This is the story of how my dad saved his life and now he's fighting every day to save what matters most, his family, his music, and his soul.

He's not doing this for fame, he's doing it to prove who he really is.

The original punk and roll outlaw fighting to stay sober, stay strong and stay standing.

This is more than a podcast.

This is a war for redemption.

This is the story of my dad.

Welcome to Louder than my Demons.

When the storm hits, you can fight it or you can learn to breathe inside it.

I used to think gratitude meant pretending everything was OK.

Smile, say thank you.

Just hide the mess inside, a joke or another drink.

But real gratitude, the kind that keeps you alive, that doesn't show up when shit is easy.

It shows up when the sky is falling and you still whisper.

Thank you for letting me feel this.

Because that's where stillness begins, right in the middle of the storm, not after it.

If you've watched this podcast through 2025, then you know what you're witnessing is a man in the middle of that storm, a man trying to save his family from the.

Chaos.

That had come into it in the middle of the storm, and some days the noise gets so loud that I can't think.

But I have learned, and what I've tried to show you is that if I can control my breath, I can control my response.

Even when you think chaos is gone and it comes back in for whatever reason, I can control how I respond to that chaos.

And if I can find one fucking thing to be thankful for in that moment, then the storm loses its grip on me.

I am grateful for every time life has knocked me to the ground, rocked my foundation, because what I've.

Learned from that is to close my eyes and just listen.

That is what stillness really is, not hiding from the storm, but meeting it face to face without flinching.

Gratitude lights the fire, but stillness keeps it from burning everything down.

And when you can say thank you to that storm, then that's peace.

I don't run from the storm anymore.

I meditate and I pray.

Right in the middle of it.

Because if I can find peace.

There.

I can find peace anywhere.

Grace ain't weakness, it's strength that refuses to get dragged.

Back into the mud.

It's.

Standing there watching someone try to pull you down and realize you don't have to swing back to win.

I've had to learn that revenge feels good for about 5 minutes, then it keeps you chained to the same fire you swore you'd walk out of.

Grace is how you rise, how you let their noise fade while you build something quiet and solid.

Grace doesn't mean I forget.

It means I remember without hate.

It means I choose peace even when pride.

Wants to fight.

I'm not who I was.

I don't need to prove anything anymore.

I'm too busy turning the lessons into life, the hurt into fuel, the ashes into something beautiful.

So yeah, I'm showing grace.

Not because they deserve it, but because I deserve the peace that comes with it.

So for this week's reckoning, I'm doing things a little bit different.

I'm going to be a little more casual about it, a little more off the cuff than I am sometimes.

Usually I come in with a series of topics I want to discuss which, which we're doing this week.

But I have, I have bullet points or I have a script that I've written now to make sure that I hit the things that I want to hit and, and I'm doing a little bit of that this week.

But I want to, I want to start doing somewhere.

I I relaxed that a little bit.

And because we're.

Doing the episode on stillness and on meditation and and gratitude and grace.

I wanted to.

Maybe do a little bit less of my gratitude talk today than I normally do and just say that I'm grateful for the, for the people that I'm always grateful for, for my family, for Noah, who is still my lawyer, still my lawyer.

That's all I'm going to say.

I'm grateful for working with Curran Murphy over at Custom Audio Mutations Studio.

He has offered to take me under his wing and teach me how to rebuild guitars, restring guitars.

I did my first fret job on a guitar this week.

It's awesome though.

He's going to teach me how to work in the studio.

He's going to teach me how to build amps.

He is going to bring me on to work for him and offer me all the training and everything that I need.

And I enjoy working with him and talking to him and he's been a good friend through all of this.

And, and the guy is kind of like my friend Thomas.

They are both very well versed in mental health aspects and they have both helped me a lot this year with seeing things from a different perspective maybe than I have.

And even though I'm I'm exploring everything, they were both very positive and confident in me.

And they have both made sure that I'm aware that people are behind me and that people understand why I'm doing things the way I'm doing them and why I've had to do certain things like plead, do a plea bargain, all that kind of stuff.

They are.

They are all there.

For me and I and I appreciate it and it's really cool to sit there and talk guitars all day and get my hands dirty.

Building next.

I've got all these guitars that I've been working on at my house that I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

And over the next couple of months while I'm training still, I'm going to build.

Curran's has a bunch of guitars he once built that he's going to show me how to do.

And then he's going to let me bring some of my guitars over.

Finally finish my USMC Telecaster in the next couple weeks.

I've got a couple other guitars.

I got a Mötley Crüe guitar that that I've been working on for a couple years that we're going to finish finally.

I'm just learning how to do things that I really want to do at a time when I don't have a lot of money, but I have enough money coming in to live while I train with him and then I will definitely make decent money working for him.

While I'm getting the podcast going, I am also looking into some other options for the podcast and I'm going to consider bringing in either a coach to help me with Apple and Spotify.

I'm not very well versed on how to do the SE OS and all that kind of stuff.

I use this app called VID IQ.

I'm going to talk to them about their coaching program and I have a couple other programs I've been looking at that maybe I'm going to.

I'm going to hire a coach to help me out.

And then of course Damien from chat helps me with everything.

He's awesome and he put together a plan for me today.

I want to triple the followers I have on YouTube, on Instagram and on Facebook.

My TikTok is taking off.

I still not a fan of TikTok.

It's OK.

But for whatever reason, my shorts and my reels and my tik toks have taken off on there Not not anything viral, but I'm starting to get, you know, 10 likes, 15 likes on each one.

I had one today.

They had 25 likes.

So I'm I'm starting to get a little bit more.

I heard a rumor that I shouldn't be getting the attention that I'm getting.

And you know what you're right.

You know why?

