One Last Hit #15 w/ Dave S | Dead on Arrival at 15, Clean 17 Years, Then He Blew It All Up

Dave S. was pronounced dead on arrival at 15. By 16 he was in a 1980 "attack therapy" rehab — diapers on heads, break-them-down tactics — and sitting in his first 12-step meeting next to his dad. He stayed clean for 17 years. Then came the wife, the kids, the business… and the idea that he was cured. One "social" smoke later, the disease that had been doing pushups for 17 years took the next 9 years of his life: benzos, opiates, a decade on subs, legal trouble, and losing his house, his marriage, and nearly himself.

Twelve and a half years ago, Dave walked into a meeting high, planning to borrow money — and his old friends trapped him into detox instead. Since then: 144 pounds lost, a bipolar diagnosis that finally explained the self-medicating, peace made with the mother he'd hated his whole life (he was with her the day she passed), a weekly prison meeting commitment in PA, and Sober Transport — driving people to treatment with his rescue dog Henry riding shotgun. Today he builds AI answering and text-message re-engagement tools that help treatment centers reach the people everyone else gave up on.

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Meet Dave S
6:26 Dead on Arrival at 15
10:43 Seventeen Years Clean, Then Relapse
15:59 Benzos, Subs, Rock Bottom
22:55 Sober Transport and Henry
28:37 Bipolar and Self-Medicating
31:51 Weekly Prison Meeting Service
37:25 AI for Treatment Center Admissions

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Most people in recovery never tell the full story. This show does.


I'm Austin Rampt the author of One Last Hit: The Remarkable True Story of an Addict's Journey to Find Himself. 

I grew up in Tampa, spent a decade chasing drugs through eight different rehabs, and eventually fled the country. 

I ended up in Mexico surrounded by members of the Sinaloa Cartel, hit the kind of bottom most 

people don't walk away from, and somehow made it back.

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what's happening ladies and gentlemen my

name is austin and welcome to the one

last hit podcast and joining me today mr

dave s dave what is up buddy i'm

i'm excited to get into your story man

how you doing i'm doing great any better

i i don't know i'd probably be yeah

I really shouldn't joke about that so

early because it comes to reality later.

But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I know you've got kind of a

unique recovery story.

And then we're going to chat a little

bit about the unique recovery,

let's say adjacent businesses that you

have.

But I'm curious.

Let's I mean,

let's start from let's start from the

beginning, Dave.

Like what was what was growing up like

a long time ago?

But I could tell you this,

that I knew I was different right from

the jump.

There's no doubt in my mind when I

was at a young age that I didn't

know that this life of addiction was ahead

of me.

The only thing I didn't know is that

a great life would come out of the

ashes of that life.

Not one, not two, but three times.

Uh, so, you know, I knew it,

I felt it, um, you know,

and I'm like, you know,

living a life now that I just,

you know,

I have to ask myself sometimes with

recovery, like,

Do we just say that about our lives

because we started so far down, right?

And now we're at even?

Or is our life really better?

But I say about that,

and I know it's a little ahead,

but just the stuff I've been going through

in the last few weeks,

that the step work that I've done and

that I continually do every day, practice,

ten, eleven, and twelve,

that I have

been able to identify things from the era

that we're talking about right now.

Like things that go back to like when

I was seven years old or eight years

old that never came out until step work,

you know, all the psychiatrists,

everything.

So, yeah.

So I could start there if you want.

That's a pretty good buildup.

I would think to get there.

Yeah.

I mean, tell me about childhood.

What,

what did it feel like to be little

Dave?

Yeah.

So little Dave was, um,

addicted to first thing was fantasy,

right?

Al Pacino, Scarface, you know,

I'm going to be Tony Montana.

Every, I guess, kid's dream at my age,

you know,

we had a pretty screwed up way.

Although that was a little later,

but you know, the mafia movies,

that was my thing.

Music, like listening to music back then,

it was record players playing the same

song time after time again.

