Speaker 1: I'll get Hey, folks, it's new project Harps, Mikekel, Tiffany
Speaker 1: and Cook Monday Morning, Bushy Tail at eleven oh seven
Speaker 1: in the thriving of Tropolis. Right now it's sunny. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I give you a weather report every
Speaker 1: time I do a fucking podcast. I think old habits
Speaker 1: die hard, back to se N radio and GOLDFM radio
Speaker 1: and light FM radio, where we used to have to
Speaker 1: do weather checks and time checks and station IDs and
Speaker 1: intros and outros and all that shit. It still hangs
Speaker 1: around a bit high, tiff.
Speaker 2: I don't minder whether check when it's a sunny outside
Speaker 2: at this time a year.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not too bad. It was meant to be
Speaker 1: shite this week, but I think today it's going to
Speaker 1: be sunny till around lunch and then a little bit
Speaker 1: of precipitation. As James Bunn says, it's nearly lunchtime it is.
Speaker 1: I know. That's okay. We'll enjoy it while it's here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll have a nice time. I'll have a nice
Speaker 1: time looking at the sun out the window. Then I'll
Speaker 1: get off the podcast and i'll start raining. That's all right.
Speaker 1: First worldies, tip, did you have a good weekend.
Speaker 2: I had a wonderful weekend. It'spen birthday week at a
Speaker 2: big weekend. It was sunny on my birthday. It never is,
Speaker 2: so you know, cheers to me.
Speaker 1: Wow, cheers to you. Did you get weighted on hand
Speaker 1: and foot by your bloke?
Speaker 2: Did I?
Speaker 1: Ever? What did he? Of course, there's a few things
Speaker 1: you can't share that he did, but of the things
Speaker 1: that you can share, although we're pretty open minded, so
Speaker 1: you know, whatever door you want to open. And remember
Speaker 1: that seventy eighty percent of our listeners of women don't
Speaker 1: ask me why, but they love a good story. They
Speaker 1: love a good story. So feel free. I'm not pushing
Speaker 1: you in any direction, but feel free to go wherever
Speaker 1: you want. So what did he do for you? Oh?
Speaker 2: Look? Just Birthday week started a week ago and I
Speaker 2: just had little just a drip feed of little presents
Speaker 2: every day, and you know, just the usual, really getting
Speaker 2: cooked for every day and loved every day.
Speaker 3: We went for a.
Speaker 2: Little trip down to the Dandy Kong's.
Speaker 1: If somebody had just said to me two years ago,
Speaker 1: it's going to fall head over heels in love with
Speaker 1: a man, or even that would have just a man
Speaker 1: that would have been a start, but a man, and
Speaker 1: she's going to be all google. He's going to stay
Speaker 1: at her joint, she's going to stay at his. And
Speaker 1: when I talked to her, she's only saying nice things.
Speaker 1: She's not neurotic and paranoid and worried about where it's
Speaker 1: going or he's fucking motives or you are. Do not
Speaker 1: let her go because I reckon right now, this is
Speaker 1: it for you like this, This is the time. Mikeldo's security.
Speaker 1: I'm doing the actual wedding. Mickle makes sure there's no
Speaker 1: riff raff other than him and I there and what
Speaker 1: could go wrong? Could go wrong?
Speaker 2: Love the hell.
Speaker 1: Now, last time we spoke, which was a long time ago,
Speaker 1: about a week, have you narrowed down? Have we got
Speaker 1: any kind of date? Are we looking? No? I mean
Speaker 1: I've got just because I've got a busy schedule, so
Speaker 1: I need to kind of lock it in. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to miss out.
Speaker 2: Just going to give a shout out to Lisa Cahney.
Speaker 2: Please don't feed Harper any more ideas about this topic.
Speaker 2: Don't encourage it doesn't need any more encouragement.
Speaker 1: That's the closest I get, you know, I love a
Speaker 1: good wedding as long as I'm involved in the official part. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not interested.
Speaker 2: There's no need for any wedding talk at this point
Speaker 2: in time. It's been three and a half minutes. It's
Speaker 2: been three and a half minute taps. I've still got
Speaker 2: my l plates on.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not three and a half minutes. McK hall,
Speaker 1: welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 4: Hello, tobably the morning to you all.
Speaker 1: Where are you? Are you over in the thriving metropolis
Speaker 1: of Bloody? Where is it glenn Waverley?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, kind of glen Wavery area, Craig. We'll call
Speaker 4: it Wheelers.
Speaker 1: Hill, we'll call it that, We'll call it over there, yeah,
Speaker 1: not near the beach. Have you been well mate? What's happening?
Speaker 1: What's new? Were you? Are you happy?
Speaker 3: Boy?
Speaker 1: Have you got a girl on the go? Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you still punching people in the face in the ring?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk about that. That's the most.
Speaker 3: That's the most. The happiest thing is that. Yeah, punching
Speaker 3: people in the face. That's awesome. So I'm fighting again
Speaker 3: in six weeks, fight number twenty seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In the middle of preparation, which is always, as Tiff
Speaker 3: would know, it's a you know, it's a bit of
Speaker 3: a tumultuous time, you know, running a business, you know,
Speaker 3: doing podcasts and in the middle of preparation and trying
Speaker 3: to keep myself focused on what's coming up and concentrating
Speaker 3: on my training and my eating and everything else.
Speaker 4: It's always, you know, I enjoy that process, but it's
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean it's easy.
Speaker 1: What are the I'll ask this to both of you pugilists.
Speaker 1: What will start with you, Tiv, What are the main
Speaker 1: emotions around Like you're coming up to a fight, it's
Speaker 1: a week or two away, like your visions kind of
Speaker 1: narrowing on that. Everything else is a bit of external noise.
Speaker 1: You've still got to do life, but you also need
Speaker 1: to be highly focused and prepped and ready. What are
Speaker 1: the emotions? Is it fear? Anxiety? Is it excitement? What
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: I think it's the recognition that it's all of those things,
Speaker 2: and you manage your mind as to what you call it,
Speaker 2: and that gets very very important that close to the fight.
Speaker 2: So you've got you've got that a buzz of emotion constantly,
Speaker 2: and for me it is the only thing you think about,
Speaker 2: So everything else comes secondary to that, which can be
Speaker 2: problematic in business. Can't it make yeah yeah, just a
Speaker 2: little bit yeah yeah, And then it's going, Okay, these
Speaker 2: are the emotions and this is what my mind might
Speaker 2: tell me this is all about. But this is what
Speaker 2: we need to frame it as so that we have
Speaker 2: a positive relationship with the chaos that is pulsing through
Speaker 2: my body.
Speaker 1: Wow. I've worked with lots of athletes, lots of teams
Speaker 1: and professional and amateur athletes, but interesting, I used to
Speaker 1: really pay attention to all the high level athletes and
Speaker 1: their rituals and rules and their practices about their prep
Speaker 1: and especially at an AFL level where you've got like
Speaker 1: kind of you know, twenty to twenty four guys getting
Speaker 1: ready and they all have their own little things that
Speaker 1: they do. And at the National Netball League, same Do
Speaker 1: you have any rituals that you're a bit superstitious about
Speaker 1: or things that you will do all the time or
Speaker 1: won't do at all or not really?
