Episode 5–Brian's Battle with Booze

In today's episode, Brian talks about his addiction to alcohol and pills and how he used physical fitness to kick the habit. 

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Transcript

Coming up on The Mindful Midlife Crisis...

Brian: Man, I wish I could accurately do justice to what it feels like. But it really feels like imminent death. If I were to tell you 10 seconds from now, you're going to die and you knew the threat was credible, how would you feel? That's what it feels like. That's what it feels like, man. It is so f***ing brutal. It's fear, and your body is revolting against you. I mean, it's awful. Withdrawal isn't that cool.

(intro)

Welcome to The Mindful Midlife Crisis, a podcast for people navigating the complexities and possibilities of life's second half. Join your hosts, Billy and Brian, a couple of average dudes who will serve as your armchair life coaches, as we share our life experiences — both the good and the bad — in an effort to help us all better understand how we can enjoy and make the most of the life we have left to live in a more meaningful way. Take a deep breath, embrace the present, and journey with us through The Mindful Midlife Crisis.

(interview)

Brian: How did I get here? I guess, to me, life was always about rock and roll excess, man. That was it. I was always looking for — I thought that was a vehicle to being in the music business. You know what I mean? I thought the party was much more important than the art for a long time.

Billy: How old were you when you started playing?

Brian: It was college. I've been a musician my whole life. I started out playing saxophone and a little bit of piano. Then it was my freshman year in college when I started playing bass. My buddy, who I was in the band with, owned a bar. So, we would stay there when we rehearsed. We rehearsed all day and stayed there after the bar closed. Then we rehearsed and drink all night.

Eventually, it does become a physical thing your body needs if you're drinking often enough. For me, it was never in my head. I've always been relatively sorted out in my head. But us far as the addiction issues I have, it was all physical. If you've never woken up the morning after drinking a 1.75 of vodka, I wouldn't recommend it. Because all you want to do is either die or get more of what you had so you don't feel so bad. That's really what did it for me.

Billy: Did you find that you would go down that cycle of, "Well, I want to get rid of this feeling, and the only way to get rid of this feeling is if I drink more?"

Brian: Oh god, yes. Yeah, I used to wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning. By 7, I would have four or five highballs of vodka, just straight, just to get into the day. That was on weekends. If it was weekdays, it was anywhere between 10 and 15 milligrams of Xanax.

Billy: Okay. So, we're going to come back to that just a little bit.

Brian: Sometimes both.

Billy: So, you referenced leaving Las Vegas, which I think is also another reason why we can dub this the '90s episode.

Brian: Yeah, of course.

Billy: How close could you relate to that?

Brian: I never wanted to drink myself to death. Like I said, for me, it was more of a cycle thing. Once you're in, you just feel so bad. Your body gets so depleted of certain essential minerals and stuff like that, that your body, it almost atrophies. It's hard to do anything. Your digestion is not functioning right. You forget about actually working out or making your body stronger. Because you just, A, don't have an opportunity because you're always messed up and, B, the motivation is just not there because of the substances.

No, I never was mired in a really dark place mentally. You know what I mean? For me, it was more just to get to a place where I could function normally without feeling — you've been hung over, right? I mean, badly hung over.

Billy: Very much so, yes.

Brian: Like I said, try that. If you really want to do something for yourself, try it with a 1.75 one time. I finished those in a day. The next day is like — I remember you wake up, but you don't actually open your eyes yet. You just sit there for a minute when you come out of sleep, and you realize, "Okay. I'm waking up." Then you'd get that feeling like, "Oh my god, I don't want to wake up because I am just going to feel so awful." So, you either try going back to bed. If you have to get up, then you go right to drinking because it was — just that feeling your body gets, it's so awful, man. Oh, it's awful.

Billy: So, you talked about like you would take your highball shots. How many days a week were you doing that? Then how long—

Brian: Oh, every day.

Billy: For how many months or years?

Brian: Every day, for probably 10 years.

Billy: Holy shit.

Brian: Oh, yeah. When I finally went to the hospital, I had a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist. The person, I don't know what her title was but she was old. She was probably pushing 60. So, she had seen a lot. She sits down with me. I said, "Hey, I've had enough of this. I want to be done. How do we do it?" She goes, "Well, what are you doing?" I told her. As soon as I told her, she goes, "Oh my god. You're lucky you're not dead." I shocked her, and she had seen a lot.

