[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's not the problem that's the problem. It's ruminating on the problem. If you have too much time to sit around and think about your problems, that's not healthy. If you don't want to go to a 12 step program, if you don't want to go to any program, start serving other people in the community.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: I'm Diana Earley, and I've spent most of my life learning firsthand what privilege actually costs.
The legacy control, the family expectations, the guilt of feeling trapped in a life everyone thinks you should be grateful for. If you've ever wondered why having everything still feels like something's missing, you're in the right place.
Welcome to Pressures of Privilege.
My guest today has sat in rooms most people never see. Manhattan boardrooms, Palm beach estates, and also church basements and state funded recovery homes in Michigan.
Matt Grace has spent over 20 years sober and more than 10,000 hours walking families through addiction.
He founded a practice called Saving Grace, and he built it around one hard truth. Money does not protect a family from pain.
Sometimes it hides the pain.
His about to be released memoir is called God Doesn't Relapse. It's raw and it's honest, and it goes right where most people won't. Matt, welcome to the Pressures of Privilege.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I'm really honored that you're here. You've been showing up on a lot of other podcasts that are quite famous actually.
I'm actually really honored you would come on this one.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's a. Tom Segura actually started to roast me, which I love. You need a sense of humor and recovery.
But he actually. But then he agreed, like fathers shouldn't. Well, we'll get into it. But, you know, he doesn't want, doesn't think it's appropriate for fathers and sons to. There should be some boundaries there.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: You help a lot of families where there's a lot of money and a lot of hurt at the same time. You know, what do people get wrong about? Wealth and addiction mix well for my case.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Like, my father paid my bills till I was 29 years old, so. So people in my family pleaded with him that they were destroying my ambition. He was destroying my ambition.
And so if you come from a place of privilege, some people can handle being spoiled and they still show up for class and they're driven. But for the people who have ADHD or might have some depression or substance use disorder, and if you just spoil them and placate them and don't make things difficult for them.
You know, for me, why would I want to get sober if my father is supporting my drug habit? The biggest fear that I hear from families is that if I throw my son or daughter out, they're going to kill themselves. That's their biggest fear. That's a parent's greatest fear, is suicide. However, if there hasn't been a history or if there's not suicidal ideation going on, it can be used as a manipulative tool.
And so you can manipulate your trauma and you can manipulate your parents and scare them into staying in the same
[00:03:09] Speaker B: old pattern or living in your car and parking the car in a public park. And then the parents are freaking out. They're like my kids sleeping in a park.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: In my book, I'm trying to break through to parents and families that they have to do their own work as well.
And the onus is not just on the addiction or the alcoholic. It's on the whole family.
Because most of these family systems are coming in broken. Nobody's communicating with each other. The communication systems have. Have broken down completely.
And what I'm trying to ask families to do is to embrace their loved ones. Addiction, Everybody has something.
It's diabetes, it's. It's cancer, it's fibromyalgia, lupus. Right? Nobody gets out of this life unscathed with something.
Unfortunately, there's just a stigma with addiction. And like my father, he just swept it under the rug and refused to acknowledge it.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: There's some scenes in your book, by the way. Everybody, this is the book and it's about to come out. August 11th. There's a scene in there.
You've just done an overdose, you know, with pills and vodka, and you threw up all over your boss and, and your co workers. And then, you know, your, your dad's like, do you have the flu or.
And you're like, dad, I need help. And he's like, well, whatever. Like, he didn't, he just didn't want to see or he didn't know. I was like.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: So it's important for people who are listening that I'm fully accountable. One of the things I say is that my father was my best friend, but not my father.
And he did the best that he could. Looking back now as an adult. And what I say in my book is that my father's mistakes.
This book is not an indictment of his failure.
It's a testimony to what can happen when you love someone too much.
And so he was a byproduct of my Grandmother who never wanted to hear anything bad about any of her kids.
And something that's very interesting is, you know, my mom just passed away a month ago, and I was cleaning out her independent living apartment. I found a letter that she had written to my dad 30 years ago.
It's incredible. It's the whole reason why I wrote the book.
It says, you know, she says to my dad, matt tells you what you want to hear, and you only hear too well what you want to hear.
You know, he's failed out of college. He lost his driver's license. He racked up a video max bill. He racked up a bill for these 1-800-sex numbers. He gambled his allowance away. I mean, it's. It's like one thing after the next. And. And my mom, she knew exactly who I was, right? Yes, I have a sickness, but at the same time, that's no excuse to. To treat her poorly, to lie, to manipulate, to steal, to pawn.
Right? I held my parents hostage for 13 years. So that letter, that's the dichotomy that I faced today or when I was working in private practice, is that there's one parent who wants to put boundaries in place, and then there's the other parent who just drives over them.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: She knew all along that you were suffering, you needed help, but your dad just didn't want to see it. Like, I guess that's denial, right? Like, really strong denial.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yes, I. I joke. I joke about it. I. I spoke in Connecticut a couple weeks ago, and I said, you know, I. If I was a serial killer, my dad would say, but he's the best serial killer out there.
