The Damage Done Podcast: NHL Superstar Theo Fleury

there's a lot of homework to do on you man there's there's so much to cover yeah well i've had a pretty incredible amazing life and uh um you know obviously uh you know we have uh we have a saying in in uh in 12 step where whatever you get you got to give it away right right so i've been very blessed with lots of challenges and you know lots lots of addiction issues and uh you know today is 6068 consecutive days of sobriety and and you know it's it's a one-day-to-time disease and it's based on my spiritual condition right that's it you have to find something greater than yourself because if you don't it's a revolving door of relapse and more pain and more suffering and more anger and more resentment and you name it it's just a miserable existence when you find that there you go the aliens got you for a few yes yes so no so i was saying so as i was saying you know the the first thing i ask somebody who's new in sobriety is where they're at you know sort of energetically and spiritually or you know where they're at because i uh when i grasped on to these you know the first three steps which is you know finding a god of my own understanding that could restore me to sanity um you know that's when my life changed right right and so the one of the one of the uh first jumping off points i wanted to get to it's it's it's an amazing thing how you you went from uh a legendary hockey career and you you've earned accolades that that few humans are ever going to earn in their lifetime right and it seems now other than the campaigning your life mission is more of changing or getting rid of the stigma around addiction trauma mental health is that is that a a fair assessment yeah absolutely how did you make that shift and when i wrote my my book in 2009 that's when i really uh you know i i guess stepped into the true purpose of my life and that was to share my story and by sharing my story it gave other people the courage to also share their own story and then once you share your own story then you know then you're automatically sort of put on this path of of healing and self-discovery and uh you know therapy and you name it so it uh you know that's kind of how it evolved and you know i didn't know at the time that you know that that my true purpose in life was to be of service right but after i wrote the book it really it really was kind of an exclamation point on you know this is the reason why you went off went through all of this stuff here's the gift of recovery now you get an opportunity to help other people uh go on you know go on that path of healing and and and all those wonderful things that are attached to sobriety right right and how would and i guess i also want to touch on is how how this journey started for you is everyone uh i know our buddy brian over here we could look up your highlight reel in hockey um easy yeah but there i to the path where you're at right now and dissimilar to where like lance and i are at to to do the work we're doing did not start with the highlight reel there's a bunch of let's i don't know low light reels let's call it it was very dark and painful fair to say so i want to hear i i i know what i know about that from reading i don't think our audience knows much about that can we um we start with with your low light reel for sure so i have a very extensive uh trauma history started as a young child and uh and then carried into my adolescent uh i'm a sexual abuse survivor i'm also a survivor of two parents who struggled with addiction early on in my life and then when i was old enough to you know discover alcohol and drugs and sex and food and gambling and you name it you know i took over the abuse of myself and i've used myself for for many many years and uh and then you know obviously um surrendering and you know turning my will and my life over the care of god as i understand him um you know i was able to unpack all of that trauma history and come to a place of somewhat peace joy happiness and serenity sure understandably so you had a similar experience with trauma with your parents correct well you know dad being gone at 13 months old mom being a drug addict in the bay area during hit ashbury uh many a day and night spent home alone with my little dog wondering if anybody was coming home so i get that part and also being a survivor of sexual abuse in county jail um you know the stigma that you carry that and uh i think the thing that i read or watched you talk about the moment when you were on the stage that day and and i i could almost cry with you in the spirit when those people came up and thanked you for opening that invitation for them to be truthful with their own hurt and pain and that's really i think our humanity and you know i for me when i read the little i've read so far you know that's a gift that you know when you discover that that's priceless that it isn't pain anymore it's yeah yeah it's it's it's the way out right it's the way being vulnerable is the way out because when you're vulnerable it creates a safe space for other people to step into their truth right because everybody's biggest fear is well first of all i'm only as sick as my secrets and then secondly where am i gonna where where am i going to unload this secret that i have that's destroying my life right and we've done a really really poor job in society of using vulnerability to create safe spaces because when you have safety in a room that's when the magic of healing happens amen but it's got to get there through vulnerability and that's by us being able to tell you know these horrific stories of abuse and uh neglect you know all of these things because the majority of of the population at some point in their life is going to experience some kind of traumatic experience right yeah i mean that's that's the gift like when i'm working with clients doing process groups out there in malibu i do 15 a week i'm not any different than they are when we're in that group i may facilitate it but i have nothing to hide from them because like you know we give our vulnerability to invite them to theirs and yeah it's when you see the lights go on and they finally feel not alone like we felt when somebody did that for us that's a gift that's priceless yeah yeah and that's that's the gift of god amen you know giving us giving us the strength