Speaker 1: Let's continue now, Billy Cunningham, the Great America and one
Speaker 1: of the great aspects of our human life, just the
Speaker 1: mental side of things, which often dominates the physical side.
Speaker 1: We spent disproportionate amounts of money on physicality, lack of resources,
Speaker 1: and a lot of condemnation of mental difficulties. And one
Speaker 1: of the persons whose lives have crossed with mine is
Speaker 1: Brandon Sajo, who began in Cincinnati as a sportscaster. He
Speaker 1: kind of filtered away a little bit. He worked here,
Speaker 1: worked with me a little bit, but then he shall
Speaker 1: I use the term, resurface a few years later with
Speaker 1: the Mental Game podcast headquartered in la and once again Brandon, soho,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all,
Speaker 1: Brandon described to the American people how our paths crossed.
Speaker 1: At one point, many years ago.
Speaker 2: I was a young cub at seven hundred doing the
Speaker 2: America Trucking Network overnight and so I think I filled
Speaker 2: in maybe once or twice during your show and then
Speaker 2: the Sunday show. So I was just a little guy
Speaker 2: trying to figure out the media world.
Speaker 1: And from that point you went to television, and then
Speaker 1: after that something happened you worked at local television stations
Speaker 1: here in Cincinnati. What happened? What was the break in
Speaker 1: your life that changed it fundamentally?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I had struggled with my mental health
Speaker 2: behind the scenes since being you know, a freshman at
Speaker 2: LaSalle back in two thousand and seven, and struggled with
Speaker 2: alcoholism and depression, suicidal thoughts off and on, and then
Speaker 2: got to this rock bottom during twenty twenty one. Look,
Speaker 2: you know it, we lose everything. So for the Bengals
Speaker 2: to go to the super Bowl and you see, to
Speaker 2: be in the playoffs, it was huge. But behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: I lost three family members. I lost my relationship the
Speaker 2: woman I thought I was gonna marry. I had all
Speaker 2: this pressure on me at work and I had no
Speaker 2: other choice but to ask for help or I, you know,
Speaker 2: wouldn't be alive. And so thankfully I had the courage
Speaker 2: to do that. But man, I just thought alone didn't
Speaker 2: want to live anymore, and without asking for help, I'm
Speaker 2: probably not here having this conversation with you.
Speaker 1: Man, well, as alcohol is a medicine for you, yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was, like I call it, it would numb the pain.
Speaker 2: You know. I lost, you know, my grandpa to addiction.
Speaker 2: Never met him. He was, you know, passed before I
Speaker 2: was born. My dad was an alcoholic. I just, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's something that I turned to. I call it autopilot.
Speaker 2: You know. I think you can joke. I love I
Speaker 2: love all the places down things, but you can joke
Speaker 2: with a lot of those people down there. It would
Speaker 2: see me until three or four in the morning, five
Speaker 2: nights a week, my entire in Cincinnati. It's really sad
Speaker 2: to look back at.
Speaker 1: So you were in a dark, lonely place, no one
Speaker 1: to turn to. Alcohol was like a bottle, it was
Speaker 1: like a crutch. It was like a medicine. You were
Speaker 1: severely mentally depressed. How close were you to suicide?
Speaker 2: I mean that walks home almost every night to where
Speaker 2: I lived in Covington, on the Robling Bridge. I mean
Speaker 2: I sat there fifty to seventy five nights thinking about
Speaker 2: you know, and in it. I had many nights of
Speaker 2: I mean, I wrote goodbye letter, I had a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, Willie. If I didn't have the courage
Speaker 2: to talk to my mom that night, the final night
Speaker 2: on that bridge, i'd probably go. So yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was as closed as to gets man. I haven't
Speaker 2: told this story really at all. There was a night
Speaker 2: that I was calling people to say goodbye, and the
Speaker 2: first person I called was George Vobil and God bless him.
