The Transformative Journey of an Addiction Healer: From Navy Struggles to Empowering Philanthropy with Michael Herbert

Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of Life-Changing Challengers.

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I'm your host, brad Minus, and I am very honored to have Michael Herbert with me today.

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He's an addiction clinician and coach.

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He's been doing this for about 20 years and has got about 70 hours of specialized training and has actually been an addict himself, and we're going to get into his story a little bit and then talk about how he's overcome it and gone into some great new ventures.

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So, michael, thank you.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

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I really appreciate it.

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Glad to be here, yeah.

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So I always start the same way.

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If you could tell me, can you tell me a little bit about your childhood, how you grew up, where you grew up, what was the complement to your family and what your childhood was like?

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Okay, I was born in New Haven, connecticut.

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I have two brothers, one 18 months older and one 18 months younger, and it was raised by my mother and basically a grandmother and my grandfather.

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So I lived in my grandparents' house with my mother and my brother.

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My mother and father were married for about three years and they got divorced and then it was just my mother, my two brothers and my grandparents lived upstairs.

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And I say that I was raised primarily by my mother and grandmother.

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Meaning my grandfather was he was a postal worker, so he was gone.

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He was working at the post office and my grandmother was around when my mother was working.

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My mother worked as a nurse and so when she was working, my grandmother was there.

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My mother was young and my grandmother was old, meaning my grandmother had my mother, I think when my grandmother was 39.

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So my grandmother was always an older woman and a very dominant I would say dominant personality.

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So well, we were my mother's children.

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My mother was her mother's child and I don't know who was in control.

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But I know my grandmother was harder to deal with than my mother because she was from 1900.

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And she was from a different world, a different way of seeing things.

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We were Episcopalian and so we were raised in the—we went to the Episcopalian church, which is probably different than other Black people in my neighborhood who went to Baptist and Pentecostal church.

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We're African American, we're not-American, but most of the people from our church were Caribbean, so there was some difference there.

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I also went to private school from first grade to sixth grade the Episcopal private school.

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We were able to get scholarships there, so we went there.

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So there was another difference in that me and my brothers went to private school, but everybody else in my neighborhood went to private school, but everybody else in my neighborhood went to the public school.

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So I went to a school where it was a classroom of eight, where my friends went to a school where there was a classroom of 25.

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So we did that until about the sixth grade and then we went to public school.

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And probably one of the differences in me and some of my friends really have to do with language and speaking the English language.

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I spoke it differently than my peers, so I sounded different and on some level you get teased for sounding different.

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So those were some of the differences in the school that I went to, the church that I went to, I think as a child I felt some insecurity about not having a father.

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My father must have mother and father must have gotten divorced when I was about three years old, so I have no recollection of my father being in the house.

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I didn't formally meet my father until I think I met him around 12 years old.

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So it was really even though my grandmother was oh, she was so rigid and it was one way to do things.

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I got to tell you, without her in my life for that foundation, I don't know where I would be now.

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So I'm as much as it was difficult, I really applaud her and I'm grateful that she was there really to pick up the slack and provide me.

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I don't know the discipline and you know sometimes the rigidity, the black and white thinking that I have now.

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Sometimes that can be problematic, but it has kept me on some level out of trouble or less trouble than I could have been in.

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It was that kind of discipline that was helpful.

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So I went to private school and again, I pick up on language, I pick up on, uh, visual cues, but I'm not a good student, I'm not a good reader.

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I didn't remember things well, I didn't pay attention.

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Often in class.

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I was a daydreamer, so I didn't do very well in grade school.

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I did just enough to pass.

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Same thing in junior high school and same thing at high school.

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I did just enough to pass.

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Same thing in junior high school and same thing at high school.

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I did just enough to pass.

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I was probably labeled back then a slow learner.

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That's what they called people.

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Oh, he's a slow learner, but you know what?

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I had a different learning style.

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I realize that now, if they taught in the way that was conducive to my style, I would have been further along educationally than I had gotten.

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But I have no insecurity or no bad feeling about not having a college degree.

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I actually feel good that, wow, I have created so much success with a high school diploma.

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I have created so much success with a high school diploma.

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It's unbelievable.

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I'd supervise doctors, mds.

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I've been the boss, so to speak, of master's level, clinicians, bachelor's level, and been the director and their supervisors.

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So it hasn't really hindered me to not have the degree that other people have.

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When I left high school I had the choice of Michael either you're going to go to college or you're going to get a job.

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Neither one of them I was interested in, and so I naively joined the Navy and I just figured there's no war going on so we're probably not going to do anything.