and the courage to um you know tell those stories because in my experience you know uh like we're in the majority we're not in the minority right everybody carries these stories with them you know wherever we go and and like i said because we're so fearful of being judged that we end up swallowing this this trauma and uh and then using addiction as a coping mechanism to suppress you know the pain and suffering which we're experiencing almost on a second by second uh basis right what what i took from uh reading uh your book and seeing uh some of your interviews uh you carried an amount immense amount of guilt and shame from from the sexual abuse trauma that was done to you um to the point where you wanted to kill yourself did you did you get the last question it just blanked out for a second no i got it i got it i'm still here so you were it was essentially to a point where you were ready to kill yourself and i feel like you too i haven't survived sexual trauma like that so i can't speak on that but somehow someway you two are still here able to speak on that and it took him to a life sentence in prison and it took someone like you who was a superstar on top of the world living a dream of mine being an nhl hockey player to having a gun in their mouth so i just it's just it's such a deep thing how can you even that's such a deep level of guilt and shame yet you found a way to get rid of it i think there's also lower levels of guilt and shame can we talk about your process of reading yourself with the guilt and shame and in that experience of being near death right there at your own hands yeah well i i look back at my you know failed suicide attempt as uh a process that needed to happen right because i had two choices that day was i going to die or was i going to live well when i didn't pull the trigger and realized that i actually wanted to live and had no idea how to live life on life's terms i had to change absolutely every single thing about my life right and and so i had i had the will to live right and but i didn't know how to live i only know how to cope because i had all this emotional pain and suffering you know in my history that i just couldn't get my head around or i couldn't get honest i couldn't get open i couldn't get willing and that's you know like i said earlier in the conversation that's when i had to reach out and find this this higher power with which they were talking about in these meetings that i was going to right right um there was one thing that stood out to me in your book it said underneath anger is sadness if you're not happy you what you project is anger and essentially it's like anger says leave me the [ __ ] alone right and a lot of your anger is what made you a lot of money in hockey so the point so the point is so the point is a lot of people carry their anger as a survival and coping mechanism and i feel like if i'm trying to help help someone and they're a hard-headed it almost falls on deaf ears even though that they're suffering because that's their way of surviving and so so to look at someone like you who was hardheaded made millions of dollars had the world at his fingertips it's quite a remarkable thing because underneath that anger correct me if i'm wrong is is immense pain how how can we get through to these people i just it's just tough because you get through to a lot of people you're talking about intervening with ex-murderers or i don't know murderers i don't know if you're an ex-murderer i don't know how that works we just did a podcast with a gentleman i'm friends with it's one of the co-founders of the second largest crypt gang in l.a right and he's doing a lot of i don't want to call it intervention work conversation work in in thinking work with gang members to try to shift the perception from destroying themselves to building themselves up and creating a new like dynamic and uh he's bringing me in because you know i've did this work forever and i did half of my life in prison but it really is because people like us can be honest with them and not worry what they think and that that opens a path for a different conversation right you know i mean like you were talking i remember doing my fifth step and my father issues that daddy not being there as a kid was a huge huge piece of my anger growing up i felt abandoned on love you know the story and my my sponsor after i got done venting and and screaming on a prison yard like a wild child he looked at me and he just asked me he goes can i ask you a couple questions and i was like well that's strange but sure and he goes do you know that your dad didn't love you no do you know why he left no so you created a story as a little boy to understand something you couldn't possibly understand and that anger led you to living a life of chaos and hurting other people i felt so i don't know quite that feeling of utter sadness for the life i led and like being free from that prison inside because you know you may not have made it to prison with a life sentence but you lived a life sentence inside your soul and what was that like because you're like this hockey god you know what i mean you're you're a beast on the eyes and everybody's seeing you doing this but within there's a huge prison it's like you had shawshank redemption inside and you had hollywood on the outside that's a pretty good way to put it yeah yeah exactly well you know i i probably went to the best anger management class in the world which was called the nhl right and right and uh you know like i could go out and you know beat the [ __ ] out of somebody and when i went over to the penalty box there wasn't an officer there with a set of handcuffs to charge to chart to charge me with assault but basically you know that's what we were doing like we we have sticks that that are like weapons right they're like weapons yeah and you know we were beating we're beating the crap out of each other uh you know and you know you sit in the box for five minutes or ten minutes or whatever it is and then you get to go back out and do it all over again right but you know when i was able to tap into you know that sad little boy who had nobody to look after and nobody to take care of him and he was always alone once i was able to tap into you know that inner child peace and and start to cry you know i started to heal that anger piece right yeah because