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Fighting! Out of the funny papers, New Jersey! All, weigh in at 185 pounds.

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Jersey!

The dawn! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE good, right? Not quite on time, but... No problems. No, we're all good. No problems. No problems. No problems with the tripod again. I mean this is Kevin now Kevin. I always put Kevin on a pedestal with one of my favorite guys here. Great producer, great editor. Has yet to figure out the tripod. It kicks my ass every single week.

Every time, or anytime I need to use it. Yeah, I mean, we're always set up, we're always ready to go. We always got the things in the back, TV's always on, logos are there. It's just the tripod, you can't get past the tripod. Can't figure it out every single time. It's always, you know, it's always on. What about a YouTube tutorial or something? like that help you out.

Those help me out.

Maybe I'll do that tonight.

There you go.

I wanted to talk a little bit um about you know recovery and sobriety how everybody's Recovery's different um Now for everybody who watches the show i'm a strong believer in being sober complete abstinence from all-mind and mood altering substances i don't drink i don't smoke weed i don't do anything but uh... i'm not against like people who had heroin problems or crystal meth problems and they just kind of figured out their recovery along the way and they have a beer or they drink on the weekends. For me like I can't, I know I can't do those things. Like I know for a fact I've tried to do those things in the past. I've tried, when I got sober one time, I tried to start drinking and just, it doesn't work out. I always go back to fucking up, you know? And for me, I can't. And I understand that. But there's other people out there in this world that they can. And I'm not jealous of those people by any means, but that's, that's their recovery, you know, it may not be their sobriety because sobriety to me is no matter what I'm no drinking, no drug, none of that, you know, no beard. Like, dude, if I had a beard, I'd be devastated. I'd be, I'd be crushed. Because for me, it's like I came all these years and, you know, there's no need for me to do any of that stuff. You know? I don't need to have a beer, watching a game on a Sunday to have a good time. So for me, I can't do any of those things, but there is people, like this one guy messaged me, like even, okay, we're going out to Panama City next week right right we're going out to Panama City next week we're gonna interview a golfer and we'll interview him on the green during the practice round you know he struggled with heroin and pills and even on the phone he was asking me like get my advice, like, what do I think about this, what I think about that? Like, hey, Jerry, I have like one or two cocktails a week, you know what I mean? Like, what's your opinion on that? And I straight up told him like, you'll figure out your recovery on your own, you know what I mean? I Don't judge, you know, I don't judge people If hey if that's working for you great like That's awesome. I know it won't work for me But for you if that's working for you like and you stop doing heroin and you stop doing pills and you're just you know having a couple cocktails a By all means, I mean, that's your business, that's your life, if it works for you, great. But I told them my opinion, I'm a guy who believes in complete abstinence, nothing. That's just what I believe. And some people might not understand that, but everybody's recovery is different. And I gotta keep telling myself all the time because the amount of messages I get and people are always curious like, oh, what do you think about this? What do you think, hey, you think it's okay for me to smoke weed? You know, I haven't done pills or do you think it's okay for me to have a drink? I've been clean from heroin for 30 days. Listen, my recommendation is always the same, you know? Stay sober for a year, man. If I had to give straight up advice to somebody, and they were fresh off of rehab or, you know, they haven't done anything yet, stay sober for one year and tell me how you feel afterwards, you know. Do you mean full abstinence by that or like, or like just, yeah, I mean like, yeah, full full app like stay sober for a year man, stay sober a year and and and come to me a year later and tell me how you feel. Funny story I was in I was in rehab my counselor Joe Ross who I'm I want to get on the show he we talked over the phone last week the phone, um, last week and, uh, you know, he's doing better. He's doing good and, uh, he'd love to come on the show. It's just he lives like, like three and a half hours away in Pennsylvania now. So it's like so hard, you know, that that travel's pretty tough. But, um, when we got to rehab, he would, he, now had money, always dress nice, you know. You could always tell he saved money, always was wearing the Faragamo shoes and all that stuff. So when I'm fresh into rehab, I'm like, looking at this guy, like, oh, he's so put together, he's so nice. Which he was, you know. And one day he pulled out a thousand dollars out of his wallet and it was all hundreds, ten hundreds and he says he's a thousand dollars right here, okay. Go stay sober, you stay sober for a year, right? And if you don't like being sober and you don't love being sober, stay sober for one whole year. And if you don't like it and you want to go back out, come see me. And I'll give you a thousand dollars and you go go, you go back out again. And the truth behind that is like anybody who stayed sober for a year or more, they liked being sober. They never went back and got the $1,000. What would you say to the person who hears that and is almost intimidated by staying completely abstinent from everything? Because if you're coming off of opioids or something like that, and they can get through that first jump of, okay, I got to put down the opioids and the drugs. But then you say, now stay off of alcohol and say weed or something like that. That could be kind of intimidating for a person who's just starting that off. What would you say? Yeah, 100%. Of course, it's intimidating. But how bad do you want your fucking life to change? You know what I mean? Like how how bad do you really want listen like This is after the physical withdrawals and stuff it becomes a hundred percent mental and You got to tell yourself every fucking day. How bad do I want to fucking stay sober today and every day Hey willingness to say sober always outweighs, you know my want to go get high man Every fucking day and I make it my business every day to stay sober So for somebody who's like intimidated by it and and the nervous man like how bad do you really want your fucking life to change? You know what I mean? How bad do you you want to be sober? And it's like hey if you don't want it that bad man then then maybe you need to go back out again and do some more research and and you know fuck up your life some more man because you know I've had so many so many people close to me lose their lives over this and families ruined by this disease that I make it my business every fucking day to stay sober man. Good days bad days. Okay days. It doesn't matter It's raining outside. It's a holiday It's I'm upset or whatever the case may be I make it my business to not fucking pick up man Um, I always tell myself myself and I always tell my mama, I'm a part of the no matter what club man. And you know what that means is I don't pick up no matter what. No matter what kind of day I'm having, no matter what happens in my life, bad days, good days, okay days, I don't pick up no matter what and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse for me in this world to go pick up again, man. There's no excuse and if you're struggling, one you give to guys over at Retreat a call. They sponsor the show, good people. You can call this number 85594909-0900. It's retreat behavior health. They have three inpatient and eight outpatient facilities across Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida. Retreat has an incredible veterans program for all the veterans out there. It's called healing our heroes. It's fully contracted with the VA at all locations. Anyone struggling with substance abuse or mental health, please out reach out to retreat right away to get help. Even if it's just a talk or you want to see meeting locations or anything like that, retreat has highly trained admission specialists and transportation team standing by 24-7. The number again is 855-949-0900 or you can go to the website www.retreatbehaviorhealth.com If you are a loved one, please give them a call and they will be ready to help. But yeah, Kev, I just, like I say, often, this is a, this is personal, man, this is a, this is personal. And I believe, I'm a firm believer in the, um, complete abstinence. But, you know, on the other hand, um, there's people out there that can, that can drink again, you know? and they could smoke weed. And those same people might not ever go back to heroin or crystal meth or robbing people for money for drugs and stealing stuff from their family. There's people out there that I have even friends that are that I grew up with, struggled with, smoked crack with, done heroin with, that they go out on Saturdays and Friday nights or Thursday night and they drink and they get drunk and they're not picking up again and I can't tell myself, why can't I do that? Because I know I can't. I know for a fact I can't because I know I've already done that research myself and it always turns back to I'm back smoking crack again or I'm back doing heroin. What do you say to the person who might not know themselves to that level though and they're thinking, um, you know, let me like they have these urges again and they're like, okay, drink or smoke and they don't quite know what the outcome of that is going to be like they can, it's almost like a trial and failure at that point. 100% yeah, oh 100%