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I'll just hang around the Navy for four years.

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Well, little did I know.

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After boot camp they pretend like it's war, and I was stationed in Puerto Rico for two years and then I was on an aircraft carrier for two years and we worked every day.

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So it was a tough environment.

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And that's probably when I got into drug, alcohol and started to experience what addiction was, although it wasn't something that I realized that I had.

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I didn't realize I was an addict back then.

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I just thought I was having a good time.

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Yeah, so that's you know.

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That's a little bit about how I started in life.

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Any other questions about my early life or anything I left out?

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Absolutely, and this isn't going to.

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Obviously, for those of you watching on YouTube, this is going to probably end up being mostly audio.

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I just unfortunately got some technical difficulties with my camera.

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I have no idea why.

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Anyway, but we'll continue on.

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First of all, so you went into the United States Navy, so thank you for your service.

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I'm also a veteran nine and a half years in the Army, just so you know and so the first thing I'm going to ask is what was your job in the Navy?

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your job in the Navy?

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My job.

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I was an ABA Aviation Bolts and Handler, and when I first finished A school, I wound up in Puerto Rico, and so the job in Puerto Rico was crash and rescue.

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So I worked on the airfield and basically waited for planes to crash, which they never did, and thank God for that.

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Thank God for that.

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But it was kind of like you're sitting in a fire truck or you're sitting in a tower for eight hours a day just waiting for things to happen.

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So there was.

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There was a little excitement when some planes landed and there was some problems, some a few engine fires and things like that, but I never experienced a crash or anything like that.

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So I was there in Puerto Rico.

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You couldn't have found a better place to be in the military.

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I moved off base.

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I had a couple of roommates and we rented a house and lived there.

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This was the disco era.

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Um, this was the disco era.

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The other thing about the military is at least how my experience was.

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It's where you learn to drink.

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It's a rite of passage to learn to drink, that everybody has to learn to drink and you have to get along and drink.

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I didn't personally.

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I didn't like drinking.

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I I thought I looked at people who drank as bums and losers.

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I was more interested in drugs.

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So I smoked more marijuana in those early days and then was introduced to cocaine when I was in Puerto Rico.

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It was the disco era.

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We used to go to this disco.

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The manager would sell it to us us and I would buy cocaine.

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So I spent a reasonable amount of money on cocaine, but it didn't really matter because I was in the military and they fed me and they gave me clothes to wear, so I didn't experience any of the financial.

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It wasn't a financial burden for me to just spend my money on it.

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When, as I'm telling the financial, it wasn't a financial burden for me to just spend my money on it.

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When, as I'm telling the story, I got it.

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I don't want to come across.

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Here's this guy in the military and all he's doing is drugs.

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Listen, I think I knew better, but I realized over time that I have this condition that leads me to continuing to doing something that's working against me.

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I can't control the fact that I have this reaction to alcohol and drugs.

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It's just like a diabetic can't control the fact that they have a reaction to sugar and I have this reaction to drugs and alcohol.

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That really took over and my brain was in control and wanted more and I did what I needed to do to get more.

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The progression happened for me over time.

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So, yeah, I could put it down and show up for work, but as time went on, it became harder and harder to put it down and show up for work.

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But as time went on, it became harder and harder to put it down and go to work and the drug became the priority where initially work was a priority so I can work, so I can buy drugs and then it switched itself over time where the priority was using and it wasn't work.

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And that's where the real dilemma came in, because now I can't afford to do the thing that I have become addicted to do.

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So I got out of the military and I had the smarts to realize that, even though they offered me a realist and bonus, there were too many guys who had gotten busted for drugs, who wound up in Leavenworth, and I didn't want to wind up in federal prison.

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So in my mind I knew that I was going to do drugs and wasn't going to be able to stop.

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I didn't understand that to be addiction.

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I just knew, michael, don't stay in this military because you're going to wind up in prison and so why don't you just get out?

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So I got out and luckily, because I was in the military, I got 10 points for the test for the post office.

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So I took the test for the post office and got a job with the US post office.

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So I got a job in Bridgeport, connecticut, with the post office, and that's about that.

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When I was in San Diego on the aircraft carrier, I met these people as an addict.

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You're always meeting other addicts.

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For some reason they just show up and they used to have these parties.

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So this guy said, oh, we have these parties, you want to come, you just got to bring $100.

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So this guy said oh, we have these parties where you want to come, you just got to bring $100.

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I said, okay, sure.