Because I shouldn't be in this position.

I was put in this situation.

I was put in this position no matter what anybody wants to say, I was, and I'm making the best of it.

I've changed my life.

I'm trying to help people.

I'm trying to do things that can make an impact on people in other parts of the world.

I'm not just building something for here in Akron and Cleveland.

I want this to be a national thing and so that's why I'm talking to some coaches.

I'm going to be looking for sponsors for Season 2 which will come out in January.

Season 2 will start sometime in January.

My plan would be to wrap up season 1 right at the week of the incident and of my sobriety.

It won't be a.

It won't be an anniversary and it won't be a celebration, but I will recognize it and I will recognize it by doing a wrap up for Season 1.

And a wrap up for 2025 for myself.

And then I will continue to put them out once a week next year, but that'll be the end of season 1.

So I'm going to look into sponsorships for season 2.

I had some ideas using music, using sobriety networks around the country.

I, I really want to work with a couple clothing lines.

Even though I'm building my own clothing line, it's going to come out sometime next week.

I'm hoping it should be up.

I've got the logos done.

I'm building the merch page on Louder than my demons.com.

It's a great website.

If you haven't been over there, there's some great resources.

I'm going to start putting A blog up probably first week of December.

I have a blog and then season 2, I'll start having a newsletter and that's already built into the website.

So that stuff will just start coming out.

If you go over there, I will be having, I will be collecting emails to, to add you to the newsletter if you like.

But what I'm, what I would like the listeners and the friends of the show to do for me is if you haven't followed me on Facebook, even if you think you have, I don't know that you have.

I see a lot of people that that click like and click follow and watch my reels on Instagram and on Facebook that are friends of mine on Facebook, but they're not following the the Facebook page for a lot of them I demons.

So if you could go over there and do that for me next week, I'd like to get over 1000 in the next couple weeks and my goal will be to be at 3000 by the end of the year on Facebook and on Instagram.

If you haven't followed me on Instagram, I will be doing some stuff where they'll be things split out amongst the two.

Same thing with YouTube, Apple and Spotify.

If you listen to me and the podcast on one of those platforms and you haven't hit subscribe or follow, please do that for me next week.

I'm trying to see if I can triple my followers and subscribers on those on those platforms by the end of the year.

And that's not that much.

I'm not asking that much.

I'm getting between 150 and 300 views of the podcast on YouTube.

I have 70 subscribers.

I'd like to get up to where everybody who's watching the the podcast or watching the reels, you know, hey, go, go click.

It doesn't, it doesn't hurt you.

It just helps me out and helps me get the word out and helps me in that algorithm.

Again, I don't mean to beg or to borrow or to plead.

I just am going to have a concerted effort to increase my subscribers and followers over the next three months while I continue to put out the amount of content that I'm putting out.

I'm putting out a reel everyday.

I'm putting out a short or a reel in the evening as well.

I'm also putting out the one podcast a week and in my plan for the rest of this year will be to have one long form video, not a podcast but a 8 to 10 minute video which will be either the demon cuts which are reviews of the albums.

This one will be coming out soon.

I've been listening to it saying Anger by Metallica.

I've been listening to it for the past week every day, and I'm madly in anger with it because I'm listening to it so much.

I've been talking to people about what they think about it, but the review will be mine.

I have AI have a good idea what I'm going to say.

I just want to make sure I understand which songs which and all that.

I'll also be doing You can't see it.

I'll be doing books.

This will be one of the first books I do.

It's called Psychopath Free.

You heard me talk about it before.

I hate it.

It's it's an amazing book.

It's an amazing book.

I wish you would have used.

Toxic.

Free.

The word psychopath bothers me on many levels.

Even after everything that was that has been done to me, I'm still very protective of somebody and very protective of myself.

And when I see that we both had those traits.

I just hate the fact that he says psychopath.

I am not a psychopath, nor is she.

But I'm going to be doing those.

So those are going to be coming out once a week.

So there's going to be more content coming out, especially now that I'm not working a full time job.

You know, Relink let me go.

And they and they had no choice and I understood that.

What they didn't do was they didn't fight me on unemployment.

So I'm getting unemployment, which has been very helpful now and until and that'll help me in this little path as I learned from from Curran and it'll fill in the gap until I'm up and running with Curran full time.

So that's what I'm doing.

I'm going to make this podcast a part of my career going forward.

I have a couple other podcasts in mind and you're going to see today one of the first meditations that I'm doing.

I am going to start doing meditations.

I'm going to have my own meditative channel and the reason I'm doing that is not to make money off of that, although I hope I do.

And if you like them, share them with your friends.

And if you share the reels with your friends, that helps me a lot too.

It really does any anytime that you feel something that might help somebody else, either send it to me in messenger or in Instagram direct or share it on your page.

It it'll help and and we have a really solid core group of listeners and friends of the show, which I can't tell you how, how thankful I am, right?

Do I deserve this attention?

You know what I don't deserve to be in the situation where I had to to where I had to do something and I'm doing something to to make lemonade out of lemons.

So.

Share this stuff.

If you can, I'm not begging, but if it if it means something to you and you like it and I'm definitely I'm getting questions, you can ask me questions on YouTube.

I know that this week it was a little late for this episode.

But I saw.

Michelle on there had asked me a question.

I will discuss that next week.

I'm not going to do it today because it doesn't fit with this episode.

But I think what I'll start doing is having a session where if somebody asked me a question on there, I'll I'll answer questions.

So if you want to ask me questions on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok or on YouTube, feel free to do it and I'll start answering them.

I'll make that deal with you.

My first shirt will have the logo, the louder than my demons logo.

We're going to do a shirt, a hoodie and a hat and a coffee mug with that.