Billy: We're to get to the Xanax part. Because you've told me that story before. I want to talk about it a little bit. I guess, what was your rock bottom? What was the catalyst first going into the hospital and be like, "Alright, I'm done"?

Brian: The physical withdrawals. That is brutal. It's fucking brutal, man. You know what an anxiety attack feels like? That's easy compared to withdrawals. Withdrawals are nasty. I had them. If I were to stop drinking, I would immediately go into that panic mode. It would feel like you're going to die within a few seconds. It's what it feels like. Then you start breathing wrong, and your body starts doing things. You get that, "I got to get out of here." You just walk. You get out of wherever you are. You do whatever you can to cope with it. But it's physical. It's disturbing.

Billy: That's what anxiety attacks felt like for me. For me, it was my head that was doing that. For you, it was—

Brian: Withdrawal.

Billy: —withdrawal.

Brian: So, would you get the physical shakes? Would you get shakes?

Brian: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Shakes — that's when I started taking the Xanax. Because once you drink so much, when you're drinking that much, you can't possibly drink enough to stave off the withdrawals 24 hours a day. Then you switch to the hard drugs because that does it like a charm. It goes away immediately. But then, you start the cycle over again.

So, for me, I never drank at work. I never did during the day. But the Xanax, when I started having physical withdrawals, that's when I sought out something to get rid of it. Then I start taking Xanax, and I'm like, "Hey, this works great." I can get through the day. I'm cruising. I'm in a good mood. My body doesn't feel the withdrawals. Because I had them a couple times, during meetings even.

Billy: Withdrawals?

Brian: Oh, God, yeah. Towards the end of the day, you get to two, three o'clock. You haven't had a drink in six or eight hours. Well, it's a little more than that. Because I figure I'd probably been up till midnight or one the night before drinking. So, you'd hit that 12-hour mark and they'd start creeping in.

Billy: So, what did that look like then when you're at work? I'm going to guess you can't run out of the room because you're the big —

Brian: I've had to during meetings and stuff. I just, "Excuse me, I got to go the bathroom. You just go out. You just go," or, "I'm not feeling well. I need to leave." You head to the bathroom and shake it off. Then you go back into the meeting. It was awful. But as soon as you start taking Xanax, it's fine. But just the alcohol, that starts to lose effectiveness. So, you start on a couple milligrams of Xanax. Pretty soon, in the morning, you take 10. Then you hit a bump. Maybe midday another 5. Then you get home a few hours later and you get the vodka again.

Billy: Oh my God. I can't.

Brian: I'm really lucky I'm not dead. I am really lucky. I have my wife to thank for that. I am not dead because of my wife.

Billy: So, how did you land on Xanax?

Brian: I did some studying how to stave off withdrawal. Xanax acts very similarly in your brain to alcohol. So, you're essentially fooling your brain that you're taking alcohol.

Billy: If you guys don't know Brian, that is the most Brian answer of all time because he researched it. Because you love science.

Brian: It's true. So, I'm like, "What? What's going to do this, I can't keep living like this. What do I do?" At the time, I didn't think I'll just stop drinking. Or maybe I thought I'll stop drinking, and I'll just take this and slowly wean myself off, which did not happen.

Billy: It just increased dosage over and over and over again.

Brian: Like you, it got to a Sunday night in 2012. Actually, it was December 5, 2012.

Billy: Because I remember we were on the same trajectory.

Brian: Yeah, around the same time. You and I had some — exactly. It was a Sunday night. I was supposed to leave for Florida the following day for something work-related. I called up my dad and I said, "Dad, I can't do this anymore. I got to go to the hospital." He drove right there. The next morning, we went right to the hospital. He took me in. They spent about seven or eight days weaning me off all the garbage.

Billy: So, what was that process like?

Brian: Check-in to the hospital, sit in bed. They interview you. They ask what's going on. Then they start the tapering. Obviously, they don't give you alcohol, but they gave me some drugs every few hours. More frequently at first, of course.

I will say they did an amazing job of their dosages, or however they arrived at what to give me. The actual detox process was not that bad. It was boring because I was sitting in a bed playing video games for a week, which sounds pretty great. I don't remember struggling — the physical. As soon as I felt good and left the hospital, I'm like, "Oh my god. I'm never doing that again. Never."

Billy: When you say wean off, they were still pumping you full of Xanax?

