00:02:12.400You know, I got to a point where, you know, and I share about this sometimes, it's like I was too afraid to kill myself, but I didn't want to go on living either.
00:11:47.560or you know um you know i'm jewish so like i had a bar mitzvah like every other weekend that year
00:11:52.300okay so you just like hit up the open bar uh all the time how are you drinking at 12 i don't know
00:11:58.740nobody really gave a shit gotcha yeah all right so um so yeah it just it started off like that0.93
00:12:04.020man like skip school smoke weed drink when you can look you know i always felt like really0.93
00:12:08.840uncomfortable in my own skin man like my whole life right so like every any time that i was able
00:12:12.860to to use or do anything like that like you know i felt i felt okay you know and that's really all
00:12:18.760i ever wanted out of life was just to kind of like like feel okay man you know yep and um
00:12:24.240and like that did it for a while right but that's but i mean like that's extremely fleeting
00:12:31.180right yeah yeah of course dangerous and yeah yeah absolutely to describe how not healthy that is
00:12:37.020No, absolutely. So, so I ran with that. And then it's the same that you hear from any other story, like, like this one, right, with where there's drugs and addiction and things that, you know, things involve like that. You know, you you lose jobs, you lose family, you lose friends, you alienate yourself. And it got to a point where, you know, we always I was telling you about this outside. It was like, you get to a point where you see everyone around you in your life kind of move on. You know, eventually people stop giving a shit.
00:13:04.720you know people stop caring at a certain point and everyone just kind of like moves on with their0.99
00:13:09.440life and um and then when you're still there where they leave like that it's a pretty lonely
00:13:17.600place to be man especially when you don't know how to get yourself out of it right so you know
00:13:23.780i got to a point where you know i and i and i share about this sometimes it's like i was i was
00:13:29.240too afraid to kill myself, but I didn't want to go on living either. Right. And I was 21 years old.
00:13:36.260And, um, and I remember, you know, it's so funny, right. Because I remember,
00:13:41.740you know, and I had tried to stop a hundred times, man, for like, you know, for a job,
00:13:45.220for a girl, for a friend, for anything, right. You always try and do it for something that isn't,
00:13:49.220you know, for yourself. And, um, and every single time I failed every single time.
00:13:55.160and I remember just getting to this point where I honestly I don't even know why that time was
00:14:02.960different I I can't like I mean I wish I there was like some profound thing that happened or
00:14:07.260something but it was just kind of like it was just kind of like I knew that I couldn't keep
00:14:12.040going that way and I knew like I had made my mind up that like there had to be something more and I
00:14:15.780didn't want to you know I didn't want to die I'm I'm always so fascinated uh when that put my foot
00:14:21.440don stopping moment is and and he he described his a couple times i i thought found his really
00:14:27.120interesting because it sounds a little bit like yours in a way that you're not really sure why
00:14:33.580that time worked i mean yours was a little more yeah i mean mine mine was i was basically i was
00:14:39.600on death's door you know what i'm saying so my addiction was was to the worst evils and heroin
00:14:43.980and crack cocaine and shit that was just you know basically had my foot in the grave and so i was in
00:14:48.480a really bad place um and i and i felt like i was gonna die any day like i had not slept in almost0.60
00:14:54.040three weeks my blood was just crawling like i was having just manic nightmares it was just
00:14:59.580night tremors it was terrible and uh i got i got court ordered into rehab so it made my life a lot
00:15:06.220easier they said you're gonna go to rehab you're gonna go to jail one or the other and so that was
00:15:09.660great i still had to make the decision afterwards to stay clean and a lot of that had to do with
00:15:15.020my support system and not wanting to hurt people in my life anymore and wanting to meet and to your
00:15:20.240point wanting to make my life a better place you know what i'm saying like i wanted to do better
00:15:23.680i didn't want to die with the last thought people had of me as mike the kid that od'd and died yeah
00:15:31.880i'd never wanted that you know what i'm saying his road was extremely visceral and and violent and
00:15:38.900just unhealthy every like negative like scary adjective i can use to describe his road he's
00:15:44.880making a book about it was yours like that in any way i mean look i you know i don't know about you
00:15:50.300but i i have a couple not yet right so like i was i was never homeless right i always had some
00:15:55.240assemblance of a roof over my head even if it wasn't the nicest of places right i still had a
00:15:59.280roof um there was still food in the fridge right but like you know i had od'd several times um
00:16:06.640you know i'd been in terrible car accidents multiple you know ones um you know if like you
00:16:12.920know it's it's like kind of a cliche thing to say but it's true man like if life was fair0.94
