It felt like I kind of turned pro. This is different. This is like alcohol was our emotional currency. You know you've drank too much. You know you should stop and you're staring at the bottle of vodka and there's maybe a quarter or a third of the bottle left and you're looking at it and you know you shouldn't do it and you just say F it and you finish the bottle. It's like a passive suicide. Welcome to Veteran Voices. I am your co-host Tom Faust. I'm here with my son Chris and today we have with us Dr. Dice and he is a former Navy SEAL, firefighter, paramedic, therapist, co-founder of Bishop and Dice Defense and today we're going to be talking about recovery, resilience and the unique challenges that veterans face and also first responders face when they're coming home and then anything else that we come across and decide to talk about. So, welcome Dr. Dice. Thank you Tom. Chris, it's an honor to be here man. Thank you for providing a platform that we can get this word out. You know that I sound really good on paper but there is a much darker tale behind those scenes, let me tell you. There's darker tales behind most scenes of you know help and you know support and the past that you go down. Indeed there is. Well, why don't we start off just give us a little bit of your background, what got you into the military in the first place and then we can get to your transition. Okay, yeah like I said like you mentioned for me you know fire department, paramedic. I was getting ready, I was taking all my classes to be going to law enforcement. You know at that time in my life I was all about go, go, go, let's be the hero and my chief pulled me up and before I was able to put in my paperwork transfer and goes you know what are you doing? You're just jumping around you know you gotta find some roots and I said I'm just trying to be all I can be and I asked him what's the top of the food chain? He said a Navy SEAL and that was my entire decision making matrix was like okay I'll do that. Went down to the recruiter, signed up in the late enlistment program and boom. I think I did my first day in the Navy was April Fool's Day 1996. Yep, so it was the beginning of my Navy career you know and I went through buds, the SEAL teams. The one thing that struck me about the Navy and like there was drinking involved in the fire department in the ambulance and but when I got in the Navy it felt like I kind of turned pro. You know it was like this is different, this is this this is like almost like alcohol was our emotional currency. You're having a bad day, boom, they let's down. You guys are having a problem, you want to go to fisticuffs, you two get a drink, sort this out. You know you have a fallen comrade, hey I got a bottle, we're going to get through this together. I mean when you got you got indoctrinated, you got you know elevated and you got separated, alcohol was how we dealt with everything and right off the bat I loved that kind of like I had a flask always on me and if you were having a bad day boom you know I loved that that's the Swiss Army nice function of it. So that was kind of the the plus of coming in the enjoying that. The big cherry on top is the freaking brotherhood man. Each one of those jobs I had it was a camaraderie that came involved that I loved that team mindset. I loved having got my guys, I loved looking over and just telling from body language what's going to happen next that that comfort level to me I loved it. But you know this was also pre-911 and in the grand scheme of Navy SEAL cool guy status this was a boring time to be a Navy SEAL you know and let me tell you, you give guys with this skill set nothing to do, we're going to make some trouble. You know we're going to get into some we're going to find some action somehow. Like have you ever gone to a concert and there's always some idiot climbing up in the life life rack you know climbing the light in the speaker box or just doing something stupid. Yeah you leave me unattended I'm that idiot you know I'm the guy who's going to be out looking for trouble and adventure if you don't give me a mission. And you know my time in the teams was I trained hard, we deployed, we got spun up you know nothing nothing happening nothing happening and I'm like ready to go ready to go ready to go and you know in between then there was close calls of me almost doing something stupid or me doing something stupid but getting away with it. You know there was a lot of that kind of mischievousness drinking towards a couple years in you get really comfortable with your unit your guy you start experimenting with other substances and so there was this this feeling that I began to feel like I was a ticking time bomb. Like you know if we don't really start playing balls doing something that's what I thought the SEALs were about you know I'm going to do something stupid and get in trouble. I'm going to have a DUI or I'm you know there's going to be some kind of alcohol related incident some fight something's going to happen I could feel that tempo kind of going up on on my insides. So when my re-enlistment came up you know I had to make a decision do I want to keep doing this or are you going to punch out before something bad happens. And I guess my spider instinct saved me there because I got out without any any poor marks you know everything honorable good good separation the guy and it was it was I got out and got on a good standing. And right off the bat there was something I noticed about that getting out in the private sector you know and we're going to go into that that that transition piece but that stood out to me. There was a distinct feeling about leaving the military and you know that was that was my military service. Not a lot of fireworks not to shoot them up bang bang you know body rescue huge explosions this was a pre-911 seal and so that's kind of like why my story is about after the trident is because there's so much more that took place after that. Okay well that's kind of that'll easily segue into kind of the first thing of what you want to dig into so you know as you know you said you've worn