Brian: Yes, it was Valium, I think, they were giving me. They started out pretty high, a decently high dosage. Then of course, they spaced it out. They know your body weight and how it's reacting and all that. You're hooked up to all the machines and shit. Once they got me off all of that, it was great. There were a few days that were a little tough, where you still feel some of the withdrawal symptoms. But it never got to the level of the panic withdrawal.

Man, I wish I could accurately do justice to what it feels like. But it really feels like imminent death. If I were to tell you 10 seconds from now, you're going to die and you knew the threat was credible, how would you feel? That's what it feels like. That's what it feels like, man. It is so fucking brutal. It's fear, and your body is revolting against you. I mean, it’s awful. Withdrawal is not cool. I can see why people, if you get into delirium tremens and stuff like that from alcohol, it's nasty. It's nasty, man.

Billy: Just to be clear, you didn't go to rehab.

Brian: No.

Billy: You just went to the hospital.

Brian: I went to the hospital. I went to detox. They detoxed me, and then we looked at a few places. My wife had it all lined up. She's like, "You're going here." I'm like, "Well, just give me a chance. Give me a shot at it." Then I never look back.

Billy: If you don't mind, how did that conversation go about "I'm going to the hospital" with your wife?

Brian: It went fine. She was very supportive. She knew. When I came clean to her and said, "Hey, this is what I've been doing," she's like, "Yeah, you better get in there. That's fine."

Billy: Did she know, or were you hiding it well to the point —

Brian: Oh, yeah, she had no idea about the drugs. She knew I was drinking. But what I used to do — this is an interesting look at what addiction is. So, I had water bottles. Typically, they would be like Perrier or something like that. This was about every day or every other day, I would have to do this. So, I'd get done with work at anywhere between three and five o'clock. I would cruise immediately to the liquor store on the way home. I would hit the liquor store. I would usually buy 1.75 and then maybe a couple smaller bottles, too, for stashing. Then I drive to a park. Usually, one on the way home. Because where I lived at the time it was really laid out. There's a liquor store. There's a park. There was home. So, I would go pick up the liquor. I would get the bottles. I'd either save them or go to the gas station and grab a couple and just dumped them out. Then you fill up the water bottles with vodka.

Billy: Oh my God.

Brian: So, I would have the water bottles around my car, but I would stash them so that nobody else drank them. But the one by the driver's seat. So I'd be able to get done with work and hit my water bottle. Right on the way home, I'd be drinking straight vodka. Usually, I'd finished about 12 to 16 ounces just on the way home. That would get me just feeling right. That would just get me straight. I wasn't even really intoxicated at the time. I could still function. Nobody wouldn't even know I was drinking.

Billy: So, that was going to be my next question. If you drink a 1.75, were you drunk? Did you feel drunk? Did you feel the buzz?

Brian: Oh, sure. Yeah, you feel the buzz, but you can handle a lot when you're drinking that much. You know what I mean? It never got to the point where I'd throw up or anything. That never happened. Occasionally, I guess, maybe on exceptionally heavy nights but it would take a lot. My tolerance was such that if I got that drunk, I would be dead. If I got vomiting drunk at that point, I would be dead, I'm sure.

Yes, you feel it, but you just feel normal for a minute. The way up is you feel normal. As soon as the alcohol starts coming out of your system, it's when you start to have issues. So, it was never getting wasted. You wouldn't get wasted, but you just have to have it in order to function right. It's weird, man. I know it sounds crazy. But you require it. It's almost like, are you a coffee drinker? If you don't like coffee, you're not at all.

Billy: I'm not. I used to take caffeine pills because I liked having that bump in the morning.

Brian: Exactly.

Billy: But then when I weaned myself off of those caffeine pills for like two or three days, I had terrible withdrawal or headaches.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Billy: But that's caffeine. I can't even imagine.

Brian: It’s a lot more intense when you're talking alcohol. Your body physically needs it. So, it starts revolting against you until you give it more. When you're drinking that much, it's awful being tethered to something like that, too. Out of the whole thing, the worst part about it is the dependence and how it controls your life.

When you look at it, look what I was doing. My first thought when I leave work would have to be alcohol. When I got home, how am I going to hide this? How I'm going to stash it? Because, I, of course, had a few around the house too where I'd stick them up in the rafters. There'd be a 1.75 there so I wouldn't have to keep going upstairs, so I didn't tip off my wife. So, I'd sit down in the studio. I just get hammered. But, to my wife, I had one drink. I'd go upstairs, and I'd pour one. I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm just having a couple fingers. Then I'd go downstairs and have four to eight more.