00:16:16.620i wouldn't be here you know and that's and that's that's the fucking truth so um
00:16:23.480you know yeah i mean i think and look there's there's this there's a story right where they0.73
00:16:28.780say um you know because look when i first you know and for me you know i'm not endorsing any
00:16:33.140fellowship or anything like that but for me i got clean and narcotics anonymous and in august i'll
00:16:37.860have 14 years clean right congrats so thanks man so you're all i got 10 years in uh coming up in
00:16:46.040june actually june 23rd was my clean day oh nice man we just passed it sorry nine years nine years
00:16:51.840nice well i hope i hope you never beat me so yeah exactly exactly but i and i i did 90 90 in na as
00:16:58.760straight out of rehab and then i didn't stay in it and i i somewhat regret that because it is a
00:17:04.220great program and once again i'm not promoting just like you're not it's a great program for
00:17:08.120sure no so what they say is is like you know as far as you know who had it worse or who whatever
00:17:12.840right that there's this there's a saying that goes you know if uh if a three-year-old girl has
00:17:17.160like a stuffed animal right and that's that's her thing her everything right that's all she has
00:17:22.360and then a year later she loses it right the loss of having that is traumatic for that three-year-old
00:17:28.300pain is pain right exactly it's all relative you have an 80 year old you know an 80 year old man
00:17:33.780that loses his wife right that pain is still you know pretty intense right but the pain is relative
00:17:39.980like what's whose pain is more now as now as people we rationally know that like it's you know
00:17:46.160worse to lose a human being right but in that moment just the feeling of that pain is the same
00:17:50.940we talked we talked about this a lot multiple times in the past few episodes i can't remember
00:17:56.260what the last one was but it was basically about whenever this conversation comes up first you know
00:18:01.900people who are watching this that are going through through things or guests that we have on the show
00:18:05.280that your pain is always warranted like don't ever don't ever try to hide your pain and use
00:18:11.900perspective and understand that you do have things very good and if you're watching the show you have
00:18:15.820things better than people that can't watch the show because they're blind or they can't afford
00:18:19.300internet or whatever it is but at the same time like understand your pain is warranted like we
00:18:23.240we understand it and you should you should be aligned with it and it's it's acceptable
00:18:28.860everyone's stuff is valid dude yeah you know and that's and that's important yep and and so here's
00:18:34.660why your story is is so interesting is because you you pulled quite the 180 adam uh when you
00:18:40.220you got off drugs at 21 yep and then when you were 23 what what did you do that made you a
00:18:46.120multi multi-millionaire or the what would become a huge massive business or multiple yeah so so
00:18:52.600actually i mean look so you know uh in narcotics and i'm gonna say this thing called h and i right
00:18:58.220and at the time which stands for hospitals and institutions which um you go into like either a
00:19:02.900jail or detox and you bring a meeting into you know either adults or kids or whatever so for a
00:19:08.580little while i was going to a community college because like that's what you're supposed to do
00:19:12.480right i'm also jewish so like i had to go back to school at some point to be a doctor or lawyer
00:19:15.840because that's what you're supposed to do yeah you had dropped out originally i did i did how
00:19:20.320how long did you make it um before i went back or before you dropped out the first time oh man
00:19:25.640not not long really yeah semester not even uh maybe like two three semesters gotcha yeah and
00:19:31.800then i went back and um and i was doing h and i at the same time and then i was trying to you know
00:19:37.060i was thinking about becoming like a clinical psychologist because as we do you get clean you0.60
00:19:40.160want to like help you want to fucking help everybody right yeah um you know and i was i0.69
00:19:44.700was bringing this meeting into a group of kids man and a detox and um and you're supposed to0.96
00:19:49.700be able to like leave there and take it home with you and not take it home with you. And,
00:19:53.140and man, I just fucking sucked at that. You know, every time I came home, like I couldn't sleep0.99
00:19:58.420that night. Like it was, I mean, you hear just the worst things imaginable, you know? And then
00:20:04.080I thought to myself, like, this isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. You know,
00:20:07.320like I thought that I had to go this route of like going to college and getting a degree in
00:20:12.160something professional. And that had to be it. Right. Because like, what else do you do? And
00:20:18.360so I went ahead and I decided that it was, you know, it wasn't for me. And, you know, I
00:20:26.380kind of left. Well, I didn't leave school just yet. Right. So what I did was like, but I wasn't
00:20:31.920really going either. Yeah. I figured if I stayed enrolled, then maybe like I had still had the