Right? Like, I could do no wrong. So every Sunday, we would go to the club for dinner, the country club for dinner, and I was just broken and dead on the inside. And when I would go up to the buffet where all the food was and I was dying inside because, you know, I was smoking crack and. And killing myself with drugs and alcohol, and all my peers were successful, and I felt more comfortable in the street than I did at the club because my dad wanted. I was like a show pony. Oh, my son's the best. He's doing great. He's doing this, he's doing that. I wasn't doing anything. He completely supported my lifestyle.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: You've worked with the very rich and the very overlooked. What's the same about their pain and what's different?
[00:07:18] Speaker A: You have to understand that I grew up with extreme privilege, in a bubble.
And as you can see in my book, it's. You Know, I'm hard to root for in the beginning, but I do make an incredible rebound at the end of the book.
And so if you're not. If you grow up in the suburbs and you're shielded from poverty and hunger, first of all, I didn't care.
Right. I think let's just start with that. I only cared about myself. It was, what could I take from this world? Not what can. Not what can I give back to the world. So with the affluent, it's, you know, money can just expedite the addiction and just keep it going.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: I dealt with a lot of trusts.
People were getting a monthly distribution or, you know, one of my clients was spending 20 to 30 grand a month on, on the Amex black card that went straight to his parents. I mean, think about that.
Most people don't even make a quarter of that. My heart goes out to.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: I've.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: I've dedicated my life to helping men that are less privileged than me because I call them the forgotten ones. And so that's part of what I'm trying to do, is inspire people to give back. Not just in recovery, but people are failing out there.
If you go to the morgue, four out of five suicides are young men. I would say the similarities is that whether it's a Chanel purse or a coach purse, or even if you go down to the, you know, lower middle class, you have families that are really don't have much and are driving their kids to bad neighborhoods so they can buy drugs, shoot up in the car, and then take them home.
And so. Right. That's a form of enabling. A lot of people disagree with me. They say, well, at least that they're around them and they could potentially keep them alive. But think about the trauma that if you're a parent babysitting someone, having to administer Narcan, watching your kid die over and over, that's not a life for the parent.
Right. Parents have a right to live a nice life, too.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Wow. So the pain is the same for the wealthy as well as for the less privileged.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But you know what? When I started volunteering at a place in Detroit, first young sex trafficked girls. That's different.
It's a different. It's because I live. Everybody's familiar with eight Mile, the movie. So I live in Detroit.
And so it's 8 mile, 9 mile, 10 mile. An 8 mile is the dividing mile that separates white and black people.
And once you cross over eight Mile, what I began to see were stories that were much more hardcore than.
And I'M not minimizing wealthy people's issues or problems, but when you're a felon and you have a face tattoo or a neck tattoo and you have no money, you have no resources, you don't have good insurance, you, you have multi generational levels of addiction, major abuse, it's easier to get sober eventually if you have a support system.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Eventually?
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Eventually, yes. It's the same, it's the same pain, right? Like one of my favorite speakers says, if you go to the worst cities in the country, what are the two most prominent things?
Churches and liquor stores.
Why? Because they both give men hope. One through a bottle and the other through the power of God.
And so it's different challenges, but yes, it's the same. The spirit, the, the spiritual desolation and the spiritual bankruptcy is the same.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Your book is called God Doesn't Relapse. So tell me, what does this title mean to you?
[00:11:06] Speaker A: So two things, ironically.
Now. I went to my first treatment center when I was 18. It was four month inpatient.
The second treatment center I went to, I actually found a psychological evaluation from 30 years ago also.
And in my mom's closet. I don't even remember being there. And my only thought was that I was snorting so much Ritalin and using so many amphetamines that I probably had a psychotic episode and just don't remember a lot of it because that's when crystal meth and amphetamines, the psychological terror that it can rain down is extreme because when you start to hallucinate and you start to see people, that's a time where you really need help. On October 2, 2004, I walked in. My mom had one rule, no drugs, no alcohol, and if you're not going to come home, call. Well, I disappeared on a three day crack and alcohol binge. I came home on a Saturday, 11:30 in the morning. When I walked inside, my mother said oh my God. And started sobbing.
And then she said, if you're going to die, it's not going to be in this house. Get out. I'm changing the locks.
And I knew that she meant business this time. And she said, but if you go to a meeting, I'll let you stay an extra night and we'll see how it goes.
And so I've had a lot of exposure to recovery programs.
And so I didn't want to pray on my knees because I had a lot of old ideas about religion and being raised Jewish. I didn't want, I, I thought that was sacrilegious for me. To get on my knees. But guess what? When you experience enough pain, right, and you're dying from drugs and alcohol, then desperation, you'll do. It's like if I was desperate enough to smoke crack, then I could be desperate enough to hit my knees.
