ITT 006： Overcoming an Alcohol Addiction ｜ Scott Pinyard
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Summary
On this episode of In The Trenches, I interview Scott Pinyard. Scott is a father, husband, and order of man. He talks about his journey to becoming a better man and how he overcame a drinking problem.
Transcript
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Gentlemen, welcome to In the Trenches, an Order of Man podcast dedicated to interviewing
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ordinary, everyday men like you and me who are currently in the battle of becoming better
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You'll hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from guys who are striving to become stronger
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husbands, fathers, business owners, and community leaders.
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It's our mission to deliver the stories that will inspire you to become the man you are
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Your host for this podcast is a man who is not only in the trenches, but has drastically
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changed his life for the better over the past two years.
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So, Scott, what are you working on these days, man?
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You know, one of the big things that I started since I got into the council has been my side
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So, I've been spending a lot of time working on actually getting my own podcast together
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and also helping, you know, working with new clients outside of my regular nine-to-five.
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What are those clients, what are you helping those guys with?
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So, one of the big things that I was able to do when I started in the council was to quit
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And this is, it just finally was in a point when working with the guys in the council where
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And, you know, just the time was right, I guess, is the best way to say it.
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So, going through this, you know, I spent a lot of time reading books and reaching out
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to people, talking to a lot of different people about it.
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And I've found that, you know, there was an opportunity, there were a lot of people out
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there like me who maybe didn't necessarily want to, you know, join a program or something
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So, those are the people I've been reaching out to.
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Well, you know, I got involved with the council, let's see, almost two years ago now.
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Two, no, a year, yeah, about a year and a half ago.
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And when I started, you know, I was really generally just looking to improve my life.
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I'd kind of, I'd been through some ups and downs like everyone else.
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You know, I'd been married and divorced and I got remarried, had a couple of kids, you
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know, money wasn't necessarily where I wanted it to be, started to feel kind of stagnant.
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So, you know, I started looking around online for some, something to help out.
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And one of the things that I kind of realized that I have a, I have an eight-year-old girl
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and a three-year-old boy and, and I was starting to realize like, man, I really want to be
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a role model for my son, but I wasn't even fully sure what that meant or what I meant
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So, I just started Googling, you know, things like how to be a good man, like the sort of
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And I ended up tumbling into finding, finding Ryan's podcast.
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And so, I did that and I did the order of man thing for, for three or four months.
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And then I thought, you know what, this is really where I want to be.
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And I joined the council and then from the council, you know, that once I got involved
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You know, I'd laid out my goals pretty clearly and I had a lot of people that were helping
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me achieve it, both in terms of helping me come up with ideas of ways to do what I wanted
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to do, but also holding me accountable when I say I'm going to do something.
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So, this is a long answer to your question, but I eventually got to a point where I, you know,
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I had achieved a lot of different things and it was starting to become very clear that
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unless I quit drinking, I wasn't going to go any farther.
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You know, this was, this was something that was holding me back, you know, and that's,
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that's how I got to that point through the council.
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What, when it comes to that, that drinking thing, when did you realize that that was a,
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And what, what was really your, your, your trick to, to knocking it?
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I think realizing and admitting are kind of two different things.
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Um, you know, I think I realized it years ago and I think I admitted it to myself.
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You know, I think I realized it about five, more than five years ago.
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And I think I admitted it to myself two or three years ago.
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So it's a tricky thing and it's different for everyone when they're trying to,
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I think for me, what I needed was to start getting the ball rolling on some other stuff
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and really see what I was capable of achieving.
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That's, I think that was such a huge help for me in going forward with actually quitting now
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is that I, I started to knock things off my battle plan.
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I started to cross things off my list that I wanted to get done.
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And that sort of forward momentum was really helpful.
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As you've been doing this, what, what kind of milestones have you reached going through this?
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Well, I'd say, you know, another really big one was fitness level.
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Um, you know, a few years ago I lost a bunch of weight, but I hadn't really, uh,
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hadn't really upped the fitness game that well.
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I'd been working out, but it wasn't, uh, it wasn't for the sake of, of being fit.
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But one of the things that I've gotten way into since being in the council, uh, is rucking.
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Um, so I have, you know, I started, I started doing some go rock stuff.
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I started doing some go rock, um, some go rock, uh, workouts.
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Um, and then my battle team leader at the time, Chris Gatchko was teaching a pathfinder class,
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And then before I knew it, I was signed up for an event.