Billy: Did you ever have blackouts?

Brian: Oh, yeah. Sure.

Billy: So, that was the thing with me in my 20s. In my 20s, I was blackout drunk every Friday and Saturday night.

Brian: Oh, wow.

Billy: I have very few recollections of weekends from my 20s. My joke is — we have friends in the band Ded Walleye.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Billy: Out of Fargo, I love you guys. I was a big groupie with them. I liked going to all of their shows wherever they play. But my joke was, I never remembered a single third set from a Ded Walleye show because I was out of my — I always started every night with a redheaded slut shot. That's how I would start. Then I would always tip the waitress or tip the bartender. I'd buy a drink or I'd buy two, and I would give them a $20. I would say, "That's your tip for the night. I'm not going to keep tipping you. But here's your tip for the night."

When you see me, no one else exists. You have two of those ready to go. I'll have the exact change, so then we would just do the quick exchange like that. I have a blackout and a puking the next day.

Brian: See, it's not like that. You don't do it to go out and have fun. But you just have to do it to keep from your body doing something that you know is going to be extremely bad for you. You know what I mean?

I can relate this to your panic attacks. Imagine if you could drink orange juice every time that you felt a panic attack coming on, and it would just go away. But every time you needed more orange juice every time you did it. That's what happens. So, you associate that alcohol or that drug with the physical, the bad symptoms of withdrawal going away. So, it doesn't become something where you're like, "Okay. I'm going to go out in the weekend, get hammered." It's just like you need it just to act normal, and not sit there on a ball on the floor, and wonder why your body is killing you.

It's a completely different deal, man. When you're in it, it's tough. It's tough. But I'm here to tell you, if you are experiencing this, if you need — the worst thing that ever happened to me — I'm from Wisconsin originally.

Billy: That’s part of the problem.

Brian: It is. Because alcohol is ingrained in the culture over there, man.

Billy: Brian's office smells like cheese in Miller Lite.

Brian: It's socially acceptable to have a bloody marry or two in the morning in Wisconsin. At church functions, there's booze. You know what I mean?

Billy: I grew up in small town, Minnesota. Sunday Brunch was at the bar in big cities. We're talking like Sunday brunch was that. That was the only restaurant in town. It was the bar. So, that joke, you're old enough to see over the bar, they serve you, is kind of true.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Billy: It's kind of true in those small towns. That was second nature to you. You had a drink. A friend of mine from Wisconsin went out to — she was visiting a friend in Washington, and she ordered a Bloody Mary. They just brought a Bloody Mary.

Brian: Oh, without the snit?

Billy: Yeah, without the chaser. So, she looked at the waitress, side eyed her. The waitress said, "You’re not in Wisconsin, honey. You don't get one."

Brian: Right, they serve the snit over there because there's more alcohol. Okay. Here's my Wisconsin story. I remember stumbling into Rowdy's Bar. We rehearsed at Archie's Bar. That's the one my buddy owned. Rowdy's was right across the street. I come in one Sunday morning, and I hit it. Oh my god, the night before I had hit it. We had been to several parties. I had been drinking till five 5, 5:30 in the morning. It's now 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning. I got a couple hours of sleep, and I am feeling terrible.

I don't know how the hell I'm going to get through practice. I go over to Rowdy's. Because Rowdy was open, and the bar we rehearsed in was closed on Sunday. So, I go over to Rowdy's. Rowdy was a great guy. He owned the bar and would tend the bar on Sunday mornings and sometimes the weekends and stuff. He's just a great guy. I said "Rowdy, I don't know how I'm going to do this practice, man." He goes, "I got just the thing for you, my friend."

He goes, "I'm going to make you a rowdy. You'll be good as new." As soon as I do, I'm like, "Alright, man. Let's do it." Rowdy gets a highball glass and a couple of pieces of ice. He pours in Rumple Minze, Yukon Jack, and Peppermint Schnapps, or Peppermint 100, I think it was. Because it was 100 proof. I'm sorry. It was Rumple Minze. I don't remember the third ingredient. But it was liquor, just pure liquor.

He hands it to me, and he puts a couple of straws. He goes, "Drink that. You'll be fine." Sure as hell, I drink it up. It worked. Because essentially, it was just four more shots of vodka or four more shots of booze. So, it worked great. But I remember that was the first time I associate — I'm like, "Oh, I get it. If I wake up feeling like shit, I'll just have some more." So then, starts the cycle, then starts the problems.