And that's what these men.
I surrounded myself with a group of men who were high character individuals, they had balance in their life, they were good husbands again, and they were, they were guys who you wanted to be friends with. And they said, hey, have you tried to hit getting on your knees? And I had heard that a hundred times. And October 3, 2004, 6:30 in the morning, I had a rifle sitting next to me and I said, I got on my knees and I said, God, if you don't show yourself, I'm going to blow my head off.
And I had a white light spiritual experience that lasted 25 minutes to a half hour. The obsession to use drugs was lifted from me instantaneously and I felt the presence of God.
And one of the things I say in my book is I said, I realized I was chosen to serve, I wasn't chosen because of my religion. So that's kind of one part of it is that the spiritual shift that I had by getting on my knees, I would say to myself, how can. And that's why I'm so passionate about prayer. You see, with drug addicts and alcoholics, we like a quick fix, right? You stick a needle on your arm or you down pills with booze, you're on your way. Well, the thing with prayer is that prayer may not work instantly and so people quit and don't give it a chance.
But what I say is a prayer life and a commitment to a higher power is like any other relationship. You have to foster it, you have to be disciplined and you have to nurture it and pay attention to it, just like any other friendship, right? Otherwise it dies.
So that's one part of where I got the title. But really when I, at 16 years sober, I got deathly ill from COVID not respiratory wise, but I lost mobility in my legs and I couldn't walk that that well. And what happened is I, I, it triggered fibromyalgia and I was in so much pain and anybody who's had a chronic inflammation or nerve pain, opiates don't treat nerve pain. I had to find the right concoction and the pain was so severe and they told me I might end up in a wheelchair.
And so my message, why God doesn't relapse, is that first of all my book is not a religious book. I talk about multiple pathways to a higher power. I'm very open about that and very. Because I don't have a monopoly on God. And what works for me not may work for someone else.
But here's the thing.
A lot of people have scuba diving as their higher power. A lot of people have mountain climbing or nature or a group of people at a meeting or yoga retreats. But my message is what happens when you become chronically ill as a young person?
People think they're going to get old and sick when they're older. But as you know, life can change like that.
And I wanted to die. Something had to give.
And I put a double down and I said to myself, I have all these blessings in my life and I think that God's testing me to see how faithful I really am.
And then I said to myself, if I kill myself, what kind of example am I going to be for new people?
That when things get hard, I just check out.
And so that's the way I wrap my, my brain around it was that this is just another test.
And it got me through it because guess what? When you have a chronic illness, the world moves on and so do your friends and they check in from for, you know, once in a while. But if you're bedridden for months on end, it's a very isolating and very lonely place to be. And only the power of God could have gotten me through that.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: So you got through it?
[00:16:31] Speaker A: I got through it. I'm still not the same. I don't know if it's from the vaccination or Covid. I had Covid three times and it's, it's hampered my life, but I'm still able to do service.
And that's really my message about is that service can be your higher power, right? If people struggle with the concept of God, atheists or agnostics, they don't know, they don't want to go to aa. Fine, you don't want to do this, but you can be of service, right? Service predates any recovery program. Everybody can relate to what it's like to do something nice for somebody else and not expect anything in return.
And if people start to build and it's with porn or anything else, right? Like during COVID I started watching.
Well before I got it, when we were on lockdown, I started watching porn again.
And it takes you to the same lonely, not as dangerous, but a very lonely place. And then I started, you know, making myself of service to others and Then it chips away at whatever malady or depression or substance that you're abusing.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's so good. Yeah. In your book you say you don't something about making coffee.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't need a spiritual experience to make a pot of coffee.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: It's true. Because some people don't have a white light experience.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Most people do not.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: It could be a slow process. Right. Where you become kind of God conscious, but over time, slowly, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, maybe there's some serendipity in your life or things are just all of a sudden better. But it's not a white light experience.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: No. So I have a great example.
My former sponsor is working with a young man who is severely bipolar.
And he kept going back out and using.
And I said, why didn't you make him do service? I mean, you were so hard on me. Why don't you, you know, ask him to do some service? He got a service position on a Tuesday night meeting and then a Sunday night meeting.
And he hasn't relapsed since his dis. His disposition has changed dramatically.
People. Because when people see someone who are struggling with bipolar disorder, they don't know how to approach them because they've never been around it really. And it can make people uncomfortable because you're just sitting there depressed with down like that. Right. Not too many people are going to go up and talk to that person.
So there was a major shift in his disposition. I'm not asking people to take away their medication.
Service can be an additional layer of protection. How about while you're taking your meds, why don't you try to do something for someone else? And the minute you start to focus on someone else other than yourself, you're going to have a change.
And so the medication treats your brain, but it doesn't treat your spirit. Those are two very different things.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: How do you feel about, like Al Anon and because, I mean, I'm also codependent. So when you tell me, oh, focus on somebody else.
