One Sip. One Revolution. Rethinking Recovery with Dr. Robb Kelly

[00:00:00] Speaker A: So I remember stabbing my wife three times one night cause she won't let me finish my bottle of vodka. I remember falling on the children and nearly killing them because daddy wanted to drink. Trying to get down the stairs in the morning. I remember leaving my children, ages one and three, at the cinema. And I drove 7 miles to the nearest liquor store. After the stabbing incident, I fled to Spain. Cause there was an attempted murder charge out. Didn't know she was gonna live or not. She did, and she was fine. And then three months later, the agreement was that all charges were dropped. So I came back home. Here's where it starts really getting sad. I got to the door, and she had all the cases packed and two children ready to go. What the. Who do you think you are? Well, you can't do this to me. You don't even know who I am. Really. [00:00:41] Speaker B: In complete denial. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Still. 100%. So she took the kids and she left. I got on to my attorney and said, here's the deal. I want to pay you a check to get my kids back. Is that possible? He said, well, if I go to court tomorrow, and I'll get a court order. Yeah. So later the next day, the two children arrived with him. So I put my children in front of the tv, and I went into the kitchen, and the thought hit me, wouldn't it be great to have one beer to celebrate having my kids back? I don't remember the actual time. Two, three days later, I got kicked awake by a police officer. As I stumbled to my feet, the police officer grabbed the children, gave one to mom in law and one to my wife. But my eldest, Bonnie, was holding onto mommy's hand as she was walking down the path. She said three things to me, said, daddy, daddy, please don't go halfway down the path. She says, daddy, daddy, please get better. And as I got to the gate, they opened this big wrought iron gate, and she turned around one more time. It's after 30 years I get like this. She says, daddy, daddy, please stop drinking. [00:01:54] Speaker B: One for the black man gone in the game and two for the ball. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Boys are young to explain. [00:02:00] Speaker B: From stages in front of hundreds as a nine year old to playing bass with the likes of Elton John and Freddie Mercury, this cat took a left turn. Attended Oxford University, the prestigious university to study psychology and human behavior. And now he has impacted people in significant ways with his research, an approach to addiction. He's a thinker, not a drinker. Welcome, my good friend, doctor Rob Kelly to the tcast. [00:02:29] Speaker A: We're not filming, are we? [00:02:30] Speaker B: Of course we are. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Oh, we are. Yeah. Oh, man. Why don't you tell me? [00:02:33] Speaker B: I make this so easy. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:02:38] Speaker B: So I get to do. That's my advice. I got. I got song. Something for you. Yeah. Let's. Let's talk a little bit about growing up overseas and what inspired you to get into music at such an early age. [00:02:50] Speaker A: First of all, I was born into a musical family, so my auntie and uncle, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, would hit the clubs. He was a guitarist. He was a singer. So, yeah, so I got my first guitar at the age of, I want to say three or something like that. And then I got my first bass guitar when I was about seven. So I. Obviously, other guys in my immediate family had no musical talents whatsoever, but I picked it up. So I'm the guy that can. That can play anything. Like, somebody gave me bagpipes a couple of months ago. You can't play that. Well, I can't. Give me two minutes. Five minutes. Play a tune. I just. I don't understand why people can't do that, really. So, yeah, so, you know, at the age of nine, I'm on stage playing with my uncle Ante. It was awesome. [00:03:36] Speaker B: But you went backwards. You went guitar, bass, and a lot of people will go bass and guitar. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So, guitar to mess around with. But when I got my bass, that's when I started to, you know, really start playing and enjoying it. So. And the reason why I did the bass is my uncle always played the lead guitar in the little trio they had. So, you know, he'd say, you know, play this bass riff, and I could play it straight away. So I thought, well, bass, I'm taking the bass is good enough for me. I'll take that. Wow. [00:04:06] Speaker B: So it was something about the way it sounded, or what do you think? [00:04:09] Speaker A: I think because there were four strings, to be honest, and it was easier, you know. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Well, as a kid, definitely the line. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So. But I, you know, in a band 112 or 13, a lead singer comes in and says, okay, we fired the lead player. Rob, can you take over lead? And I'm like, well, I've never played lead before, so I'll just do some really fast bass riffs high up on the guitar. And we got away with it, really. Then I found out, you know, I could literally play anything. [00:04:35] Speaker B: So. Did you ever discover, in retrospect, how you are able to look at an instrument like that? And. And is it a visualization? Is it mathematics? Is it all audio? What is it? [00:04:47] Speaker A: I think a lot of it is inbuilt. Born this way, born with that musical talent that my auntie and uncle had, it just become. It's so natural to me. It's not as if, like, oh, oh. It's just, I don't know how you can't. I don't know how you can play the instrument. My answer was, I don't know how you can, you know? But I can't build. He build a gazebo on his house. I don't know how to do that. I can't paint a wall or change a plug. Don't even ask me what's in the. Under the hood outside. I have no idea. But two talents I have that I do very well, and one of them was music, but I have the addictive personality and suffered from alcoholism as a kid. So the mindset of that. We're kind of neuroscientists, that the mindset of that means that when you put your mind to something, you can literally do anything you want. So that's been my mindset all along. [00:05:37] Speaker B: So you're kind of myopic when it comes into something. You get into it and everything else shuts out, definitely. [00:05:43] Speaker A: So I would apparently, I don't remember this. I would go to the restroom and take. Mom would bath me with a bass guitar in my hand. It was that crazy. I always had it around my neck, but what that became is that became a personality of mine. So you put the guitar around my neck and the audience, it was amazing. But you take the guitar off, and I'm a shy kid in the corner that can't speak to anybody. So I got bullied at school as a small, little kid. So I formed a school band, you know, a little trio that played at the school dances and there wasn't bullied. I was kind of, oh, my. Here's rather than me. Yeah. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Girls are paying attention to you. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [00:06:18] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:06:19] Speaker A: That makes me. I took my first drink up in age nine when I was on stage, Liverpool center, playing in front of about 400 people, three of us, and we played the first half, and I'd never seen a crowd like that before. So a good. I'm nine years old, for goodness sake. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:34] Speaker A: You know, so when I come off, we play 245 minutes sets. I think, come off the first one, and I'm almost crying. I'm asking for more. My uncle said, take this beer. I took a few swigs, and everything changed for me. Wow. Right there and then it's like, oh, it was like Chuck Berry. When I basically tell the second 45, I was enjoying it. I had so much confidence, I was loving it. So, yeah, that alcohol, man, it's just took me to a different place. [00:06:59] Speaker B: Curiously, this may seem like a really ignorant question, but the first time I tried beer, you know, you're riding around 7th, 8th grade, whatever it was, and you're taking sips and just thinking barely stomach. This was drinking piss and you're trying to dump half of it out and brag that you finished it. What? Was it tasteful to you? Or was it just the effect that it had on you that that struck you like that when you. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Definitely the effect. Because I ask friends all the time how long I took my first drink at eight. Was it like horrible? Never drank again? It was terrible. It wasn't like that with me now, today, I know why, because of the study and what we do for a living. But back then, it's just the way it made me feel. Like took all the nerves away. It gives you this false Persona that it was just amazing. So I think that was it. But once I put my mind to something, I conquer. I'm an all in, all out guy. Like, I've never played basketball court basketball. But someone asked me today, do you want to play? No. Why? Never played it. Well, learn. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Nope, just not interested in. But if you're interested in it, you'd be a pretty good. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd be a pro. Yeah, I know it's crazy to say that, but I would be. [00:08:07] Speaker B: I get it. I understand. I have a semblance of that personality too, and it's. Which is why I'm a career left turnist. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Because I, you know, do this and then do that. Yeah, do this. And none of them necessarily are related, but I understand. So at nine, you're already playing on stages and everything else. You picked up the bass. Bass became kind of your passion. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:27] Speaker B: But now you're moving up in the music world, you end up scoring some gigs, playing sessions and stuff like that. I assume the drinking continued through that process. Can you tell me about how you ended up getting to be a session player at one of the prestigious studios? [00:08:44] Speaker A: So when we Mars got to be famous and in a bandaid, when the trio split up or my auntie became too old, I don't know what it was. Obviously, I joined bands or created bands, and here's how it led up to studio work, is we would pack like $1,000 worth of equipment into a $600 car and spend a fortune getting there for dollar 20 each. So it was literally five till midnight. You're out I mean, the hourly rate was something like $0.20 an hour, I don't know. So one day, and it was Strawberry Studios in Stockport, just outside Manchester. Somebody came to me and said, hey, can you play this session work for me? I can't make it. And I'm like, what session work? First of all, when you go in, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, I can do that. I could read music. [00:09:28] Speaker B: At what age was this about strawberry rolls? [00:09:31] Speaker A: About twelve or 13, maybe 14. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Good Lord. [00:09:34] Speaker A: Around there. But I didn't know what to expect. So we arrived at Strawberry Studios. Ten cc owned Strawberry Studios, or used to back then. So I knew it was a pretty good studio. But we went in to guy come in, he put a sheet of music in front of me, he said, ok, can you play that? Four. Four? I said, yep, no problem. He went, earphone okay, when you ready, Rob? Three. I'm like, why isn't he counting two on one? Didn't even know that, you know. So I played it through and he came in, he went, okay, that's impressive. Can you play this, please? Walked out and I put that bass track down and he came with one more. And I played that. I bet it was nine minutes of actually playing. And I can't. I can't even remember the amount, but it was. Sometimes it was something like ten times the amount I was getting paid for traveling, all that stuff, right? And I was like, what's this? And he's like, oh, it's for your session work. And I said, how much is how much? How much? And again, can't remember so long ago, but let's say I get paid $100 in a band playing. And he gave me like a. I'm like, what? This is how much you get? Do I owe this to the other guy? Like he said, that's yours. And I thought to myself, why the hell am I traveling up and down the country for like 20 pound when this guy's just giving me like a thousand pounds to play? You know, it was just crazy. So from then on, I stayed, I packed the bangs in and I stayed at studio Strawberry Studios. I mean, the work was few and far between. And then I was flicking through Melody Maker. I was drinking every day. Now I think I was flipping through Melody Maker, which is a british music magazine, and I saw an ad for a session based player. It didn't say where it was. It just says prestigious studio or something like that. So I call them up. I had seven auditions for that gig. So back in the day, no cell phones, you have to wait for the phone to ring or they send you a letter and I'm thinking, like 17, I don't know, around that area, get on a train, go down there, get in a taxi, get to the studio, walk in and, yeah, seven. So what happened with me is the first time I showed up, I'm a kidde, yeah. These seasoned bass players wanting this job, you know, I'm like a kid, but I signed a liquor store near and I drank one of these strong beers, they call it special brewery in the UK, and I went in confident and I played, went back home, letter came a week or two later. Thank you so much, you've passed. Can you come for a second interview? So the second interview, logic says if I had one beer for the first interview, then two beers for the second one, obviously, of course. Common sense. Right? After seven auditions, I went in, I was like, I was wasting, man, and I played and I came out and before I even left the building, they said, okay, when can you start? Like, literally when, you know, can we sign a contract? And I'm like, have I got the job? Yeah, you've got the job. So I would, I'd be on call for the studio, which eventually we moved to London, East Sheen, to be near the studio while I was going to college. I should not have gone college. I. We came from a project, man. We couldn't even afford our vacation. My mum and dad couldn't even afford a school trip, which was like, to the local park, camping for five cent. They couldn't afford that. So, you know, it was crazy how I got there. It was all, you know, through people I met and kind of underhand and the freemasons and stuff like that, which is so secretive in England, so. But, yeah, that's what I was doing. And, you know, I. I remember the day, you know, I've been doing session work for quite a bit, met Elton Bowie and all them guys, and then one night, the session was from one till seven in the morning, so you. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Glean over that so quickly. But go ahead. [00:13:06] Speaker A: I know, right? You just. Yeah, when you've been there, you don't have. But anyway, but the guy said, hey, Rob, can you come in? Freddie wants you to do some session with him. What was my first word? Freddie? You. I think it's actually said Fred. Fred who? He said, mercury. I'm like, he's asked for me. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it goes down there. Some of my most beautiful times was sat drinking with him because he was such an amazing guy. Then we go and he said, I never. Back in the day, you had two choices when you did your session work, you could either get, again, don't know the prices so long ago. You can get dollar 200 for the session work. Okay. Or you could get 100 or 75. And a mention on the albumen now we're playing 20 songs for seven to go on the album. Nobody texts a mention on the album. We don't even know your song's gonna go on it. So you take the, you know, the property, $200. But I still hear stuff today that I'm like, ah, I think I played that. You know, I think it was there. [00:14:04] Speaker B: It'd be interesting to know. Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating, though. Yeah, I have a great opportunity to get to meet some of those guys and understand how they worked. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah. But then I got into that. I kind of got into that industry of meeting all these guys and hanging out with them, um, which was awesome. But my drinking took over my druggies. My druggies first started at Abbey Road. Kill, cocaine, everything's free, blah, blah, blah. I think I'm the only musician that got fired from a studio for being wasted because it was about two or three years. And then they let me go. You know, it's like anything you, you play in a band, like now, when people look at me now and they go, I see you on the jet there, and I see you traveling here all over the country every couple of weeks. So I've got to be patient. What a glamorous life. Chauffeur's there it is for the first month, and then it becomes work. Like, it was great at Abbey Road. I play Abbey Road, but then it become. It was great going out, gigging with bands, but then it became work. We went on a tour, one of the second 3rd bands I was in, we were about, I don't know how old dad has to drive us to the gigs. No one could drive. But after a week, the thing was four weeks on the road, but after about a week, I wanted to kill the other three members. So I don't know how guys. Well, I don't know how they all travel to the studio different. That's how they do it. But, yeah, it was horrible. But he becomes work, right? And so did the session work, and kind of everything I've done is like, oh, my God, I get to do this. But then it becomes work, and it's not as fun. [00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, you've seen the innards, and you kind of know how everything works, and then, you know, and I would imagine that the energy that you put into certain things too, because I run into this not to the extent that you do, but I will hit burnout too. And then I'm completely done. And I just need to do something completely. I can't. Yeah, I just can't. I can't do it anymore. Justice, essentially. [00:15:44] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:15:44] Speaker B: That's what happened to you. But you kept drinking. So I find it fascinating also, not only the financial burden that you had to get over in order to go to school, but you go to a prestigious school and you don't study music, you're taking this left turn that I'm describing here. So what led you to go from one thing to the other so well. [00:16:06] Speaker A: How all that came about is I had a couple of friends who I lived on the project. They lived on what we call the private houses where they paid mortgages. And one of the dads was a Freemason. And they was going to have this big occasion where they come from all over the country. And like three or four weeks before it happened that the organist dropped dead and he was about 80 something, you know, I don't know, but his dad called me in and said, hey, can I speak to him? I'm like, oh, God, what for? Darn, I'm in trouble. And he said, look, it's a strange situation, but can you come play keyboard at my lodge for this occasion? And across the board I would pay you. I said, fine, I can't. No problems. So apparently you can't just walk into a lodge and play organ. You've got to be taken through, you know. 1st first and then second, I think. I'm not 100% sure. So you do outer guard, then in a guard, then you can go in. So it was crazy how they did it. They did in a guard for a few days, then they changed it. And then I was in plane organ. So. So I played organ. But while I'm. You do all the ceremonies. Cause I had to attend a few before the big one. And then you had a big meal. Everyone talks to each other. What? Everyone loved me. Cause I'm a musician, I say, I'm gonna save the day. So the people I was mixing with even then were high flyers. So one of them was a senior police officer in London. And we become good friends and he said, what do you wanna do? I said, well, no one's in my family gone to college and nobody's become something and no one's ever bought a house and stuff like that. And it came about and that's who got me in Oxford through the back way. So I first of all went to Greens College, Oxford. And I remember the first day I showed up, we had a meal and we sat down as, like, seven knives and seven forks and, like, four spoons. And I'm like, what the hell? So that's where my imposter syndrome came from, that I still suffer from today. Anyway, I watched everybody else, and I was still playing Abbey Road, so I could afford to pay, you know, the fees and stuff. [00:18:07] Speaker B: And you didn't have imposter syndrome at Abbey Road because you're probably too young and ignorant to recognize. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Exactly. And, you know, I thought if I was one of these guys, 40 or 50, I don't think. I mean, who in, who in, why would a 1670s go and try playing something that these seasoned bass players, some of them well known as well. Yeah, it was insane. You won't even try. But, yeah, because I was young, I didn't have any fear. Very interesting. So that's what I did, college. So I found out probably 12, 13, 14 that grandfather died from drinking. Uncle died from drinking. The other uncle had prostate cancer. So I knew that drinking was part of the deal. But what fascinated me, even at an early age, was the brain. The brain fascinated me. Hmm. How can I pick an instrument and play? How can I do this? What means that? Da da da. So I decided to study psychology. So I first started green college to become a doctor, a medical doctor. I got fired from being turned up. Every day wasted. So the opportunity was, we're going to ban you from Oxford, or you can go into, God, I can't remember the name now, the psychology thing, the study in psychology. So that's what I did. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:19:20] Speaker A: I paid people off and, you know, I made sure that, so sort of. [00:19:23] Speaker B: By fault, but at the same time, part of your interest. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:27] Speaker B: And your fascination with. That's. That's awesome. And that's quite serendip. Serendipitous, too. Yes, under the circumstances, definitely. But so that doesn't mean that, hey, the story ends there because obviously you didn't stop drinking yet. [00:19:42] Speaker A: The story doesn't even stop. [00:19:45] Speaker B: And there's, and there are so many, so many little steps along the road. Um, then there are so many criticisms about how rehabs work. [00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Knowing that, and without getting into that, that we'll, I'm sure we'll get into later. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:02] Speaker B: How did you end up finally getting clean? Was. Was that even during your collegiate stint or did you. [00:20:07] Speaker A: No, I I'd been to Oxford. I'd come out. I joined the police force got fired from there. After a few months of being drunk, my drinking got really out of hand. So I remember stabbing my wife three times one night because she won't let me finish my bottle of vodka, but still didn't think I had a problem. I remember falling on the children and nearly killing them because daddy wanted to drink, trying to get down the stairs in the morning. I remember leaving my children, ages one and three, at the cinema, and I drove 7 miles to the nearest liquor store. So I knew that I wasn't behaving well, but still didn't think I had a problem. So after the stabbing incident, I fled to Spain because there was an attempted murder charge out. Didn't know if she's going to live or not. She did, and she was fine. And then three months later, the agreement was that all charges were dropped. So I came back home. Here's where it starts really getting sad. I came back home and she knew what time I was home. My dad flew me back home again. I got to the door and she had all the cases packed and two children ready to go. And I don't know that concussed on this podcast, but I was, what the fuck? Who do you think you are? I am, you know, I'm like a bodybuilder, you know, I'm known around town. Sometimes I work the doors. You can't do this to me. You don't even know who I am. Really. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Complete denial. Still. [00:21:22] Speaker A: 100%. So she took the kids and she left. I got into my attorney and said, here's the deal. We give you a million dollars a year to do what you do. I want to pay you a check to get my kids back. Is that possible? I said, well, if I go to court tomorrow and I'll get a court order. Yeah, go do it. So later, the next day, the two children arrived with him and a carer. I took the two children, I gave him a check, I walked him into little living. I'm sober four days by now, by the way. So I watched him. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Just cold turkey. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I just stopped drinking because I knew I was in trouble, you know, I knew that things were going wrong. [00:21:52] Speaker B: You were trying to. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah. When I come back from Spain, I was sober. So I put my children in front of the tv and I went into the kitchen and the thought hit me, wouldn't it be great to have one beer to celebrate having my kids back? I don't remember the actual time. Two, three days later, I got kicked awake by a police officer. There was vodka bottles strewn throughout the room, the children not being fed or changed diapers for two days. I mean, after I left them there to go to the liquor store, the police come in. The childhood services were there, child protection services were there. She was there, a mother in law there, and there's about four policemen there. As I stumbled to my feet, the police officer grabbed the children, gave one to mom in law and one to my wife. I staggered to the door feeling, unless you've gone through this, guys, you will never know that pit of stomach feeling of just absolutely devastated that, you know, must kill your kids. But my eldest one, he was holding on to mommy's hand as he's walking down the path. She said three things to me, said, daddy, daddy, please don't go. And then halfway down the path, she says, daddy, daddy, please get better. And as I got to the gate, they opened this big raw iron gate and she turned around one more time. This is after 30 years. I get like this. She says, daddy, daddy, please stop drinking. I can't do it. I couldn't do it. So a week after that, the house had gone. The kids are gone, the cars are gone. I signed everything over to my wife, and I became homeless for the first time in my life. And everything was taken away. So abandoned on the street, if I call my mom, she'd put the phone straight down. If I turned about the house, she'd call the police. Same with my wife. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Was it a time where you actually were introspective now for the first time, or not yet? [00:23:48] Speaker A: No. I died twice on the streets in England. Seven suicide attempts. And on two occasions it worked. I was dead and they brought me back. And I hated them guys for that. The paramedics. I hated them for that because I didn't want to live. [00:24:04] Speaker B: You knew how miserable you were, but you still didn't self blame or pinpoint the complete denial. [00:24:10] Speaker A: I often tell people I didn't go to hell when I was on the streets, but I could sure see from where I was. But one morning, Monday morning, Sunday night, two or 03:00 in the morning, I'm walking around the factories. There's no people there. Offices and factories. I remember dropping down to my hands and knees and I was crying from my stomach. It was pouring down. I remember the rain hitting me, coming round, coming off, mixing with the tears and hitting the cobblestones as it turned purple. I was done. I looked up to the skyd and I said, if there's a God up there, I can't do this on my own anymore. Now I wasn't crying because I'd lost my children. Carl's housewife. I was crying right there and then because I realized I can't stop drinking. And he took all of that. 30 seconds later, a guy walked around the corner, missed his last bus home, took this shortcut for the first time, came upon me. He said his name was Derek. My name's Derek. Do you need help? And I told him the story, and he took me back to his house. And this one, it gets really crazy, so. And people are going, what? It gets crazier than that. He's like, yeah, listen to this, guys. This is fantastic. Are you listening, guys, listen to this. Okay? So he texts me back and he goes, hey, Rob, you can stay here for as long as you like. I'm in recovery. I'm a Christian. You got to come to these AA meetings. I'm like, I've been to them. I hate them. Everyone's moaning, you know, piss and mow meetings. I don't want to go, but it's a dry bed. So if I go again to the. And sure enough, the guy on the right, he drinks one bottle a day. There's two bottles of three. I'm looking at this guy that's like 2030 in line. Like, there's no way do you drink 23 bottles of vodka a day. Because that's how he felt. But about halfway round, this guy said, my name's John, and I'm a recovered alcoholic. I turned to Derek. What did he just say? Did he say recovered? He said, yeah. And he read from this big book, and he was saying things that weren't true, but then he pointed in the big book, and it was true. He was there. And he talks about gone. And so after we finished, like, the biggest walk to ask somebody to help, he was like the Sahara desert, and he's probably half the size of his room. So I walked over to John and like, hey, John, my name's Rob. He said, hey, Rob, how you doing? I said, will you be my sponsor? He says, no, but I will do. He said, I'll be your spiritual advisor for twelve weeks. How does that work? You come around to my apartment every Wednesday and you get there for 07:00 p.m. not before. If you're downstairs at ten till you wait until seven, come upstairs. We spend an hour together at 08:00 you know, we go and that's it. I said, okay, then. So I got the address and I walked there. I couldn't afford anything else. You know, I had no money coming in. So I left Eric's at six. I got there for seven. I waited downstairs at two minutes to a weirdo. I knocked there at seven and I went in and. And no matter what we were doing, at 1 minute to eight he'd stand up and go okay, Rob, it's time to go. And he'd walk me to the door, opened the door and he'd say great job. And he closed the door and I went home. That was twelve times I did that. Twelve trips. Twelve 1 hour, 12 hours with him. And my life was starting to change. And on the last day he saw me, on the last Wednesday I'll never forget, he said, rob, God's got, God's got work for you to do and your life will change from tomorrow. So I said John, I've loved this time together, but I'm in a basement on Derek's bloat mattress and nobody knows I'm there, so I'm not. I have to question that. And he just smiled at me and off I went. The next day I'm cleaning up the house because that's my job. Or Derek's at work. The door goes like 12:00 and I'm like, derek, what are you doing home? And he didn't know nothing about John or what he told me. He just said there's a guy at work, he's treats the floors, he's just handed his notice in. Do you want a part time job? I'm like what? Now? Yeah now. Come on. So we jumped in his car and went and the part time job turned into a full time job within a week because who wouldn't hire this guy, you know, not drinking, full of fun and everything. So it was amazing. And after about three or four weeks I got my first paycheck and he was cash stapled to an envelope back in the day. [00:28:12] Speaker B: Yes. [00:28:12] Speaker A: You know, so I got like, I don't know, two pounds maybe. I went to the local gas station and I bought John a little teddy bear. That's all I could afford. And a little card. And I wrote in the card, thank you John for introducing me to God. Because he capital H took the compulsion