Speaker 2: Tiff, I used to I used to have red and
Speaker 2: black jelly beans before the fight. That was my like
Speaker 2: I had because I had those on the first fight night.
Speaker 2: It was a thing that I had to do every time.
Speaker 2: That was really the only funny weird ritualed it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I remember doing that on the last fight, so
Speaker 2: it was like, I don't think you need more sugar, mate.
Speaker 2: I think if plenty amped up this time around.
Speaker 1: So your logic was I had these jelly beans this color,
Speaker 1: and I won, so I got to stick with that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yep, makes all lot of sense. But you
Speaker 1: know what the funny thing is. Obviously it's not about
Speaker 1: the jelly beans, but it's about the belief in the
Speaker 1: jelly beans. So if that ritual or that idea actually
Speaker 1: gives you more confidence or a little bit less fear
Speaker 1: and anxiety because you know that in your mind you
Speaker 1: did the thing that helped you win last time. Now
Speaker 1: you're doing that thing again, So you're improving the odds,
Speaker 1: you know, even though you're not actually but in your
Speaker 1: mind you are, which means in the world you actually are.
Speaker 2: I think it for me, maybe it comes down to familiarity.
Speaker 2: If I can create something that gives me familiarity with
Speaker 2: the last time I remember doing this and having a
Speaker 2: good outcome, then I have some sense of control. I've
Speaker 2: done it. I've done it with speaking before where I go, oh,
Speaker 2: this this is how I felt, this is how I
Speaker 2: remember it. So I need to find a way to
Speaker 2: put myself in that state so that I can perform
Speaker 2: and have that outcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have little rituels we're speaking too. If I've
Speaker 1: got a big, big group, like five hundred to one thousand,
Speaker 1: I really don't want to talk to anyone much before.
Speaker 1: Like I'll talk to the organizers or the whatever, but
Speaker 1: then I'll go and find somewhere where you know, if
Speaker 1: I'm speaking at nine point thirty, I literally stay in
Speaker 1: that room until nine twenty eight. Ok. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: want to be focused and I don't want to be
Speaker 1: meeting people, shaking hands, answering questions, you know, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll do all of that later, but beforehand. What about you, Michael,
Speaker 1: with boxing, have you got any quirky little idiosyncrasies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got plenty of them. I've actually got quite
Speaker 4: a few.
Speaker 3: But there's certainly I love the whole process of fighting
Speaker 3: and the whole build up, you know, but that's said
Speaker 3: through I've got to be a really particular in the
Speaker 3: way that I go about it. As Tiff was saying,
Speaker 3: she had the jelly beans. Well, I eat about a
Speaker 3: packet a full packet of fun sized Mars bars, so
Speaker 3: the old fun sized Mars bars pot. And I also
Speaker 3: don't mind a good packet of fun sized Snickers either.
Speaker 3: They seem to tickle my fancy quite well.
Speaker 4: They get me.
Speaker 1: How do you not go into the and this is
Speaker 1: after you've eaten four lettuce leaves over the last month,
Speaker 1: And how do you not go into the fight with
Speaker 1: a guts sake?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean for us, the wighing is the night before,
Speaker 3: not before the fight. So by the time and I
Speaker 3: always say to people, to other fighters, that you only
Speaker 3: have to hit your fight weight for about thirty seconds
Speaker 3: and then as soon as you step off the scale
Speaker 3: that it then becomes.
Speaker 4: The other part of the fight game or the weight.
Speaker 3: Game, is how you rehydrate and how you renourish yourself
Speaker 3: and the system that you put in place to do
Speaker 3: that so that you can be at your best when
Speaker 3: it comes by time. And so I just love all
Speaker 3: that process, and I've got lots of rituals and stuff
Speaker 3: around that certainly before I think for me, the most
Speaker 3: dangerous part psychologically before a fight is about more about
Speaker 3: twenty seconds before it's time to walk out to the ring.
Speaker 3: Walking music starts, and then it's very important to have
Speaker 3: the psychological stuff in check, you know, Like I mean,
Speaker 3: I can my head can go on me and knee
Speaker 3: in different directions in three seconds. So that's where you
Speaker 3: rely on all of your processes and your rituals leading
Speaker 3: up to that point. It's in those moments that I
Speaker 3: can lean on them. I can just laid back in them.
Speaker 3: Go now, I've ticked every box, I've done everything. All
Speaker 3: the demons can't get me.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. I won't say who it was, but when
Speaker 1: I was killed to one of the one of the
Speaker 1: players every week would about five to ten minutes before
Speaker 1: the game be sick as in literally every week he
Speaker 1: would go and vomit. Yeah. Yeah, I get sorry everybody,
Speaker 1: but he and it was was something he wanted to do,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure eventually it just became hard wired to
Speaker 1: his brain. And he's yeah, because he would get so
Speaker 1: nervous before the game. Yeah, because you're he was something
Speaker 1: of an introvert and you're about to run on a
Speaker 1: bad day, twenty thousand people on a big day at
Speaker 1: the MCG seventy or eighty or sixty thousand people. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and blokes wearing the same jocks till they would obliterate,
Speaker 1: they'd just come apart. Yeah yeah, not that hygienic, all right.
Speaker 1: So I thought we might have a chat today about
Speaker 1: we'll open the addiction door again, but we want to
Speaker 1: go slightly different angle. We've spoken quite a bit, not
Speaker 1: to other I mean you mostly about addiction, but also
Speaker 1: which I never really thought I would, but with David Gillespie,
Speaker 1: who's I don't know if you know who he is,
Speaker 1: but he's on regularly and he works in the space
Speaker 1: of kind of a lot of brain stuff and addiction
Speaker 1: stuff around lately, a lot of addiction stuff around, you know,
Speaker 1: technology and AI and more specifically Instagram, Facebook or the
Speaker 1: social platforms, and what's actually happening within the brain, So
Speaker 1: not so much the mind the thinking, but more about
Speaker 1: the literal neurological and physiological changes that happen in the brain,
Speaker 1: the impact on focus and attention and cognitive ability and
Speaker 1: even IQ. When people start to get addicted to this
Speaker 1: thing in front of them and they're kind of their
Speaker 1: brain goes offline. Literally, their ability to think and reason
Speaker 1: and problem solve and focus diminishes because of this thing,
Speaker 1: not unlike with other addictions. But so I want to
Speaker 1: talk about a few of your stories, and one or
Speaker 1: two have got a little bit of their time on
Speaker 1: here before everyone. Some of you may have, I think
Speaker 1: most of you probably haven't, but think of that as
Speaker 1: a little bit of a rewind or a vision. But
Speaker 1: then I want to unpack was happening. So I remember
Speaker 1: you telling a story about when you were in jail.
Speaker 1: I don't want to preempt it too much or you
Speaker 1: you've just gotten into, you know, a new facility and
Speaker 1: you met a young bloke who wanted a cigarette. So
Speaker 1: set this story up and give us that kind of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, Well, I mean I've got into a
Speaker 3: bit of trouble in my addition. Funnily enough, I got
Speaker 3: into a little bit of trouble and I was sent
Speaker 3: to prison, and I was in a different states to Victoria,
Speaker 3: and I was to hit the prison system. I was
Speaker 3: hit to hit a maximum security prison. On my first day,
Speaker 3: when I walked into this prison, it was it was
Speaker 3: a pretty frightening experience. Actually I'd done prison down in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: but I hadn't been in this other state before, and
Speaker 3: so I didn't know anyone up there, and it was
Speaker 3: a very high tension, maximum security prison, so you could
Speaker 3: just kind of feel the danger in the air, you know.