My Al Anon brain loves that not
[00:19:32] Speaker A: all Al Anon meetings are equal and not all women or men in Al Anon are equal as well. So you really have. It's. It's kind of hard to navigate that you really have to find the right meeting. But I will say, though, what's more important than that, if you have the resources to do family therapy, do it. The case studies that I put in my book, those are the families that did their own work. Like I said, one of the Families who has been open about their name, their last name that I put in the book.
They went to a family therapist once a week for 12 months. Here's a man from Harvard and Wharton who's worth hundreds of, you know, six, $700 million, four homes, private jet.
And he sat down with me and said, tell me what to do.
You know, how. How often I heard that? Not very often.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: They are reaping the rewards of their work. Their son is now 12 years sober.
He's now working at the hedge fund where he was not allowed to work at.
His father has given him $10 million of his own money just to invest on the side. See, that. That's the power of recovery, right? That, that's. That's what's available, and that's what's available when the whole family recovers together.
And the reason why I broke. I stopped my private practice was because these families couldn't even put in simple boundaries.
And kids are far more abusive today towards their parents than they were 50 years ago.
The stuff that they say today, that was not happening 50 years ago. They would have been belted in the mouth. I'm not, I'm not saying belt someone in the mouth. Okay, hold on.
No, what I'm saying is that they get away. You know, I had one kid that's. Yeah. I mean, working with teenagers is a. I mean, God bless those who can work with teenagers. I can't.
Right, because one kid called his mom the C word.
And. And I said. I said, okay, well, here's what's going to happen if I hear him call you that again. I'm not working on this case. And I said, the fact that you're even comfortable with him saying that to you is a problem within itself that is still in place for all I know.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: It's lovely how you created a boundary with the mom and then that created a boundary with the son because she's the one who was in charge of that.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Well, I mean, like, who lets their son talk to. Oh, my. I mean, come on.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: You say recovery isn't just about stopping the bad thing. It's about building a new life. What does that new life actually look like day to day?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: It's very important to understand that there are different levels of addiction.
In the 30s and 40s, they were scraping guys off the sidewalks, okay? They called these people last gaspers.
And today you have the lawyer who has. Is still a partner at the firm. He's. He's an alcoholic, but he's functioning. He's still, he's still married, still has the kids, right?
Things aren't going well. But he's not in the same place that people are dying from fentanyl overdoses, right? Or people are. Cannot function in society like myself.
And so when I go speak to the inpatients, I. There's one place that I loved. I speak at the last Sunday of every month. I speak to 110 men.
These are the forgotten ones not named Matthew Perry, right? Like, I'm. I'm tired of hearing about famous people's addictions because there's people in your backyard who are dying every day who need your help.
And so what that looks like depends on the level of your addiction. And I tell people, like, if you're shooting heroin or if you're smoking crack or snorting fentanyl, pure fentanyl.
These people who've been to treatment 9, 10, 11 times on Medicaid, like, they need to put more effort into the recovery than the person who's still a partner at a law firm. Not everybody has to put the same effort in. What I suggest is that a lot of us addicts are undisciplined and we need a routine. So it is extremely important, whatever that is, right? If it's not 12 step, then dharma. If it's not Dharma, then smart recovery. If it's not smart recovery, then celebrate recovery. I mean, I can go on and on because I hear all the excuses, right? I don't like this one. I like that one. Even if you're on medically assisted treatment, like, even if you're on Suboxone, right? Or supplicate and you don't want to program, you have to have some type of faith and some type of routine.
Because if you think that Suboxone is going to save you when your son is murdered, you're in for a rude awakening. I highly recommend some form of therapy.
If they're not going to do therapy, then be in a routine.
If there's someone who is can't function at all, go get a stress free job at a Starbucks or just do anything. But sitting at home ruminating about how bad your life is is unacceptable.
And so a routine of recovery is important. I don't care if it's the gym, I don't care, right? Because people will say, now I don't like aa, I don't care.
Then don't go, but get off your ass and go help someone else and get a job, right? You can do those two things. You can dig ditches, right? There There are things that people can do. It's if they want to do that. That's the bigger question, right? We have to start asking addicts, do you even want to stop using? And guess what?
I didn't. And that's okay, because I just wasn't ready.
I didn't want to stop. Right. The only reason why I stopped was because my parents, my whole family came together and I burned every bridge.
So what someone can do instantly if they don't have resources, because a lot of people don't have the resources for the ancillary services that I provided in recovery.
You know, go work, go volunteer at a soup kitchen for one hour.
That's one hour that you're not obsessing about your own problems.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: I love that a lot of my listeners were handed a name, a fortune, or a legacy they didn't ask for. How does that kind of pressure feed addiction?
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I worked with a family who.
Billions of dollars. Billions.
And their sibling, I think there were eight kids or nine kids.