Speaker 2: He came to my house at two am that with
Speaker 2: me in my living room and talked me kind of
Speaker 2: off that ledge. I will preface it with being the
Speaker 2: good man that he is. He saw a bottle of
Speaker 2: Burdon across the hall on my bar and said, hey,
Speaker 2: can I have a sip while I sit here and
Speaker 2: listen to you? And I said absolutely no. It's hard
Speaker 2: for me to laugh about this stuff sometimes looking back,
Speaker 2: but you know, yeah, I was at I was at
Speaker 2: rock bottom, and I don't want to be here anymore. Man.
Speaker 2: I'm about as close as you can get, and I
Speaker 2: thank God every day that I'm still alive. You.
Speaker 1: We're working a Channel five with Shri and with others
Speaker 1: since So at this point, what were the pressures that
Speaker 1: you felt that you could not deal with? Many can
Speaker 1: shed them like water hitting at Duck's back, others it
Speaker 1: soaks in. What did you perceive is the problems in
Speaker 1: your mind? Brendon say o that that we're on that
Speaker 1: were insurmountable.
Speaker 2: I think for me, the biggest thing was feeling alone.
Speaker 1: You know it.
Speaker 2: Growing up in Cincinnati, the most common thing that people
Speaker 2: do is marry their high school sweetheart, had the perfect house,
Speaker 2: stay on the east side or west side, and live
Speaker 2: a happy life. And you know, that's what I wanted,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't what I had. You know, I was
Speaker 2: single a lot of my life, dealing with some relationships stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know that that breakup in that moment, along
Speaker 2: with losing you know, family members, including my cousin Ben,
Speaker 2: who had a heart attack at thirty one. He's basically
Speaker 2: my older brother. But I think the relationship falling apart,
Speaker 2: that's what got me the most. And I felt like,
Speaker 2: as a man, you know, I'm supposed to be married
Speaker 2: and be a father one day, and I want to
Speaker 2: find this stuff and what is wrong with me? Why
Speaker 2: get it? And so yeah that I thought I'd always
Speaker 2: be alone, and yeah, it just made me feel like
Speaker 2: I wasn't good enough for anyone, even myself.
Speaker 1: You know, men aren't supposed to cry, and men aren't
Speaker 1: supposed to show emotion, and men are supposed to be
Speaker 1: harry s alphas. And when things don't turn out that way,
Speaker 1: some sink into a bottle. Some sink into drugs and
Speaker 1: you eventually checked into a mental hospital. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Lender Center of Hope and Mason, which has
Speaker 2: saved my life in so many lives people, not just
Speaker 2: in Ohio but all across the country. It really is
Speaker 2: an amazing.
Speaker 1: Place what happened there.
Speaker 2: So I don't know about you, WILLI I'm gonna guess
Speaker 2: that you had the same concept of a mental hospital
Speaker 2: that I did at the site ward where they throw
Speaker 2: someone in a white, padded room and they cry for
Speaker 2: hours and then when they're done crying, they're all better
Speaker 2: and they go home. That's not what it is at all.
Speaker 2: I would say about ten to fifteen percent of the
Speaker 2: time was one on one therapy with my therapist or
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist. But you know, ninety percent of the time
Speaker 2: with a classroom just like you know we had in
Speaker 2: high school with twenty to twenty five people eighteen to
Speaker 2: eighty years old, every color, creed, job background. We just
Speaker 2: had this one thing in common. We didn't want to
Speaker 2: live anymore. Get help. And that was the first time
Speaker 2: I realized I wasn't alone. And it was the first
Speaker 2: time that I learned what grief was and how to
Speaker 2: deal with these intrusive thoughts and what to look for
Speaker 2: and how to cope and what's healthy and unhealthy that
Speaker 2: obviously alcohol is going to hurt me, But how do
Speaker 2: I open up to someone being a man? I mean,
Speaker 2: I know we can't save the word on the radio,
Speaker 2: but I'll never forget one of these you know, therapists
Speaker 2: teaching these sessions going Brandon, w aren't you opened up?
