Breaking Through Addiction and Self-Destructive Patterns with Patrick Casey

Brad Minus: [00:00:00] And welcome back to another episode of life changing challengers. Again, I'm your host, Brad minus. And with me today, I am super excited to be talking to Patrick Casey. Patrick is an advanced registered nurse practitioner. And sometimes if you're hanging out at a hospital for some reason or another, and you see little name tags and it says ARNP after it, that's exactly what Patrick is.

An advanced registered nurse practitioner, so Patrick, how you doing today? 

Patrick Casey: Hey Brad, thanks for having me. I'm doing really, really well.

How are you doing today? 

Brad Minus: I am excellent now that I'm talking to you, but first Patrick, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, what was the compliment of your family? And what was it like to be Patrick as a kid? 

Patrick Casey: Yeah, sure. So yeah, let's get the boring stuff out of the way.

Right. So, you know, I was, I'm the oldest of three kids. I was born down in Hollywood, Florida. So I'm a, I'm a Florida native. I'm one of the few that are still down here. So I'm the oldest of three. I have two [00:01:00] younger sisters. My parents were married up until I think I was in my early twenties when they divorced.

So my parents were married about 28 years when they finally called it quits. I was the first, so I was kind of the Guinea pig of the kids, right? My parents were, I think my mom was 21. My dad was like 23 when they had me. So I was unfortunately for them, the most difficult of the three.

They had to learn with me, right. They had to kind of do it all by the seat of their pants. So I kind of paved the way for my two younger sisters. They were probably a lot more strict when my sisters came along, but I was basically, you know, kind of a class clown. I was in trouble all the time.

You know, I was the kid that sat up up front by the teacher's desk all the time. You know, all my teachers knew me. From every class, every grade I went to, you know, I was the kid that had to write on the chalkboard, like the Simpsons introduction of the show, right?

Like, that was Bart Simpson writing on the chalkboard, staying after class, dusting the erasers because we had real chalkboards back then, right? So like I was always in trouble. And then when they knew about my best friend, [00:02:00] Sean, who lived two blocks over from me, we grew up together. There was a couple of times these poor teachers had to deal with both of us.

And so they would know like, you need to keep Patrick and Sean separated. So I was just always kind of a clown, always in trouble, always attention seeking, you know, and to look back, yeah, it's probably because, you know, I had a lot of my own childhood traumas and issues and I was kind of overcompensating.

Right. I think. A lot of people who strive for attention. You see a lot of comedians who would like to make people laugh and joke. A lot of times they're really depressed, sad individuals who overcompensate in that regard. So I did the same thing as a kid. I had babysitters, you know, I would run them off. I would run out of the house, run down the street.

I was tormented babysitters. So I was just always kind of very active. I kept my parents on their toes. They had me in sports. Very young. I started playing soccer at four years old and always played soccer all through, high school soccer, travel, soccer, basketball, all the way till I was like 19 years old.

So, they always had me involved. So, I always had that camaraderie feeling. I knew what it was like to be with teams and, you know, I always got along with people and I always kind of like [00:03:00] fit in everywhere I went. It was very extroverted. So, you would never know. I probably ever think like this young kid, Patrick's going to grow up to be this, you know, heroin addict one day, like, like you would never have thought that right.

As a child, it was just kind of, he's a fun loving, you know, probably back then they would have diagnosed me with ADHD. I would have diagnosed ADHD now. Right? Like I treat people for ADHD. I give the medication for that. I was your perfect example. But in, you know, the eighties, it wasn't really as commonly done.

You just kind of like you got disciplined. 

Brad Minus: Oh yeah, no, no, no. You know, and I was somewhat like that. My issue was, I was an only child with two working parents. So I was, you know, I was the, what do they call it? The clutch key kid. And. Yeah, and I was seeking attention because I wasn't getting it at home.

But it wasn't my parents fault. They love me more than anything in the world. And when they came home, I got the attention. But there was that span when, you're in school, you're not getting the same kind of attention and you move forward. So I get it and I totally get it. And I was the same person.

I [00:04:00] was next to the teacher's desk. I was clapping erasers. I was taking out the garbage. When I was in sixth grade, the way that we were disciplined was my teacher would give us quotes and depending how bad you were or what was the extreme of your crime was how long the quote was.

And then he's like, okay, you've got to write the quote 25 times, 50 times. There was one point I was so bad that day I had to write it 500 times. I was so smart, so I went home and I'm like, fine, I'll show you, and I basically wrote it 100 times, with 5 pieces of paper, and carbon paper, all the way through.

Patrick Casey: And 

Brad Minus: I got back the next day. I turned it in and all of a sudden I put it on his desk and I went back to my desk and all of a sudden I heard was Brad, you're going to the principal's office and you're going to write this until you get it done. It was like, it was horrible. So I get it. I feel for you.

And it was like a nightmare. So, you said 19. So did you end up, did, did you go to school right after high school? [00:05:00] 

Patrick Casey: Yeah, I went straight into college. Basically what happened was in 1996, we moved from South Florida to Augusta, Georgia, which back then, and kind of even still today, there's really nothing there, but the master's golf tournament once a year, for one week, otherwise, 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Ironman Augusta 70. 3 is also there and I know this because I did it seven times. Yeah, that's what I do. I'm an endurance coach. Okay. That's kind of my thing. But yeah, so I, I had to correct you there, but go on two things. 

Patrick Casey: So it was kind of big culture shock going from Hollywood, Florida, Fort Lauderdale, the beach and all that to Augusta, Georgia, where it's like forest and pine trees, right?

And there's no beach anywhere and everybody's golfing or, there's a golf cart manufacturer down the road. So everybody had golf carts and hunted and all this stuff that I didn't do any of this stuff. So it's kind of hard to fit in. But anyway, that's kind of what got us to Georgia.

And so I did four years of high school in Georgia because I moved there my freshman year. So I went into high school, not knowing anybody, right? So I went into high school [00:06:00] and I did the four years and then yes, I went straight into Augusta state university for college where I did one year horribly.

Obviously it was in the tail end of my addiction before I finally went off to treatment at 19 years old to get sober. And then eventually ended up going back to school years later. Okay. 

Brad Minus: Okay. So how did you get introduced to this? Did it start small with like alcohol and move up? Or did you just jump right into it?

Patrick Casey: I mean, I always tell people, Brad, like for me, a fun friday night at like 10 11 years old was going through the shopping plazas down here in florida and like smoking the little cigarette butts, right? Like we would find cigarette butts on the floor or in the ashtrays and we'd smoke the cigarette butts just to get a little nicotine buzz.

And then that turned into Oh, well, hey, you know, so and so down the street is selling nickel bags of marijuana. Oh, well, let's try that. I've seen them do that on movies and stuff. Let's go try that. And that was probably 11, 12 years old. So I picked up very young. I'm like 41 now and I have nephews that are my age and I can't even picture these kids smoking marijuana.