Speaker 4: It was just was a yucky feeling. It was awful.
Speaker 3: And when you first go into prison, you go into
Speaker 3: what's called like an induction unit, as a separate unit
Speaker 3: to the rest of the prison.
Speaker 4: And you go in there and you're kind of locked
Speaker 4: in this place.
Speaker 3: With all these guys that are not happy about being there,
Speaker 3: and it just so happens.
Speaker 4: On my first day, there was.
Speaker 3: A young young guy in there who's pretty tough, young guy,
Speaker 3: pretty big, pretty tough, and he approached me and asked
Speaker 3: me for a cigarette. And that sounds like a pretty
Speaker 3: sort of, you know, easy thing to deal with in
Speaker 3: an easy situation, but it's really not, because what this
Speaker 3: guy was doing he was trying to play me, and
Speaker 3: if I gave him a cigarett, than he was going
Speaker 3: to then stand over me and try and control me
Speaker 3: through my prison sentence. So I had to I had
Speaker 3: to tell him no, and that wasn't easy. I just
Speaker 3: basically said no, how big was this guy.
Speaker 4: Well compared to me my size?
Speaker 3: Where we're talking about a young you know, a young
Speaker 3: twenty three year old, you know, samoan kind of angry,
Speaker 3: violent young man who could put him up no worries
Speaker 3: and was actually considered the toughest.
Speaker 4: Guy in the unit.
Speaker 3: And so when this guy comes and asks you for
Speaker 3: a smoke and you say no, he's not liking it
Speaker 3: too much. So in that situation, what happened is is
Speaker 3: that he started to well, he started to call me
Speaker 3: a few names, which is, you know, on the outside,
Speaker 3: well doesn't mean anything. You know, sticks and stones can
Speaker 3: break my bones, but names can never hurt me. Well,
Speaker 3: in prison, names are pretty dangerous, and when you call
Speaker 3: people certain things, you're obliged to retaliate. And look, I
Speaker 3: wasn't feeling too good about retaliating, I can tell you
Speaker 3: not too good at all. But anyway, through the process
Speaker 3: of this guy sort of really getting sort of stuck
Speaker 3: into me verbally, the prison guards yelled out, muster up,
Speaker 3: which means that it was lockdown time.
Speaker 4: Thank goodness. Now, lock muster up means is you've got
Speaker 4: to go and stand in front of your cell door.
Speaker 3: The prison officers come through, they count, they do a
Speaker 3: head count, and then I lock you in your cell
Speaker 3: for the night.
Speaker 4: And this guy that had kind of been hastling me and.
Speaker 3: Threatening me just so happened to be in the cell
Speaker 3: right next door to mine, and yeah, that was great.
Speaker 3: And then as the prison officer was about to lock
Speaker 3: me in myself for the night, I glanced over at
Speaker 3: this young fella and he looked at me and he
Speaker 3: ran his index finger across his neck as if to say, tomorrow,
Speaker 3: I'm going to cut your head off. And that was
Speaker 3: a lovely good night kiss for me. And I was
Speaker 3: locked in my soul for the night, left with me
Speaker 3: and the thought of what's going to happen to me
Speaker 3: tomorrow and what predicament I'm in. And it was a terrifying,
Speaker 3: terrifying experience. I was left in my cell. I was
Speaker 3: in a one out self, so there was no other
Speaker 3: prisoners in there was just me in there.
Speaker 4: And this particular cell had a shower, which was very rare.
Speaker 3: But thank goodness, I say thank goodness because I spent
Speaker 3: most of the nights standing under the shower, crying and
Speaker 3: absolutely thinking what am I going to do? Like I'm
Speaker 3: actually dead. I'm dead. I was on remand at the
Speaker 3: times I hadn't been sentenced yet, but I've been told
Speaker 3: by my solicitors that I was going to get five years,
Speaker 3: and so I thought, here, i am day one of
Speaker 3: possibly five years prison, and I'm already being stood over
Speaker 3: and I'm in grave danger of being controlled. So say, look,
Speaker 3: I had to sort of wrestle with that all night,
Speaker 3: and it was a horrendous night. And you know what,
Speaker 3: It's funny what happens when you know, like, I'm not
Speaker 3: a religious person.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm really not.
Speaker 3: I've never read a Bible, and I don't go to
Speaker 3: church or anything like that, and I'm not a religious person,
Speaker 3: not an atheist, but I'm not a religious person.
Speaker 4: It's funny what you do when your life in danger.
Speaker 3: Because as I was crying under the shower, I'm praying
Speaker 3: to God, Please God help me, Please help me. And
Speaker 3: I prayed like you wouldn't believe. Now, there wasn't any
Speaker 3: little birdies come flying in through the bars and whistling
Speaker 3: little secrets in my ear. But I did feel a
Speaker 3: lump in my chest drop, and just a level of
Speaker 3: acceptance happened, and I just realized that, you know what,
Speaker 3: no matter what happens, I'm not going to lay down.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go out and front this head on
Speaker 3: and even if I'm hurt, if I'm killed, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I'm going to stand up for me. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to live my life in this place in fear and
Speaker 3: being controlled. And I made that decision. And when I
Speaker 3: did it, kind of it didn't take all the fear away, obviously,
Speaker 3: but it certainly settled me down. And I just knew
Speaker 3: that I kind of turned a corner. I can't really
Speaker 3: explain it any better than that, but I just sort
Speaker 3: of turned a corner internally, you know.
Speaker 4: I just became willing to do whatever it takes.
Speaker 1: Was part of that, almost like surrendering and going, not
Speaker 1: as in giving up. Yes, It's like whatever's going to
Speaker 1: happen is going to happen. Yes, And I can overthink
Speaker 1: the shit out of this all night. That won't fix
Speaker 1: or change the outcome.
Speaker 3: Yep, just go, Or I can submit and then become
Speaker 3: completely nutterly controlled and abused. Yeah, you know, so I
Speaker 3: had to just and you're right, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: I call it surrender to win. In order to win this,
Speaker 3: I had to surrender and that just meant just to go,
Speaker 3: you know what, nothing, I have to front this. And look,
Speaker 3: I can tell you that it was a horrendous, one
Speaker 3: of the most horrific nights of my life that night
Speaker 3: in that cell, and I remember, I think it was about.
Speaker 4: Seven o'clock or seven thirty the next morning.
Speaker 3: The prison guards, sorry, any prison guards are out there,
Speaker 3: but we used to call them screws, So the screw
Speaker 3: would come.
Speaker 1: You know what, I don't think the screws are offended.
Speaker 4: I think, well, you never know.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so the screws come to unlock the door
Speaker 3: at seven or seven thirty in the morning, whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And by the way, real prison is not when you
Speaker 3: locked in your cell. By the way, real prison is
Speaker 3: when they unlocked the door and you've got to go
Speaker 3: walk out into the yard into the jungle with the
Speaker 3: rest of the beasts.
