I Relapsed After 10 Years Sober. (Here's Why)

Corey Warren: 00:00:00

When we tell people, you got to get sober for yourself, you got to get clean for yourself. You got to do this for yourself. I think we are setting them up for failure, and it is one of the worst pieces of advice that I think we can give.

Patrick Custer: 00:00:12

If you're one of us and you're in recovery and you say you can't relate to that, I would argue with you.

Corey Warren: 00:00:19

I don't know that I agree with the idea that addiction is in our bloodline. I think it's more about what we're watching and. And what we're soaking up as we're kids.

So what am I teaching my son every time I get stressed out and reach for a bottle?

Patrick Custer: 00:00:32

There's this thing that many of us struggle with our brains lean towards in addiction is just this feeling like we are the exception, for sure.

Corey Warren: 00:00:42

I have a feeling that if God is real, he's trying to get my attention right now.

Patrick Custer: 00:00:48

Something that's so important is being curious enough beyond the doors of getting sober.

Corey Warren: 00:00:56

It's not about money to him. It's not about. He's living his retirement now.

I'm trying to figure out how to do that, but I get so consumed by all of this stuff and this money and business and all this crap that's going on in my life that it pulls me away from what's really important.

Patrick Custer: 00:01:16

Welcome back to the Patrick Custer Show.

I am so glad that each and every one of you are here, here for a purpose, and I hope that you know that you are welcome, and I want you to feel that all the way through this conversation and interview with my new friend, Corey Warren. Welcome to the show.

Corey Warren: 00:01:39

Thanks so much for having me. We're gonna have some fun. It's gonna be nice.

Patrick Custer: 00:01:42

And welcome to Nashville.

Corey Warren: 00:01:43

Yeah. Thank you so much. A little out of my comfort zone.

A lot of cars, a lot of people, a lot of, you know, we're taking in the sights, and 24 hours here will be good enough for me to head back to the country. So we're going to have fun.

Patrick Custer: 00:01:57

I love it.

You know, people say that about Broadway a lot of the times here in Nashville, and, you know, we have Nashvillians here that will go to, like, New York or Chicago, you know, say that about the metropolitan area there, you know.

Corey Warren: 00:02:10

Yeah, but.

Patrick Custer: 00:02:11

Yeah, it is. I mean, I. Man, what is. What is your comfort zone? What is normal for you?

Corey Warren: 00:02:16

No stoplights, a couple cars here and there. More deer crossing the road than cars crossing roads.

Patrick Custer: 00:02:23

So that.

Corey Warren: 00:02:24

That's kind of our. In my comfort zone, at least. We went to New York City one time and it was just. It was cool, you know, and even here, it's awesome.

Broadway is awesome. Don't get me wrong. I love. I love Nashville. I love everything that comes out of here for the most part.

But it's just one of those places that it's cool to see.

Patrick Custer: 00:02:40

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:02:40

And then I got me back home, but I'm happy to be here. And this is for anybody who has not seen this studio.

Patrick Custer: 00:02:47

Holy cow.

Corey Warren: 00:02:48

This thing is. It's all you. What you've done here is. Is absolutely incredible. I'm really excited to be here.

Patrick Custer: 00:02:54

Absolutely. We've been looking forward to this day. So glad that you were able to travel down from between two cities in.

Corey Warren: 00:03:01

Michigan, between Lansing, Grand Rapids.

Patrick Custer: 00:03:04

You are known by a number of people online, have created. Cultivated quite a following, doing some awesome. Like, I respect so much of what you do because it is getting the hype behind.

Just get like you're stopping the scroll, I like to say, tricking people into stopping so they like. Because they're entertained. Right. And then there's a message behind it. Yeah.

People obviously resonate with the messages because you got a lot of followers. I want to know what inspired you to get into the type of storytelling that you're doing right now on socials?

Corey Warren: 00:03:39

You know, I seen. I was just talking to. To my social media manager the other day and I said, I seem to have a knack for upsetting people on social media.

And I mean, it's. If you scroll through my comments, I had to stop.

About a month into creating content, I just stopped looking at my comments because the way I look at it is if, like, if the boot fits, then wear it. If it doesn't, then keep doing your thing on social media.

It doesn't have to apply to everybody, but the amount of conversation that it starts would lead me to believe anyway that something happens. Happened to you. When you were watching the video, I don't know, did you take it personal?

I wasn't intending it to hurt anybody's feelings or for people to take personal, but I think as a society, we have just. I. It's. It's ridiculous, I think how acceptable alcohol is when you really break down what it is and how it affects us and we just don't.

I don't think we spend enough time talking about that and educating even our younger generations on what's happening. So that was kind of the calling. It was, how do I create a voice? How do I get a voice?

al media, and this is July of: 2024

I want nothing to do with social media, but it's like I love doing what I'm doing and content creating. So how do I get a V? I try to create content and get folks attention and try to at least be an example and get people thinking about it.

If nothing else, at least you're thinking about it.

Patrick Custer: 00:05:20

It's all worth it. It's absolutely all worth it.

Corey Warren: 00:05:23

One of the things I talk about is if I had cancer, the first thing I would do is go ask for help. Yeah, that would be the first thing that I would do. I wouldn't sit around going, I know the doctor told me that I have cancer, but I don't know.

Oh man, like, do I really have cancer? And then I'm going to, like, I just won't think about it. I'm just going to continue to live my life and not think about it.

Like, no, we wouldn't do that. The minute that I found out that I had cancer, I would go seek treatment immediately because it's a problem and I want to live.

But with alcoholism, we push it under the rug. We act like we don't have it. We try to not see it as a problem. All these different justifications. So it's like they're both killing us.

So when you go to my comments and you look at my videos, it's because we don't want people to know that we have a problem. We don't want to be different. We want to be normal. And the idea that normal is drinking poison is absurd. Now I did it, so I get it.

I'm not putting myself in a different category. I'm just as wild and crazy as anybody else. But now looking back, it's like, man, that was not smart. I don't want my kids to do that.

Patrick Custer: 00:06:35

Right.

Corey Warren: 00:06:35

I don't want my kids to soak up all their problems and drinking and poison and alcohol and ruin their bodies and their health.

Patrick Custer: 00:06:43

Yeah. You know, it's bizarre when I think because that, you know, in the rooms of recovery, we, we hear, you know, drug of choice.

I always refer to it as the, my drug of slavery because for me that it feels more authentic to how my relationship with it was. In many ways we want to hide it from both. Whether it's your friends, you know, but especially family.

But also if and when they know, whether they confront you is one thing.

But even if they know so much of the time, the family unit, the close friends, there's a tendency to be this huge period where they all want to keep it hidden as well.

Corey Warren: 00:07:28

For sure.

Patrick Custer: 00:07:29

There's so much shame. For sure. And we'll do so much to keep it hidden. I mean, that goes across all forms of addiction. Honestly, if you think about it, my.

Corey Warren: 00:07:36

Mom talks about it all the time. I want my son to be successful.

Patrick Custer: 00:07:40

Why?

Corey Warren: 00:07:41

Because if he's successful, then I'm successful. Because our identity is parents, which is also a whole different topic, but something that I struggle with.

Patrick Custer: 00:07:53

So I'm curious, because you've got a five year old son.

Corey Warren: 00:07:56

I have a five year old Tasmanian devil.

Patrick Custer: 00:07:58

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:07:59

For sure.

Patrick Custer: 00:08:00

More or less than you were.