But to me at the time, it was just the normal thing to do. And so I just got [00:07:00] carried away with everything I did. So then when I got into high school, I probably drew rarely a sober breath from the time I got my driver's license at like 16 years old until I finally got in trouble at 19 years old. So basically, I never went to school completely sober.

I always had something in my system because I just couldn't function. I couldn't be around people. I couldn't stay in myself. I couldn't be with myself. So I had to always have. The influence of something, right? So, I mean, I literally went through everything, Brad, like you name it. I tried everything as far as the cocaine, the LSD, the marijuana, the mushrooms, crystal meth.

Like I tried it all tons and tons of alcohol was always there taking prescription pills like crazy. And then eventually I was introduced to heroin. So it was just the natural progression for somebody like me, who's always searching for that next thing. And then once I found heroin and then I was introduced to how to shoot it up with the needle.

That was it man for a solid year plus that's all I ever did that and alcohol was what I did for the last year until my parents caught me and off the rehab I [00:08:00] went so 

Brad Minus: I'm interested just the fact that I don't think people really understand what those feelings are what gets you addicted to I mean, you know, to putting this needle in your arm, you know, and shooting something that's totally foreign into your system, And what keeps people doing that?

Can you share a little bit of light on that? 

Patrick Casey: So it's kind of hard to explain. I don't know if you remember, maybe the first time you drank alcohol or maybe got drunk in high school or something like that, it was just that feeling. And for me, alcohol was the same thing. Alcohol just made me feel like a different person, right?

It made me feel six foot five, 200 pounds. I was a, you know, five, 10, five, 11, 120 pounds soaking wet, you know, played sports, but like a, you know, like I told you, I was an extrovert class clown kind of a person. I was always trying to find a way to fit in. So alcohol helped take that away.

Well, then eventually, it's just the progression. I started taking opiate pills and I, they just, it just changed everything. I loved [00:09:00] the way that opiates made me feel because for me. I wasn't an upper speed kind of a person because the last thing I wanted to do was live in this brain and to listen to this head anymore.

I wanted to shut it off. Subconsciously, I just wanted to turn it off. So for me to do opiates or benzodiazepines and alcohol and just knock out, pass out blackout, that was, that was the ultimate goal was to just turn it off. Because I couldn't sleep, right? Like I would lay in bed and just think and think and think of thousands, millions of things.

I would have to listen to a CD player. I'd have to have the TV on like I couldn't fall asleep. I couldn't have any peace and quiet. There was no such thing. I was just an absolute mess. So when I found the opiates and then when my friend showed me and I said, Hey man, can I watch you do that? I know you shoot up heroin.

Can I watch you do that? And I watched him do it. And I saw what washed over him and I wanted that. I wanted that like nothing else. And so I just took out my arm and turned my head away and he did it. And I was just boom, done, [00:10:00] complete full body, just. out of it and I loved every second of that. And I chased that for me to the very end.

So I work in substance abuse. Now I treat people who are where I was. And so I have all the empathy in the world for these people when they're suffering and God forbid, the ones. that are coming in and out 10, 15, 20 times and overdosing and dying or being brought back to life.

Like I get that because I was there. I know what that's like to chase that. 

Brad Minus: So you were chasing the escape. Yeah. It literally was a full on escape from reality. 

Patrick Casey: You don't even know that's what you're after. 

Brad Minus: Well, yeah, no, no, no. I get that. I get that. Especially when you were talking about, you know, you started with the nicotine high and then, you know, and then alcohol when we know what alcohol does.

It's definitely a depressant. So is benzos and it shut you down. I definitely can see why people, you know, we villainize it, right? You're a loser, if you're doing drugs like this, people don't realize the torture that's going [00:11:00] on in their heads, and the right thing to do is to seek professional help, but not everybody has access to that or knows about it.

And when you're young and you don't have a full on set of parents that are there with you. Or in tune to what's going on. You know, you, you don't know to go about that. So, and that's what I was about to ask. That was going to be going to ask you about that same thing, but I'd like to start out with what did your parents do and why did it take them so long to figure out that you were doing all that?

Patrick Casey: Again, this, they didn't find out until the very absolute end, but I think they knew about a lot of the stuff. Like they knew about the drinking. I mean, I would, I would always take a couple of my dad's Budweiser's out of the garage fridge before I would leave. During high school, just to like go pregame right on the weekends.

I would, I would take some of their whiskey, put it in a, in a coffee thermos and drink that sometimes on the way to school while popping a couple of muscle relaxers. So they didn't really know until a couple of times I got caught at school. I got caught with whiskey at school once. And then another time they found, they found a bud [00:12:00] of marijuana sitting on my passenger seat, like an idiot.

I left it there because the kid that was with me was rolling the joint and some of it fell out. And the security guard. knew me again by name because everybody knows me and my friends by name because we were cutting class all the time he would come in looking through the windows of my truck and saw the marijuana sitting there and then the other time they found the whiskey and so my dad had the heads up so i had the talk if you will right with my dad like you're going down this road be careful blah blah blah but i didn't listen i didn't hear him it was just dad you don't know what you're talking about i'm just having fun right So they had no idea how bad it had gotten.

You know, this one time I came home from partying one night and I was tripping hard on LSD. My mom got up because she was a little suspicious, tiptoeing around and she grabbed some of my clothes and she grabbed some of my dad's and she said, your clothes smell like marijuana.

Your dad smelled like cigarettes. I can tell the difference. I'm tripping hard, man. I'm like, well, so my mom and this is, I'm freaking out. So whatever, you know, it was kind of like little [00:13:00] incidences like that would happen. I stayed out of legal trouble, sat in the back of cop cars, but I just never got booked, never got in trouble.

So they didn't know about that stuff. So it was probably a good solid six months, everything you were talking about, like some people don't know how to get help, don't know where to go. For me, I didn't have the courage. I wanted to, for like the last six months, Brad, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how do I tell my parents?

I want to get help. I want to tell them I have a problem. But how do I soften the blow? I'm thinking maybe I tell them I'm addicted to percocets, painkillers, because if you were really paying close attention and around me all the time, you would see I'm pretty much having flu symptoms every day.

I wake up in the morning. I'm getting dope sick from the heroin. My parents had instructed me to stay home and watch my two younger sisters while they went to their Friday night bowling league, right?

So I'm babysitting my sisters and it was very uncharacteristic of me the way this all played out as if I subliminally kind of manifested. Tonight's the night that I'm going [00:14:00] to finally be done tonight. I'm finally done with this. So I basically had all my stuff out in the living room, which was stupid as heck, which I never would have done before on the couch.

And I shot up the dope after my sisters went to bed and I passed out needle in my arm, built around my arm. And my parents came home and found their son. So obviously I get woken up. My dad's shaking the hell out of me. My mom's screaming and hollering, dude. I'm thinking this is like a horrible nightmare.