You know it's unfortunate to say this, but you don't, like you don't know, see the difference between me and some people is this, is like they don't know, you know, what's gonna happen, you know? They don't know the outcome. And I don't want to say this wrong way. I don't want to say go out and try because I don't. But some people need experiences like that. Going back out again. And hopefully they make it, you know, and they figure it out. Because there's a lot of people who don't. But for me, I've already done that, you know. And that's why it's important for your advice in that place to say try the one year for its life. Yeah, dude, I believe in that, man. I believe in that. Hey, you're a fucking junkie, bro, and you're fucking, we're strung out on heroin and fucking smoking crack or crystal meth or you were an alcoholic or anything like that.

It was suggested to me to stay sober for a fuck. and fucking smoking crack or crystal meth or you were an alcoholic or anything like that.

Like it was suggested to me to stay sober for a fucking year straight no matter what. And that's just what I've done and it worked for me and hopefully it'll work for you, you know. But yeah man, like people like people in my DMs they ask me like, oh, like, like do you get jealous or, like you can't ever drink again with your friends? They're like, no, I don't get jealous, I don't. And you're in a lot of situations too, like with your job going out to like Barth, like the Philly Ball, Chicago, if you're ever out there, it's not like you're not in these positions. Yeah, I think that just goes to say How well you do know yourself. Yeah dude like I Mastred myself bro. I know what makes me tick. I know what would what will make me Want drugs? I I I know myself so well that like I don't give myself a chance to you know crave or want drugs and you know that obsession that obsession to use been lifted for so long man I think like around the you know 90- day mark around there that that like obsession to get high and get drugs. It's been so removed for so long you know. Early on in sobriety I remember telling myself like you know I would one day I'd be a normal guy and you know drink, drink or whatever at the bar with friends or, you know, if I'm watching a football game or something like that, have a beer, but I'm not a normal guy, you know. I'm not a normal guy and I said it on this show before, like, if I ever relapsed, it'd be nobody would, nobody would find me again, man. I'd be filled with so much shame and so much guilt and I don't think I'd ever be able to you know look at my family or friends or fans or anything like that again I think I just crawl into this deep dark hole and just get high until I die or get locked up man because that's

just the way I get high you know. I always go from zero to 100 so fast. There's never like I creep back into it and you know I ease into it it's like no and you lose a lot of people to this disease and I lost another person a couple weeks ago in the area and you know it's sad man it's so sad this disease and you can't underestimate the power that it has because it doesn't give a fuck about anything in your life. It just wants to control you and fuck your whole life up, man, to the point where you just don't give a fuck about anything anymore. And you know what helps Toukev is like setting goals for yourself and achieving them. I remember early on, and I wanna get back into it too. I used to write down these little goals. One of the goals was to get a job. And I started bag and groceries at a safe way, supermarket. That was my first job in sobriety was back in groceries man. And I needed that to humble me a little bit, you know. And I set that goal and then I set other goals. Like I want to get a better job. You know, I want to, then the goals became I want to learn a trade, you know. And then other goals were, you know, one day I want a family. You know, one day I want this car. You know, people make fun of me for having a key at Telly ride. It's a nice car. You know, and for a long time, I wanted that truck so bad. But I wanted this specific truck, you know, it was the dark green outside with the butter scotch inside And I couldn't find it and I was going crazy for months because I had the money to get the truck I just couldn't find the truck and I wanted this truck so bad like I Wanted it so bad and I couldn't get it I couldn't find it and then one day I get a call from the dealer like Hey Hey, Jerry, you know, uh, the truck you've been calling for is here.

If you want to come take a look at it, boom done gone. I got it.

You know, so, so it's important in sobriety to set goals for yourself.

And you know, there's no goal that you really can achieve, you know,

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