Speaker 1: And I would go to this climbing gym and boulder
Speaker 1: and get punch passes, and I'd stand there with my
Speaker 1: harness in my hand, waiting on a Friday night because
Speaker 1: that's what the corkboard said.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And no one showed up, you know. And I stood
Speaker 1: there a lot of Friday nights like, oh, well maybe tonight,
Speaker 1: maybe tonight.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: It was but I, in my heart, I kind of
Speaker 1: knew that there was a desire there. I felt like
Speaker 1: it had to click for folks. And sure enough, one night,
Speaker 1: this guy Barry walked in and he looked around. He's like,
Speaker 1: does anybody else she got to show up? And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, maybe later, you know. And so he
Speaker 1: just started climb over here.
Speaker 3: Oh you're the first in four weeks, but they got
Speaker 3: you're here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we started climbing and then there were two or
Speaker 1: three folks, and that first year, they're about seventy folks
Speaker 1: that came to Phoenix.
Speaker 3: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Portney,
Speaker 3: normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: and I've been a football coach in Inner City Memphis.
Speaker 3: And the last part, well, we accidentally ended up with
Speaker 3: an oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated.
Speaker 3: I believe our country's problems will never be solved by
Speaker 3: a bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big
Speaker 3: words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather
Speaker 3: an army of normal folks, us, just you and me
Speaker 3: saying you know what I can help. That's what Scott Strode,
Speaker 3: the voice we just heard, has done. From the humble
Speaker 3: beginnings of Only Scott and Barry, the Phoenix expects to
Speaker 3: serve more than four hundred thousand people this year. Their
Speaker 3: movement leverages the power of community, fitness, and other meaningful
Speaker 3: activities to change how society approaches addiction and recovery. And guys,
Speaker 3: it's working. I cannot wait for you to meet Scott
Speaker 3: right after these brief messages from our sponsors, Scott Strode,
Speaker 3: bro thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I've read a lot of your story, and I've watched
Speaker 3: Ted Talk and I've been looking forward to talking to you.
Speaker 3: You and I have a lot of similarities in our life,
Speaker 3: and the things you've done I find pretty amazing. So
Speaker 3: let's let's introduce her audience to Scott the kid we
Speaker 3: grew up, how you grew up and who you are?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in Pennsylvania in a town called
Speaker 1: Lancaster's outside of Philly, about an hour and forty five
Speaker 1: minutes or so, and it was sort of rural, you know,
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania farmland. And my mom and my dad divorced pretty early,
Speaker 1: so kind of split my time between my mom, who
Speaker 1: was a single working mom, and my dad, who had
Speaker 1: a farm in even more rural Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: And you know, I.
Speaker 1: Had a pretty dynamic childhood. You know, I share this
Speaker 1: because it's really part of who I became. But you know,
Speaker 1: my dad had untreated mental health struggles, and so it
Speaker 1: was always trying to figure out who he was, you know,
Speaker 1: who he was going to be when we spent time
Speaker 1: with him. And then when my mom remarried, it sort
Speaker 1: of brought alcoholism into our family. So you know, in
Speaker 1: one home I was kind of navigating that alcoholic dynamic,
Speaker 1: and then in the other home, I was navigating the
Speaker 1: mental health stuff.
Speaker 3: And as a kid, your mom was your mom struggling
Speaker 3: with alcoholism or your stepdad my stepdad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then his family more broadly, we're pretty heavy drinkers.
Speaker 3: So your father was a farmer.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a working farm, but he lived on
Speaker 1: an old farm and was renovating an old farmhouse. He
Speaker 1: had goats and stuff like that, but it was he
Speaker 1: was a contractor at the time, so he was doing
Speaker 1: work on other people's homes.
Speaker 3: What was the nature of his minililis?
Speaker 1: You know, we've never really were able to figure that out.
Speaker 1: You know, My guess is it was untreated bipolar.
Speaker 2: But then I think of it.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like as that deteriorates over time and
Speaker 1: with age. You know, there was this pretty powerful like
Speaker 1: narcissistic element too, and then I think he had some
Speaker 1: some sort of disconnects from like kind of cognitive distortions
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, where he really wasn't the
Speaker 1: way he saw the world, really wasn't how the world
Speaker 1: was around him, and and that ultimately led to him
Speaker 1: experience and homelessness.
Speaker 2: For the bulk of the later part of his life.
Speaker 1: And we tried to support him around that and help
Speaker 1: him out of that. But you know, we realized by
Speaker 1: the time we were like eight or nine, we were
Speaker 1: kind of helping to parent him instead of him parenting us.