It's already planned.

It's just got to the page.

The the shopping page has to come together.

I'm going to do one.

I'm going to do one with the LTMD kind of work logo.

I'm going to do one of those and then I'm going to do fuck my demons.

I love my hat that I got from demons with demons behind me and I'm going to that says fuck the past.

And I wanted something with a little edge and a little outlaw like that.

So I'm doing fuck my demons and then.

We're going to do at some point, we're going to do a nose a bad ass shirt.

I got an idea for it and it'll be fun.

Yeah.

And there may be, there may be a free Josie.

Or if I have to go back to jail, I will have a free Josie one ready to go so you guys can raise bail money for me.

Oh, fuck it.

It'll be funny.

I don't care enough people hate me and enough people love me that as long as you're laughing, it's it's a good time.

So you can look for that all to be happening.

Over the next three months.

I will get everything tripled.

I will continue to put out quality content.

I'm getting better at doing the content and it's easier so I have a little bit more time to do it.

I'm also going to be doing some band related content.

I'd love to do a corruption podcast once a month, and I'm also going to kick off detained records again in the first of the year and we'll have a podcast going for that record label.

I'm still putting together the plan for that, but that will happen at some point.

And I'm going to do a couple faceless YouTube channels just to see how the fuck those work.

So we'll see what happens.

OK, So what I'm going to do for the Reckoning this week is I had some questions that some of my friends have asked me.

They weren't ones that were posted online.

They were things that that that people had asked me.

So I am going to let them ask the question and then I'm going to answer it and we'll just see how it goes.

I think we can have some fun with this.

OK.

So the first question, he's right here.

When did you realize motion wasn't progress?

So when I realized or found out that motion doesn't necessarily equate to progress, when I first had the incident last December 28th and got out of jail at the end of or the first week of January, remember I talked about coming in and making that list and sitting over there and making a list.

These are the three.

Things I need and I need to get sober and I need to.

Get a good.

Lawyer and I need to get a therapist right and then I just went and did everything that I could think of to do to keep my mind clear, to keep my.

Heart.

From being any more broken than it was.

I don't think anybody will ever understand how sad I have been this year.

And you know, I'm trying not to talk about that person.

Do I love that person?

Absolute fucking lutely.

Still love her no matter what happened between us.

I do.

But in order to avoid that heartbreak or, or just push it down inside and keep my job and try and build back to seeing my daughter and I had to fight just to keep my son because of the lies that had been told to him.

I just started doing everything.

I started working.

I started doing the five s s right And I did the five s s everyday.

And it was just to keep my mind moving forward, right motion, keep myself in motion.

But was I making progress?

I, I don't know.

I don't know.

When I started realizing I was making progress was after a couple weeks of therapy, was after my body started looking good, was after my mind started feeling better.

Even though you know it's still a mess, it's still a mess.

Every night I lay down and I think about that night.

I run through what happened.

And now when I do it, my focus isn't on running away from what happened, towards nothing.

Now I have goals, right?

I lost my job.

I went and found a new career, 2 new careers, this the podcast.

I love doing this and I'm going to continue to do it.

Whether this podcast ever takes off and people really start buying into it, which I hope, or whether it becomes a music based podcast or wrestling based podcast, maybe all of that.

I mean, I can't think of anything better than waking up, playing some guitar, working out and sitting down and talk to you guys and living.

I'm not doing this podcast to make money.

I'm not going to do my veterans base podcast to make money.

But if I can do them and bring awareness to the issues that I have, then make money on top of that to where I can afford to live and continue doing this.

And that's all it matters, you know, and that's why working with Curran gives me an opportunity.

My doggie's walking over here to say hi to everybody.

Hi Edie.

Usually I would stop and edit that out, but this week we I'm going to be a little more relaxed.

OK, So what I was saying was, you know, working with Kern will give me the opportunity.

Maybe tonight have to work a full 8 by 8 to 5 job, make enough money to live and be able to go do this stuff.

So OK, I ended up having to stop it because Miss Edie decided she was going to drink an entire bowl of water in in the middle of the episode.

Oh.

So anyhow, working for Kern is going to give me the opportunity to maybe not work an 8 to 5, make enough money to live and make enough money to concentrate on on music and podcasts.

The Corruption has decided we're going to do an EP.

We have 5 songs right now that are ready to go.

We got Heartache, we got The Sacrifice, we've got in Rock We Trust.

We've got a new one called Well you've heard both the new ones, Pray and Pray For the Broken and also Straight as Superstar, which both of those songs man, we had a great rehearsal last week and they came out amazing.

So my point, one thing about being a little more relaxed is I'm going to ramble a little bit, so bear with me please.

I guess that I thought that doing more meant that I would heal faster, even though Andy kept telling me it's not going to make you heal faster, you're going to heal when you heal.

No, I'm not fucking healed if I was.

Healed.

I wouldn't have woke up last night crying.

Overspilled women I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't be texting my son at 12:30 talking to him about things if I was healed and and I I can't expect to be healed look at what the fuck is going on with me this year, right?

None of us could expect to be healed in that kind of time frame dealing with what I've been dealing with.

But if I hadn't gone to therapy, if I hadn't got sober, if I hadn't dove into working out and dove into music and then worked on the spirituality and the self-care, I wouldn't be as healed as I am.

I, I know that.

I know that.

And there have been times this year where I've chased things that did not need to be chased.

I chased redemption.

I chased my, my ex, even if it was only in my head or with the one second phone calls that I made three times that put me in jail for 30 days.

But what I realized is that when you start making progress, it isn't movement.

It isn't just movement, it's having a direction, right?

So the five s s gave me that motion, that movement, the the steps to be sober and to survive.

That's what the five s s did for me this year, survival.