Speaker 2: Why aren't you telling your story? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: as a man, I've always just been kind of a blank,
Speaker 2: you know the B word. I've always been weak, I've
Speaker 2: been emotional as a man. And she stopped me right
Speaker 2: there and she said, you know what, that's the problem
Speaker 2: with the stigma with mental health, but specifically men's mental health,
Speaker 2: and you're not that. And that's what starting to have
Speaker 2: those conversations with the other men in the room, that's
Speaker 2: what opened the door for me to get help. But
Speaker 2: just learning things that I had never learned before, like
Speaker 2: you know, recognizing when you're struggling, when you're not being yourself,
Speaker 2: that's a huge red site. Really. My job, similar to yours,
Speaker 2: was to interview these big stars and to be on
Speaker 2: the field with Burrow and Chase and be on TV
Speaker 2: every day living out that dream job I had, you know,
Speaker 2: in my hometown. I hated my job all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because of Channel five. It's because of
Speaker 2: my mental health struggles. I hated working out. I was
Speaker 2: sleeping into one in the afternoon. I was drunker than
Speaker 2: a skunk every night. I mean, I wasn't being myself,
Speaker 2: and so those things add up and you getting a
Speaker 2: point where that's all I knew to do was to
Speaker 2: ask for help.
Speaker 1: But for Lender Center, but for your mother, but for
Speaker 1: George Fogel, you'd be at the bottom of the Ohio River.
Speaker 2: I think, so, man, that's a that's a tough way
Speaker 2: to ask it. I uh, I'm thinking, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a visual storyteller. So yeah, I think, yeah. You
Speaker 2: know what's crazy about that is that we are a
Speaker 2: voting family and my mom didn't know any of this stuff,
Speaker 2: and we would always anchor next to the Roebling to
Speaker 2: watch and you know, the fireworks for red games, or
Speaker 2: to hang out on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and so,
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I think of you know what's tough too
Speaker 2: that I think it's Tom Greshen. I think a guy
Speaker 2: that we lost like him, Corey Cunningham, we went to
Speaker 2: UC with me, played football for the Giants. We lost
Speaker 2: him last year. And because people were scared to open
Speaker 2: up and they thought that this was the end of
Speaker 2: the world and they were always going to feel these feelings.
Speaker 2: So I'm one of the lucky ones man, and uh,
Speaker 2: it's been Yeah. I don't know what would have happened,
Speaker 2: but I don't think I would have been a lot.
Speaker 1: Friend. Say O, how long were you at the Lender
Speaker 1: Center and how did your journey go from there in
Speaker 1: Mason to Los Angeles with your podcast, explain that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was there for two weeks, and you know,
Speaker 2: care ranges between what your needs are, how you're struggling.
Speaker 2: I was in the partial hospitalization program, so I basically
Speaker 2: went to the hospital every day like kind of like
Speaker 2: a nine to five job. And because I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe in a spot where they thought I could harm
Speaker 2: myself at home, I was able to go home every night.
Speaker 2: But it was the first time really that like I
Speaker 2: got to focus on me, I have to worry about work.
Speaker 2: And Channel five was amazing with their support my coworkers.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Shari and George, but also the people up
Speaker 2: top that like, really let me have that time off.
Speaker 2: And so when I got back to work, I realized
Speaker 2: I didn't have that same passion for mental health or
Speaker 2: for sport supporting anymore. I had this new passion for
Speaker 2: mental health. And I texted my boy Sam Hubbard and said, Hey,
Speaker 2: can I try this idea out with you? He ended
Speaker 2: up becoming the first guest and without saying none of
Speaker 2: this is possible, And man, it started. You know how
Speaker 2: it is, you get some knows from people you want
Speaker 2: to interview, or from agents or managers or people behind
Speaker 2: the scenes that are controlling the narratives, and I just
Speaker 2: kept taking no. Eventually started getting more yeses with people
Speaker 2: like Ricky Williams or Kate Flannery from the office. And
Speaker 2: it's built where I never thought in a million years
Speaker 2: I'd live in Los Angeles and be able to share
Speaker 2: these stories to some of the biggest stars like Terry
Speaker 2: Crews or Kirk kurb Street or whoever you pick. And
Speaker 2: my goal, man is not to get like famous and
Speaker 2: to not be bigger than Cincinnati. Cincinnati made me who
Speaker 2: I am. And I'm going to the Reds game. You
Speaker 2: know when they were in town doing this series this week.
