Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Coleen Wait, and today I have a very special guest and this with all parts of me. Author CEO Matt Bell is in the building all the way from Ohio. Got you to come out here. I really appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here. Thank you. It's awesome.
Yes, this is awesome. And before we get into Mad's story, I have to ask the ultimate question, what are you going to have me eating today?
We're we are going to eat corn on the cob. We're gonna eat corn on the cob. I gave some options. You asked what I used to eat when I was broke, and gave you a little variety of what it used to be like. And here we are. We're going to do this and I have a really impactful story on why.
Just so you guys know the I chose corn on the because the other options was like trash.
Yeah, I used to eat out of the trash cans. Yeah you're not. We're not gonna do that on the show. I used to obviously like a break. I'd make a break all the time at home. You know, break is, you know what break?
Is no. Is that one of the options we gave me.
Yeah, like in jail, you mix everything together. They're called I think they're called different things everywhere.
I've had that on the show, by the.
Way, like I saw it, and it's I should clarify, not corn on the cob, but like raw corn.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna get into the next guys. I love corn on the cob, so you know I love out here in LA they call it, I think a low tastes like corn on the cob sweet corn. They put like mao and cheese and have you had it.
I've had it.
It's so amazing. But unfortunately we're not eating that today. So we're gonna have corn on the cob, but the raw version.
Raw straight off the rawky out of the field.
And before we get into this story, Matches celebrated his ten years of SOET and I guess backtrack it. I said, you're the CEO, a CEO and author. Why don't you talk about what you're the CEO of and the books?
Yeah, the CEO of Team Recovery Addiction treatment center. I started. We have two sides of it. We have the limited liability side, which actually provides the healthcare services, and then we have a foundation side as well, which is more so wrap round services of in addiction treatment. You can provide all these different levels of care and services, but it's all build through insurance. There's a lot of other stuff that needs to be done, like conversations with families,
like prevention in schools. There's just so much and you can't bill insurance for that, and so there's no money to pay for those sorts of things, and so we started a foundation and we raise funds throughout the ear in a lot of different ways to still be able to do those things to go, like teach kids that choices have consequences. Bad choices have bad consequences, and good choices have good consequences. But we're so reactive to everything in the world, like we need to get proactive with
addiction treatment and mental illness and things like that. And then family support. We know that if somebody is struggling with addiction, they've got ten to twenty loved ones around them that need support too, and so if those ten to twenty people can receive support, the success rate of the individual actually goes up. So again that's what the foundation does. Started all that stuff about ten years ago when I was in detox. Actually, I was going.
To say ten years and ten years.
Yeah, it lined up perfectly. I was two days clean when I started it. It was two days.
Clean, and you were like, already think about helping somebody else.
Yes, it wasn't really, So I had no clue what it was going to turn into, and I wasn't thinking about it the way that it turned into. I just knew that the way that it was being offered wasn't perfect. I knew that. And because I'd been to treatment twenty eight times. I went to treatment twenty eight times all over the country, and so I had seen a lot of different kinds of treatment, and I never really experienced anything. It just felt like a very aniquated delivery service delivery
of healthcare. So why is like all healthcare is evolving and getting significantly better. I've been going to treatment for ten years and it feels the same as I did ten years ago. The twenty eighth time feels like the first time.
What was this like habitual way they were trying to treat you? Because you said twenty eight times, so I'm guessing they were all going the same route every time.
Yeah, for the most part. And I'll say this too that I think someone can get sober wherever they want to. You can get sober in the nicest treatment center in the world. You can get sober in a barn if you want to. You get sober at home, you can get sober in prison. You can get sober wherever you want to and want it bad enough. But so I'm not like blaming it on the treatment centers. I just wasn't ready, is really what it came down to. But what I noticed, and what I hear people say all
the time, is that they felt like a number. They just felt like a number and a process. That is just it's a medical model, and addiction treatment is very philosophical, right, It's just very we need to get to the core of what's going on. But it's very okay, come in, do your assessment. If your assessment says this, then go to this room and then go to that room. It's like you go into an er with a broken bone,
you go into surgery, you get a cast on. It's very process driven, and addiction treatment just shouldn't have to be that way, but it's that's the way healthcare is in our countries. I felt like a number. I felt like I was being like herded through a process instead of being seen as a human being. The buildings that
I went to treatment in were run down buildings. It was probably all donated furniture and parts of town where certain people in other parts of town would say, no, we're not allowed, We're not allowed to have treatment centers here because we don't have those problems, and so all the treatment centers, because these are individuals that make bad choices, You're going to go to this part of town in these types of buildings with That's how treatment has been.
It's how treatment has been. It's a marginalized, oppressed population that are seene is less than desirables.
Yeah, and then would you say, I'm going to be all over the place with this, But would you say that from your experience with addiction that a lot of it is trauma. I think with your story, your addiction came from a different background. We'll get into that. Would you say that a lot of addiction starts from like unhealed trauma.
I think that's one of the biggest things. Yes, I think that there's some sort of pain there, regardless of if it's an actual physical pain. See a lot of physical pain turning into the opioid epidemic and pain pills, but of emotional pain and whether that's trauma or PTSD or some sort of underlying unaddressed mental health issue. People don't just decide to use substances to the point where they need treatment, whatever the substance is, because their life
is going well, because life is perfect. People don't do that. That's not normal. So if someone's struggling with addiction and they've gotten to that point where there's a diagnosable like severity there, and sometimes I don't even know it, but there's something there. In my case, I didn't know it.
Oh so there was something there, but yours. Okay, Okay, we got to get into your story. We got to get in Okay, Okay, First let's I want to experience this. So we're going to go. I wanted to read this, but you touched on it. But there was this post Matt made this week, and I wanted to read it to you. Guys said ten years ago, I was the guy in the mugshots, the guy in the hospital bed
who had people coming to say they're goodbyes. I was that guy thirteen arrests, twenty eight rehabs, three overdoses, homelessness, no hope left. I called the police on myself that day, thinking I'd spend the rest of my life in prison. But God had another plan for me. This was ten years ago. That's crazy. It's nuts that you called, but you even I guess where. I was a little confused too, is man, what was going on where he called the
police on himself? And then why did you think you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison?
You have an answer this, Yeah, I called the police on myself because so it gets cold in Ohio. It gets very cold in Ohio. Remember the second question, because I'm gonna forget it, Okay, I got It gets cold in Ohio. This October specifically, it was dropping down below freezing and I was homeless. I would sleep wherever I could, and I went to my mom's house one night, and at this point my mom was not letting me in
the house anymore, like those days were over. She was starting to get some help from like family support groups about enabling and things like that. So I asked her, I said, Mom, can I just come in the garage tonight? She had an unattached garage. I said, can I just sleep in the garage so I can find shelter tonight with a space heater. I just want to it's gonna I don't want to freeze. I want to survive the night.
And she looked at me. She said, Matt, you will always be my son, but you're no longer my child. If you don't get off my property, I'm calling the police.
Holy cow, your mom.
My mom. Yeah, my mom said that, and then she just shut the door slowly, and that I knew that I was hurting my family and not making good decisions. That was obviously apparent. My life was unmanageable. But to hear her say what I heard her say is I love you to death and you'll always be my son, but whether you live or die tonight is not my problem.
And the way that I interpreted that hit something inside that had like never just it had never been hit, and so I was actually I had given up on the fact that I could be sober, like sobriety is not I see that people do it, but it's not for somebody like me. Everything good that I'd done in my life, all the sports and the grades and all the sort of stuff like that was a thing of the past. I didn't I didn't know what to do. And I got to this like really scary moment where
I thought maybe I shouldn't be here anymore. And that thought I had never ever thought of that ever in my life. I'm talking about ending my life. And I love life. I love everything about life. I can like, I'll have fun eating this corn today. And the fact that I was thinking about that absolutely scared me to death. And so I was like, I can't get sober. I don't have the courage to end my life. I just need to go to prison. And I thought that I was going to go to prison because I had a
fugitive warrant in the state of Michigan. I had a felony warrant in the state of Warrants for Michigan was for a second degree home invasion. And so I went into somebody's house. I didn't know that they were home, but I went into somebody's house to steal something to feed my addiction, and they were home. And so in the state of Michigan, if someone's home when you break into to do some sort of theft, they classified it as a home invasion in Pennsylvania it was grand theft
or grand larceny if I don't remember exactly what. It's a different state by state. And then I also had one in Ohio. It's the same thing, grand larceny in the state of Ohio. So I had three felony warrants in three different states. If the police caught me. These were extrable offenses to where I would went, oh yeah, yes, that's real time. Absolutely, they were looking for me, they wanted me, and it was just a matter.