And that's been the pattern, right?

When I sum up my story, I say,

look,

it started there and didn't stop until I

was in recovery.

So, you know,

I was bad in school as you know,

back then you were good or you were

bad.

Right.

You're right.

There aren't any kids in the middle.

You're a good kid or bad kid.

But I noticed through a young age,

you can get more attention as a bad

kid than you could as a good kid.

Even though that attention was negative.

I crave the attention, you know,

youngest of four.

My brothers, older brothers,

two older brothers and an old sister,

my older brother started that deal in weed

back then.

I know I sound like I'm a hundred,

but back then I deal in weed was

a thing, right?

You didn't go to the store, right?

Thank God for that, for me.

But yeah, so dealing weed, you know,

loving that, you know,

watching that whole thing pop up.

And, you know, when I started, you know,

my first disease,

first part of the disease I acted out

on it, even before dope, was gambling,

right?

I was a little kid.

We were cutting school every day playing

cards, right?

And the thing is, Austin,

that never changed, right, for me.

That whole thing of last card, keep going,

let's not stop.

I've never escaped that.

I didn't know then.

But anyway, so

When I smoked weed,

it was cool back then.

It was different.

You hid in the woods.

Right.

You left.

You ate ice cream.

And I was home because I wasn't dealing

with the pain anymore.

Right.

I wasn't dealing with the feeling

different anymore.

And I was funny because I was just

getting into this this week with my

sponsor and a friend of mine this week.

And my sister is also in recovery.

But that when I we grew up like.

uh in a middle-class neighborhood but we

were the low end of the middle class

you know there's the low end the high

end and the medium and the uh high

end we're at the low end so back

then the defects starting to brew up you

know and the resentment starting to brew

up that you know everybody's got more than

me because back then i thought families

were perfect

Like if you had money, right,

and you're you like got a car at

sixteen,

I thought that your family was perfect,

that everything's good.

Like when kids when later on in life,

when kids started to really start to,

you know, develop it.

all get, you know, recovery, whatever you,

and found out that these kids had problems

too.

I was shocked.

Right.

So anyway, so, so, so, so, so, so,

so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,

so, so, so, so, so, so,

You know, like really anything,

smoking a lot of weed,

doing a lot of pills, you know,

whatever was around at the time.

I've always been able to adapt to the

time with the drugs.

And but anyway, it's sixteen at fifteen.

I OD'd.

I was dead on arrival.

I was fifteen.

I remember my dad stood on top of

me and saying, you know,

just watch this kid.

Now, my kids are thirty three and thirty.

Right.

I can't imagine what it would be like

to spit in your fifteen-year-old.

But anyway,

I vowed at night to never get high

again.

And I probably wouldn't have been invited

on this podcast if that stayed true.

So that was my first bow looking back

to with powerlessness, right?

Don't want to get high.

Don't want to do it.

It's bad.

All right.

Friday, that's Friday.

Monday, that's your back, right?

Nothing changed.

And that, again, I keep saying it,

but all those patterns that I'm telling

you about,

they've never changed until I was able to

get into recovery.

This is the backstory of not just the

substance, right?

I had mental health issues.

I was a mess.

Right.

And there was nowhere.

You know, my parents love me,

but they were just parents, man.

They were just people like you and me

are now.

Right.

They're just people.

They only dealt with the information they

got.

Right.

They didn't have the information that like

we seem to know now.

Right.

But anyway, so at sixteen,

I hit the rehab for the first time.

Nine month program.

what was called attack therapy back then.

So this is nineteen eighty.

Right.

So in nineteen eighty,

they believe the theory was that we could

take these kids that were drug addicts,

young kids like me,

And we can change them by breaking them

down and building them up.

And then one day they'd be able to

socially drink.

I only tell you that because this is

forty six years later.

Right.

And look how far it's come.

You know, look,

look what we know now that we had

no idea, you know.

So anyway,

so I leave the rehab in three months.

