have a better life. And I really feel like that is the message of, of hope, right? That this can be, no matter how far down the scale you go, you can overcome this and, [00:57:00] thrive in life and be a blessing and have a positive impact on the people around you.
Yeah. Yeah. yes, and thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. And it, I, and I always want people to know, yeah. I own a business now and we’re doing great and this, there is all this good shit happening, you said, and we have a kid and he’s awesome and our business is thriving and there’s some amazing people I get to work with every day and it’s all good.
But I wake clear, I remind myself, and I remind people whenever I have the opportunity that I didn’t stop drinking and start taking care of myself. And then day one was like, oh cool, it’s, I’m gonna start on my path to starting a company and yeah, having it be this big or this anything, it is like the one day at a time we say it all the time, but it’s, it’s, it’s so true.
It’s not about I have to achieve this or I haven’t done anything. It’s, it’s as simple as, what, what should I do today if my [00:58:00] goal is this? All I gotta do today is something that works towards it. Yeah. If my goal is to start a company, what should I do today? I should get better at what I’m doing and learn more about this industry.
Yeah. And start to make one dot on my vision board of what that would look like. That’s all you gotta do today. If, if, if your goal is, if you’re a musician or you’re an artist and you want to expand your territory, what do I do today? I, I work on one more song. I work on one more piece. I, I take one step.
You don’t have to make it big and it’s better not to make it big, just baby steps. Yeah. Every day is what, what should I do today to work a little closer to my goal? And those things are simple. It’s don’t drink, stay on that course. Take care of myself and map out what my day’s gonna look like, and make the hard choice to get all that stuff done.
And then you’re good. And then go home and watch basketball. that’s it. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be big. And as soon as you make it too big, it gets really [00:59:00] overwhelming and intimidating. And that’s a relapse point to me. that’s where I see relapse opportunities is when I create a sense of failure for myself by Yeah.
Asking too much of myself. Yeah. I love that. It’s good to know. you’re so listen, you’ve done, you’ve clearly done the work. I know lots of therapy has gotten you to where you are now, and I feel a lot of recovery is about emotion management, so it takes a lot of courage mm-hmm. To stay the course and do the self-reflection.
And for a lot of people, that’s what works. maybe we need a little community support through the peer support programs. but at some point I almost feel everybody would benefit some from some deep one-on-one reflective work, right? So that you can continue and grow, at a deeper level.
Yeah. I think that’s really important. I agree. I think that’s right. Well, we need to kind of land the plane here. what do you see for your future now? yeah, you’ve written this book, you’re sharing your [01:00:00] message. Yeah, but the plane ride was great. It was a great flight. yeah. Let’s, let’s It’s time to land.
yeah, I wrote this book because I knew my experience could help other people. Yeah. that’s the goal. and so I did that and that came out a month or so ago. And, it’s called I Am Someone, and it, the goal was simple use my experience to hold up a mirror that someone might see some aspect of themself and Yeah.
and it might give someone a trigger or a spark of an idea about How to shortcut some of the. Some of the unnecessary pain and anguish that comes from not seeking help and not being vulnerable. That was it. It’s the book was a big, endeavor of vulnerability for the hope of helping other people.
That’s a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. and it’s a wild story. And there’s some parts that are funny. There’s some parts that are devastating and there’s everything in between. it’s just the story and it’s the truth and it’s the reality. it shows what can happen with some courage and some love in [01:01:00] your community, and some perseverance on your end and some support from some others.
It shows what can happen. yeah, I wanna use that book. I wanna keep, kind of cultivating that message and letting it help. People, whether it’s talking to them individually, whether it’s doing interview with someone like yourself, with an audience, whether it’s, yeah, talking to people in these vulnerable communities that need it.
talking at AA and sharing the story there. yeah, anywhere where there is the target audience is a vulnerable community. The recovery and the mental health community and those around them, it’s the book is so that parents can understand their kid who might be struggling in a way that changes their perspective and unlocks another layer of empathy, and understanding.
it’s for that community. yeah, I just, I feel at my best when I’m, helping other people. And I realize that at some point, and while I keep continuing, my entrepreneurial business endeavor, I know that helping people specifically, also [01:02:00] helping people in the space of mental health and recovery makes me feel, very good.
there’s, hey, I have your back and there’s people that have your back and a hundred percent there are for sure people to talk to. I want people to know that. I want people to do it. I want them to know what I know now, but didn’t know then. Yeah. I’m gonna leave links to your book in the show notes so people can find it.
But if people are interested in reaching out to you on social media, where can they find you? yeah. Uh, David Shazad, S-H-A-M-S-Z-A-D. also have a website with links to all this stuff. David shazad.com. S-H-A-M-S-Z-A-D. you can find my stuff there. The book is I Am Someone on Amazon or wherever fine books are sold.
Awesome. I’ll leave links to everything in the show notes. All right. And I just listen from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for your vulnerability and for your willingness to share your story. hope is hearing other [01:03:00] people’s experiences. yeah, I feel like you, thank you for having for mission accomplished, huh?
Yeah. The planes landed successfully. Yes. Awesome. Well, thanks so much. We’ll talk soon. Okay. Thanks.
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