What is going on here? This isn't really happening. Everything's there. What am I going to say now? It wasn't like I was just trying it. I just wanted to see what marijuana was like I was done they put me to bed the next morning. I woke up going, did that really happen?

Like, dude, that had to be a bad dream. I'm looking under the bed. I'm looking around the counter from my stash. I don't see my stuff. I'm like, shoot. I think that might've really happened. I go walking downstairs. My mom's on the kitchen line talking to rehabs and I can hear some of the stuff she's saying.

I'm going, Holy crap. That really happened. And [00:15:00] you know, I had that feeling. I always tell people like this. immense relief of like, finally, I'm caught. Finally, I'm done. Finally, I now know I'm going to get the help that I've been dying to get for the last six months and haven't known how to get it.

Like it's done. It's over with, I'm getting shipped off or going somewhere down the road. Like, I don't know what rehab even is, but I like, I know I'm going there, whatever that means. And so it was really easy for me to adjust to like, I'm going to be clean now again at 19 not knowing I'm going to be clean forever.

I haven't even had a legal drink of alcohol yet. I'm not thinking I'm never going to drink alcohol. I'm just thinking with my blinders on, like I'm never going to be shooting heroin again. Like that's, that's the main goal is never, I'm never going to have to shoot heroin again. I can probably still smoke weed and drink alcohol and all that stuff.

And that came later where I finally had all the revelations. Like, no, it's, everything has to go. But at first it was just that immense relief. 

Brad Minus: God, I can imagine that. So I was the exact opposite of you. My parents were in my business like the whole time. My [00:16:00] dad had no problem.

Walking up to my room and start going through drawers, putting stuff, you know, when he didn't think my room was clean enough, which it never was. He would always be like, you know what, if it's going to stay like this, I'm putting everything in the middle room. And literally he would go in and he'd dump out all my drawers, put everything in the middle of the room and tell me to start over again.

Well, while he was doing that, he was like, well, he told me. It was because my, I never could keep my room clean, but for him, it was, this is my checks. I can show him that I'm looking for stuff. So if I find something and you know what he always did, unfortunately, it wasn't anything like what you went through.

It was like a test that had a C or a C minus or a D plus or something like that, that I was like front into the back of my drawer, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. Or, you know, I, he did find a flask once and I like, I'd never really drank out of it. It was there. Someone gave it to me as a birthday gift and there was something like.

Blackberry brandy in there or something. And he went off on that. That was, that was a bad day, but so I was the exact opposite. And then when I grew [00:17:00] up, I did have this, I did try a lot of the stuff that you, that you went through. I did go through with the LSD and the mushrooms and everything else, but I never did it, I don't think I've ever did it more than twice.

And, I remember, and this, this is how different this is. I don't know if you were around at this point, but so, I was doing real estate appraisal. You know, I had left school. I was like, I'd left a four year college and I was doing some prereqs, at a community college.

And then I was planning to go back. But I had gotten this job and I was doing some real estate appraisal work. I had a stack of reports that I had to get done. Usually I'd have three or four reports. I'd turn them in and get another three or four reports, but I had literally like 10 or 15 of them.

And the night before I was out playing poker with some friends and they just happened to have some Coke. And I was like, Oh man, I got all that stuff. I'm like, what is that like? And I started asking and stuff, Oh, I'll give you a little bit. And it was like, so I took like, I think I took two lines and he says, all right, you take two lines or before you start, start working and then you bump, [00:18:00] you know, every hour or so, I got everything done, everything I had blinders on, I got everything done that night.

I spent, I stayed up the whole night. I got all the reports done. I got all the stuff taken care of. And then the next morning I went to the office and you have to do some extra like logging in and stuff. So I logged everything in, I put it in and I went to the gym, came back and crashed out like 12 hours.

I was gone. I woke up to the phone ringing and I got on the phone. It was my boss and my boss says to me, he says, I just have to tell you, these are the best reports you've ever done. These are so well done. You can, I can actually read your writing. I got it. Keep up the great work. You know what I did?

I walked into the I grabbed the rest of the coke, I went into the bathroom, and I flushed it down the toilet. The reason why I did that was because in the 1970s, I remember this commercial and all it was, was a black stage. There's this guy in a brown suit, brown tie [00:19:00] and a monkey and a real live chimpanzee.

Sitting on his shoulders and all he did was walk around in a circle. And he said, I do Coke so I could work longer so I can make more money so I can do more Coke so I could work longer so I can make more money so I can do more Coke. And that's all I thought about. And I went, Nope, I'm done. I'm out. And, for the next two months, I heard it from my boss saying, I don't know what happened that one time because the rest of these are crap, 

Patrick Casey: you 

Brad Minus: know, so it was but I get it.

So I was like, I was completely the opposite because I just scared the living crap out of me. And you can see like, what's great about this and to show people like, first of all, if your parents out there, take some of the things that Patrick is saying. 

Look at those clues, think about what he went through and that'll give you some ideas. So if you've seen some of those signs that he's talking about, now you're talking about to a professional, you know, someone that does substance abuse counseling for a living. Take some of those cues and just be aware.

Well, let's move on. So where did you end up? [00:20:00] Did you go to a rehab? That was actually a 30 day in house. inpatient. 

Patrick Casey: Yep. Yep. I got kind of like the Atlanta is about 2. 5 hours from w in Augusta. So I went to Ridgeview Institute, at the time it was, but yeah, I again, I just walked in Man, this is going to be great again.

I don't know what the hell I'm getting into a little nervous, scared, but I'm like, this is going to be awesome. And I walked in that night and I was just welcomed with open arms by the other clients, patients, whatever you want to call it, that were there. And I just felt like. Like, wow, I'm being accepted.

This is great. And then probably about five days into it, I started having, some cravings, obsessions, if you want to call it, but basically what was going on was I was starting to have feelings again. I didn't like the feelings and that the head started kind of waking up again and started churning and I was going, I'm not doing this.

I got to go hop that wall. I need to go get high because I don't like this. I'm not feeling this. I don't want to remember this stuff. I sure as hell don't want to talk about [00:21:00] this to these people. Like, can't I just not do drugs? Like, isn't that enough? And this guy stopped me I was like, dude, this like you're at the crossroads.

Like, what are you going to do? You're 19. You're going to go back out there, keep doing it and try to survive. Are you going to get better? You're going to get to live in, or are you going to get to die in? For whatever reason, I just, I finally had the courage and I went into this group and I said, Hey, here's some of my childhood traumas.

Here's some of the things going on with me. Here's my insecurities. Here's my super low self esteem I have. Here's how I overcompensate for, you know, the lack of self love that I have, the lack of love that I felt like I had. As a child, whatever the case is. And dude, I just, I had the, just the feeling finally of like, wow, this is what it's like to unload like that monkey.