many different uniforms so what was the hardest part of transitioning out of those roles and into the civilian life? Yeah and you know the fire department ambulance service that was all like just leveling up you know so it's it's going from one pool guys and another pool guys and being the new guy all over again and that kind of takes care of itself we all know how to be new guys you know we all had it like we're earning our stripes and and doing all the new guy stuff the FNG stuff so all that stuff again you in fact in the teams you get really good at being a new guy because you're always going somewhere a new command new platoon you know you get really good at playing the game so that was like this leveling up when I'm getting out of the seal teams I think this is important to realize you know in America we value our freedom you know so much it just it's just the bedrock of what we believe in and I don't think most people realize that a service member gives up a great deal of freedom to serve I mean you sign over everything the military controls everything of your life your family's life your kids life everything we give up a whole lot of freedom I mean it's ridiculous for someone who believes so strongly in freedom how much I surrender to be in the military and I don't think I really felt that until I got out of the military and all of a sudden it was like someone took the cage off of me and I told myself I can do whatever I want I am unaccounted for and that was that was a powerful feeling for me I mean I'm like no one knows where I'm at you know I don't have to report to anyone and there was this you know my typical response that that that time period was okay I can drink hard I don't have to stop if I don't want to I can do coke I can do ecstasy I can do whatever and there's no your analysis there's no consequences that I was used to you know I'm not trying to dodge and escape and evade so there was this immediate feeling of freedom and that I could conquer the world I can get away with everything I have this incredible skill set the Navy's performed me and I'm gonna go let's go you know and there's a lot of that going on and this re-embracing the sense of freedom that I was kind of you know you got to figure ambulance you know at 18 through you know for the last was almost a day over a decade of being of service to my fellow man as an ambulance firefighter Navy SEAL I am now stepping out of I'm not at service to anyone so that was like this I've never had a full taste of freedom at that point so that transition there there for me I would say I handle it poorly drugs and alcohol you know sex drugs rock and roll let's go out there free agent just going hard there was a lot of that going on and then 9-11 hit mm-hmm now I'm not in the service boom I have this huge belly full of rage are they gonna call me back you know I'm gonna be they're gonna they're gonna recall everybody I'm kind of waiting by the phone for that an opportunity comes up where we're sending a lot of contractors overseas to support the mission and I was looking at that I could use all my skill sets get paid a higher dollar and this was the kicker for me I had developed quite a liking to my drinking and my drug use so I had a good addiction going the contracting world seemed to fit that you know shorter deployments like a three-month contract you know maybe a six-month contract come back part of your butt off go back over again it seemed to fit what I wanted to do and I don't know if you guys have you know know much about contracting let me share this it is a it's pretty much a mercenary you know you're not doing it for your country you're doing it for the dollar you're going over there in harm's way and I took a couple of my first one was with the Karzai detail in Afghanistan being President Karzai's personal bodyguard stuff and the minute you walk out the door there's this absence of honor you know when I used to go deploy in the service I could feel the country behind me I could feel I'm representing something when you go over as a private contractor no one's giving your wife a flag when you die you know you were going over there on your own ass hanging out there's no big button to press for the marines to come it's a very different feeling at least this is how I was experiencing so I did this contracting you know several contracts are for Afghanistan Iraq back and forth back and forth and I begin to notice this things getting very strange for me coming back to the states a lot of these PTSD sorry PSD details personal security attachment details where you know you're moving targets through enemy areas and so there's a lot of roadside bombs or IEDs a lot of a lot of stuff that you're constantly moving you never want to stop and the first thing I started noticing is I'd come up to a red light and the anxiety would just begin to hit me I don't like stopping this is back in the states you know a car pulled up next to me and I would catch myself flinching like it's going to detonate you know I was noticing that and I didn't like it so I quickly figured out a couple drinks in me before I drove okay now I can fit in and that was my first indicator that something's shifting inside of me and that began to spread throughout my life like I began to feel more keyed up stateside and that required either pills or drugs for me to turn that off to exist but there was a third option I found to relieve this feeling and it was it's called re-exposure if I took another contract and went back over to Afghanistan or back over to Iraq that feeling would go away because when you're keyed up over there it's for a reason and it makes sense and then but when I come back here I'm keyed up for no reason I feel crazy so I'd rather feel keyed up where it makes sense at least there was a sense of me being at peace does that make sense to you yeah yeah like I was craving that as a way to have some peace of mind which is crazy you know I'll go to a war zone to have some find some peace but yes that's what I was experiencing and so coming back to the states for me at that time means I have to get effed up