One of the siblings was getting 50 to 100,000amonth from his trust.
Now think about those numbers, right? So if, if, if that's your. What your trust looks like every month, you know, why would you want to stop using? What. What I asked the family to do was to rein back the money, because the first family that I worked for in Palm beach was a friend of my father. That's in the book. I said, you can't let your son spend $25,000 a month on the MX Black card. He's living in a $5 million apartment, not contributing anything. He paid absolutely nothing. You have to have skin in your own game. It's like I did a video where I slammed into a parked truck drunk, and then my father bought me a new car two days later.
Right. I didn't know how much that car cost. I didn't know what the insurance was. I didn't know gas. I mean, like, there, there's people who live in a bubble that don't know how to take care of themselves. And especially for kids, you want to make things a little bit more difficult between 16 and 20 because you have to prepare them for life. Everybody thinks, oh, I want my son to be happy. I want my daughter to be happy. No, you want them to learn how to function because happiness is a byproduct of happiness comes and goes. Everybody's going to. Is going to be smacked in the face with some kind of depressed moment or some kind of catastrophe. You have to learn how to be functional.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: So, so when a wealthy family calls you, what's the first lie you have to break?
[00:27:08] Speaker A: It just depends, right? I. I go. It's not that easy. What I'll do is my former business, business partner and I, we would go and. And usually meet them in their own home, and we would listen to them and we would take in all the information.
There's so many complexities. Each case is different, but it usually comes down to boundaries.
When they get out of a treatment, do not let them come back home and live in their bedroom.
Don't let them. I mean, whatever the boundary was, they would always break it.
They could hold the line for a couple months, then the kid would start complaining, and then they would just acquiesce to whatever they like. Here's a for instance I've had to tell. Because for me, it's not about the money.
It's. It's about.
It's life and death, okay? And I say this, no disrespect to marriage counselors. This is a different world, okay?
And one family, the kid said to his father, I want a BMW, and it better be this color. And if it's not this color, don't bother. He gave him the car and the color of the car, the exact color of the car he wanted.
Now, here's someone who doesn't have a job, who keeps relapsing, who. And I. I begged and pleaded with the family because I wasn't working in the field anymore. So when families call me, I pass them on to other. Other practitioners.
And. And they don't listen.
And so I. I said, you're going to kill your son. I said, I can't listen. I've given you the same advice. I don't even know why you call me.
Why do you even call me? Because I told you who to call, right? I suggested do this, this and this. And you don't want my advice, so stop calling me. If you make things too easy for your kids, right, you're going to have kids that are all A students that go to Harvard, right? If we're talking about privileged kids, right, they can be spoiled, but they're still driven. But then there's the procrastinators and the kids like myself who don't want to do anything, who are looking for shortcuts their whole life.
And if you take that approach with them, you are setting them up for a complete failure in life.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: So what do you suggest? Like a parent does with a kid. Like that.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: All right, so, for instance, my father. I went to college after high school, I got into lived in Santa Barbara, which was where I've got into crystal meth. My father gave me a credit card and said, emergencies only.
Well, when, when my allowance ran out, because that's what happens with drugs, I started going to the credit, taking my credit card and getting cash advances.
And I, between my report card and my cash advances, my dad got the credit card bill and the report card, which the report card was incomplete because I didn't go to class.
As a matter of fact, I was hanging out with my friend in Brentwood who lived right down the street from O.J. simpson or where O.J. used to live, and Jerry west and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and all these Lakers and all these stars. And my father flew out there. Now, keep in mind, I ran up a $10,000 credit card bill.
That was 33 years ago, so it was more like 20,000.
And my father just, you know, showed up, took me out of college for a weekend and said, can't you just get your shit together and pull yourself up by your bootstraps? And what he did is he paid the whole bill.
And so what I say to parents is, first of all, drug test your son or daughter.
Right. He did not drug test me.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Would you have agreed to it though, Matt?
[00:30:47] Speaker A: I would have had to because he was supporting me.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Okay, so he would have said, you, I'll only give the money if you.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, you have to take a drug test.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: And you know what, you know what we would do sometimes, my former business partner and I, when we would confront a teenager, we'd say, we think you're using. Your mom is going to drive you to the drug testing facility right now.
So when they got there, he got out of the car and ran.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Okay, well, he's off automatically, right? I mean, it's automatic.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Even if it's as, you know, an at home test, it's better than nothing. But at least, you know, listen, if they're getting a 0.0 and they're not going to class, remove them from school immediately. My father just sent me back there and two weeks later I OD'd and called my mom and said, if you don't fly out to California tomorrow to pick me up, I'm going to die.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: So take them out of school and then do what?
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Well, they'll either go to treatment.
If they don't go to treatment, then at least an intensive outpatient.