I got that monkey off my back. This is what it's like to unload some of that stuff and actually like get real and vulnerable. And cry, like actually cry, really cry the cleanse in tears, man. And that's really when my recovery started, I would say about five days into being there when I was faced with that crossroads [00:22:00] and thank God I made the right decision, I don't know what would have happened.

Brad Minus: You know, and that's so interesting that you said that you said, I actually cried and I think that's a big thing now in the era that you and I grew up in. You more towards the tail end me towards the beginning. Was that macho? Hey, listen, you're a boy. Always don't cry. Always don't cry. Nope. Don't you even think about it?

That's what I got from my dad. Don't you even think about it? 

Patrick Casey: If you cry, it's going to happen again. 

Brad Minus: Right. That was the only time I was allowed to cry was when I got a spanking, or a whooping, one of the two, but, and I think that as much as I am not a fan of the touchy, feely, sensitive guy type of thing, I think there's a middle ground, you know, if you've got the right family, the right partner, and you're just like, I need to unload, and that's that one person that you can kind of do that with, I think that keeps you from getting to the over [00:23:00] sensitive person.

Let's put it that way. 

Patrick Casey: You can look at the depression really as repression, right? I have repressed feelings and thoughts and memories. So I repress those. So it comes out in depression.

It comes out in anger, irritability. That's why we act out or we isolate. And so if I could find that balance between, yeah, I don't need to be crying at every commercial that comes on television, but like, I got to find that balance and that's, you know, we talk about like masculine energy and feminine energy and sometimes having a balance being all one way or the other, it's not healthy either.

Like you said, the machos, the macho guy, you know, we're not supposed to cry. We're not supposed to be vulnerable. So it's about finding that balance. 

Brad Minus: And I think, when we started getting into. The millennial generation I actually think they figured it out there in the millennia.

I think generation Z started to get a little overly done. But I think the millennials actually started to figure that out. Which, you know, kudos to them. It's at least the one thing they got right. So you go through this three day period [00:24:00] and, just quickly, can you give me a typical day?

Patrick Casey: Yeah, so I did 46 days in this rehab and then I end up going to a halfway house. But typical day was, Oh, well, the fun part was somebody was in charge every week, it would rotate where you had a ping pong paddle and you would go around and knock on all the doors. That was your wake up alarm was bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang with this ping pong paddle.

That's how you got woken up like seven, seven 30. I barely slept for the first month. I was so sick and just so out of my mind, I barely slept. So I was always awake. Go have breakfast in the Eden hall. And then you would just do a couple of groups, maybe group therapy.

You would do maybe an individual therapy session. I think that might've been Brad, maybe like once or twice a week. Otherwise it was a lot of group activities. And at the time they didn't separate you by sex. So we were in there with males and females. After that, they ended up kind of separating by all males and all females.

And then, go to lunch. And then a lot of times you would have some downtime and I would just be always wiped out, emotionally [00:25:00] exhausted, probably suffering with depression. And I would go take a nap. Like I took a nap almost every afternoon for about an hour or two. I had to just like get away from everybody, push everybody away and just go isolate for a couple hours, kind of recharge.

Then go do a couple more groups. And then we always had some kind of like AA or any meeting in the evenings where somebody would come and bring a meeting. And that's where I got introduced into like 12 step type of stuff. And so that was kind of like a typical day. And then we would have some gym time where we could play, you know, volleyball, basketball, workout.

And that's, that was really important, man. It was like. To exercise, like, as you know, as an endurance coach exercise, get those, you know, I always say the best drug dealer is our brain. We got all the endorphins there. Everything that makes us feel good, feel tired, get all that, you know, anxious energy out, get that stagnant energy, depression, move it around, go move a muscle, right?

Change of thought. Like that's, that's the important part. So that was the best thing I think of all. So that was kind of a typical day. 

Brad Minus: That's amazing. And you know what? That is the through line, which is [00:26:00] one of the reasons why I started this. I've had people that have had depression. I've had people with that actually had like injuries and, terminal illnesses.

And the through line, all of it is movement is to get out and move. You don't necessarily need to get to the gym. Of course, if you do have a regular, that other through line is the more people that had regular workout sessions, four days a week, three days a week, did better. The biggest line was out of all of it, depression, injury, diabetes, all that stuff.

The through line through you are episode 65, All those episodes, that's the through line has been movement, so you finally finish up your 46 days and you end up in a halfway house. 

Patrick Casey: Yeah. I go to this little, duplex where it's three beds on one side, three beds on the other halfway house.

I was there for about six or seven months and my family had come to visit one time and this is kind of like, [00:27:00] you know, at the time I'm not noticing, it's like this. lower level income, I'm just like, man, every and new for me, right? Li world through new lenses, so awesome. C first experience is sober In the vehicle as my family drove away when they dropped me off from like, we hung out for the day and they dropped me off and my sister saw the place where we were living and they were crying as they left to head back to Augusta because they're like, why is he staying there?

We can't leave him there. That's not a good place to be. So, you know, and that's the kind of place I stayed in. But again, it doesn't matter. If you want to get sober bad enough, you surround yourself with the right kind of people.

It doesn't matter. You'll get sober. If you're done, you're done. You're going to do everything that it takes. So that was my experience with that. And then me and a couple other young knuckleheads like myself, we all went and got apartments together. So I kind of like lived with people in sobriety for like, probably my first five years.

Where again, it was the rehab, it was the halfway house and then it was a couple of sober roommates and then finally ended up living by [00:28:00] myself. So, I was just surrounded with, you know, sobriety recovery, you know, positive atmosphere, positive energy I was set up in every way to be successful as a young 19 year old kid, like I was set up to be successful. If I was willing to do it, if I was willing to grasp onto it, and I came to this crossroad before I went to that halfway house after 46 days of treatment, where I like to tell the story because it's really important because I see it in the rehabs now where people come to treatment.

and they have all the excuses and all the reasons to not follow the typical protocol. You know, for me, I wanted to get back home to Augusta. I wanted to go back and be a good brother. I wanted to be a good son. I definitely wanted to get back with that ex girlfriend that, that finally got the curves dumped me in my addiction.

I wanted to go show her what a good dude I was. Right. So I wanted to go back and do all that stuff. And my, and the people in my recovery and my, my mentors were like, dude, slow down, like do a pros and cons list. Let's figure this out. It might be better that you stay here and build a sober network because if you go back home and try to do all that stuff and try to go back to [00:29:00] college too soon and you end up relapsing, what's it all for anyways.

Stay here, see what happens. And that turned out, okay, fine guys. I'll stay a couple of months and that turned into 10 years. I never, I really never ended up going back home. So I just like to tell a story because it's super helpful. Maybe I shouldn't make my own decisions in that early stage. Maybe I have other people that are going to help with my best interests in mind, because it's all about the short term inconvenience for the longterm payoff.

