Men on the Path to Love
Relationship coach Bill Simpson offers stories and wisdom, to inspire men be the best version of themselves in relationship and live the life they love.
Men on the Path to Love
BONUS: Overcoming Addiction: Brian’s Story of Love, Recovery and Service
Can love truly be a catalyst for change? It was for my guest Brian McAllister. In this episode you'll hear Brian's amazing story of going from years and years in the depths of addiction to a life of recovery and purpose. His wife saw the potential in him that he couldn't see himself. Brian is now helping others on a large scale have access to recovery and mental health services. It truly is an inspiring story of love and resilience.
Links:
VRS Freedom 365 app
My Mental Health website
Brian's Book "Full Recovery" (Amazon)
Email: Bill@menonthepathtolove.com
Free Cheat Sheet: 5 Ways To Communicate Better In Relationship
Website: https://menonthepathtolove.com/
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Hi and welcome to the Men on the Path to Love podcast bonus episode Overcoming Addiction: Brian's story of love, recovery and service. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. I coach men who want to stop suffering in relationships and who want a deeper sense of love and connection. I coach them how to do it and how to be the best version of themselves and live the life they love. In this bonus episode you'll hear my conversation with Brian McAllister. He tells his amazing story of overcoming years of the horrors of addiction to now helping others on a large scale to overcome their addiction and support their mental health issues. It is truly an inspiring story of love, resilience, faith and the strength we all have within. Stay with me. You just might be inspired. It's the Men on the Path to Love podcast. Welcome, brian, to Men on the Path to Love.
Brian McAllister:Yeah thanks, Bill, Glad to be here.
Bill Simpson:Path to love yeah thanks, bill, glad to be here. I appreciate you reaching out. Sounds like you've got quite a story to tell, and an inspiring one at that. That's what I do here I tell stories and that's how we connect with people. Let's get connected with you. Tell me your story, tell me your journey. You've got plenty of time.
Brian McAllister:Okay, I'm a Jersey guy, born and raised about 10 minutes south side of time. Okay, I'm a Jersey guy, born and raised about 10 minutes outside Manhattan. Okay, and I lived that kind of life as a young man. I came from a good long line of Irish Catholic alcoholics, yeah, and we worked hard, we played hard, we drank hard. That's kind of the way things were. And it was just normal, normal life.
Brian McAllister:And between eighth grade and freshman year I wound up picking up my first drinking drug and I instantly fell in love with it. I felt that sense of ease and comfort that comes from taking some type of mood-altering substance. And I'm not alone. I've heard many, many people say that. You know that they never felt comfortable in their own skin that type of deal. And I was one of those people you know. So, typical story Things changed very rapidly, friends changed, grades dropped, you know, priorities shifted and that's really what happened and I kind of fell into that lifestyle.
Brian McAllister:This was the early 70s, so I'm in my 60s and I thought I had it together, but I really didn't Along the way. I started dating a young lady in high school who you know was a big part of my story and you know we had a typical relationship, issues like anybody does, trying to find their way. Eventually I was expelled from that school. It was a Catholic school and I had a lot of resentment and a lot of baggage I carried with me very many years over that. I was raised, like I said, in an Irish Catholic family. It was the forgiving Christ and turn the other cheek. But then the first time you screw up they give you the boot, not the door Right, right right.
Brian McAllister:Even though it really wasn't that cut and dry, but that's the way from my own perception.
Bill Simpson:I perceive it and, if I may ask, what was it that you were expelled for?
Brian McAllister:The technical term was conduct on becoming a Catholic, but it was really a snowballing effect. I was selling drugs, I was drinking, I was fraternizing with people I shouldn't have been with. I was doing whatever. I damn well pleased. How's that you? Know, what I mean. I was causing disruptions and looking at it from a sober perspective. Many years later, I guess I get what they were talking about. But being a young man and feeling like the victim and poor me and all that stuff, I didn't see it like that at the time.
Bill Simpson:You mentioned having the girlfriend. How did that work in with? Were you both like using and that kind of thing?
Brian McAllister:No, I wound up. I was very blessed. Blessed. I found the nice middle class girl with great values who for some reason, saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And uh, we were, we dated for high school and, you know, we kind of went in and out. Eventually, you know, once that happened, I figured, you know, well, now I'm going to live life on my own, my own terms, the world is my oyster, I'm kicked out, I don't have to worry about it, and I was going to take off. And that's what I did. I wound up, taking off. I went up to Phoenix Arizona, dropped ahead of LSD, wound up in Phoenix Arizona and said, well, I'm here, I might as well stay. It was my first geographic cure, you know what I mean rather than work on myself.