Corey Warren: 00:08:01

You know what? I'm going to say more because I don't really, you know, obviously I don't. My mom seems to think it's about the same.

Patrick Custer: 00:08:08

Okay.

Corey Warren: 00:08:08

He gives me a run for my money. That's for sure. Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:08:11

Not to say that you're a new parent because five years is quite a long time to adjust to parenthood, but as you've been navigating that and the questions that come to your, your mind about the whole family component of addiction and it being in the bloodline and how do you deal with it being a parent, what my identity is, where do I pull that from? And then how do I parent authentically, altruistically, so that it's not about me doing a good job.

At the end of the day, it's all about me making sure that I've been a good steward of the individual that I've been entrusted with.

Corey Warren: 00:08:52

Yeah. And I think there's two pieces to what you just said. Number one is my job as, as Corey, and that is to look at who am I. And number one, a parent.

Sure, it's part of my life, but it's not my everything. It's not my world. Parenting cannot be my world. Just the same as my career cannot be my world. My marriage cannot be my world.

Somehow I didn't want to get in trouble for that. Right. So. But all these things, they play, they play roles.

Patrick Custer: 00:09:25

The way you. I'm sorry, the way you looked over your shoulder like, oh man.

Corey Warren: 00:09:30

But really, I mean, my kids are such a huge part of my life. My wife is such a huge part of my life, my career, my friends, all these different components of my life are. That makes my life what it is.

But not one is all encompassing, including being a dad. I have an 8 year old daughter too. And so.

Patrick Custer: 00:09:48

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:09:48

Yep. So we have two kids and it's been a blessing. But they're going to grow up. They're supposed to. You're supposed to get them ready to fly.

Patrick Custer: 00:09:59

Sure.

Corey Warren: 00:09:59

And then they're going to leave the house and they're going to go off and live their life. And so we have them for a brief moment.

We don't essentially, I mean, yes, we're connected forever, but they're going to be off living their own lives with their own families. So I have to do the best that I can to separate who I am and then also as being a parent, being a part of my life. So I think that's one thing.

But the second thing that I think you touched on was addiction running in my bloodline. And my, my father was an alcoholic. I watched it my whole life growing up. He's in a nursing home now because he has alcohol induced dementia.

So I had to put him there. Wow. Because he never stopped drinking. So if anybody listening right now is like, I wonder what happens if I don't stop drinking? Well, there you go.

My dad didn't stop drinking. He's in a nursing home. Alcohol induced dementia. I bring my kids over, he hardly knows who they are.

He doesn't really know where he's at or what's going on. So if we don't stop this cycle, that's what we have to look forward to. I saw that. So I saw my dad drinking. I saw stressful day at work. Go get a beer.

Celebrate. Go get a beer. Football's on. Go get a beer. All these different things. And so in my mind, I'm starting to make associations as I'm growing up.

My opinion, I'm not a doctor for sure. I'm not a therapist. I'm not. I have no fancy. In fact, I hate school.

So I don't have a degree that I can like hang up and prove that I'm like worthy of saying this, so to speak, but I don't know that I agree with the idea that addiction is in our bloodline. I think it's more about what we're watching and what we're soaking up as we're kids.

If my kid comes home five years old, eight years old, either one of them says, dad, I had a rough day today. Can you give me my tablet? No, Absolutely not. Why do you need your tablet? I don't know. Because I don't want to think about it all.

I don't want to deal with the stress of what happened in kindergarten today. It was too much for me. So I just want to go check out into my tablet. Yeah, I'd be like, absolutely not.

I don't know a lot of parents that would be like, all right, come here, here's your tablet. Go check out. That would be horrific. But as soon as I tell him, no, you're not going to go check out into your tablet.

I'm going to go to the fridge and grab a beer. There's no difference. So what am I teaching my son? Every time I get stressed out and reach for a bottle, Every time a game's on, I reach for a beer.

Every time something is happening, I'm creating these associations and our kids are doing what kids should do and they're watching their parents. So what am I teaching my kids?

Number one, I need to make sure that my kids, my relationship, my career, none of them become my world, but they're all a part of my world. That's what is healthy. That's that healthy balance and ebb and flows. And number two, my kids are always watching me.

So make sure I'm setting the right example.

And now my son's taking his little fake phone and he's going in the mirror in his bathroom, he's got his little water cup, and he goes, if you want to quit drinking, hit me up. I'll do it with your peace. He's dumping his water, and I love it. It's just so cool.

My kids are starting to create this association that alcohol is not good. Yeah, that's what I want.

Patrick Custer: 00:13:01

So alcoholism runs like thick as blood down one side of my family and down the other side, there's virtually no known addiction.

I was raised in a dry house and my oldest brother, who I'm most genetically similar to, people confuse us all the time, even though we're 19 years apart. He is also a recovering alcoholic, and he needed to and got into recovery long before I did. I was about 12.

And so my reference for alcohol and alcoholism was my brother, who he was what I ended up being like the intoxicated 247 and, you know, just slurred speech and. Yeah, thank God he was because he, like, similar to your dad. He was very on the verge of his brain being pickled at 30 years old.

Corey Warren: 00:13:56

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:13:56

When he got sober. So that was a long ass way of me saying that I had every. I had every reason to, like, I was a good kid in every sense that you could think of.

But college came. I mean, I Had sworn I would never touch alcohol like the depths of my soul. I was never.

I mean, I was so convicted to like never ever, ever, ever, ever. And so that's the side where I'm just, you know, will we ever know for sure all the stuff? Who knows? But I definitely.

One thing we know for sure is the nurture side of this story. We're talking about the nature versus nurture. Right. So nature being the genetics. So a predispos. Genetic predisposition.

Nurture being what you were talking about, the seeing that relationship with alcohol and the benefits and why you would do it, or that it's just normalized. And the thing that we know is absolutely true, regardless of if genetics play a role or not, is that nurture plays a significant, significant role.

I think that there's a lot of areas of society that have made huge strides in anti alcohol culture. I don't know about your neck of the woods, but like in a lot of the cities that I visit and here, there's there. I mean, we.

Well now for all of the bars down on Broadway, we have one that just opened, that's a na bar.

Corey Warren: 00:15:22

Oh, really?

Patrick Custer: 00:15:22

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:15:23

That's cool.

Patrick Custer: 00:15:23

Ashley McBride, the country singer Ashley McBride opened it and she's in long term recovery as well.

Corey Warren: 00:15:29

Wow, that's super cool.

Patrick Custer: 00:15:30

Yeah. I also think about. I got sober almost 15 years ago and so I never even heard of an NA beverage.

Corey Warren: 00:15:38

Yeah, it wasn't a thing back.

Patrick Custer: 00:15:40

Back then.

Corey Warren: 00:15:41

No.

Patrick Custer: 00:15:41

The more and more I hear about that stuff popping up, I'm like, oh, this is awesome. And that's all I see.

Corey Warren: 00:15:46

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:15:47

Because like, the more and more I stay sober, the more my eyes are attracted to the positive because I'm like, that's been there, right? That has been there the whole time. Yeah. That's not new. And it. The solution is needed. That's why we. I show up and dedicated my life. You've dead.

You know, you're doing what you're doing.

Corey Warren: 00:16:04

I'm sure you're right in saying that there is a huge genetic side of this. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about that. So I have to focus on the other areas.

Patrick Custer: 00:16:13

Absolutely. And I think that to your point there.