to be able to function here there's too many shades of emotion you know shades of gray over there it's right decision wrong decision live die it's really easy and over here I was I was not liking being a civilian and so that was my you know which is plays heavy into addiction and it got worse and it got worse and it worse than my ex my drug use got worse you know and so I'm going through coke going through ecstasy and finally ended up into the crystal mat earlier before we started you talked about hitting rock bottom and it sounds like that's basically where you're headed and where you ended up at that point and so maybe tell us a little bit about if you want to talk about that you know the actual bottom back home or you want to start talking about how you transition from that to a better life you wish it's you know and then I hit bottom yeah no it's funny you know working with this population for the last 10 years there's this common thread and it is the more stubborn the more hard-headed you're trained never to quit you know the more that the more that gut that power you have to push through that all works to keep you sick you know that all works to keep you from hitting a bottom I am determined to get through this this is the self-talk in my head I can get through this on my own I've been through worse I know this is bad but I got this you know my head keeps playing these little things that have served me so well in buds and the SEAL teams and everything I've done in the past this little this little voice echo box in my head these little mantras has kept me has given me success over here but now it won't let me hit a bottom you know the family's blown up you know the work's barely hanging on I remember trying to get another contract and at this point I weighed 130 pounds I mean right now you know my fighting weight in the teams was 210 220 that's about what I'm at now but I weighed 130 pounds you know at six foot two I was nothing and so they turned me down for a you know I was my whole world was blowing up in different places but I'm like I'm gonna just find a way out I can I can figure this out on my own gosh the the hope is that you finally hit a bottom before it kills you yeah that yeah that willpower that fight you have to find a place where you're willing to say wait a minute maybe I don't God maybe I need some help you know to send out the distress signal but that is so against the programming that the military gives us you know the military has is the basic mantra is that you handle your shit you get yourself squared away so you can be used to the team you know you handle your shit and that stays in us to the bitter end so my bottom for me there was two parts to it there was the realization I was an addict that was like the aha moment and that did not coincide with my my the moment of okay I want to change that you know because the for many people they realize they're an alcoholic and they're like eff it I don't care and just keep drinking you know I know it but for me there was this realization I was an addict followed by oh I hate myself I hate myself I'd hate myself and then there was a moment of me going okay enough is enough I want to I want to desperately change the first moment for me and to share it real quick with you guys it's and this is a part where I share stuff that I am not I am not proud of that I I used to hate myself for this to get real and honest about what this virus disease takes us that's the only way someone got to me and I'm hoping we can get to someone else man when I was in the thralls of addiction I was on a three-day bender I'm going hard and this was back when the the swine flu pandemic the h1n1 remember that that was hitting that was our first big national crisis emergency and I was on a three-day bender and the daycare at the time I was married and I had a two-year-old son the daycare called and the message goes to voicemail and I listen the message and it says there's been an exposure at the daycare facility we're having all the parents please come and pick up your kids now you say that to someone who's been on a three-day bender they're like oh my son's in trouble you know all right let me just one more hit here you know and I'll get there you know one more hit maybe my wife will get them you know and then the my wife calls and the goes to voicemail and I listen to her message she is upstate out of the area I have to get them okay okay let me get out of here let me just finish up do another hit you know and for those you don't know when I say do another hit I'm smoking meth right now you know doing a hit let me get out of here okay the daycare's calling my wife's calling the daycare's calling my wife's calling I'm trying to get out of this room for three hours guys for three hours I am trying to put this motherfucking pipe down I am trying to get out of this room I mean tears are coming down my eyes I got my son needs me my entire life I'm trying to be a hero and I'm trying I am trying I remember looking at the pipe and looking at the phone and I remember turning the phone off and pushing it under the bed and just using I I mean if you could if you could hear a spirit snap like I hated myself I stopped looking in the mirror I was so disappointed angry just disgusted by this guy I knew in that moment I was a drug addict I mean that's what I was this and you know that what you think that would be a bottom but that in my mind I was just it was a different kind of using after that and those struggling with addiction right now may be able to relate with this statement you know you've drank too much you know you should stop and you're staring at the bottle of vodka and there's maybe a quarter or a third of the bottle left and you're looking at it and you know you shouldn't do it you should and you just say epic and you finish the bottle not caring what happens it's like a passive suicide you know it's just I don't know what's gonna happen you're just kind of that was where I was in my addiction at that point it was just going harder and harder just out of self-hate and disappointment you know a month and a