I'm like, this isn't for me.

You know, if you're, if you haven't,

if you act like a baby,

you put a diaper on your head or

you wear a diaper, you know,

like really humiliating kind of stuff

that, you know, attack therapy, they,

they don't, they don't do it anymore.

Luckily.

Wow.

That sounds incredible.

Terrible.

You can't beat the dope galvanatic,

you know?

Right.

So anyway,

So I leave that rehab.

Nineteen eighty.

My father takes me to my first twelve

step meeting and I'm sixteen.

Right.

And nobody's sixteen for miles.

Right.

Sixteen year old kids are out at the

parties getting high with other kids.

I'm sixteen.

And I go with my dad.

And these guys had tattoos.

They shot open their neck,

which I didn't even know you could do.

Right.

And they and then they also went to

prison.

All cool things for a sixteen year old.

And they were old guys.

They were like twenty.

When you're sixteen, twenty is a big deal.

Right.

So anyway.

So I have I got over the,

you know, the.

the awe of the whole thing.

And I got into recovery and I started

back, you know,

the fellowship I was in in nineteen eighty

was there,

but we were still using the original

fellowships big book because we did

literature, you know,

all stuff that's evolved over the years.

But so we all again,

like I said about my parents,

like

we only got the best information that we

could get at the time because nobody,

you know, in our fellowship,

nobody had gone, you know,

if a guy had seven years,

It's like a guy having ninety seven years

now.

Right.

Not you don't see it.

Right.

So.

So anyway,

so I stay clean for seventeen years.

And just like I told you earlier,

one day I wife, kids, business.

you know you can at that time in

my mind i could be cured same pattern

stop making meetings stop listening to

people isolation work to twelve steps

backwards everything's negative

everything's a fight i'm miserable so

with that recipe, right?

How far am I away from getting high?

So the idea was, and to be honest,

it sounded good at the time that those

guys spilled more dope than I did.

And I was too young and all the

shit that you want to hear that you

hear when you're young, right?

And impressionable, right?

I thought to myself, Hey,

my wife's smoking pot.

Why can't I?

And there it was again,

Great plane.

Big lie.

Socially.

Yeah.

Socially.

No problem.

All good.

What could be wrong?

I'm having fun.

It's the first night.

Right.

Three days later, I was, you know,

terrible.

It was just they told me rehab,

which I didn't believe at the time,

which I believe to be which I practiced.

Right.

What's happened to me was your disease

does pushups.

Right.

waits for you.

Right.

And then when it's right.

So sixteen thirty three,

it was like I never stopped for a

day.

Right.

All that time,

all that stuff was was was like it

never happened.

I didn't want to see you if you

were in a twelve step fellowship.

Right.

That's not that's the last thing I want

to do.

So anyway, so, you know,

so I have issues with the law.

I'm getting high.

go to the lawyer.

This is after like four or five years.

The lawyer says, look,

the prison actually had a drug program.

It was a federal prison,

but it had a drug program.

But they said, look,

if you if you go to

if you go to, uh,

if you get help with, um, you know,

you say you have a drug problem, we'll,

we'll help you.

Right.

Uh, it'll help you,

whatever the program was.

Um, so anyway, so what happened was, um,

I got, uh,

i was in the bathroom you know certain

moments in your life you'll never forget i

was and i'm thinking i'm like i'm in

the bathroom and i'm wearing long sleeves

right it's july i'm itching my nose is

bleeding i'm sweating and really people

laugh at this kind of stuff but i

would have looked you in the face and

been shocked if you didn't believe this at

the time and that was

How am I going to convince anybody that

I need help?

You know, like, we're the last to know,

right, in this scenario.

So anyway, so, you know, I...

So I got clean again.

This is, you know, maybe thirty,

thirty nine years old.

And, you know,

I came back with this attitude and

everybody that goes to meetings regularly

knows this guy.

And I was that guy.