Like be in be inconvenience now, because first off, it's not going to kill you and then you can live and actually have a chance to go back home or, you know, if you're going to miss your kid's birthday, I hear that one a lot or I want to be home for Christmas. I don't want to stay in rehab. It's like, we'll do it this time.

Brad Minus: From now. That makes sense. So did you end up going back to school? 

Patrick Casey: Hence, becoming a nurse practitioner. It was a slow, long, grueling road, right? So I had one year of school under my belt and I hated science. In high school, I hated, [00:30:00] dissecting animals. It was disgusting, didn't want to touch it, didn't want to do any of that crap. And then, when I was at Augusta State, in the middle of my addiction, I got like a C in some chemistry class that, you know, whatever. I'm lucky I got a C.

So, what happened was I was working a bunch of little jobs. I was working at PetSmart, my first job was a car wash, and then it was at PetSmart, and then I started working for a sober mentor of mine. Doing low voltage installations on some construction sites, wearing steel toed boots, hard hats, vests, the whole nine yards, right?

And I'm just like, I'm not doing this, man. I'm 21, 22. I'm not doing this. Like, I know I need to go back to school. So I started talking to a bunch of other sober guys, and this one guy, Shannon, he's a nurse practitioner. I'm like, dude, what the hell is a nurse practitioner? He's like, oh, well this, you know, you can write prescriptions, you can do labs.

It's kind of like in between a doctor and a nurse, but you got to go to nursing school. And I was like, what? You went to nursing school? I'm like, no way, man. I'm not doing that. He's like, dude, trust me, there's a ton of girls in there. You're going to love it. Just go try it. And so at that point, being a few years sober, sobriety had taught me, [00:31:00] be open minded, go try it.

What's the worst that could happen? So I went and took an anatomy and physiology class and I fell in love with it. Absolutely fell in love with it, which made no sense from where I came from. But I love the way the body works, the muscle and you'd be an endurance coach. I know, you know, the ins and outs of all the muscles and how the physiology works.

I loved it, man. So I took anatomy and physiology too. And then it was time to go sign up to get my associate RN. Nursing program. So I went and did that for two years. I met my Wouldbe wife, who's now my ex-wife, but I met her there and, and you know, we graduated and then I went on and got my bachelor's.

A year later I got my bachelor's in nursing and then moved back down to Florida. And then I ended up going back to, school to get my nurse practitioner, which was my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal at 24 when I became an RN was. I'm eventually going to become a nurse practitioner, but because of life getting in the way, it was kind of held off a little bit, but man, my goal, my mission was I'm going to get that nurse practitioner degree.

And I did that in the midst of getting divorced. I did that in the midst of like [00:32:00] selling our house and moving into another place. Like, dude, I was just not letting anything get in the way. Like perseverance was just what I did with anything and everything I've ever done. I just persevere no matter how much difficult and struggle it is.

And so I did that. And so I've been doing this for, six and a half years now we're so practitioner. 

Brad Minus: So because I've been around the health industry for quite a long time, did you, you must have spent some time actually getting some education or getting some experience as a registered nurse and a bachelor of science and nursing.

What did you end up specializing in there? 

Patrick Casey: So I got lucky right when I graduated with my associate are in, I actually got to go straight into the ER, which you don't see too often. Normally you have to go, they always say, go do some med surg, go do some telemetry, so I just got lucky, you know, things continue to fold out in my life that way. Right. Like I just kind of go the way the path opens up. So I went in, went to do ER and then like a year later after working in the ER, they, they transitioned into becoming a level two trauma center.

This was in Marietta, [00:33:00] Georgia at Kennestone hospital. So now I'm working trauma and I'm dealing, doing the gunshots and blood transfusions and car accidents and you name it, man. I'm loving it. And then I end up moving to Florida and just working kind of a regular ER job.

So I did all that. And then the last year of my, nurse practitioner degree, I did 7 PM to 7 AM for all those years, which is not healthy lifestyle whatsoever. We're not made to work at those hours and sleep at those hours and be awake at those hours.

So I ended up working in the ER and in my last year, I worked in a detox facility. I took about a four or 5 an hour pay cut to go work in a detox because I needed less stress. I needed to focus on clinicals because up to this point, I didn't even know what I wanted to do as a nurse practitioner.

I'm getting my family nurse practitioner degree, but I'm finding out towards this last year, maybe two semesters. I don't want to work in a doctor's office. But I thought I would like it. I thought I would like to have a long term relationship with patients and do follow ups, but I just, I didn't like the, like, I only get 10 minutes with you, maybe 15 and it's next, next.

So I went to work at this [00:34:00] detox as a nurse and I didn't even think about, oh wow, I might actually like substance abuse. I might like working in mental health. No kidding. 15, 16 years sober at the time, this is what I do.

you know, for free. I help people get sober all the time for free. So, of course, I can help them on the medical side now. And to graduate, they're like, Hey, would you like to slide into a per diem nurse practitioner role? I was like, sure, let's do it. And then that just built and built and built. And, I've been working as a contractor and many treatment centers down here for six plus years now.

Great reputation. I get along well with everybody it's an awesome thing to be able to treat them with the medical stuff and with medications and labs and do stuff like you said, like, now I can talk to them about exercise, about nutrition, and maybe let's get you off of some of these meds that I don't really think you need to be taken that you're probably just taking some of these as a crutch.

Now, some people need to be on certain meds. I think some people just use things as a crutch as well. Right? Like let's get down to the core cause of these and let's fix that and then you don't have to swallow these pills all the time and have all these doctor visits [00:35:00] like you'll be happier, you'll feel better.

Brad Minus: Yeah, no, no. And that's, that's one of my best stories, I think, is one of my first clients that I ever started helping them run and they were, they wanted to do a half marathon and it started 5k, 10k, but he had MS. And one of my, one of the greatest stories that ever happened to me was that after a while he got to do a couple of half marathons and then, you know, I'm always, I'm a temporary person, right?

My business model is it's by the race. I've got people that have been with me five, six years, and that's because they're habitual racers. There's always another race, but a lot of my clients are, Hey, I want to do my first marathon. I want to get this bucket list done. You know, I want to do my first iron man.

I want to do this. And this first guy, one of the very first clients I ever had that was actually on my roster wanted to run and it got to the point where it's a half marathon. And what started happening was, is even after. He decided that he didn't need to be coached anymore. Cause he didn't, he had learned everything.

He started doing a half marathon [00:36:00] every single weekend and I happened to be at one of them and I caught him and we gave him a big hug and blah, blah, blah. And we were talking and I'm like, so how's it going? And he was telling me that. Yeah. He goes, my dosage is next to nothing.

From the last time that I talked to you, I'm on less than 25 percent of the dosage I was when I first met you. He goes in that, I put that all to running and I put it to you for helping me get there. But for me, it's like running and I'm like, you're still doing a half marathon every single, every single weekend.

Without a doubt, every single weekend, there's at least one of those two days that I'm doing 13. 1 miles and I won't stop. And I'm like, you know, dude, you don't have to do it every single 

Patrick Casey: week. 