half later I was in another you know multi-day bender in another house this house had multiple floors and all kinds of rooms and just shady ass people in each room it was a flop house you know people arguing over there people's crazy sex shit over there people shooting up over there and I'm sitting in the living room and I'm just kind of like three in the morning I'm just really in a miserable point right now and there's these two kids in this house 12 13 years old little young guys and they have jeans on no shirts and they're running around with these freaking airsoft rifles airsoft guns you guys know the ones that shoot the little plastic pellets and they're like shooting and laughing and yelling and they have horrible weapons handling skills they are sweeping the shit out of me with it I'm like literally just getting angry with them I get up and I go upstairs and I pass out in this pile of dirty laundry and I'm awoken by one of those kids kicking my leg pointing the pistol at me saying hey freak hey freak and I roll over and I look up at this kid look past the gun look into this kid's eyes the kid's eyes are like shark eyes they're like no emotion no no innocence in his eyes this little tiny kid has seen so much shit in his life there's no innocence left I'm looking I'm going oh my gosh he has seen too much you know and in that moment I could see that my son was going to grow up to be this kid my dad died of addiction I am on the road of dying from addiction and my son is going to follow my foot and in that moment that's the shift they're going no I got up went down into the the kitchen and you guys are old enough to know back then every single kitchen somewhere had a yellow pages you know the big freaking this is what our version of the internet was with their freaking yellow pages you open them up and you look and scanning I'm looking for a substance abuse treatment center and I randomly put my finger down on one and called them and I said hey I need help just and they gave me an appointment time and a bed and I was nine hours late getting there because I was in a place where 51% of me knew I needed it 49% of me still wanted to drink and use you know so I had reached the tipping point and that was where my bottom began yeah some pretty heavy stuff and asking for help is always going to be one of the most difficult things especially for someone in the military so hard oh my gosh and it's weird I didn't do it you know it was it still wasn't I gotta save myself it was my son I gotta do it for my son there was something else had to trigger it you know I still hated myself what I become yeah crazy so kind of looking at some looking at some things here too so I guess you've been sober for about 15 years now knock on wood 15 years that's that's the huge congratulations congrats and kudos for that big what was the biggest lesson that recovery has taught you biggest lesson recovery's taught me oh my gosh it's funny you know you think you have all these plans and how the way your life needs to work out you know and in my wildest dreams never growing up my whole life would I ever have conceived me being a therapist you know me working as a social worker I mean even saying it I would be like cringing like what I mean there was zero interest zero like it looked like a horrible job it came down to me not knowing myself you know and when I went through recovery and I ended up like having working with other veterans and working with other people in recovery I got to this place where whoa this being authentic with another human being sharing I actually I get something out of it you know that's I some growth occurs and so when I went back to school I mean there was this calling towards like I wanted to do in that treatment center there was a therapist who got through to me and this is what stood out he brought a cup of coffee with him to work that day my whole life it was kit bags and m4s and turnouts and all this gear I've been using to go save the day that guy brought a cup of coffee and freaking helped save me from my that was that's the most authentic form of being a hero there was and so there was this understanding of me is what recovery has brought me you know this this like I didn't know really know myself enough to to know what I wanted to be when I grew up you know so there was this is it's like peeling back the onion of self-discovery you're getting to this core and you're like oh my gosh that's who I am and then nurturing and taking care of him and helping him grow I guess what you to answer your question is this I had this preconceived notion of what I thought my life should be and it was recovery took this this path of self-discovery that led me to oh this is what I am so as a therapist and and if you want to talk about your education at some point you can add that as well but how do you now approach veterans who might be resistant to talking about mental health that's a good one because there's a lot of those there's a lot of those so and my road education you know I got about a year and a half under my belt sobriety and I discovered I wanted to I wanted to help people I actually maybe wanted to be a therapist you know it was hard for me even to say it out loud at first and so I went back to school and I got my associates at a two-year college here locally TCC and then transferred to Old Dominion University and got my undergraduate in human services stayed on and got my master's in counseling and from there at my five-year mark went back to that same treatment center and asked for a job like five years from the date of checking in I came back and said hey thank you guys for saving my life can I work here and help you you know and they said absolutely come on board and so in that time working with them I got to be the go-to guy for working with veterans law enforcement first responders as they came in and I quickly you know realized even from my own experience that you need to handle these guys differently you can't just throw them in with everyone else it's not the same we're not programmed in fact you know they take military people and they