If it's not an intensive outpatient, then there's some kind of rule maybe. Okay, so like there's a lot of people online who are saying, put someone on a medically assisted treatment like, like Suboxone, right? If they're, if they're having an opiate issue, but if they can't wake up to go to class, what makes you think that they can? It's like you gotta, they have to have some kind of job. And what I recommend is that if someone's failing to launch and floundering in school, whether it's drugs or no drugs, take them out, get them the right therapy that they need and then have them get a part time job. But if they can't function in society, moving them from school to school, like my father did with me, is just playing musical chairs on the Titanic. Not every kid is ready to launch into life at 19. Kids have problems.
College is not the answer for everybody. It's just not.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: And what if they can't get up for, for the, for work? I guess they get fired, right?
[00:32:40] Speaker A: Then they get fired and you have consequences. I mean, you might have to take away everything, right? No cell phone, no video games. You can't let them just do nothing.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah, video games. What, what do you think about that?
[00:32:53] Speaker A: I think it's a disaster.
Now it's one thing if you're an attorney and you like to play, if you're a functional adult, like I'm saying, if you can function, there's nothing wrong with video games. But if you're smoking pot and playing video games all day and your parents are allowing that, then shame on them. Parents don't want to hear the truth. Listen, this is this whole book, this whole thing, these 10,000 hours, 21 years of sobriety. Parents don't know who their kids are. My father did not know who I was.
And until they can be honest with themselves, and until addicts can be honest with themselves also, there is no change.
You have to start from honesty.
Oh, you don't want to stop using. Good. At least tell me, just be honest.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: What about the love addiction stuff? I think that's the really hard addiction.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I mean, I, I used to take a client to SLA meetings, right? Sex and love addiction, where you have people that are on five different dating apps talking to 10 different people because they need that validation. And I think that's a great point because I'm not a fan of co ed treatment centers because as someone who once the drugs and alcohol are out of my system and now my hormones are working again, all I'm thinking about is validation from another woman.
And so that is a problem that.
You know, the treatment center, the third treatment center that I went to, there were 30 men and 30 women. Everybody was hooking up, just about everybody. And to show you how sick I was when I first got to treatment, someone said, oh, yeah, see, I'm like, who's that? She's kind of cute. And they're like, yeah, she just had sex with two different guys today at treatment, okay? And so that's a distraction.
And now that I'm not using drugs and alcohol, I need validation. I needed validation from women. You have to learn how to love yourself first.
I heard a great, great story once. Why don't you try building a relationship with God first and then worry about someone else later?
Because if you don't know how to learn how to love yourself and you're putting all your equity into someone else, right, you're relying on someone else for your own happiness. I mean, you know, it's. Listen, I'm not, I'm not recreating the wheel here, right. I'm just saying that if someone doesn't have insight to themselves, they will never recover because they're just going to be in denial and listen. And unfortunately, some people die. I believe I was spared to. To try to serve other human beings.
I was the, the. The most detestable person out of all my friend group. A lot of them are dead.
And so I was able to get honest with myself and realize that I was a cruel and selfish and spoiled entitled kid. Entitled kid with alcohol or without?
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing that's so interesting is that everybody thinks that once you take away the substance, oh, everything will be fine.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: No, because you still have men who like, like. Yeah. I mean, I talk to guys in recovery and they're like, yeah, well, escorts aren't. Isn't cheating because there's no intimacy.
And it's like, okay, can you tell your wife that?
Well, yeah. Okay, so then it's probably not a good idea right there. So just because someone isn't drinking or using drugs and I've been. That I've been spiritually bankrupt in sobriety, miserable, not adhered, not adhering to spiritual principles.
A jerk.
Judgmental. Like my character defects, just. Just blaring. And so I know, at least for me, that the closer I am to be, the. When I'm in service and when I have balance in my life, people who have balance, a little bit of service, a little bit of this, that. Right. Everybody's program can look different.
But having service interwoven to your recovery program and having balance with the right relationship, the right job, the right career, having purpose, that's the best medicine. It's a combination of everything.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: So for people who've never been to like a 12 step meeting, like what are some of the service positions people can take on again?
[00:37:07] Speaker A: And now that I've been online, now that I published this book and have been posting content because you have to when you're a no name author. And I was, I was hesitant to do it because I'm so. I have such a deep rooted faith in God. I didn't want the videos to be about me, but I have had a crazy life. I mean, you've seen some of my videos.
So I think I want to because there's a lot of people that, there's a lot of negativity online towards a 12 step program. So if you do want to go to aa, then there are tons of. You could be a greeter, right? You can make coffee, there's tons of service.
If you don't want to go to a 12 step program, if you don't want to go to any program, start serving other people in the community.
And I have a couple of suggestions.
I didn't realize when my mom was in the nursing home how many elderly people have no one that visits them. It is shockingly, it's, it's shocking and sad to sit with these people that have nobody.