There was a point where my heart would go out of rhythm because I was drinking so much. It had some serious physical consequences. Especially nicotine, when I had a lot of nicotine and alcohol at the same time, my heart would fall out of rhythm. It would sit there. First, it would feel like it was just not beating but all beating at the same time instead of how a heart goes — the two different chambers. But mine didn't do that. It felt like it was just vibrating.

Then it would be at about 200 beats per minute. It would just be — after, it would do that thing. The warbling, I called it, would last anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Then I knew I was snapping out of it when it hit the rhythm again. It would — it stayed like that for, again, anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes. My heart would be beating like this, and then it would be like — it would be that direct. So, your heart would be extremely fast and then just stop and be in normal rhythm again. That happened to me about once or twice a week.

Billy: Were you just breaking a sweat, then?

Brian: Yeah, the first time it happened, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was with my buddy. We were supposed to go up north. It happened at a gas station of all places. So, I walked into the gas station. My heart starts freaking out. I was like, "Cory, my heart is freaking out. Something's going on right now." I had to go sit on the curb. Then it went through. The thing lasted about 20 minutes. I'm like, "I'm fine. Let's go."

Billy: That was happening for 20 minutes?

Brian: Yeah, so then we rolled up north. I just slept. I slept for about two days after it happened the first time. But then I got used to it. When it would happen, I knew what was going to happen so I'm like, "No big deal." It would happen at work. I'd be like, "Oh, well, I'll just work through it." It really takes an awful toll on your body physically — the alcohol.

Billy: So, you and I stopped drinking around the same time, around 2012. Then I jumped back on the wagon in 2013, because I thought I could handle it. Then I realized I couldn’t. I guess, just to preface this. I don't drink during the school year. So, I don't drink anything for nine and a half months, and then in June, July, August. Now I'm at a point where I'm like, "I'm going to have two."

Maybe in the last eight years when I started doing this, I think I can maybe count on one hand, like one or three fingers, how many times I've been drunk or how many times I've had more than three even drinks. Usually, I have one. Two, at the most. But during the school year, absolutely nothing. I don't do it. I'll tell you what made me feel the best about it. Shout out to our wonderful friends, Pete Bourbon and Matt Hazard. Remember we were doing that benefit show for Pete's niece?

Brian: Oh, yeah, at Famous Dave’s.

Billy: Yeah, and so I was over there.

Brian: Really?

Billy: Yeah, I was over there. Matt or Pete asked me, "Do you want a beer?" I was really nervous. I was really nervous because the guys like to have a drink for that kind of thing. They like to socialize, and they can do it. I was like, "You know what? No, I'm not drinking anymore." I'm like, "Are they going to judge me for this?" They said, "That’s really cool." When they said that, all that anxiety about the not drinking to impress my friends—

Brian: Am I going to fit in?

Billy: Yes, that all just went away. So, shout out to you, guys. I love you very, very much for being those supportive guys. I feel like it hasn't really been hard for me to not do it. I clearly didn't have the same physical addiction to it that you did. So, I'm curious, how have you then stayed clean this whole time, you stayed sober?

Brian: Oh, I've had a couple drinks. I'm going to tell you, I think it was about two years in. I was out of town by myself. I'm like, "I haven't had a beverage in a long time." So, I go and I grab a vodka or whatever it was. I don't even remember what I got. Maybe it was beer. I had a couple. I woke up in the morning. I felt like asshole. I said this is stupid. It reminded me of the way my body used to feel. I have such an aversion to it now that I no longer even want to — it doesn't appeal to me.

Once you start working out and eating right, and you know what your energy levels should be, what alcohol does and drugs, for that matter, is separate you from being in touch with your body. It masks things. It doesn't let you know what your body's really doing. Over that course of two years, I started to get healthy. I started to eat right. I started to realize what a body should feel like again. It's amazing how now the feeling of doing it is no longer worth it. Once you're out of that cycle, it's like I don't even consider it. It's not even a thought for me anymore.

Before, I'm being chained to that stuff, to always have to think about just in social situations, even, where you can't drink. "Okay. I'm at a work function, but it's not a drinking function. Am I going to make it through? Do I drink beforehand? Do I try to sneak out into my car and grab some drink to make it through this?" All of that stuff happens. For me, once I was out, I'm like, "Oh, God. I'm never doing that again." I don't want to be chained like that again. So, it was a switch for me. It's not hard.