Speaker 1: And that created a pretty pretty tough childhood.
Speaker 3: When you were it sounds like your mom and dad
Speaker 3: had a joint custody because it sounds like you were
Speaker 3: back and forth. Was your mom aware of that?
Speaker 2: She was, but it was sort of a different time,
Speaker 2: like it was. It was just on the end of.
Speaker 1: That sort of culture where like kind of women were
Speaker 1: seen as the failure of the marriage. Even if you know,
Speaker 1: it was like there was still this little bit of
Speaker 1: a like misogynistic culture, and her trying to get full
Speaker 1: custody of us in the court system was pretty pretty tough.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until my brother hit eighteen and the
Speaker 1: judge actually said, what do you want to do? When
Speaker 1: my brother chose not to want to go visit my
Speaker 1: dad anymore, that then the judge kind of gave us
Speaker 1: that choice too, and that was sort of our reprieve
Speaker 1: from those those weekends with him where we were, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much we kind of joke that we grew up feral,
Speaker 1: but we kind of did, you know, we were just
Speaker 1: like running around a farm pretty much unattended most of
Speaker 1: the time, out in the woods, playing and swimming across ponds,
Speaker 1: and you know, it sounds pretty idealistic, you know of
Speaker 1: like you know, in this rural setting. But truth is,
Speaker 1: we we probably should have been cared for more and
Speaker 1: didn't really always know what we're going to have for meals,
Speaker 1: and you know, he would He decided to renovate the house,
Speaker 1: and he tore out a wall and never really put
Speaker 1: it back because it was kind of in a manic phase.
Speaker 1: So we had one wall that was just plastic that
Speaker 1: was like tacked up around it, and you know, he
Speaker 1: did the house with a wood stove. I don't think
Speaker 1: we had running water. I know we had an outhouse
Speaker 1: for the bulk of our time there, but it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a pretty sort of impoverished setting.
Speaker 1: And then with my mom, it was kind of a
Speaker 1: different dynamic. She was working, had a job, had a
Speaker 1: place for us, had some financial opportunity, and so we've
Speaker 1: kind of lived in two worlds.
Speaker 3: So I've got to believe I'm trying to put myself
Speaker 3: in the shoes of an eight year old. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: in the deepest recesses of your mind, that had to
Speaker 3: be frightening and at the very least you couldn't have
Speaker 3: felt completely safe ever with your father.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I honed my skill at being able
Speaker 1: to read subtle social cues so that I knew how
Speaker 1: to show up to best keep him calm, you know,
Speaker 1: and that that was something you you know, we started learning.
Speaker 1: My guess is I probably learned it before I even remember,
Speaker 1: But I remember really thoughtfully trying to figure out is
Speaker 1: this a time where I talk? Is this a time
Speaker 1: where I listen? Is this a time where I, you know, leave,
Speaker 1: or a time where I stay. You know, you never
Speaker 1: really if he was in a good space or a
Speaker 1: bad space, or if he was manic, or if he
Speaker 1: was depressed or and you know, he would he would
Speaker 1: get fairly emotionally abusive, you know, very demeaning and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of blaming. And when you're a little kid like that,
Speaker 1: you just you soak that up. Because your world's so
Speaker 1: contained to what you know that you actually think you're
Speaker 1: the problem. You start to you start to believe that narrative.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's no surprise. When I first tried
Speaker 1: booze and drugs, it made that go away.
Speaker 3: Scott. I. I'm the son of a five times divorced
Speaker 3: mother whose father left when he was when I was four,
Speaker 3: I can remember at fourteen or fifteen, looking in the
Speaker 3: mirror and wondering what was so broken about me that
Speaker 3: no man found me worthy of sticking around and investing in.
Speaker 3: Because not only divorces, there were boyfriends that were kind
Speaker 3: of long term that I started feeling comfortable with and
Speaker 3: developing relationship with that then we're gone, And at some
Speaker 3: point in a kid's ethos, when your parents are supposed
Speaker 3: to be the safest place in the world, when they're
Speaker 3: the opposite of that, you really do start to wonder
Speaker 3: what have I done? And so I can absolutely identify
Speaker 3: with what you're saying when after you've been if you've
Speaker 3: been through that, you do start to wonder what's broken
Speaker 3: in you? And maybe the dad's right and candidly, that
Speaker 3: is both abuse and trauma.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, I think you framed it up perfectly. And
Speaker 1: what I think now looking back, you know, is that
Speaker 1: that that sort of those the tinting of the lens
Speaker 1: that I was forming with which I see the world
Speaker 1: through was so subtle. You know, those elements were subtle
Speaker 1: at that young age, but that tint was always there.