you could you can also be addicted to anger be just because of the the neurochemistry that anger brings you know to your body like that's adrenaline that's cortisol like that's there's a whole bunch of crazy chemicals that are going on in your body when when you step into you know anger and then and then if you got even the next level which is rage you know you can actually black black out in rage because that chemical uh hit of rage can actually shut down your brain and you can actually black out in rage and so you don't even know you know what you're doing and so that's the next level of of anger yeah with with that anger what does he back to i like how you said the the shawshank inside on the hollywood outside with with that amount of with that amount of anger i i know what points i'm sure hockey was your happy place but was hockey actually truly your happy place with that amount of anger within you from what happened because what happened to you was insane the the the amount of times that you were raped by someone who was supposed to look out for you and watch over you and that amount of betrayal that's an insane thing i could not imagine having a figure like that uh uh do that but then also being that talented and then living a dream like what a major conflict right there was with hockey actually was hockey actually your happy place or was it a facade of a happy place no it was my total happy place right you know that that 200 that 200 by 85 box was you know my sanctuary that was a drug and it didn't matter and it didn't matter it didn't matter what was going on off the ice as soon as i stepped into the rain i didn't have to think and i could actually perform and you know uh entertain people you know um and so yeah it was my happy place and you know when i retired from hockey that's when my addiction you know hit that next level of of insanity was was i didn't have a place to to place my anger and my rage and and uh you know in my love of of competition and and winning right so so yeah there's lots of conflicting aspects um you know all the way through my life and so you know to be able to have some peace and joy and happiness in my life now is you know as we always say that you know it's a miracle yeah what a beautiful thing the peace part i've said i've said this on prior podcasts it's like everyone talks about happy but like i think happy that comes and goes but the peace is the most important thing to maintain agree or disagree yeah 100 that's the ultimate goal in this space is to get to uh moments or periods of peace joy happiness and serenity right and serenity is the next level of peace right you know once you have peace now you're looking for serenity right ultimate serenity where nothing bothers you you are very comfortable in your own skin and life is you know moment to moment one day at a time and you're very content there's no more chaos there's no more drama it's just you know the old woo saw you know 24 7. yeah 24 7. right and it's probably it's uh i i agree with that and and i've i've come to similar conclusions only after going through deep amounts of pain so thank god for the pain to uh to be able to come to that conclusion right um yeah well and and pain has always been the greatest motivator for change correct right yeah you know and it tells you that you know there's something not right in your life and you need to change right it's a check engine a lot of people are afraid a lot of people are afraid of change yeah right what what am i going to be like if i don't have alcohol and drugs and food and women like what is my life going to be like is it going to be boring is it going to be scary am i going to be able to cope without you know the use of those things for sure will i be able to think will i be able to think about one thought at a time right how about for you though uh because you were a uh act i'm an active uh what's it called a functional addict alcoholic through your playing days but what you just said is once your playing days were over it became worse so there was a there was a huge identity talk about change it was like forced change so but based off what it was but it wasn't but but it wasn't it wasn't about identity it was about routine okay my routine changed got it i got it got it i didn't have i i didn't have my life planned out for me right when you're a part of a national hockey league team your life is planned out moment to moment right when to eat eat when to sleep when to show up at the rink when the practice when the games were everything was routine and when you leave the game that routine's gone and you're left to your own like left to running your own life and you're like well i've never run my whole my my life right i've always been told what to do what to eat what time to get up when to show up right all these things and so so yeah i was like totally freaked out that i had all of this this idle time on my hands and when when you're an addict or an alcoholic idle time is not a good place to be right it's you know terrible yeah and so the the the the art of sobriety is finding a new routine you know that that keeps you sober stable happy peaceful joyous right that's right that's what it's about so you got to replace the alcohol with something else yeah and in the and in 12 step what is that that that's that that thing we talk about we talk about service right right and if you dedicate your life to service you're never going to have to go back and drink amen i agree with that you know it sounds it's because you're going to be because you're going to be too busy helping other people and when you're helping other people guess what happens you're not in your head that's true yeah that's the way and when we're in and when we're inside of our own heads that's the worst place we can be absolutely so in order to get out of our head and get into our heart that's service when we do service we're in our heart we're not in our heads it's actually one of the best places to be because our our heads and what it saying our best ideas put us on our worst positions right so so exactly yeah yeah so all that great we're insane yeah we are insane we are insane and that's the absolute truth it's constructive insanity though in sobriety uh our good are good our good friend brian that's what i always our good friend brian and producer he's off camera right