(break)

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And now, let's take a minute to be present with our breath. If you're listening somewhere safe and quiet, close your eyes and slowly inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Hold for 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Slowly exhale for 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Let's do that one more time. Inhale for 4, 3, 2, 1. Hold for 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Slowly exhale for 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go ahead and open your eyes. You feel better? We certainly hope so. And now, back to the show.

(interview)

Billy: Welcome back to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. Brian, you just talked about your story there. Here's my question to you now. Looking at you at age 47, you've got a killer dad bod. So, I'm wondering what have you done in order to get into what looks like the best shape of your life?

Brian: It's definitely the best shape of my life. I think I've lost — since I was at my heaviest — about 65 pounds.

Billy: Wow.

Brian: But I've packed on a lot more muscle, too. So, that was all fat. I was pushing 260 for a while. That's a lot. Actually, I've lost more than that. But I think I'm around 185 right now. It varies because I put on muscle, and then you take it off, that sort of thing.

What have I done? I just woke up one morning, and I said I just want to feel better. I want more energy. Especially since I have a baby, Ben, that was a little — I'm obviously advanced in age to have a baby. I was 43 when Ben was born. So, I said to myself, it's time to start working out because I need the energy. See, people think that when you work out, you get less energy. That's totally not the case. When you work out — at least, when I work out — if you do it right and you eat correctly, it feeds the beast. You get more energy. You’re able to do more things. So, I started getting up.

One morning, I just said to myself I'm getting up tomorrow and I'm doing it. So, I found an app that I like. I use one called Shred. I just started on their most basic workout. I headed into the gym at four in the morning. I worked out till I had to go to work. Then I just never stopped.

My wife, then — about a year and a half after I started doing that — decided she was going to do the same thing. She had finally got her body back after the kids. Because that does take an entirely huge toll on a woman's body to have children. But when she said, "We're done. I want my body back," she started working out, too, and eating right. She became a fitness coach, actually. So, with her eating right, I get the benefit of that as well because she cooks just wonderfully on a normal basis. I just started working out, and I really enjoy it. Like I said, it feeds the beast. It gives me more energy to do more stuff.

Billy: Were you much of an exerciser before this?

Brian: Not at all.

Billy: Not at all?

Brian: Not even one time. I never went to the gym. No way.

Billy: To talk a little bit about what those initial workouts were, what were you doing? Were you just doing bodyweight, or were you doing really lightweight, I imagine?

Brian: Exactly. Yeah, it's just bodyweight stuff and a lot of stretching at first. Because when your body's not used to working out, you do have to ramp up. You can't just go right into benching 300 pounds or whatever. You have to work up to that. So, it's good for you and not bad for you.

For me, it was never the motivation. I never lacked the motivation to work out. For me, it was more I never knew what to do to get my body into good shape. That's when I picked up the app Shred. I'm like, "If I only knew what exercises to do, I would be happy to do them." Of course, you can go down the personal training route. I did that for a little while, but it's super expensive. You can pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, every month for personal training.

Billy: I am a certified personal trainer. Of course, I would much rather you pay me your hundreds and thousands of dollars than to use an app that would also get you in the shape. F***. I need to come up with an app.

Brian: Yeah, exactly. You almost do these days, unless you have a niche that you're specializing in — if you're doing a fight workout or whatever it may be.

Billy: We’re actually hoping to have Maurice Buchanon and Daleco James on next week. Our hope is that they're able to join us. For sure there'll be on an episode at another time.

Brian: Tell us a little bit about them.

Billy: Mo played college football for the University of Minnesota, and Daleco trains boxers. When they post stuff on Instagram, watching what Daleco does with the boxers, it's like — oh my God. That was unbelievable what he puts them through. He's not putting them through anything crazy. It's just boxing is such an insane workout.

Brian: I've been tossing around that idea. Maybe I should talk to those guys next week, too. Because I have been thinking I wanted a more dynamic workout. Because, as you mentioned, I'm in pretty good shape right now. I think I want to take it to the next level and maybe do a fight like a kickboxing workout or a boxing workout.

Billy: They have a full boxing ring in their gym.

Brian: I got to go. I got to talk to these guys.

Billy: If you guys want to check them out, you can check out Wurk Gym. It's spelled a W-U-R-K G-Y-M, Wurk Gym. That's Daleco James and Maurice Buchanon. They're both great dudes. I really hope that we can talk to them next week, or if not next week, in the very, very near future. Because these are fitness pros. These guys know what they're talking about.