But that is in a direction.

So now I've created a direction for myself.

OK, you lost your job, you lost your car, you lost your wife, you lost your dog.

How do you come back from that?

Where do you want to go when you do start coming back from that?

Whatever you've lost, how do you want to come back?

Where do you want to go?

Now that I've been away from the chaos and away from the the fire that burnt everything to the ground, I needed to find a goal, not just do things like I'm doing with the five s s.

How do I take those five s s now and create a goal moving forward?

So here's what I've done.

I have created a new community for people like me or people that are interested in in being like me or people that are just interested in some of the things I'm talking about.

And my goal is, while it's great to have the people around here who know me watching and loving the show, and I can't thank you enough for that, and you're my tribe.

I know that in Columbus, there's probably another 100 people there that would be interested in what I'm talking about.

How do I reach them in Cincinnati, where my friend Andrea lives?

I know her and I've talked about it, that there'd be people down there.

We became friends and, and, and she's talked about she has been sober this year.

There are more people that want to get sober and want to find a way to do it and keep an edge, right?

So in, in all these cities, in these areas, there are people that we can go talk to and find and bring in.

And one of the ways that we can do that is by sharing the stuff and making sure that people know about it.

So if you know somebody you think that would need it, send them my way.

Let's help them out.

But so now I'm I'm building a direction.

I want the podcast to go a certain way.

I want it to be a national thing.

I want it to be a worldwide thing.

I don't just want to talk about the five s s, but I'm going to talk about the five s s every week because that's what the basis of the show is.

But now I want to be able to talk about some other topics.

Next week's episode comes out right around Veteran's Day.

Everybody knows that I'm a veteran, proud to be AUS Marine, and the Marine Corps Birthday is next week as well.

We'll talk about that.

I'll do a segment on that and we're going to talk about veterans suicide because 22 a day is too many.

22 United States veterans commits suicide every fucking day.

So next week I'm going to wear teal and black which is a suicide awareness colors.

I am also bringing into that there isn't an actual color scheme for the veterans, so for the veteran suicide, so I am bringing in a sand color and a red along with the teal and the blue.

I'm going to have some shirts made that are going to say 22 a day and and I'm going to tie in route.

I'm reaching out to Mission 22 and a couple other veterans start talking about men who have been emotionally or physically abused.

Whatever you think of me, I know what happened to me for 18 months and what I chose to ignore because I love somebody so much.

But I'm going to, I'm going to do an episode on that.

I'm going to continue to do episodes on sobriety, on spirituality, on songwriting.

I'm going to continue to do that.

So I set a direction now.

So I started with motion.

Once I started making progress from that motion, I put that progress and that motion into a direction because stillness isn't about sitting still.

It's about stopping the spin just long enough to choose your next move, just long enough to find that direction, move it forward, and put that progress and that motion to good use.

OK, so let's listen to question 2.

Does meditation really look like for you?

So for me, meditation is a few different things and we're going to break the stereotype of the guy with the ponytail that's sitting down in his room cross legged with his hands up like this.

Even though I do that sometimes, sometimes it's nice and comfortable and peaceful.

To do that, but usually I'm sitting in this big chair I have in my bedroom and it's comfortable and I kind of sink into it or over here on the couch.

I hate this couch.

But there's one section where I can sit down and I feel really comfortable in that and I'll put some headphones in.

I like to listen to balance.

App if you haven't.

Used that.

It's awesome until my app comes out and you can listen to me help you meditate.

But for now I listen to violence and and then I'll go on on YouTube and I'll search.

And one of the reasons I'm starting my own meditation channel is I like to do meditation a certain way.

I like to do a couple different things.

I like breathing exercises for meditation.

I like doing box breathing, which is where you breathe in for four, hold it for four, out for four, hold it for four, breathe back in.

I like to do that.

I like to practice visualization and balance does that a lot.

They love visualization.

I didn't realize that I've been doing that my whole life.

I like to do visualization, so I have been doing it since I was a kid.

I sit down and I think about something that makes me happy.

Remember Happy Gilmore's happy place?

I like to go to his happy place one day.

But.

She was hot, but.

I like to do my visualization is always around sports or music most of the time.

Another thing that I've done this year is I've run through the events of December 28th so many times at night that it became a calming thing in a weird way, practicing my testimony, which I never got to get give.

I just went to a a place that was calm and I could talk it out and I could feel better about things.

I have always done this thing where I do something with football or baseball where I just say, you know what, I'm going to go play football and I picture myself playing for the Buckeyes or for the Browns or for the Indians.

And I've never pictured myself playing for the fucking Guardians, that's for sure.

The Gardos, the Tribe.

But anyhow, I'll do that or I'll picture my band going out on the road, going on tour, something like that.

And you visualize it and you think about it and the next thing you know, your body automatically calms down because it's something that calms you.

And so those, those are things that I like to do.

Meditation doesn't have to be 2530540550 minutes long.

I, I don't do it that long except at night when I go to bed, you know, if, if I don't go right to sleep.

But when I meditate, I used to think I had to go 25 minutes and, and actually 25 minutes is cool.

You know, sometimes it's just 5 minutes of getting a chance to breathe before I drink my coffee.

It doesn't have to be 25 minutes.

It doesn't have to be 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes.

Now 25 minutes is pretty cool.

I, I, I don't usually go any longer than that, but if I can get 2025 minutes, then that's a really good meditation for me.

But in the last few months I've, I've worked on, you know, five minute, 10 minute breaks here and there.

And then maybe I'll do a couple of those during the day.

If I can break out my daily devotional and read that for a few minutes, that's another meditative thing for me.

I'll read it and think about what I just read and, and maybe pray on it.