Brian McAllister:And of course, when I showed up there, I brought me with me.
Brian McAllister:So I wound up with the exact same situations. You know, I ran with a different crowd. These guys were older, they were back from Vietnam, they were con men, they smuggled dope out of Mexico, they owned porn stores, they ran illegal gambling. Games were just common and their motto was you never steal anything from me, we'd rather have you give it to us. And I thought when I was a young kid I thought that was so cool. You know what I mean. But now I realize there were just a couple of dirtbag darlings, but at the time they were, you know, through the eyes of a young man sure impressionable yeah yes, and it was exciting.
Brian McAllister:It and it was exciting, it was exciting times. So I went back and forth. I hung with them for a year, wanted to come back, and that young lady that I was dating, who I realized at that time I loved and missed. And I came back and we went camping. One night I asked her to marry me. We were up in the Delaware Water Gap area, a place called Buttermilk Falls, and I told her I was going to take her on the adventure of a lifetime and I do believe I've lived up to that. And the next day I sobered up and said wait a second. And now I'm getting married. I'm 18 years old, I'm telling you. So I took off again and I went back to Arizona and I came back after several months and we did get married. We wound up moving to Pennsylvania, the Pocono Mountains. It was nice, but you know, it was always the monkey on my back the addiction, the alcoholism, the drug addiction.
Bill Simpson:Were you still sober at this point.
Brian McAllister:No, I was never sober until I was 33, almost 33 years old. I never drew a sober breath and the time I took my first chemical, when I drank the first time, like I said, that sense of ease and comfort that came over me, it was almost like I had an epiphany. I knew why my people drank. It was the cure-all. Unfortunately, I would learn later on that it was very temporary and it would turn and just about rip me to shreds eventually. So I wound up with this beautiful young lady and beautiful she was.
Brian McAllister:We made a go of it. We lived there for a while, things were going good, but I was restless, irritable and discontented all the time. I had that uncomfortableness in me and even after a while the alcohol and the drugs and all the things I was doing didn't squish it out all the way. So we wound up staying there for a few years, tried to make a go of it and finally I had enough and I started being irrational and we wound up selling everything we owned and moving to California and from California it was just more of the same. It was just another geographic change. But nothing got better. Things got progressively worse, because I'm sure you're aware that substance use disorder is a progressive, potentially terminal disease. It always gets worse over time.
Bill Simpson:Absolutely yeah.
Brian McAllister:But I didn't understand this. So I have this beautiful young girl, I'm dragging her all over the country and she's staying with me and she loves me and I love her, but I'm not living the right way.
Bill Simpson:Just plain and simple.
Brian McAllister:When we wind up in Arizona, another, you know cure, you know, move someplace else. Something's going to be different. The whole time I'm circling the drain, I'm going down, down, down down. By this time I'm living like an outlaw biker lifestyle. You know, I'm out of my mind. It was the cocaine day, so I'm living in a cocaine psychosis. I'm parking my Harley in the kitchen because I'm afraid somebody's going to steal it.
Brian McAllister:And she hit the point where she had enough. We had a small son by then and she had tried everything humanly possible arguing, bleeding, reasoning, nothing more. That was my addiction. So eventually I hit the point where I had some decisions to make. Either I was going to straighten up, as in my early 20s, and do the right thing, or I was going to take off on my bike and, being I was a runner, the bike went out. So I was leaving my wife and small son on the West Coast and heading back East. And at that time Providence stepped in, because the night before I was leaving which I already said, I was gone I had a horrific accident. I wiped out in the desert on my bike, all high. They helicoptered me into Phoenix. You know I was about 20 miles from anything that even resembled civilization.
Bill Simpson:Right.
Brian McAllister:And you know, I had six broken vertebrae, all kinds of broken ribs, a traumatic head injury, hundreds of stitches and they were going to amputate my leg because I still have like 19 screws and a plate in my leg. So it was like Evel Knievel type stuff. This is where I found myself in the hospital, flown in there, and I thought I was an atheist after my whole Catholic school experience. But it's really kind of funny when you're laying in the hospital and they tell you they're going to cut your leg off, you can throw that atheist garbage right out the window.
Brian McAllister:God help me. They're going to cut my leg off. You know that kind of deal.
Bill Simpson:Sure.
Brian McAllister:So when I said that, when I asked for that help, things started changing. You know, my wife showed up changing. My wife showed up the person who I was leaving, the person I had been mistreating through my addiction, and she fought to have me taken care of properly. They transferred me to another hospital where a guy fresh out of medical school, who really never operated on anybody before he's literally out weeks saved my leg. He did an experimental operation. He drilled holes in plates and screws and glued me back together, like you do a table leg, and all these things started happening. And my wife, she hung in there.