All right, so the alcoholic brain, here's what we're talking about, goes okay, but I don't have any alcoholics in my bloodline, so I'm probably good to go. Like, I don't have the gene. That's not what. That's not what I'm saying at all.

What I'm Saying is when you've got alcoholics multiple or even just one close in your. In your genetics, a predisposition means you're all that much more likely. So. But the danger and the ways that alcohol affects our body, I mean, it's.

Do you have a heartbeat? Because that's right. Is not genetic dependent. Okay. Before you and I started having formulated thoughts on recovery and, you know, we were a hot mess.

And that's one of my favorite things to talk about, quite frankly, because I'll take it back to when I got sober. I couldn't focus on any of the things that were necessary in the rooms of recovery. The literature.

In 12 steps, I had a really, really hard time just getting into any form of recovery mentally because I actually. I don't know why, but what I could was stories. Hook, line and sinker. You start telling me about your storm, your chaos.

I'm all of a sudden wrapped up. A year like that, that's what got me. And you know, if it weren't for people that took the time to come back and.

And share their story of what happened, I don't think I would be here for sure sober today. So that's one of the big reasons why stories mean so much to me, because they're wholeheartedly. I believe the reason in.

In many ways the reason why I'm still here and alive today.

Corey Warren: 00:18:05

Yeah, for sure.

Patrick Custer: 00:18:06

And.

Corey Warren: 00:18:06

And I think that they're what help us not to feel alone and to feel like, wow, somebody else is just as crazy as I am, you know, because my. I can isolate myself really quickly. I'm the worst.

Patrick Custer: 00:18:20

Well, yeah, and bfe. I know.

Corey Warren: 00:18:23

But for real, I mean, I could. I could get to the point where. Why me?

Patrick Custer: 00:18:27

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:18:27

I'm the only one that's this nuts. I'm the only one that has this problem.

Patrick Custer: 00:18:32

For those who don't know, there's a phrase thrown around in. In recovery called terminal uniqueness. Where whether.

Whether you're talking about being the worst or being great, there's this thing that many of us struggle with our brains lean towards in addiction is just this feeling like we are the exception.

Corey Warren: 00:18:51

For sure.

Patrick Custer: 00:18:52

For me, once I was able to get to a place of just accepting that and just being like, okay, well that's. That's something I'm probably going to come back like, I'll get more spiritually fit and it goes away. But you know what?

There's still ways that I end up being terminally unique all of a sudden on a Monday because the wind blew the wrong way. Every. You know. Yep.

Corey Warren: 00:19:13

I rel. I do.

Patrick Custer: 00:19:15

And so when we talk about stories and connection, it gets me so hyped up because I feel like we get to be a type of connected emotionally, spiritually, mentally that so many people in adulthood don't ever enter into because nothing pulls them into a need for it.

Corey Warren: 00:19:38

Right. I'm the guy that if I start drinking, I'm blacking out and I'm not going to work. I'm not handling my responsibilities.

So the other problem that I think I at least did, and I think many of us do, especially those that are not educated, for lack of better words, on alcoholism, is that we think that we understand, we think we know what an alcoholic is because Hollywood has told us or whatever.

Patrick Custer: 00:20:06

Or whatever instance in your own life, even you can't encapsulate, let's say, you know, five people that suffer from alcoholism. You can still in there all. They all have different levels.

You can still not know a whole variety of other ways that alcoholism shows up in individuals, for sure.

Corey Warren: 00:20:25

I guess one of the red flags to me is when you start judging your drinking or you start to compare yourself to other people to make yourself feel better. So normal drinkers don't do that. Yeah, normal drinkers don't go, well, that guy's worse. So I'm okay. It doesn't happen. It's not a thing.

They don't question it. My wife can drink. She doesn't wonder. She doesn't sit up and go, I wonder if I am an alcoholic. In fact, 99.9 of my videos don't apply to her.

And she doesn't even think twice about them. I'm like, is that a good video, babe? And she's like, I don't know. Maybe that's what a normal drinker would do. Because it's like, I don't really know.

Patrick Custer: 00:21:01

Is it a good video?

Corey Warren: 00:21:02

I'm not in your shoes. But again, then you have all these thousands and thousands of comments from people who are like, well, I'm fine.

I would say to anybody listening, just be careful, because not everybody's alcoholism or addiction or whatever it is is going to look the same. Yeah, my dad went to work every day. Nobody knew he was really an alcoholic. He hit it very, very well.

There are those that just spin out on a Friday, then get their whole life back together for six days. There are those that black out. There are those that are your living under a bridge. All I do is drink all day, every day.

Patrick Custer: 00:21:36

Oh, yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:21:36

And the same thing applies to. There's not one type of alcoholic. And there's also not one type of way to recover.

So sometimes people be in my inbox and they're like, well, tell me how to do it. That's such a loaded question. I can't just tell you how to do it.

We all know that there has to be a point of detox or a point of abstinence that needs to take place. So whether you can have the willingness or the willpower to do that, fine. If you don't detox, rehab probably a good way. You know, place to start.

But after that continuous sobriety recovery is going to look different for every single person. Some people are 12 step driven. Some people are celebrate recovery. Some people go to church, Some people don't do anything.

Some people just go to work all the time. Some people go to therapy outpatient. The list goes on and on and on and on.

So I think that it's important, important as far as even when we're looking at people to say do I have a problem? Do I not? Does do my family, my friends, do they have a problem? Do they not? There's not a one size fits all.

And then also to anybody struggling with alcoholism, there's not a one size fits all when it comes to recovery either.

Patrick Custer: 00:22:44

That is a. A very evolved view from a recovering standpoint. If you had taken somebody from yours or my position to.

Even 10 years ago the recovery world was so much more closed off and closed minded to one way being. You know, it's 12 steps in abstinence and being this one path of how you do it.

I think that everybody's always doing the best they can with what they have. Quite frankly, personally, that's like my own. Like Theos or.

Corey Warren: 00:23:15

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:23:15

Yeah. But we have for a long time needed to do better with realigning how we're those of us who are helping and showing possibilities.

Corey Warren: 00:23:28

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:23:29

To realign ourselves with being open to what I did does not have to be what you do. 100 I think what is necessary is wanting it. I mean.

Corey Warren: 00:23:42

100. Let me ask you this though. Do you feel like people need to do it for themselves?

Patrick Custer: 00:23:48

You know, I used to have an answer that I would always say which was yes. When I got sober I didn't have kids. I mean I don't have kids now but I didn't have a significant other. I didn't have a spouse.

I did it because I had no other choice. Did I Would I say that I did it for me both then and now. I'm trying to answer like I Don't even know that I still had a tether onto what I once knew.

But being my appreciation and joy of life. When you have that and you, like want to be alive, that's the thing for me that ties you on to, like, wanting to do better, not wanting to.

I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to disappoint the people in my life and keep. I did not like being a liar. Right.

But you know, they say passive si, like being something that is a trait that plays out in our behavior in addiction. For me, that was very true. I didn't want to die. I also didn't. I really don't think I cared.

And so I went to this whole place of laying that out for you to say. My answer personally is quite complex because I don't really think I did it for me.

When I did it, it was years before I realized that because I. I told you and I would have sworn up and down that I did it for me. I hit the bottom that I needed to and yada, yada, yada.

But now, knowing what I do and being more educated and whatnot, I'm able to piece that apart and go, I.

Corey Warren: 00:25:33

Think we are setting people up for failure more than we know when we say that to them.