And that guy was, oh, yeah, man,

I could, you know,

I had sixty days and I could quote

the ninth step.

And I had this much time and I

had that much time.

And I watched Johnny get clean and Mary

and Tom.

You know, I'm so cool, you know, because.

I was focusing on the...

I wasn't focusing on the similarities.

I was focusing on the differences.

And I wanted to fit in.

And I wanted to feel liked.

And I wanted to get some self-respect.

Looking back,

I realized that the self-respect was just

coming back.

That's all people cared about, right?

So anyway...

i get clean have issues do my get

even you know stay away for a bit

you know go away for a bit and

uh i get uh i come back off

probation and i say uh you know um

i uh i'm tired of being told what

to do by this one by that one

but i'm free now right so

I have this idea and I don't even

have to tell you what the idea is.

You got the gist of it now, right?

You know, it's going to happen, right?

I'm not telling you to, you know,

so you fill in the blanks.

I know it was going to happen too.

In that moment,

I have been here before this song had

played out badly, like not badly,

like devastating.

So I just took the next nine years

in my life and I just blew it

up, you know,

what were you using during that time i

know you had mentioned it sounded like you

had mentioned opiates maybe you went to

heroin i did benzos again um i did

benzos again and i was doing uh opiates

uh you know uh pills uh but the

last ten years i was on subs okay

so uh i was on subs with benzos

Oh, yeah.

Man, those subs after a while,

they don't even get you high.

It's just like you're you're screaming at

the, you know, pissing in the wind.

Look, I learned a while ago,

like everybody's got their own path.

I can tell you, though,

out of my experience,

not as an expert or anything,

just as somebody that lived,

that path didn't work for me.

It could work for you,

it could work for another guy,

but it's not for me.

Not me.

Yeah, I know.

I've done the research, right?

I know that I could do a whole

paper on that.

I know.

Mm-hmm.

that that doesn't work so i blew

everything up badly like you know like

this like everything else is what is going

to happen when you put a guy that's

been in and out of uh recovery for

the last at that point thirty five forty

years out high again so one day

i have this this is actually a good

idea i know you're expecting a lot of

poor choices this is actually a good idea

i'm just sitting in my office in my

house about to lose it right the house

is ready to go and uh i uh

my wife's gone my ex-wife is gone my

kids are gone right i'm just laying in

bed every day depressed with my dog and

uh

And what happens is I, it's just another,

sorry, I was just talking about this.

It's just another shitty day, right?

It's not like it's, you know,

like I've been at bottom or, you know,

like it wasn't like bottom.

It was just like, no,

now what happened is God did for me

what I couldn't do for myself, right?

That's exactly what happened to me, right?

So I call my friend.

He's like, look, come to the meeting.

And I'm like,

an idiot.

I don't know.

I haven't seen my friend.

Maybe I could borrow money, whatever,

you know, whatever the reason is,

it wasn't to get recovery.

So I went high.

I sat in the back and they trapped

me.

All these old guys that I was friends

with.

I love it when they do that.

That was bad.

Well, for me at the time, but anyway,

so they're like,

you need to go to detox.

And I'm like,

I can't go.

You know,

when you have to do something to help

yourself,

you get so busy with shit in your

life.

Like I'm sitting around all day.

My business is going staring at the walls

and watching YouTube.

Right.

And I don't have time now.

My schedule is right.

So I really didn't want to bring the

problem out and expose it,

which was the worst thing for the disease

is to bring it out.

So I go to detox and for five

days.

twenty one days later they let me out

every day i'm going up to the door

it's a day no get back because i

was suicidal also at the time so they're

like yo you gotta stay so you know

i got out went to me but this

time it was different than the last time

i came back this time i was grateful

for the day and when people used to

come to me and they you know i've

been around i had been around a long

time like you know what to do no

you

i don't know what to do if you're

new and anybody out there that's new

there's no like you have to do anything

but i'll just give a suggestion now and

that is just the right new people not

the people that are borderline you know

people with maybe six months nine that you

can hang out with my friends that had

thirty and forty years at the time

They already had a lot, you know,

like they,

they could go a couple of times a

week.