Brian McAllister:It took me almost four years to get off those crutches. I was in a back brace, I had the leg, I had the whole nine yards and she wound up taking me home and went back to our apartment and of course now I'm unemployable. I have nothing going on. And the first thing I did, I remember, was throwing my crutches off the second floor balcony, crawling down the stairs on my backside and walking a mile to the bar in a Phoenix heat, 105 degrees. I wanted a drink. That's the type of hold that alcohol and drugs had on me. I didn't even realize that it was addiction, that my problem was, all these problems mounting from my use of drugs and alcohol. I just thought it was a bad break, could happen to anybody. You know it's amazing. You know how I did deny. So things just kind of kept going like this and they would get worse and worse and worse. For six more years there were many more accidents, it was near insanity Luminon Horizon. I was unemployable and when I go back to New Jersey it just got progressively worse.
Brian McAllister:So here's my wife now. We're married almost 13 years. She doesn't have a partner. She got a deviant alcoholic who's nothing more than an errant schoolboy and you know she's got a son now. Who's my son, who's almost 10 years old, and we're just living that life. It was just so ugly.
Brian McAllister:So you know she had finally hit the point where she was changing. I noticed the change. I was staying away longer and longer because I'd go out to the store and not come home for three days, that kind of deal and she started changing. And the reason she started changing, I found out later on, was she was going and taking care of herself. She had this epiphany that this is not normal behavior, people don't live like this and she had been going to some therapy and she had been going to Al-Anon and things like that. So when she changed, the relationship started changing. You know, the buttons got pushed and the reaction wasn't the same and it made me actually look at myself.
Brian McAllister:So one day I woke up behind a body shop in a place called Nutley, new Jersey. You know, I walked out in the sunlight and I stood there and that moment in the hospital flashed into my consciousness and I remember asking my God for help and I remember that when I did, that help arrived. So that was the day I asked for help and that's the day I wound up for my first and only time in treatment. I wound up in detox that day and it began an incredible journey of healing, of love, of adult relationships, of all these things. But it started that moment when I asked for help and I reached my hand out and I went to treatment and my wife went to treatment. She actually went away herself to learn how to deal with herself. What made her think that putting up with somebody who acted that way was an appropriate way to live. So she got well and I got well. Then we got well and we learned how to have an adult relationship.
Bill Simpson:Wow, that's what it's all about. I mean, you're both committed to your growth and you're still together, I assume.
Brian McAllister:Yes, we were married 47 years.
Bill Simpson:Wow, and she's.
Brian McAllister:God's gift to Brian McAllister.
Bill Simpson:Yeah, I'd say yeah.
Brian McAllister:And it's kind of amazing the way it worked out, because she was always very stable. She's a very stable person, she's a good person, she's a kind person, she's very bright and I was always a hair in the wind. I was always just ready to go and when I got sober, a friend of mine told me you got to change one thing. I said what's that? He said everything.
Brian McAllister:He said whatever you think the right thing to do is, you should probably do the opposite. And I took that advice. So I started looking for reasons to live the right way. I figured I have this one shot to save my relationship, save my family, to have some self-respect, some self-esteem. And that's what I did. I changed everything. I got a job. I got a menial job, working for minimum wage, unloading trucks for a major retailer.
Brian McAllister:I hadn't been sober since I was a kid. I started looking around this place. I'm thinking, god, there's all these guys running this place who are dumb as a rock. I hate to say it, but they were. I said I should have these guys in my back pocket and I started realizing that when I asked for help in the hospital, when I asked for help with my sobriety, when I asked for help, help always seems to arrive. So I started asking people who worked there you seem to know what's going on. How do you get ahead here? I started asking them, you know, and I started going to my bosses and people that were in charge. Instead of undermining or talking bad about them, I tried to see how I could be of service, how I could bring value to the positions, even though they're just minimal positions. And a funny thing happened within five short years. I was running the Mid-Atlantic Division for that company, with 10,000 people working for me. Wow, fortune 100 company.
Bill Simpson:Wow man.
Brian McAllister:And a lot of it was just common sense stuff. So that's kind of how it went and along the way you know here it is like my wife and myself's relationship changed and grew. Like I said, it turned into an adult relationship, you know, based on love, based on trust. The trust had to be earned because trust was broken for many, many, many years.
Bill Simpson:That trust went out the window, man, because you can't be trusted when you're an addict. You just can't.