Patrick Custer: 00:25:38

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:25:38

When we tell people, you gotta get sober for yourself, you gotta get clean for yourself, you gotta do this for yourself. I think we are setting them up for failure. And it is one of the worst pieces of advice that I think we can give.

I have seen many people become very successful because they did it for the courts, because they didn't want to go to jail. I've seen many people be very successful because they did it for cps, because they didn't want their kids ripped away.

I've seen many people do it for marriages. I've seen people do it for jobs. I've seen people do it for every single reason under the sun except for themselves.

Because frankly, at the point that I think I should probably get sober, that bottom is a point where I don't really like myself, that part. And so I wouldn't really do much for myself. I'm going to do it for my kids, do it for my wife.

And over time, we start to gain a little bit of that self worth back. And as we gain a little bit of self worth, I think we start to do it at least I did for myself.

There could be days, and this is, gosh, I got sober when I was 22 and I'm 36. So even today to tell you every single day. I do it for me. I'd be lying to you. There are some days that I'm so angry and I'm so overwhelmed.

And I'll see that beer and I'll be like, that looks so good. But I can't let my kids down. Because if I wasn't, if I wasn't married and I didn't have kids and I didn't have a job, I did.

And I didn't have the friends I did, and I didn't have the support group that I did, who's to say I wouldn't drink? I might. So that's the second part of what I'm, I guess what I'm saying is I don't know that I, I maybe struggle less.

I struggle with different things now. Yeah, but I struggle, dude. And I think to think that we just lose that thought that we want to drink. I, I, I don't lose it.

And maybe I'm doing something wrong. Because there are plenty of times that I'll.

My wife and I'll probably go to out on Broadway tonight, probably stop in, have dinner somewhere, and I'll probably see a beer. And that intrusive thought of saying, how come I gotta be weird? How come I can't be normal? How can't.

I can't be one of the guys that just has one beer and goes home and acts. You know what I mean?

Patrick Custer: 00:27:46

Yes.

Corey Warren: 00:27:47

Why do I gotta be the one that blacks out?

Patrick Custer: 00:27:48

I love so much that you brought this up because just like, you know, as we're talking about there being such a spectrum of different types of alcoholics, different types of recovery modalities, there's also this spectrum where. Cause you and I are on opposite ends right here. And I think it's so cool to talk about because, you know, I've got.

One of my best friends would identify just how you explained it being something kind of frequent, that at 14 years sober, she is like, it comes up for her regularly. And I don't remember the last time I, you know, considered a drink or thought or it looked attractive to me. I've been blessed with.

And I say that because it truly is a blessing that, like, when I think about a drink now at all, period, my first thought, and it's remained this way, is how freaking bad it was at the worst for me. And many people don't have that blessing.

What they have is the, how good it was, how it feels, the warm feeling, the peace, the ease of comfort, you know, all that stuff. Life is not a Bed of roses. I'm not trying to say I have it better than you where I'm saying it's so cool to compare.

And context contrast is for the audience member that says, no, no, no, I, I kind of. I don't identify with Choreo on that part. Well, let me tell you, because you might identify with me. It's not the beer, it's not the liquor.

It's other things in life.

Because once they, once those have gone and once the obsession has left, you name it, like, there's I. I could, if we were going to get really honest, give you an encyclopedia of all the things that make my dopamine go boop.

So many of them, out of balance, are the things that my brain will start ticking away at when, you know, the thought of I don't like the way I'm feeling or I want to celebrate or I want to yada, yada, yada, you, you know, insert here.

It's in many ways equally as dangerous because it leads us down a path of being completely out of control, regardless of whether it's a beer or it is a behavior pattern, another addictive behavior. It doesn't just go away because we stop drinking.

Corey Warren: 00:30:09

Right.

Patrick Custer: 00:30:10

I guess I just wanted to say that like, even though, even though it might not be a beer that, you know, is calling your name after 10 years.

Corey Warren: 00:30:16

Right.

Patrick Custer: 00:30:16

There's still stuff that we deal with from the addiction side of things.

Corey Warren: 00:30:21

Yeah. So for me, it wouldn't even be the feeling of drinking a beer. It's the. It's me isolating myself again. How come I'm the one that can't?

So it's really not about the effect.

Because when I'm down on Broadway tonight and I see those people drinking, it's not, oh, I wish I could have a drink because I want to feel the effects of alcohol. It's putting myself in this box over here. Corey's different. I'm different than everybody else. How come I can't be normal? That's the trigger.

That's the part that holds me up. It's not about, I'm going to have a great time tonight.

We don't have kids, you know, Been a while since we've had a date night without kids, so we're going to have a blast. But, man, there's that piece of me that still struggles with, I wouldn't even say self worth, but who I am as an alcoholic.

Patrick Custer: 00:31:10

Can you define on a bad, like in a bad spot. How would you, how would you describe it then versus when you're in the healthy brain in a healthy space.

Because we tend to, when we're in that place of why me?

You know, all those things, we're not operating from that part of our brain that has rebalanced, repaired, and, you know, is operating from a place of self, love. And like you said, at a point, it does become that I know and I love.

And I choose to continue putting the recovery foot first for myself because I have other things in my life, right. Like in the healthy place, like, we can see all of that. But we get into this unhealthy.

Everybody does the dark, you know, in a dark spot where you start being like the unique.

So that's what I was kind of curious about of like, what is the narrative you tell yourself when it's the isolated point and you feel like you're not in that.

Corey Warren: 00:32:08

I'm going to probably not give you what you're looking for here. I think what. Because this is. I'm going to take you down a little bit of a rabbit hole because I've.

Patrick Custer: 00:32:16

I've.

Corey Warren: 00:32:17

Did. I tend to do this a lot.

Patrick Custer: 00:32:18

I can't really.

Corey Warren: 00:32:19

Rabbit holes is my thing. So I don't know if this is. This is all the time, but I suffer from an ego that I have to put in check all the time.

If people got honest with themselves, I think a lot of us do. But I can only speak for myself. I have this. It's kind of like a false ego. Sometimes I feel insecure or there's a lack of confidence in myself.

And so I'll just. I'll try to go over the top with that.

When I'm out, if we're at a restaurant or we're at a bar, we're at a party or something like that, and everybody's drinking and I don't. So let me put it like this. We go to this family get together every year. Her family's massive. There's 50 of 100 of them, probably. It's a lot anyway.

Patrick Custer: 00:33:03

Wow.

Corey Warren: 00:33:04

A lot of people, A lot of beer. It's not so much that I want to drink and it's not even so much that I'm putting myself in a box.

But what it is, is I think everybody's looking at me because I have that much of a freaking ego that I think I'm the most important person in the world. And everybody at this house is all watching me and they're not. They could care less what I'm doing.

But for some reason my brain tells me, you look stupid, you look ridiculous. Right now because you're the only one that can't drink. So everybody looks at you and they all think that you have a problem. You suck.

And so I get insecure. I start feeling like everybody's watching me and everybody thinks different of me. And then I isolate myself based on that.

And all of a sudden I'm trapped inside of my brain. So now when people try to talk to me and try to communicate with me and try to stir up conversation, I'm like, I don't even remember how to talk.

Because what you're really thinking is you're feel. You feel bad for me, not because you really want to know what's going on, not because you really care about my. How my life's been doing.

But I'm sitting over here by myself in this corner without my beer. I'm. I'm the odd man out. You're coming over here just to see are you okay? And so I just closed down. I shut down. And so I can't talk.