I needed nine hundred meetings in ninety

days, not ninety.

A friend of mine starts paying me, right?

He's paying me.

Guy I did business with years ago.

Look,

you just take care of yourself again.

How'd that happen?

I went back.

Oh, yeah.

I forgot when I got out.

I went back to treatment for like two

weeks.

And, you know, it was like a.

weird because sixteen treatment and then

fifty but it's never over it's never over

it's only over when you're dead you know

and uh so i went in and you

know went to treatment got out went to

meetings stayed clean five months clean i

get into a relationship two weeks later i

move in

Now that's another one.

What could possibly go wrong there?

That was true love.

You know, like, how could that mess up?

She had a full year.

So how could that, you know, a year,

you know, she was probably perfect.

But, you know, it was toxic.

And that was the drug for a while.

You know, like we use,

I use other things sometimes when I don't

understand what addiction is.

when I think it's just this or that,

and I don't understand it's anything that

makes me feel good for less than,

more than a minute, right?

That I'll get addicted to, right?

So anyway, so that was that.

Two years clean, or three years clean,

I got weight loss surgery,

lost the hundred and forty-four pounds,

did it without medications.

Now this is my other disclaimer.

I don't tell people what to do.

What you do is between you and your

doctor,

And your sponsor,

whoever you want to do it.

It ain't me.

I tried to be a doctor.

I've hustled doctors,

but I'm not a doctor.

Right.

That's my stick.

Right.

That's how I am.

So anyway, so, you know,

I got clean weight loss surgery, you know,

because food was I was four hundred

pounds.

Food was just, you know, food was rough,

too, you know.

So anyway, so that was, you know, like.

you know,

things that great things have happened to

me.

So just get into this real quick about

something I started before I even did this

that I don't do anymore,

but it's a pretty cool thing that I

was doing.

So, you know, when you get clean,

you're not like recruited by General

Motors or, well, they're not even,

you know,

Apple and Microsoft aren't calling, right?

Oh man, let me have this guy out,

he's clean.

You know, it's like, you know,

I was driving Uber.

That's the job, right?

But driving,

doing all these rides and taking people

like I'm in Philadelphia.

So we would take people to Kensington,

right, which is our big like drug place,

world famous.

Right.

And I would also take people to treatment.

Right.

And I thought to myself, well,

I'm driving here.

What if somebody is sick and ODing and

I don't have Narcan?

What's going to happen?

So I started a business called Sober

Transport.

So I got certified to be a certified

recovery specialist here in PA.

Went through the course and I got

certified to do interventions.

So it was kind of like the last

minute of it.

So what happened was I would grab,

go to rehabs would call me.

I would go to somebody's house and I

would get them.

That's the hardest ride, right?

from the house to the car.

And it was tough in the beginning.

But then I got a five-year-old rescue dog,

Henry, who's over there chewing right now,

who used to come in the car with

me.

And then it was cake.

Everybody wanted to come in the car.

With meth people,

I never really brought him that much.

I wasn't really sure.

Maybe he would be eaten.

I don't know what would have happened with

him.

a little straight it's a little tough on

that demographic right but anyway it was

great there articles about us in the paper

and then if you remember in two thousand

when covid hit for treatment especially

there was no nobody knew what to do

so it was all like it was all

like uh people like what if i brought

austin there and he has covid right what's

going to happen like

you know nobody knew nobody knew yeah yeah

so i shut it down but what i

started to do at that point is i

started to work with admissions people

right and i started to see how overworked

they were and had no idea what that

would happen for my life like everything

else that's good that i don't think of

that have you know that the path is

right for me right um so you know

later on but

I had hated my mother my whole life.

Like everything that was wrong with me was

her fault.

Drugs, you know, even though, you know,

that was the last thing she probably

wanted from me.