00:20:36.880option or something. Did you feel like, so sorry for drawing or attempting maybe to draw like
00:20:42.660parallels between your guys journey but um mike's iterated to me that like he sort of
00:20:48.680had felt like maybe a part of his life was taken or however you want it was lost to to drugs and
00:20:56.500drug addiction drugs alcohol whatever you want to call it and so maybe now i mean maybe it's who you
00:21:01.720were i mean your whole family's like bubbly and like young and spry but maybe the reason we get
00:21:06.740along so well is because he has the life experience of a 34 year old but in a way he's still living
00:21:10.940the life of a 24 year old oh i know i know you're trying to actually relate to that because i'm 35
00:21:16.440and i feel the same fucking way so i was gonna say do you feel like a 25 year old oh i mean look i0.85
00:21:21.360um you know i got two kids man i got i got a wife so like i like but yeah i still can't believe they0.98
00:21:26.660let me leave the hospital with those fucking kids you know what i mean i'm joking no that's how i0.95
00:21:31.540feel the the point that he's he's referring to is uh science science has has started to prove that0.99
00:21:38.820those who suffer through a long bout of addiction uh stop developing at the age that they become
00:21:44.760addicted to drugs because it takes over their entire life they don't develop mentally emotional
00:21:48.800or in any kind of intelligent manner right and so i was addicted from the age of 18 to 26 daily
00:21:53.760addiction to opiates it was the only thing in my life i didn't do school i didn't do family i didn't
00:21:57.680do anything else besides use drugs using cell drugs is the only thing i cared about yep when
00:22:01.980i turned 26 it was almost like i just turned 18 when i got clean you know what i'm saying so now
00:22:07.000i'm 34 but a lot of times i feel like i'm 25 26 yeah um and so that said the one the one note i'll
00:22:14.040say on it and i'm sure you'll say the same thing is everything i got out of that time i wouldn't
00:22:20.440trade it for shit i wouldn't trade that that life experience that wisdom that i got from all those0.99
00:22:26.720mistakes i made the street smarts i took from that life i don't want anyone to go through it but damn0.99
00:25:37.380So what happens is, is that, so I ended up,
00:25:40.220I ended up trying to figure out other stuff to do, man.
00:25:43.920Like trying to figure out what I was interested in.
00:25:45.440Because like you said, you know, you got to kind of grow up
00:25:48.140and figure out what it is that you want to do.
00:25:50.700and um you know i started uh you know my buddy and i were coming up with these ideas and we were
00:25:56.820just being funny about it right so we thought well be funny to create like this website you
00:26:02.000know and none of us had ever built a website before and we thought it'd be funny to create
00:26:05.080this website where it was like um you know like pornhub meets like maxim magazine and like we
00:26:10.300had this section penned out where it's going to be from like jew to tattoo as far as all these
00:26:15.320like different formats right so we thought it'd be funny so like that night i went home and i had0.71
00:26:20.040this old fucking compact desktop computer in my room that like i hadn't turned on in forever0.56
00:26:24.900and um and i turned it on and you know i knew how to like download you know music or whatever so i0.97
00:26:31.400went ahead and i downloaded a um a copy of photoshop and i started and i started messing
00:26:37.400with that and just the ability to like be creative you know and and the ability to you know just
00:26:44.300mess around with like what was going to be this this website even though i had no idea what i was
00:26:48.700doing like that process that night I kind of fell in love with it like I didn't sleep that night
00:26:53.480you know like like I stayed up I stayed up I tried to figure out how to like make different
00:26:58.420graphics on there and like that kind of triggered a lot of it that's not easy and I'm surprised did
00:27:03.480you not have a creative outlet before that like you didn't know you like to paint no perhaps or
00:27:08.080no I didn't he's on a bike or nothing nothing really wow how did that help you in your recovery
00:27:15.120I mean, you know, look, I mean, I don't know how it helped me in my recovery, but it it helped me like look, the recovery is all part of it.
00:27:23.320Right. But like it helped me. It helped me feel, you know, like it like like inspired, you know what I mean?
00:27:31.260Like, I don't I don't I'm trying to think of the right word, you know, but it helped me feel it helped me feel inspired.
00:27:36.000And that that feeling that night is what I ran with this entire time.
00:27:39.820Was it that you needed to put the same energy you had in kind of that addictive nature to something productive and creative and tap into like, you know, I feel like the majority of people I hear that have addictions, just it's just you're misguiding that that energy.
00:27:58.880I mean, that's true too, but look, I'm sure there's some element of that.
00:28:02.800I can tell you today, like a hundred percent, I'm addicted to, you know, building the next
00:28:07.900company or building the next deal or creating the next whatever.