Speaker 2: It's like, I love Cynthy and they support me so much.
Speaker 2: But the more we can grow, the more we can
Speaker 2: save lives and help people. So it's been quite the journey.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite thing, man, is I get to go
Speaker 2: to schools I go to I was just at LaSalle
Speaker 2: High School, my alma mater, last week of my story,
Speaker 2: and it broke my heart that we lost someone to
Speaker 2: suicide Jonah last year. Sarah Lease, you're a good friend.
Speaker 2: It's her cousin and I got to, you know, talk
Speaker 2: with them and their family. And my goal is to
Speaker 2: save lives. A chance that I get to now because
Speaker 2: of a podcast. Go to schools, go to companies, go
Speaker 2: to cope just shoot, you know. Joe Burrow's parents helped
Speaker 2: me bring thousands of people to an arena at LSU
Speaker 2: to talk about mental health. I never thought this would
Speaker 2: be it, but man, it's a special purpose that I
Speaker 2: found through that struggle and a brand.
Speaker 1: I've seen you in arenas with ten thousand people, and
Speaker 1: the good you have done is really unbridled. You could
Speaker 1: not have imagined when you were a line producer here
Speaker 1: that with me, that you would be in ten years
Speaker 1: filling up arenas at LSU. That would be impossible. In
Speaker 1: my life, I can recall going to Longview State Mental Hospital.
Speaker 1: My father's brother, his name was Bob, and we'd go
Speaker 1: maybe four or five times a year to visit him
Speaker 1: at Longview State Mental Hospital. I believe he was there
Speaker 1: most of his life. They and he never got out
Speaker 1: of the mental hospital. And from that, I was scared
Speaker 1: to death of eventually getting into an orphanage because my
Speaker 1: father is alcoholism. The fact we had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: When I was a little boy, my mom hooked me up.
Speaker 1: We hooked up with my mother's sister and her name
Speaker 1: was Annette Arling House, and I could not imagine what
Speaker 1: would have happened to us in Deer Park, a young
Speaker 1: mother with four kids and the father's an alcoholic. He's gone,
Speaker 1: never came back again except for my beloved aunt and
Speaker 1: at arling House, we all moved in with her. So
Speaker 1: living in one house was their mother, another sister, my
Speaker 1: mother a Nette, that's four here comes four more kids.
Speaker 1: And I was scared to death that's something that happen
Speaker 1: to me, that i'ding up in an orphanage or ending
Speaker 1: up in a mental hospital, and So when I got
Speaker 1: my law degree, the first thing I wanted to do
Speaker 1: was work with mental health. So I spent years down
Speaker 1: in the Hamliny County Probate Court handling mental health hearings
Speaker 1: to help individuals with mental problems that did not have
Speaker 1: to be institutionalized. Now there's been a metamorphosis with treatments.
Speaker 1: Are you aware of the last how this was dealt with, say,
Speaker 1: thirty to forty years ago, as compared to is being
Speaker 1: dealt with today? Are you aware of the journey that's
Speaker 1: been made and how far we've come yet how far
Speaker 1: we have to go?
Speaker 2: Yes? And one, thank you for having that personal vulnerability
Speaker 2: on air right now, but also the work that you've
Speaker 2: done that to help change that stigma, to break it
Speaker 2: not just by words but also by actions. I think
Speaker 2: I have seen it change, you know, I've My mom,
Speaker 2: for instance, was on medication and therapy for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I didn't learn any of that stuff until I told
Speaker 2: her I was suicidal three years ago, because we didn't
Speaker 2: talk about this stuff. My father lost his father in
Speaker 2: his twenties. We didn't talk about any of those emotions
Speaker 2: because he was taught never unpack it. So it's completely changed.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure, I say this where you
Speaker 2: can have all of the amazing support from your family, friends, therapist,
Speaker 2: anyone that wants to help you. But if that person
Speaker 2: in the mirror doesn't want to make that change, and
Speaker 2: isn't willing to ask for help and be vulnerable and
Speaker 2: shed those tears and be emotional, especially as a man,
Speaker 2: it's never going to change. And so I've lost, Like
Speaker 2: I mentioned Corey, I've lost my friend Mike. I can
Speaker 2: go into my phone and show you messages from these
Speaker 2: guys telling me how much they loved what I was
Speaker 2: doing with mental health and how you know they want
Speaker 2: me to check in or they would check in on me.