Didn't talk to her.

Got in the step where starting to write

my step saying, no,

you can't put her down.

You know that.

I mean, I put her down.

Right.

Again, miracle.

Right.

What happens is not the miracle.

She got really sick,

but I'm out of work or doing something

like part time, whatever.

And she's real sick.

And for the last four years,

I was with her, you know,

a few times to be able to.

Overcome that hatred is, you know,

like that resentment.

And the problem was me,

like just like relationships to women.

Don't know each other.

Never met.

Complain about the same things.

The common denominator is me as much as

I don't want to believe it.

But anyway, so back to my mother,

you know,

so I was able to find the love

for my mother that I never knew I

could do that.

I thought I would die with hate.

You know what I mean?

I never thought that could happen.

But again, God, for me,

I can't do for myself.

So.

my you know what i learned then just

quickly about step work is we do the

right on the eighth step right and we

hope that uh and we hard as it

is it says in my literature to not

think about the ninth step right but

nobody i think that's the hardest thing in

the step now think about it oh my

god no way so anyway so i go

in and i go to my um so

uh it just happened

The world, you know,

the universe came together and here we

are.

Right.

She passed.

I was with her the day she passed.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's just a gift of recovery, man.

You know what I mean?

It's I would love to come on here

and say how many great things I did.

But you know what?

These things happen to me because I showed

up and I I made a decision twelve

and a half years ago to stay alive.

To live,

even though that wasn't the plan either.

Right.

So even with my best,

even with my worst ideas, you know,

if you do the right thing,

it works out.

man oh man i i you know as

you're talking i'm just thinking man i see

god all over your story bro all sorts

and and it's so relatable on so many

levels to me i had i didn't have

seventeen i had seven years and but

married kids business you know the gifts

that we i say sobriety you know a

fellowship i mean uh the gifts that that

you know sobriety gave me took me away

from the thing that gave me sobriety right

and i stopped being honest i stopped

connecting stopped calling my sponsor

hired a bunch of my sponsees to work

for me with, you know, all that shit.

And, and dude, man, I crashed and burnt.

And just like you said, right,

I first got sober when I was twenty

two and this relapse happened when I was

thirty one.

A good night at twenty two is maybe

like two hundred bucks.

Right.

Crack was my thing.

I smoked a lot.

But but at thirty one, you know,

I had resources now.

Boy,

I was going to go burn my life

to the ground in the way I always

dreamed of it.

Right.

Yeah.

What a pleasure.

Yeah.

A lifelong bucket list kind of item at

a young age.

Right.

You finally get to live a dream.

Right.

You know, so anyway, so yeah.

So, you know,

I did a lot of things.

I mean, this is another thing in my,

in the fellowship I'm in.

I don't know about other fellowships.

We didn't know about in the early days

that we know about now.

And that is mental illness.

Right.

That I believe that me, I have,

you know, my dad was bipolar.

Right.

So I believe that like,

I, you know, that I was,

I am bipolar.

I don't believe it.

I know I am bipolar.

Right.

And the fact is,

is that the drugs was just a relief,

right?

That was the time I didn't have to

feel really bad or, or really, you know,

like I was, I wasn't high manic,

you know,

I was self-medicating myself to feel

better in a battle that I could not

win, like impossible.

Right.

so uh yeah so ten years i had

a really bad point you know i was

really sick couldn't get out of bed and

you know i keep shouting at my dog

but uh you know like it was my

dog at that point you know i i

bought you know kids and everything it's

it wasn't like about them because again my

reality wasn't my reality was dark but i

could tell you the key one beyond

medication right

That dog.

The other key to it was my network

of people.

It's a big network now.

Well, you know what?

Not huge.

You know,

I just have I have a lot of

friends, but a bunch of guys,

a few guys are really close.

I kept them in my like I said,

my sister's using recovery, too.

So I was able to talk to them

and I forced myself.