Brian McAllister:No, you can't, and that's what happened. So she worked on herself. Like I said, I worked on myself and we worked on our relationship, and wonderful things began to happen. From living a low rent lifestyle that neither one of them deserved my son or my wife, you know, we built the house of our dreams. I built a home up in Sussex County with horses and you know, acreage and all this, like all these things that I never thought.
Brian McAllister:Somebody like myself, who had put limits on what he expected out of life. Because of my, my upbringing, I believe what people told me, what I was capable of, what a relationship was, even like the relationship. You know, I knew it as a young man that this was the right woman for me. Yet I spent years listening to other people tell me you don't want to do that, you don't want to be married, you don't. You know what I mean, that's, that's, that's for suckers and all. And you know I had one foot in both camps and because I did, I was never truly happy. I wasn't true to myself.
Bill Simpson:You didn't have both feet in the relationship. No, no, no, absolutely not, even though my heart was there. Yeah, your relationship with, with your addiction, and then that other school of thought, and then then there, yeah, I do love my wife, you know. But all that was convoluted, it sounded like yeah, there's a line in the Bible.
Brian McAllister:It says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And that's what I was. I was unstable in my ways because I had one foot yesterday and one foot in tomorrow. And like they say, and you're, you're pissing all over today.
Bill Simpson:You know what I mean, you're ruining your life, you know.
Brian McAllister:So I was very lucky I had somebody that truly loved me, that that worked with me and stayed with me through all that horror and the last bunch of years. We've done a damn good job making up for that lost time, you know, and we do it every day.
Bill Simpson:You know it's making me think of the listeners out there that may struggle with addiction and are married or in a relationship and have maybe a similar experience. What would you say to these guys that you know want to get back into the good graces of their partner or their spouse in spite of what they've been through?
Brian McAllister:I would say that for me it's the biggest blessing of my life because I have somebody who truly is in my corner, who truly loves me and would do anything for me and I would do the same thing. I've been successful in a lot of different genres. I've owned all kinds of businesses now and written bestselling books and all kinds of stuff that I thought was way outside my realm of reality, but without having her to share it with. A lot of the joy would be lost because I wouldn't have anybody to share my dreams, my life, my commitment, and it's not unmanly. How's that?
Brian McAllister:You know what I mean. It takes courage to do the right thing.
Bill Simpson:Yes.
Brian McAllister:You know courage that I lack, that I lean on alcohol and drugs for.
Bill Simpson:So she must have seen something in you, even though she may have been enabling or something you know in that process. Yet, as you saw her as like the one you know, she saw something in you, even with your addiction. Um, and what was the turning point for her? Do you think that allowed her to stay, even after getting therapy and all those things?
Brian McAllister:he was willing to give it a try. She knew way before I did and that we were meant to be together. I asked her many years ago like why did you stick around? She says I knew there was somebody good there. I knew there was something there. Whatever that it is, you know what I mean. We have it. I talked to an older woman. She was about 90 years old and we were at a 12-step meeting and somebody was talking about unconditional love you know, you want unconditional love from his wife.
Brian McAllister:And the lady grabbed me to the side of the meeting. She says to me she goes, you know, take your dog and take your wife and lock them both in the trunk of your car. She says come back an hour later and see which one's happy to see it. That's unconditional love. Your wife will punch you right in the mouth. You know what I mean. So there's limits. That's basically what the story is.
Bill Simpson:I love that.
Brian McAllister:So it's built on mutual respect, it's built on mutual trust, it's built on true love, even sex Sex is so much better when you're joined spiritually and emotionally with somebody. It's a whole other level of being. It really is. So, it's the whole package. It's worth the price of admission. It really is.
Bill Simpson:That was quite a price you paid, but you got it. It's never too late right?
Brian McAllister:No, not at all. Not at all. It isn't too late.
Bill Simpson:Yeah Well, Brian, I just have so much respect for you and your journey and I know you're an advocate for mental health. Tell us some of the things you're working on with accessibility to mental health and things like that.
Brian McAllister:Sure, we have a couple of different roads we've gone down. I actually own I just sold it after many years a licensed alcohol and drug treatment facility, and while in that genre I realized that there's so many people now that don't have quality health care, any health care at all, or just poor health care. They can't afford to get help. I was lucky enough my wife had the health care that paid for me to go do all the stuff that I did, I didn't have anything.
Brian McAllister:I was unemployable. So I wound up. I developed the product and it's won so many awards. Not even funny and it's really mental health software you can download. It's a 365 day program called VRS Virtual Recovery System, freedom 365. It would take an hour to go through all the and I'm not exaggerating the functionality of this program.
