The Recovered Life Show

Jay Chase: When I realized that nobody hit me up, that nobody liked that version of Jay, this person that I was hanging on to, and I was so ready to get back to that nobody liked that person. Nobody
missed him. And I was like, wow. All these people that I used to kick it with all these people that I used to hang out with everybody, I was gone for six months. And nobody hit me. And I was like, I

was obviously doing something wrong.

Announcer: You're listening to the recovered live show, this show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives. And here is your host, Damon Frank.

Damon Frank: And welcome back to the recovered live show. I am pleased to be joined today by Jay Chase. Jay is a recovery coach and leadership expert. So glad to have you on the show today, Jay.

Jay Chase: Truly, truly phenomenal. Be here. Hello, hello, hello.

Damon Frank: Really good to see you. You know, I always love talking to you, because you're always very inspirational. And always when I'm feeling that I need that, like extra little bit of, you know,
inspiration, Jay Chase is there to the rescue. I'm so glad to have you on today because I want to talk with you about how to restart your life in sobriety. You know, I know a lot of people worry about

this right, Jay, because you're going from a place of alcohol and drugs work for you to a place of they don't work for you anymore. And then all of a sudden, you might be sober. And you're sitting
there saying, you know, how am I going to restart my life in recovery. And I know your story is really all about new beginnings and about restarts. And I'd love to just jump in, you know, and have

people tell you, you know, have you tell people a little bit about yourself? And your whole story about restarting?

Jay Chase: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's crucial. Like when we, you know, in order to change your life, Damon, only thing we have to do is change one thing that we do every single day, right? And so
for me that was drinking, I drink every single day. And when I cut out drinking my entire life change. So I had to recreate, reconstruct and reevaluate who I was and where I wanted to go. So 2015 or

2017, February 5, I woke up at a jail cell, and no clue how I got there. I had blood on my shirt blood in my mouth. I'm like, yo, what's going on? Right? blacked out. And there's a button on the wall
that goes to the Comm. Tower. I pressed it. And I said what's in my bond? This isn't the first time I've woken up and Joe, I know the process here. I press the button negative bond, a bond out, except

for this time, they said no bond. And I said, Oh, okay. All right. And I said, What's the charges, and they said, probation violation, KPS warrants, or at least I know what I did. Right? I can go do
11 years and restart my life. Luckily, I didn't have to do 11 years, I did six months. And I was able to be released on probation on a high intensity drug court program through the state. And I

completed it all. But when I was released from prison, there was one thing that hurt the most, Damon, and that was get on my phone, I log into Snapchat, I log into Instagram. I log into Facebook, and
I didn't have a single message from anybody. Not a single person, I'm calling for six months. All these people I used to hang out with, kick it with go out and party with every single night. Like I

said, I used to drink every day, and we just had to take away one thing to change my life. And nobody reached out to me, where are you at? Where are you been?

Damon Frank: Well, you know, you know, Jay, I think the interesting thing about the story is, a lot of the times people are sitting there thinking like, okay, they're getting they're sober, right? And
then they get to be like, well, you know, things are gonna change, they're going to change drastically, but they don't understand how much reinvention needs to be done. And it might not be as drastic

as ending up in a jail cell, right? It might just be, you know, all of a sudden, you go to work one day and the after party or the whatever, like, it's just not the same. But when you're sitting there
when you have a big moment like this, and you're sitting there, what was the time? What was the time when you said yourself? Oh my god, can you take us back to that moment? Like, I've got to totally

reinvent my life and restart it. What was that like for you? What was the process that you went through?

Jay Chase: That and that's and that was the process right there when I realized that nobody hit me up that nobody liked that version of j, this person that I was hanging on to and I was so ready to
get back to that nobody liked that person. Nobody missed it. And I was like, Wow, all these people that I used to kick it with all these people that I used to hang out with everybody. I was gone for

six months. And nobody hit me up. And I was like, I was obviously doing something wrong.