now he's got a question what you got for us brian sure oh well i was just wondering because the post retirement process uh going awry is a pretty popular story for an athlete and it's something that only it's an experience that only people have been there have which is such a small segment of the population so is there any like with any of the professional leagues is there any kind of programs being developed now to help people transition into retirement uh is that something you do personally no i it was on my part it was trial and error but but the uh the nhl alumni have a program uh that they that they put out there for for guys uh uh transitioning from you know uh pre and post post nhl careers but you know i skipped over that part obviously because i'm not you know i'm a crazy i'm a crazy alcoholic addict right now i think i can do everything on my own right but uh but everybody has their own process right you you everybody hits their knees at the right time right you know and and when you're ready to make that commitment and turn your will and your life over to the care of god um and you're ready god will answer that prayer and that's that's what happened you know for me 6068 days ago i hit my knees in a washroom and i and i surrendered and i said you know what i can't my life is so unmanageable why is it so unmanageable because it's me running it and if i'm running it it's the biggest [ __ ] [ __ ] show on the planet that's the truth right yeah yeah you know and when i drive the bus the bus always crashes every time right every time man but but now i sit comfortably in the passenger scene i don't question anything because it's not my will it's it's god's will right and when it's god's will life is so much easier so much better so much happier a lot less angry a lot less resentful yeah man and it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing it's smoother and more manageable and touching on what youtube guys just just spoke on uh you were talking about the post career but i wonder by your estimation how many uh players careers are actually ruined uh by drugs like for example i'm a kings fan that's the first thing i i dm'd you on instagram when i wanted to do this i was wondering on the kings right but there was when our first cup in 2012 uh you're probably familiar with him mike richards he was he was a fantastic fantastic player and he'd had a steep decline and i always read rumors of him parting really hard in philadelphia with him and jeff carter and then after his playing days getting busted at the border with a bunch of oxycontin so i i don't think that's unique to him but that's someone that pulls up is that something that's prevalent in the nhl players with nasty addictions uh ruining their careers well here's the thing about athletes is we're always looking for an edge that makes us better right whether that's a secret way to train in the summer or finding a drug that gives us an edge over everybody else right because our careers are short uh there are people uh you know sort of frothing at the bit and are in line to want to take your job from you and so you know that high high competitiveness you know we get involved in things that we probably shouldn't you know and and uh you know oxy oxycontin is one of the you know most evil drugs on the planet but you know when you're playing hockey and you're in constant pain 24 hours a day seven days a week oxy is a good way to you know suppress that that pain but what they don't tell us is that you are going to get addicted to it because your body is going to need more and more more and more and more of it right which is you know a pharmaceutical thing from from big pharma the drug was designed so that you need more so you need to buy more which then you know uh makes all those ceos and executives in big pharma companies ultra super rich billions you know so um so you know you're trying to get an edge uh we do play in a lot of pain because we're playing three or four times a week in probably the most intense sport you know on the planet and and the you know the worst thing as an athlete is sitting in a press box eating popcorn watching your team play and so you know you are going to do whatever you can to be on the ice with your teammates because when you're not it really sucks and it's no fun of course so i've worked with i've worked with a lot of professional athletes where i work now and alcohol it's been a really big theme for functioning because you guys schedule is insane and you know they like by the time you get back to the room you know it takes time to unwind from that level of intensity so you got to have a few drinks to knock you out so you can get up at 10 in the morning and be at the press conference and whatever else to run through and it's like alcohol and like there's so many stringent rules out there about drugs and in professional sports and stuff that alcohol has been a real bad one for people what's your on that special and and you go and you got to remember that you know we are taking copious amount of uppers you know during the game you know whether that's sudafed or you know gnc stuff like guarana and you know ma hung and all these you know all these uppers because you cannot play an 80 game schedule and not be on something because you have to perform at your highest level and when you're a superstar it's expected and so if you're out there and warm up and you're going where the [ __ ] are my legs tonight you know because you know you have to perform you're going to go into your medicine cabinet and find anything you can to get yourself up to to the level that you should be at and so after the game you are so wired and what's going to bring you down a bunch of drinks a bunch of alcohol so that you can actually get some sleep so that the next day you can actually start the whole process over again right that's that's all when you're when you because when you're making eight million dollars a year and the game is tied 2-2 and there's five minutes left in the game the coach ain't looking at the fourth line guy he's looking right at you because he knows that you got to be the guy that goes out and wins the game and if you're sitting on the bench your legs are gone and shot you're not going to be in that that place for very long yeah so you have to take something in order to have the energy you know