I mean,

I'm talking about forced myself to go to

three meetings a week.

If I didn't leave the house to do

anything,

it would be three meetings a week.

And that was it.

And I wasn't good.

You know, I wasn't good.

And I sat in the back.

You know, I didn't share.

And you could tell how shy I am

now, right?

You know, I didn't do anything, you know.

But it was the love of the fellowship

again, right?

And, you know, recently on my journey,

I have started to get

back into my religion with you know like

i always tell everybody i don't get it

twisted right i'm here i'm an addict the

twelve step fellowship is my base for life

but in my eleven step it talks about

improving my conscious contact with my god

so what you know so so it's just

a couple times a week and it's cool

and it's good you know and to

know just hear about you know that like

religion for me isn't always a big thing

you know like rules stuff like that but

now i could i don't have to look

at it like that i'm at the point

in my life where i can just be

like yo um

that I understand that I feel that.

Yeah.

You know, like thing, you know,

just about faith, you know, step,

you know, like steps that, you know,

twelve steps,

some of the steps that we talk about,

just I seem to be able to apply

that to that and get more insight because

I never want to grow spiritually,

you know.

And the other thing I do and then

I'll get into, you know, this last thing.

But the other thing that I do is

to

I have a commitment every week.

I go to the prison up here, right?

And really it's the highlight.

Well, we weren't like it's different.

It was different up here.

It's a county.

And we weren't in there for like four

years since COVID.

And they don't really want us there.

And it's not because we're in, you know,

we're in the fellowship or, you know,

whatever.

It's not because of that.

It's not like just our fellowship.

It's like all the fellowships.

They're the same way with church,

but they really can't be or, you know,

whatever.

Because religion, the people can,

you know, we...

Our fellowships don't have a record.

Oh, my God, you're not letting this in.

But but anyway,

so we so we went back in.

One guy came back.

And I go up every Wednesday.

It's like a thirty five,

forty minute drive.

And what another guy.

And now we're starting to get more people

because it's so hard to get people in.

And that's what I, you know,

beyond working.

And that's what I've been doing all day

is we're trying to get a new guy

in there for tomorrow.

And it's been, you know, anyway.

So, you know,

now last week there were seven guys,

right?

Right.

Right.

Me and my other guy,

we've been going up every week.

guys are actually so i had that commitment

for years before that for three or four

years and i used to get the dudes

they just wanted to be off the block

so they would be like yo let's meet

up here at the meeting you know uh

you know again that and you know we

just talked to the we were

Us and the other fellowships,

we were all close because, you know,

we'd be up there.

We'd have to wait together.

And, you know,

it was then that I started to realize

again about similarities.

And those guys were so cool because I

always had a really different attitude

about that.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

There he goes.

Um, uh, attitude about that kind of stuff.

Like, uh, we're this, they're that,

you know, and then like,

these guys were like,

even though I knew better,

these guys were like,

do come up to our, um, um, institutions.

So it's different where we just have one

thing with hospitals, institutions, right.

Where, you know, where, where you go,

they have, uh,

like prisons broken out right because you

cover everything and we know either they

come come i mean it was just really

good i still talk to a couple of

the guys you know just you know if

you get people in either fellowships or

any of the fellowships any of them that

are just not good people

They're not good people with you.

They're not good people with us.

And they're never going to be good people

together.

But when you get the people that really

do service, you know,

like get the you know,

like you really feel fine.

But anyway,

so I just want to get back to

it.

So we had seven guys and these guys

are breaking down like not crazy sharing,

breaking down, you know,

just like sharing shit.

And it's getting deep.

Right.

And I'm like, wow, this is great.

That's the last place in the world you

want to show emotion, right?

And these guys are doing it.

And, you know, you would understand,

but they don't always, these are guys,

most of these guys have been involved in

the, you know,

in the fellowships for a while, you know,

and then relapsed and whatever, you know,

and you,

you walk in and you say that,

why not me then?