to drink away, man. I was so excited to get back to his house, man. I knew he was going to be proud of me. I just want him to be proud. Look, everything you said, john, apart from taking me away to another country, which was just out of question, obviously. So I get there and the curtains look a bit dirty and stuff like that, but I knocked on the door, I'm just got the bear here, man. I've got the card here. And I'm so excited. Look at me, look at me. And there's no answer. Well, knocks again a bit harder, and the woman on the right hand came out and says, can I help you? I said, yeah, John moved. And she said, john who? I said, john, your neighbor. And she went, oh, I've only been here, like, three months. I've never seen anybody in that apartment. So obviously she's drunk and wasted. So I let her close the door. I went around to the left hand side and knocked on that door, and this big guy came to the door. What do you want? I said, hey, where's John relocated to? He said, john who? I said, john, your next door neighbor. He said, let me tell you something. Don't come up here with all you smart. There's nobody in there. I said, your neighbor John next door. And he went on to tell me that that place was derelict. If you opened the door and walked in it, you would fall down to the apartment below. There used to be tape over it. And all of a sudden the tape went missing. And I'm like, oh, these guys are weird, you know. So I went back to the meeting when I first met John. I walked in and the guy went, oh, my God, Rob. I was like, you remember me? Well, anybody would remember you, Rob. I was like, oh, thank you, man. Does John still come in? And he said, john who? And I said, the guy that was over near the coffee machine speaking to him. He said, rob, you was over in the coffee machine speaking to yourself. Never found that man. But what I do today with almost 100% success record with the nearest percentage, 9%, 7% success. And we have almost 100%, 90% of what he taught me, I used today. And when I got wealthy, I called the best detective private detective agency in Manchester, and I wanted to find where this guy is. Nobody could find him. [00:30:25] Speaker B: You weren't convinced yet that he hadn't existed there? [00:30:29] Speaker A: No, I mean, I just. I don't know. But then things started to happen, like, weird things started to happen. And a few months, years, I don't know. It must have been years now. God. I opened a little practice. I was playing music. I was working the doors. And then out of the blue, when the Internet first came out and you had the little chat boxes, that's all you. You can't search for anything on their chat rooms. I'm on a christian chat room. I talking to this girl and she eventually said, hey, I've told the church all about you and it's a big church in Plano. Would you come over for two or three weeks and work with our youth ministry? They have a bad crack cocaine. So that's what I did. I came over from the UK, from England to Dallas, Texas. But ten days before I came now. Cause they're paying for everything. I'm so excited. I didn't even think about John telling me, I'm leaving the country, get all my stuff together. It's like a week before, and I could get my passport out, and it's expired by like four days. And I'm like, oh, my. So I get on the bus and I go down to the passport office. They did all my stuff. And I'm like, when will it be ready? He said, I have three, four weeks usually. I said, oh, my goodness, I can't really afford it, but can I expedite? He said, yeah, it's about two weeks, 14 days. I'm like, oh, my God. So I didn't expedite. I just put the normal and gave it to him. Walked out. I'm not going. Too embarrassed to call them. So the idea was, the day before, I'd call up saying I was sick and I couldn't go. I was so embarrassed. Two days before I was going to fly, the postman knocked on the door and handed me my passport. Don't know how that happened. [00:32:05] Speaker B: But now I didn't even complete the process, but it got done anyway. [00:32:08] Speaker A: I completed the process, but I didn't expedite it. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Okay. [00:32:11] Speaker A: So it'd be all been filled out. [00:32:12] Speaker B: For three or four weeks and. Yeah, yeah. [00:32:14] Speaker A: So that was my first indication of, oh, my goodness, what's going to happen. And then I landed in Dallas, Texas. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:32:20] Speaker A: For two weeks only, or three weeks. But I knew when I put my feet on american soil that I would never go back there to live. That was 20 years ago, 19 years ago. [00:32:29] Speaker B: It was somewhat of an epiphany. Or did you just feel like a sense of, this is where you belong? [00:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Belonging. Yeah. The sun, the people. I'd always seen America on tv, you know, I've never really. I went to Spain once, I think, before this, but, yeah, it was something that. And I still don't think about John. There's something somewhere I needed to be. And John always used to quote from me, isaiah 61, where we, as alcoholics and addicts, bring good news to the suffering and the families. Okay. And I always remember that. So when I'm at this house with this girl who I'm staying with, she has a job interview. She's out of work. She goes to have this interview. I drive her there, obviously on my english license. And 15 minutes into the interview, she come out and said, he wants to see you. Said, who wants to see me? The guy that owns the place. I said, what does he want to see me for? I've got nothing to do with. I'm not coming in. He wants to see you. So I goes in. I sit down. He's like, oh, we've been waiting for you, man. I said, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was supposed to be in it for the interview. No, no, no. We've been waiting for you. So glad you're here. And he's like, weird. It's like, weird. Will you come to our group? Will you preach our group? You're a prophet, and I. Okay, yeah, great. So, sue, you have the job. Rob, I'll see you at the meet. I said, great. Okay, fine. Went out, and I don't know why to this day, but I turned around and said, hey, what's your group called? And he said, we're called Isaiah 61. And stuff like that has been happening to me all the time I've been here. Yeah, it's crazy. [00:34:02] Speaker B: That's fascinating. And that justifies your being here. And nothing has sent you back overseas or somewhere else, obviously, but you still have a major bridge to gap. Did you stay clean that entire period after that, from the arrival here? [00:34:22] Speaker A: No, I relapsed about five years ago. Okay. And I relapsed because five years ago, I'm on tv most days. I'm doing da da da da. I'm getting amongst myself. I stopped doing what I'm supposed to do. Got bit cocky when the money started coming in, like, nine years ago. Ten years ago, I was in Dallas, Texas, and we had half a building, half a floor of a medical building in Highland park. Like, our rent was something like 20 grand a month or something. So I'm now up here. I've got the Porsche, I've got the gold Rolex editor, and it starts to go to my head. So when I came to here, I want to say six years ago, or it might have been no, I think it was back in Dallas. This within it, four years, I relapsed. But I knew it was going to relapse. [00:35:05] Speaker B: But you were. [00:35:05] Speaker A: I knew I was going to do it. I planned it. It's like, I'm done. Everyone recognizing you, the pressure, da da da. Even go to meetings like, oh, Doctor Rob's in the house, and everything got on top, and I went, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to self sabotage everything. And I said to Janet, I said, I'm going to drink. I said, what? So I'm going to drink. It's going to be tomorrow night, 06:00 p.m. you okay with that? And she was horrified. That's what I did. [00:35:31] Speaker B: So nobody circumvented? [00:35:33] Speaker A: No. [00:35:34] Speaker B: Is that. Do you think that's what you were doing when you prophesied that, though, is maybe somebody almost like a suicide attempt that says, I'm a. Yeah. It was your last cry for help without actually directly asking for it. [00:35:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I mean, who could I go to? We. I tried therapists, and, you know, you've only got to google my name, and we'd end up speaking about me and who I've worked with and what's such and such a body like, and blah, blah, blah, because most of it's on the Internet, and it didn't work. So that was probably, like you said, I never thought about that. Wow, that's deep. [00:36:06] Speaker B: And so that ended up taking you where at the point in which you bridge that part of your life, especially with the relapse. I'm very interested in your rehab experiences that led to something that you have done that's more innovative. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:24] Speaker B: And how those either worked or didn't work, or if you think it was something else that had healed you to that point, how did you get from that relapse? Let's say, to your aha moment that I've heard you talk about the amount. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Which one? There's been a few. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's true. Cause the aha moment you're talking about when you realized, uh, where your brain was being affected. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:47] Speaker B: More so that was while I was home. [00:36:48] Speaker A: That was back in the day. Yeah. So I had all this knowledge and all this experience. So I went to a place called the Meadows. I had a breakdown completely. So they stopped me in the meadows for, I want to say, six weeks. And then we came back out, and it was just back to normal. Nobody knew. And I sat with that for years and years, feeling again the imposter syndrome. And then I was doing a radio interview, and the guy asked me, you know, about sobriety, and I blurted out, five years ago, I was relapsed. And the relief. The relief and work started to pick up, and, you know, everything's been amazing. And we started getting. We work with a listers and celebrities and movie stars, and it's been amazing. I think getting rid of that and not keeping that was. Was very lifting and therapeutic for me. [00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I think people I certainly can testify to appreciate that transparency. [00:37:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:45] Speaker B: And it's. It's understandable. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:48] Speaker B: I mean, it's an addiction, so that would be perfectly reasonable to think, you know, that can happen to your people are people. That's why we work at it. [00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:57] Speaker B: So, how did you end up getting into doing what you do now? So, what. What takes you from being essentially a preacher and a jack of all trades and an example for many, sharing your testimony to actually developing some kind of new curriculum, which I'm interested in hearing about. [00:38:15] Speaker A: So, I always knew there was something. I always knew that alcohol wasn't the problem. And I prisoned myself outside that liquor store that morning, and I knew there was more to it. And I saw me, the depth. I took my family and friends to the trauma and hurt that I'd caused over the years, and I see other people going through it, and I'm like, no, there's more to this. There's more to this. So, again, being all in, all out, I studied because I've got a PhD in psychology, a PhD in behavioral science, so I've got everything. But I knew there was something else. I knew that this. There was something else there. So I started to study neuroscience. Well, before it was called neuroscience and neuroplasticity and all that, and we started to find out some amazing things with the mind. And then looking at my treatment centers back in England, like, they were just. I drank on the way home of every one of them. And when I found out the success rate is three to 5% across the world, I knew there was something not going right. But I would sit in meetings where somebody was speaking, a therapist at the treatment center, and he'd say stuff like, in two months time, after, you would have relapsed. So my brain's going, oh, okay, have a guess what half I'm in. And I kept relapsing and did it. So nobody knew. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew that. You can recover from this 100%. You can cure a drug addiction. You can cure PTSD. You can cure childhood trauma, alcoholism, you can't. Alcoholics are born. Drug addicts are made. So, that's what we got into finding out why that is. Why is alcoholism different to addiction? Because everybody wants to put it together. Alcoholics are born. Drug addicts are made. So, when I started getting started, it was like, oh, my goodness. Then we find out about the hypothalamus basal ganglia, and the then three parts of my brain differ from any other person in the world if you're not an alcoholic. So an alcoholic is someone who drinks too much. It's nothing to do with the alcohol. It's just the end result. That's all it is. So when we found out how they react in the brain and we found out other things about how alcohol affects us and how really, it's the trauma in the environment and all this stuff, that's where we delved in and think, listen, we need to start a program that's different to anybody else, because 90 meetings, 90 days won't do it. 30 days locking away in the treatment center doesn't do it. What we're teaching people, we're teaching people that's part of the recovery process, because that's wrong. That's not true. And then again, we go into the new. And there's so many trials and tests. We've done hundreds, if not thousands, over the last 15 years, no more than that, 18 years. And nobody studies like we do because there's no money in recovery. The food industry gets us sick, and the pharmaceutical companies keeps us hooked. That's it. Anything else? There's no money in that. Nobody wants to know. And I found out in treatment centers, treatment centers that you're paying. You know, one guy goes to treatment and he's paying ten grand a month, and nine months later, he's still in there. And I'm like, what's going on? He's a wealthy guy, but they're keeping him in there. And then all of a sudden, you've got all this stuff coming out that most people relapse on the way home. They're not teaching anything, and they're definitely not including the families like they should. So we found that the family unit, when a patient comes on board, we will not take him unless the family, the wife, and anybody over the age of 18 in that household comes on board as well. He does seven days a week. They do two days a week. When the family of the patient are involved with the recovery, the success rate of the patient goes up by 42%. [00:41:50] Speaker B: Interesting. And yet, a lot of people that would probably come to you as a last resort are only facing the fact that they're addicts for the first time. And usually that means family is already. And in your case, too, the family's written you off. [00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah, completely. [00:42:06] Speaker B: Are there difficulties in trying to get a family back on board with your. With your methodology? [00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we talked to the wife, because the wife's like, well, it's nothing to do with me. And this is one occasion. It's nothing to do with me. And the kids are fine. And this guy was a violent guy. I said, you have trauma and childhood trauma. No, I don't. It's his problem, not mine. I said, well, answer me this question and I'll not bug you anymore. If you don't have trauma, why do you let your husband come home at least three times a week and kick the crap out of you in front of the children? And they all go quiet. And they all go, okay. I mean, it's not because the old school treatment center, even today, is, let's get the family in once a month and let mom talk shit about dad and tell everything that he did wrong and hoping for an apology or an amend. It's like, no, no, no, no. When you come on board, you both swim to your different rafts. The wife does her work, the kids do their work on the dysfunctional house, and the patient does his work. And then towards the end, we pull you all in together, your own rafts, and you become one. So we're not taking the woman on to bastard husband. We're taking on because you have some serious trauma that you don't know you have. Because why are you putting up with this? Why are you staying in a relationship way too long than you should have done? And most people do this, especially in dysfunctional houses, when you should have got out years ago, but you stay there and that goes back to childhood trauma and abandonment. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Do you have a lot of instances where somebody is completely alienated and they don't have family necessarily? And do you substitute friends or anything? Or do you. [00:43:37] Speaker A: It's that immediate family. If the family's thrown out or he's left, we just take him. That's fine. [00:43:41] Speaker B: Okay. [00:43:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Because usually the wife's done that high percentage that come to us. If somebody comes to us new, we've done this often. We ask them if you've been to treatment. If they say no, we tell them to go to treatment, go to treatment, try all that stuff, and then come back to us in six months, a year. I turned Britney Spears down for a million dollars in campes's restaurant in Dallas, Texas. Cause she wasn't ready. And her, we'd waited for like 4 hours after the gig had finished, and she came in and she was drunk. And I stood up and said, I'm done. Can't do it. And Jamie a file a stir up, and he took a check out of his pocket. He put on the table and said, there's a million dollars right there. I said, I can't do it. I had $300 in my bank account. [00:44:19] Speaker B: Did you want it to succeed though? [00:44:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I wanted to succeed. Success is more important than money. I knew the money would come, but I can't. We still don't take anybody on. You have, you can't, you can't go to treatment. You can't like treatment centers. Come here, give me a check. You're in. You have to pass in a strict assessment with us to make sure that you qualify for my program and that I can guarantee all your loved ones that we can get you to a place where you'll never touch alcohol and drugs again. [00:44:46] Speaker B: What kind of. Can you share any of the assessment points with me? [00:44:49] Speaker A: The assessment is crazy and it's never all the same. It's different. Kid comes in, mom and dad come in Highland park, very wealthy, well known celebrities. Kid comes in from the first second I saw him from my behavioral science days, I knew he wasn't into it. Just the way he sat, the way he looked. They wanted to come in and get rid of him for an hour a day and I said, okay, I'll speak to the young kid, 1617 and I'll bring you in parents. He goes in and I said to the kid, are you ready for this? Yeah, parents want me to do this. I said, what do you want to do? Well, I got to do it for my parents. I said, well, here's the deal. I'll take you on board right now. Oh, great. They'll be so happy. But before I do, I've got some Xanax in the drawer, man, like two. Should we take one each, get it over with, just have some fun and then you start Monday. He's like, man, that would be awesome. Walk out to the mum and dad, we can't help him, that kind of assessment. [00:45:44] Speaker B: Right? [00:45:45] Speaker A: Then the tears come, then the checks come, then the begging comes. Like, we can't do it, right? If I'm promising your guys, I think we're the only company in the world, offer a money back guarantee and my wife's going to kill me because she hates me doing this. If you relapse while following our program, it's just. What are you doing out there? So yeah, we just make sure. But we won't take anybody on unless they're ready and I can work with them. [00:46:07] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's, that's, that's got to be more common with younger kids too. Yes, that. Because the parents know they need the help, but they can't convince the kid that they need the help until it's time. What do you do in the interim? Wait it out or continue to try to use discipline? Or what do you suggest for people that are in, in that middle ground where they really can't, don't have, let's say if you, you know, a lot of these kids are not kids anymore. There's a 19 year old still at home causing all kinds of issues. [00:46:38] Speaker A: I saw this one in Highland park where kids come home, parents are too busy, stick them upstairs with a tv or now gaming. Nobody's bothered. Mom and dad drink and take drugs. Kids hex drugs. You know, everyone's happy in the house for a few weeks, and all of a sudden it's like, the kids too much. You can't do it. Let's take him to this doctor who says he can cure everything. And that's what they do. They bring with a big check button, we go. No, it's not as simple as that, man. You have to take some responsibility for the parenting here. You know, if you're show me a kid that's on his gaming 6 hours a day and I'll show you a future addict, that's it. But they don't see