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So I get to the house and it was me, that guy and another guy and I said what kind of party is this and what it was?

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It was freebase.

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So everybody brought the $100.

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We got $300 worth of cocaine.

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They cooked it up and we smoked it and I liked that idea, because this is when Richard Pryor was smoking cocaine.

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Everybody in Hollywood was doing it and I felt like I was some big shot.

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I'm some Hollywood somebody who's now smoking cocaine.

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I was a Hollywood nobody and so I started smoking cocaine and I loved it.

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But every time the ship would go out, we would go out for so long it would just completely get out of my system.

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So I didn't understand that I was addicted to it, because you'd smoke for a weekend and then the ship would go out for 30 days or 80 days or whatever and we would come back in and every time we came back in I would find these guys and go to these parties.

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Eventually, like I told you, I got out of the military.

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I eventually got a job at the post office in Bridgeport and literally my first day at the job I was working 11 to 7, and I was smoking cocaine and I couldn't get myself out of the chair to get to work.

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So I was about an hour and a half late my first day of work.

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I made a big excuse because I had to drive an hour to get there and they seemed to understand blah, blah, blah and got away with it.

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So I had this job.

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I had this drug problem.

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Probably nine months a year into the job I went to the EAP.

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I need some help.

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He said we can get you at a rehab.

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He said it's a $500 deductible.

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I said you got to be kidding.

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I'm not going to pay $500 to go to a rehab.

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Find me a rehab that's free.

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And he said you can go to the VA, and so I decided to go to the VA hospital and that was in 1985.

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And in 1985, they had a policy at the VA hospital in West Haven is we trust our veterans.

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So that meant they didn't take urine, which meant for me as an addict that I got high.

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The whole 90 days I was in treatment and every time they asked me if I was getting high.

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I'd just tell them no and they had to believe me because of their policy.

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And when it was on the weekends, they would let you go home or do whatever you wanted on the weekend.

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You'd get weekend passes.

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So every weekend I would get high.

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Or at the end of the day, when I can get away, I would get high.

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I did that.

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I got back to the post office, started working again.

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The addiction just got worse and worse and I came up with the bright idea and I realized why I had addiction problem.

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I said, oh, I know why I have this problem.

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I make too much money.

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Oh, geez, that's interesting.

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That's an interesting dilemma to have, right yeah?

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I was making $27,000 or $28,000 a year.

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That was in 1985.

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I make too much money.

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So here's how I'll resolve this I'll quit the job.

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So I quit my job at the post office and then realized I had a drug problem.

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How am I going to get drugs?

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I don't have a job.

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This is how crazy my thinking was.

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Eventually I got a job as a janitor at the Hartford Civic Center.

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The Hartford Civic Center was owned by Aetna Insurance Company, so your insurance benefits started the day you got the job.

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Within a very short period of time working at the Civic Center, I just couldn't maintain the job and live because I was spending all of my money on getting high.

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And it got to a point where they had a Wendy's at the Civic Center and they would keep the bread behind a cave and I was about 158 pounds then.

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I mean, I'm 6'2", 158 pounds, was really thin and I would always spend my money on getting high and never would eat.

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Every time I said every time I was getting high, as soon as I get some money I'm going to get something to eat.

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Every time I got money I went back to get high.

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So I would go to the Wendy's and I would pull bread through the fence so the bread would all get all ripped up and but it was the only thing that I had to eat, that I had to eat.

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I was reduced to squeezing bread through a fence.

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I had been on the occasion.

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I would go in the garbage of some of the shops that I would clean.

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If they had what I would consider good garbage or something to eat that didn't look like it was too bad, I would eat it and just.

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I got to a place in my life where I don't know that I was an animal, but I was just a desperate individual, desperate to survive.

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I was not a violent addict.

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I didn't rob or steal from people.

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I robbed and stole from myself and that was just.

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I was just.

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I had gone from, at least personality-wise, this well-spoken, spoken, good-looking guy who at least pretended like they were doing well, could put up that front to literally a bum.

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I remember one day walking down the street and I had this white hoodie on and I passed the store and I could see my reflection and I looked at how dirty I was.

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I looked on how skinny I was and I was and I was horrified and I knew I needed to get some help.

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So luckily, like I told you, the Hartford Civic Center was owned by Aetna, so I did have insurance.

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So I got my insurance card.

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I called up the insurance company.

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They found a rehab and I was able to get myself into a 30-day rehab upstate New York.

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It was called Conifer Park and it was a relief that, wow, I got to, the bed was clean, they fed us.

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It was inspiring to be there.