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And so last year, um, I actually did a go rock event in October, um, which honestly had been
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something, you know, I'd wanted to do one of these suffer fest things for a long time.
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I just never had the balls actually pull it off, uh, until last year.
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And that, that was really the time, you know, I, I didn't really have the confidence or the
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Um, so I'd say that was another really big win for me since starting with the council.
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If y'all remember Gatch was one of my, my first interviews on this thing.
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So as you've been going through this, what kind of hurdles have you encountered?
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You know, I, I was thinking about, thinking about that the other day, cause there were
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a few and a lot of them were self-imposed, you know, those were the, at least for me,
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So, uh, one of the first was just too much enthusiasm for too many things.
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You know, I was, uh, I think I was over promising and under delivering.
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Uh, I think I was, you know, I was going to get up at four in the morning every day and
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I was going to spend three hours a day with my family and I was going to kick ass at work
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and I was going to, you know, it was just this long list.
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And so it was really, once I got to a point where I felt like I could achieve this stuff,
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uh, on my own and, and, and also with support of you guys in the group, I started getting
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overenthusiastic and I burned myself right now.
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Um, so that was, that was one thing was, you know, a challenge was really learning how to
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schedule myself and set appropriate, you know, appropriate goals.
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I think another, you know, another one that I had was connecting with guys.
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Um, you know, I'd spent a lot of time, well, we'll put it this way.
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I hadn't really had a lot of guy friends, uh, for a long time.
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I just felt very disconnected from, from that, uh, from men in general.
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Um, and so that was also a hurdle, like getting used to that again and getting used to like
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Um, now I'm completely comfortable with it, but for a long time, it wasn't, uh, wasn't
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So those are two of the hurdles I ran into and both of them, you know, both of them, I
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overcame with, uh, you know, work on my own and help with guys in the group.
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Yeah, I can, I can totally relate to the whole, not having a lot of guy friends before I really
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I had some, but you know, everybody just kind of wanted to drink beer and hang out and, you
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know, that was pretty much the, the best of it.
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Like I spent plenty of time doing that, but you know, I don't know.
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It just learning how to connect in a different way was, was really, it was been a very rewarding
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You know, again, back to the whole, just hanging out and drink a beer.
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I, I drank a lot of beer for a lot of years and you actually helped me make it through
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the longest period of sobriety that I've had since I was young.
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I mean, I made it what, 73, 74 days before I had a drink.
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And I'm, I'm right now I'm coming back up on 30 days again.
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So, I mean, that's for somebody that I, I used to like to drink on the weekends and
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And it slowly started to become kind of a bit of an issue to where I was doing it every
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And having, having you guys, especially somebody that had already overcome it, somebody that
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can help me guide the waters and navigate the path, man, that was, that was really, that
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I mean, it was, it was, like I said, it was good to watch and, you know, that's, that's
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They just kind of like, I work with them on a one-on-one basis.
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But, and that's what the whole idea is, is like, I'm someone who's been through it before.
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I've, you know, I've got a bunch of articles for you.
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Like, I'm not, I'm not a trained, uh, you know, I'm not a trained psychiatrist or psychologist
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But what I am is someone who's been through it.
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Um, and I've talked to a lot of people who have been.
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And so that's, that's the approach that I kind of like to take is like, Hey, I'm here
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to help, you know, and that's what I want to do because the big driving thing for me
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is that, you know, I lived for years with this cognitive dissonance of man, I'm doing
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this and I don't want to, and it's a miserable feeling.
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You know, I want to help people who are in the middle of that.
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You know, that, that's a pretty big hurdle to overcome.
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What are some of the other ones that you've overcome since you've been on your journey?
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One of the other big things that, that I overcame was really, uh, was a lot of finance stuff.
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You know, I'd spent a lot of time, uh, kind of afraid of it because, you know, coming
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out of the divorce and going into my, uh, you know, going into my second marriage, we
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You know, we weren't super, super responsible about things.
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And it was something that I just kind of pushed off my plate.
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You know, I very irresponsibly just kind of pretended didn't exist.
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It wasn't like we were going broke or anything, but it was also, you know, we really needed
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to, um, really needed a little bit more direction on that.
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And so my wife had been dealing with it kind of on her own.
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I was bringing, bringing money home and she was kind of juggling to pay the bills and I,
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I wasn't participating or being a good help in that at all.