I can't really communicate. I don't know how to function. You seem like you have some 12 step experience, right? So this is in the 12 and 12. Myself and my alcoholic personality.

I either need to be the in the spotlight or hiding underneath the pillows. One of the two. I can't be in the middle. I can't just be a person in a room full of people.

So you put me in front of: 1500

I wouldn't even sweat before going on stage. I don't care. But again, I'm in the spotlight. If I'm not there, I'm going to be hiding, right?

Because everybody's looking at me and thinking that I have a problem and I'm such a loser and all these different things. And so to answer your question, that's the darkness that I struggle with.

So when we go out, there's going to be that guy that's at the bar that's having a good old time with all of his buddies and he's got his beer in his hand and they're cheersing and all these things. So when I think, why can't I do that? It's because I'm the only one in this bar who can't drink right now.

And all these people are noticing me and they're all looking at me like, I wonder what's wrong with that guy. And then my wife's probably thinking, gosh, how come my husband can't go have fun like that? Right. And so I'm starting to play this whole movie out.

That's what I go through. Does that make sense?

Patrick Custer: 00:35:18

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Corey Warren: 00:35:19

Or is that like way too dark and I just freaked everybody out?

Patrick Custer: 00:35:22

No, I mean, I think if you're one of us and you're in recovery and you say you can't relate to that, I would argue with you especially being any kind of extroverted. Nobody wants to feel othered and you're out amongst a lot of people feeling a different way like what you just described.

It feels like you're being forced out of, peeled away from your identity, which is a lover of people, someone who connects because it's fun. It's how we recharge, it's how we get energized, you know, all those things.

So when you look at the like what you experience in scenarios like that versus when you go to an event where there are a number of adults that aren't drinking, is there a part of you that has compassion for the Corey that still walks into that, you know, to the space? Because that's hard, like. And that's, that's coming from the extrovert in me.

I love, I love going and being with people so much that when I think about isolation, stealing that potential connection, it sucks.

Corey Warren: 00:36:34

But it's only in certain situations. It's not all the time. That's just. Those are the moments that. And who's to say it might not even happen tonight?

Patrick Custer: 00:36:42

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:36:42

So this is basically. It's, it's, it's so deep, it's so rooted in so many areas. It's not just about today.

It's about how's the last couple days went, how's have we been fighting, how are things going over here? So there's so much of this that adds into. So when I hit that location and I'm in that position, I mean I could be super comfortable.

Everything could be fine. I could be having a blast. We could have the time of our lives tonight. And we probably will because we're coming off of.

I mean most things in life are going really good, but if I were to be struggling at my job, if things were insecure about this, we're having financial, you know, struggles over here.

So if there's a whole bunch of other things at play, then I'm going to go and have more of those thoughts tonight because I'm already beating myself up in all these different areas of my life over here. It's not something that I experience all the time.

I don't want to scare people from the idea that, well, this is what I have to look forward to if I stop drinking. Like I might as well just keep drinking. No, this is. Just because I have that thought doesn't mean it consumes me for more than 30 seconds.

It's a fleeing thought.

I've been able to, whether it be through different therapy styles or working with people and understanding more about myself, whatever the case may be, I've learned to harness it and to be able to.

Patrick Custer: 00:37:59

And that's what we do. Yeah. I've been picking away you to try and get to that point this whole time. Right. So.

Because I wanted to hear you divulge like what it is that, you know, ultimately you do do. Right. And at the end of the day, if it was that terrible and it never.

The, the, the foot never lifted off your chest, you'd either never go around people who are drinking ever again or you'd start drinking again because it was that unbearable. And neither of those things are true because there's solution. And I think that's the really cool part that we get to. That we get to talk about.

Corey Warren: 00:38:39

I had just about 10 years sober and I had opened up a non profit. We were killing it. I mean we had, we were full. We had court relationships. I mean we're the biggest housing program in the state of Michigan.

I was very successful with that. I had opened up a tattoo shop. Very successful there. My wife and I opened up a salon.

Patrick Custer: 00:39:00

Not.

Corey Warren: 00:39:01

I don't do any of that. Obviously she does her eyelashes and there's nails and I usually say eyebrows.

Patrick Custer: 00:39:07

Tell. Tell more about it. Like you're doing a really good job. Like what else happens at the.

Corey Warren: 00:39:11

No, I don't want to talk more about it. I'm done talking about it. You're going to get me in trouble.

Patrick Custer: 00:39:16

Because there's nails and I always painting involved.

Corey Warren: 00:39:20

I always go in and people are like, what is your wife doing? Like, she has eyebrows and she's like, no, I don't. I do eyelashes. I'm like, oh, okay, let's move past this point.

Anyway, we had gotten into this point. I'm sure you are. So we went into all these different. I was just. I was having the time of my life, man, to be honest with you. I really was.

f ways. We had got married in: 2019

Everything was just going so good, you know, and coming from where I come from, like, I had it in the bag. I was making good money, I just bought a boat, we had toys, we had house, kids, marriage, Life was good.

And I was just at or just over 10 years sober. And I remember going up north, there's like another part, it's called the Upper Peninsula.

And so we're way at the top of the Upper Peninsula, so way away from like civilization altogether. And we're up in this little itty bitty town and it's just me, my wife and my mom and we're trail riding on some side by sides.

We got to a point where we split off, we stopped, we got our coolers out, whatever. I had my coffee, they probably had a drink, however it went down. And I thought to myself, you know, I stopped drinking in my early 20s.

I'd probably be all right to drink again because I had. Look how long I've been sober for one. Number two, I'm way more responsible now than I was in my early 20s. I was just a college kid.

I was just young, stupid. There's no way that I drink like that now because I have a family, I have a career, I have all these things so I could drink again.

So I went to my mom and my wife and I said, I wasn't trying to hide nothing. I said, I think I could drink. I think I could be responsible and drink because I don't want to be that unnormal, like, weird person.

Like, I want to be able to have a beer and control it and everything's going to be good.

At that little bar in this little town in the Upper peninsula, after almost 10 years of being sober, I ordered my first beer and I drank that beer and I put it down and I didn't drink again that night. And I was like, I did it. I've achieved it. Like, I've. I'm past this addiction thing. This is great. Next weekend I have another beer. Put it down.

This is awesome. See, I told you guys, I can handle it now. Life is different now.

Next weekend I'd have two beers, then it was three, then it was six, then it was 12, then it was a shot.

And all of a sudden, this complete old pattern of who I was just came back to the point where just a couple months after I had that first beer, I was blacking out every single morning again, drinking multiple fists of vodka every single day. My career was shot. I wanted nothing to do with the business I didn't show up to work.

My wife ended up taking my kids and moving out of the house to get them out of what was going on there. Because it was just such a nasty environment. I had from the outside looking in everything that anybody would want, but I was.

Something dragged me back. There was still that void inside of me all those years being sober, and there was still a void.

There was still that part that I was not able to figure out. So I go back to rehab, I sober up. And a couple things happened prior to that rehab. I had a. Told you, I live on the middle of nowhere. I had a farmer.

Patrick Custer: 00:42:45

But what got you to rehab?

Corey Warren: 00:42:46

I don't really know, because I. My friend took me to rehab one time, and I walked in the front door and out the back. I had no interest in being there. I don't know. Twice I did that.

My wife's pointing at me.

Patrick Custer: 00:42:59

Two times.

Corey Warren: 00:43:00

You did that Twice. I don't know. She. Honestly, she might know better than I do because I was just so. I was drunk all the time. I remember being.