Of were able to charge you, but they were like charging you and releasing you or the cat and then they release you.
Yeah. Yeah, I had been charged and bonded.
Out, okay, And I, like your mom or something.
Always had somebody to bond me out. And these were two or three year old cases that I was just hiding every single day on the run, bonded out and was supposed to go back for a court date, and then just never went back for the court date, and so the warrant was out for me, and so I was like, you know what, maybe I should just stop running. I'm gonna call the police on myself and at least I'll be safe. At least in prison, I won't be
able to use drugs. That's what I thought. At least my mom will be like semi feel comfortable knowing that I'm like not in an alley, completely thrown away after an overdose or something. All these thoughts, Prison's the best option for me, That's what I thought. I really believe that there.
Was no part of you in that when your mom is playing devil's advocate, When your mom is being firm in those boundaries and she's that like freezing outside, she knows it. I can't imagine what she's feeling to be able to say that, But is there a part of you that she doesn't love me? That's it. She's done with me.
Absolutely. I thought that for sure. I thought that I believe that there was no hope. I didn't think that we were going to have a relationship or that was going to heal or anything like that. I thought that she had given up on me completely, and I was mad at her, as if it was like her fault, as if she was being mean or something along those lines. The end of the day, she had to do it was best for her. She had gotten to a point through my addiction. She'd never touched those drugs, and she
didn't have drugs to cope. Every time I messed up, I could just get high and not out and not think about it. She had to deal with it, and like her life, she became depressed. She gained a bunch of weight, her work performance completely just diminished. She had to get put on medications, like she stopped cleaning the house. Like her life, she was addicted to my addiction, obsessed
with it. She was completely codependent, and especially for the first I would say seven years, she would do anything to save her baby, to help me out, anything, because I was an adult, but I was still her baby.
Yeah, And she just.
Whether it was food, if it was a place to stay, if it was a ride, if it was pay my rent, if it was fond me out, pay for the attorney. Whatever. Mom was always there until she wasn't.
And she eventually saw the pattern in someone she started going to like an alanon or exactly is it alan He? Is it all the same for? Is that the okay?
Yeah?
All right? Yeah, my second question, I guess you answered it.
Yeah.
Did I think I spent spend the rest of my life in prison? You answered that? All right? All right? Man? Let's get into this. We're going to go back to the corn day. What are we doing and describe you were telling us and telling me earlier, like you would be ashamed of this.
Yeah, yeah, So I remember there was a point when I guess I was like crashing at this other person's house that I would use with. We commit crimes, and we were just partners in crime, so to speak. We were both addicted to heroin and no electricity in the like nothing there was. It was just a place. It was just shelter really, but there was a church around the corner from his house that was I think it
was like Tuesdays and Sunday or Saturdays. They would do like a I forget what you call it, like a place where people could go get food that didn't have food, and like a food pantry. And I remember I woke up late because I was really high. The food pantries from five am to eight am or something like that. Woke up at seven fifty so I'm like, oh my gosh, I haven't eaten in four days. I need to like hurry, I need to hurry and get to the food pantry because I have to get some food today. They would
give you like a little box. You could take some stuff and you'd have enough food for a.
Week or so, and you knew you had to eat and for four days.
Yeah, But like food means nothing when inactive addiction, you're.
Are you still drinking water and stuff.
Still drink water? Yeah? And food, shelter, law, love, None of those things mean anything when your brain is hijacked by a substance like heroin. Like I would if I had twenty dollars, I'm spending twenty dollars on heroin. I am not saving a dollar for anything gas in a like nothing. All the money is going on heroin. So I just wouldn't eat. And so I get there, and I get there late. They had already shut the doors, and there's a couple boxes of canned goods and things
like that that required cooking. But there's some ears of corn, and I was like, I'm so hungry right now. I have to eat these. I have to eat. So I'm going to take a couple of ears of corn and went until an alley because I was embarrassed. I was like, I can't eat this corn in front of a shirt.
I can't let anybody see me eating a raw ear of corn, and I'm like ducked in this alley, like between a garage and a car, as if I'm doing something really bad eating a raw ear of corn, and I remember I like almost, I feel like I maybe chipped the tooth. I hope, we don't.
Hope today it's crazy, though, to think that you're eating this, that you were ashamed, right, but now you're going to eat this, and I'm going to eat this with you, and it's an honor to eat this with you. I sent you a Lincoln Post. She thought it was hilarious, but I was like, I can't wait to eat corn.
I've never been told that by any.
Corn with you, and you're really good at that. I love corn, By the way, I'm the cop. But how does it feel to know ten years ago you were ashamed of it? But ten years now later it seems like you're crowd that you came from this air to now you're successful, family, married, author, CEO helping other people treating addiction, saving families because what I have learned about addiction, it does affect everybody. How does it feel like to know that you're about to eat this but instead of
it being like a shameful moment. It's like a proud moment on camera, on camera, like people are going to be watching this now, You're proud, You're proud.
It feels amazing, it's almost It happens a lot. I'm getting goosebumps right now just thinking about it. And it's hot in here, You're still getting goosebumps.
You are literally getting bumps like crazy.
There's I don't even know how to put it into words, sometimes, but it happens probably once a week, right, sometimes more, sometimes multiple times a day, that I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm not I'm talking about on this earth. I'm not supposed to be here anymore. Like the things that I went through injecting heroin for ten years straight. It was the last couple of years of it. It was fetanyl. The amount of people that are dying from this,
The amount of people that I watched die. People I was using the same substances from the same dealer.
Did your buddy that you were in the house with did he make it?
No? No? Tim, Yeah no, Tim's not here anymore. There's I appreciate there's so many though I would say I don't even know. Probably five hundred people that I know, like relatively close with I don't want to say, like really good friends, but cross paths with out there. In the ten years that I was out there and then and then just working in addiction treatment and being in the recovery community, thousands Like every day I wake up to somebody that I know is no longer here.
So it's a very why goes while they were like on the recovery, they relapsed.
You see, it happens quite all. I did it myself the first twenty seven times of getting sober, went back out there, and that's when people are very prone to overdose because your your tolerance goes down.
Overdose three overdose is pretty hot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is scary. So yeah, very, I'm just I'm lucky to be here, grateful.
And you don't like no shade, But you don't look like what I would imagine even someone that survived hair when drug addiction for that long would look like.
I get that all the time. Yeah, you know, I get that all the time. But what is an addict look like?
I would imagine bad skin, definitely scarring, like bad teeth. Your teeth look like not bad at all?
My teeth, Yeah, they look I don't know how I'm lucky. I have no adverse health effects. I'm as healthy as can be, and I still have my teeth, So I'm very lucky. I did not look like this ten years ago when I got sober. I'll tell you that you wouldn't let me in.
I saw some pictures of you, like keeled over in a bathroom, and I was like, it's crazy to look at you and those that and all you're standing.
Here, and that was like decent times. Like I'm telling you, I was. Those pictures are nothing. When I was on the streets, I didn't shower for weeks, I didn't brush my teeth, I didn't eat hair just grown out everywhere, just wealthy clothes. It was bad. It was bad, Like I am a.
In the first seven years. Your mom would just take you back and forgive you and all that.
Yeah, she was again, she was just obsessed with it. She was just scared. She wanted to protect me.
Yeah, all right, you ready to ready to get into this. This is my first time ever.
Doing trying to get all these little things off so I don't get them in my teeth.
At first, when you said, hey, we may need toothpicks, I was like, yeah, well, we need toothpicks, and I'm like yes, And let me just tell you, I am one of those people that have to floss every day. My teeth are like really close together, they're like yours. If we don't floss, did you know we would get cavities in between teeth?
Yeah?
Okay, so I think I got this. Here we go, cheers, cheers, there we go. I've never done this.
It's not as bad as you think. Yoh.
This literally tastes like it.
Tastes like it tastes just like corn.
It actually doesn't. I thought it was gonna be a lot harder. Man, This is not a bad meal.
I thought this was edible.
You know what it is? I keep thinking of like the Indian corn where it's all hard.
We're just gonna say that, like the decorative corn that you put up during Thanksgiving and stuff.
Guys, I'm not gonna lie.
It tastes pretty good. It's fresh.
Why does this taste good? Am I chipping?
It's corn? It's fresh corn.
But honestly, is it because I imagine the hard corn? Because it's not. It literally tastes like a regular corn. It's sweet. Are we can we get sick from eating it? Wraw loy do people? Is it supposed to be this soft? Going to be hard?