Speaker 4: That's a prison being locked in yourselves.
Speaker 1: Easy bit.
Speaker 3: So when he came and unlocked the door and the
Speaker 3: door swung open, of course, my heart was raising about
Speaker 3: four million and a half thousand miles an hour, and I.
Speaker 4: Just thought, right, I'm got to go out and front this.
Speaker 3: And the guy, the young guy that had that was
Speaker 3: threatening me, he'd already been released out of his cell,
Speaker 3: so he was already out through the unit and out
Speaker 3: into the yard. The yard's like this big outdoor area
Speaker 3: that's got that's inclosed in a raised of wide cage.
Speaker 4: He was already out in the yard.
Speaker 3: So when the screw opened my door, thought, right, I'm
Speaker 3: just going to go straight out there.
Speaker 4: I'm going to go straight up to him, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to go front him. And so.
Speaker 1: What did you think, I'm trying to get inside into
Speaker 1: what's happening in your head? Were you just going to
Speaker 1: go talk to him, put hands on him? Are you
Speaker 1: gonna threat? I don't know what was your plan other
Speaker 1: than stepping in front of him.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not one hundred percent sure, to be honest,
Speaker 3: I have a couple of ideas. I did have a
Speaker 3: couple of ideas, but I don't really want to go
Speaker 3: go into.
Speaker 1: That very much.
Speaker 4: But all right, it doesn't matter. It didn't happen, so
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter. But I did have a couple.
Speaker 3: Of other ideas, and and I just had to be
Speaker 3: prepared to accept whatever was going to happen, you know,
Speaker 3: and just make a stand.
Speaker 1: You know, you knew that doing nothing was definitely not the.
Speaker 4: Go Doing nothing was my was the end of me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was my demise and who knows where that could go.
Speaker 1: All right, so you go out, you walk up to him,
Speaker 1: you're in the yard.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't get to him. I started.
Speaker 3: I stormed out of my cell. I stormed. There's a
Speaker 3: hallway from where the cells are. Then there's some stairs
Speaker 3: going up until like a we'll call it a living
Speaker 3: room if you can call it that, like a big
Speaker 3: open era where before you actually head outside. And as
Speaker 3: I was walking through that open area, there was a
Speaker 3: young guy in there that recogniz I don't know how
Speaker 3: he recognized me. I don't know how he knew who
Speaker 3: I was, but he recognized me, and he stood in
Speaker 3: front of me and stopped me from walking out to
Speaker 3: the yard. And he said, you're me and I said yeah,
Speaker 3: and he said I've been looking out for you.
Speaker 4: He said, you know my dad from an AA meeting
Speaker 4: in Melbourne. Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And I know who he's talking.
Speaker 3: I know who it is. I couldn't believe. I don't
Speaker 3: even know how he knew who I was. Right, And
Speaker 3: he stopped me and he said, don't go out there.
Speaker 3: He said, I'll fix it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Now I stayed in that open area. He went outside
Speaker 3: to the ard and he fixed it. For me, and
Speaker 3: this young guy that was going to attack me and
Speaker 3: that was going to kill me ended up befriending me
Speaker 3: and became my best resent, best friend in prison.
Speaker 4: And protected me from my whole sentence.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a turnaround. Now, Why didn't that make it?
Speaker 1: Why didn't that make you believe in God?
Speaker 4: Well? It did, it did. It did start to well,
Speaker 4: not God as a religious god, but it started.
Speaker 3: To open my mind to the fact that there is
Speaker 3: more a play here than what I can think, and
Speaker 3: that whatever I'm thinking is so limited and in some
Speaker 3: cases so wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that I can't trust it very much at the moment. Anyway,
Speaker 4: at that moment, I couldn't trust it very much.
Speaker 1: So how much of prison? How much of prison is
Speaker 1: one about like managing your mind and all the product ducts,
Speaker 1: the thoughts to fear, the anxiety, the overthinking, the calculation,
Speaker 1: the miscalculation. How much is about that and then knowing
Speaker 1: what to do with it all?
Speaker 4: Well, I think I think the easiest way to say
Speaker 4: this is that you know, well, for.
Speaker 3: Me anyway, I can't speak for anyone else, but for me,
Speaker 3: it's prisoners a game of chess. How well you can
Speaker 3: think plan strategize, you know, adapt, adapt, you know, all
Speaker 3: of these things. Is that determines how how you're going
Speaker 3: to be in there and how well are you going
Speaker 3: to be able to do it and how you're going
Speaker 3: to come out and how well.
Speaker 4: You can survive it, you know.
Speaker 3: And you know, I want to whatever environment I go in,
Speaker 3: I want to thrive, not.
Speaker 4: Survive, because survive is torture, it really is. So I
Speaker 4: want to be able to thrive.
Speaker 3: Now there's only a certain amount you can thrive in prison,
Speaker 3: but there are ways, yeah, you know. And and what
Speaker 3: I you know, some of the lessons or some of
Speaker 3: the not the lessons, but some of the things that
Speaker 3: sort of really awoke within me in that instance is
Speaker 3: the fact that you know, my thinking is limited and
Speaker 3: I need to be open to other possibilities and I
Speaker 3: need to be open to being helped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. And also is maybe sorry to interrupt,
Speaker 1: are being able to think clearly under pressure?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so important, you know. And look, I've this
Speaker 3: was a great training ground for me. Yeah really, you know,
Speaker 3: like it's I never ever want anyone to go through
Speaker 3: what I went through. I really don't and I don't
Speaker 3: ever want.
Speaker 4: To go through it. Again either, never again. Do I
Speaker 4: ever want to go through that again.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's could, but I can look
Speaker 3: back at it and go, you know what, what a wonderful,
Speaker 3: unbelievable training ground that has been.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you and what I've taken from there is in
Speaker 3: my life today.
Speaker 4: I carry it with me, Harry, that the understanding of.
Speaker 3: What happened to me and what happened despite of me
Speaker 3: back then, and I can still refer to it now
Speaker 3: and know that somehow, some way in any situation that's
Speaker 3: happening in my life now, I know that, you know,
Speaker 3: there are things that can happen that are beyond my.
Speaker 4: Brain being able to logically figure out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also, I guess if you go, I'm in
Speaker 1: one of the worst environments anyone could be, literally with
Speaker 1: killers and all kinds of people who have a few issues,
Speaker 1: and I'm perpetually, potentially perpetually in danger every time I'm
Speaker 1: not in my cell for the duration of my visit.
Speaker 1: And you've got to constantly live with that threat and
Speaker 1: that knowledge and that hyper awareness and vigilance. And then
Speaker 1: when you get out of prison, I imagine not that it's
Speaker 1: a cake walk and everything's easy because there's lots of
Speaker 1: other hard stuff to adapt to. But is there a like, well,
Speaker 1: if I can get through that, I can get through
Speaker 1: the next five years out on the street or out
Speaker 1: in suburbia or doing life or getting a job or
Speaker 1: building a business.
Speaker 3: No, not when I was still an active at it right,
Speaker 3: not until I was.
Speaker 4: Well into the years of recovery.