the legs that you need to propel yourself around the ice and then you get caught in this vicious vicious cycle of you know from seven to ten o'clock every night i am as high as a kite and then from from 11 until two in the morning i'm drinking my face off so i can get to sleep yeah nice right i got a question i mean alcohol and drugs i mean we i mean most of us get it you know it's it's disgusting what it does to our lives and the lives of those around us in your journey since getting sober what's been that highlight moment where you felt that freedom where you felt that like that space you know what i'm talking about yeah yeah um i think it was you know my the very first day of sobriety that i had was that desire that thought that craving was completely removed like they talked about in the program you know the the the urge to drink and do drugs was gone was gone and you know i would say the first few months when i was sober yeah it was really really difficult but but once once i got past that threshold where i realized that i did not need any other outside things to comfort myself it it got easier right as you pile the days up it gets easier all right absolutely absolutely because these end and then and then we're we're acquiring this toolbox of tools right because our our old toolbox was only filled with addictive behaviors right yes and so you have to replace those addictive behaviors with you know therapy yoga breathing exercise eating well sleeping well um you know therapeutic modalities like all that stuff has to replace the addictions i agree with that what and and i want to bring up something you brought up in one of your ted talks uh it was it was about loving yourself and so i feel like a lot of people hate themselves without even knowing it and so i it's also a lot of people say these these good ideas like you have to love yourself but most people are so comfortable and good at hating themselves it's it's it's an unconscious thing what what's and by your estimation one tip you could give someone like the the slowest way to start loving yourself like on the day-to-day basis right well when i was writing my second book um we discovered what trauma teaches us okay and there's four sort of characteristics that trauma teaches us that becomes the core belief of who we think we are so it's like almost it's almost a dna thing right right so first thing trauma teaches us is abandonment and neglect i'm not good enough i'm not lovable and do i even exist in the world and when i discovered those were the four things that i had is beliefs that's when i realized that that i could rewire those four things about myself and how do i do that well i gotta have a relationship with myself so i gotta stop abusing myself stop talking to myself in a negative way and change the language in my head and by changing the language in my head guess what happened it started to change my neural chemistry in my brain started creating new neural pathways and new ways of thinking right so that so that i did you know i didn't feel abandoned and alone all the time i allowed people uh i allowed trust to come back into my life where i could trust other people so that they could help me and call me out on my [ __ ] right right and then it was just changing my lifestyle food sleep exercise you know going to meetings going to therapy you know all of these things became part of my new routine that i used right conscious contact with god every day right right when i'm freaking out say the serenity prayer say the third step prayer you know say the seven step prayer whatever it is that gets you out of your head and back into connection with the source because it's the source that's going to keep you sober the source is going to keep you sane in your head and there are going to be times when you know when the hamster jumps on the hamster wheel and he's going to start spinning that wheel and you need to be able to come in and with love and compassion and empathy for yourself and get yourself out of that you know that stinking thinking or that insanity of thinking i agree with that i agree with that especially addicts and alcoholics but i but i but i look at us as being able to help all humans right so it's not just addicts and alcoholics i believe all people suffer on some level and i constantly say that one thing for sure coupled in with everything you just said i i'll do little things day to day that are super important in the in the in the in the vein of becoming my own damn best friend like thinking of decisions where it's like hey man what's future mason gonna thank current mason for right or what are little agreements i can make with myself day to day that i'll thank myself for for example making my damn bed apparently that's a very important important way to do things recently i was just like hey man i feel a little stuck here i need to challenge myself maybe i was watching too many david goggins videos but i was like for the next 30 days i'm taking cold showers no matter what because there's a version of myself when i wake up at 7 30 7 00 in the morning that i don't like he makes a lot of excuses i need to beat him so for the last 30 days i've been taking cold showers man but after doing that i realize i like myself more because i told myself i was gonna do something and i did it does that make sense yeah those yeah it's those small it's those small victories and baby steps along the way you know that eventually become big things especially in recovery right exactly so so yeah and and you know there's no handbook everybody's everybody's different everybody recovers different everybody does different things which keeps them safe and and uh um you know somewhat content right so you know but but you know the bottom line is is you got to do something don't do nothing because by doing nothing you're closer to a relapse you're closer to insanity you know all those things and so you know whatever it is just do something anything for your recovery and it's baby steps it's small victories it must be i think a lot of people lose sight of that they they look at this big picture they see the end result for a lot of people like oh that guy's been sober for x amount of time and they can't fathom being sober for 24 hours right and so it is those baby steps that build up everything yeah because because uh what do they say if