send us away to this for all for lack of a better turn a a processing camp you know a concentration camp called boot camp where they reprogram a program us to be service members and they expect us to be able to function in the military you know out in the civilian world with this programming still embedded in us so they needed to be handled differently going through treatment and so during my time there at the Farley center is where we were working I was learning and working with and trying to educate the facility on how we can handle these guys better and that led to me going back to school and get my PhD I did my dissertation what interventions work best with veterans and you know a lot was uncovered and from that I was able to put together a special veterans only treatment program for the Farley center a whole pipeline I wrote the curriculum for that got the group going and that's up and thriving now but that there was a lot of lessons learned for these guys that they they need to be handled differently because their defenses are so high and let me I'll give you a visual this is how I describe it to people you know inside my head as a veteran when I and this could be law enforcement this could be first responders inside my head when you say hi to me on the street I'm like how you doing you know I don't literally have my dukes up like right now I have my my fists up like I'm gonna have a fight but inside my head my defenses are up and we start talking to each other yeah things are great my defenses are up I'm squared off to you I am ready for you to take a shot when you begin to work with a veteran and you begin to get to them they have to get to a place where their arms start dropping start lowering start going down to their size and I'm standing here my arms outstretched forward and I look uncomfortable I look like I am vulnerable this is not comfortable I want to be back up here this is where I want to be this is a hard place to be but that's where the work gets done and to get that process to the dropping the lowering of the guard requires them to trust you and veterans you know unless you've gone to the line with them you train with them you work with them you've you've signed on the dotted line with them they're not going to give you that trust that easily. So that kind of goes along here of kind of what in our notes where you said you know sharing personal stories is often more powerful than sharing facts or data that seems like because you because you can relate to them on a certain level because a lot of normal people might not be able to empathize as much with a veteran because especially when it's been deployed because they haven't seen some of the stuff that we have they haven't been in that eye alert state that we have so yeah I can definitely see why in those terms yeah personal experiences how you can get to that level with them say hey I've been through some stuff I've been through what you've experienced. Let me help. And in today's charged political atmosphere you know there's different attitudes towards the military towards law enforcement you know there's all these different if you throw me in an anonymous group together with other people I don't know if you're friend or foe I don't know if you can handle what I have to share it might blow your mind you know so there's going to be a long time that has to elapse before we get to a place in that group that I think everyone in this room can handle what I'm about to share. You put me in the room with the other the group of you know veterans who've been deployed to Afghanistan and all of a sudden we have this shared knowledge base we're working with and there's this process of you show me yours I'll show you mine boom we quickly get to a place now we're talking about similar issues so it is a lot to be said of taking advantage of those shared experiences. So you then opened up your own business with a partner it's called Bishop and Dice Defense can you tell us something about that and what makes the model different like to about it? All right it's you know it's it's kind of a bait and switch um Bishop and Dice Defense um Scott Bishop and myself opened this uh this company through almost over three years ago and what our whole game plan is we will roll into your VA your you know veterans affairs the police department the fire department we'll roll in we'll talk to your guys talk to your chief we'll talk shop we'll get your uniform supplies we'll get your tactics we'll get you training all the latest gear coming in we'll talk shop for like a whole year we're out there working with you until you know us and trust us and on year two we bring in mental health science mental health services we'll have online groups we'll preserve the anonymity we'll begin to allow you to trust us with the bigger issues and so it's that that tag team that we go in with because everyone likes to talk about toys everyone likes to talk about stories and and shoot the shit with you for a whole year until you gain our trust and then we'll bring in the more needed and what you know our true mission is defense the mind body and soul we're going to get you there and so that's that's our game plan and that's been serving us well we're in seven states now we're getting out there we're knocking on doors and we're you know hopefully saving lives. So kind of curious about that too because you know you said you know for the first year you build you know you build that trust you you know you learn about him you talk to him you let him get to know you and then you know you bring in the mental health thing how do you kind of brace them for that I suppose because you know you don't want someone to be like oh yeah this guy's cool I've been talking to him for a year and then all of a sudden uh-oh they're bringing in doctors like what's this like like how do you break past that kind of a thing to say hey good call this is part of that? Well first it's very simple you know I'm there I'm showing up I'm sharing my story with him through the year my experiences talking about other cases other BAs I've worked with I'm giving lots