that. [00:47:19] Speaker B: How does what you do differentiate from the twelve step, or do you incorporate it? [00:47:24] Speaker A: We don't incorporate it, the twelve steps, because people think the twelve step says this and it doesn't. It doesn't. But we use the big book. So step one, for instance, I could go out now, we could get an ame and go any. We can ask everybody, what is step one? And they're all going to say the same thing. We're all powers over. I'll go, yeah, yeah. We're all powers over. It doesn't say that. So the book's being read wrong and the steps are looked at wrong. So that step one says, we admitted we were powerless, not we're powerless. So if I keep telling myself I'm going to relapse, I'm alcoholic, I'm going to relapse. Because we're all powerless. We're all powerless. Have a guess what. That subconscious brain will pick that up. That will become internal dialogue, will become actions. Yeah. [00:48:08] Speaker B: Makes it a built in excuse. [00:48:11] Speaker A: We were. I passed three liquors to us on the way here today. If I was Paulos, I won't be here. It's that kind of thing. So, I mean, look at that yourself, you know? And then you look at the God side. Nobody likes the God side, you know, choose a God of your own understanding. Never says that in AA. You have to choose a God as you understand him with a capital h. Jesus is mentioned in the first one. Six, four. I mean, just loads of stuff that. Today's meetings are terrible. You get a good big book study meeting and you're going to recover. You go to 90% of. Well, first of all, 90% of meetings. Probably half of them people are not alcoholics. So it's been watered down and watered down and watered down. But yeah, we still use the big book is the big book talks about a psychic change back in 1938 when they were writing psychic of the mind. Change of mind. Simple, okay. Nobody thinks that way. Okay. But ten years ago, the medical fraternity found out about this neuroplasticity. What is it? It's a change of your mind. It's redirecting neural pathways away from self sabotage. How did these guys know in 1938? How did they know? So the God thing, page eleven, second word. Guys, if you don't believe me with the Jesus thing. Jesus Christ. How did they know? So all. If you follow the book from a to z and you get your childhood trauma. It doesn't cover childhood trauma. That's the only thing. It doesn't with four or nine. It's not enough, but you're going to recover from that. Oh, shit. You're going through period. Now it's the childhood trauma. That's the big one. Because most people go. They don't really read the book. Well, I stayed sober from my first meeting. Not an alcoholic. Well, I'd add that not an alcoholic, if you. I was trying to find a therapist here and we interviewed three therapists. The first one went and he's got all these plaques on the wall. I'm like, are you an alcoholic? No, no, but I have an MA and I've done all the addiction. You can't work with me. Not, I can't. You can't work with me. You're not qualified. And he was quite upset with this and he started opening like, you've got to scenario. You have a bottle of vodka behind your back. You will not give it to me and I want it. I'm going to stab you in the face repeatedly until I get that vodka freaked out completely. Second one, freaked out, threatened to call the police. Third one, I think she's about 70, 80 year old ex hippie, ex heroin addict scenario, bottle behind, stab you to death. You know what she said to me? I stab you to death first. That's my goal. Cause you don't understand what I go through when the mental obsession and the hypothalamus turns around and tells me to drink the hypothalamus, which tells normal people to drink water and eat food to stay alive, is telling an alcoholic at a certain point of the drinking clear to drink alcohol only to survive. I'm gonna literally stab you. I'm gonna literally shoot you if you get in my way. [00:51:06] Speaker B: That's why they forego all societal norms and regulations and familial relationships. [00:51:11] Speaker A: That's why we can go days, all weeks without eating food or drinking water. Yeah, we just eat algae, saying, alcohol, alcohol. That's all the thing. Prefrontal cortex. Give me an ounce of alcohol. Give me alcohol. I've got my kids alcohol. And this is how it sounds in their head, by the way. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink. And it's 24 hours a day, and towards the end, it's like, oh, my God. And the only thing that's going to calm it down is a drink. But what we have to remember is I relapsed on the Friday. No, you didn't. You relapsed a week before, man. If you don't watch your behavioral science, watch the somatic experience going on with your body, you'd be able to stop that relapse. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:51:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:46] Speaker B: Do you use any brain mapping or imagery or anything in your research? [00:51:50] Speaker A: We use brain spotting, which is a new tool that's out. We use NLP. We use 9d breath work, which is subliminal messaging and psychology and all the other great stuff we use. [00:52:03] Speaker B: So how did you come about figuring out what was the best to use? I know I read up on Aman's book when that was coming out, and it was all controversial and, you know, silly science type stuff. [00:52:17] Speaker A: Well, the medical fraternity 19 years ago, tried to get rid of me. They belittled me. There was newspaper clippings. I was off my head. I had relapsed. I'm not really from England, never went to college. Who is this guy? We saw that all because they were scared. Now, most of them people are back with us now saying, tell me more, tell me more. But what I find out was kind of a little trial and error. But my belief in what we were doing all them years ago and everyone else said we were crazy. The belief, from what John has told, of what I knew as a person, an alcoholic and addict, and what I'd been through, the belief inside of me was second to none. I knew that I had the solution. I just knew I had the solution. [00:52:55] Speaker B: Is there anything particularly controversial or anything that you've come across during your research and trying to put this program? [00:53:03] Speaker A: I just think, well, the basal ganglia, for instance. The basal ganglia is our repetition strength and conference part of the brain. If you're going to learn something like, let's say. Let's say a pilot needs 10,000 hours in the air before he can fly a commercial jet. When you drive a car for the first time, it's huge. You could be scared. You're nervous. After a month or two, you're reversing down the driveway, waving to mom, speaking to the girlfriend, and listening to music at the same time. That becomes a working part of the mind. So this is how we describe the clock face. 12:00, we go on a bender. Ten after we stop, 20 after we get the wife back, half past the kids, come back at 22, I've got that, great job. And at ten two, you self sabotage. So the ten two point of the basal basal ganglia is at default all the time, and that is the direct correlation with childhood trauma. And that's the controversial. [00:53:57] Speaker B: And it's recognizing also yourself, being able to recognize when those signs come out. [00:54:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And you see them every time. Everybody sees it. You get irritable, you don't do this, you do that, you stop doing this, and all of a sudden, bang, alcohol will never come to me on a Friday night and go, hey, Rob, let's drink. Never does that. Never, never, never. It's always pre planned here in the subconscious brain. So the problem is here, it's in the subconscious brain, so you don't even know it's happening. And all of a sudden, you go. All of a sudden, I was in a bar and a dry. No, no, no. So if most of our problems in the subconscious brain, how do we get around that? How can we see the relapse coming? Behavioral science is how we see it, but we have to remember the first thing in the morning. What wakes us up is our subconscious brain, and the reason it wakes us up is when there's lack of oxygen. The subconscious brain thrives on all the bad stuff it knows. Well, I know this, so I'm going to go for that job. No. Remember Uncle Jimmy said, you're a waste of time, you can never do that job, and it comes back and it flips over to the prefrontal cortex, and you freak out, and you never take that job, or that girl has car. So what happens is this, when we wake up in the morning, we need to snuff out that subconscious brain. So we have a routine that brings in the conscious brain two, three minutes after getting up. So the subconscious brain here, the bad guy, this is the guy that's going to thrive, this is the guy that's going to succeed, get his family back, be the most earner, whatever success looks like for you. But have a guess who wakes us up tomorrow morning. It's this guy. Because what happens with a normal circadian sleep pattern between the hours of two and five is when the body is at his most repair. Also, when we have lack of oxygen, it's the reason no one's woken up laughing ever in the history of mankind. No oxygen. So the subconscious brain wakes us up. If you don't treat that straight away, you're not going to have a great day. [00:55:44] Speaker B: But similar to what all of us experience, though, when you step outside of a comfort zone or whatever, you feel like your anxiety is up. When you do this or that, you're telling yourself you're giving yourself a perfectly good excuse to not do it. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:55:58] Speaker B: But it's obviously exaggerated quite a bit and the penalty is quite a bit more significant. [00:56:03] Speaker A: Definitely, yeah. [00:56:04] Speaker B: That's interesting. I've always been fascinated with a lot of that mind mapping and stuff too. So do you work on anything trauma wise then, beyond? [00:56:13] Speaker A: Well, trauma is the gateway drug. I mean, that's it. So we do a lot of subliminal work. So 90% of our work is online. It's telehealth. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:56:23] Speaker A: The reason why I went back ten years ago to get my behavioral science PhD is I knew that this was going to be the future when Zoom first came out and stuff like that. And in fact, I don't think it was zoom or something else, but yeah, we do. So planted words, planted phrases in Dallas, Texas, when you used to come. We do every. We find everything out about you. And when you step out the car to walk towards the office, there'll be subliminal stuff planted around you. So by the time you get to the office, you're kind of already thinking that you liked because you've all these things remind you of home. So if somebody's a Dallas Cowboys fan, we'll leave a Dallas Cowboys hat on the floor near the elevator. He'll get in, there'll be, there'll be a poster on the door of the latest quarterback for Dallas Cowboys. We had one guy that came in and this subliminal work is amazing. We had one guy came in that was a staunch doctor pepper, you know, Texas the hat and everything. The oil guy. And he drank nothing else. And what we wanted to do is I wanted to prove to everybody, and there's about 100 people that came to can watch this, is that I can change him to drink coke. And they were, that's it. That's not possible. I said, I can, I can change it to drink coke. So what we did is we came in and said, hey, Jimmy, here's the deal. You're going to go for a ride with my guy. You're going to have a chat, blah, blah, blah. And you're going to come up and then me and you, he's a guitar player, played a guitar and we did something crazy. How'd you feel? Like he went, awesome. At least I'm going to take some great sights, you know. Awesome. Back in, there was a Coca Cola can in the corner of the elevator, step one. They didn't even notice it. So this is subliminal stuff that we see where we take notice of, okay, go downstairs, there's a girl, attractive girl, blonde hair, blue eyes, really, you know, slim and everything, wearing a Coca Cola, a Coca Cola t shirt. Then we took him round and we made sure we took him by every billboard that was advertising coke. While the driver was talking to him, hey, this park over here. Da da da da. And he's past this subliminally. He's taking it in. He gets back to the office, he gets in the elevator. Now we have a real handsome guy with a cowboy hat on just like his that's drinking a can of coke. I swear to God, he walks in the office. I came out and said, what do you want to drink? He says, give me a Coke. He had no idea. So that's the stuff we use in our program. Very, very subliminal. Very careful with the other stuff that we use. It's just we found it to be a winning combination. [00:58:45] Speaker B: And does it ever backfire? [00:58:47] Speaker A: No, no. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Look at the cowboy hat on the floor and say, oh, how could you? [00:58:52] Speaker A: Well, it hasn't. Yeah, but when you explain, it's like, so what do you mean? He must have saw it. It's like, it's like when you drive down the road and all of a sudden the police cars behind you, how often do you look in the rear view mirror? You don't like you see on tv where there's bad guys. He's following the guy. He's following him. He's like, you don't notice that. [00:59:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:59:12] Speaker A: You know, it's like when you're driving down the freeway sometimes. And you, you know, you come to your turn, I think, oh, I've realized I've just passed five turnoffs. Didn't even know it. We go into that zone where we're comfort and we don't really know. We don't have to think about driving or anything like that. It's the same thing when you don't have an idea. Like, another thing we did is another guy came in and used to love steak. He was a steak man through and through. I said to the guys, I can make him eat fish. He said, there's no freaking way. I said, I can make him eat fish. So we said to him, hey, one night, we want to bring you out, you know, with the guys. Thank you for coming to our practice. Da da da. We'll pay for the meal. And I got the envelope, and I wrote fish inside the envelope. I stuck it and got two or three people to sign, so you can't open it. And I put it in the safe. I subliminally put fish in his mind for a week. Very sublistent. When we got to this place, we went round and all my guys ordered fish. And when it came to win, he goes, you know something? I'll try the fish. That's how we work. [01:00:14] Speaker B: That's how you really got wealthy. [01:00:15] Speaker A: Yes, definitely. We. Well, yeah, because, you know, we attract what we think we are worth. So people say all the time, like, you got so wealthy, blah, blah, blah. It's good. It's like, you can. No, I can't. That's why you can't. If you think you can't succeed, you're right. If you think you can succeed, you're right. The mind is so powerful at making things happen, but we use, like, 1% of the mind. So if you look at the mind, it sits inside the brain. So the mind is energy. It's, you know, you can't see it. So do you feel it? Mind over matter. The brains matter. So wouldn't it be great if we could train the mind in the first 30 minutes of awakening to run that conscious mind to tell the brain what to do? Well, we can. And the other thing you have to remember is 300 ish neural pathways die every day in their head. What are you replacing them with? Are you replacing them with, oh, my God, I could definitely get that job. Oh, my God. I'm going to build an empire. If anybody walks into our business, as a patient said, I want to build a business, please slap them. You get a business card and a website. You got a business? What kind of crap is that? You want to build an empire, and we start brainwashing with that empire. And you see how easy it really making money, man, is. Not hard. Once you have this sorted out, it's all that stuff on the back you suffer from. Once you get to know how this works, you can rule the world. I mean, look. And people just go, you know, I can't really be anything. I go, yeah, you can. Well, I can't be president of the United States. Let's forget your political views for a second. We're a business around the country with no political experience whatsoever. A businessman. Don't dare tell me you can't achieve a businessman. For goodness sake, don't tell me you can't achieve your dreams. It's just not true. Somebody's put that there. [01:02:01] Speaker B: Do you ever incorporate music? Since you have, I mean, you've got your psychology and your human behavior. You ever leverage music for maybe even the subliminal stuff or even anything more significant, the subliminal? [01:02:15] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of planting and stuff like that. If they're a musician. I mean, some guys come in and tap the tambourine, but at the house we had in music, I have a couple of guitars in my office. There's one guy that comes, he loves playing, but what we'll do, it's changing the neural pathways up. So rather, should we play a song together? We'll repeat, go from g to d, e, f sharp, d, and there'll be chordness as we go along. So he's changing the neural pathways from the g to c to d, which is your normal chord. Pound, maybe any minor profound in there to g to d to f. So you're always thinking and changing them patterned, because a normal song is a pattern, you know, in fact, there's. There's. If you want to change your mind, to be at peace, listen to a two chord song. Whole lot of love is one of the songs. So it's a pan away from the three chords or four chords that the mind starts to take notice of, and it becomes calmer within that song playing. [01:03:07] Speaker B: Just because it's so familiar with the one four, fives all day long. [01:03:10] Speaker A: And then you got your two, you, two chord songs. There's a bunch of them out there, but it's not the norm. So we fall into these patterns where that was nowhere fallen into to these patterns. Once you realize that and can change that, the world is your oyster. It really is. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Does it ever bring back interesting or traumatic memories or anything like that? With people, when you. I mean, I've seen people come awake listening to music. That brings them back to a time where nothing else would revive them. And it's all brain work. Also, the music's triggering it. [01:03:42] Speaker A: We use 9D therapy for that. It's a new system on the market. There's only a bunch of us in Texas that has it. And basically, it's a nine dimensional. You wear headphones and masks. It's nine dimensional sounds all around you. So you'll get the music, you'll get a main guy talking to, and you'll have subliminal messages coming in that you can just about hear if you are listening for them. And Ashley did one the other day with a guy, and he's jumping up and down and he's banging the wall, and it just comes. That's what it does to us. It changes everything completely when we go to church. For those guys that go to church, you have the worship band on the. Yeah, the worship band's not there to play music and have fun. It's to get your vibration up, to receive the message. [01:04:24] Speaker B: Inspire. [01:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, to get that vibration. Inspire. Wait for the message. So when the message delivered, you're accepting that in. That's what music is. It takes to a different vibration. Yeah, we can change our vibration, because if you list song that I've not heard, blah blah song, it comes on the radio. What's the first thing you think? You go right back to a child when you. I remember playing in the sand when this was on. Yeah, there's a Duranderan sun that comes on. I forget which one it is. Well, they're on a boat. But I was with my girlfriend in Spain, and we were. We were swimming this really deep river, but we had that blasting from the old, you know, the old beatboxes. [01:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:59] Speaker A: Every time that sun comes up, I go right back there. [01:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, definitely hallucinogenics. What are your, what are your thoughts on medical hallucinogenics? [01:05:10] Speaker A: And there's not been enough research for me. I have no. Either way, I just don't know enough about it, to be honest. We've seen some great results, but like anything else, like cigarettes, we saw some great results for 2030 years, and all of a sudden we found out, oh, my God, this is damaging us. I think when you start messing with neural pathways and thought patterns in the head and different parts of the brain, something has to change. Something has to change permanently. Now, here's the great part. If you don't suffer from addiction, go on, man. It's awesome. I bet it's awesome. You do anything you want, but if you have that addictive personality, you've just got to be careful, is what I've seen, because we look for patterns to replace patterns. So if you're. If you take drugs and, you know, you stop and you get in it, you might get the gym, you might get, you know, smoking, you might do just. [01:06:01] Speaker B: I certainly wasn't suggesting that somebody should just go start picking. [01:06:05] Speaker A: No, no, no. [01:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, but, yeah, medically, the ketamine treatments and, I mean, you just hear about a lot of different positive responses from those, but they're all under controlled environments. [01:06:16] Speaker A: My thing is, if you're in a controlled environment with something that's been researched, it can only be good for the recovery industry as a whole because it's taken us that step further. When I played at Abbey Road, obviously the Beatles are all plastered everywhere, and you got to look at the stuff that they were on when they wrote some of the most complex songs. So I can't go, well, I don't believe in it, that it's just got to be controlled in that medical facility you're talking about. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, as with anything, it's, you know, you party with it, then it's. You're looking for something else. [01:06:49] Speaker A: It's like tapers when you want to come off heroin, so they put you on suboxone. It's a taper. If you're on suboxone two years later, you're taking drugs. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Right? [01:06:57] Speaker A: The brain does know the difference between street drugs and pharmaceutical drugs. You've got. Well, the doctor gave me Suboxone. Well, shame on him, first of all of all. And secondly, it's harder to go suboxone than it is from heroin. What are you doing? Nobody wants to tell anybody about the information or the damages. Everyone's to be kept quiet. The drug, the pharmaceutical industry did a great job. Even his advertising, unless he advertising the girl there, you know, on a boat that I can. All the family laughing. And then you. Then while he's watching that, he's going, no, this can kill you. You're going to lose a liver, you're going to lose a living. You don't hear that, though. You just see. Oh, yeah, that made me happy. Like them. He said, very clever, man. [01:07:33] Speaker B: Depression medicine can make you want to kill yourself. [01:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, right. It's crazy, man. It's just like diabetes. If you want to get diabetes, go on the diabetes national website and tell on the first page, eat what they tell you to eat. You'll get diabetes nobody cares about, I swear. Go and try it. Like the food industry. [01:07:51] Speaker B: No, thanks. [01:07:51] Speaker A: The food industry is killing us. Like, the rancid oils that they use are sunflowers. And I stuff. I walked in the store the other day and this big, shiny, well known box, I forget what it is. And 9 grams protein, zero fat. Well, I'm going to take that all day long, thinking it's healthy. And then you spin the bar around and you see 27 ingredients, 17 of them, you don't even know what they are. Two of them, probably. They don't know what they are because he said this or this. And at least three of them, you can't methylate as a human being. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:25] Speaker A: What? You know, it's crazy. So we've kind of got even vitamins. If you. If you. If you're taking the normal virus that a normal shot spin around cybercallabalin, I think it's gone. It's cyanide. Throw them away. Go and get some organic vitamins. They're killing you, man. And then the pharmaceutical got you. They've got you. That's the one. Overdose or one dead person is a lost pain, is a lost client. So, people, I went on an interview. It was nationwide. It was me, the attorney from Purdue, and the head salesman from Purdue. On live tv in Dallas, right across the midge. The producer said to the Purdue guy, you don't want to do this. He said, I don't care. We're proud of our. You don't want to do this. So he's a little skinny guy, about five four, four propped on a chair. The other guy could have took him out with a hand. [01:09:20] Speaker B: He didn't start off with a bicep flex like we did. [01:09:22] Speaker A: I might have done, I don't know. He usually does. But after the conversation, and you can go google these guys, the very next day they file for bankruptcy. See, I don't take any shit off nobody. If you put me, I've been on a stage, and six doctors, me being one of them, something's come. I stand up and tell you the truth. You follow my tiktoks and I tell the people, just tell it. You're not going to get away with it. Me. If you're trying to sell this and it's killing people, I'm going to tell you it's killing people, and I'll say it in front of everybody. If I've got a beef with you, everyone hears about around you. If you've been sneaky enough to do something behind my back. I'm not going to pull you aside. I'm going to tell you like I did on the camera, I did everywhere else that I've raised because I have the background knowledge. I also have the history of all our tests and trials and research that we've ever done. We have the evidence to back it. [01:10:09] Speaker B: Up, you know, and people probably just think it's conspiratorial and everything, but it's pretty, it's pretty organized and just non transparent is the main issue. Right? [01:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:18] Speaker B: I mean, that's why you've got Cuban investing in new things too, to show at least where the costs are. I mean, that's, that's only half of the battle. Other than the farmers themselves. [01:10:28] Speaker A: Yes. [01:10:29] Speaker B: So we have an audience. What can we do to support what you do? I mean, you're trying to make a positive impact in people's lives and everyone matters. What is something that we could share that people can do to help your plate? [01:10:42] Speaker A: The only thing I'm going to say, because it's weird, when I come on every podcast, you'll go, let's sell your book. Let's sell. No, we're good. Thank you. I've got enough money. The robkellyfoundation.org is the foundation we just started. The CEO. It's amazing. And that's the only thing. I mean, you can go on any search engine. Doctor Rob, I spell my name with two B's, guys. Robbkloy.com is the website. But there's a great book out there that I wrote which is titled, the last thing my daughter said to me was, daddy, daddy, please stop drinking. If you see that and like it, don't order on Amazon. Send me a message. I'll sign it and send. Pay the post and everything. Not gonna cost you anything. It's not about the money. It's just about if we can benefit one person from listening to this, we've done our job. And that's always been the case with me because we never see that. We never see that when somebody listens. Very rarely anyone comes back and goes, oh my God, I listened to you. And because of that, I did. But you know, it's happening. Mandy, I don't think there's any such thing as coincidence, not from the stuff I've been through. You know, everything that was for a reason. If you're listening to this on this day that you probably never stumbled across your podcast, you're doing it for a reason. There's always a reason why you do or say something and we never see that, but there is. So if you've got a dollar, go on the foundation website, leave a dollar. If you leave, like, I don't know if. Let's say you leave a $100. We want it to be different like everything else we do. So rather than giving you $100, go, okay, that's good. I'll change it. I'll get out of my tax or whatever. What we do is we take that $100 and we may have a guy that's just got his life together. He's got a little one bedroom apartment, but he wants to see his kids at weekend. We'll buy him a suit. We'll cover his legal fees. We'll make sure he gets an uber there and back, and we'll put six months on his rent. That's the stuff. He goes. But here's the crazy part. That guy will contact you, who donated $100 and go, hey, Jimmy, the $100 you sent, I actually bought these shoes with them. Thank you so much. [01:12:43] Speaker B: So you know exactly where it went? [01:12:44] Speaker A: Exactly. Nobody gets paid in the. In the foundation. Everyone does it, you know, volunteering free of charge. But, yeah, you actually see where your money. There's no, you know, give dollar 200. And you know quite well that the CEO is on, like, $4 million a year. You know, this is just honest and open. If you've got a dollar, give it. If you haven't, let us know. If you need it. [01:13:01] Speaker B: Love it. [01:13:02] Speaker A: God, just come up with that, guys. That was awesome. If you. Wow. That's all? That's a t shirt in the making. [01:13:08] Speaker B: I recorded it. I'll send it back to you. Well, I'm honored to have you, brother. Is there anything else you want to share before we cut out? [01:13:16] Speaker A: No, man. Just. Just believe, guys. And everything's temporary. Nothing lasts forever. The stuff you're going through now is a lesson. I'll teach you something. Don't worry. If you're a mom with three kids in a one bedroom apartment and the government's paying for you to stay alive, it's going to change. It's going to change. You know, you got to start believing that you're not just meant for that. We're all meant. Babies are born with two fears. Fear of falling and loud noises. The rest are man made. Just remember that, guys. Fear of falling, fear of loud noises, that's all. So babies are actually born with million dollar minds. Why are you hanging around ten cent minds? [01:13:52] Speaker B: Boom. Beautiful. [01:13:55] Speaker A: Thank you, man. [01:13:55] Speaker B: Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your time. [01:13:57] Speaker A: Of course. [01:13:57] Speaker B: I know it's valuable, and it means a lot to me that you're here. We'll definitely share the message. And I'll. I'll link the foundation on the. [01:14:03] Speaker A: Oh, awesome thing, too. [01:14:05] Speaker B: So I'd love to see some stuff. I'll drop some. I'll drop some bones in there myself. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Nice. [01:14:09] Speaker B: I can't pay it in pounds, but I can pay it in. [01:14:14] Speaker A: I pay in rupees. [01:14:15] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. [01:14:16] Speaker A: Of course, man. Thank you. [01:14:18] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [01:14:18] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. What's it take? What you gonna do? What you gonna do? Success around the sandbox with second grade rules a confident fake to make you do make you do what they want, when they want faze a fool. [01:14:41] Speaker A: A. [01:14:42] Speaker B: Diplomatic base is the one to see you through and don't let those figures take you off you game or just let em lose just sit here in the front seat baby ain't that sweet dig a little honey from the money bee but don't pay the pool. [01:15:02] Speaker A: A. [01:15:03] Speaker B: Political magical potion a missing piece at the end of the game a soul roll see the truth and soul motion I never found a 60 frames like fire finding more shine a truthful lies between blurry lane if you gonna call up me back.