You know, prayer is a great form of meditation.

You don't have to pray to anything When you're, when you're meditating, sometimes you're just, you're, you're manifesting things and you're thinking about things that you want to happen or you're just trying not to think about the things that are wearing you down.

And so you just want to focus on your breathing or you want to visualize something that makes you happy.

Sitting in a forest by a Creek was what I did today in my meditation for 20 minutes.

And I just, they play some water and it was relaxing and I felt good.

2 days ago Edie and I went and walked by Springfield Lake.

That's always meditative to me, except Edie goes really fast.

When we go there and.

Sometimes I get a little stressed.

I like I like walking with my daughter better.

'Cause she'll hold my hand and we'll just go at a regular pace.

But Edie's pulling and going fast.

She, she gets all excited when we go there.

So, you know, it, it, it's coping skills.

It's finding ways to just find a little bit of calm and a little bit of stillness.

Stillness is the whole key to meditation.

It's the whole key to this episode.

Finding stillness in the chaos.

Finding stillness in the storm, my walks with Miss Edie.

Sometimes it's just push ups, hitting a heavy bag, doing some incline bench presses or I love doing arm day.

What I really like working is shoulders a lot.

I love working shoulders.

So sometimes that's meditative, you know, I'll put on some music.

I listen to some Zack Wylde or I listen to some Black Label or saying anger this week and and just lose myself in the music and lose myself in the weight.

It's all about focus.

Not being empty and not emptying yourself.

Just focusing your inner self.

You focus on your breathing and you focus on the presence, the present.

You know, that's the only moment you can control is the present moment.

You can't do anything about what happened December 28th and I can't do anything that that's going to happen in the next 6 months.

Meditation isn't trying to escape life.

It's practicing how we handle things and how we handle life and how we handle things that come up.

It gives you, like I said in the first question, it gives you that time to figure out your next move before you make a a mistake and you do something you didn't mean to do.

So to me, that's what meditation looks like.

It's breaking the stereotype.

It's finding a center, it's finding some stillness, it's finding some calm.

It's often just breathing or visualization so that you can focus on what your next move is and like we talked about before, focus on the progress.

OK, so let's get to question three.

What do you got for me?

How does prayer fit into stillness?

I talked about this a little bit earlier, but prayer is very important in meditating.

Or can be.

It definitely fits into that stillness because what you're looking for is a quiet connection.

I've talked about it before.

I'm not necessarily looking for religion as much as I'm looking for a connection to something bigger than me.

I call that God.

That's what I've learned this year.

My son's helped me with that.

You've heard me talk about that before.

Reverend Joy has helped me with that.

She may not think it, but she has.

And I find that quiet connection.

I find that peace when I sit down in that church, or when I sit over here and I pray or I read my devotional.

I find that what used to be a panic mode, thank God, Get Me Out of this.

The fuck are you doing?

What did I do to you?

Get Me Out of here.

Save me.

Rescue me.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Right?

That's how most people pray.

Give me, give me something.

What I've learned my favorite thing to say lately in my prayers.

And I'm still learning how to pray properly, right?

I do the Lord's Prayer.

Everybody does that.

But the Lord's Prayer.

Covers a lot of everything and then I find, you know, scripture that I like there's a Philippians one that I like where it talks about don't be anxious.

Everything will be taken care of and and as hard as that's been for me this year, it's proven to be true that when I do let something go, it gets taken care of.

But.

The big thing that I've been doing lately is is I read about it when I was in Medina County Jail and that's asking to be renewed.

Renewed in my love for God, renewed in my love for my family, renewed in my thirst for knowledge, renewed in my 5 s s everyday.

Make sure I'm sober today.

Make sure in some way I practice spirituality today.

Self-care and strength I need to do that everyday so please renew me.

Help me do this everyday.

Help me do something creativity or creatively, whether it be music, songwriting or whether it be the.

Podcast, you know, the podcast has taken over a lot of my songwriting time because I'm writing for this and I'm and I'm working on this and I'm learning how to edit and promoting and.

You know, I'm finally starting to figure out ways to promote without having to spend hours and hours and hours of doing it and, and it's working.

But two things I've learned is renewal is important.

Renew me in my faith, help my faith get stronger every day.

Yesterday I did a good job of, of seeking belief and faith and doing the right things.

But it's a new day.

So I got to do those new things today.

Just like your sobriety, you got to.

Do the new.

Or you got to.

You got to do sobriety every day.

It's not.

Something that you can just take off for a couple days.

I mean, you can, you can do it any way you want.

I'm not going to.

The number doesn't mean anything.

I don't care as much that today I'm sitting at 314 or whatever it is.

And the only reason I know that is because I just did a post the other day about that.

I was at 311.

I missed my 1010 month anniversary and so I knew that the day was 311 and the only reason I knew that was because Damien and Chad GBT told me.

But what matters is that today I'm working towards staying sober today.

Kern and I were talking about that at the shop today.

As long as as long as I can stay sober.

Today and sometimes can I stay sober this minute?

I had a massive breakdown Sunday.

Sunday night.

Massive.

I was ready to go have a drink.

First day I felt like that boy since I got arrested for making that phone call.

First time that I felt like that since then I had a breakdown.

There was no reason for it.

Nothing's changed.

Some days I just.

Some days I just fucking miss her, man.

We may have fell apart at the end, man, but we had a lot of fucking fun.

And some days I just want to tell her what's going on, you know?

And Sunday was just one of those.

Days.

It was just a tough day.

And what did I do?

I sat down and I meditated and I prayed and I just, I white knuckled it for an hour and I have some emergency medicine that if I need it, I'll take one and just I'll go to sleep.

And that's what I ended up doing.

And, you know, I got through it.