Speaker 3: But when I got out, it was here, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a bittersweet, you know, like I still remember
Speaker 3: being released from that particular prison sentence, and they released
Speaker 3: me at.
Speaker 4: Five o'clock on a Friday.
Speaker 3: And at five o'clock on a Friday, you can't go
Speaker 3: to the dole office and get a doll check because
Speaker 3: you've got no money, right And they give you a
Speaker 3: doll check, but you can't catch it until the Monday.
Speaker 3: So it's five o'clock on a Friday, but no money,
Speaker 3: nowhere to go. It's dusk.
Speaker 4: I walk out the front gate to the prison.
Speaker 3: I look over my shoulder and I can see the
Speaker 3: raizor wire fence with the gold lights kind of you know,
Speaker 3: shimmering over the top of it, and I just remember
Speaker 3: getting a shudder down my spine.
Speaker 4: I got down on my knees out the front and
Speaker 4: at the front of the.
Speaker 3: Prison and kissed the ground, right because I couldn't believe
Speaker 3: that I've gotten out.
Speaker 1: Alive, right wow.
Speaker 3: And but then you get to your feet and you go.
Speaker 3: But I can't deal with life. I don't know what
Speaker 3: to do. I don't know where I'm going to go.
Speaker 3: I don't know how I'm going to eat. I don't
Speaker 3: I need to get a substance in my body because
Speaker 3: I can't handle the way I feel.
Speaker 4: It's a road to nowhere.
Speaker 1: Were you still using? Inside? Obviously you must have been. No,
Speaker 1: then surely you were clean then then and surely, but
Speaker 1: straight away you get outside the prison and part of
Speaker 1: you thinks the answer is to use.
Speaker 4: All of me thinks that not part the whole lot
Speaker 4: thinks that.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: And I've said this a few times. I'm going to
Speaker 3: say it again. Addiction right comes in people. It doesn't
Speaker 3: come in substances, right, Okay, on the ad If I
Speaker 3: don't get, if I don't treat the addiction, if I
Speaker 3: don't treat me, just just remaining abstinent of drugs and
Speaker 3: alcohol does nothing, does nothing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because you're a you're always going to if you
Speaker 1: don't treat the problem, the problem being you, which of
Speaker 1: course involves whatever substances. But you'll always go.
Speaker 4: Back correct and there won't be any change.
Speaker 3: Like it's kind of like you can, you can, you
Speaker 3: can take the alcohol out of the fruitcake.
Speaker 4: And then you left with the fruitcake.
Speaker 1: All right, So you left, You left there at five,
Speaker 1: You kissed the ground. You've got dough, but you don't
Speaker 1: really have dough? Did you not have people organized? Because
Speaker 1: you're in another state? So I guess you had no
Speaker 1: friends outside of the walls of the prison in that state.
Speaker 3: No friends, no family. There was just nothing. There was
Speaker 3: just no one. Yeah, it was not good, but I
Speaker 3: didn't find a way. I didn't know one person that
Speaker 3: I had done rehab with before that prison sentence, and
Speaker 3: and he he was relapsing again, right, So I got
Speaker 3: hold of him with a reverse charge fungal wow, and
Speaker 3: I went to his house and within probably an hour
Speaker 3: I had a bottle of beer gone down my neck,
Speaker 3: and within about three hours I had a needle of
Speaker 3: heroin back in my arm. And then within about two
Speaker 3: or three weeks I ended up in Melbourne, which took
Speaker 3: me to the to the new to the new hell.
Speaker 3: So there's what you know, whoever long of abstinence, Yeah,
Speaker 3: got me.
Speaker 1: So, I mean you were abstinent not because you didn't
Speaker 1: want to use, but just because you had no access.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there is access if you really want to, right,
Speaker 3: you know, there is access nick and drinking there if
Speaker 3: you want to. There's there's ways to do it. You know,
Speaker 3: we ferment all sorts of stuff and there's all types
Speaker 3: of ways to do things. Yeah, there's no problem there.
Speaker 3: But look, you know, when I was in there, I
Speaker 3: knew what had put me. I knew why I was
Speaker 3: in prison. I knew what had got me there, and
Speaker 3: it was drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 4: So I did you know, I did.
Speaker 3: Make a decision in there that I wanted to stay
Speaker 3: clean and sober, yea. But just making that decision and
Speaker 3: still not being able to treat the addiction inside of me,
Speaker 3: only remaining absent.
Speaker 4: It didn't fix the problem.
Speaker 3: So it's the second that that it was, it was
Speaker 3: easy again. It all came back, and it's it's they
Speaker 3: call it the subtle insanity, the proceeds picking up a
Speaker 3: drink or a drug again, and it's that it's it's
Speaker 3: very it's insidious, you know, it's really insidious and despite.
Speaker 4: All all.
Speaker 3: Evidence that says, mate, if you touch this, your life
Speaker 3: is absolutely gone. For all money and anything that you
Speaker 3: know or love is going to be taken from you.
Speaker 3: It's it's it fades off into the background, and we
Speaker 3: still go and we still run with that insanity.
Speaker 4: It's horrendous, sad.
Speaker 1: So can I ask correct me if I'm wrong, because
Speaker 1: I'm not an addiction specialist, But like I think I've
Speaker 1: heard you say it, and many people say it in
Speaker 1: part at least, using is a way to get out
Speaker 1: of pain, right, but an emotional psychological pain. No, well, candidate,
Speaker 1: because it makes you feel good in them, like you
Speaker 1: feel shit and then you use and then for a
Speaker 1: period of time you feel awesome. Right.
Speaker 3: No, you can quite of people, a lot of quite
Speaker 3: often a lot of people will use when they feel
Speaker 3: I mean, we use when we're feeling awesome because I
Speaker 3: can feel more awesome. We use when we're feeling shit
Speaker 3: or it's not about how I feel this mood now
Speaker 3: so now I want to use. It's kind of it's
Speaker 3: more than that, and it's not that, and it is that.
Speaker 4: I know that sounds weird, But so.
Speaker 1: Why did you use when you got out when you
Speaker 1: could have used inside, but you chose not to.
Speaker 3: Will inside it was easier because it was a lot
Speaker 3: harder to get There was a lot of there was
Speaker 3: a lot of roadblocks getting it, and a lot of
Speaker 3: danger and getting it. Yeah, a lot of people are
Speaker 3: stabbed and and you know, and worse in prison over
Speaker 3: you know, drug deals, even over cigarettes and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So so it's kind of it's a different scenario. And
Speaker 3: it was a little with that threat, it was a
Speaker 3: little bit easier to to not do it. But it's
Speaker 3: easier to not do it when you know you're going
Speaker 3: to do it again someday, right, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of like with addiction.
Speaker 3: You know, we can threaten an addict to stop using,
Speaker 3: and it's true, they can stop using. If we put
Speaker 3: a gun in front of someone's head and said, if
Speaker 3: you pick up that syringe of heroin, if you take
Speaker 3: that drink of alcohol, you're dead. I'm going to shoot you.