you think about the past that's depression if you think about the future that's anxiety and so uh so you know that's why we say one day at a time because one day is more manageable than your past lives or your future lives yeah right they also don't exist and at the end yeah exactly exactly because there's a bigger plan for us and the only time the plan goes sideways is when we step in and take back control right you know from god from god and then god eventually puts us in our place which is usually involves some sort of pain and suffering are the consequences of us you know taking back our control right i agree and uh one of one of the more final things i know we're pressed on time you're out there campaigning but something that stuck out to me is uh you said 95 of being an elite athlete not just an athlete an elite athlete is mental so you are an elite athlete so that elite athlete mentality you do you apply that to your life and your sobriety is that because that has that has to be a skill that you develop being an athlete athlete excuse me have you transferred that to your life that same mentality yeah you know the the the biggest epidemic on the planet is not covered 19 it's mental illness mental health challenges right that's the biggest epidemic on the planet and if you experience some sort of mental illness or mental health challenges you're in the majority you're not in the minority right right but we've created the stigma around mental illness where we can't talk about what's going on because we're afraid of being we're afraid of being judged afraid of being ridiculed we're afraid of people taking information and throwing it back in our face right correct and so we just stay silent we just stay silent we suffer for what right but if we surround ourselves with people who are um people of faith whatever that looks like to you um people that are going to call us out on our [ __ ] people we trust when you surround yourself with those kind of people you're going to heal it's just the natural progression of surrounding yourself with good people because the people who we hang out with are a reflection of who we are right right that's the truth so we so we're in our deepest darkest holes that we were in just look around at the people we were hanging around with right yeah you know and if you change those people places and things things get better no i agree and what you were saying about the stigma you had a term that you came up with it was it was almost like you don't like the uh the word addiction so you now call it emotional pain management right to rebrand it so we can have a different but that's the truth to rebrand that [ __ ] uh because that's what it is that's that's all addiction is that's the truth it's emotional pain emotional pain management that's what it is because we have physical pain management which is a large amount of uh painkillers and we know the outcome of that for a majority of the people yeah that's the truth yeah i mean for me to defeat the stigma it's like i'm proud of that like yeah i'm alcoholic yeah i'm addict because some of the the yeah the darkest times and the worst mistakes were made through the those act of addiction and alcoholism but also the most beautiful things have come so i believe terms like what you're talking about new conversations you're always talking about new conversations if you watch lance's tech tock he's always having a conversation or on this podcast having a conversation as someone like you at the top i mean you won olympic gold with gretzky lemieux psychic the the best of the best playing against hashick who i want to ask you about in a moment but uh what's it called you you you're you're you're a man's man you're out there getting your teeth smashed root canals during intermission coming out there and playing making millions and then you're saying hey man yeah let's talk about our pain and let's say that we're scared or we're frightened or this is what happened to me so we gotta crush what what to me strength is invulnerability strength is in being honest that doesn't make you weak when you're over compensating trying to be too quote unquote manly i'd say that's more weak i don't care what someone's opinion of that is it's just like what are you going to put me in a chokehold well it's your muscles it's like what are you hiding right right exactly you know if you're always in confrontations what are you hiding pain did you ever say that to ty nomi in the middle of a fight i used to always ask ty where his pale was and he looked and he'd look at me pale i go yeah so you can carry the puck around in it [Laughter] that's a beautiful thing and and and the thing was is that ty domi was never on the ice when i was on yes i wanted him yes yeah when i was on when i was on the ice right right so but he was never out there so what does that tell you gonna hold a candle man but yeah you're you were you were you were you were a wild wild zack exactly you are a wild person man in your book you're talking about rest in peace the the king of heavyweights you're talking [ __ ] to bob probert you're doing wild stuff oh yeah i used to i used to bug them all the time yeah and now you're talking about healing and trauma you're talking about healing and trauma but yeah out there before on the ice doing wild [ __ ] well that's what we do we have trouble we share it [ __ ] yeah man it's just it's just a wild transformation today man whether the people know or don't know you you could do a quick youtube search of of theo and and you'll you'll see that then you come to this episode and he's just like hey it's just the piece and then this and that so i i want people to really do that so they can get an actual the proper perspective of a transformation obviously we weren't with you in the dark rooms and in the seedy places and whatnot but to see you talk like this and then to be that type of guy just you you're using your anger to to make yourselves exorbitant amounts of money to achieve high levels of success carrying around deep pain and all of a sudden you're just hey man this is who i am you are literally you're you're one of your speeches you you openly say this so i don't feel weird saying you're like hey i was raped 150 times my friend this is what happened with my friends and all these kids and all these people that's way more courage in my