This is how it's supposed to be, guys. Maybe I don't know. I hope.
I'm not gonna lie, but this cord is actually not that bad.
It's really good.
Man, you were eating it's really good.
Hey, it got me through a couple more days at the time.
Look, I got gonna take one bite and done. It's not bad. And I don't know if it's because I love corn, but it's not that bad.
Are we supposed to eat the whole thing?
No, you can quit. I take one More'm gonna take one more way too. I don't even know you can eat corn raw like that.
I'm sure a lot of people don't know that.
But you want to know something. If you're struggling, like out there for real and this is what you gotta do to survive, I would say it's actually not that bad. If you love corn, find a cornfield, Yeah that's good. You know what, though I heard corn has no nutritional value, guys, but I will rate this as if in all honestly, and I don't know if it's because I like corns. I would give this like an eight. It does not taste bad.
Corn on the cop right, boiled butter, salt, all that sort of stuff. This literally tastes like that, obviously without the butter and the salt, but cold and it's not that hard. It's the same texture as corn on the cop Yeah.
Except for like when you boil, it's a little bit more like juicier. But honestly, this is fine. I thought it was gonna be a lot worse. Who knew.
Sorry, I feel like I'm made a mess.
That's what we're here for. Yeah, you're good. Yeah, that's the only reason I'm not killing it because I know my teeth. Well, it's a rep I'm.
Going to have to by the way, you're good.
So take me back ten all the way back to home life, and we're going to gradually get to the dish point. So we're going to go backwards to like, single mom, married, middle class poor. What was the home environment when I.
Was a kid. I had to thank you. I had a great life. I had a great childhood. Mom and dad were both there, went to private schools, got straight a's, played three sports, went to church twice a week. Yep, never saw drugs or alcohol. I would see people have drinks at a barbecue or something like that, but like addictively never saw it. It never happened in my home. No trauma or abuse or anything like that on paper, like the perfect upbringing, I broke up with a girl
in seventh grade for smoking a cigarette. Okay, Like I was obsessed with doing things the right way.
Okay, So you were like a good kid, like.
The really good, literally perfect, like best athlete, smartest kid in the school, straight edges, straight edge gets and then.
Your master's Now, yeah, I was like, how did he go from that? Super smart? I was wondering.
Yeah, I went back to school when I got sober, but I always enjoyed. I still do. I don't think i'll ever stop. I love learning. But I went to high school, and when I got to high school, it was culture shock for me. It was the first time ever in my life that I was uncomfortable ever, because like, up until fourteen years old, it was it was just
the same thing. And I was never like taught that at some point you're gonna you're gonna meet the real world and it's not just this like really comfortable, yeah upbringing that you've had.
What happened, they did it in private and put you in public or something.
I stayed in private school, but the private school that I was in was like twenty kids. It was a very small school. So then when I get to high school and there's a thousand kids at this school. It was an all boys, Catholic college prep, extremely competitive school. No longer the smartest kid, no longer the best athlete. Just felt uncomfortable for the first time ever in my life. My father, who I was like, he's the best. If I can be half as good as him, or even
a quarter, I'll consider my entire life of success. My father passed away on Father's Day my freshman year, and it was quick. It was diagnosed with cancer. I lived with him. My parents separated very close to me going to high school, and I wanted to live with my dad, and so the last couple of years of his life it was just him and I. We got even closer than we already were, and then all of a sudden, you've got cancer. And then a couple months later he
was gone. So that coupled with all these feelings of insecurity from school, it was just the perfect storm where I just wanted I wanted to be accepted. I wasn't okay with what was happening inside me, and I wasn't okay. I didn't know how to identify all these feelings. I certainly didn't know how to address them or cope with them in a healthy Well.
I'm like or assessing that there could be a because your mom seems like a very active did she see like a possible tornado could potentially happen because of like the trauma it was like your parents separating, you now being very close to your dad, losing your dad and going to a new school. That's a lesson. Yeah, I don't know. I think from an outside that does look like a lot for your kids.
I think my mom at the time my mom was dealing with me, she was with my dad instead of her, and so she was already I think she felt like she was behind the relationship and she wanted to like she wanted to work to get that back then. And then I lose my dad, and so now my mom even more is okay, now I'm the parent by default?
Yeah exactly, Yeah, respectfully.
Yeah, yeah, And so I think at that time she wanted to be my friend more than my mom Okay, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, because she's trying to earn that like exactly the points that he had, which makes sense.
Like a lot exactly. And it's not that she was doing like I love my mom, She's an amazing mom, but like the things that I was doing when she did find out about them, drinking, I got a DUI other day I turned sixteen, like the very first.
That was going to be my next question. So when did alcohol and outcohol or possibly drugs entered the picture.
It started with smoking cigarettes. It's funny because I well a girl for smoking cigarettes. So like the kids at the table at the lunch table that I knew smoked before my dad died, I wanted to I didn't even want to look at them. I just wanted to avoid them, like those are the bad kids. And after he died, I found myself like I need to go sit with them because I need to be accepted. I was a new kid in a huge school and I just needed to be accepted. The only thing I had to do was inhale.
But I'm curious now, if you're why did you not feel that you would be accepted sitting at a table of people that weren't doing drugs versus approach of kids that were.
I played sports in high school too, and so I already had that crew. But when my dad died, it left a hole in my heart like just a I don't know how to explain it other than there was just a huge void and a huge vacance, and I just needed more. I needed to fill it with something. And I tried to fill it with anything that I possibly could to take my mind off of it and bring on some sort of feel good chemical, anything, any short shot of dopamine in my brain. And so I
just I wanted the rebel. I felt like rebellious for the first time in my life.
So I started with suthing and where you feeling your mom like from that perspective, because now at this point, you know that they separated right than you lose your dad. Your dad probably, i'm guessing, didn't show any animosity towards your mom. Did you know why they separated?
I think no, nothing crazy bad happened. I just like grew apart. Yeah, I grew apart. Okay, that's a great way to put it.
Okay, I'm just wondering where the rebellion. Just trying to curious.
But I don't know. Okay, I don't know. I really don't know. I think I saw. I think I saw there was something that was attractive about it, and I saw these even though originally I had seen these guys and I thought that they were like not cool kids. I saw going to a football game. They had the girls around them, you know, and like upperclassmen. I would see doing certain things, and I was like, that's cool. It come if you do it, was copeler. It comes
with something. Yea. It's not just like socially acceptable, it's expected, and so I might as well get into it now and be the younger kid that is the cool kid, because I saw apperclassmen doing it. So started with cigarettes, but you hang out in a barbershop long enough, you'll get a haircut, and these kids were. These kids were drinking and they were smoked. So it just very quickly
freshman year, all of it started happening. But I never at that age went absolutely crazy with it, like I would push it and I would do it more than anybody else would do. Like I was the wild guy in high school, that's for sure.
So even amongst that pack, you became like the leader issue. Oh yeah, of that pack real fast.
Everything I've ever done in my life always taken to an extreme. Everything doesn't matter if it's like good things or not good things.
I guess you could see, like maybe early on that maybe you had some kind of like leadership power, but maybe at that point you or it was probably hard to recognize because even to hear that you jumped into a different background and you became the leader, or you were like, I'm going to be the if they're drinking two, I'm going to drink three, I'm going to be your competitive leadership.
Speor everything in everything.
Okay, which I guess in that case, I guess a leader in the wrong swimming pool could be very dangerous.
Right it can. Yeah, And I'll tell you what do I learned a lot. I learned so many different things about people, just about human beings and like what at that point to tell you any specific thing, just just watching people, just listening to people, seeing how they see,
watching what other mistakes people made. Truly, that's been one of the biggest things in my life in recovery, in business and an active addiction is watching other people make mistakes, not just my own mistakes, but I learned from other people more than I do for myself. Okay, so just watching how other people move and I listen, you know, and I just I listened to you. I continue to this day. Just focus on what everybody else is doing.
I think about what everybody else is doing, watch, and I'm watching the landscape of how everything is happening in the world and constantly processing things in my mind. So I don't know. It's can't put an exact answer on it, but I did learn a lot from people.
I would imagine there's a lot of vulnerability in that space, really, because at that point when people are drinking and doing drugs, are they talking about real things? Are they talking about just fun times? I don't know, because I've never really been in those groups.
I can't say that it was ever really like deep conversations. It was probably mostly just fun times, meaningless conversations.
So how does your mom respond to your first DUI?