Brad Minus: He goes, I have it in my head. You know, he says, I do four days a week. I'm doing seven and eight miles.

And then I've got my strength training and I do my speed work, but I always do that 13. 1 miles. And he says, I'm just, there's something in my head that says, if I, the one time I don't do it. The doc's going to call me and tell me I've got to take more medicine. So I'm just going to keep doing it.

And I'm like, you know what? More power to you. [00:37:00] As long as you're staying healthy, you're staying on your, and you're following your plan for injury prevention and recovery. Knock yourself out. So that's probably the same thing that you feel when they come to you and they say, yeah, I just got rid of my blood pressure medicine.

It's got to make you feel like a million dollars. 

Patrick Casey: It's huge. I had my own little primary care practice for a few years. I just closed it down recently. I had this guy who was like 32 years old and I did a full set of labs on him. Funny enough. His name is Brad I'm, like Brad I got to put you on like six medications now, like I have to put you on a statin triglyceride medication An extra blood pressure medication diet, pre diabetes medication, something else I'm like when really like you can make some changes like you're young still like you can get healthy.

You can drop some weight, you can get physically active, you know, and I said like small stuff like you would say, like go for a walk with your wife and kids around the neighborhood in the evening for 20, 30 minutes and let that build on stuff. Stop eating fast food at nine, 10 o'clock at night.

After working all day, like you shouldn't be eating one meal a [00:38:00] day and then it's McDonald's and Wendy's, it's all kind of common sense stuff. But when we're living that lifestyle, we know what's going on. And obviously my opinion is a lot of it is emotionally driven, right? It's lack of self love, lack of self care.

It's probably some anxiety, depression issues that are being untreated. And then, so here it is like, well, would you rather take these six medications that are going to do the same thing that you can do on your own, or would you just rather take the meds and he'd rather just take the meds and I, every couple of months I'd hit him again.

What about now? What about now? And he just wanted to keep doing the meds. So it's, it's difficult. And I figured out like, I don't want to do this. My calling is no I ended up, you know, care practice and, and, a we might or might not have like, that's why I stick i the substance abuse treat doing that for obvious re have gotten into the coac help people more with, issues and, let's treat yo

Brad Minus: So tell me how you got into that. I [00:39:00] mean, here, here you are, you've got all this medical knowledge and you've got to practice. You're seeing patients, you're prescribing it when needed. And it sounds like you were very, and I liked the way that you talked about it because you told this guy straight up that, Hey, you know what?

You don't need to be on these medicines. We can, you just need to change your lifestyle. That to me, yeah. Is definitely worthwhile and tells me that you're, you know, you are responsible. You're definitely a responsible practitioner, which I see a lot of the other people is like, you walk in, oh, your blood pressure's this rather this, oh, here, take these and take these once a day and I'll see you in a couple months.

Usually at least talk to them. And that is. Everything to somebody like me, that, helps people out in their journeys for a living. But tell me about how you'd moved into coaching because, at, I'm going to send this to you.

He's a Patrick Scott, a subscriber page. And he talks about a masterclass that he's got calling breaking through self destructive patterns. So that is really stuck with me, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you. So can you tell us how [00:40:00] you moved into this from what you were doing.

Patrick Casey: Yeah. So basically about two years ago, I hit a bottom again, that had nothing to do with drugs and alcohol. I hit an emotional, spiritual bottom that I didn't even see happening until it happened. So, you know, I was probably, so I was about 20 years sober. And like you said, you'd think I got it all together, living down where I'm living, got the beautiful girlfriend, the hobbies, you know, the house near the beach, I'm doing a kicking butt in life, man.

But there's still like a little something that really wasn't quite clicking on the inside and I'll still get irritable a lot. I'll still popping off sometimes. And I still kind of just had this like, almost like a self disgust. Like, I'm still very critical to myself. Like, if you could think of like a critical parent.

I was being like a critical parent to myself. Like always, always just kind of, you know, really talking negatively to myself. Whenever I made some kind of silly, silly mistake, I was just like, you dumb idiot. Like what the hell is wrong with you? I didn't really realize that it was [00:41:00] affecting everything in my life.

You don't really realize the energy you're putting out into the world. You think you're doing good because you're doing good work, but you don't realize underneath the surface what's really going on that's buried by everything. So my girlfriend was following this podcast or who's also a coach.

Out in California and she was doing some classes with her cause she was on her own spiritual journey and emotional journey. And I've been hearing a little bit of stuff here and there. And she was like, Hey, check out this podcast that she's been doing for like 10 years. She has some really cool stuff.

I was listening. Okay. So we flew out to California cause she's like, Hey, she's doing this live event. This was in October of 22. She's like, she's doing this live event and I'm like really shy. I'm kind of introvert. Would you come with me and just kind of be there with me? I'd feel more comfortable if you came.

Sure, babe. No problem. Let's go. You know, and again, being sober, open minded, a lot of life experiences in the last 20 years sober. I know that I'm going to go get something out of this. Maybe a little self help, personal development stuff. Who knows? Right? So I go out there and it's like a group of like 40 plus people.

I don't know anybody, but my [00:42:00] girlfriend, Caitlin. And I go through the whole weekend. We do these emotional work, these exercises, these dialogue things, these dyad things they call it. And I'm getting in touch with like, wow. I have a lot of childhood stuff. Wow. I still have unresolved childhood stuff.

I'm still, you know, in contempt of my parents. I still have all these things going on. I didn't realize this. So we passed this microphone around on the last day, Brad, because we all sharing about, like, you know, take a couple minutes to share about what you experience and any breakthroughs, revelations, whatever, and I'm sitting there and Kaitlin sit next to me and I look over to her.

I'm holding the microphone and I just was like, I said to them, I want to love myself the way that she loves me. Like, I want to look at myself in the mirror the way that Caitlin looks at me. And I know that I can't really love her fully and completely until I really love myself. And J. J. Fla Retreat, if you will, came up to me after and she's like, you know, this doesn't have to stop here. Like, I don't think it's a good idea for you to have this [00:43:00] breakthrough revelation and then go back home and go back to your life. Even if you don't work with me, you need to work with somebody.

She said, but I can help you. And she just hit me here, just like all the people. My mentors, when I first got sober, when they spoke to me, they hit me in the chest, they hit me in the heart and pulled on my strings. And I just knew a thousand percent she was authentic and she meant it. And she was confident about it, which was also a big deal.

I was like, cool, sign me up. I don't know what this costs. I don't know what I'm getting into. Just like when my parents caught me with heroin, it's like, I don't know what this whole, you know, going to rehab is, but let's go. I'm in. So I hit another bottom and I get into it, man. And I just, I learned so much about myself.