Speaker 3: That person in that moment can choose not to do it. Well,
Speaker 3: what they can't choose, they can't choose that internal, deep down,
Speaker 3: primal desire that says, man, I want to touch that thing,
Speaker 3: even though and the mind starts going even though you're
Speaker 3: pointing that gun at my head, I wonder if I
Speaker 3: can get it before you pull the trigger, or I
Speaker 3: wonder if I can push the gun away, or you know,
Speaker 3: it's deeper than that, you know, and it's it's kind
Speaker 3: of yeah, that's very basic sort of description, but that's hope.
Speaker 3: That's painting a bit of a picture, you know. That's
Speaker 3: that's what's involved in You know, what I say to
Speaker 3: people when I'm helping them deal with with addiction, it
Speaker 3: the only person that cares about what substance you're using
Speaker 3: is you, because I couldn't give a shit because the
Speaker 3: substance you're using is just a trigger.
Speaker 4: The trigger. What it triggers is a dopamine response in
Speaker 4: the brain. And what I'm really.
Speaker 3: Addicted to is that neurochemical, that very very powerful euphoric neurochemical, dopamine,
Speaker 3: because what it does is it medicates my thinking.
Speaker 4: It helps me cover up all of the.
Speaker 3: Emotional stuff that I don't want to look at or
Speaker 3: I don't want to deal with or it's too difficult,
Speaker 3: and it helps block out all of the absolute deep
Speaker 3: down self hate and non belief in myself. And it
Speaker 3: just clears it. It's amazing. It's it's like a magic
Speaker 3: especially in the beginning stages of it. It's like a
Speaker 3: magic formula. But we all think, oh, it's the substance
Speaker 3: that's doing it, it's the drink. Well know, it's just
Speaker 3: that that's the drug of choice that for you triggers
Speaker 3: the massimum amount of dopamine response in the brain.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 4: And then when that stops working, because often it does for.
Speaker 3: People, they start they're getting you know, they're drinking copious amounts.
Speaker 3: They go, well, this crap doesn't work anymore. Well, it
Speaker 3: actually does. You still are putting alcohol in your body
Speaker 3: and you are getting the physical effects of alcohol. But
Speaker 3: what's happening is is your brain is not producing the
Speaker 3: right amount of dopamine anymore, and it's not medicating your thinking,
Speaker 3: your feelings, right, your emotions, all that sort of stuff
Speaker 3: in you, and you're acting really badly. So you're just
Speaker 3: making it worse. And so what happens as a person goes, oh,
Speaker 3: well I need to drink harder stuff, or or they
Speaker 3: swapped to something else all right, and those swats it's
Speaker 3: called cross addictions. So then we start to swap to
Speaker 3: something else because that initiates the dopamine response that we're
Speaker 3: looking for.
Speaker 1: That works something new, so a different response.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why when addicts and whatever put down drugs,
Speaker 3: alcohol and that sort of stuff, it can be really
Speaker 3: sort of if we don't have help, it can be
Speaker 3: kind of dangerous because we start to not consciously, it's
Speaker 3: sort of subconscious, but we start going down different directions
Speaker 3: to get seeking that dopamine. Like you get dopamine, you
Speaker 3: get massive dopamine responses from falling in love, being obsessed
Speaker 3: with people, from food, eating shit, eating chocolate and lollies
Speaker 3: and right all, So there's lots of different things that
Speaker 3: we can get these huge So as an addict, when
Speaker 3: you put the drug of choice down can end up
Speaker 3: in trouble in other areas because all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm married, but now I'm obsessed with this girl at
Speaker 3: work and.
Speaker 4: I can't let it go.
Speaker 3: And the addiction is the addiction to that dopmain and
Speaker 3: that feeling did I get when I'm with that person
Speaker 3: is so severe that even though other consequences are happening,
Speaker 3: I stopped doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you and I have spoken about David Schwartz, the
Speaker 1: ox who you work with yep, and he's said this
Speaker 1: publicly so, but when I was working at SCN, when
Speaker 1: he was there, and when he got because his drug
Speaker 1: of choice was gambling and who won't said too much,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he got clean from gambling, yep. But then
Speaker 1: then he just went through this succession of like where
Speaker 1: he never smoked. Then all of a sudden he was
Speaker 1: having like fifty darts a day in a short period
Speaker 1: of time, and he didn't drink and he got off those.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the order is. He got off those.
Speaker 1: And then he started drinking coffee, which he'd never really drunk,
Speaker 1: and he had like thirty coffees a day, and.
Speaker 4: Then he had sugar shots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then he got on sugar and he's having like
Speaker 1: a bag, like a kilogram bag of lollies in the
Speaker 1: studio on the desk. He's just inhaling sugar like Tiff cook,
Speaker 1: you know. So yeah, it's like that you get clean
Speaker 1: and sober from one thing, but you almost need something
Speaker 1: that's going to create a similar, possibly watered down version,
Speaker 1: but something that helps you revisit that that neurochemical pathway
Speaker 1: to nirvana, you know, just to go cold turkey and
Speaker 1: not not smoke, or not eat junk, or not get
Speaker 1: lost in porn or multiple partners or all of those things.
Speaker 3: Well, if you remain absent from all that stuff and
Speaker 3: you do in healthy ways work where you connect with people,
Speaker 3: other people that are in recovery or other people that
Speaker 3: are whatever it is you're doing in life. Some of
Speaker 3: us is boxing, you know, like, but we find that connection.
Speaker 3: What happens is that over time is that we can
Speaker 3: live in normal life and have normal dopamine responses and
Speaker 3: be completely satisfied with that. Because in the middle of addiction,
Speaker 3: when we're getting these massive dopamine spikes, our brain and
Speaker 3: its wisdom tries to It realizes that there's an imbalance,
Speaker 3: and it tries to move the hedonic set point, you know,
Speaker 3: the point of where we feel pleasure, and it tries
Speaker 3: to rebalance the brain, but also can't raise the bar
Speaker 3: that high to meet the top of the dopamine spike.
Speaker 3: But it does get it up as far as it
Speaker 3: can go. But then the attict goes and gets clean
Speaker 3: and sober and remains abstinent from all mood and mind
Speaker 3: altering substances and tries to change their behavior and they're
Speaker 3: only getting normal spikes of dopamine.
Speaker 4: But there's a problem.
Speaker 3: The attic can't feel pleasure because the hedonic set point
Speaker 3: is still set up high, so normal, normal pleasures don't register.
Speaker 3: But what happens over time, we say early recovery for
Speaker 3: the addict is about twelve months is early recovery. And
Speaker 3: the beautiful thing that happens in that twelve months is
Speaker 3: that the hedonic set point resets to its normal level
Speaker 3: and you can live a normal life, living, doing normal stuff,
Speaker 3: functioning as a normal person, and feel beautiful pleasures that
Speaker 3: we've missed out on.
Speaker 4: For so long.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so you know, if.
Speaker 3: You really break it all down, the real addiction is
Speaker 3: the dopamine response, because the dopamine is medicating our mind.
Speaker 4: It's medicating our emotions, right.
Speaker 3: And it's helping us suppress and deny what we don't
Speaker 3: want to and don't feel like we can look at.
Speaker 1: I love it. We've got to believe it or not.