A slap on the wrist. Flap on the wrist. Man, I'm not happy about this, but you're better than this, essentially, is you know how the conversation went?
Did she was it her first time finding out about you and alcohol?
She may have known that I had a few drinks here and there, but she didn't know that I was drinking every weekend at this point. She didn't know that I was smoking weed every day. I started the deal with cocaine.
A little bit too in high school.
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, very early. So I remember getting picked up from the police station, went to court. She paid for the attorney. They gave me a like driving privileges. You can go to school and practice and work and then you have to come home. And I'm like, okay, that's I get high and drunk before and after school, like on property, same with practice.
So this is property. This is a private school.
It's an amazing school.
Too, and it's Catholic. But these kids are doing this on property.
Absolutely absolutely, OK. And it wasn't just that school. It's kids nowadays. Yeah, And that was in two thousand and two when I was on.
Do you think that the kids that originally do this is it because they grow up in a home where they see drugs and alcohol, Because in your case, it didn't seem like you saw a lot of it. Did you see your parents smoke or drink?
No? I never saw them smoke.
Especially if you broke with your girlfriend in seventh grade, I'd say the bar was pretty high. But for your peers at that time, were they were they do you know if they were exposed to like parents that drink or smoke or turbulence, because if they're going to private school too, I'd imagine they come from decent home.
Yeah, yeah, there was. I think again, I think I don't think I should say this. I think that there's probably some people that had some things going on that I had no clue about to this day, still don't know about, and maybe that's why they did what they did. But I think for the most part, at that age, it was because that's just what you do. And I and this is like why it's so important for me
to speak at schools is because I've been there. I've felt that, I know the pressure that comes with being a young person in our world today, and it's only gotten worse since I was in school twenty years ago, so much worse than it is today. The first, the average age of people using substances is getting younger and younger every single year. The average age of people using like dangerous illicit substances is younger and younger. The average age of people having sex for the first time is
getting people. People are there's this message that you have to look a certain way, act a certain way, have a certain hairstyle, close whatever it might be, say certain things, listen to certain music and if you don't, then you're not going to be part of our crew.
Yeah.
And in a world today where everything is social media, so the need for approval is higher than it's ever been.
Yeah.
And I love doing the primary prevention in schools to tell kids like, you don't need anybody's approval, You're perfect exactly because if I would have been okay, everybody goes through things in life, right, but I would have been okay with that stress, high school, peer pressure, grades, performance on the court or on the field, whatever it is, losing loved ones. If I would have known how to deal with that the right way, I wouldn't have felt the need to seek another sub to seek something else
or other people. It wasn't even substances at first, it was just approval. I always say my first addiction was your approval had nothing to do with substances. I just wanted to be accepted because I couldn't at myself. So I always try to tell kids like, you're accept yourself. You're fine, and find the friends that accept you for who you are.
When you say accept yourself, I would imagine for a kid that's even a tough it's simple as But as simple as that sounds like, what would they even look like? Okay, I accept myself? What do you mean? I accept that? I like corn On the cop is that? But if I was a teenager, how would you relay that to me?
I would talk about a who are you surrounding yourself with? Because if your friends around you are trying to tell you you need to do certain things to be you, to change yourself from the way that you wake up in the morning, if you need to do something different than that to alter your mood, your mind, or your appearance, if your friends are telling you that those are very good friends. Like my friends today, they love me for exactly who I am, the way that I am, how
I am, I don't they don't. It doesn't matter if I bring a bottle to the party or not bring a bottle or wear a certain like. My friends love me for me. Yeah, you don't see that very often in high school.
Yeah. In your case though, playing Devil's there's a couple of things. My mom used to say this when I was younger, all the time, show me your friends and I tell you who you are. That was my most favorite thing. Let's go see your friends. I'll tell you exactly who you are. That's one true. But I think acceptance is tricky because when you have people I know you just said, oh, my friends right now, they accept you. But now, when you have friends that really care about you,
they're holding you to a certain standard. Absolutely, So if you went right now home and you pulled out a bottle with your whole cruel friends, what's going to happen. They're not going to accept you. Do you get what I'm saying?
I do. I do.
So that's where it gets tricky when you say that.
But that was the second thing. I was going to say that not only accept me for who I am, but hold me accountable. That was going to be. That was literally you said it. You said it now, it's a one minute but it's the truth because my friend my friends do hold me me accountable to a certain standard, and I do the same thing for my friends too.
Do you think that's part of what being a good friend is is accept accepting, but with accountability to be your high self.
I think that's a responsibility of a friend. I think that's I think that's one of the greatest responsibility of a true friend, a good friend. The people that i'm and it's not I went from having hundreds and hundreds of people in early recovery that I would associate with and be around, and I would say, I always say four quarters is better than one hundred pennies. I have a few, really, some people are in different countries, some people are in different states, but really close friends that
I see and I don't really hang out socially. I don't do that a lot. I'm with my family and I'm at work, and.
You go to bed early. I saw his LinkedIn profile. Guys, if you want to know even more stuff about Matt, go on Matt Bell on LinkedIn. I don't know if you have social media, yeah, yeah, all of them. Well you can follow us, follow me everywhere Matt Bell. But but yeah, I do stalk his his LinkedIn. But I'd be learning a lot. You talk about also making sure that you're in bed by a certain time. Because I saw this, you said this, and I told my homeboy this the
other day. Nothing good happens outside after ten and I was like, actually, he's totally right. If you're trying to be productive, nothing good is probably going to happen. It's just distraction hours.
Show me something transformational that happens after ten pm. Yeah outside outside of ten yeah outside yeah outside yeah, absolutely, outside and find some good things.
Yeah.
It's just always, it's just it's chaos my home.
My I was talking to my friend and he's very productive, and he goes, I think I'm going to try Adderall and I go to him. I was like Adderall No, and he'say, I think I'm going to try Adderall again. I was like, no, I saw this post by this guy that I watch a lot, and he says, you should just get more sleep, and nothing good happens after ten pm. He's I don't think you get what I'm using adderall for. I'm like, no, I totally get it.
You're trying to be more focused. You could be more focused if you get at an adequate amount of sleep. If he gets up at four am, I said, you should definitely be in bed by eight pm. And that was my response, and it was because it's.
Like he gets up at four he's got to go to sleep eight.
Yeah, you're getting up at four that is why, because you cannot get up at four am. And I get it. We would push ourselves, but thinking that adderall is the solution for something that your body can actually give you. And that's what I swear a true story. This was like two days ago, very productive. But I was just like, but I used your LinkedIn posts.
That's awesome. I appreciate that makes me. That makes me feel really good because that's why I make those posts. And I hope that other people see that sort of stuff too. I remember a probation office, actually a probation officer gave me all these when I was on probation got out of jail. All these certain be in the house by ten, don't go to bars, don't hang out with anybody else that's committing crimes, all these rules. At the time, it felt like an absolute punishment. I was like,
this is terrible. I don't want to do any of this stuff. This is absolutely this is if I had to live by these rules, this will be the worst life ever.
And did you in your brain say, okay, this is what a lame person? Yes for Peray, No, I see people do this if you're straight up. They're like, oh, you're straight, you're corny, you don't have a life, you're lame. But look at what a corny, lame life looks like. You're a CEO, you own multiple properties. I'd imagine you have a staff, you provide and protect for your family, and you're being held accountable and you hold other people accountable.
And if that's what lame or corny looks like, I love it.
I love it. Call me lamb. I don't care. I adhere to all those rules today.
Yeah, without probabi, no probation.
I'm still living by And I looked at that. I'm like and every other successful person that I know, every other successful person or just like happy person that's like truly happy their core like at peace and they're serene. They adhere to these rules too. Like I didn't really think about that, And I'm like, man, that's wild, it's really wi. He wasn't giving me a punishment, he was giving me a recipe for success.
But I like that. You can in a non healthy state look at that list and go, oh, corny, what kind of life is this? And then in a healthy steak, oh, oh my god, this is a beautiful. It's all perspective, like eating this corn and shame and now eating it in this like I've survival and I've what's the word thrived. Yeah, that's pretty interesting.
It's nuts.
Yeah, it's nuts. It is okay, going back. So your mom gives you the slap on the wrist for you drinking. So you're doing the weed, you're doing cocaine. You now have your first du wife. But it doesn't seem like you got your I'm Jamaican. My mom would have been like annihilated. I would you would be going to my funeral,
Like what IMMI? Grandparents are hilarious. If you're a child of any type of immigrant, you already know that you're just not you're not even returning home police like just keep me here, do't let me go back to them. But no, okay, so she's she's earning your your cold points. It seemed though, like growing up she probably was a little stricter. So but maybe there is also a little leniency because she knows in the back of her mind that you lost your father.