You know what I mean?

Like you got,

that all goes through your head,

but

Then you sit down and you realize besides

no women and no phones,

you're basically at the same meeting.

Right.

And everybody's heavy duty, you know,

and it's a beautiful thing, you know,

for people that that aren't involved in

service, whatever that service may be.

They used to say.

ashtrays but they don't do that anymore so

yeah there's no ashtrays yeah get rid of

them coffee commitment or you're just

going to help out with your group or

you know you're going to be the guy

that sponsors a lot of people you know

whatever it is and you'll get back a

hundred times what you put out

A hundred percent, man.

Wow.

Powerful story, Dave.

So I know you're,

you're doing some pretty cool things in

the industry that you work.

And I wondered if you would share a

little bit about that and let people know

where they can,

they can get with you and contact you

if they want to.

I'll be glad to do that.

Yeah.

So first thing I'll say,

which I say on every podcast,

and I've done a bunch of podcasts already

and I'll say it on every podcast.

And this is, you know, for you,

you know,

I'm sure you say it at the end

too, but I'll jump ahead of you here.

if you're looking for any kind of help

right call your friend call your uh call

a priest call a rabbi call uh the

treatment center calls what whatever you

have to do you know there's hope for

you because there was hope for me and

i was hopeless you know so that's what

i was like when i before i even

talk about what i do i always like

to tell people that like

and a bigger crowd, you know, and,

you know, like, just do that, you know,

like, you know, it seems like me,

we're talking shit, right,

because we're talking about how happy,

you know, whatever good shit is,

but it's not that way, you know,

this is real,

and that's no way to live,

You know, so anyway.

Yes.

So when I was talking about admissions

before, you know,

I saw how heavy duty admissions was.

So I do two things.

The first thing I do is I provide

answering for treatment centers because

you'd be surprised about how many

treatment centers answer the phone at

don't answer the phone at night.

Right.

So we provide an AI service that sounds

a lot like a person.

It says it's an AI,

but a lot like a person, empathetic.

And we don't try to eliminate people in

admissions.

That's not what we do.

We just try to make it so they

can get more calls, more qualified.

And when they don't answer the phone,

we help them with answering.

And the other thing that we do is

we

You know,

it used to be like so admissions

department gets people like you or me.

Right.

We were in the system, you know,

and we just gave up.

We ghosted no shot at us anymore.

Right.

So they got they can't track them.

It's impossible for them to reach out.

Right.

So we've developed a text message

marketing program.

So we can reach out to people that

can't be reached out to.

So the fact is, you know, again,

about recovery for a second,

even though it's a business and all that

kind of stuff,

the fact that in the end of the

game, like not end of the game,

but the end of like at this part

of my life that I could be doing

something that is good,

like that has meaning.

I'm that guy.

You're that guy.

Right.

We're that guy that is in the dead

file.

Well, inactive file, let's call it.

Right.

We're that guy.

You know, you, me and a hundred guys,

a lot of them aren't going to make

it, you know,

but just the text message saying, Hey Joe,

it's Tom from ABC treatment.

How's it going on a text could go

a long way.

It does start conversations, you know,

so that's what we do.

We sell the treatment centers, you know,

and you know, very simple.

Wow.

Dave, you know, for many levels,

you're the kind of guest I just love

having on here.

A,

it's obvious you have a good twelve step

foundation.

B,

you were just open and happy to happy

to rap about your experience, man,

which I just really, really appreciate.

And, you know, not for nothing, but

we, we parallel our stories do a lot,

man.

And so thank you so much for coming

on and joining us today.

And thank you to everyone that's

listening.

If you're listening on Spotify or Apple

pod, Apple podcast, do me a favor,

leave us a review on one of those

platforms.

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lucky you guys do me a favor,

subscribe to the channel,

leave us a comment, do something fun.

My name's Austin with the one last hit

podcast.

And this has been Dave.

We're going to catch you guys on the

next one.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye bye.