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I met people there, I could talk to people.

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I learned stuff about myself.

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I learned stuff about me having a disease, that I wasn't like some failure or loser but once the substance got into my system I could not predict the outcome.

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I could not predict the outcome.

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It really helped me.

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But it was a 30-day program and I, if it was up to me, I would have extended, but they don't give you extensions there.

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So they asked me.

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They said, michael, you have an opportunity.

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We can send you to a long-term treatment program where you can go back to work.

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I will get you in a halfway house and an outpatient program.

00:20:05.826 --> 00:20:11.468
I said there's no question of where I'm going.

00:20:11.468 --> 00:20:25.946
I'm going long-term because there's no way I'm going back to some dead-end job being a janitor for the Hartford Civic Center and so let me see what I can do with this long-term program and see if they can help.

00:20:26.778 --> 00:20:32.366
They sent me to a long-term program which was called the therapeutic community and I got to tell you it was a nightmare.

00:20:32.366 --> 00:20:35.763
It was nothing like the 30-day program I was in.

00:20:35.763 --> 00:20:48.384
Everybody in that program, except for three other people, were from the Department of Correction and I would say the majority of them were there to beat being out of jail.

00:20:48.384 --> 00:20:50.363
They didn't necessarily want to be there.

00:20:50.363 --> 00:21:10.364
I wanted to be there but my peers didn't seem to want to be there, and the staff were what we used to call back then textbook junk, which are counselors that went to school for addiction or counseling, but really they weren't addicts themselves.

00:21:10.364 --> 00:21:14.385
They didn't really deeply understand what addiction was.

00:21:14.385 --> 00:21:17.844
So they're a pro.

00:21:17.844 --> 00:21:19.902
He didn't serve me.

00:21:19.902 --> 00:21:28.003
The other program had a mixture of people on the staff that were in recovery and weren't, but they understood addiction.

00:21:28.474 --> 00:21:35.468
This place was more a behavioral modification place and it was really tough for me.

00:21:35.468 --> 00:21:47.890
It wasn't tough for me Like I couldn't get through it, but it was like really you gotta be kidding, I'm listening to these counselors that didn't seem to know more than I knew.

00:21:47.890 --> 00:21:59.678
I actually felt like I knew more and they were my opinion, they were shaming and they were really ill-equipped for what they were doing.

00:21:59.678 --> 00:22:05.557
But I didn't have anywhere to go and I often would say, screw this, I'm out of here, I'm leaving.

00:22:05.557 --> 00:22:06.884
And I'd get to the door and I'd say, well, where am I going to go?

00:22:06.884 --> 00:22:08.132
And I often would say, screw this, I'm out of here, I'm leaving.

00:22:08.132 --> 00:22:09.958
And I'd get to the door and I'd say, well, where am I going to go?

00:22:09.958 --> 00:22:14.367
So I'd march myself right back in and I wasn't going anywhere.

00:22:15.134 --> 00:22:28.078
But the 30-day program that I was in, what they recommended when I went to the long-term program, along with going to the long-term program engaged in a 12-step fellowship, along with going to the long-term program engaged in a 12-step fellowship.

00:22:28.078 --> 00:22:37.255
So they were not open to a 12-step fellowship this other place, but they had to comply with it because that was the continuing care recommendation.

00:22:37.255 --> 00:22:41.541
So they told me I could go, but if I wanted to go I'd have to walk.

00:22:41.541 --> 00:22:57.967
So I would go three days a week and I'd do four or five miles to these meetings and over time I would get to know people who would pick me up and drop me off, and so that was my first exposure to a 12-step fellowship.

00:22:57.967 --> 00:23:00.483
So I completed the program after seven months.

00:23:01.556 --> 00:23:25.179
What I realized, that the program offered me, which I didn't realize when I was- in it that the program offered me which I didn't realize when I was in it was humility, because I was an arrogant, grandiose, thought I knew better than everybody else wanted to argue, everything was always right about everything, and that program offered me some humility, some much needed humility.

00:23:25.179 --> 00:23:27.306
I completed the program.

00:23:27.306 --> 00:23:36.586
I, over time, felt grateful for what I went through, because I didn't need any more education about addiction.

00:23:36.586 --> 00:23:44.749
What I needed was education about recovery, and that's what I got from the 12-step fellowship that I engaged in.

00:23:44.749 --> 00:23:59.483
I got a job telemarketing which I love because I have a great voice and people would like to hear me on the phone selling these products to them and they would always tell me how good I sounded on the phone.