Yeah, I have my personal training certification, but when I was just getting into mindfulness where I was dipping my toe — Again, I'm not an expert in any way. No, probably that's not a great way to sell myself as a personal trainer. I understand that.

Brian: But you know more than a beginner. You would be a good intermediate choice for somebody who's starting out.

Billy: And that's where I would like to be. I work great with people who either have — actually, if you really haven't worked out a lot, I actually think you need a more experienced person. If you have worked out some, you're in what we would call the 'contemplation stage' or the action stage, where you're ready to get into it. You've been doing a little bit here and there. Maybe you just don't know the finer points of it all. That's where I could help you out, to that sort of thing.

Anyway, I interrupted you. So, I'm curious if you talk a little bit more about diet. Because one thing that I hear from people is they want to work out in order to lose weight. But what they don't realize is that your diet plays a far bigger role in your weight loss and your weight maintenance.

I hate the word diet. I'm not talking about diet in terms of cutting calories. I'm talking about just what you eat throughout a day. So, I'm curious, what came first — the chicken or the egg? What came first, the egg or the dumbbell?

Brian: I am a horrible example, and I don't follow the traditional — exactly what you said, diet has more of an effect than working out. My genetics, I'm very fortunate. Thank you, mom and dad. I don't have that problem. I eat like crap. I still eat like crap. But I eat pretty good because my wife cooks every night. She's usually cooking something that's good for me.

Billy: But I'm looking over at your desk over there, and you've got three apples.

Brian: Yeah, I do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. That's just natural. But I'll also sit down and pile through a bag of candy in the evening. I'll still do that. But that, for me, is why I work out so I can do that.

Billy: I like that. I think people deprive themselves too often of what's good. I'm very much a believer in, if I go out to eat — you're goddamn right — I'm getting the dessert.

Brian: Oh, yeah, you can do it. Just don't make a habit of the things that are bad for you. That's the trick right there.

Billy: There is no candy, and there are no potato chips in my place. Because I know if there are chips and candy in my place, I'll eat them and I won't eat the food that I make in my fridge. Then I end up throwing out my fruit. I love fruit. I love raspberries. I love grapes. I love apples. I love bananas. But if I have that other shit in my cabinet, why would I have an apple when I could eat a Snicker bar?

Brian: So, for the listeners, a good place to start — and what I did when I decided I was going to start eating a little better at least — is go for the stuff you like. Pick pineapple. It's a good example for me. I freaking love pineapple. If there's pineapple around, I'll let it get just perfectly ripe. It's like eating candy.

You can eat better for yourself. Rather than sitting there while you're watching your lawn, order and pile in through some Swedish Fish, let's get a little pineapple that's really ripe because it scratches the itch. Or like what my wife does — she's a much better example than me— rather than having that bowl of ice cream after dinner, she will have a Greek yoghurt with berries and honey. It scratches the itch but way better for you than the Swedish Fish.

Billy: I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But Leanne is looking like a stone-cold fox.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Billy: She looks amazing.

Brian: No doubt. She's built.

Billy: It's really impressive. She has some motivation, too, because both of her parents, they're into fitness as well.

Brian: Yeah, her mom's a yogi. Yeah, a very famous yogi, actually. They run a yoga teacher training down in Costa Rica, sometimes Spain. They're always all over the world doing these retreats. They travel around and train yoga teachers. Mary Anne just doesn't teach people yoga. She teaches people to teach yoga. She can do the certification. She has several different programs that are certified through Yoga Alliance or whoever. I think it's Yoga Alliance. We'll have her on one day, too, to talk about it. She teaches teachers. So, yes, they are involved in fitness as well.

Billy: Do you do yoga, or is that not your thing? What have you dabbled in, or what's your go-to?

Brian: The app is my go-to. Shred is my go-to just because it offers a lot of variety for me. It pretty much has workouts for anything you have on hand. So, you can say, "I'm in a gym, I'm at home, I'm at home with weights, I'm at home with a band, I have a bosu ball but nothing else." You can incorporate that into the configuration program, and then it designs the workout right around that.