of living examples of what this whole system works like. The second year in the cracking the door is like listen guys any of you guys have any questions we have an anonymous online group where you can log in and I don't care if you use your real name or not but you can log in and you can just ask general questions to the group about hey is this something I should be concerned about or if I you know if I say this about myself does it automatically trigger someone pulling the red alarm and I get taken off the line or or what does treatment look like what does inpatient look like what is outpatient you know all these questions they might have or like am I in trouble because I feel like I might be able to have a grip on this but maybe I'm just in denial all these kind of questions that's what the group's for you know you get them to just get in the doors or asking questions so I'm working with them personally in these groups you know they're in a group with other fire and rescue other law enforcement people who've come in anonymously and we're just just having this open discussion about hey is what I'm feeling should I be concerned about and if so what options are available so that's the way to break the ice you know they're not committing they're not notifying their command they're merely asking questions all right can you can you share a you anonymously of course that you know a success story of of any particular event that that's really meaningful yeah I could you know I will you know keep anonymity we can talk about Joe Joe was wondering if he had a problem and he he logged into our anonymous group he started sharing with the group he was just you know and for a couple weeks he was just you know hey guys appreciate being here and he was kind of closed off you know he didn't share that much but he did share that he's having some problem with the missus he had gotten out of the military he had found a civilian job and he was he was drinking more than he was and that was the riff with his wife is that that the alcohol had kind of like whenever she saw him he was been drinking you know he got off work and all of a sudden he was drinking was getting longer the whole weekends and that was he was wondering if it's going to be a problem he ended up getting a DUI and so this was like and the riff at home had gotten worse and and all of a sudden and this happens a lot she he shares with us the wife has moved out with the kids now our version of what our understanding was that you know he was having some small issues with the wife that we all know right away well he doesn't move out from small issues this is clearly something that's been growing for a while some big things have happened and boom so now his whole life blown up he's now had his DUI and you know we're talking to him like okay you know hey don't make it worse don't make it worse you know let's maybe we should look at the drinking a little harder you'd think that that would be a bottom for him you know and it wasn't and for many of us that's you know the family could be a bottom they could be an emotional bottom you have a financial bottom and this was having some legal consequences and we were hoping that would be the bottom he gets a court date of course and he gets a DUI on the way to the court date you know which one thing about addicts and alcoholics we can always make it worse there's always another trap door and if you think you're at the bottom you keep drinking you can find another one so now this is complicating everything we're losing a job now and she is hitting a place now that he wants to toy with the idea that maybe it's the alcohol and we recommend a treatment center and now it's court-ordered so he goes in the treatment center and we're watching him kind of come to grips with not just the drinking but all the different parts of his life that that's tied to this this understanding of wow I'm a dad I'm a worse dad because of this you know obviously I'm a worse worker I'm a worse friend I'm a worse you know it's just this opening up of his eyes of how many parts of his life were affected you know and then there's this transition as he goes through treatment gets out and he starts working a program of recovery where he sits down with someone else in recovery and begins to talk about his whole life you know he starts from the beginning as far back as remember and he starts sharing all the patterns of behavior and we're in group kind of watching this unfold and he's really talking about how wow there's so much in common I have with both the people in the group who are sharing like we've done the same stupid decisions we all have problems with authority you know we have all these common traits like this just different details and he's getting this place where you can see him beginning to have almost like empathy for himself like whoa I have been through all of this it's almost like he's beginning to care about his own story again and that process shifts with him you know and it's just literally like wow remember he he got to a point where he couldn't stand himself and now he's finally kind of like okay I can understand why I made those decisions god this guy this poor guy and he starts taking care of himself and so this next kind of process he ends up he starts be working on his behaviors you know like going to gym eating right trying to tell the truth trying not to manipulate conversations all these little process he's really trying hard at this because he wants better for himself he gives a shit again you know and we're seeing him work on that for the next couple months so now he's about nine months out of treatment and he starts you know really owning his shit the stuff he's done he's trying to you know they say make things right you know make amends he's going out there repaying debt he's he's talking to his his wife who wants to leave him and there's this different man standing before her someone who's he's talking differently not trying to manipulate the conversation who's owning his mistakes he's trying to you know do the next right thing the last year of us working with him