Speaker 1: So even as I went into my adolescence, I always
Speaker 1: had that those self esteem wounds I was still trying
Speaker 1: to manage as I tried to form nurturing relationships with others.
Speaker 1: That was still present as I tried to find my
Speaker 1: identity and self worth. That was the lens I saw
Speaker 1: the world through. And until I realized I had to
Speaker 1: shatter that thing and see things clearly for the first time,
Speaker 1: it was it was a tough road.
Speaker 3: How do fifty one fifty five? That lens didn't shatter
Speaker 3: for me until about eight years ago. And I say
Speaker 3: that because I I want our listeners to understand that
Speaker 3: these kind of things that happened to children are deeply
Speaker 3: concreted in a person's psyche, and it takes Many don't
Speaker 3: get over it, but those who somehow manage a way
Speaker 3: to get over it, it does take often years and decades,
Speaker 3: and it carries itself into your own marriages and relationships
Speaker 3: with your own children and your spouses and those you're
Speaker 3: close to. And I think I hear you saying that
Speaker 3: was the case for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I was in a similar sort of
Speaker 1: timeframe as you. You know that it took me I
Speaker 1: could sort of start to manage that out of a
Speaker 1: lot of pieces of my life and those experiences were
Speaker 1: kind of the foundation of the nonprofit i'd later build.
Speaker 1: But that core, that like deepest core of that pain
Speaker 1: was there until relatively recently, you know. And it took
Speaker 1: me doing some deeper sort of trauma work to really
Speaker 1: understand that that was within me. And no surprise why
Speaker 1: this is so broadly experienced, right, because then we carry
Speaker 1: it into the next generation and we hand it down.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: There's a quote that's pain has passed from generation to
Speaker 1: generation until somebody is willing to feel it. And that
Speaker 1: just really speaks to me because you know, my dad's
Speaker 1: dad left him when he was six, right.
Speaker 3: I was just about to ask you or about to say,
Speaker 3: I'll bet your father experienced some of the same things.
Speaker 1: And was probably just doing the best he could, you know,
Speaker 1: like he was. He probably disentangled a lot of that
Speaker 1: pain before it got to us, you know, and protected
Speaker 1: us from some of it.
Speaker 2: But some of it he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't have the skills or the tools or understanding
Speaker 1: to be able to and and you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: dad now, you know, later in life, and and I
Speaker 1: think about that a lot, like you know, my my
Speaker 1: son asked me the other day, what angry means, you know,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he does he doesn't know that
Speaker 1: from lived experience is a blessing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I sure did.
Speaker 3: I would have asked him he got about a month,
Speaker 3: because it's going to take that long for me to tangle.
Speaker 3: So that's dad. Yeah, Mom sounds like she's trying and
Speaker 3: working hard but has made a poor choice or you
Speaker 3: got that. Those are my words for something. Men that
Speaker 3: I grew up with. And was he also abusive?
Speaker 2: He wasn't. He was.
Speaker 1: It was more on both of them were more on
Speaker 1: the like emotional side, like yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He had more of that like.
Speaker 1: Excellence, like you need to be here, you need to
Speaker 1: aspire to this, be this like excellent person. And but
Speaker 1: he'd say that after you know, eight martinis, and I
Speaker 1: was like.
Speaker 2: Is that excellent? You know, like yeah, yeah so. But
Speaker 2: but the truth is the same thing.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in my adolescence, I'm like trying to really
Speaker 1: find my identity and and it just felt like I
Speaker 1: kept getting ground down by this, like you know, I
Speaker 1: should know better, I should do better, I should achieve better.
Speaker 1: I should you know, be at this place of excellence
Speaker 1: and and and of course we're all like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this woman PM Melody who talks a lot about
Speaker 1: early childhood trauma. Said, we're all perfectly imperfect and that's
Speaker 1: the truth, even about my stepdad and my dad, and
Speaker 1: you know, all of us have those good parts of
Speaker 1: us and those tough parts of us. But at the
Speaker 1: time I thought I was failing consistently because I couldn't
Speaker 1: achieve this sort of high bar.