00:23:59.483 --> 00:24:12.991
I used to sell this stuff called Omexin, which is this oil that men would rub in their hair balding men and it was pig fat, which is this oil that men would rub in their hair balding men and it was pig fat, and it was one of those infomercials that would come on TV and people would buy it.

00:24:12.991 --> 00:24:13.736
I don't think it worked.

00:24:13.736 --> 00:24:19.028
We also used to do this cream for women called Anushka, which was for cellulite.

00:24:19.028 --> 00:24:27.269
We also sold the Great Walk of China and the V-slicer that slices and dices, vegetables and things like that.

00:24:27.269 --> 00:24:31.824
Yeah, that was my first job and I got to tell you I loved it.

00:24:31.824 --> 00:24:33.441
I loved talking to people.

00:24:33.441 --> 00:24:36.044
I wound up talking to a lot of celebrities.

00:24:36.044 --> 00:24:38.502
I don't know if you remember Starsky and Hutch.

00:24:38.502 --> 00:24:48.743
There was a character called Huggy Bear on there and I talked to his mother on the phone about, I think it was, the Great Walker Channel or the V slicer, I can't remember which it was.

00:24:48.743 --> 00:24:49.926
So it was great to do that.

00:24:54.914 --> 00:24:58.315
But I had gotten about two years in recovery and I got a letter from the 30-day program and they said we have an internship program if you're interested in it.

00:24:58.315 --> 00:25:00.403
It's a 13-month internship program.

00:25:00.403 --> 00:25:06.028
We'll teach you about addiction and recovery process and helping people with addiction.

00:25:06.028 --> 00:25:09.400
So I said absolutely I'd love to be in the internship program.

00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:24.861
So I quit my job and I moved upstate New York and I got involved in this internship program, which was 13 months and it was seven hours on the unit and two hours every morning classroom.

00:25:24.861 --> 00:25:38.654
And so I did that and halfway through it they said we're running out of money, we're not going to be able to do the 13 months, but what we can do is jam all the education into nine months and so if you guys are up for it, we can get this done in nine months.

00:25:38.654 --> 00:25:44.347
So I completed the internship program over nine months and I think it was.

00:25:44.347 --> 00:26:08.855
I got 500 hours worth of education in that nine months and then I don't know 2000 hours of paid work, of a work experience, because I also got a part-time job on the adolescent unit and I needed those hours of education and the hours of work experience to sit for the exam in the state of New York.

00:26:08.855 --> 00:26:11.020
But I was minus a few hours.

00:26:11.141 --> 00:26:21.509
So when I completed the internship I got a job at a therapeutic community called Samaritan Village in Manhattan and completed the work experience hours.

00:26:21.509 --> 00:26:23.719
I submitted them to the state of New York.

00:26:23.719 --> 00:26:28.409
I got certified as an addiction counselor in the state of New York.

00:26:28.409 --> 00:26:35.200
I kept that job at the therapeutic community for a year and then I switched to an intensive outpatient program.

00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:37.067
I was the first person they hired.

00:26:37.528 --> 00:27:02.463
They opened up it was called InterCare LTD and I can remember the first client I had was a lawyer who had an addiction problem to cocaine and we did an intensive outpatient program which was three days a week, three hours a day with an individual and I sat with this one guy for three hours three days a week, with one individual.

00:27:02.463 --> 00:27:10.757
For seven hours a week I was with this one guy until we got our second and third, fourth and fifth patient.

00:27:10.757 --> 00:27:16.518
So for the first two and a half three weeks I was with this guy like seven hours a week.

00:27:16.518 --> 00:27:43.778
On some level it was torture to sit with one person that long, but it gave me an opportunity to learn a little bit about myself, learn about patience, learn about tolerance, develop some skill, practice, some lectures with this guy and also work on some insecurities, because now I'm the counselor for a lawyer Boy.

00:27:43.778 --> 00:27:46.721
The lawyer should be counseling me on some level.

00:27:47.781 --> 00:27:57.710
And working at InterCare was great for me because I eventually started working, did work for the lawyer's assistance program, so I worked with all the impaired attorneys.

00:27:57.710 --> 00:27:59.991
I worked with the impaired physicians.

00:27:59.991 --> 00:28:08.816
Back in the 90s there were soap operas, so I worked with all the people from One Life to Live and all my children who had addiction problems.

00:28:08.816 --> 00:28:13.846
So it was fun because you would see them on TV and then they'd be in your office.

00:28:13.846 --> 00:28:25.000
So there was a lot of things that I learned because I was working with a group of people who, on some level.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:26.443
I wasn't a part of that group.