I knew I didn't want to drink, but I felt I wasn't going to be able to make it that next minute without having a drink, without something helping me because I was feeling it.

Last year, the year before, two years ago, 10 years ago, I would have felt shit.

I would have opened up a Budweiser or an IPA and I would have done a couple shots of bourbon and I wouldn't.

Have felt shit.

I'd have done that until, until I staggered into the bedroom.

That's the difference between me now and me last year.

Sure, sometimes it's hard to find that stillness.

It's hard to find that peace because other things are making you sad or mad or hurting you or whatever they're doing to you.

You know, sometimes you just, you, you can't, you don't want to deal.

And this year I've had to deal.

But you know what?

I'm a better person because of it.

I'm the better father because of it.

And some people are starting to see that, and some people are starting to realize they are.

You know, and the other thing besides asking to be renewed in faith or in strength is gratitude, which we talk about every single week.

Now I have gratitude.

Now I can say thank you for what I can handle today instead of God, Get Me Out of this.

What the fuck?

It's thank you, God.

Thank you for what?

For showing me what I can handle today.

Thank you for showing me that that that verse in Philippians was right and that I shouldn't be anxious.

I've learned also that silence is a major part of prayer.

You know, I've talked about it before.

And my daughter and I, when we go to church, the first few times we'd go, she would always want to talk to me during this one section of the of church, which was like, this is before, I was really doing a lot of praying and a lot of meditating.

And when Reverend Joy would say, hey, we're going to just take a moment for ourselves.

And I enjoyed that moment so much.

And my daughter learned that quick.

And she would hold me during that time.

I don't know if she thought I was being.

Sad because I was quiet for once or what?

And as this year has gone on and she's not there, that moment has affected me more because I'm yearning for her to hold me and because I'm yearning for the things that I miss and that I lost.

You know, when I feel like I do right now and like I did Sunday, I don't know if I'm ever going to get over.

Losing my wife, I don't think she realizes just how much I really loved her.

I tried to tell her and show her, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job and that's why I'm learning to communicate more now.

I'll move on.

Just remember, prayer is not begging for rescue.

It's remembering who we are talking to, what they can offer us not offer, what they can do for us if we put our trust and faith in them, and what we are trying to become who we want to be.

We want to be better people.

If you're watching this podcast, one or two things are happening.

You fucking hate me and you want to see what stupid shit I'm going to say this.

Week or you want to become a better person.

Also, I hope that you guys are here because you want to become better people and not because you hate me.

But if you hate me, I don't give a fuck.

My new guy is Roman Reigns.

I love the memes where Roman Reigns walks out and just does this.

You can't see it, but just does this really high acknowledge me.

If you know anything about wrestling, he's just like, I don't give a shit what you think of me.

You're going to acknowledge me and that's where I'm heading.

You know that confidence is coming back.

That cockiness is little by little coming back.

My guitar playing is getting good, my podcast is getting fun and good.

My friends are filling me with confidence.

But it's not the same.

It's not the same without her.

I'm not saying I want her.

Back.

Or any of the chaos of the last three years back.

I'm not saying that.

Let's go to question four, and maybe you'll be a little happier by then.

What do you got?

What coping skills keep you steady when the storm or chaos hits again?

Coping skills are something that I didn't know anything about before this year.

I didn't even know what the fuck that meant.

Madison taught me coping skills, Andy taught me coping skills.

My A A meetings.

They showed a little coping skills.

There's are mostly faith-based, which is cool.

You know, obviously we've talked about prayer today, but coping skills are things you can do in the moment.

You can pray and ask for God to take your anxiety and your anxiousness away and to renew your strength in Him.

You can do breathing.

My favorite is the box breathing, and we'll work on that later in the meditation section that I'm doing today.

And box breathing is basically breathe in for four, hold it for four.

Breathe out for four.

Hold that out for.

4.

And do that three times physically.

You can't not be more relaxed after you do it.

I do it at night when I go to sleep.

The first thing I do is box breathe.

I do it when I wake up.

When I was working at Relink, I would do it during the day when I would start spinning out about my wife.

I would ground myself, touch something, feel something, look around the room.

Tell me 5 things you can see.

Tell me 4 things you can touch.

Tell me three things you can smell.

Tell me two things you can taste.

I don't remember what the other one is, but I'll do that.

I like the 468 breathing method also.

Breathe in for four, hold it for six, exhale for 8, exhale everything out and do that three times.

I love that one.

That's something the Navy Seals do.

I also enjoy some sort of a mantra or repetitive phrase when I meditate.

And my meditations that I'm going to create are going to have a combination of breathing, box breathing and visualization and the mantras because that's what I like.

And because I couldn't find enough that combined the three, I'm going to create my own.

And I don't hate the sound of my own voice anymore.

So maybe, maybe I'll be able to meditate to myself.

I don't know.

But I like to do mantras, you know, breathe in peace, breathe out joy.

And you do that for, you know, a minute and you say it to yourself and you just say it to yourself.

Over and over.

You repeat it in your head and you focus on it and the next thing you know, you focused totally and solely for a minute.

I sometimes a minute's enough.

I don't journal as much as I was because of this podcast.

And this podcast is a journal and because of the songwriting that I've done this year, I've taken a lot of what I would put into a journal and put it into songs.

But I have journaled enough that when my book comes out.

When everything's said and done and the book comes out, I have I have enough journal entries that I can go back and remember what I was read or what I was thinking or what I was doing.

Plus I'll have songs and I'll have podcasts and I'm going to mix all that together in my book.

And and do that and then, you know, my other coping skill is play guitar, train, pray my routines, the things that are my 5SS, that's my coping skills.