Damon Frank: But then you decide like, hey, You know, this is it like, what, what was that mobilise who said, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna have to reboot my life here and just start over. I mean,
there's got to be a lot of fear in that, right? Like, who wants to just start everything over?

Jay Chase: Right. And that's when I, I had to really self assess. And say, like, at first I was hurt, completely crush it. All these people that I thought were friends didn't even reach out to me.
Right? That's a whole grieving process. And that's why I say nobody missed that version of Jay. Because I had to put that I had to put that version rest. I had to put him down. And I literally went to

to the mirror, and I said, I just want to be a good person. And I want to be somebody that somebody misses. So I had to start, I was like, What do good people do? As you I started buying books, good
versus evil, the spiritual practice of people with good actions. The foreground, I just started reading books. And I was like, what is it about good people, that makes people miss people, as I read

The Four Agreements, and it said, Be impeccable with your word. So never tear anybody down. And I love it. I love it. I live it up to this day, be impeccable with your word without sin. Right? And so
I made a vow to never ever tear anybody down with my words ever again, which I did. When I was drinking when I was using, I destroyed relationships with my words, but

Damon Frank: so did you. So you so for you, your whole thing is like, I'm gonna do things totally different than what I did before. Like, just totally different. So what are some of the fears that go
because I know you work with other people now in leadership? And you know, you're, you're, you know, you're helping them walk through restarting their lives when they're at the very, very bottom

right? When they're when they're having that experience that you had. You talked about the process that you went, you got books, and you figured it out? Did you just decide, hey, I'm just going to be
a different person. And this is the person I want to be? Did you reinvent that? Did you have a model? Or what was that process like for you?

Jay Chase: Yeah, at the beginning, no clarity, pure motivation, pure motivation, and to this day have rethought that process and saying, We don't need motivation, we need clarity, alright, because
when motivation goes away, we need to know what the next step is. Otherwise, we won't take it. So what that process looked like was Alright, first, let's just get a bunch of information. Let's get on

because I didn't even know what a good person was, like, I knew what I wanted, like I wanted to be missed. I wanted to do good things, I wanted to add value to the world. But I didn't even know where
to start. So I got information, I started reading books, I just had to work good in the title, because I was so unfamiliar with restarting and where I was, because like you said, this is completely

different. This is something that I've never done before. And so I'm starting from the basis. But one thing that I did that separates a lot of people today is that I took inspiration information. And
I turned that into implementation. Right? I today still live by the Four Agreements.

Damon Frank: I love that I love that, you know, one of the things that I think is confusing for people in recovery, you know, we know that we know that alcoholism, drug addiction is is much as a
thinking disorder, as it is an actual physical addiction, right? We know that people with that suffer from addiction, especially when they're in it think differently, right? They process differently.

And what I love about you like the one thing I really liked when I met you is you're an action person, and I'm an action person too, right? And I think so many times we're in our head, thinking about
what we want to do. And we know like, for example, weight loss, like every pretty much everyone in the world knows how to lose weight, right? It's the actions around it. That's that's the issue,

right? Like exercise, eat well get get restless, everybody kind of knows the basics, but no one really wants to execute it. How How was that for you as far as the execution? Because I think one of the
things that hold people up isn't the information as much like, like you said, you could grab some books, find out kind of who you want to be, but then reinventing yourself and restarting your life and

sobriety with that is going to take massive action to be able to do that.

Jay Chase: Yes, and, and that's where the disconnect is. And that's why we click so well. I always say that there there's a disconnect between self awareness and action. Right? And that's what I come
and do, I can help you put that disconnect together. So we can get this this train of growth rolling, because we can be aware of all the things that we do wrong, but are we ready and one willing to

take action on fixing those things? I gotta, I gotta roll in my company with my team is on our meetings and our monthly meetings. We do not complain about the things that we are not willing to change.
We don't like we have to be willing to change that right? but it's the fact that it's the fact that when we are made aware of our actions, are those patterns problematic? And if they are, we add a

principle. Right? Me I move way too fast. I'm very fast paced. So what my principle is, is J fast and fast if you have to do it twice, so make sure that you look at the details. Right? And that helps
me implement the action of change it I have a principle to fall on, I'm very principle driven. It's very black or white for me.