She was gone, the kids were gone. I'd left the house and gone back to my mom's house. And for some reason, we just got there. I think my mom kept me drunk enough to get there.

And then when I got there, they hooked me up to. Does that make sense?

Patrick Custer: 00:43:24

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:43:24

To another alcoholic. It probably makes sense, right? A normal person's like, you're nuts.

Patrick Custer: 00:43:29

No, that's.

Corey Warren: 00:43:29

No, I needed to stay.

Patrick Custer: 00:43:30

It's one of those things where it's like, you don't want to tell somebody to do that, but at the same time, you kind of get it. Because, like, yeah, I think she gave me.

Corey Warren: 00:43:36

She gave me just enough shots to keep me comfortable until I made it to rehab. And they hooked me up to all their drugs and kept me good. And finally I got through it, and I was detoxed.

But prior to going there, I had this guy show up. Well, I hunt this farm down the street. And the farmer showed up my house, and his son showed up there.

And then they brought their other buddy from down the street, who was an old pastor at a church that was nearby. And he showed up and he says, corey, do you know God? And I was like, oh, here we go. No. And. And frankly, I don't really care to know. I don't want to.

That's not what I need right now. I need to figure out how to get my life back on track. I don't need you here trying to get me to. To do this. Religion Thing. It's not for me.

Respectfully, of course. And I went about my life, and right before I went to rehab, I was.

Well, this first time I went to rehab, I walked in the front door, walked out the back door, and I hitchhiked a ride. And the guy who picked me up picked me up in this van, which was crazy, right? You shouldn't get in vans. But I got in a van.

Out of all the vehicles I could have gotten. It was a van. And I remember getting in the van, and I said, I just need you to get me to a liquor store. I just need to get a bottle.

And he says, that's fine. I'll get you a liquor store. I'll even buy the bottle. Awesome. Thank you so much, dude. Good guy. He's like, I just want you to have this.

And he gave me a Bible. And I was like, what is the deal? I kept that Bible. I had it in rehab.

When I went, the time that I actually stuck, and I opened it up, and it was like all these big words. I didn't know how. I mean, thy, thou art. And I can't understand any of it.

And I'm also trying to, like, withdraw right now from alcohol, and I'm, like, shaky, and I'm, like, trying to read this Bible, and I'm like, these guys are full of crap. And I close it, and I didn't want nothing else to do with it.

Patrick Custer: 00:45:18

Many of us are raised in, you know, and homes where that, like, we at least were around it. Were you. Was this something that was foreign to you?

Corey Warren: 00:45:30

Yes.

Patrick Custer: 00:45:31

Okay.

Corey Warren: 00:45:31

Yep. I was not raised around it.

Patrick Custer: 00:45:33

Okay.

Corey Warren: 00:45:33

I might have went to church on, like, Easter or Christmas or whatever when I was a kid, but other than that. So I get home from rehab, and I don't remember if it was. Somebody had another conversation. Maybe.

Maybe Pastor Roy came back to my house and was like, hey, what you think now? And I was like, dude, I'm good. But this. It felt like God kept getting brought up over and over.

So I had had some conversations with Brit, and I was like, you know, I don't know what this whole God thing is and what's going on, but it feels like that's the direction I'm getting pushed right now. Neither one of us went to church. It wasn't something that we had going on in our lives. But I had hopped in the car to go to a meeting.

12 step meeting. This is after rehab. And I was driving down the road.

I was about a half a mile away from my house at most And I turned on a radio station that's always country music. And that's just what I listen to. I listen to country music, so I love it. So I clicked it on.

I had the radio station 100.7 WITL, and it was playing worship. And I'm not talking about, like, country worship. I'm talking, like, hands raised in church choir singing gospel.

Like, it was, like, church music, right? And I was like, turn. Went back to that station, and it was still on this worship.

And I turned it again, went back, shut my radio off, turned it back on, and the screen reads country music. But it's playing, like, this church music. And I'm like, what is the deal? So I FaceTime Brit. And I'm like, you need to go out.

And I've stopped at a stop later at a stop sign. And I called her, FaceTimed her, and I said, you gotta go out your Jeep and turn on 100.7 and tell me what you hear.

And she goes on her Jeep and she turns it on. I think it was a Luke Bryan song that was playing in her Jeep at 100.7.

I am a half mile away from her, the same radio station, and I'm playing worship over here.

Patrick Custer: 00:47:16

Wow.

Corey Warren: 00:47:17

And it scared me, Patrick, when I tell you I have never been so terrified. I felt it on every bone in my body. I clicked my radio off. I was so scared. I drove as fast as I could to that meeting.

I didn't listen to music the whole entire way. I was scared. I called Pastor Roy and I said, I have a feeling that if God is real, he's trying to get my attention right now.

I will come to your Bible study. So I went to this farm to a Bible study, and didn't understand a word that they were saying.

Couldn't tell you what they were even talking about, but I was there. And something just felt right. I don't know how to describe it to you, but something.

For the first time in 30 years of my life, something felt different. When we talk about how do I get through these moments? How do I. How do I build on this stuff? How did it get easier? Everybody's got a different path.

But when I found this relationship with God, it was a void inside of me that I could never fill. With alcohol, with sex, with anything. Gambling, shopping. It didn't matter. And that void finally got filled.

So when I went to that bar, I still wanted everybody's approval. When I went to that party, I still wanted everybody's approval, but it was like I no longer needed it. Because I only really needed approval from one.

When I started living that way, I feel like God started impacting our lives. We both gave our lives to Jesus, and our kids gave their lives to Jesus. And our home is filled not with religion, but with a relationship with God.

We don't go to a brick and mortar church. We don't sit around every Sunday and listen to somebody up on a stage. But we pray together.

We talk to him when we're happy, when we're sad, when we're indifferent. Sometimes I yell at him, sometimes I'm so angry with him, and some days I'm just thanking him for where I'm at.

But I'll tell you that there's a piece in my life that I can't explain that I've never experienced that sobriety didn't give me recovery didn't give me that. I have now, and I'm so grateful for it. Viewers who are listening, who are.

If there are any that are kind of rolling their eyes, trust me, I am not trying to be the one to just sit here and start talking about God, God, God, God's going to. You know, it's just my story, right? I can't do anything about it.

Patrick Custer: 00:49:59

Your story is your story, and the audience can deal with how it comes out.

Because journalistically like this needs to be about the truth and your truth, because I want to know what impacted you, how it impacted you, and what truly, indeed happened.

And when you're talking to me about a relationship that you found that changed your life, whether people can believe that or not, they can still understand what you're saying in a concept. That's what I would ask the viewer, the listener, that may be turned off to faith of any kind.

Someone finding what you just described, whatever you want to call it, is a beautiful thing and transformative. And I would hope that anybody could be so happy that another person would find this.

Corey Warren: 00:50:51

Even if you go back in aa, doesn't matter what Higher power is all over the program. God is all over the literature. There's obviously a spiritual component at some capacity that they thought needed to be implemented.

I never understood that until that day. I never understood why. I never understood how. And my mom was pretty spiritual in a different way, but I never could really wrap my head around it.

Even at the best of my sobriety prior to that, I was still kind of a jerk, and I was still very arrogant, and I was still. I just wasn't a very good person in a lot of ways. I would gossip as long as I wasn't drinking.

Patrick Custer: 00:51:34

I was.

Corey Warren: 00:51:34

All right.