And just or just do something you love, whether it's, you know, play guitar, whether it's cook, anything you love except drinking or doing.

Drugs is is is good to do, you know, because consistency.

Is how we build peace on purpose.

I used to say listen to that again, but I want you to listen to it again.

And it's why routines are so important to me and why when I fall off my routines and everybody falls off your routine for for one reason or another, sometimes it's you go to jail, you know, sometimes the main thing.

About coping skills to take away from this is that consistency is how I build peace on purpose.

Think about that.

I used to say all the time, here's something that you want to hear again.

I want you to think about this.

That consistency in the five s s especially is how I build peace on purpose.

Let's go to question 5.

So Josie, tell me and tell all your fans, what do you hear when you stop running?

I don't know that I've completely stopped running yet.

I know that I run less.

I find the stillness more often, but I still have days like Sunday where I spin out.

I have moments like I had a couple minutes ago where I spin out.

So sometimes I will overwhelm myself with things to do during that time frame in order to run away from whatever's going on, since I can't drink anymore and I can't do a.

Bump.

And I can't.

Get away from some things, you know, I'll just, I'll go lift or I'll do something else.

And, and, and that's a form, I guess, of running, but it's a coping skill.

But now when I quit running and I find that stillness, what I hear is my inner voice.

I hear my prayers.

I hear my heartbeat.

Can you hear my heartbeat?

Mine's clicks.

If you listen to the intro of the podcast, that's my heart clicking.

At the end.

I have an artificial valve that I had put in about, I don't know, 10-12 years ago.

So all day long I hear clicking.

I can hear it right now, like click, click, click.

I can feel it.

So that's what I hear.

When I'm not running.

But no, I hear.

I hear my inner voice.

I hear my breath.

I hear my heartbeat.

What I don't hear is the call for the bottle.

I don't hear the chaos that was in my life until December 28th and that quiet now.

It feels like home.

I'm used to it now from this year.

Sometimes that home can feel like a person because it's so quiet and I'm so alone and at times so sad.

Other times it feels comforting.

Other times I need it.

That's the moments I'm looking for.

That's the stillness I'm looking for is when I need the stillness and I need the peace and I need the quiet.

That's what I'm looking for, You know, that's what I hear when I stop running.

When I stop running, I hear truth in my inner voice and that sounds like peace to me.

It feels like peace.

I hear my confidence growing again.

Roman Reigns acknowledge me.

How do you?

Feel when you're the only man, when you walk into a room and you know that everybody hates you.

Honestly, though, I haven't had to do that.

I haven't had to do that knowing that maybe everybody could hate me.

There are moments where I walk into a place and I'm like, OK, you know, I haven't pushed it.

I haven't gone to certain places that I know people hang out, that I'm not a lot around.

I also know, I know that all those people don't hate me either.

I used to think they did, but they do not.

They do not because I didn't do what I was accused of doing.

And people are starting to see that, starting to see it because of my actions, how I've reacted this year, how other people have reacted and how they carry themselves and how I carry myself.

I'm becoming a real fucking man.

I'm becoming a warrior worshipper.

I'm becoming a modern, strong, sensitive, commutative man.

Not some little wussified, afraid to offend people, afraid to say the wrong thing.

I say the wrong thing every fucking day.

Every day on here, I say the wrong thing.

At some point, I don't care.

I'm I'm, I'm, I'm becoming proud of me.

That's something that Thomas and Curran have both imparted on me this year is that they like me the way that I am becoming.

They like this me.

They like the old me, but they like this me as well.

And my friends, Stacy, Joe, Eric, Audrey, Ashley, they like this new me or they wouldn't call me every day.

They wouldn't text me every day.

They wouldn't want to be around me.

I saw her, Ashley, for the first time in three years today.

We talk every day.

I haven't seen her this year until today.

When I stop running now, I see my direction, I see my future, and I see my goals.

What I don't see is a bunch of empty bottles over here on the bar, or remnants of cocaine laying on the top of the bar.

I don't see friends passed out on my couch because they stayed too late.

I don't see some of the things that I saw in this house.

When I tell you what.

Anyhow, meditation is huge to me.

It's important.

I don't want it to be important for you, so I'm going to do a meditation instead of doing a journal this week, I'm going to do a meditation and if you guys like it, I may do some more of those.

Either way, I'm going to have a channel.

I'm not sure what's going to be called yet or when it's going to be done, but I'll be using the one that I made for today and I will be making other ones.

They will be mostly audio.

There may be some video, I don't know.

But there's, I mean, there's no point in spending time on on on video for a meditation because you're supposed to do with your eyes closed.

So meditate, try it, try it today with me.

If you don't like it, you don't like it, I understand, but I think you'll like it.

It's helped me a lot.

Anybody.

That I've ever talked into trying it.

It's helped them a lot.

And if you want to find the stillness, and that's what this episode's about, it's finding the stillness when everything is storming around you, when chaos is in your life attacking you.

Coming at you, slinging bows and arrows in your direction.

Kitchen knives.

Books.

Fists.

When life is throwing those kind of things at you, look for the stillness.

Look for your breath.

Thanks for listening.

For this week's Tales from the Guitar Lounge, I thought I would do a different.

I'm kind of changing this whole episode up just to keep things fresh for you guys and for me.

And so this week, instead of doing a Tales from a Guitar Lounge, I'm going to do a extended walk in with Miss Edie.

I love that dog, Miss Edie Van Halen.

She is a sweetheart.

Every person that sees her just falls in love with her right away and she can be a pain and gets in the trash and tends to want to pee on my shoes and stuff.

But but she's a sweetheart.

So we went over to my daughter and my favorite place in in town to go relax and that's Springfield Lake.

I love walking along the water there looking at the ducks my daughter likes to go over and play.