Not to mention, it also has a lot of parameters for, do you want a quick workout? Do you want a 40-minute workout? Do you want an hour workout? Do you want a two-hour workout? There are a lot of options. For me, that's what really drew me to that app. It's the amount of options. Because I don't always have the luxury of being at the gym if I have time to work out. If I'm at home, I can pop open the app and say, "Alright, I'm at home du, du, du." Done.

Billy: Do you prefer the gym, or do you prefer working out at home?

Brian: Yeah, I always get a better workout in the gym, no matter what. Even if it's the same bodyweight workout in the gym versus at home, I always feel a little constrained when I'm in a room and not in a gym.

Billy: I really believe that I have seasonal affective disorder—

Brian: Oh, most people do.

Billy: —amongst all the other neurotic mental things that are in my way. But particularly in Minnesota, I don't feel like I was born in the right state because I have black hair, and I have all of the skin. What am I doing in this frozen tundra? So, I really feel the effects in the winter. When it gets dark outside so early, I just feel like my whole body shut down, like the melatonin kicks in and just shuts my body down early. I don't want to drive to the gym. So, now begrudgingly, I am doing workouts at home even though the gyms now are open. I hate working out at home, but I have found a program now that I can commit to. I think that's the hard part, too. It's finding a program that you commit to doing.

Brian: That's it. Exactly. Yeah, and that's what Shred did for me. It was everything I was looking for. I'm like, I don't know what to do. I would do it if I knew what to do. Well, that just guides me through with whatever I have. That's a great point. You just have to figure out what you're drawn to or what works for you.

Billy: I think that's where a personal trainer can come in handy. Because a personal trainer can listen to what it is that you'd like to do, and then tailor it based on whatever the physical assessment is that they do of your movements. Because as a personal trainer, when you do an assessment of somebody, you recognize that you've got a forward lean. Here are the stretches that you need to do in order to do that. Your feet turn out. So, here's what you need to do in order to remedy that. Because if you don't do something about that — you go in and you are just doing whatever work out willy-nilly — you're actually going to find yourself in a lot more pain somewhere down the road. So, it's good to have that, maybe even just doing 1, 2, 3, 4 workouts with a personal trainer.

Because to be honest, after four sessions with me, I don't want to see you again. If I'm a good personal trainer, I believe that if I have worked with you for one, two, no more than three months, then you should be able to do that on your own. I should have given you enough skill set, and I should have prepared your body enough to be able to go and do the exercises on your own. That's my two cents.

I'm sure that there are personal trainers out there like, "Dude, shut the f*** off. I need that money, man." I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but that's just my two cents. I feel like given the national obesity numbers that we're seeing, there are plenty of people out there who would benefit from investing in their health by just spending a little bit of time with a personal trainer, and then getting the basics down, and then moving on their own. It sounds to me, Brian, that you have figured out what works best for you.

Brian: Absolutely. I think that's the key. For anybody listening to this, if you have the motivation but maybe you don't know what to do, seek that out. Find that personal trainer that's going to help you, that's going to guide you. Or find that app, in my case, that's going to guide you. Whatever that barrier is that's preventing you from doing it, find it and get it out of the way.

Billy: So, let's tie this all back to what we discussed at the beginning of the episode. How has that level of motivation helped you avoid any temptation to use booze or pills again?

Brian: Well, once you know what feeling good feels like, it's hard to go back to feeling poorly. For me, personally, it was just mostly a physical thing. My body actually needed it to function. Now I've turned that from something bad and destructive — alcohol and pills — to something good for me, which is exercise. So, I think it's retraining your brain. It really is. Because I used to have an association with alcohol like, oh, that's how you feel good. You take that to feel like a normal person. Once I got my brain turned around, I was like, "Oh yeah, that's not the way you do it. This is the way you do it — through healthy living.

Billy: It's interesting then to compare that to just like gym rats and gym junkies. That's their drug, but that's a healthier alternative than, say, booze or pills.

Brian: I guess you could say, choose your drugs wisely. When you're looking at all the things you can do for yourself that make you feel good, pick the ones that are not destructive.

Billy: That sounds like sage advice for us to wrap up the show with. So, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story, man. We really appreciate hearing that side of you.

Brian: You're quite welcome. I hope I helped somebody.

Billy: And if it has helped somebody, let us know. Send us an email. Send us a message on Instagram @mindful_midlife_crisis or email us at mindfulmidlifecrisis@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. We'd love to know what you want us to talk about, as you navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half.

For Brian, this is Billy. Thank you for listening to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. May you feel happy, healthy, and loved. Take care friends.

(outro)

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