Patrick Custer: 00:51:34

That was your threshold. That was your. The bar. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:51:37

As long as I wasn't drinking, I'm not. I'm not saying I was out there just causing mayhem, but I definitely wasn't really trying to improve myself a ton past just not drinking.

This time is different. I'm trying not to cuss. I'm trying not to gossip. I want to be a better person. I want to be better for my wife, for my kids.

Patrick Custer: 00:51:57

Well, that's the thing, Corey. I think. I think you just hit the nail on the head. Something that's so important is. Is being curious enough beyond the doors of getting sober.

So you remove the alcohol. Yes. That's great. And, you know, it's awesome because you get to live longer.

And no matter who you are, I think that same thing happens where we keep searching for the different stuff that makes us feel better. The bar is not set very high.

If we don't stay curious about how we can continue to improve morally, spiritually, physically, mentally, by the time we get sober. We've been neglecting all of those things for so long, and some of them never been touched developmentally. Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:52:47

You know, a lot of people say early sobriety is so difficult.

Patrick Custer: 00:52:51

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:52:52

It's got its challenges, I think.

But 10 years sober, when I forgot about that pain, and I forgot about how difficult it was, and I forgot about how terrible it was, I forgot about all those horrible moments. That's when it was hard because I hadn't done any growth in any of those other areas. I just put the bottle down. I didn't really work on myself.

Patrick Custer: 00:53:14

When do you think you stopped growing?

Corey Warren: 00:53:16

About three years in. I didn't stop. I stopped growing as a person. I started growing in other areas of my life. I was very monetary, Terry. Focused. I was focused on business.

I was focused on money. I was focused on career. I was growing again. From the outside looking in, it looked like I. My life was moving forward.

Patrick Custer: 00:53:34

But for those of us who are in. In our position, you grow out of balance like that.

Corey Warren: 00:53:39

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 00:53:40

And it pushes you in to a real dangerous area.

Corey Warren: 00:53:44

And money became my God.

Patrick Custer: 00:53:46

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 00:53:47

At that point, it became the most important thing, because money could buy happiness. It could buy everything. And I'll tell you, one of the craziest things that ever happened.

My daughter is from a relationship that I had before I was married. And when she was really young, she kept. She'd always want her mom. It was hard for me to hear that. It was hard for her to be with me, missing her mom.

Because I'm like, dang, I just want, like, my time, you know? But that was the reality of it. She really missed her mom and those really.

And she still does, but it was, like, meltdowns and those first, like, two years of her life. It was just. It was tough on me. I'm sure it was tough for Brit to watch, too, but I.

Her mom lived in this little apartment about 20 minutes away from us, and we lived in this beautiful house and land and toys and all this stuff. I remember this was all going on, and we were looking.

This is towards when I was drinking and we bought a boat, and we bought a boat that we did not need. Probably one of the worst financial decisions I've ever made in my life.

Patrick Custer: 00:54:50

I feel like most people I know who've bought boats eventually say that about.

Corey Warren: 00:54:55

They are. They're terrible. Don't ever buy one. If you're considering one, don't buy it unless you want to buy mine, then I'll sell it to you.

Patrick Custer: 00:55:00

But.

Corey Warren: 00:55:01

But I thought to myself, it was crazy. I was like, you know what? This is going to be it. Because my kids are going to be like, this is so cool. This is what it's all about.

And I wanted them to be so happy about going out on the boat and hanging out and doing all these things that she wouldn't even think about going to moms or doing anything, you know what I mean? Because it's so fun at Dad's. And I remember she sat on that boat in the lake, music cranking, sun shining. She says, dad, I just really miss Mom.

And it was like. It hit like a ton of bricks. It was like, wow, my priorities have been. Been messed up because my kids don't care about what I can give them.

They don't care about our boat. They don't care about our countertops. And if they're quartz or if they're just a piece of drywall, they don't care. They care about time.

They care about me being present with them. The difference between Mom's house and my house was when she got out of school or kindergarten or daycare, whatever it was.

Her mom spent all that time focused in on her present with her, where dad was constantly taking work calls and gone over here and doing this over here and not available. So who would she want?

Naturally, I want the one that's going to pay attention to me, not the one who's buying a boat, because he thinks that's what's going to make me happy. Life has changed a lot in these last couple years and what is important.

And I'll tell you that while I snap back to money often, sometimes the busyness is one of the worst things for me.

Patrick Custer: 00:56:38

I feel like you're just attacking the things that you're just. You're just attacking.

Corey Warren: 00:56:43

I don't mean to attack.

Patrick Custer: 00:56:43

Yeah, no, this is. That's one of those things where I'm like, yeah, the terminal uniqueness of just being like.

Yeah, you're just talking about the two things that remind me. But like, you stay sober long enough, you work hard, money and busyness are two things that are going to become a struggle. Yeah. That.

I mean, honestly, whether you're sober or not, if you've. If you haven't struggled as an. As an adult with identifying a healthy balance with both of those things. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I don't know what you're like, but I definitely know that it's something that takes a relentless pursuit.

Corey Warren: 00:57:26

Because I want. Because I want what I want, you.

Patrick Custer: 00:57:28

Want what you want. And so I'm curious if you feel this way too. And I just had this realization of. Of kind of where I think the limit is that boxes me in. I want to.

At my core, there's this part of my brain that wants to feel like some point I'm gonna have it figured out so that it's not going to be a struggle for me anymore to be able to healthfully balance money. It's not going to be a struggle for me to basically not going to have to put any thought into it. It's just.

It's not going to be a thing where the truth is, when I'm having these honest, vulnerable conversations, I can sit here with you and say, I know in actuality this is something that's going to be. There's always going to be a rub.

As long as we have any push towards adjusting with what the needs are with change, with getting uncomfortable when that's required, whether it means, you know, like not taking the call that means another deal, that's really important and realizing like the.

A lot of times leadership, we hear saying similar to this, but like with time, you spend your time doing something at the cost of something else always. So make a good choice. That is true whether you're a CEO, a small business owner, an employee of a corporation, or you are, you know, work at.

In retail, period. It doesn't matter.

Corey Warren: 00:59:05

I'm not sure if you've heard this one guy's sitting on a dock, he doesn't have a shirt on. He's Fishing, just catching a tan. Looks rough, right? So doesn't look like he's, you know, coming out of. Maybe he's not a CEO.

He's a younger guy, maybe early 30s, mid-30s. And anyway, here comes this guy in a suit walking down the dock, and he looks at him, he says, every day you're down here and you're just fishing.

You know what you could do is you could get one of your buddies come out here, you could give him a small cut. He could help you fish. You could bring in more fish. If you saved up this amount of every single fish that you caught, you could buy yourself a boat.

Once you bought a boat, you could hire on a bunch of employees, and you guys could really start fishing. It would bring you in 10 times the income that you would be doing at this point.

You could essentially buy even more boats and retire early, and then you could do anything that you want. And he says, like what? Sit on this dock and fish? And it was like, why do we wait till retirement to do what we want to do?

I'm so darn busy trying to make it to retirement. This guy's out there fishing on this dock, doing exactly what he loves and wants to do. It's not about money to him.

It's not about he's living his retirement.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to do that, but I get so consumed by all of this stuff in this man, money and business and all this crap that's going on in my life that it pulls me away from what's really important and what I really want to do. So then I just bust my butt for however many years in the workforce to then retire to do what I want to do. And it just seems kind of silly.