I mean, imagine just dying in a home with no visitors, right? You can go and, and, and befriend an elderly person, right? You can go to. How about the veterans, right? There's a lot of veterans who are struggling. How about soup kitchens? But then, Diana, we have to ask ourselves, because addicts are so full of it. You know when someone says, I don't like aa, I don't believe in God. I said, oh, I love that we're going to go to a soup kitchen. Oh, well. Oh, okay. So you're full of shit. Excuse my language, right? Let's just be honest with each other. If you don't want to go to a soup kitchen, just if you don't want like what I'm saying, then just tell me and we can split ways, right? But we have to start being holding addicts accountable and just say, what, what do you want then? What do you want to do? Right? You give them all these suggestions and they don't want to. And I saw this author on a Joe Rogan podcast and she said people are ruminating about their problems and it's not the problem, that's the Problem is ruminating on the problem. If you have too much time to sit around and think about your problems, that's not healthy.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: Good point.
Wow, thank you. So what do you want someone listening right now who's quietly struggling to hear from you?
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Well, if I can make it, anybody can.
There's nothing special about me.
I was, I'm a miracle. Because as you've read about how the way that I behaved as a child, the way that I spoke to people and I was a cruel kid.
I, I would say if you think money, because money can also seduce you about 13 years of sobriety.
I bought a 9 11, my dream car, a home, a golf club, all this stuff. And eight months later I sold the car.
Because I thought that all of this stuff that society says will make me happy did nothing for my spirit. And then when I jumped back into service, and I'm not saying that money is, money is very important because you need healthcare and right. You need food, you need a lot of things. Money is important.
But I've learned that material things do not come close to making me happy, like getting myself out to help someone else. So if you're, if you're struggling, go to treatment, right? If you're not open to treatment, let's say you're, you're borderline. You don't know if you're an alcoholic or if you don't, right? If you're a clear cut heroin addict and you're shooting dope, I would say go, go to detox, right? If you need to be detoxed from Xanax or alcohol or opiates, then go to detox and then get a therapist and, and start to map your life out.
If you're not sure and you're really depressed, go help someone else. You know what my mentor said to me? He said if you want self esteem, you need to do esteemable things. And a lot of people have low self esteem. Whether you're depressed or you're in addiction. And the best way to bolster your spirit is to go help someone else.
Because it doesn't cost anything.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Well, especially like I'm a people pleaser.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: I'm addicted to people pleasing.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Don't you hate people like me?
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what? Let me tell you something.
I am the furthest thing away from a people pleaser. It is. There's so much freedom in not caring what people think.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: I know when I drank, I was more like you.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: There's a joke in, in a 12 step program, when I die, there's going to be a hundred people that come to pay their respect and 100 people to come and make sure that I'm dead. And that's the thing. I don't work a good program. I, I, it's like, yeah, I'm not Mr. Recovery either. Right. I'm flawed. I have problems just like everybody else, even at 21 years of sobriety. But, but what I want to say is I want to be known for someone who tells the truth. Everybody knows where they stand with me. They might say, oh well, Matt, you know what, he's, he was an a hole, but at least I told the truth.
I want people to know that I, that I paid my debts and that I speak truth. Anything else that people think of me, I could care less telling you the truth.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: I think that therapist you had as a kid needs to be hung. Sorry. I really want to go beat him up.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: That's what most people.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Because there's other low bottom addicts like me. Right. I'm not the only one. But I think that's when people read my book and they see what that relationship was like and it's just, it's just so shocking that there was a professional that would abuse me like that.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just like, you know, people talk about big T, little T, like big trauma being like rape, incest. Like what that guy did was so insidious and so subtle, but so damaging. It was just horrible. I just wanted to save little Matt Grace When I read that.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting. My therapist said that had my life like had I been going through then today, I would have been removed from
[00:42:55] Speaker B: my home, which might have been better in a way so you wouldn't have to go see that jerk.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And the, the, the lack of, of oversight and supervision that my dad's in didn't give.
Right. Like being, being a minor and being at home 10 days unattended to.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you call your mom, I need help. Oh, I'm on my way to Paris.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: London.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: London or whatever. Yeah, she was like on, like, oh my God, like where were the grownups?
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Not there. But you know what? I'd like to say something.
My mom died last month and my father died 11 years ago. They both died knowing that I'm sober. And I want to tell some, anybody who's listening, it's the best gift.
There's nothing that I could buy today, not a watch, not a car, not a vacation that will give me the satisfaction of knowing that I held my mom's hand sober when she died.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And you were able to administer the pain drugs at the end without relapsing.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Correct. Liquid Dilaudid by syringe every hour in her mouth.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: She went to heaven knowing like, probably be feeling in heaven with you by her side. She must have just been like, oh, hallelujah.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: The fact that my mom let me take over her finances was the ultimate sign of respect and the biggest, such tremendous honor. I will always cherish that and remember that. That she started making mistakes in her checkbook and I had to take over three years ago and that she trusted me. Now I know other people can relate because there are some low bottom addicts out there.