Yeah, she doesn't want to be too hard.
Too hard, Okay, So life prevails. You're going through high school, where does the harder drugs get in.
Went to college graduates. So I graduated that that school with a four point zero.
Even as a little ALKI person, I.
Never had any consequences, That's what I'm.
But you were also addicted either then.
No, I wasn't addicted, but I was like the part You go talk to anybody I went to school with that knew me back then, They'll be like, yeah, Matt was wild. He was the part, the partier in the school and not just my school, like my whole town.
But how are you four point zero? And I'm guessing this is a small town.
It's not a it's the fourth biggest town in Ohio.
Oh okay, but you were the you were the most.
I don't know, nothing, nothing compared to La to them.
Yeah, okay, so it's Ohio. But you were the king of the scene. But I'm a little confused. So how are you able to maintain a four point Oh? Is your mom holding some kind of I'm just really.
Good at balance, at managing chaos. I always have been. I've been really good in my life at managing chaos. I think that's why I survived my addiction.
I think you have natural equalities of a leader. Thank you, because I think that to be an entrepreneur, or to be a leader, you have to be able to be the calm in the storm. You can't show those emotions. If you were to panic right now in front of your team, the entire team would question everything. Right, So, say you found out bank accounts are clai, payrolls do on Friday? Right, whatever reasons, cash flow mount everest hits.
You could never turn to your staff and be like, so that's what I mean by there's this throughout your whole life. You could see that there's this natural born leader, right? Do you see it? Am I just pointing it out? Okay?
I love the pressure.
I thrive in pressure, maintain a four point Oh that's geez. But you must be really good at school too.
Are you excelled? Yes? And yes, yes, I've always learned very quickly. I enjoy learning.
Yes, And you're a big reader.
I don't really know. I like audiobooks more than actually reading. I don't enjoy reading. Yeah, I listened to audio more than reading.
I do both now, guys, But I have photographic micro photographic. When I read, I'm the opposite.
Really, Yeah, I can't if I'll read a page because my mind is in so many places I think about. I'm constantly thinking. So if I read, I'll get done with the page and be like, what did I just read? I don't even remember what I just read.
But if I listen, the book is not great yet that I'll have. Yeah, there's some people like C. S. Lewis can be a little bit of a runner on a page. All right, No, that that's a book I wouldn't recommend for you if you would be in lou gotcha gone, Okay.
See what you're saying. You know what I like about audiobooks? So seriously, is I can speed it up? I have the control. Like reading, I'm I can only read so fast, regardless of how good of a reader I am, I can only read so fast. But if I can turn an audiobook on two x or three X and get a book done in.
An hour, see my So we're opposites in the sense that if I read a book on audio, and like I said, it depends how the person writes. Right. There's some really great writers and there's some people that like some of the psychology books. I feel like sometimes those guys, some of the words they use. I'm like, bro, let's get through this chapter. Those I would probably have to do two x but at this point I've semi checked out and I'm scared I'm going to miss miss like
the meat and potatoes. That makes sense, But I do a mix of audio now because it makes sense because it's easier. But good to know about Youah, all right, So back to you. When do you get to the exlicit?
Is it?
Exlicit?
Illicita college happened in college, full ride to the university's leado to Division one college in our city playing baseball, which was my dream. And I hurt my shoulder in college, and so I had a minor surgery, just an outpatient surgery, and that was the first time. I left that surgery in and out two hours with ninety percocets. Now they don't do that anymore. They don't prescribe that many pills at once, but at that time they did, and that was my first time doing opiates.
I had taken pills. Are opiates?
Yes, okay, okay, yep, So I had taken pills.
They do they tell you that, Yeah, they do. I think they say, hey, this is percocets, it is an opiate.
I don't know if they say those exact words, but like on the discharge paperwork, it says all that sort of stuff at that time, I certainly don't remember them saying, hey be careful with this, this is an addictive substance. This is all during the opioid epidemic, when it was being marketed as a non addictive description pain killer. So I don't think that there was a ton of drug education, and truthfully, I think even in our world today, there's more that they can do with that.
So yeah, because they talk about pop songs, I did not even opiate.
Yeah, yeah, so they give molecularly on a molecular level, if we were to break down a percocet and heroin are essentially the same thing.
Are you serious opioids?
Yes? Wow, yep, Okay, fetanyl carpetanyl heroin, percocets, oxycotton morphine, deluded. These are all of the opioid class, and so they all attached the same receptors in the brain and cause the same reactions. Yeah.
When I was in Upstate New York the senior year of my high school, I remember them lacing weed with this brown substance and I forgot what they called it, but it was a derivative of the opioid, and that was like the first time I remember saying something around my dad, and my dad was like, opioids is heroin if you grow up in New York, but like heroin
addiction is. My parents used to scare straight. They'd be like doing the lean, yeah, be like yo, that person was a doctor and they gave they lost their whole family and one night, for sure smoked a cigarette and then they went on heroin like okay crett, yeah, okay, never smoked a cigarette. They would love to do that. You see someone in the lead, they'd be like that person. They was living in a mansion somewhere and they give this whole speech.
And you that was it opium stuff.
It was probably it was some kind of maybe it was opium. I don't remember. I am the polar opposite. I'm one of those. If I have a cocktail, I take three SIPs and I'm like, eh, that my think.
Good for you, Yeah, good for you.
I'm very, very lucky, very I.
Can't understand that. My wife's the same way.
Yeah, it's it's I was with my dad and this lady and they're like, oh, you order drink and I like, ordered the fruity one and yeah they knew. And my dad was like, I was like, yeah, I didn't feel too good. He's oh, your whole drink was still there. Would you drink two SIPs? I was like, yeah, still didn't feel good.
Yeah, But that's where it started. It started in college after the I remember taking the first one and falling in love with it. I liked substances, I liked being under the influence and having fun socially. But when I experienced percocets for the first time, I wanted to feel that way every day for the rest of my life.
Did your mom have any idea of the severity of what percosetes were at the.
Time, No, nobody did.
So you were responsible doling it out to yourself. And at this point you're in your twenties, right, Yeah.
I'm playing baseball. I'm nineteen at the time.
Well, are you in your dorms?
I'm in I had my own house, I have my own college house, I have my own party house.
Of course you're mad.
Yeah, I'm like, I'm doing the thing, same thing. Two beers is good, five must be great. If one percoset is this good, then I wonder what three or four does, and that that prescription was supposed to last for I think like forty five days. It was gone in a week.
Yeah, I think I saw on your LinkedIn. Yeah yeah, I saw that. I was like, damn, like one week that was it? Yeah, And I think you said like the whole bottle was gone. I was like, oh yeah, oh snap. And then at that point did you know you had a problem?
So I woke up the next I actually didn't even fall asleep when I took the last one. I started to go through withdraws like I was physically dependent, not like anything crazy, but I was starting to experience some minor withdrawal symptoms, like what sleeplessness like restless, leg tossing and turning hot and cold sweats, some nausea. Just laid up all night feeling like that, and I was like, I've never felt like this before. So I'm looking online.
What are these symptoms and everything? It's opioid addiction, chemical dependency, substance. Like all the results, I'm like, no, let me go to page two of Google. How often do you go to page two of Google? You find your results right there.
I'm going to page.
Three on to page four page five, it's all addiction. I'm like, I am not an addict. I'm a d one athlete with a full ride. I'm gonna go pro someday. I was being watched by pro scouts as a freshman. I'm not an addict, not an addict. I don't look like an addict.
And you're not. You're looking up answers, but you're nowhere and you're going, hey, can I get another purposet?
So that's what I did. I called a friend and I was like, I feel this way. What do I do? Everything's saying addiction, what and I do? I gotta go to class, I gotta go to practice. And my friend was like, go buy a pill for the first time. Now, go buy know somebody who can buy a pill from. Take the pill, and if you feel better, then you are addicted. And I was like, that's actually really genius. Let me go. That's a good idea. Let me go buy drugs illegally now. And that was the first time
I did it. And that was the first time I was introduced to like a pill.
Like a pill, it does sound like a good idea.
Makes sense, like the process of elimination.
It does, But then you think if you are an addict, then you just literally lit.
Yeah, you just kept it going. Yeah, I just kept it going.