00:28:26.505 --> 00:28:29.958
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an act, I don't know.

00:28:29.958 --> 00:28:32.824
I was just some regular guy with a high school diploma.

00:28:32.824 --> 00:28:39.006
Most people over time would call me doctor because they assumed I was a doctor because of the way that I sounded.

00:28:39.006 --> 00:28:40.256
But I would always correct.

00:28:40.256 --> 00:28:43.260
I said I'm not a doctor, I'm a certified addiction counselor.

00:28:43.922 --> 00:28:55.544
So I started to develop a level of pride around my ability to be successful without the degree, which really just talks about who I am as a person.

00:28:55.544 --> 00:28:59.538
And one breath you can say, oh Michael, you're a special person.

00:28:59.538 --> 00:29:01.806
But in another breath I'm not that special, I'm just.

00:29:01.806 --> 00:29:06.167
I just have a skill set that works for the work that I do.

00:29:06.167 --> 00:29:09.459
I have a personality and a way of being that fits in that.

00:29:09.459 --> 00:29:11.847
You couldn't get me to do accounting.

00:29:11.847 --> 00:29:19.545
I'd never be an astronaut, but I can certainly be a counselor and a coach and do really well at it.

00:29:20.126 --> 00:29:21.548
So I did that for a while.

00:29:21.548 --> 00:29:24.059
Eventually I left Intercare.

00:29:24.059 --> 00:29:25.603
I was there for seven or eight years.

00:29:25.603 --> 00:29:38.261
I moved out to Texas for a year and then got recruited into a job here in Florida and worked for them for 14 years and with them I was a counselor.

00:29:38.261 --> 00:29:45.219
I also did family counseling and then I became the clinical director of their high-end program.

00:29:45.219 --> 00:29:51.856
Those are for individuals with high net worth and value.

00:29:51.856 --> 00:30:13.934
But in between that year seven, I left that job and packed up my things, sold my house, sold my car and I moved to Egypt and I became an addiction counselor, working with individuals and families in Egypt, and I started a 12-step fellowship the only 12-step fellowship that was in English in Egypt.

00:30:15.097 --> 00:30:15.920
That was my question.

00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:18.244
I was going to ask you about the language.

00:30:18.244 --> 00:30:27.478
You just decided to get up and move to Egypt and then all of a sudden, and I was like, how do you learn Farsi or Arabic while you're out there?

00:30:27.838 --> 00:30:35.390
There were a lot of expats that there was one 12 step fellowship there already, but I wasn't a part of that.

00:30:35.390 --> 00:30:39.787
That wasn't my thing, but I wanted to bring the one that I was in there.

00:30:39.787 --> 00:31:04.407
They already had it, but it was all in Arabic and so I would go to the Arabic meetings and they would always have me speak because I had back then I had 16 years and they didn't know anybody with more than a year, and so I was a big shot out there sharing my story, but I still couldn't fully engage in the process because I didn't speak Arabic.

00:31:04.407 --> 00:31:06.894
So there were a lot of Egyptians who did speak English.

00:31:06.894 --> 00:31:14.998
So I developed relationships, friendships with them around recovery, but the bigger part was this one meeting.

00:31:14.998 --> 00:31:17.403
So I stayed in Egypt for about a year.

00:31:17.403 --> 00:31:26.905
I came back to the job and was back at the job for another six or seven years and then that relationship ended with me in that job and I started a private practice.

00:31:27.708 --> 00:31:40.068
So in about 2013, I started a private practice, I think in 2011, I went to the University of Miami and took their course, their year-long course in professional coaching.

00:31:40.068 --> 00:31:44.219
So I did that certification course, professional coaching.

00:31:44.219 --> 00:31:45.662
I was an addiction counselor.

00:31:45.662 --> 00:32:04.108
I got certified in the intervention and then I got another certification in what they call structured family recovery, where I work with individuals and their families for over a year and everyone in the process gets in the recovery process, not just the person with the addiction problem.

00:32:04.108 --> 00:32:14.068
So mom, dad, sister, brother, wife, husband all have to engage in their own personal recovery in order to be a part of this session.

00:32:14.068 --> 00:32:23.157
So I work with about six to eight families per week doing that, and so that's what I've been doing Throughout the time.

00:32:23.898 --> 00:32:27.164
I have engaged in my own personal recovery.

00:32:27.164 --> 00:32:30.396
So my personal recovery means that I go to meetings.

