From Suicidal Despair to Redemption: Joe Malone’s Battle with TBI, Addiction, and Military Ostracism | Ep. 250 | Pt. 3

Mike Drop

Mike Ritland

Society & Culture, Documentary, Politics, News

4.9 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 250, Part 3 of the Mike Drop Podcast, Joe Malone opens up about the darkest chapter of his life, where personal and professional turmoil collided. Battling traumatic brain injury (TBI), overprescription of 26 medications, and severe substance abuse, Joe faced isolation, depression, and near-suicidal despair after being ostracized by his Marine command. He recounts a chilling night contemplating murder-suicide, only to be saved by a friend’s timely intervention. From this low point, Joe shares his journey of recovery, flushing his medications, and reprogramming his mindset through routine changes and motivational resources like Earl Nightingale and Dr. Joe Dispenza. Transitioning to civilian life, he faced financial ruin from high-risk stock trading but found purpose in founding JM Training and Lethal U, a firearms training community aimed at empowering veterans and civilians. Joe also reveals a harrowing experience uncovering a major political scandal in Sao Tomé and Príncipe, highlighting the dangers of his post-military contracting work. Tune in for an inspiring story of resilience, mental health recovery, and building a mission-driven community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The personal life continues to spiral.
0:04.5	And it sounds like it's kind of a whirlwind of kind of all of the worst case scenario stuff, both professionally and personally, are all kind of coming together at the same time.
0:15.7	Yeah.
0:17.5	How did you handle that?
0:20.0	And did you find yourself falling back into the
0:24.5	kind of addictive personalities with substance in in many forms or how did you deal with it?
0:31.8	Yeah I definitely used a lot of substances.
0:34.9	Was it all alcohol or was there a lot of other stuff?
0:38.3	It was not all alcohol.
0:41.3	It was definitely a lot of, well, so in the, after my brain scans, they accepted me into the
0:52.3	TBI program, the traumatic brain injury program.
0:55.8	It's crazy, right? To me, if you get shot in the head, that's a TBI, but we've learned
0:59.5	so much about them in the last, you know, a handful of years that it's actually so much deeper
1:04.5	than that. And so when he read off the things I was suffering from random hot flash, like
1:09.5	soaking my clothes and sweats, crazy
1:11.7	horrible migraines, super light sensitivity, just feeling like garbage and run down all day long.
1:19.1	He had my attention and NICO, I think that's what it's called, they have a really great
1:24.2	program.
1:25.2	They assign you a team of doctors and specialists and they run you through this gambit of things,
1:28.8	and you get access to a lot of really great resources,
1:30.8	at least we did out over there.
1:32.5	One of the downfalls, though, was the over-prescription of the medications.
	...

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