But I liked that it was like youth and youth trying to solve a problem. I would have totally given you like not me now, but I could see someone like being like, we'll solve this problem right now. Okay, it does make sense. Okay, so I can't even hate on the friend there. That was logic. But then it's okay. So then you find out, you find out, but even just pursuing the illegal route.
Right, yeah, I found out. I was like, because I took it and feelings went away right, well better, I felt fine again very quickly, and I was like, oh my gosh, I am like reliant on these. I wasn't. It wasn't addiction yet. I wouldn't call it addiction yet, but physically dependent on them to wear it.
And you were smarter, not smart enough at the time. But that's weird that you like knew in that moment. You were like, I need this to feel good, that's.
How So there are certain substances that cause withdrawals, and there's certain substances where it's just mental obsession with opioids. It's the mental obsession, but it's also physical with draws, and if you don't have them every single day, you're deathly sick. The withdrawals from opioids are terrible. The same thing that I did that day to feel better to go to practice and go to school, I had to do the next day too, And then I had to do it the next day or else I was going
to be sick feeling those feelings of shaking hot. I couldn't go to practice that way. It's like you're throwing up, you're vomiting.
What drugs can you take that don't give you a physical withdrawal?
So every substance, even sugar, I mean like everything, nicotine, alcohol, every substance, if you use it enough for long enough, it's going to cause it's going you're there's withdrawal scales for all substances. Some are obviously more significant than others, but I would say the least physical withdrawals are going to be like marijuana and cocaine and.
Sugar, right because now you're gonna be a little paranoid. Sugars.
I don't know when I eat a lot of sugar, if I'm like on a bad, like stretch for three, four or five months of just eating sugar all day every day, and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna stop. Have you ever done that? Just like cut off sugar.
No, I've.
Cut off carbs. Oh my gosh. The next day after that, terrible headache, can't sleep. Sugar is wild, Sugar is Sugar is crazy. Go down a deep dive of how like bad sugar is for our bodies and for our brains. It's wild.
Now now I'm thinking that I give my kid like skittles to teach her how to learn how to read. So I do this thing like yeah, I do this like tutoring every morning, but after they eat breakfast, I'll be like, hey you can have skit how much candy do you earn? But now I'm thinking like, could I be creating an addiction?
No, in moderation, I think most things.
Five skitlls every day.
Yeah, I think she's fine.
Okay, Okay, let's go back to your story. Okay, I'm learning. Okay, this this has my brain working. Okay, So now you're one perpose at a day, you're spending your harder money, but you're getting this illegally at what point do you start to say this is not good.
When I really started to notice, like my behavior and performance slipping, like I lost like when I was when I went to college, I put on so much lean muscles in the best shape ever. All my muscles started to fall off. I was late to practice, not doing the extra work outside of practice. Late my grade started slipping. I was like, yeah, this is this. And then I had to go from percocets to oxy because percocets didn't do it for me anymore.
When you say do it for you, your body withdraws or it just didn't feel like a good high.
It both If I your tolerance goes up, and so you either need more or you need something stronger to produce the same effect. And so to get high anymore, I had to do more, and to do three or four percocets. That that's expensive. Let me just get one oxy cotton to get that. Because oxyctins, depending on the milligram, is stronger than at the time oxyconton was stronger. I'm talking about OxyContin not oxy content, which are like a
completely different like back in the day. And people will know if they know five O six the real oxies, those things were like the purest form of any sort of opioid. You could you could snort it, you could swallow it, you could inject it. What I started to do. I started to do that with oxycotton and then yeah.
Because I was going to say at some point I would imagine when you get to the needle part, like okay, go yeah.
I watched how to my friends and I because we all started doing it together. We started we watched how to inject on YouTube at the time. There was a video that would show you how to do that.
What would lead you to guys to want to inject versus like just swallowing it.
We're always trying to to get a better hide because the hide after a certain amount of time isn't as good, and so it's like, how can we level this up? And it sounds so crazy, but when you're once you cross that invisible line, it's that's just the way that the brain thing just doesn't make sense to for us, like talking now, it makes no sense, and for many listeners it won't make any sense. But when you're in it, it makes nothing but sense. So we watched a video and these are.
Friends that are going to college with you, you.
Know, some of them probably in college at the time, you know, and the rest of them were just like friends from high school. A lot of my friends got hooked on oxy conton at that time. It was like it was a very common thing. We were all parties. Weren't like beer pong anymore. Parties were snorting lines of oxy conton off.
It elevated.
Yeah, a lot of us are doing it.
So this is but you're out there in Ohio.
I'm in Toledo, Ohio. I'm in my hometown. I'm still in my hometown.
I heard like, when you're dealing with addiction and stuff like that, you got to get away from where it is.
I don't I think that. I think that can help for some people. But everywhere you go, you take yourself with you, and there are drugs everywhere in the world, and so just there's no geographical care to addiction. You can't just I'm going to go to Hawaii for six months, not do drugs and then return or not return. You can stay in Hawaii the whole time. And if you don't work on yourself and why you started doing things in the first place, you're going to continue to do those things in Hawaii.
But in your case, your stuff was No, it wasn't. I was gonna say yours was accidental, but no, it wasn't. Not really because had had you the whole situation with your not if if you go further back, right, you were that whole transition from high school losing your dad to switch off to your mom. Like I guess, if that whole story kind of didn't unravel, maybe none of this would.
Have Probably not right.
Probably not because I was going to blame it on like that whole surgery, but not because at that point you were already used to trying different things.
Yeah, yeah, I think it goes back to my dad for sure. And I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that until my twenty eighth treatment center that I went to.
So how did you discover it?
I know I'm getting a very good therapist, so pill Mills, I'll close the loop there really quick. Oxy cotton took off after percocets. I dropped out of college, started getting arrested, working like meaningless jobs, went back to mom's house, in and out of rehab. Arrests started happening. Just like the real chaos of this is no longer dabbling. This is no longer just dependency, full blown addiction, and everybody knew it. You knew it, Oh yeah, absolutely. I was like you not a rehabit and but.
You knew it after that first pill, right, that little pill test. That's when you knew it.
I knew that I was dependent on it, like addiction for me, so physical dependency on something. It doesn't progress to like actual diagnosable severe addiction like opioid use dependence until you continue to use despite consequences. There was no consequences after those seven pills. I was still like, no consequences once I started getting in trouble, once I started stealing, once I started getting into debt, once I had dropped out of school, and I still do those things. Now.
Now it's addiction. You look at how is my life? What are all these factors happening around? That's full blown addiction.
That's sounds like you do it despite the consequences.
Correct, And I had every reason in the world to stop. Like on paper, Matt, what are you doing? What are you doing? It's denial. It's all these sorts of things. But that's addiction. It just does not make sense, just doesn't make sense. At all.
Okay, that's interesting. So now where did we were.
We were got to heroin because oxy cotton they shut down all the pill mills. They all got raided at the same time. In northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. They all got raided and that's when the cartels brought in. It was actually real heroin at the time. Now it's not, it's all fentanyl. So then I started shooting harrow and that was like, that was actually a relief because I was spending three four hundred dollars a day on oxy cotton.
How are you making how much money?
You just I inherited money from my dad and I spent it all gone, mag I spent it all in nine months.
But wait, your dad left when you were like fifteen or sixteen, so I didn't inherit it till later correct at what time, like twenty two, fifteen and a half?
Oh my, And it was gone by nineteen and a half, so that it was a wild run while I had that money. But once it was gone, then I had to start committing crimes and doing all sorts stuff to feed my addiction. But four hundred dollars on oxy cotton versus thirty dollars forty dollars a day on heroin. It's a no brainer. Yeah, and it's the same thing, so yes, switch to heroin and then just start Stuff started getting really bad when I started using heroin. It was so
much stronger. The physical withdrawals were worse. So that's when, like rehabs really started to happen overdoses, the arrest.
The rehabs happened because withdraws were really bad.
No, because I was getting in trouble. Everybody else wanted me to go.
Okay, everybody wanted you to go.
It was always a judge or a probation officer, or my mom or a girlfriend. I never wanted to go. Somebody else always wanted me to go.
At what point, why is it that you wouldn't want to go?
I just wasn't I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready.
I did like you knew the consequences were bad, but you just didn't care. And I guess that there was a definition of addiction is right. Yeah, it's just a vicious cycle.
It's a cunning, baffling, powerful, insidious brain disease that you'll never understand until you have to understand it. Like for me to explain it to you or to anybody. If I've never tasted chocolate before, tell me what chocolate tastes like.
It's the greatest thing on earth.