opinion way more strength than someone that gets their face smashed root canals during intermission talking [ __ ] to domi and probert you still did all that and now you're doing this what a blessing that you can do that that's that's what i want to say like what a blessing well and that's that's what healing's all about right is i don't i don't have to wear a mask around anymore you know i don't have to look over my shoulder anymore i don't have to be afraid i can just be me right and and you know i'm no dummy yeah i'm pretty smart guy and and i know that the majority of the world is carrying around secrets everyone right it's just the nature of who we are right and the ability to get rid of those secrets by using your voice and then you know i have an amazi you know i have an amazing platform where people actually want to hear me speak about these challenges right that i had and if and if they weren't interested in that or my audience wasn't struggling then i'd be doing something else yeah there would be no platform but but you but you have it yeah it's just like saying there's no drug addicts or alcoholics in the world there's there's plenty and there's plenty of pain in the world yeah i mean that i was taught going through this well especially especially now right you know what we've gone through for the last two and a half years is trauma you know covet 19 is the most traumatic event that's happened since world war ii it's very deep the the especially you can see that in the numbers of the abuse going up and the drug overdose deaths going up there there's there's a an insane amount of people dying each day suffering each day on such a higher level well we have eight-year-old kids who are having suicidal ideation that's wild that's insane yeah that's insane i agree but that's the insanity of the world that we're living in right and it's premeditated it's planned and you know only the only the strong survive this right i've and i bet you i've i've struggled more with my mental illness in the last two and a half years that had been at any point in my life right but it's been but it's been great because now i gotta look at my [ __ ] again i gotta look at all that stuff and and you know because this is a lifelong process right right i'm healing i'm healing there's no such world where word is healed in this process it's a forever ongoing process right i agree i think it's absolutely wonderful process because that and i used to have yeah and i'm glad you said that because there was a point in time when i thought like personal growth or sobriety it was there was an end result instead of it being uh ongoing journey so i was just like hey man why isn't everyone forgiving me yet why don't i feel great yet why haven't all my dreams come true yet that was the mentality of saying healed or recovered or this or that and instead of being okay and loving the fact that you're what you said i'm in the process of healing recovering what a beautiful thing because it's what you become in the journey that builds the character and it makes the difference sure it's not the end result doesn't mean you still can't have those goals that you set doesn't mean that you can't achieve those things and be forgiven or forgive yourself but it the beauty to me happens and having that perspective shift like hey this is a process i i always i always tell people if you use the word healed that means you've booked a ticket to tibet and you've sat on the side of a mountain with a monk for a month straight only with water that's when you know you're healed nice because that's when you know that you can sit with yourself and love yourself and look at you know right just look at your life you know perspective right yeah and uh and that's where we strive to get that's where we strive to get to right but it's one day at a time one day at a time my sponsor i have a sponsee right now and about a year ago his eating habits were like horrendous he was spending more on that with a grubhub app where they deliver food to your house and he was spending more money on on grubhub than i spend on my mortgage for my home a month i go to his place and it looked like a a a trash bag of wrappers and crap food blew up in it right and i he was talking about i want to change i want to eat healthier i want to do this and well do it you know i mean it's it's chocolate or vanilla and like i went over the next month and it looked like he had three maids clean his apartment spotless he had a juicer fruit chicken fish and i first thing i go is i go wow you're on a diet and he flipped out on me because it's not a [ __ ] diet it's a lifestyle change damn it and that's kind of how we have to take our lives in recovery it's got to be like the lifestyle i want something new i don't want i don't want to recover that [ __ ] i want something new something new for sure but we're but we're so extreme [Laughter] we're so it's all not so extreme yeah like you go there and he's got [ __ ] chip bags and hamburger wrappers and then the next time you go there and he's like a nutritionist for the nutritionist or something yeah you know what i mean it's like dude just take it slow man just take it slow yeah he's doing great now i mean thank god i've never seen yeah that's great he did a fifth step that was 25 pages long type set single space i was like wow we spent like four hours a little doorstep it was pretty it was amazing a little ocd yeah you know the greatest moment was about halfway through he started talking about that one family member that pissed him off the most and he got red angry and he was like we're in a public place because i knew he was gonna blow up if we weren't and he's like holding it in and then he just looked at me like i [ __ ] get it i [ __ ] get it i'm a victim i [ __ ] get it and it was like thank god you got it you know what i mean now we can go somewhere you know it's like perfect well you're amazing and i really appreciate your journey in the work you do man you know you're an inspiration yeah thanks it's uh well well i didn't have any other alternative right yeah you did but it wasn't gonna work out well yeah well it was gonna be even uglier than it already was right and it probably ends in some sort of lonely angry painful death right absolutely and i knew i was better than that yes right you are better than that oh you know you