Damon Frank: Well, you know, what's, what's interesting thing is, is that we're talking about this topic, one of the things I kept thinking is that you're always restarting your life and sobriety.
You're always right. Like, and one of the things I think that people think is a one and done well, okay, I'm gonna get sober, I'm going to kind of reinvent my life a little bit. I really feel like

getting so the process of getting sober Jay actually restarts it for you, you don't have to really worry about the reinvention. Right? And you talked about this awareness. And I think, you know, for
me, I could, you know, thinking back, I was aware of certain things, and I wasn't, you know, it's like, I don't want to live my life this way. I was aware of that, right. But I wasn't aware of

everything. And it took me the process of getting sober. And for me, it was like working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that really helped me with that and other things, right, a coaching other
different things that I did, that really kind of helped me get there. But it's really about holding that awareness in your mind, right? Like, because without that kind of self realization of where

you've been, and being able to be honest with yourself about where you're at now, you can't really move forward, right?

Jay Chase: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think there's three, there's four phases to it. Once we have the awareness, then we move to action. And if we put that action in long enough, we can do
acceleration, we can start accelerating. So when we find that these feelings or problems or patterns come up, and we now have an action to go to, and now we can accelerate to that action. But then

eventually, that becomes automation. I tell people all the time. That's why I only try to deal with people that are 90 days plus an active recovery. All right. Why? Because my sobriety was forced upon
me until a certain point in time where I had to make a choice. And I think who you are in 90 days of recovery, as somebody who you're completely different than where you were when you first started.

Your WHY is ever evolving. You're always restarting, you're always recreating and then you always have to understand who you are on a deeper level and each level of it. I'm six years sober, still
reinventing myself. Right now I'm writing a book so I can purge whatever already what I've learned over the six years and make space for more.

Damon Frank: Well, Jay, I'll tell you, I'm 29 years sober, I'm still reinventing myself. I, you know, I get to we were talking about this a couple weeks ago, like I this is really the kind of the key,
I think one of the things that really pissed me off about this whole restarting your life and sobriety is that I really did kind of think, Okay, well, I'm gonna get to a certain level, whatever that

means that never existed, right? That somehow it was some sort of hierarchy that I get to the certain level where parts of my life would not need to be reinvented all the time, like friendships and,
you know, relationships with family, and like how I do certain things at work and everything. But what I found, it's not like levels, it's more of like an onion, it's kind of unpeeling back, I have a

new, greater level of awareness. And like a snake, I have to kind of shed that skin right, and move into something new. But I'm not leaving what I learned before. I'm taking it with me. It's just that
I have to I have to let go of certain things. How hard was that for you? Because I know, for me, letting go of the way that I think it should be, or the way it should happen is one of my biggest

character defects like I have a really hard time being able to let go and just say, Well, you know, I've done all I can do here. And now I just have to let go and let life happen. How was that for
you? Are you good at Were you good at letting go? Or did you? You know, were there challenges with that?

Jay Chase: Man challenges at first, but the first thing that I tackled in sobriety was forgiveness. And the cool, I don't think forgiveness is complete until release. So you have to literally let go
of the action, the injustice, the person to fill in the resume. You have to let go of that when you're working through forgiveness. And that was the first thing I tackled in sobriety. And so when it

comes to reinventing myself, I had a framework. I literally reinvented myself, based on the Four Agreements, be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions and
always do your best. And it was that last principle that you're asking about. Always do your best right? And I knew that if I showed up to every single situation I gave him 120%. And I always did my

best I was impeccable with my words, I didn't take anything personally, I knew that whatever anybody else was dealing with was what they were dealing with, I was able not to make assumptions of it,
and let it go. And move in my authentic self, I had to trust myself more than the situation, I always tell people that when you want to change your life, when you want to change yourself, you have to

change your environment to your people, places and things. Otherwise, growth is going to be slow and difficult if you change yourself, and natural environment, or even if you change your environment,
not yourself, growth will be slow and difficult. You'll you'll get there. It'll be slow and difficult. But if you change yourself, and you change your environment, growth will be fast and successful.