I think corn on the cob is the greatest thing on earth. So if you're telling me it's the greatest thing on earth, my mind goes to I love chocolate.
I should be able to answer this question. But I love that you're proposal of this because I honestly other than chocolate. Like if I always say, like if someone said, go the rest of your life without chocolate.
I always hear people say it's sweet, it's sweet, it's creamy, creamy. Dark chocolate can have a bitter taste to it. So I hear these things, I'm like, okay, sweet strawberries, bitter lemons, creamy mashed potatoes. Do am I am? I thinking about an accurate depiction of chocolate. So if the only way that I will ever fully understand is to put these chocolate in my mouth and taste it for myself, And it's the same thing with addiction, it just doesn't make sense.
But the only difference is that say, you and I both like chocolate, right, but I'm the one that. Let's just say I was addicted to chocolate, but it doesn't have the same effect. Say you're a vanilla person, right, then would you even still understand it?
I might understand a little bit more. I think I might understand it a little bit more because I would say, that's like someone who is addicted to alcohol versus someone who's addicted to another substance. The addiction is the same, but I'll never really understand. There's a common denominator of what it's like to be addicted to something there, I think.
So, do you think people that aren't addicts have a lack of I think from my experience that there is a lack of empathy.
I think some people.
Yeah, from my experience, I lack empathy because it doesn't make logical sense.
Correct.
But then I have to go, according to the world, it's a disease. And then you hear people that were addicts the way they describe it in music. I like the way people describe in music or testimonials like yourself, because you get an idea if they can explain it well enough, like how you describe chocolate, right, Yeah, then you get an idea. But there is a little bit of a lack of empathy. I don't know, because logically, you're like, you're losing everything.
Yeah, why would you do that?
Yeah?
Why would you do that?
And then it goes into you you love this thing more than you love this thing. So that's where the logic and the lack of empathy.
Absolutely, if I told you, if I offered you a million dollars to not blink for the rest of this show, would you be able to do it?
No, for the rest of the show. Yeah, which I really hard.
You try, right, you try really hard. So that I always do this in schools and I'll ask, I'll always bring in somebody a couple hundred hours, I'll say in schools, i'll say, if you guys don't blink for the whole presentation, I'll give you this money. And it's never happened. In ten years. I probably spoken to a million students in ten years, and obviously it's never happened. I've had some kids like try to hold their eyes open. One kid taped his eyes open, but nobody's been able to keep
their eyes open. There's a reason for that is because the brain controls it. The brain controls blinking, it controls breathing, swallowing, heartbeat, all these things that just automatically happen that we don't think about. And to think about addiction as a chronic brain disease, that it if you were to look at somebody who's struggling with addiction versus your brain right now, they're different physiologically. This is science, This is not Matt's opinion.
The brain changes from substance use, from chemical dependency. The brain changes and the ability to make good decisions is impacted by that. And so for me to say I'll give you a million dollars if you don't blink is the same as society to say why can't they just stop? It's not that simple. Their brain is telling them they have to have more. And so for us to say that addicts are like bad people and they just need to become good, it has nothing to do with that.
They've maybe made some bad choices and they've used a substance, probably not great choices, but at some point it changes and it's no longer these are choices anymore. This is a I have to do this to survive, and this person is sick now. And to understand addiction in that way as the diagnosable condition of the disease concept of it. This is a sick person that needs treatment. They're not a bad person that needs to become good. But people don't understand that.
No, but I think the way you explained it is very helpful. I think it's very easy to understand a physical withdrawal from an outside perspective. I'm the devil's advocate, met I love it. At what point everyone's pleading with you to go and get help. At what point do you and I guess you told me this, But at what point do you say, I really want to help? Shun a debate, should I go for this question or do I go for At what point does the therapist
find the magic button? Which one goes first? The therapist finding the magic button, they go.
Along at the same time. To be honest with you, my therapist was able to help me identify that me losing my father was that was my trauma. That was trauma for me. I viewed as a completely normal occurrence. People died. I viewed it as that way. Oh and by the way, I got to go back to this place where I already feel uncomfortable. I gotta go fit. I can't go walk into an all guys college prep high school as a freshman and be like, I'm really sad that my dad's dead. I have to go take
an exam tomorrow. I have to go make the team. It's try it's tryouts right now. I have to go compete. I have to step in. I can't think about this. So I never dealt with it. I never even recognized that it was trauma. I put on the back burner and just never processed it. And for up until that twenty eighth time, it just remained unprocessed. It was unprocessed grief and trauma.
Now, when you say unprocessed, does that mean that because you didn't find a way to cope through it? Is that what that means?
Yes? And I found ways to cope. They were just very unhealthy ways to cope. But what it was She asked me a question. She said, if drugs are answer, what's your question? I was like, that's very deep. I don't really know how to respond to that, but you're right, drugs have been my answer. What is my question? I wasn't able to answer right that. What I got to, through like recurring sessions with her, my question was what
is it about? Myself that I hate so much that I have to alter who I am to have a relationship with the world. I can't just wake up and be mad. I have to do something. I have to change who I am to be a friend, to be a partner, to be the funny guy at the part I have to I can't just be natural. And she helped me realize that from my dad leaving. At that time, I viewed that as abandonment, Like my fourteen year old
brain thought that my best friend abandoned me. And so how do I control things to make sure I never get abandoned again? How do I settle in relationships for rather than shooting for the excellence of my dad? How do I maybe settle for something that's less than because I can control it and make sure that it or she, or a friend or anybody never leaves me. How can I always bring something to the table that's not Matt that makes me so good that nobody will ever want
to get rid of me. It was like all these like deep, profound things that I had to really get to, and it was all abandonment that led to I need to control everything. I need to control every and substances were my way to do that in relationships, in fun and social settings. Substances were my way to do that.
That's a lot, that's a lot. I still don't understand how substance was your way of controlling other things though.
So if I walk into a party without substances, they might not accept me.
Got it.
If I walk in with a bottle, we're having a good time.
If you walk in as yourself, who.
Knows if they'll invite me back.
Wow.
So I mean that's just I was. I had to get to a point where I was okay walking into that room as myself with nothing else and to be able to work on what was it? It was fear, it was insecurities, it was just all these basically fear. Is what the Twelve Steps helped me realize, is that I was afraid of so many different things, hundreds of forms of fear. And so the opposite of that is building courage and self esteem and all that sort of stuff.
And that's what that's what stepwork does. It's an ego deflating process that helps you be okay with yourself.
I went to one with a girl.
Yeah, that's awesome, and it was.
It felt like they I don't want to judge, but I was in the room and it felt like everyone was like there was a humility and a respect was a greater being, like a God or whatever. Yeah, but it was interesting.
Twelve step programs are they're spiritual in nature. You don't have to believe in God. You don't have to believe in a specific God. But the whole goal of the twelve steps is help you find something greater than yourself. Because my way got me into that program. If my way was good enough, I wouldn't need that program. Well, I have to find something bigger than me.
Yeah. Then that would also mean that you're not in control. So do you think that most addicts think that is their way of controlling the environment versus I don't.
Think everybody's different. Oh, I think everybody's different, A.
Learned less all right, what I know, we're definitely over the time. What advice do you give to families who deal with addicts?
Love? Tough love. I think tough love is the most underutil lot because it's tough. I mean it's tough on the it's tough on the person receiving it and the people giving it. But tough love is my short answer. Generalized answer, tough love. Find ways to get to a point where you can give tough love boundaries. Families have so much control and leverage that they don't realize that
they have that. If I say, if you do this again, if you come back home again drunk, if gamble the money away again, if you do this again, these things are going to happen. Do that and stick to those boundaries because the consequences that people can remember how I said in high school, I'd never had any consequences like the DUI that this, that cops come to the party, Matt, you got to play this Friday, get out of here, never any consequence. We have to have consequences to change.
We have to, and families can implement those consequences for people. Rather than allowing people to just go out and dig deep down to a rock bottom that they find themselves, families can bring that rock bottom to the loved ones.
I think I can understand, though, where families are in a battle with themselves, because if you're from a family's perspective, you'd be like, Okay, my boundary doesn't mean anything, because guess what, the only thing they care about is that drug or that substance or whatever they're hooked to. So why my boundary doesn't mean anything? It's easy to say that, right. I guess you'd have to be tough love for a very strong time, a long time.
It might be some families that have to do it for a long time. Some people can do it for the very first time. They hold that conversation and the person changes. So addictions is just weird. It's you can make a pizza and put it in an oven and it comes out how it's supposed to every single time, as long as you follow the instructions. There's no one size fits all. Why did this happen to this person? And what is the right way to deal with this
individual like you? It's so complex. It's just so Complex's why the success rates are so low, the success rates of people. That's why I said, I'm not supposed to be here after that many times in treatment and as long as I was out there, I should not be here.
