Dan Martell - From Rehab to Multi-Millionaire

00:00:00.080 Things got really crazy.

00:00:01.200 I was hanging out with people from the Hells Angels,

00:00:03.600 learning stuff I definitely shouldn't have been learning.

00:00:05.680 One day my brother calls me up and says,

00:00:07.160 don't come home, the police are waiting for you.

00:00:09.040 They had found a bunch of guns under my bed

00:00:10.880 and a bunch of drugs.

00:00:12.160 So I stole a car and I decided I'm going to head to Montreal.

00:00:15.680 I'm drunk and high and I had a handgun in the backpack

00:00:19.760 next to me and I said that if the cops stop me, 0.97

00:00:22.560 I'm going to pull the gun and let them take my life.

00:00:24.440 I just didn't want to go back to prison. 0.91

00:00:25.840 And on the drive there, funny enough,

00:00:28.920 I took the exit to get gas,

00:00:31.600 and there was a routine roadblock.

00:00:33.420 My heart went through my chest.

00:00:44.280 The place that saved my life is where we're going today,

00:00:46.420 and that's why I go every year.

00:00:47.880 These are my kids.

00:00:48.860 I'm who I am today to go speak to these kids.

00:00:51.520 They've experienced stuff that most people

00:00:53.580 will never have to go through,

00:00:55.140 but that kid was no different than I was when I was there,

00:00:58.780 And now I live a completely different life.

00:01:00.920 If you forget where you come from,

00:01:02.740 you are destined to repeat it.

00:01:04.620 So I share my story with these kids

00:01:07.360 to help them stay sober, to give them hope,

00:01:09.360 because I'm really grateful for my life.

00:01:11.620 Addiction is one of the most patient things in the world.

00:01:14.360 It can wait 50 years and get you.

00:01:16.760 So I never forget who I am and where I came from.

00:01:19.400 So I always go back to reconnect with that.

00:01:22.300 And I know there's no other place in the world

00:01:24.480 other than this specific place.

00:01:26.320 The way the program works, the staff that are there,

00:01:28.780 because I tried. I'd been in other programs, dude, since I was 15. Family therapy, rehab centers,

00:01:34.320 21-day programs, foster homes, group homes, you name it. Therapy, therapy, therapy, and it didn't

00:01:40.240 work. I was just so judgmental of any person that didn't go through what I went through

00:01:48.440 that I would just shut down. What's unique about the Portage is all the staff that work there are

00:01:54.440 ex-drug addicts. And I'm talking like George did 20 years in a Mexican prison for trafficking

00:02:00.200 heroin, then finally gets released back to Canada and goes to Portage for 16 months. So it's just a

00:02:05.420 different level, man. You got people that have been where you're trying to get telling you how

00:02:10.380 to not mess up. This is a life program, man. This isn't a rehab center. Do you know how much

00:02:15.260 experience I learned about managing other people and communicating clearly and working through

00:02:20.020 your team? It was like a game changer for me.

00:02:24.440 This is Portage.

00:02:28.500 That's beautiful.

00:02:35.380 How's everybody doing?

00:02:37.560 Sweet.

00:02:38.560 25 years ago, my dad picked me up in St. John,

00:02:42.280 so the adult prison.

00:02:43.300 I was 17, 16 at the time.

00:02:45.240 He picked me up in St. John and drove me to Portage,

00:02:48.960 and it literally saved my life.

00:02:51.780 I'd grown up in a home with an alcoholic mother and there was a lot of emotional and physical

00:02:57.820 abuse at home I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11 pretty much from that point on as a kid I

00:03:03.380 always thought I was broken like there was something wrong with me my brain didn't work

00:03:06.580 like everybody else I was super hyperactive always getting trouble at school and I had a severe anger

00:03:12.000 issue and it became too much for my parents and they um they called the police to take me and at

00:03:18.540 12, I got put into a group home. I got introduced to people that were 17, 18 years old, teaching me

00:03:24.860 stuff that I probably shouldn't have been learning. And it was there that I got introduced to drugs.

00:03:29.660 Immediately became an addict. People always want to know what your drug of choice is. Mine was not

00:03:33.680 feeling. Didn't matter what it was. And I ended up in prison the first time when I was 14, 15.

00:03:40.880 Got out, did two months, said I'm going to change my life. I'm going to get new friends, going to

00:03:47.000 Just do everything, but I'm never coming back.

00:03:49.140 And I remember the guard was there when I was leaving.

00:03:51.220 I said it was nice to meet you, right?

00:03:52.680 Like, probably never see you again,

00:03:53.920 but nice to get you to know you.

00:03:54.900 And he goes, I'll see you soon.

00:03:56.140 His response was very factually.

00:03:57.880 He just goes, we always do.

00:03:59.420 I ended up lasting probably six hours

00:04:02.820 from the moment I got back into Moncton,

00:04:05.120 back to the same friends, back to the same parties,

00:04:07.880 high and drunk that night.