we're seeing him enter in this phase of you know he's like accountable he calls his sponsor every day you know he has his daily accountability built into his life he's like he started going back to church again which blew him up because he never even talked about being religious at all at the beginning but as it turns out years years years ago he was he had found his way back to church you know and at the same time he started he started working with another alcoholic that had just started the road of recovery so in the space of this whole like you know a year maybe 14 months of us working with him we've watched him look work through this process of owning realizing he was in trouble owning his life his story changing his behaviors making things right and finding a purpose helping others he went back to school he's working on becoming a therapist now he's found a new mission do those when those things on play out in front of us people who ask me i don't understand you used to be a navy seal how are you finding satisfaction in being a therapist i share with them you don't understand the life drama that unfolds in my world every day seeing people who have lost literally everything in their life claw their way back and find a new way to live that that helps a significantly more people than they ever could have before there's a lot of drama and excitement in my life right now i mean you would you would not believe what a therapist experiences not just witnesses experiences with their patients that's that's a really good success story that's yeah really cool to hear that happen and it gives hope and it gives hope to those who might also be you know something's like hey these people can do it maybe i can too dude that's the kicker right there man people get wind of that yeah but kind of uh kind of going a little bit on that uh you have an upcoming autobiography coming out i do um that uh it isn't like you know a shoot them up navy seal memoir what's what story are you really trying to tell you i know i mean you know people there's a whole genre out there in navy seals writing books and all this stuff and i want to put the little warning label this is not the bang bang shoot them up explosions going i mean there are crazy stories in here but the the book is called after the trident a navy seal's battle with secret shame and addiction what i have learned and i i i you know i actually heard this from steven spielberg in an interview once he said you know you can argue facts and statistics all day long and you will never change someone's mind but if you share a story with them you have a chance of changing their perspective you know offering with different perspective and that hit home to me because when i get honest and that's what i did in this book i got brutally honest about the good the bad the ugly i had i looked really good on paper like your introduction today was whoa this guy sounds awesome behind the scenes all the mind games all the secrets all the getting away with it if you really knew me you'd get the way you know it was a crazy life and so i got honest about all of that put it on paper fought with the publicist please print this and they're like if you print that you're gonna go to jail or you print that you're gonna get sued you know fought with them about all these stories trying to get them to leave it in because listen the road of an addict alcoholic is a crazy one and we don't share anything with anyone we keep it all a secret all the stuff we don't like about ourselves but we hold it and we carry it and we think that we're just pieces of shit you're gonna read this book and you're gonna go oh my gosh oh i i did that oh i know what that's like you're gonna have cringe moments like oh i know exactly what he's doing right here when i hear someone's story and i can identify in that makes it helps me better understand what's going on inside here you know i'm offering you a perspective not just like a look into my life but for you to say oh maybe i maybe there's a way out of this for me and it might not be what i think so the book captures that it's my story it also captures and i didn't discover this you know there's a lot of 12-step recovery programs out there i think there's over 220 different programs that all follow the 12-step model i in my journey through academia discovered or brushed away the dusts and kind of the the bones of these programs the theoretical model found underneath you know it's stages of change followed by narrative therapy cbt followed by existential i brushed that out and i outlaid it into my story to allow you to follow along like hey it's not hocus pocus how these 12-step programs are working there's actually some some proven theory that backs it up to give you an understanding of what that road through recovery might look like and make sense of it because you know for you to get into a recovery program you're gonna have to like take the leap of faith like i'm i want to do whatever it takes to get better just tell me where to jump i want you to have a better understanding of what that landing pad looks like and so how does uh writing and speaking publicly help you with your own recovery how does talking with you help me okay i mean listen um there was a time where i could not look at myself in the mirror you know i would cringe when i thought about what i did and i for sure was not going to share it with you um in recovery we begin to learn that our real world experience our lived experiences of life is our greatest asset when i share it with someone else because i'm hoping that my story helps you change your story you know with back when recovery started everyone's goal was to raise the bottom for the next generation i don't want you to have to lose the house the dog the car and the job maybe just you'll lose the house the dog and the job you know and the next generation maybe just the house and the dog you know you're trying to raise the bottom so by helping me that stuff i used to beat myself up over by me sharing it and being honest with you i'm hoping that by you get helping you it gives value and it because