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Um, and so finally, you know, it came to, uh, it came to May or so of last year.
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And I just said, how would I just take this on?
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And she was so happy to not deal with it anymore.
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And, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that I didn't even really know that.
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Like, I wasn't even really aware at how difficult it had it been for her.
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Um, it's, it's amazing just how receptive women are to us stepping up and taking the
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I mean, we, we live in a culture nowadays where we're kind of taught that, you know,
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women are just as powerful as men and they are, they, but they are powerful in their own
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You know, men are generally the leaders in the household.
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And for so long, I mean, I was guilty of this myself where we just kind of took the back
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I, I, prior to getting involved with this, I never would have dreamt of saying something
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It always would have been like, Oh, why don't we work together?
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Like, but it was so, I felt like there was a lot, there was just such a level of, of
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And I think that, that kind of touches on to what I was talking about earlier when it was
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talking about, like, I'm raising a son, like I've raised a daughter or I'm in the process
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of raising a daughter, but how do I deal with my son?
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And there's just, there's so much more there than I, than I realized.
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What kind of advice would you give these guys that are just now getting started on this?
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You know, especially these guys that are struggling with alcohol.
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Well, a few things, you know, around the alcohol stuff, I think I would say, you know, really
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try not, and this is hard to do, but try not to lie to yourself.
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One of the things that I've done with a lot of people is I've had them make a video of
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themselves and they've been drinking, you know, and it's been, you know, I, I send out
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And so you answer these five questions and some of them are math and some of them are silly.
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Um, but ultimately what the goal is for that is to have some sort of evidence that you
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And that's the idea is that in order to get out of this is really the number one person
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Um, and so that's, that's the first thing also around drinking, uh, reach out to people.
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You know, it might be that there's people that don't want to talk to you or you don't
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want to talk to, or you feel that you're going to get judged.
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And if you're in the council, we have a sobriety channel.
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You guys, anyone that's in the council can reach out to me at any time.
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Uh, you know, and you too, Bubba, like, I know there's a lot of us in there who've been,
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Um, but my second thing would be talk to someone.
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Once you get talking, you can start to, to address the, address the issues as you see
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And then generally, you know, I, and I think this, I guess I said this for, for drinking,
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but, you know, in general, like be ruthlessly honest with yourself.
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I think one of the things that we're taught to do, um, or we end up doing over time is
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sort of settling or, or being comfortable with things that maybe we're not fully comfortable
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with, but that's just kind of the way life is like being really direct and honest with
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Um, that can go a long way to making this a much more powerful experience.
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So that's some great advice that you'd be giving these guys, but now I want you to go
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And guys, whenever he gives you this challenge and you complete it this week, let's post it
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in the order of man, Facebook group with the hashtag in the trenches.
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So my challenge, you know, I've spent a lot of time trying to think about exactly what
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Um, but my challenge was for everyone to come up with three things in their life that
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they need to eliminate in order to move forward.
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And so that can mean anything, you know, I mean, obviously for me, that was clearly alcohol,
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It doesn't need to be an addictive thing, but it could be something like, uh, you know,
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Um, but three things that you can just say right now that are holding you back.
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And the second part of the challenge is to live a week, one week without those things.
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Fairly simple, but doing that challenge and then looking back on what progress you made
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That was a big thing for me when I started in the council was identifying some of those
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And every time I put one of those things down, I felt so much better.
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Um, so that's what I would challenge people to do.
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And I'm looking forward to seeing, seeing some guys complete that.
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Yeah, I'll be, I'll be keeping an eye on it as well.
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Um, you know, uh, that's actually a good question to ask me now after the last year and a half
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of, of doing this, but my vision of this, and it's, it's constantly evolving.
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Um, but my vision of this truly is to be, you know, to be a man is to be someone that's
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true to themselves, that knows what they want, that acts in concert with the, with those things
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that they know that they want, even when it means it's a difficult decision.
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And it's someone who helps others achieve the same thing.
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I'm sure if I tried that again, I could say that more succinctly, but that's, that's what
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And I really do appreciate all the help that you provide inside the council, as well as
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If you've been inspired by this conversation, we encourage you to learn more about the steps,
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These men are using inside of our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council.
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The iron council is a band of brothers dedicated to leveling up their lives and committed to helping
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You can learn more at order of man.com slash in the trenches until next week, take action