00:32:30.396 --> 00:32:32.122
I have a sponsor.

00:32:32.122 --> 00:32:34.528
I've helped other people in recovery.

00:32:34.528 --> 00:32:39.865
I've gone to retreat that are non-12-step based.

00:32:39.865 --> 00:32:41.329
Some are 12-step based.

00:32:41.329 --> 00:32:43.999
One of them that I went to was a place called Onsite.

00:32:43.999 --> 00:32:45.483
I did a week there.

00:32:45.483 --> 00:32:53.981
I also did this place called the Hoffman Institute in California and I got to tell you that place was life-changing.

00:32:53.981 --> 00:32:59.717
It was just a great experience Throughout my recovery for me.

00:33:00.219 --> 00:33:08.911
If recovery for me was going to the meetings and reading their literature, I would have gotten out of that a long time ago.

00:33:08.911 --> 00:33:12.080
That would have just it would have just been too boring for me.

00:33:12.080 --> 00:33:20.728
But for recovery for me was how do you get your life together, get clean, get into recovery and start living your life?

00:33:20.728 --> 00:33:25.102
My life prior to getting into recovery was daydreaming.

00:33:25.102 --> 00:33:27.266
I would daydream about stuff.

00:33:27.666 --> 00:33:42.608
I had this job in Intercare in New York and I was reading at GQ magazine and this guy went to this primitive living course and lived in the desert in Utah and the only goal was food, water and shelter.

00:33:42.608 --> 00:33:51.340
And I read that and I just got into a big daydream about that and I was talking to my boss and I said hey, bob, look at this guy, he went to the desert and he did this.

00:33:51.340 --> 00:33:54.243
And the other he says, oh, that sounds pretty neat, why don't you do it?

00:33:54.243 --> 00:33:57.579
And I said I don't know, I never thought about doing it.

00:33:57.579 --> 00:34:07.948
So I found the phone number there and I did my first primitive living course and it was living in the desert of Utah.

00:34:07.948 --> 00:34:10.490
The only goal was food, water and shelter.

00:34:10.490 --> 00:34:17.641
And how do you survive out there?

00:34:17.641 --> 00:34:22.677
And then a year later I did another one and I went to the mountains of Mexico and stayed with the Terramaharan Indians, and those are the Mexican Indians that run barefoot.

00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:30.559
Oh, my God, you just, oh you totally just segued into my life, you just totally segued right into where I am, because I'm an endurance coach.

00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:40.750
So when you talk about the tiramahua uh indians and their their ability to run hundreds of hundreds of miles a week on barefoot.

00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:41.592
Yeah, you're talking about you.

00:34:41.592 --> 00:34:42.998
So you were in gold canyon?

00:34:42.998 --> 00:34:44.400
Yeah, I was in.

00:34:44.420 --> 00:34:51.782
I don't know, I went to Chihuahua, mexico that's where I flew into and then I went up in the mountains and, yeah, and I stayed with them.

00:34:51.782 --> 00:35:00.295
It was, it was a great experience, but I got to tell you I had to sleep on a cave floor and I've never slept on anything so hard in my life.

00:35:00.295 --> 00:35:03.760
It was hard and it was cold, but it was great.

00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:07.585
And so those are the things that I would.

00:35:07.585 --> 00:35:10.090
I went to Cuba in the early 90s.

00:35:10.090 --> 00:35:17.360
You weren't supposed to go there, but I went there anyway because I like to travel and I like adventure, so that was adventure for me.

00:35:18.001 --> 00:35:20.648
In my recovery, I've been on four different safaris.

00:35:20.648 --> 00:35:23.018
I've gone gorilla trekking.

00:35:23.018 --> 00:35:26.527
Two years ago, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

00:35:26.527 --> 00:35:34.027
About 10 years ago, I ran an ultra marathon 155 miles through the Sahara Desert.

00:35:34.027 --> 00:35:37.536
It was a marathon a day for four days and 58 miles on the fifth day.

00:35:37.536 --> 00:35:53.168
I climbed an active volcano last year and I, just when I was a kid, I would watch the National Geographic, I would watch all these nature shows and I would see all of this stuff that I wanted to do.

00:35:53.168 --> 00:35:57.405
Listen, I've been to the big city before and I know what a nice hotel is like.

00:35:57.405 --> 00:36:01.806
Have you ever been brushed up against by a gorilla.

00:36:04.476 --> 00:36:13.809
No, I would like to know what that feels like I fed wild hyenas in Harara in Ethiopia.

00:36:14.329 --> 00:36:19.847
Wow, and this is what my recovery is about.