I got in touch with a bunch of core wounds, a bunch of childhood stuff, a bunch of things that day to day I didn't even realize I was doing. I didn't realize that I didn't know how to receive compliments. That's a big thing. When somebody said something nice, I was always deflecting. Yeah, but you know, it's this.

Yeah, but it's just that I didn't know how to receive compliments. I didn't know how to just say thank you. I appreciate that. Like, I didn't know how to do simple stuff like that. And then I got [00:44:00] into boxing, which I've been doing for like the last four years, you know, and that was a scary thing.

So I've been doing all these really scary things that I keep showing myself I can do these hard, difficult things, and they're not going to kill me. And what happens is, like we talked about before we got on here, I become desensitized. Like we were talking about the hurricanes, right? It all hurricanes in Florida.

We get desensitized, we get numb to it. So all these scary things, you know, coming to talk on a podcast, talking in front of 300 people, talking on the stage in front of a bunch of people like that's a big scary thing, but I do it. And then the next time it's not as difficult that the anxiety gets less every time I do that kind of stuff.

So I did all this work with her and I was like, why am I so I know why, but I was just like, I don't need to be focused on just helping people with substance abuse. I could help everyday people and especially like we talked about men, you know, there's a lot of men out there that don't want to be vulnerable.

They might have a wife who's kind of like on their case and they're like, what are you doing? Leave me alone. I'm providing the table. Like, leave me alone. But they're really not happy. They're [00:45:00] really not really living life to the fullest.

Like I wanna be able to help those people. And you know, with your wife being a nurse practitioner, as a nurse practitioner, I can only help people in Florida. I'm only licensed in Florida. I can't help people outside of the state. But if I'm a coach like you, you're an endurance coach. If I'm a coach, I can help people if they have internet connection.

No matter where you are in the world, I can help people. Like that's pretty awesome. And so I did this course three steps to break it through, self destructive patterns. And I also just recently this week recorded another course about the five ways to deliver help to the man in your life. And that came about a bunch of women I was working with and some other women within my group.

I wish my husband would talk to you. You know, I have a son that's really depressed. I wish he would come talk to you. I have a nephew. I have this guy friend. How, you know, how can I convince them to get help? And so I was like, I'm going to do this course that women can watch, or it doesn't have to be just women, but somebody that might have a guy in their life.

Like, how do I get that guy help? How do I show him that he needs help without nagging him, without [00:46:00] pestering him, without, you know, pressuring, right? So how do I do that? So I came up with that and I really enjoy the talk that I did. Cause I go into a lot of stuff about masculine energy, feminine energy, and the balance and the polarity, because dude, let's face it, I have a failed marriage, I was married and divorced.

And I vowed not to make the mistakes I made and I've been in a seven year relationship now, which is wonderful and intimate and we don't fight. And it's, we have so many awesome, similar hobbies and we're on like the same spiritual, emotional path. Like it's killer, but I, that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone through the turmoil of my first divorce, but also if I hadn't learned my lesson, 

cause if we're doomed to repeat our lessons, if we don't learn them, that's what I was told a long time ago. So I know I'm going on a long diatribe here, but it was really important for me to learn about the inner workings of relationships and the difference between men and women or masculine and feminine.

Cause. Obviously, same sex relationships exist too, so it doesn't really matter. It's just about figuring out those energy differences and how they work. And, you know, how to not get stagnant and complacent in [00:47:00] my relationship. How to keep my girlfriend guessing. How to keep surprising her, right? Like, treat her like a lover, not a friend, not a partner.

And she loves it. I just took her to Shrek the musical the other night. I didn't tell her where we're going. I said, Hey, we're going to go to a show, put on something nice and let's go check it out. Cause I know she loves that kind of stuff. And the anticipation, the whole couple of days leading up to it, she got excited about it.

Right? Like your wife would do the same thing if you were just going to shock her and surprise her and say, Hey, put on something nice. We're going out. Where are we going? You'll see when we get there, like they love that stuff. So we take the lead. And so I just learned little small things like that. And like, you know, too, we don't fix them when they come to us with problems.

I ask them, you know, do you want me to give you feedback? You just want to vent, you want me to listen. So that's something I learned too, right? And that's so simple. But we don't do that as men, we want to fix. We want to repair. We don't listen to understand. We listen to how can I fix and interject here, right?

So it's been a lot of cool stuff that I want to be able to turn around. And so my mission is to help [00:48:00] men who are where I once was because we're best equipped to help the person we once were, just like I'm able to help somebody that's in the throes of addiction because I was there before.

Brad Minus: I love that message. The fact that I going to help the men that I used to be, that's fantastic. There's a couple of things that you said, and then we'll wrap it up that I just got to comment on one is you said that, Hey, I'm trying things that are hard.

That is like my whole message. That is my big thing. I'm like, you can attain a lot of the things that you want to attain outside of that specific environment. So for instance, when I'm a friend of mine that I was just kind of helping going through, getting through this, but she was five, four and 250 pounds, you know, but she decided, you know, she had tried running and she liked it, but it was hard.

And she had, Gone to the gym and anything. And she just realized that none of that was for her. She needed to find a different way to go about it. And she was flipping through the channels and [00:49:00] found Ironman Kona, which is the world championships. For Ironman and she watched it, got excited and she's like, wait a second, that might be an idea.

So she signs up for Ironman Florida, which is in Panama city beach in the panhandle. And she says, that's what I'm going to do for the next 18 months. She trained 18 months later. She stood on that beach in a size small wetsuit weighing 120 pounds. The idea was that she went after something hard and she met all those, all the goals that she had once thought were big goals.

They turned into very tiny goals and she hit them on the way to this big giant thing. And then the other part about that is that it's so much more fun. You know, I'm not thinking about, Oh, did I lose a pound today? I lose two pounds today. Let me get on the scale. I'm going to go to work out. And Oh, how many calories did I burn?

But when you're like sitting in there, I'm like, and you're in the pool and you're swimming and you're like, okay. I'm almost there. I need to get to this. I need to get to this this time.

I didn't do it today. I'll do it tomorrow. I didn't do [00:50:00] it tomorrow. I'll do it the next day. I'm going to get to that point. I'm going to be on that bike. I'm going to be able to hold this time for this mile long. I'm going to be on the run. I'm going to hold this pace. And I'm going to get to this distance today.

That's a lot more fun than looking at the scale and stuff like you said, we're for boxing. You know what I mean? It's like, all right, you know, I'm missing the slip. I got to figure out where is that punch coming on to miss the slip and that becomes a goal. That's a lick, a little thing.

I got that part. Now I ain't got to get to the other side. Right. So that's a lot more fun getting to those goals and you're getting something out of it. You know, whether it be fitness, whether it be like your, you know, destructive patterns, you find ways outside of that environment to get to that.

Now, it doesn't make, That's not an excuse not to get the right kind of help. Exactly what you do, Patrick, right? That's not excuse there, but going to, going to get something much harder. Hiking Kilimanjaro, [00:51:00] deciding that you want to, maybe you want to climb Everest or Mount St. Helens, or, I forgot the one, the Mount Rainier.