Yeah, I could imagine there's like a different array of emotions from people looking at your story. For people that have lost people to say drugs and see you sit here, man, why couldn't my person just couldn't get it? In that right amount of time. But I like that you're using your shouldn't be here to like impact and change the world.
Yeah, I love it. I love what I love what I do today.
Even though it seems like you're surrounded by trauma.
Yeah, it's all day people are coming in to the treatment center. Then they're not, they're not.
Yeah, but even to hear that you say, you have to deal with death on more than regular right, because if they leave and they reuse or what have you. So it's like you're constantly it's like a firefighter. They're constantly around the trauma. But you've been on the dark side. I don't know how you stay strong.
Success is too, people like get their kids back and become productive members of society. And it's to know that we played a small part in that. That that's the stuff that keeps us going. For every very sad story, there's five really happy stories too. So that's the And then obviously like personal life and whether it's self care or travel or fun or golfing or exercise or just going home to my kids. Yeah, that's work is hard for anybody. Any job first responders, Yeah, but.
Those particular jobs like the nurses the doctors, the what you do firefighters like. Sometimes people say that those can be like the tougher people to be like in a relationship with, because they're constantly exposed to trauma. You could be like, how is your day, honeywoo. Me and Sarah got into it and as oh, yeah, I went to this guy's house he committed suicide, or this young kid. That the trauma is like so much that they're almost like numb to it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you can interview my wife next. She'll tell you all crazy stuff.
You guys look so good online. Just a day in the life of you. Now.
Wake up at probably five, I'll go to I'll go to the gym, come home, get some desk work done at the house before I go to the office. Probably I don't know, one hundred or something emails, go usk, getting everything organized, go to the office. Have one hundred and sixty employees. I have one hundred and sixty employees. We've got like twenty two locations in northwest Ohio. Now two hundred and seventy beds right now, we'll have over three hundred here shortly, and I just I run the
amith of business every single day. That's What I love about it is you'll see a lot of CEOs or founders in the addiction treatment space that are just investors. I don't have partners. I don't have investors that we're not managed by some private equity from a different area that doesn't know about what my city needs. I'm doing it for the city. I'm in recovery ten years sober. I own the company myself, I own the real estate myself.
How did you get the funding to put it all together? You don't want me.
So slowly, but surely. I worked for another agency for a little bit too before I started my own, and I was a minority partner in that company. The majority ownership did sold sell to private equity. And when that happened, it just completely changed, and so I sold. It wasn't fun anymore. It wasn't the reason that I got into it. It wasn't anything like bad. Just wasn't the quality that I expect to provide for people. So I left. I sold my equity for pennies on the dollar and took
that and just reinvested it into my own company. Yeah.
I love that.
Yeah. When I left, though, I'll tell you that it was very scary so I didn't get paid it. It was a long term payout, and I went from being paid very well to saying I don't like this and I need to leave too. I'm not gonna have a paycheck for about a year. Yeah, but I'm making this jump because I believe it's the right thing to do, and it was. It ended up being the best decision I've ever made.
Now, your first space, when you first started, you started with one, right, or did you buy it take over like another little company or No.
Everything I've done I've built from scratch, So.
It was one. So you get that first one your savings, You're like, oh my god, that self doubt a little bit. Dealing with cash flow problems I love. I love saying cash flow problems because every business has to deal with it at some point. So you're dealing with that hiring, trying to hire the right people and the wrong going through that because I think that's like another whole nother skill set.
Oh my gosh.
Yes, yes, So you start to look at HR a whole lot different.
HR is I believe one of the most unappreciated things in running business human resources, compliance and in ours revenue cycle. If you don't know how to submit claims. You don't know how to you can't keep the cash flow coming in.
Yeah, yeah, I do. At some point I'll talk about it offline. I want to connect you with this lady, Nina Linn out here in Orange County. She started a program called wunder Seed. I think you guys would do dynamite together. She uses AI to do preventative treatment on trauma for youth.
Awesome. Do you guys should connect?
Connect? I think you guys would do good because you have such passion for it.
Appreciate it, thank you, I love it. I am. I'm obsessed with it, absolutely obsessed.
Yeah, truly, I'm going to I want to connect y'all because I could imagine great things. And then when you do your touring for teaching the youth, is there what do people have to do to get you to get to their school?
Just reach out?
That's it.
Some of me a LinkedIn message and ask what we're going to eat on the show.
I was surprised it worked. And then do they have to have certain budgets and stuff or is that all back in you guys figure it all out.
If it's local for the most part, local like very close to Ohio within an hour or so. I'll speak for free just because because I love doing it. Obviously, if I have to travel and take time off work, then I want to be compensated.
For that and or at least not going the whole.
Yeah. I can't lose. I can't just want to do I love to do it.
Yeah.
So yeah, I'm very flexible.
In your program. Do you think it's way different from what Deer was?
I know Deer, Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so. I don't really talk about drugs that much. When I go speak at schools, it's out of a forty five minute presentation. I probably talk about it for five minutes.
So then what do you talk about?
Choices and consequences, about real relevant things that young people need to understand. This choice leads to this, and then it's a snowball effect, and it's about who you surround yourself with, Like your mom used to say that. Yeah, I literally say that, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. I say that, I say that in the presentations. But on the other end of that,
good choices lead to good consequences. So social media, what you're posting on social media today is going to stop you from getting into your college of choice or your dream job or whatever it might be. You bully somebody in high school right now, like that person might be interviewing your kid in thirty years. Your kid might not get their dream now because you are a bully to them,
and they connect the dots. It's thinking about things that I never thought about, going places, get into vehicles that have certain things in them, going to a certain party that has certain things going on. It's more just broader conversations around some things that kids need to hear today. And it's not smoking. It's vaping. Everybody's all the kids are vaping.
Yeah. I like that you do that approach versus the dare.
I was just, yeah, it's a little bit different. I like to do things different.
Matt. Thank you so much for taking time to let me just radically pick your brain and your whole life apart.
I appreciate it.
You did introduce me to whole corn and it wasn't that bad. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. And I'm so proud of you, and I'm so thankful that you share your story every day. I don't care if it's a hundred times a day. It's always like a breath of fresh air.
I appreciate it so much. Thank you for messaging me. I'm glad that got the chance to come out here spend time with you on a Sunday. I'm going to take this to go if you don't mind. It's really good.
It is right ripping.
No, it's good.
It is like floss or something.
Thank you. Yeah, I definitely need floss. I was like this, I hope there's nothing there.
No. Thank you guys for tuning in. You guys keep up with Matt Bell M A T, T, B E L L on all social media platforms. What books have you? Can you talk about the books?
I wrote a memoir. Yeah, I wrote it myself. I actually recorded it myself on audio audio as well, so it's on Audible and it's on Amazon. But it's called Addiction Alumni, and it is it's my story. It is my story for everything that we just talked about, and way more like stories that I've never told to a lot of people. So it's it is.
It is like a deeper, very.
Very deep and very accurate and a lot of details about what addiction looks like, but also what recovery looks.
Like to Okay, Yeah, I'll definitely check it out.
And everything goes to charity. By the way, all the proceeds. There's something about people selling stories like that, not saying anything's wrong with it, but I just didn't want to profit off of that, off of my stories. All the sale proceeds go to charity.
Okay, all right, and then that charity helps people in addiction or do you choose.
We chose a nonprofit to determine where the funds go, so they're constantly doing needs assessments and they'll dole it out as the funds come in.
That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And then Matt Bell Properties, that's what is that? Does that somehow tie to Team Recovery?
Some of it does, but some of it doesn't. I just love real estate.
Do you do flips and stuff?
I like to buy and hold? I don't like to buy. I buy and hold.
So like residential, like apartment building type.
Things, apartments, strip malls, commercials.
Commercial real estate. You don't think that's risky.
Some of it is, some of it is. You find the right building though with some good credit, strong national tenants. Since it's a little bit different.
Yeah, hopefully soon we'll have them at Bell Like financial literacy book, I feel like you're definitely gonna have some good tips in there too.
Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's wild and I get to do all sorts of cool stuff because of recovery.
So because of recovery.
Yeah, and I'm able to be in recovery because of my addiction. So everything happens for a reason.
Yeah. Yeah, it's an honor to say with you, thank you guys for tuning in. Peace out,