Speaker 3: And so you carry I carry people carry that that
Speaker 3: have this kind of stuff going on in their childhood
Speaker 3: and adolescence. And regardless of what facade you put on,
Speaker 3: this stuff is bounce around inside your heart, your head,
Speaker 3: your soul, your thoughts about yourself, and coping with that
Speaker 3: in adolescence is often very, very difficult. And you turned alcohol. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and now a few messages from our general sponsors. But
Speaker 3: first I hope you'll consider becoming a Premium member of
Speaker 3: the Army at Normalfolks dot us. By becoming one for
Speaker 3: ten bucks a month or one thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 3: you can get access to cool benefits like bonus episodes,
Speaker 3: a yearly group call, and even a one on one
Speaker 3: call with me. Frankly, guys, Premium memberships also help us
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Speaker 3: So I hope you'll think about it. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: I had my first drink when I was eleven, a beer.
Speaker 1: My cousins gave it to me, and I think I
Speaker 1: think they thought it would like deter me from drinking
Speaker 1: it so bad.
Speaker 3: It was like a Yeah, a friend of mine's dad
Speaker 3: caught him dipping Copenhagen and he took him outside and
Speaker 3: made him put the entire can in his mouth, and
Speaker 3: of course he vomited because it was just so that
Speaker 3: was one of those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of those.
Speaker 1: And then we were like water skiing on the chesapeak
Speaker 1: or something and my cousin's boat, and they thought it
Speaker 1: would be funny if I had this beer and it
Speaker 1: would like turn me away from it. And finally one
Speaker 1: of the wiser cousins dumped it over the.
Speaker 2: Side and got me out of it, you know.
Speaker 1: But but it wasn't until I went back and spent
Speaker 1: time with my friends and they they asked me about it,
Speaker 1: and they were like dis mesmerized by the story. They're like,
Speaker 1: you had a beer, Oh my gosh, And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden I was like, oh, these people are interested
Speaker 1: in me, Like these people, you know, like they're talking
Speaker 1: to me. I'm like, I feel lifted, you know, this,
Speaker 1: this is what I've been looking.
Speaker 3: For, is like the one thing you weren't getting at home. Yep,
Speaker 3: you got there. You've got a positive reinforcement on a
Speaker 3: very negative thing.
Speaker 1: And then I realized, like, hey, there's a whole liquor
Speaker 1: closet at my house, like because the cabinet's too small,
Speaker 1: so I can, I can? I bet I could pull
Speaker 1: a handle of vodka of there and no one whatever notice,
Speaker 1: you know. And that was it. It just kind of
Speaker 1: I was kind of off and running.
Speaker 3: So you're telling me you were drinking at twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 3: fourteen being cool all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's not uncommon for folks who
Speaker 1: struggled with substance, you used to say, where the first
Speaker 1: time they had that, they just felt at peace or
Speaker 1: at ease.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And and for me, it was that combined with people
Speaker 1: wanting to be around me and and sort of wanting
Speaker 1: to share time with.
Speaker 2: Me, and and.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was caring about me and loving me,
Speaker 1: but it's really they just wanted to party with me.
Speaker 2: But that was good with that, you know.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, that's not very dissimilar from the
Speaker 3: many people I've interviewed who got into gangs at thirteen
Speaker 3: and fourteen. It was the same. I thought people were
Speaker 3: loving me and everything else. But it's the same thing
Speaker 3: seeking having holes in a part of your psyche and
Speaker 3: your soul that are filled. They're positively reinforced by negative things.
Speaker 3: And it sounds like it's not much different. Alcohol. Was
Speaker 3: that for you? Gangs? Maybe that for kids from the
Speaker 3: hood whatever, all stemming frankly from childhood trauma.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1: And if you I mean imagine that group of kids
Speaker 1: I was hanging out with, their stories were probably similar,
Speaker 1: and they what brought them together around this thing with
Speaker 1: me was probably a similar desire for connection.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, and.
Speaker 1: You could you could tell a story, you know, about
Speaker 1: somebody getting involved in gang life that could sound very
Speaker 1: much like somebody seeking safety, and then it turn turns
Speaker 1: into something that is much more destructive.
Speaker 2: And that's how my addiction was.
Speaker 3: So alcohol was a gateway too, I guess was it
Speaker 3: weed first? I mean, yeah, it was pretty mud. I
Speaker 3: don't want to generalize your story, but typically it's alcohol, weed,
Speaker 3: maybe elude or something, and then ultimately cocaine or heroin.
Speaker 3: I mean that is almost the story verbatim I've heard
Speaker 3: one hundred times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it was very similar. You know, I
Speaker 1: could I could. I knew where the booze was, I
Speaker 1: could steal it. I'd have the cool parties. Then I was,
Speaker 1: you know, as my adolescence progressed, I was still struggling
Speaker 1: with the mental health stuff and depression and self worth stuff,
Speaker 1: and and through getting some mental health support, I met
Speaker 1: somebody who sold weed, and and one day I was
Speaker 1: buying weed from her and.