00:04:09.060 And then just things spiraled out of control.

00:04:10.600 Things got really crazy.

00:04:11.720 I was hanging out with people from the Hells Angels,

00:04:14.080 learning stuff I definitely shouldn't have been learning.

00:04:16.240 One day my brother calls me up and says,

00:04:17.760 don't come home, the police are waiting for you.

00:04:19.800 They had found a bunch of guns under my bed

00:04:21.480 and a bunch of drugs.

00:04:22.980 He says for me to meet him and we met up that night

00:04:25.500 and he gave me the only money he had

00:04:27.680 and said, you probably got to get out of town.

00:04:30.260 So I stole a car and I decided I'm going to head to Montreal.

00:04:33.820 I'm drunk and high and I had a handgun

00:04:36.360 in the backpack next to me.

00:04:38.280 And I said that if the cops stop me, 0.95

00:04:40.540 I'm going to pull the gun and let them take my life.

00:04:42.400 I just didn't want to go back to prison. 0.91

00:04:43.600 And on the drive there, funny enough, I took the exit to get gas and there was a routine roadblock.

00:04:50.900 My heart went through my chest and I pull up and the cops are like, license and registration.

00:04:56.580 I tell them it's my mom's car. I forgot my driver's license at home.

00:05:01.280 He asked me to pull over to the side and I take off and I get in a high speed chase with the police.

00:05:06.460 And I get pretty far into this neighborhood and there's an open garage door that I thought I could hide in.

00:05:12.760 and I come in going way too fast and I ended up smashing into the side of the house as soon as I

00:05:20.080 realized what happened I went for the gun and I started trying to get to it and pulling on it and

00:05:26.480 for whatever reason it got stuck and I could hear the police getting closer and closer and I kept

00:05:29.880 pulling on it and pulling on it and as soon as the cops pulled up they literally ran to the car

00:05:37.580 opened the door grabbed me I didn't touch the ground it was like levitating across the lawn

00:05:43.400 and then obviously they checked me for any knives or guns and stuff and then threw me in the back

00:05:49.220 of the cop car and I woke up the next morning and in jail in Sussex wondering what my life was

00:05:55.460 going to look like I got sentenced to like 16 months total one morning I'm having breakfast

00:06:01.220 they let us out our cell block and there's this kid Kerr I don't know if you guys have any like

00:06:04.840 friends that are like built they have like eight packs it's just genetics well this is kirk he

00:06:09.000 literally looks like a teenage mutant ninja turtle and he's 15 and he picks up the coffee and it's

00:06:15.160 empty and he just looks around he says who's the goof that drank all the coffee so i just stood

00:06:20.520 up and i said i did what are you gonna do about it full-on fight the whole cell block goes off

00:06:25.960 me and kirk are wrestling guards come in grab us and they throw us in the hole if you haven't been

00:06:31.560 in the hole, solitary confinement, you're essentially locked up for 23 and a half hours

00:06:35.620 a day in your underwear, concrete slab, stainless steel toilet and sink combo unit. And they don't

00:06:41.020 give you a mattress till you go to bed and they still leave the lights on. They don't even tell

00:06:44.880 you how long you're in there for. So I was there for about three days. And on the third day, the

00:06:51.380 door opens and Brian's standing there and he's staring at me and he's just shaking his head like

00:06:55.600 this. And he goes, come with me. So I get my clothes on. I follow Brian and we're walking down

00:07:01.600 the hallway, the door to the cell blocks here. I've never been past that door. If anybody's been

00:07:07.060 in prison, you walk where you go and nowhere else. And he walks past that door to the next door.

00:07:14.380 And in that door, that's the guard unit. This is the room where all the guards hang out that

00:07:18.840 looks over the two cell blocks, like the other side of the one-way glass mirror. That's that

00:07:23.300 room. So he brings me in there. There's nobody in there. And he sits me in the corner and he pulls

00:07:28.340 up a chair and he just goes, Dan, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I got in a fight

00:07:33.300 with Kirk over coffee. And he goes, no, not that. He goes, what are you doing here? And he just

00:07:38.120 shakes his head and he goes, Dan, I've been working here for almost a decade. And I've seen hundreds

00:07:42.700 of kids come in here and I don't understand what you're doing here. I see you do your homework.

00:07:47.660 I see you stay out of the politics. I see you try to do the right thing. And if nobody's ever

00:07:53.540 told you this, I want you to know that you don't belong here. And in that moment, something cracked

00:07:59.600 inside of me. His belief in me was way more than my belief in myself. I didn't have any belief in

00:08:07.440 myself. And that was the beginning of everything that changed for me. I ended up coming here after

00:08:16.020 a few months of proving myself. Portage rebuilt my confidence. I had zero self-worth. I felt like

00:08:22.420 I shouldn't even be alive. This place taught me that I was valuable. Rebuilt the relationships

00:08:26.960 with my family, right? They had no trust in me. They didn't want to have anything to do with me.