It's never going to be easy to reinvent yourself.

Damon Frank: Yeah, you know, I think I think the I know, for me, looking back and by talking with people and working with people in recovery, especially early recovery, one of the things is I think
people think that the how they're going to restart their life is it really all has to do with alcohol. If I can only live, you know, first it becomes if only I can figure out a way to drink and not

have all these ramifications. Then it becomes Oh, well, I maybe can't I'm an alcoholic. Okay, I can't drink at all, then it becomes about okay, well, how am I going to live my life? Not drinking.
Right. And then you find out within that first year, most of the restarting and reinvention has nothing to do with alcohol. Yeah, it has to do with who you are and how you feel and how you sick,

right? Like, and that's, I think, a shocker for people because people that might be listening the first 90 days, like you're saying, they're saying to themselves, well, okay, well, I just got to
figure out how to get through my employment situation or dating by being a non drinker and all that kind of stuff. Right? But really, it becomes something not about that. What are some of the things

that it became about for you? As it went on? What are the things that surprised you, Jay? Chase, you know, the guy who motivates people, the guy who leaves but what were some of the big shockers that
you had, that you go, Oh my god, I had no idea I'm gonna have to reinvent or restart this.

Jay Chase: Oh, man, I'm so like, so much weather. With all four of those principles I just told you about. It was working through that. Like, ravine, unconditionally, when I found out the true basis
of unconditional love, and how I need to love and value every single person around me why I inspire and motivate everybody around me is because I love and value everybody around me. But what it took

to get there was complete reinvention of how I saw love of how I registered love of what I saw it to be or how I thought I could receive it. So I had to go, I had to scratch my old beliefs, throw out
agreements I had with words, I had, like I had to I had to completely and it was so it was an ego death that I was proud to put down. If that makes sense. When I look back.

Damon Frank: Absolutely. You know what this is? It's I was having a conversation with somebody the other day, and we were talking about that. This really is I think when they talk about Jag, you know,
because a lot of people that are listening to this, they might not be sober, they might be thinking about getting sober. And they're like, Okay, I need a fresh start here. Maybe I can pick up a couple

of tricks that Jay is gonna give me and then I'm going to be able to do this right, but really getting sober really, at the end of the day, if we're going to analyze it, the sobriety that's going to
last not just physically not drinking alcohol, but I'm talking like emotional recovery and all that other stuff that really comes with this realization that that the old Damon and Jay has got to die.

And there's got to be this new rebirth, right? That that's going on. And that is scary. You don't let dry you know, I know for me dropping alcohol. Alcohol was my best friend alcohol worked for me
really well, for a long time until it didn't. And I was one resentful and to freaked out that I had to kind of let this person get like this thing go right. And I had to lose reinvent myself. You

know, this depth of who you are and who you think you are. What I believe kind of has to happen. Right? This lack of control, right? How was that for you? Like, because I know for me, you know, I'm
similar to you like I'm out. I'm an action person I'm doing And it wasn't necessarily ego driven as much as it was just inspiration driven. But still, there was that huge process of letting that go

over who I thought I was. And hadn't you be able to drop that, and know that that had kind of died. Right? How was that for you? I mean, was there a point when you thought, Man, I'm just not gonna be
able to do this?