Speaker 1: We're nearly an hour. Can you believe that?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: No? Yeah, So we're going to skip one of ours
Speaker 1: because we can't do an hour and a half. So
Speaker 1: in about five to ten, I want you to tell
Speaker 1: the story because I'm pretty sure this is brand new
Speaker 1: about when you are sitting in a car at some
Speaker 1: traffic lights with your you're then missus as you would say,
Speaker 1: you're then lady, lady friend. Yes, So when was this
Speaker 1: You were you clean and sober at this point or not?
Speaker 4: Or yeah, I was?
Speaker 3: So this this is this is a real sort of
Speaker 3: you know, idea of of you can put all the
Speaker 3: stuff down and remain abstinate, but unless you do something
Speaker 3: about you know, your internal processing, the way you think
Speaker 3: and who you are, then.
Speaker 4: You're still in trouble.
Speaker 3: So this particular time, this particular time, I was about
Speaker 3: six months clean and sober, and I got myself.
Speaker 4: A girlfriend, and of course she had a license. I didn't.
Speaker 3: So we're sitting in a car. We're sitting in her car.
Speaker 3: She's driving, I'm in the passenger seat. We get driving
Speaker 3: down the road. Can we pull up at a set
Speaker 3: of traffic lights and lights red. We're sitting there and
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there in the passenger seat, and there was
Speaker 3: a guy. Can you imagine on my sides from the
Speaker 3: left hand side, there was a guy walking down the street,
Speaker 3: down the footpath, and can you believe that this guy
Speaker 3: had the audacity to look at me? How dare he
Speaker 3: he's looking at me? So I've turned and I've locked
Speaker 3: eyes with him. And as soon as I've locked eyes
Speaker 3: with him, my mind starts racing and says, right, I
Speaker 3: can't look away because if I look.
Speaker 4: Away, he's going to think I'm weak. So I need
Speaker 4: to keep looking at him.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking at this guy, and as I'm looking
Speaker 3: at him, my mind starts going, what's he fucking looking at?
Speaker 3: What's he looking at? And I'm starting to get angry.
Speaker 3: This guy walking down the street can see me getting angry,
Speaker 3: and his eyes open up like, you know, wide, like
Speaker 3: dinner plates, and he's I can tell he's starting to
Speaker 3: freak out.
Speaker 4: By this stage, I'm starting to shake. My hands are
Speaker 4: starting to shake down the street.
Speaker 1: I just want to So, here's what's happened. All this
Speaker 1: is going on in you, But the real world reality
Speaker 1: is you're sitting in a car and there's a guy
Speaker 1: walking on the street who looked at you. That's the
Speaker 1: totality of the event.
Speaker 4: That's the totality of it. Whatever's going on my head
Speaker 4: is fake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So you're going you're in the car,
Speaker 1: you're shaking because.
Speaker 4: I'm shaking you don't want to be I don't want
Speaker 4: to be weak. It.
Speaker 3: My girlfriend's sitting next to me, and she can see
Speaker 3: that I'm about to do something stupid, and she goes
Speaker 3: me and she goes to grab my arm. I jumping
Speaker 3: on my arm, said me, please don't, and I shoot
Speaker 3: her arm off me. I took my seat belt off.
Speaker 3: I've kicked open the passenger's side door. The guy walking
Speaker 3: down the street for seeing me do this and has
Speaker 3: absolutely shit himself and started sprinting down the footpath.
Speaker 4: I've jumped out of the car and gone chasing this
Speaker 4: guy down the street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I mean probably he deserved it.
Speaker 3: Oh it's really shouldn't have looked at me. He turned
Speaker 3: right down the driveway. I've stopped in my tracks at
Speaker 3: the top of the driveway and looked up and there
Speaker 3: was a big blue police sign.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: I walked back to the car, got in the car,
Speaker 3: sland the door shut, and said let's go.
Speaker 4: Let's get out of here.
Speaker 3: You know, I realized in that moment that I can
Speaker 3: be clean and sober all I like. But unless I
Speaker 3: do something about the way I think and the way
Speaker 3: I process my world, I'm going to end up in
Speaker 3: the same place that drugs and alcohol took me. Just
Speaker 3: I'll just be sober when I get there. That's even worse.
Speaker 3: He wants to go to prison for no reason.
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: So in your mind, did you feel like he was
Speaker 1: trying to, like, what was your rationale? He was trying
Speaker 1: to intimidate you or threaten you, or you know, whatever
Speaker 1: he was doing, you needed to respond to this imaginary
Speaker 1: threat because yeah, otherwise he'd walk all over you and
Speaker 1: you're a week and your girlfriend would disrespect you or
Speaker 1: I don't know, is that what was going on?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: And it's you know, if you refer back to the
Speaker 3: story before the smoke situation, it's it's almost the same
Speaker 3: sort of scenario of what happened with the guy in
Speaker 3: the nit that asked me for the smoke. That this
Speaker 3: guy was an innocent guy walking down the street who
Speaker 3: had the misfortune to look at me.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I was still replaying the old stuff.
Speaker 1: Except this time this guy and the old stuff, and
Speaker 1: this time you were the bully.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's you're right. I didn't think of that,
Speaker 4: but you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now you've become the toxic bully who's threatening someone Wow,
Speaker 1: that's weird, dude, that's weird.
Speaker 3: It's really you just freak me out, man, Yeah, because
Speaker 3: you know I hate bullies. You know I want to
Speaker 3: bully bullies. Yeah, but I bully yourself for a while
Speaker 3: from everything.
Speaker 1: And how long did it take you to get out
Speaker 1: of that fight or flight? Everyone's a threat? Fucking don't
Speaker 1: look at how long did it take you to really
Speaker 1: get out of that? Or is that still a work
Speaker 1: in progress? Right?
Speaker 4: Still working progress?
Speaker 3: But but but really to make to make significant progress
Speaker 3: on it and to really sort of well I call
Speaker 3: it some some might not call it this, but I
Speaker 3: call it mental stability. Right before I achieved started to
Speaker 3: achieve it, I'm just yeah, started to achieve some mental stability.
Speaker 1: Well, just put asterisk asterisk next to that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: It was about it was about four three, about three
Speaker 3: years Clinton cyber is when I first started to achieve
Speaker 3: little bits of mental stability.
Speaker 4: Until our first three years, I was largely.
Speaker 3: Psychologically and emotionally, completely and arstly out of control.
Speaker 4: Wow wow, And I was not a good person to
Speaker 4: be around.
Speaker 1: It's I think this is not rationalizing, it's trying to understand,
Speaker 1: but it's like I've got a few friends who serve,
Speaker 1: you know, in the military and have served and stuff,
Speaker 1: and as you would know whenues, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but most of them. If you go and have a meal,
Speaker 1: they'll only certain sit in certain places in the room
Speaker 1: because they want to be able to surveil the whole joint.
Speaker 1: They want to be able to do a wreki. They
Speaker 1: don't want to sit in any position where they can't
Speaker 1: see any threat coming. And so they're they're not trying
Speaker 1: to be hyper vigilant. They are like they're hardwire to
Speaker 1: detect threats right now. And I guess when you're in prison.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm trying to compare inmates with soldiers, but
Speaker 1: there is similarity in terms of the context that you
Speaker 1: need to be hyper aware and hyper vigilant and yeah,
Speaker 1: to keep yourself safe. So yeah, so that doesn't leave
Speaker 1: you straight away when you step out of jail.