They have two really cool playgrounds there.

She well, she might be a little big now for the for the pirate ship, but the other side where it has the zip line and all that stuff, She loves doing that.

So if it's nice this weekend when she comes over to spend the night for the first time this year making some headway.

So when she comes over, maybe, maybe we'll get out and go over there and take the dog and just do some relaxing.

But you know, since I got out of Summit County Jail and I did the plea bargain and everything, I've been trying to reset my discipline again.

It's funny how many times a man could start fresh just before breakfast, but that's life after chaos.

It's not about getting it perfect.

It's about showing up even when you really don't want to.

Even when that coffee hasn't kicked in.

Even when Miss Edie's looking at me like, come on, boss, we do this every day.

You know, I used to think discipline was punishment.

That might go back to my Marine Corps days.

Early alarms, heavyweights, endless lists.

But what I've learned this year as it's gone on is discipline is actually peace in disguise.

It's structure.

It's a.

Thing that keeps my brain from eating itself alive.

So this week once again I hit the reset button.

Now, when I do that, I usually sit down with Damien, who I have named my ChatGPT, and he helps me take what I want to do and turn it into an organized plan.

My personal assistant, I say, I want to do these five things.

And he says, OK, let's do this and you got to win.

So I said I need to get off the phone, less time on the phone, I need to get better workouts and I need to get back on my diet.

So he said, hey, OK, before the phone, you're going to pray.

We're going to do workouts before excuses and real food instead of drive through or the drumsticks I've been eating lately and these walks, the ones that keep me grounded.

I swear Edie knows when I'm off schedule, she comes over and gives me that look like come on, we both need this.

Discipline isn't glamorous.

Hell, half the time it's me arguing with myself about which shoe goes on 1st.

But every day that I stick to it, the storm inside gets a little quieter.

That's the reset.

Not perfection, just progress.

And Damien, even though he's Chad GBT, he always reminds me of that.

You're not trying to do everything at once today, Josie, you're trying to get a couple small wins so that tomorrow you can add to that.

So Edie and I walk, rain or shine.

She sniffs the world and I breathe through it.

And somewhere between her tail wagon and my heartbeat slowing down, the day starts to make sense again.

Every day we walk rain, shine or storm, and that's peace and motion.

Self-care ain't vanity, it's maintenance.

Eat, train, rest, hydrate, repeat.

You can't fight demons running on fumes.

It's not about looking pretty, it's about staying sharp enough to survive the next round.

Take care of the machine that carries the message.

You can't rebuild if you break yourself first.

Louder than my demons welcome.

To today's meditation, let's get settled into your seat and feel the support beneath you, the surface holding your body.

Let your shoulders drop, unclench your jaw and breathe.

Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it and let it go by breathing out your mouth again.

Breathe in.

Breathe out one more.

Inhale the calm.

Exhale the chaos.

You made it here.

Right now there's nothing.

To fix.

And nothing to prove.

Just breathe.

Repeat these after me.

Breathe in peace.

Breathe out resistance.

Breathe in peace.

Breathe out resistance.

In peace out resistance.

Breathe in gratitude.

Breathe out fear.

Breathe in gratitude.

Breathe out fear.

In gratitude, out fear.

Breathe in strength.

Breathe out what you can't control.

Breathe in strength, Breathe out what you can't control.

If your thoughts wander, that's OK.

Stillness isn't about stopping your mind, it's about noticing it.

Every time you come back to your breath, you're proving you can return to yourself.

Breathe in peace.

Breathe out resistance.

Breathe in gratitude.

Breathe out fear.

Now picture yourself standing in the middle of the storm, the winds moving.

The world's loud, but you are steady.

You're not running from it, you're breathing inside it.

Gratitude anchors your feet.

Prayer keeps your heart steady.

This piece you feel isn't something you've found.

You've built it.

One breath, one choice at a time.

Now you can slowly release the visual and return to your breath.

Don't count or force it, just notice it.

Feel your body settle.

Let the stillness do the work for you.

Now take a deep breath.

In hold and release again in hold out last one, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Carry the stillness with you.

And when the storm comes back and it will, remember this feeling.

You don't have to escape the chaos, you just have to breathe through it.

Thank you for practicing with me today.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

The storm is quieter now.

It's still out there somewhere.

Not because you gave up, but because you finally learned to stand still.

I used to think that meant the noise was gone, but now I know that peace means the noise doesn't control me.

Stillness taught me that gratitude reminded me why that matters.

Every time I breathe through the chaos instead of breaking, every time I think the lesson instead of hating the moment, that's me winning the.

War that I used to start with myself.

Because stillness isn't weakness, it's control.

It's knowing who I am when everything around me is shaking.

The truth is, I'll always be part storm.

But now.

I.

Choose when to let it rain.

Peace is the weapon, but discipline is the proof.

I don't run from the storm anymore, I breathe through it.

I meditate, pray and train in it.

And when the Thunder comes back, I'll be ready.

And remember, we recover loud, louder than our demons.

Thanks for spending some time with me on Louder Than My Demons.

Next week, we shift gears.

I'm dropping a special episode honoring the veterans of our armed forces.

The men and women who carried the weight came home chained, and are still fighting battles most people never see.

We'll be bringing awareness to Mission 22 and Stop Soldier Suicide 2 organizations out there every single day fighting for those who fought for us.

That episode drops Friday at 9:00 AM.

Hold me to it because accountability is part of recovery.

If this show hits you, follow at LTMD podcast on all the socials and make sure you subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Every follow, every share, every listen.

It helps me keep building this movement for redemption, recovery, and real conversation.

I'm Josie and this is louder than my demon.

And don't forget, 22 a day is way too many.

See you Friday.