Jay Chase: Well, I always tell people, be careful what you what you ask for, to probably get it right. And if emotional healing showed up in your life looking like a prison cell, would you still want
it. And that's how it showed up for me. So it didn't matter what I said, it didn't matter how much I prayed. It didn't matter. You know what people thought about me. But I had to walk this journey in

this process by myself. Nobody could come save me, nobody could come get me out of that camino. Nobody, like for the first six months, I was in prison by myself. And the only thing that was gonna get
me through is going through that process. That was it. I had a start date and an end date. And that's what I had to look forward to. So when it comes to I was, I didn't want to put down the person

that I was because I didn't choose to go down this route in the first place. Right? Like I like, they were like, Nope, he gots to go pulls me out of society. And they're like, you either work on
yourself, or you gonna stay right here. And so I was forced to look in the mirror. And so when I say when I say it was a full ego death, like I had to strip myself and say that that person is no

longer good to be. According to judge society, and everybody around me, all the relationships, I burned, all the things that I've broken up, you know, and, and it was scary, because it was
comfortable. And I tell them, I tell them, Listen to this, and everything that you want, and everything that you don't have that you do want is right outside your comfort zone. It was so

uncomfortable. It was It is comfortable.

Damon Frank: It is and I think that's why most people stop because they can't, they don't think that there's going to be an end to that discomfort. You know, Jay, when we come back, I want to drop
some jewels on people, I really want to give people a gift here because you've got a lot of really great solutions on how to restart how to start because I know a lot of people, you know what happens,

they get in recovery, and I see this and even a year or two into it. They think they're just broken and they're never going to be able to restart. And you know, Jay is here to tell you that that's
totally possible. So when we get back, Jay is gonna drop some value bombs on us, tell us some tips on how you can kind of restart your life and sobriety. So we'll be right back with Jay Chase. Are you

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Announcer: You're listening to the recovered live show.

Damon Frank: Oh, right. I am back with Jay Chase, recovery coach and leadership expert. We're talking about how to restart your life in sobriety. I promised everybody Jay, when we came back, we're
going to talk about how to do this because I know a lot of people, they get stuck right at the beginning or they maybe get into it, they experience pain and they're like, I am never going to be able

to get unstuck and restart. So Jay, how do you do it? If you're that person that's listening to this? What do you tell him?

Jay Chase: Man, if you got in the car, and put a destination into the GPS of where you want it to go, you would have to tell the GPS where you're at. So I always say when you're starting just you got
to know who you are at your core. Because if we're going to strip away all the external, all we're going to have left is the internal. So who we are, how we act, what what we put first and how we move

throughout the world. I definitely tell everybody to start with the DISC assessment so we can know our strengths, our limitations, what we're good at how we communicate, and who we really are on our
natural, like who we are when we're not thinking about our thinking, and then who we turn into when we are thinking about our thinking and situations that are on comfortable in environments we're not

familiar with around people that we don't really know. So then we can start looking for signs of when we're slipping into that adaptive style, versus that natural style. But when you know who you are
at your core, then we can start building men, there's an exercise that I do for that I do, what I tell all my clients to do is to connect with your future self, right? There was a study done in

London, that that they monitor people's brains, and and they ask people think about yourself in a past life. And, and one side of the brain lit up, they said, think about yourself in the future, and a
different side of the brain lit up. And they said, think about a stranger in the same site that lit up when they thought about themselves on the future lit up when they thought about the stranger. And

so it came to the conclusion that 83% of people don't have a relationship with their future self. And so I definitely start with the premise of where we're at, and where we want to go. All right. So
my first my first ask was when you want to restart your life is what does your best life absolutely look like? if money wasn't an option? If if you didn't have to work, when you just did what you did?

Like, what does your best life look like?

Damon Frank: Love that. I love that? You know, I think you said something that's so key there is that one of the things that to do this, you don't need to be in that future state. Like I always say
like, if you're in a bad situation, like you were in, you know, you're in prison. If you can't see the opportunity in prison, if you can't see the good things that are happening there, you're not

going to be able to see him when you get out. Right. Like, it's so much of a consciousness game, long term recovery, I think it's like knowing when your consciousness is go and your awareness is going
to a place that is not helping anybody. You know, and we're so hard on ourselves internally a lot of times, I think that's one of the misconceptions, right? Like, I think people think that alcoholics

and especially recovering alcoholics are really tough. But really, we are in one way, but but we're also very sensitive to right. We're very sensitive to suggestion, and people around us and wanting
to do the right thing. How do you keep that going? J like, how do you keep, you know, you get down the path and then it starts to get hard, which is what a lot of people do, right? And then you hit an

obstacle. How do you muster up? What do you tell yourself to keep going? Instead of sliding backwards?

