Three DUIs, Two Seizures, One Last Chance At Sobriety with Derek
Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories
Brad McLeod
4.8 • 596 Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Derek shares a raw, unforgettable sobriety story: growing up in a chaotic home, learning early that alcohol was “dangerous,” and still getting pulled into a cycle of binge drinking, DUIs, and arrests. He opens up about the restaurant industry drinking culture, people-pleasing, shame, and how secrecy (“what happens in this house stays in this house”) fueled isolation.
Eventually, alcohol dependence escalated to 25–30 beers per day, severe withdrawal, grand mal seizures, and DTs, leading to hospitalization and a medically critical turning point. Learn how he turns it all around.
We also talk about Derek’s book The Dog Bowl—a fictional story built from real addiction pain and real recovery truth.
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Derek On IG: https://www.instagram.com/dpaquette1/
Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/
Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.com
Support the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation
Contact me anytime: brad@sobermotivation.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to season five of the Sober Motivation Podcast. |
| 0:03.2 | Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. |
| 0:08.5 | We're here to show sobriety as possible. |
| 0:11.3 | One story at a time. |
| 0:14.1 | Let's go. |
| 0:16.9 | Derek didn't think alcohol would become his story until it did. |
| 0:20.6 | Three DUIs, witcher all seizures, and a last day of drinking that almost ended everything. |
| 0:25.4 | Today he's been sober since October of 2016, and he's living proof that a complete turnaround is possible. |
| 0:31.8 | And this is Derek's story on the sober motivation podcast. |
| 0:36.4 | How's it going, everybody? February 2nd, a Monday. |
| 0:41.5 | I love Mondays. |
| 0:43.4 | I really do. |
| 0:44.8 | Never thought I would be that person, but I guess I am. |
| 0:48.9 | Thank you, as always, for everybody plugging into the podcast and sticking with us. |
| 0:53.4 | On the stories here, I posted up that last episode, |
| 0:56.3 | which I got a few positive feedbacks from about sharing a little bit more |
| 1:00.6 | of those side of kind of episodes, I guess, |
| 1:04.7 | of a little bit more of information and obviously no story. |
| 1:09.0 | And they can be a lot shorter as well. |
| 1:10.9 | So you can plug into them and maybe the things make sense and maybe they don't. |
| 1:16.2 | I guess time will tell. |
| 1:17.7 | I also want to mention too, if you're looking for some support on all of this, |
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