just you know how they say how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time right so you know you can only do so much in 24 hours and uh as long as you're trying that's all that matters amen it is all that matters for today where can people look you up to see what you have to keep current with what you have going on right now for sure you can go on my website feelflurry.life and i'm on uh four social media platforms i'm on twitter at theory14 uh also on instagram same handle feel free for d um on facebook and i'm on link 10 as well so podcasts if you have nobody reach out on social media send me a message and i will get back to you within the hour it's true you did that to me man i was like dang cause i was just like man i want to talk to this man and i was just like the answer let's get this done we're getting this done man uh and in closing i just have to know something dominic koscien my all-time favorite player see the best goalie of all time yeah yeah hockey goalie of all time because he didn't have a style he was he had his own style and uh highly highly competitive right and probably one of the best athletes we've ever had play our sport he was he was a joy to watch when i was shorter because i would play goalie i would do the no style thing now i'm 6'3 and i was playing goalie i couldn't really do the no style thing what a what an amazing guy like i'm more of a jim carrey guy myself jim carrey has the capitals gym kid just i thought he was like yeah okay here we go that's a tangent right now he was a goalie yeah he he had was great rookie he had a great ro he had a great rookie year and then couldn't stop a beach ball after that ain't that the truth uh greatest greatest current player i gotta figure because i have some of my hockey boys watching this is it mcdavid is it crosby is it ovechkin who is there someone i'm not naming yeah i'd have to say mcdavid yeah he's just on a different level he's just on a different level they call him conor mcgregor and the simple fact that probably the two greatest players that ever played our game played for the play for the edmonton oilers right because because i still hate those guys so i'm not a fan of them we got we got them in the kings have them in the first round i know so it should be good i watch i watch mcdavid play it's just is there certain players where they just pass the eye test and i know this because i bring people that have never been to hockey games and they go who's that guy that happened with uh that used to happen a lot with pavel datsuk where he was just like a cut above the rest on the ice where you're just like who is that guy yeah um and crosby about seven years ago it was like that but mcdavid recently it was just like okay yeah he's really good at his job he's good at it yeah so but but the you know to be the to be considered one of the greatest players in the game you still got to win the 10. right still gotta you still got to win a cup ain't that the truth and he hasn't won he hasn't won that yet so i guess crosby you know he's got the edge on him in that department to say the least and unfortunately because of the insanity in the world right he hasn't been able to play in the olympics either i know and that's actually been upsetting that was my favorite part of the olympics watching everyone play i remember when you guys took gold from from america in 2002 i was very young you guys broke my heart but that was that was some of the that was some of the best uh that was some of the best hockey ever i was about 12 years old watching that and then i believe you guys did the same thing in 2010 when and when crosby squared against miller but that's how hockey should be displayed in my opinion on a national stage i think the game is a beautiful game and it's marketed terribly so not a lot of people uh get to uh absorb what's really going on there and that's about it when women's roller derby when women's roller when women's roller derby is more popular than hockey in the united states it's pretty easy to figure that out right yeah it's just uh it's it's it's it's a shame thank god wayne went to los angeles because if he didn't we would be in big trouble absolutely needed to be here man we need more stars in los angeles keep screaming that from the mountaintops we need we need we need star power here it's just for the market i like the sharks yeah sharks are trash but anyway i loved when uh when we went to l.a yeah cause you probably partied and had fun you probably love that [ __ ] oh yeah there was lots of little starlets spreading your alcohol right right that checks out that checks out theo i'll uh i'll message you on instagram once this comes out um thank you for your time thank you it was a pleasure anytime keep up the good boys and uh maybe i'll uh see you guys nelly yeah when you come out to la if you like if you like good post meetings or are we good we could do that or we could get some good pasta and steak somewhere a meeting and dinner man what do you mean yeah that's what i'm saying we'll have dinner and then then we'll head to the log cabin there you know you know the deal i know he knows the deal it's closed by me man we need to go to the the late night meeting over at marina i went i went to student centers in l.a so in my career so you we know to go to that mall we started that saturday morning malibu media with all the famous people you probably were in the place i work where i heard the famous line you're only as sick as your secrets hey we are we are only as sick as our secrets ain't that the truth i think that's the truth well my friends it was a pleasure talking to you have a great rest of your day and we'll be in touch soon huh definitely be blessed boys you

Channel: The Damage Done Podcast

Views: 5,537

Keywords: murder, podcasts, the damage done, damage done, damage done podcast, podcast, spirituality, the 12 steps, true crime, true crime stories, true crime podcast, drug addiction, heroin addiction, Mike Thompson, Theo Fleury, Theoren Fleury, Theo fluery, spittin chiclets, NHL, pro hockey, addiction recovery stories, self-help, substance abuse, emotional abuse, inspiration, therapy, subconscious mind, motivational video, addiction, Calgary Flames, addiction recovery, comeback story

Id: wbv9Vy9izD4

Length: 63min 51sec (3831 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022