Speaker 2: I was like, what's that. She's like, hey, it's coke.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We're going to try a little bit. And I tried it,
Speaker 1: same thing as the first beer. I told my buddies.
Speaker 1: They're like, no way, you did that. You tried it?
Speaker 2: What was it like?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I bet I can get some,
Speaker 1: you know, And and then you know, I was sort
Speaker 1: of it. It turned into a hole a whole sort
Speaker 1: of another level. I think like addiction has these like
Speaker 1: trap doors that you feel like it's you're you're sort
Speaker 1: of on a more normal trajectory. And then you fall
Speaker 1: through one of those and it's like a whole another
Speaker 1: layer that you dropped into.
Speaker 3: When you were sober and straight, and you look shelf
Speaker 3: in the mirror. What were you seeing then?
Speaker 1: You know, like I was when I got into recovery,
Speaker 1: I found my way into a boxing gym and and
Speaker 1: some guys in Boston. You know, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: was a Golden Gloves fighter and she's like, coach y,
Speaker 1: I'll teach you about the sport. And I got into
Speaker 1: that boxing gym. This is like, you know, at twenty
Speaker 1: four now. And as I started to hit the bag
Speaker 1: and like learn about the sport and build some technique,
Speaker 1: I started to feel this self confidence that I didn't
Speaker 1: have before. And then somebody, you know, I had this
Speaker 1: opportunity to try climbing for the first time, and and
Speaker 1: getting to the top of the climb started to build
Speaker 1: that self esteem. And there were some other sober guys
Speaker 1: in that boxing gym and I started to build a
Speaker 1: little fellowship and it started to just crack open enough
Speaker 1: light into this understanding that like how I viewed myself
Speaker 1: all these years was was lies right, Like it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I did have this innate strength and this innate value
Speaker 1: and I could achieve these things. I put my mind
Speaker 1: towards and and and then.
Speaker 2: I got hungry for that.
Speaker 1: I got hungry for that feeling and wanted to keep
Speaker 1: chasing that instead instead of the drinking and the drugging.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like do you feel like you made
Speaker 3: a choice?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I made a choice, like I I think
Speaker 1: when we talk about addiction, we often talk about like
Speaker 1: somebody's got to hit bottom before they change their path.
Speaker 2: I don't really see it that way.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of us, hitting bottom might
Speaker 1: just be the true bottom, right the end of our life,
Speaker 1: or it's over, you know, that kind of thing. I
Speaker 1: think that we have these little windows where we have
Speaker 1: a moment of perspective on our life.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, mirror, That's what
Speaker 3: I'm asking yep.
Speaker 1: And it was that it was like you realize that,
Speaker 1: like your dreams of who you thought you could be
Speaker 1: had been stripped away, sometimes in this very like insidious
Speaker 1: way that you didn't realize it was happening. And I
Speaker 1: just found some things that started giving me some of
Speaker 1: those dreams back, and I wanted to do that stuff more,
Speaker 1: and I want to do that more than what I
Speaker 1: used to do. And I realized that people around me
Speaker 1: actually cared about me in that in this new world,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of my buddies from the old
Speaker 1: one just wanted to go drink and get high.
Speaker 3: I we jumped ahead a little. There's a there's a
Speaker 3: part of the story. I think it's important for people
Speaker 3: to know before they understand so much about you. That
Speaker 3: really makes what you do now incredible is somewhere along
Speaker 3: the line in there, before you started the ice climbing,
Speaker 3: your mom knew you were in trouble. And I don't
Speaker 3: really understand it. I'd like you to kind of tell
Speaker 3: me how it worked. But and you ended up mess
Speaker 3: around on boats or something. I don't know what. Yeah,
Speaker 3: build in the blanks for me on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know when my mom was I think, trying
Speaker 1: to get me out of the environment I was in,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: She recognized it, she saw you were in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And and she was seeking any opportunity, you know,
Speaker 1: and I I I'm dyslexic. I'm horribly dyslexic. And in
Speaker 1: those days prior to that, there really weren't a lot
Speaker 1: of resources for kids with learning disabilities, and there was
Speaker 1: a program for kids with dyslexia, and so we went
Speaker 1: and interviewed. It was a boarding school in Massachusetts, and
Speaker 1: I went up to interview and they mentioned this boat
Speaker 1: program that was like a semester at sea, and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, that sounds cool, you know. I was like,
Speaker 1: that sounds way better than what I'm doing in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And and.