Maybe those are the things you want to be able to do, but meanwhile, while you're in this training phase, you're also getting, on the mental side. So now you're actually touching all of the bases, mental, Physical, emotional, professional. So when you hit all those things, that's exactly right.

Do the hard stuff and the fact that you found that you could do it. Go after something hard. 

Patrick Casey: I took a boxing at 37 years old. I'm 41 now. I had no desire to compete. It was COVID. It was like something we could do outside. My good friend's a trainer. My girlfriend's been boxing for a couple of years longer.

And I was like, yeah, let's go do it. And I can show you the videos, how stiff and uptight I was to now, like, you know, I have a three in one boxing record. I won Florida golden gloves twice. For my age range and my weight class as a, you know, cause when you're 40 and over, it's considered masters.

It's just amateur boxing, but it's cool. It's kind of like glorified sparring, but it's still a very [00:52:00] competitive, intense nerve wracking thing to do. And so I'd been doing that. I had no intention on doing this, but it was like, Hey, you want to do this? I'm like, well, I'm really scared, but that's not a reason not to do it.

Like you said, Brad. So I just go do it. And I get all the support and encouragement. And I got to do it. And maybe I fail at this or that. But like you said, I hit those marks. So, okay, we go sparring at this other gym. Now we go spar this level of person and you show yourself, you can do this.

You can do this. You're okay. You can compete. You can do this. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. And exactly. And the fact that you kept saying, I, yeah, I could do that. Yeah. Now it's time to level up. Now I can do that. A lot of my friends, they tout the fact that they take all of their medals and stuff that they go in when they race and they get it and they put it in a shoe box and they put it to the side, you know what I mean?

And not me, in my gym and it's just my room. No one usually goes in there except for me. But I've got them all sitting, I've been all like hanging up and there's tons of them, but it's not, they're not there for me to like brag because no one else goes in there but me, [00:53:00] but anytime that I start to feel spooked out for a certain race, maybe it's hilly, or, or maybe I know it's going to be cold, or maybe I know that, the swim is going to be rough.

I can walk in there and going, well, look how many times you've already done it. You know what I mean? That's exactly that, that self talk that you were talking about is, yeah, you can do this. You can do this. I just happen to have it sitting there going, you've already done it a thousand times. There's no reason you can't do it this time too.

Yeah. Hard, tangible evidence. Yeah, exactly. So, and I tell people, I'm like, Put it out there. I mean, even if you could put it in your bathroom where you know it, you're the only person to see it, you know, so you don't feel like you've got it out there for people to see and go. Oh, look at you.

No, it's not for them. It's for you. So, but yeah, I think that's fantastic. And I was just about to say you saying that, Oh, it was what the over 40 it's only the math you see, you took, you didn't take the compliment for yourself. See how I still do [00:54:00] that. Yeah. We all still do 

Patrick Casey: that. 

Brad Minus: We all kind of downplay 

Patrick Casey: and minimize it.

Brad Minus: It's exactly, exactly. I mean, that's what we do. We call it age group, right? It's your age group and you compete against other people in your age group, unless you're a pro, then you can get to the top. Right? But most of us, 97 percent of us are age groupers, you know? For the people that I teach and I coach, it's not even about, okay. I got a couple of people that do get into the podium, but sometimes it's not the podium, it's just doing better than I did last time. I tell my cross country kids, I'm like, it's 3. 1 miles. I'm going to tell you something.

If you do a second better than last time, I'm going to be just as frickin excited as if you did 10 minutes faster than last time because you did better. And that's, you know, that's all I ask. But yeah, no, I love what you're doing and I think it's definitely, important and it needs to be out there.

I am going to put a link out there. You call it, it says subscribe page. io. And I guess that's just your landing page. 

Patrick Casey: When you type [00:55:00] in Patrick Casey jr. com, that that's what pops up after you hit enter. 

Brad Minus: All right. So jr. com, patrickacjr.

com. That's going to be in the show notes. And then I'll take you right to his landing page where you can get ahold of him and look at the information he's got about his programs. And you got to take a look at them because it's, it's, it's pretty cool. If you just, just reading about it, gave me goosebumps.

Are you on any socials? 

Patrick Casey: Yeah, I was going to say in on Instagram at Patrick Casey Jr, which again is Jr at Patrick Casey Jr. And you can see some of the boxing photos on there. Some of the medals and belts, like you were saying, like some of that's on display, a bunch of the podcasts I've been on are on there and you can contact me there.

I have a Facebook group called advocates. for men's support. Advocates for men's support is on Facebook. Patrick MC Jr. Patrick MC Jr. on Facebook. So those are probably the most, you know, common ways to find me. 

Brad Minus: I just happen to pop it up just for a second.

So I got to ask the [00:56:00] question. Where are all these kids on the 

Patrick Casey: cover page for the, for Facebook? Oh, those are my nephews and niece. Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Oh, wow. 

Patrick Casey: See the beard too. 

Brad Minus: That's it. Was that, that was part of it. 

Patrick Casey: And that was part of my transformation too, was when I started getting better feeling and I just, I whacked the beard off.

I got that full gnarly beard. I got rid of it about two months into my coaching. Experience. 

Brad Minus: Cool. I was gonna say it looks like everybody's, so if you're in Hollywood, Florida and everybody's got these long sleeves on, I'm like, it's starting to get towards Christmas. I would have been like, yeah, die that thing freaking gray and white and big place.

Santa Claus then belted off. It was already getting 

Patrick Casey: a lot of grades in it. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. So all of those links are going to be in the show notes. So you can get ahold of Patrick. And what I love about it is some of the stuff that you'll be talking to him about is like self destructive behaviors, anger issues, how to help the man in your life recovery from drugs and alcohol and self compassion.

Those are [00:57:00] some of the things that he touches on. So you got to get ahold of him. Even if you're only feeling a little bit of it. You know what I mean? If you're just a couple of things that are nagging at you, get a hold of Patrick and get the help that you might need, even if it's just to get over a hump.

And again, how I talk about this as life changing challenges is that I just want you guys to get one nugget and man, did Patrick just load them up for us on this episode? You've got them coming out of your ears to one thing need to push yourself forward to meet the potential that you, that you've got.

So Patrick, Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. For the rest of you, if you're watching this on YouTube, please go ahead and hit the like button subscribe, hit the notification bell. So you'll always know when another episode is dropping.

If you're on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a review. It doesn't have to be good. I prefer it to be good. 

Patrick Casey: Guys bring it, bring the good stuff. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. And Spotify now has comments. So if you want to just leave a quick comment to say, Hey, this episode sucked, or [00:58:00] this episode was fantastic. Ask the question and we'll answer it. So I appreciate it. I appreciate you, Patrick. And for the rest of you, thank you very much for listening and we'll see you in the next one.