00:08:30.920 And it was at the end of the program where I was helping Rick. Rick and I were cleaning out one of

00:08:34.660 the cabins and there was this old computer, okay? Back in the day, we called it a 486 computer.

00:08:39.380 And next to it was this book on Java programming. It was just sitting there and I open up this

00:08:43.800 yellow book. And for whatever reason, it spoke to me. I thought like it would be super complicated

00:08:49.100 math equations, right? If you guys think of computer programming, you're probably thinking

00:08:52.180 hieroglyphics. Like you couldn't read it. It literally read like English. If this, then that.

00:08:57.380 And after 20 minutes, I got the computer, check this out, to say, hello world.

00:09:05.460 I thought I was a genius. I know. That's how laughable that was. But the cool part is it

00:09:11.880 didn't matter if I was or I wasn't. Unfortunately, I'm not. What mattered is that I started to find

00:09:18.560 something I enjoyed doing and I just became obsessed with it. My new addiction became

00:09:23.940 writing code. The cool part is when I got out, then I got into business and I started companies

00:09:29.800 and software. My biggest fear was when I get out, my life will be, I get a boring job,

00:09:37.160 I go home I have no friends and I do this for 25 35 years because my life prior was pretty crazy

00:09:46.000 but pretty exciting does that make sense let me tell you that is not the case if you just looked

00:09:51.360 at my year I've gone heli skiing snow biking 20 sometimes I've spoken on a dozen stages all around

00:09:59.280 the world I just got back from Croatia on a super yacht life can get even better than you could

00:10:04.160 possibly imagine if you understand what to do once you get out here. That's what I'm here to

00:10:08.660 help share. Does that make sense? Who's got questions? Super hard. I've been drug free since

00:10:18.300 I came here. What pulled me back was alcohol. So three years after I got out of here, because I

00:10:25.840 had three years sober, I thought I should be able to drink casually. So I started drinking again

00:10:32.860 And I drank for almost a decade and drinking only created problems in my life from a failed

00:10:40.840 relationship where I was engaged. I was supposed to get married seven weeks before I come home

00:10:45.340 and she drops the ring and says, I'm done to losing relationships with business partners.

00:10:50.300 Cause I said the wrong thing while I was drinking, what changed was my wife. She was pregnant. 1.00

00:10:56.160 We were in the Bahamas on a baby moon. So we're there celebrating and she might've been only a

00:11:01.520 couple months pregnant and I went to the liquor store when I came back she looked at me and she 1.00

00:11:05.440 said are we having a party because I had bought like boxes we're only there for a week it was just

00:11:13.580 me and that night I got way too drunk and we got in a fight and in that fight I just realized if I

00:11:19.380 don't remove alcohol from my life there's a zero percent chance that that's not going to create a

00:11:23.880 massive amount of pain in my family and I don't want to do that I grew up in it I knew better

00:11:29.180 That night, I poured everything into the sink, and I told her I'm done.

00:11:35.320 I'm never going to have another sip of alcohol for the rest of my life.

00:11:40.240 And it's the best decision I've ever made.

00:11:42.240 Addiction is patient.

00:11:43.380 It will wait for you.

00:11:44.520 I've seen people, unfortunately, that I loved that were my mentors that inspired me get 30 years sober and then lose it.

00:11:53.540 when you lose it after being sober for that long the guilt is so heavy that man the amount of

00:12:02.800 addiction that shows back up afterwards is 10 times worse than it was before and that's what

00:12:07.420 happened so thanks for sharing that but yeah super hard but worth it yeah

00:12:11.460 here's my belief the person who has no secrets is the freest person in the room the shame inside is

00:12:21.240 what's going to kill us. And that's why you guys are here. One of the most powerful parts of this

00:12:25.020 program was every cleanup partnering with somebody else and either hearing their story or sharing

00:12:29.840 yours. Some of you guys aren't being honest about your story. You're only sharing 70%. There's that

00:12:34.520 other 30% that you're super ashamed of, something you did that you don't want anybody else to know.

00:12:39.160 That might be the reason you relapse. So when you say what was the hardest part about sharing my

00:12:43.280 story was getting to a place where I could share it without shame. I wish somebody would told me

00:12:50.660 this when I was here. The most powerful thing I have to help somebody else is my story. The most

00:12:57.740 powerful thing you all have in this room to help another human is your story. So the thing you've

00:13:02.760 gone through that you're most ashamed of is literally the most powerful thing you have

00:13:06.940 to help other people. And it's uniquely yours. Yeah. My biggest value. Um, you can only keep

00:13:15.680 what you give away. If you want to be sober, what should you do? Help other people get sober. We'll

00:13:22.320 always do more for other people. We'll do for ourselves. So one of the biggest life's lessons

00:13:25.740 I've discovered is if I want to be richer, I got to help more people get rich. If I want more love

00:13:32.240 in my life, guess what I got to do? Be more loving. It's like the ultimate life hack.

Dan Martell - September 04, 2023

From Rehab to Multi-Millionaire

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