Speaker 1: But somewhere in my heart, I think I knew I
Speaker 1: knew I had to change. I was afraid of the
Speaker 1: path I was on. And my mom and I talked
Speaker 1: on the train on the way home, and I decided
Speaker 1: to go on this program. And I think it's exactly
Speaker 1: what I needed.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: There's something about nature has this like this very clear
Speaker 1: cause and effect, and like I would always suld have
Speaker 1: shared that. The captain would say, hey, be careful going
Speaker 1: forward in the storm, and I'd be like whatever with
Speaker 1: my mohawk and my don't tread on me like leather jacket,
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh, what you're dealing with?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, you had mohaul. Yeah, now it's
Speaker 2: now it's more like this way mohawk.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I get it. But it seems from a
Speaker 3: breakfast club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, that was it.
Speaker 1: But but then a wave would like crush you on
Speaker 1: the deck of the ship and you'd be like, maybe
Speaker 1: he's onto something, you know, maybe the captain.
Speaker 3: And captain knows what he's talking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you started feeling this like sense of community
Speaker 1: with your crew, like you had to you had to
Speaker 1: work together. And when you when you let somebody down there,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just you, like with your self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 1: about your own sort of self worth. It's all this
Speaker 1: internal sort of monologue. You you were actually letting down
Speaker 1: a team that cared about you and needed you. And
Speaker 1: then so you find yourself showing up in a different way.
Speaker 1: And and I didn't realize it the time, but the
Speaker 1: foundation that I learned on the ship was really the
Speaker 1: elements and the principles of what would become the nonprofit later.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. How do you end up in Boulder?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in kind of a roundabout way, Like so
Speaker 1: when I got got into recovery, got in the boxing gym,
Speaker 1: found this brochure about climbing, and signed up for this
Speaker 1: climbing class and really changed my life. You know, by
Speaker 1: getting to the top of that climb and then jumped
Speaker 1: into that stuff with both feet and eventually was able
Speaker 1: to quit drinking and using. And I would just like
Speaker 1: wait outside the boxing gym with my gym bag with
Speaker 1: a couple other guys that were as dedicated, and the
Speaker 1: door would open and we'd go in and stay there
Speaker 1: till they'd kick us out, you know. And that became
Speaker 1: my early recovery. And between that and going up climbing
Speaker 1: in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just all in on that stuff and at this
Speaker 1: point was in recovery.
Speaker 2: And fell in love.
Speaker 3: This is almost a self recovery, Scott. It doesn't sound
Speaker 3: like you're you're just finding ways to change your own
Speaker 3: life at this point, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm asking,
Speaker 3: is that right? No?
Speaker 1: That is right, And you know I didn't have the
Speaker 1: awareness at the time, but but I was still chasing
Speaker 1: that self worth like I had to. I started climbing.
Speaker 1: Then I had to climb harder climbs, you know. I
Speaker 1: started doing triathlon. Then I had to do Iron Man,
Speaker 1: you know, like I had to. Everything had to get
Speaker 1: always level up or else I didn't feel like I
Speaker 1: was proving to myself that I that I had intrinsic strength.
Speaker 3: Actually, I believe you're overcoming voices that were still in
Speaker 3: your head from when you were eight years old. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you you'd cross a finish line at an iron
Speaker 1: man and say, man, I should have done better in
Speaker 1: the bike.
Speaker 2: I could have been faster in the swim.
Speaker 1: I was like, like you, just never I never stopped
Speaker 1: to celebrate anything I accomplished because I felt like I
Speaker 1: still messed it up, you know. And and it was
Speaker 1: those that that internal monologue. But but those activities drew
Speaker 1: me out to Colorado and ultimately to Boulder, where the
Speaker 1: Phoenix was born.
Speaker 3: So I've read or Herd or something something. I thought
Speaker 3: it was pretty funny. You, uh, you decided this outdoors
Speaker 3: thing was kind of cool, and you decided, Hey, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be an outdoorsy guy. And you show up
Speaker 3: to like a I don't know, right, some kind of place. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got a place, and and and you say, hey,
Speaker 3: I've decided I'm gonna be out doorsy. Why don't you
Speaker 3: tell me what I need? Yeah, he's right, And at
Speaker 3: the time that's actually sober that day.
Speaker 1: But the guy kind of looked at me and he
Speaker 1: was like, I guess you need a dor text jacket,
Speaker 1: you know, And actually it was great advice, you know,
Speaker 1: that was like probably the best thing to start with.