Brian McAllister:It's got over 700 individual videos on everything recovery. It's got all kinds of anti-relapse programs, it's got a 28 day program and it's all on your phone. It's digital, so we can just keep pumping more and more information and you can get it for a couple of cents a day. Like when you come to my treatment center. It's a couple of hundred dollars to get an assessment and an intake and you haven't even spoken to a clinician yet. I can send you the same assessment for nothing. Two pennies.
Brian McAllister:So we do that. And then we also have another one called my Mental Health. People who have mymentalhealthorg, who also have the same kind of issues and they have no insurance, they have no money. Right now we're in six countries, tens of thousands of people downloading this so we can give people. I know how lucky I am. I am the exception. I am blessed that I came out the other end. My sister died of an overdose in 2006.
Brian McAllister:So I understand the pain the family goes through, you know. So we do things we can to try to promote positive mental health, positive change. So everything here is right on our phone, it's right at the touch of your hand that you can get access to mental health solutions. And everything I do is action-based, solutions-based. You read a lot of self-help stuff and it feels good, and then, when you're done, it's like what do I do now? Right what we do is measurable. You know what I mean.
Bill Simpson:Those are the best kind of goals. Is you got to measure it so you can gauge, you know?
Brian McAllister:That's right, Metrics driven, and we do that, and it's funny because everybody's talents and gifts are different. You know, like a lot of the people that I work with over the years with mental health problems or alcohol and drug problems, you know, or even PTSD they spent a lot of their time trying to be somebody else. You know, an old person told me be yourself. Everyone else is taken. So the idea is you want to be yourself. My creator put certain gifts and talents in me and if I'm not using that and I'm trying to be you, I'll never be the best I can be.
Bill Simpson:It won't work.
Brian McAllister:No, exactly.
Bill Simpson:It's got to come from your authentic self, for sure.
Brian McAllister:Exactly.
Bill Simpson:Yeah, wow, yeah, wow, man. What a great story and I'm just so inspired by you and I'm sure my listeners are as well. Any last minute things you'd like to say before we wrap up, brian?
Brian McAllister:Nope, if you're interested and you're looking for some solutions. Like I said, vrsfreedom365.com or mymentalhealthorg, we are always about meeting people where they're at Whatever we can do to help the next person get through what they have to get through, it's a good thing. Something always good overflows to me when I do that.
Bill Simpson:It goes both ways. It's a win-win.
Brian McAllister:That's it.
Bill Simpson:For sure. Well, brian, I'll make sure I have those links to those websites. And those are the two you mentioned my Mental Health and VRS Freedom 365. Any other sites I should be aware of?
Brian McAllister:Nope, that's about it. You want to catch a good book? Read Full Recovery. My book Hit number one on Amazon a couple of years back. All right, Full Recovery.
Bill Simpson:Man, what an amazing story. Brian McAllister, thank you so much for sharing this with me and my audience and my listeners, and I wish you continued success and if there's anything I can do to support you, please let me know.
Brian McAllister:Thank you, Bill. Thanks for having me on. Life is good.
Bill Simpson:Yes it is bye-bye.
Bill Simpson:And that's going to do it for this bonus episode of the Men on the Path to Love podcast, the Overcoming Addiction, brian's story of love, recovery and service. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. Thank you for listening. And again I want to thank my guest, brian McAllister, for sharing his amazing story with us, and you'll find links to the VRS Freedom 365 app and the link to mymentalhealthorg in my show notes Coming up.
Bill Simpson:On the next episode of the Men on the Path to Love podcast, I will dive into a very important and often overlooked aspect of keeping a healthy relationship, and that's being aware of and responding to your spouse or partner's cues or signals they may be giving.
Bill Simpson:For many men, recognizing these cues can be a challenge, but once you learn how, it can be a real game changer, avoiding conflict and misunderstandings and creating a deeper sense of love and connection. I will share with you how to tune into these signals, what they really mean and how being more aware of them can strengthen your relationship. Please join me for the Reading the Signs How toT o T une In To Cues Relationship, episode.
Bill Simpson:And if you have an idea for the show or would like to get in touch with me, just visit my website, menonthepathtolovecom, and, while you're there, you can sign up for a free coaching session with me on how to communicate better in relationship, or you could download my free cheat sheet five ways to communicate better in relationship. Or you could do both Simply go to my website, website menonthepathtolovecom. And, as always, if you know someone who you think could benefit from listening to this podcast and want to give the world more love, well then share the link and share the love and, until next time, keep your heart open and stay on the path to love.