If, if I were using, the National Guard would have been, would have been guarding her home.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I have some friends who've been.
Their parents wrote them out of the will and now they're back in the will. Now that they're sober. What would you say to a parent whose kid isn't full blown addict? Let's just say. Or she doesn't know because he's. It's only been minor things like an injury, roughhousing because of booze and then maybe passing out, you know, in his car, not driving, but you know, kind of borderline D. Dwi. What would you say to a parent like that?
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Well, okay, so kids are drinking less today and they're smoking more pot and the marijuana is dangerous.
Um, I don't know if you've heard of. I've been reading something called scrom.
Have you seen that?
[00:45:14] Speaker B: I, I mean, I know that pot, like the high THC content is making pot really dangerous.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Well, apparently people are vomiting and trying to scream simultaneously.
Oh, so why is it vomiting?
[00:45:25] Speaker B: So why did they scream?
[00:45:27] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know anything about it. I just know that it's triggering mental illness, it's triggering psychotic breaks. Right. This is not the weed that I, I never liked weed. I was a hardcore amphetamine guy. But it's not the same. It's made in a lab right now it's like a chemist from Stanford. Are people Ivy League people are making marijuana today.
It's causing a lot of problems. Nitrous has made a resurgence. You know, it's tough because there's a lot of parents who their kids might be. So I would say this.
No drugs or alcohol in the house. And there's way too many families that allow that.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Would you send them to, to AA if they've had like two problems? Two or three problems? Or is that too early on? Because I Mean, where's the line? Like where's somebody actually needs rehab or AA and they're just experimenting and just being kids?
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the fine line. Right. It's not easy to tell.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: And so I'll give an example. The way that I used was pretty hardcore, Right. Like drinking all this and, and I mean, I was drinking every day, but my friends would, would on the weekend we would, I mean, go fry, go hard, go out Friday night and not sleep till Sunday night. What I noticed was on Monday they went to work.
Except I, I was still drinking and not working.
So a lot of your friends will fall off and they'll fall in line with whatever career that they pursue and then there's someone like me. So it's, it's, There is no simple answer.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: No, but if, if you're, you can't do rec. Use drugs recreationally in the house. You know, you have to have boundaries. If they drink and drive, you take their car away.
Right. You have to pay attention. A lot of families are just checked out.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And a lot of parents are afraid of their kids because their kids get violent when you take the stuff away.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: So what do you say to a parent like that?
[00:47:21] Speaker A: I don't know. That's why I, that's why I quit my practice.
I mean, I've told him a hundred times already, right. Like, what do you want out of life? You know, do you want a functional kid?
Yeah. You, you can't be their friend.
You ever see parents now, like bargaining with a 4 year old?
Like you're, they're, they're, they're leaning down and trying and I'm not saying to bet, to, to belt them or hit them. That's not what I'm saying. But like, you're not going to rationalize with a screaming 3 year old in a mall. Now they're 6, now they're 10, now they're 12, and now it's a runaway freight train. I would like to see parents do have like a weekend, a program for parents to go to for a, for a weekend. Like a retreat.
I think that's what's needed at least to start there.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: A retreat for parents. That's, that's a really good idea.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: But then it's like treatment. Like a lot of people come into treatment and they're like, yeah, I've been here 30 days. Oh man, my life is right. Like they're on a high. I'm gonna do it. And then four days later they're in the, they're using Drugs and alcohol.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: I mean, my therapist says codependency is almost more dangerous than that, than substance use.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: There's a saying parents are loving their kids to death.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: But also parents themselves could die of suicide. They can die of car accidents and of mental illness like depression and. Or they. They end up with cardiac issues.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a. I mean, parents. Families have a right to live a nice life. That's why I said, After 13 years of holding my family hostage, they all came together and said, you're. We're done.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: But it took many years for them to get to that point. Anyway, I want to say thank you, Matt, for coming on. Did I forget something to ask you?
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, yeah. My book is available. Here comes my shameless plug. Yeah. Please do pre order on Amazon right now. It comes out on August 11th. I put my heart and soul into it.
And if you're a family that's struggling with addiction, I put case studies in there. So it's not just my opinions. I have 10,000 hours of case studies. And by the way, one of the families in that book, you can reach out to me at
[email protected] and. Because I think credibility is important. That's why they put their name in there and so you can call this family and they'd be happy to talk to somebody.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: It's amazing.
More than 48 million Americans are battling substance use disorder. That's a lot of people.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Matt, for everything that you do. I hope to meet you in person sometimes.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Yeah, likewise. Thank you for having me.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: If this episode landed for you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming. But here's the real thing. I want you to know if you're carrying something you can't talk about, if you have every resource except someone who actually understands what wealth costs. I work one on one with people like you navigating exactly that. You can reach me@diana oehrli.com. thanks for listening.