00:36:19.847 --> 00:36:23.525
I did CrossFit for about I don't know 9, 14 years.

00:36:23.525 --> 00:36:29.840
I work out regularly, I run, I meditate three times a day.

00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:34.539
Food is difficult for me to stay on a healthy diet.

00:36:34.539 --> 00:36:40.958
I've tried vegan, I've tried vegetarian, I've tried this, that and the other Food is a tough one for me.

00:36:40.958 --> 00:36:44.101
But in my recovery I've always been in shape.

00:36:44.101 --> 00:36:53.835
But there was one point that I got really heavy and I got up to about 285 pounds and I said, boy, this is way too close to 300.

00:36:53.835 --> 00:37:00.208
I lost 100 pounds and got myself down to 180, 192.

00:37:00.208 --> 00:37:02.483
And I've been that way now for the past five years.

00:37:03.534 --> 00:37:07.065
So you know, recovery for me is about an adventure.

00:37:07.065 --> 00:37:10.565
It's more than just going to the meetings.

00:37:10.565 --> 00:37:12.201
I'm a beekeeper.

00:37:12.201 --> 00:37:15.141
I have 100, 200,000 bees in my backyard.

00:37:15.141 --> 00:37:28.175
I'd stay fit and I think what my true goal in life is to help others and I've done it professionally and I've gotten paid for it.

00:37:28.175 --> 00:37:35.958
And it doesn't feel like work because it seems like it's something that comes natural to me.

00:37:35.958 --> 00:37:38.552
It's something that I really want to do.

00:37:38.552 --> 00:38:02.117
But over the past couple of years I've gotten to a place where I want to do this, but I want to do it in a different way, that you know, showing up to my office, scheduling appointments and kind of marketing myself as this coach to help people, I don't know, it just isn't working for me anymore.

00:38:02.117 --> 00:38:15.331
I want to do something different, and I was in Ethiopia last July and I was waiting for a group to come tour with me and they didn't show up.

00:38:15.465 --> 00:38:17.364
So it was just going to be me and my tour guide.

00:38:17.364 --> 00:38:30.655
So we waited in this village in the Afar region of Ethiopia, which is the hottest place on earth, the Afar region and the head of the village took me on a tour of the village.

00:38:30.655 --> 00:38:38.681
We saw his school, which was a tent school, and he said it had gotten blown over by a dust storm and everything was lost.

00:38:38.681 --> 00:38:44.849
I said, oh wow, maybe when I come back to Ethiopia I'll bring you some school supplies.

00:38:44.849 --> 00:38:47.099
So this was in July of 2023.

00:38:47.099 --> 00:38:50.273
And I got to tell you in September.

00:38:50.293 --> 00:38:51.385
I was thinking I want to go back to Ethiopia.

00:38:51.385 --> 00:38:53.173
I saw my, I looked at my pictures.

00:38:53.173 --> 00:38:59.146
I got to get back to Ethiopia and I said, oh boy, if I go back to Ethiopia, then I got to get this guy a bunch of stuff.

00:38:59.146 --> 00:39:01.108
I told him I was going to get a school supply.

00:39:01.108 --> 00:39:04.452
He wouldn't know if I was ever back in Ethiopia.

00:39:04.452 --> 00:39:05.213
He wouldn't know it.

00:39:05.213 --> 00:39:08.757
But I'm feeling like, oh God, if I told him I would do it.

00:39:08.757 --> 00:39:09.938
So now I got to do it.

00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:12.681
In October I said let me do a fundraiser.

00:39:12.681 --> 00:39:16.628
I'm going to raise $1,800 and get them some school supplies.

00:39:16.628 --> 00:39:22.557
So I put it out there and within about three hours I had raised $3,000.

00:39:22.557 --> 00:39:24.867
Oh, fantastic, I got to tell you.

00:39:24.867 --> 00:39:27.195
Within a week I raised $13,000.

00:39:27.195 --> 00:39:32.045
And I said, boy, I can't put $13,000 worth of school supplies.

00:39:32.045 --> 00:39:45.018
So I applied for a 501C and, miraculously, in two weeks I got approval from the IRS and within a month of my original fundraising I had raised $30,000.

00:39:45.766 --> 00:39:47.492
So I have a 501c now.

00:39:47.492 --> 00:39:49.452

The Transformative Journey of an Addiction Healer: From Navy Struggles to Empowering Philanthropy with Michael Herbert

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From Addiction to Advocacy: The Transformative Journey of Michael Herbert