Speaker 2: I was blindsided by it, man, And so I've got
Speaker 2: two friends to suicide in becoming the mental health guy.
Speaker 2: So if it can happen to me, it can happen
Speaker 2: to anyone. But at the end of the day, that
Speaker 2: person in the mirror has to want to make that change.
Speaker 1: How are you doing now? Is it over? Is an
Speaker 1: ongoing struggle? Have you put it away in a safe
Speaker 1: and locked it and never getting out again? Does the
Speaker 1: monster of mental health still stalk you a little bit?
Speaker 2: I would say that my life I'll tell you this,
Speaker 2: Willy Am. I love myself and I'm happy with myself
Speaker 2: for the first time ever in my life over the
Speaker 2: past year and a half. So I don't think I'll
Speaker 2: ever get to that rock bottom again. But mental health
Speaker 2: isn't a fight you win. It's a fight that you battle.
Speaker 2: So there's days that might be tougher than others. But
Speaker 2: I really don't think I'll get back down to that past.
Speaker 2: But that's because I went to therapy. I still go
Speaker 2: to therapy. I learned those things in the hospital in Mason,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I think I'm happy, like genuinely, I
Speaker 2: am okay on my own being alone. Do I still
Speaker 2: dream of one day having a wife and kids and
Speaker 2: maybe moving back to Cincinnati and living out that dream
Speaker 2: that I wanted since I was that weird, romanticized fourteen
Speaker 2: year old freshman seeing everyone else dates, you know, our
Speaker 2: high school sweethearts, you know in Cincinnati. Yes, but that's
Speaker 2: not what's making me depressed every second of every day.
Speaker 2: Because I don't have that partner or I don't have
Speaker 2: that family. That's the big difference for me. I really
Speaker 2: really do feel like I'm in the best place, and
Speaker 2: it's because I'm serving a purpose, you know. You know,
Speaker 2: I grew up, you know, with a dream to be
Speaker 2: a sports supporter. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I want to just tell stories and help people. And
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm doing that the best way I
Speaker 2: know how to.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, I told you off the air, Brandon,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you found your life's work. I think what
Speaker 1: sportscasters do is very important. No problem there with Charlie
Speaker 1: Clifford and others, no difficulty get about it. But that's
Speaker 1: not for everyone. And one of the great things in
Speaker 1: life is to have individuals like Brandon Sajo who realized,
Speaker 1: look the course I'm on, it's not the one for me.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad you didn't jump off that bridge.
Speaker 1: I'm glad George Vogel was there. I'm glad your mother
Speaker 1: was there. And now for those who want to get involved,
Speaker 1: as the Mental Game podcast by Brandon Sajo, s like
Speaker 1: in sam Aho, you've been out of the media in
Speaker 1: this town for about five or six years, but you're
Speaker 1: not out of our hearts because we remember at the
Speaker 1: time you were struggling. And I'm so glad you found
Speaker 1: the good place. And Brandon say hoo. You're always welcome here,
Speaker 1: and if you ever come back to this market and
Speaker 1: want to do something publicly, you have my phone number.
Speaker 1: Let's work together and may God bless you and God
Speaker 1: bless America. Brandon say Ho, thank you for the man
Speaker 1: that you are today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, WILLI, and just don't worry. Everyone
Speaker 2: can get help. You're not alone.
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, Brandon, thank you very much. Let's
Speaker 1: continue with more news coming up at your home of
Speaker 1: the Reds and Bengals. News Radio seven hundred W Autumn