Jay Chase: Mm hmm. You signed up for this. Jay, remember what you want. Remember what you want, remember it. And we need to not be emotionally attached to the outcome, but be emotionally attached to
the process of becoming this is what I talk about the art of becoming all the time, we get to a point in our sobriety where we're no longer emotionally attached to the person that we once was. But now

we're emotionally attached to the person that we're becoming. And so where does that switch happen? We start our life, when when when it gets hard, and we tell ourselves to keep going it, it's
typically either us getting lost in the details and the steps to get to the big picture. Or it's us trying to add to the big picture, right? When we just need clarity, clarity on what the big picture

is, and where we're headed. This is why I say we don't need motivation. This is we need clarity.

Damon Frank: Because it's the C word I'm with you on this one, I actually use the word clarity a lot, because I don't have to agree with what's going on. But I have to be clear about what's going on.
right for me to get into a place where I can accept that and move forward in my life. Right? I love that, that that clarity. You know, you're talking about changing things around you. And I think some

of the first things to change is the people a lot of times, right, like you said, you didn't add any Instagram messages you didn't have, you know, you were back in that place where you're like, Okay,
I need to build people around me, I found it so essential J to have people in my life, that, that see the good in things too, and they can see where we're going. I know for me personally, you know,

it's so easy not to be able to look at all the negative things and not look at the positive things that are going on. And I can't see growth in myself a lot. So it's really important. I'm super hard
on myself like I don't I see it in other people. But it's interesting, because long ago I learned that if I could see it in other people, it must be happening in me from a metaphysical it must be I

must have the opportunity to be able to experience that. So if I see people being happy, and I'm not feeling happy, just that I recognize that is it is a good start? How did you do that with the
people places and things in your life? Was there some sort of inventory? You did, Jay? Or like? How did you change that? Because I think a lot of people get stuck there. They're like, how am I going

to do that? Do I have to find new friends? I can't find new family members. What what do I do?

Jay Chase: Yeah, man, this is good. influence, influence influence influence. When we really think about our friends, it is just the people that we influence, right? What level of leadership? Do we
lead the people around us? And what it comes down to? is we have to look and see who values us and who doesn't? And who do we value? And who do Who should we value, right? I don't want to say who we

don't value because I value everyone. And I think we need to value everyone, everybody. But it comes down to when you when you find out that you need to change your people, places and things starting
with your people. You need to find new people to add value to That's it, go add value to new people, and build relationships with those people. So so many people are scared of. They have the fear of

losing something, and the hope of something lasting forever, rather than just diving into this present moment and adding value to the present situation.

Damon Frank: Totally great, Jay. I mean, I think these things that you're telling everyone here today on this podcast is really, I mean, these are really golden things, you know, and it took me a long
time to find that out and to piece together. So it's like finding people that are like minded, that are going to support you and keep that consciousness going. Final thoughts, Jay, if you know,

somebody's out there listening or saying, hey, you know what, Jay Chase can do this? Because he's Jay. But you know, I've tried before, I don't really think I can do it? What would be your final
thoughts? What's your what would be your message to that person?

Jay Chase: Try it a different way. The law of trade off says, in order to get something I've never had, I have to do something I've never done. So if you want to achieve sobriety, if you want to
achieve a recovered life, try a different way, try the way that you haven't done yet. Because people are doing it. It's possible. I'm human, you're human, you can push through it, but just do it a

different way. Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over again, respecting different results is insane insanity. So don't change your level of intensity of doing the same thing. Try it a
different way.

Damon Frank: I love that, guys, we're gonna put links about how you can get to Jay he is on recovery life, we're gonna put links to how you can hear more about what Jay is doing in the show notes. So
make sure to go and click on those. Jay, thanks so much for coming on the show today. This was so great. And I really think it helped a lot of people. So thank you.

Jay Chase: Yes, grateful. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Stay focused, stay inspired, stay connected, always.

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