Speaker 3: And the guys that work at out doorsy place or
Speaker 3: kind of granola anyway, so I can kind of see
Speaker 3: him looking at you, going, uh a coat.
Speaker 1: Coat, yeah, exactly, loves maybe the quit smoking.
Speaker 3: Is that what you need? You know, like, but but
Speaker 3: a boat a bag for your I don't know, right, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: That you know, I was walking out with my new
Speaker 1: gore Tex jacket and that's where I saw that it
Speaker 1: was actually ice climbing.
Speaker 3: Brochure, and really you saw it there.
Speaker 1: I saw it there, and I thought, this is the
Speaker 1: craziest thing I've ever seen, and for some reason I
Speaker 1: wanted to do it. And that was you know, then
Speaker 1: I stayed sober Friday night to do a climbing lesson
Speaker 1: on Saturday, and and that was you know, I started
Speaker 1: like regulating my drinking so I could climb on the weekends.
Speaker 2: And that was the beginning of like weaning off of it.
Speaker 3: That's really kind of interesting, you really were, you know,
Speaker 3: you hear a lot of stories about people that quote
Speaker 3: go to therapy. You were in your own you're figuring
Speaker 3: out your own personal therapy at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the power of the outdoors, Like I think
Speaker 1: it was probably from those days on the boat. I
Speaker 1: knew that, you know, gone into nature and that that
Speaker 1: sense of awe that nature can kind of deliver is therapeutic,
Speaker 1: you know. And I just started going out there and
Speaker 1: that was filling me up in a different way and
Speaker 1: slowly started having less nights of the week when I
Speaker 1: was drinking.
Speaker 3: I can't let this escape me. It's just a thought. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 3: the irony that you just told me that when you
Speaker 3: were with your dad, the way y'all escape your dad's
Speaker 3: house was you went out and ran around in the
Speaker 3: trees and jump creeks and played in the trees and
Speaker 3: grass and stuff. And the irony of that I think
Speaker 3: shouldn't be lost on any of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And actually, sorry, well that's like a that's pretty
Speaker 1: profound thing to kind of pick up on, because because
Speaker 1: you're right, you know, like when I think.
Speaker 2: About back to my childhood, like the.
Speaker 1: Most joyous memories of my childhood are being out in
Speaker 1: the woods of my siblings, you know, like playing in
Speaker 1: the pond, and it's like even the fond memories I
Speaker 1: do have with my dad were, you know, sitting at
Speaker 1: a tree line at sunset, watching where the pheasants would
Speaker 1: go into roost, you know, because small game season was
Speaker 1: coming up, and we were just listening to them, the
Speaker 1: sound of them, their wings coming over.
Speaker 2: The top of the hill.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was in those little moments where
Speaker 1: I actually got to bond with him, and I always
Speaker 1: feel like that was really who he was. The other
Speaker 1: stuff was just the noise getting in the way of
Speaker 1: his from his own story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it all ties together, Bud. I mean, it
Speaker 3: makes complete sense to me as I'm sitting here listening
Speaker 3: to you, and I think it's really sweet that you
Speaker 3: say that's who he really was. I mean, even though
Speaker 3: he had problems, he chose to live on a farmhouse
Speaker 3: out in the middle of the woods, so clearly he
Speaker 3: was drawn to the same things that his son was
Speaker 3: drawn to ultimately, which is interesting, I.
Speaker 2: Think, Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It just shows that that history, that lineage of pain
Speaker 1: isn't really there's no one who's who's responsible for that.
Speaker 1: It's at some point we need to forgive everybody in
Speaker 1: the chain and start new.
Speaker 3: So brother Scott's deciding I'm going to climb some ice
Speaker 3: stuff and boulder with my new gortex jacket a granola
Speaker 3: guy gave me, and I've got my ice climbing brochure
Speaker 3: in my hand. Yeah, and now I'm in Bolder. Take
Speaker 3: us from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I I mean, I, you know, just to
Speaker 1: be honest, right, I jumped right into that just with
Speaker 1: the same vigor I was drinking and using with. And
Speaker 1: I was like I was after it. I was training
Speaker 1: for Ironman. Then I race iron Man. Then I had
Speaker 1: to do a twenty four hour mountain bike race. Then
Speaker 1: I had to do that race solo. Then I had
Speaker 1: to you know, like I just started this, you know,
Speaker 1: I was. I did transfer the addiction, but the difference
Speaker 1: was inherent, and all of those activities were things that
Speaker 1: sort of at a foundation a level, helped me start
Speaker 1: to heal. And years later I realized that the real
Speaker 1: magic of those activities wasn't the finish line. It was
Speaker 1: actually the people I was training with. It was those
Speaker 1: relationships that was really the bedrock of my sort of
Speaker 1: support network. So those you know, when.