something of it's something i stop whipping my back over it and i use it as a guidepost for others you know it's something like we use for good rather than just beating the crap out of myself for it so it's that you know just just freaking be honest share it and if it does help one person then it's worth it yeah for those listening who want to connect you know what's the best way to you know follow your work or your book launch or anything like that all right so my last name's dice and my whole life you know that that's a fun name for other kids to make fun of you everyone gives you dice paraphernalia for christmas everyone gives you the little fluffy dice hangs in the mirrors you know so my whole life i've dealt with this last name i got my phd and now i'm dr dice the a good side effect of that if you want to find me on social media look google dr dice instagram facebook all the social medias you'll find me up there you'll click the links you can find and get this to write my book i recorded 78 videos of what stories i've been through and then i merely wrote the stories as i as i spoke them you know just typed it out and then once i started arguing with the publisher about what can and can't be printed i just said screw it i'm gonna post the videos on youtube and my listeners can kind of follow along as i write the book and see the actual videos so go to youtube channel go to my social media channels or if you want to bypass all that go to www.drdicebook.com and boom you'll be signed up on the mailing list you get first shot of the book background information hidden videos all the fun stuff cool that's great all right so um as we're nearing the end of this is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to add haven't talked about that i'd like to add oh let's see um if someone out there is hurting right now you know someone out there is going through some stuff and what i want to share with you remember when they made seat belts a law you guys remember that before you didn't have to wear a seat belt now you do when they first passed that law i refused to put my seat belt on you can't tell me what to do i'm not gonna put it on i was against it absolutely not gonna not gonna go along with it you know out of principle and i stood on that it wasn't till i began to realize that if i got in an accident and i was hurt i couldn't help my kids my wife my brothers my sisters i couldn't be the hero i couldn't be of use if i was injured it's funny that's what inspired me to put the seat belt on because i could help someone else there is a powerful instinct inside the veteran law enforcement first responder the instinct to be there for someone else that almost that definitely supersedes me looking out for my own well-being like i will go to any length to save your ass but i'm not going to eat healthy you know it's that kind of duality that exists so if you're out there hurting and you were going through some stuff and you know you're in trouble just for a second and realize that if you want to be there for someone else for your kid for your wife for your buddy you need to be you need to get your shit straight you need to get the help you need so you can be strong again and be there so if you don't want to do it for yourself right now that's okay freaking get in there get healthy get the help you need for your kid for your wife you know they say they say anything can get you into recovery you just got to stay for yourself for the right reasons but that first leap it might take like it did for me i can't be there for my son if i'm not alive i need to get help that's that's hey someone out there listening that first step is you reaching out all right and and we'd like to ask one uh one last question uh if you could give one piece of advice to a veteran who feels completely lost right now what would it be i mean it would be that it would be like listen put your seat belt on you know you need to get it listen anybody who's ever asked himself i wonder if i'm an alcoholic normal people don't ask that question about themselves you know it's just not something normies ask yeah so if you're already questioning if they're saying there's there's something your wife's not happy you know believe it or not usually the last people to know that anything's wrong is work because you put all your effort at preserving the work identity you know that's really that's where the money comes in that's the last one to give you an indicator the family suffers the social life suffers your physical life suffers all those areas will suffer first before that one that light bulb goes off so just say just by saying i've never had an alcohol-related incident at work does not mean you're not in trouble you know the barometer starts at home are the wife is the wife happy is the kids happy are you happy you know yes so if the check engine lights on don't hit the bottom i did don't wait till everything in the world's blown up yeah yeah reach out give someone a call read my book it's a good advice for for anybody out there and uh yeah we just want to say you know thank you very much uh you know dr dice for coming on the show here and you know chatting with us chatting with the people and or man doing some good helping to get the word out there that's that that's what we do that's why we do this to let people know there is help out there everyone's going through their own things but there's people out there that can relate for you thanks chris so yeah really appreciate your time and uh for everybody tuning in uh appreciate you taking time out of your day to uh to watch us to listen you know if you like what you're like what you're hearing what you're seeing you know hit like subscribe follow um spread the word out there if you know somebody who needs the help please by all means get that out get this out to them let's get this train rolling because there are people out there and we want to try and touch as many people as we can yeah that's a good deal man all right yeah so thanks for being on i appreciate it and everyone else we will see you next time next time thanks tom chris take care