So I've been in this mode where it's like, what pieces of my life are bringing value. I have done probably a hundred budgets in the last six months to see where in my life I could cut out to be able to stop working so much.

More times than not, over the past six months, I've wanted to delete all my accounts and be completely done with social media because it's consuming so much of my life, and I feel like I'm just adding to the chaos. And that hurts my heart sometimes in my brain.

I sit there at night and I scroll and I'm checking my accounts and I'm checking all this stuff, and I'm taking time away from what's really important. But now I've justified it, and I call it work, sobriety, recovery, has given me the ability to even challenge myself like this.

Patrick Custer: 01:01:30

It's. It's a gift. Right? Like be. This is a, this is a. We say Cadillac problem. You know, today it is hard, though it's not.

And that's not to diminish how much of a mountain that can be.

Because what you just described, while we can sit here and smile and call it a Cadillac problem, it's also something that has caused other people to go out and drink before because of how heavy it is. So, you know, not to be taken lightly. There's blessing in it. There's. It's all. All about perspective.

Corey Warren: 01:02:02

Right. For sure.

Patrick Custer: 01:02:02

It's that thing of money. You need it. But there's, there's like, you can go too far.

Corey Warren: 01:02:09

What is even living within your means. Do any of us live within our means? Absolutely not. If you look at like more money, more problems.

If you look at like what the actual like whatever salary you make, like how much percentage you should pay for like your mortgage or your rent or a vehicle. Like, we are not even close. We live so outside of, of our means. And then, and then I think that's.

Patrick Custer: 01:02:36

The average American and we're set up. Society is set up to. Yeah. American society. I don't think all countries operate.

Corey Warren: 01:02:45

No, no, no, no, they don't.

Patrick Custer: 01:02:47

That's definitely the norm for us here. Yeah.

Corey Warren: 01:02:49

And so that, and then we just keep. So that we just keep running and pushing and running and running and running. And everything just gets so fast. And it's so fast. Life is so fast.

Patrick Custer: 01:02:58

This. Is this.

The ever optimist to me is that I think that there's, there's, there's always a new level of like just when I think that, you know, you think that you've like, all right, I've got this. Yeah.

Corey Warren: 01:03:09

Some.

Patrick Custer: 01:03:09

Oh, there's a new level. But on an exciting front, there's also a new level of identifying what is next for the becoming.

Because like it never has to, should, or needs to be done.

Corey Warren: 01:03:21

Yeah.

Patrick Custer: 01:03:21

I hope at retirement I'm still trying to figure out ways to become better.

Corey Warren: 01:03:28

For sure.

Patrick Custer: 01:03:29

To soften the edges, to be better to the people that mean the most to me.

Corey Warren: 01:03:35

Once we stopped growing, that was when I spun out. So I think that's. I would agree. I'd stand with you on that.

I hope I forever continue to grow and continue to learn and continue to be open minded and humble.

Patrick Custer: 01:03:50

I. I literally could sit here and probably do this for four more hours with you. Like, we're so on the same wavelength. Yeah.

Corey Warren: 01:03:57

It's been really fun.

Patrick Custer: 01:03:58

This has been amazing.

And I'm just, I'm so eternally grateful that you came and of course that your life was spared, that you said yes to recovery all the times that you did and, and you're doing what you're doing. We'll have in the show notes how people can follow and connect with your stuff, but your initiatives right now.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you're working on?

Corey Warren: 01:04:20

ave a lot of stuff coming up,: 2026

ur own podcast. Coming early.: 2026

Patrick Custer: 01:04:35

You say that now.

Corey Warren: 01:04:36

Yeah, we'll see.

But you know, it's just we, we hang out and we talk all the time anyway and we talk about some really awesome stuff and so the whole thought is to just put a camera on us because I think people can really get a lot out of what we're sharing. Yeah, in Michigan we have a lot of resources. Outside of Michigan, we don't have a ton right now. People if they are looking at getting sober.

I do offer one on one coaching, but I have limited availability as I don't. I, I usually don't handle more than about 10 people at a time.

And it's just because when stories start to blend and I start to not remember what you talked to me about last week versus what they talked to me about last week, that's when I don't feel like I'm doing a service to the person. So I usually take between five and 10 people. But I have other coaches that work for me so they can definitely get in with one of my team and they've.

I've trained them personally so one on one coaching, you can go visit my website, CoreyWarren.com if you're interested in getting a hold of me, we can do some free consults, all that kind of stuff. Looking at having some other stuff in the summer, but I don't want to talk too much about it right now.

Patrick Custer: 01:05:33

Okay.

Corey Warren: 01:05:34

But yeah, just keep a reason to.

Patrick Custer: 01:05:36

Give you a follow and stay, stay.

Corey Warren: 01:05:38

uff drummed up for the summer: 2026

But the end of the day, man, like all this stuff is possible just because of sobriety. It's. It's possible because I started to put that bottle down, focus on my future, focus on myself, figure out what was going on with me.

So all of this stuff is fun. We could talk about.

We can, you know, set up these awesome studios and have these great conversations, but at the end of the day, like, I think you and I, we do it. We just want to help.

Patrick Custer: 01:06:07

Yeah.

Corey Warren: 01:06:07

So at the end of the day, like, what matters the most to me is that people are finding healing through whether it be my channel, your channel, somebody random. I don't really care where it comes from, but find your healing. Start to work on yourself. Life is so beautiful.

I know that it can sometimes not always feel like that, but life is beautiful. And I just want people to. To try to get better.

Patrick Custer: 01:06:31

I have always said this, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, but, like, if everything that I've done until.

Until this point and building the studio and having you here and I were to die tomorrow knowing that we were able to change the trajectory of one person's life, this one. So that they said, I'm going to tell somebody because nobody knows I'm struggling.

Corey Warren: 01:06:59

You know what's cooler than a video that has 10 million views that's full of crap? It has a bunch of random comments and a bunch of garbage all over it is a video with a thousand views that's really hitting somebody.

I would rather hit a thousand people that need to Hear this than 10 million people, absolutely random, who could care less.

Patrick Custer: 01:07:19

There's something that always brings me to this point in almost every episode. I don't even have to try, and I'm so glad I always want to speak to that person, which is multiple people who feel like you're the only one.

Still, this episode's for you. If everything we did today was only for you to make a better decision for your life, it would be worth it for sure. You're worth it. Thank you so much.

Corey Warren: 01:07:44

Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's been awesome.

Patrick Custer: 01:07:47

So wonderful. I hope you.

Corey Warren: 01:07:48

We got a lot to catch up on.

Patrick Custer: 01:07:50

The next time we do this, 1,000%.

Corey Warren: 01:07:52

We got to do it again.

Patrick Custer: 01:07:53

This has been the Patrick Custer Show. I'm Patrick Custer, your host, and so glad you stuck through for the whole entire conversation. That means you got something from it.

And I just want to ask that you'd give us a follow a.

Like, engage with whichever platform that you're consuming this on so that we can continue to do the good work and follow our heart, mission, passion, vision for this show. We're doing it for you. And the hope is that we're going to cause a ripple effect of good. And I hope that you get to continue being a part of that.

But it starts with you. So we love feedback, we love engagement, and we are so grateful for all that you can do. And we're so glad that you're here.

Hopefully, you have been inspired to make a better decision in whatever area of your life that needs it today. And I hope to see or hear or vice versa, you back next week on the Patrick Custer Show. Stay tuned. We'll see you then.

Corey Warren: 01:08:58

Sat.