Speaker 3: You're ony of them recovering addicts as well.
Speaker 1: Or well, funny you asked, because one was my best
Speaker 1: friend and climbing partner, Ben Court. You know, we met
Speaker 1: at a climbing gym that he was a manager at,
Speaker 1: started talking about climbing and realized we were both in recovery.
Speaker 1: Then we started spending our days in Rocky Mountain National
Speaker 1: Park climbing together. And then my other friend who I
Speaker 1: climbed with was a clinical social worker, so she like
Speaker 1: she just started to put the pieces together that you know,
Speaker 1: as a social worker, what she realized the magic was
Speaker 1: was not necessarily getting that kid that she was supporting
Speaker 1: to the appointment he had to go to. It was
Speaker 1: the drive there and the time that they got to
Speaker 1: talk while they were in that sort of like parallel
Speaker 1: activity of just sitting in the car listening to music,
Speaker 1: talking about life. That was the most therapeutic part of
Speaker 1: that experience.
Speaker 2: And it's the.
Speaker 1: Same thing that Ben and I were having in the mountains.
Speaker 1: We were tied into a climbing rope, we were climbing,
Speaker 1: We weren't really talking about our addiction story, but we
Speaker 1: were building new identity and new memories together that started
Speaker 1: to eventually push out those old negative feelings.
Speaker 3: What you just said is amazing do you know Bob Zacchio.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: In Bob Zachio, the therapy under a hood, all right,
Speaker 3: when you get an extra forty five minutes, go back
Speaker 3: to an army in normal folks library. We've only been
Speaker 3: out a year, but early was an interview I did
Speaker 3: with the kind named Bob Zakio, who is a social
Speaker 3: worker therapist and was working specific with kids from the
Speaker 3: same background we're talking about in your life right now,
Speaker 3: oftentimes doing court ordered therapy, which he found completely useless yep,
Speaker 3: and so very frustrated and wanting to make a difference.
Speaker 3: One day, he just one of his kids showed up
Speaker 3: that he's supposed to work with. It's dealing with addiction
Speaker 3: and drugs and alcohol and all kinds of stuff. And
Speaker 3: he says, come on, and he took them out in
Speaker 3: the parking lot and he taught him how to cast
Speaker 3: her reel. I was why. I was just talking to him,
Speaker 3: and he found out these kids that don't want to
Speaker 3: talk to me, if I take him out of the
Speaker 3: office and just interact with them, they open up. Anyway.
Speaker 3: Seven years later, he now has therapy at auto mechanic shops.
Speaker 3: He has therapy at screen shops, he has therapy, fishing,
Speaker 3: he has therapy and all of these things. And he
Speaker 3: does the therapy to work that needs to be done
Speaker 3: with kids, but he doesn't do it in office. He
Speaker 3: does it while they're engaged in something that's interesting. And
Speaker 3: the rate of his success of getting kids on the
Speaker 3: right track is like twelve times of other social workers.
Speaker 3: And anyway, it's a great story. But he said exactly
Speaker 3: what you just said, that it wasn't the therapy that mattered.
Speaker 3: It was a time to and from therapy and the
Speaker 3: actual real lab organic interaction that made the difference. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that sound that's very similar to what the
Speaker 1: phoenix became is that we just we realize that by
Speaker 1: sharing this. I think of it this way, it's like
Speaker 1: we would kind of go out climbing and face this
Speaker 1: greater adversity together and get back from that safely because
Speaker 1: we relied on each other and our own gifts, you know,
Speaker 1: in that setting. And then Ben and I would be
Speaker 1: closer and supporting each other because we went through that together.
Speaker 1: So when I had a tough day in life, I
Speaker 1: could turn to him because that vulnerability had already been created.
Speaker 2: And I think that.
Speaker 1: The phoenix was just an idea about how we could
Speaker 1: do that at scale.
Speaker 3: And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Scott Strode,
Speaker 3: and you don't want to miss Part two that's now available,
Speaker 3: as we dive into how Scott turned the idea of
Speaker 3: recovery program and community into the movement that it is today. Guys,
Speaker 3: together we can change this country, but it starts with you.
Speaker 3: I'll see you in Part two.