Speaker 4: No, it only leaves you if you want to.
Speaker 3: Change, and if you have the courage and the desire
Speaker 3: to change, you know, because because those protective systems and
Speaker 3: that state of being for most people doesn't work in
Speaker 3: the real world. It doesn't work for long, and it
Speaker 3: just causes more more psychological and emotional.
Speaker 4: Carnage along the way.
Speaker 3: We can we can have a look at a couple
Speaker 3: of little videosyncrasism, and I has to look at you know,
Speaker 3: I used to sit there with my hands around my plate,
Speaker 3: you know, when I would eat, and I'd go kind
Speaker 3: of eat like that, you know. And and that's because
Speaker 3: you're just protecting your meal. And no one's going to
Speaker 3: take your meal or someone get bashed and they fall
Speaker 3: on your plate, or and that's the on the mealia
Speaker 3: you've got, so you want to protect it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But so there's there's funny little things like that. It's
Speaker 3: probably not hurting anyone or it's not going to impact
Speaker 3: too much, but but there's other stuff that, you know,
Speaker 3: ways of thinking and being that unless you're willing to
Speaker 3: really change and and have a good look at yourself,
Speaker 3: you know, to use the old wall scenario. Wipe this title,
Speaker 3: as you know, but go behind enemy lines. Unless unless
Speaker 3: you're willing to go behind enemy lines, which is basically
Speaker 3: saying going behind our own thinking and having a look
Speaker 3: deep inside ourselves, and let's be willing to do that.
Speaker 3: We're going to keep doing the same shit in some
Speaker 3: shape some form, and people are going to continue to
Speaker 3: get hurt, including us. Yeah, you know, And I don't
Speaker 3: know about anybody else, but I don't want to do
Speaker 3: that anymore.
Speaker 4: I just want to help people, and I just want
Speaker 4: to like myself. I just want to like me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's all.
Speaker 4: And it.
Speaker 1: Must be like not like I've had obviously haven't been
Speaker 1: anywhere like you've been, done anything like you've done. But
Speaker 1: one of the bits of feedback that I've got over
Speaker 1: the years is that some people are intimidated and like
Speaker 1: that's as a bloke, a tiny bit of you is like,
Speaker 1: oh that's cool. I'm a bit scary. But the truth
Speaker 1: is I don't want it at all to be intimidating,
Speaker 1: you know. I want people to be comfortable around me.
Speaker 1: I want people to enjoy my energy. I want people
Speaker 1: to go I hung out with Harps for an hour
Speaker 1: and it's great, not for my ego, but just so
Speaker 1: that I'm a person that people actually want to be around.
Speaker 1: You know. It's yeah, where you think, oh I don't yes, yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, And there's a time and a place where. There's
Speaker 3: a time and a place where And that's what's one
Speaker 3: of the things I like about sort of well, I
Speaker 3: loved about you, and I also like about my background
Speaker 3: and where I've been is because you know, I know
Speaker 3: that I'm a good part. I know how much I
Speaker 3: love people, and I love people a lot. I'm not
Speaker 3: you know, I really do, you know? And and I
Speaker 3: seriously I don't really ever want to fucking hurt anyone.
Speaker 3: I really don't, but I know that if I if
Speaker 3: I need to, I know that I can pull the
Speaker 3: jungle back out. And there is there is a there
Speaker 3: is something in me that's yes, yeah, it can be,
Speaker 3: it can be quite.
Speaker 4: People know without words.
Speaker 1: That wells control. There's control. You know, if somebody's if
Speaker 1: somebody's hurting someone you love, well, your job is not
Speaker 1: to stand by passively and try to talk them out
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, hey, could you stop hitting my mum?
Speaker 1: It's really not nice. Well, that's not happening, that's not emotional. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're upsetting me and you're you know, my mum's bleeding.
Speaker 1: Can you stop. That's a terrible analogy, Craig, But do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, there's there are very few
Speaker 1: times in your life but the appropriate thing sometimes in
Speaker 1: some situations with some people is I'm going to say
Speaker 1: I was going to say violence, I'll say aggression, you know,
Speaker 1: because there are times, there are times when if you
Speaker 1: don't intervene physically, something bad is going to happen to
Speaker 1: And hopefully that never happens to most of us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and a few times in my life I've
Speaker 1: had to be very physically forceful with people, but only
Speaker 1: in response to what they were doing. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you don't. I don't love it. I don't enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I do the minim that a minimum that I can
Speaker 1: do to stop whatever's happening from happening. I don't then,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, but that that thing to be
Speaker 1: able to I think also the hyper vigilance where you're
Speaker 1: sitting in a restaurant, I think the difference is one
Speaker 1: is you can be quite aware, you know, environmentally, situationally aware,
Speaker 1: but not paranoid. I think that's a line where you're
Speaker 1: paranoid that everyone's a fucking threat. Well that's not a
Speaker 1: good way to.
Speaker 4: Live, no, but you know, there's.
Speaker 3: Reminds me of that movie Chopper, you know, in one
Speaker 3: of those lines where Choppers said, just because I'm paranoid
Speaker 3: doesn't mean people aren't out to kill me.
Speaker 4: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, also wrong, mate, It's always good to catch up
Speaker 1: with you. Do you want to promote anything or you
Speaker 1: are you good to go? Do you want to share
Speaker 1: anything with anyone whether they can follow you or connect or.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know whether you can follow me, but
Speaker 3: you can certainly if anybody is having any trouble with
Speaker 3: addiction or anywhere along those lines, feel free to have
Speaker 3: a look at my facility.
Speaker 4: My have just jump.
Speaker 3: Online, might have dot com dot au and there we'd
Speaker 3: be happy to have a chat with you, and no obligation,
Speaker 3: no confidential, all that sort of stuff. So I'm into
Speaker 3: helping people and want to help people turn their lives around,
Speaker 3: and yeah, work pretty hard at that. And also just
Speaker 3: one other thing I just wanted to mention Master's Boxing Victoria.
Speaker 4: That's who I'm involved with.
Speaker 3: And you know, boxing and exercise and movement is a
Speaker 3: great thing for people, whether it be addiction, whether it
Speaker 3: be mental health, whether it just be physical well being,
Speaker 3: whether it be whatever.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a great thing.
Speaker 3: You know, to do for yourself, to to be able
Speaker 3: to move, to exercise, to do all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: So Master's Boxing Victoria, I'm heavily involved with them. That's
Speaker 3: who I box. They're one of the main promotions I
Speaker 3: boxed for. We've got a great fight.
Speaker 1: Coming up.
Speaker 3: On be good.
Speaker 4: If I remember the day on June thirteen.
Speaker 1: There we're going so many times.
Speaker 4: I have been in the.
Speaker 3: Head a few times. If you're interested in coming and
Speaker 3: have a look where. We're at the Pavilion in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: And you know there's a lot of great flights, all
Speaker 3: Masters fighters, so they're all over thirty four now we
Speaker 3: need to walking around puffing their chests there.
Speaker 4: Just good people, good environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good work. A nice primo by you will say
Speaker 1: goodbye here, but Michael, Cedric Hall and Tiffany and Cook,
Speaker 1: thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Craig Anthony