What True Recovery Looks Like—Beyond Sobriety With Dave Riccio

 

Recovery isn’t just about sobriety—it’s about rebuilding identity, regulating the nervous system, and learning how to live with radical honesty. Automotive business owner and radio personality Dave Riccio, also known as the “Automotive Therapist,” joins to share how his journey through sex addiction, multiple sclerosis, and deep-rooted shame became a path to healing. As co-host of Bumper to Bumper Radio and owner of Tri-City Transmission, Dave opens up about meditation, movement, community, and vulnerability as the cornerstones of sustainable recovery—and why health, not hustle, is the new success.

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What True Recovery Looks Like—Beyond Sobriety With Dave Riccio

I’m with Dave Riccio. Dave is the longtime Owner of Tri-City Transmission and Auto Repair, Cofounder of Bumper to Bumper Radio, and a man in long-term recovery. He’s also known as the Automotive Therapist because of the way he builds trust and connection with people through his work and through his story. Dave is a cyclist. He’s a meditator and a business leader who’s navigated personal and professional challenges and courage with courage and grace. I’m excited to dive into his journey and what’s shaped the man that he is now. Dave, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Tim. I’m glad to be here.

How We Met: A Collision And A Connection

We’ve known each other for a while and let’s start with how we met. I want to hear your version, then I’ll share my version.

It’s probably been a few years.

It was probably 2016.

Okay. That sounds right. That’s when I broke my collarbone, in 2016.

Yes, I remember that day.

My recollection, I got to the ride Arcadia Bike Club. We peddle our butt off for 15 miles, 20 miles or whatever. I showed up and I was behind you, and it just felt erratic to me. It was like you were new to cycling.

I was new. That was probably my third bike ride ever.

My intuition was like, “Maybe pick a different spot.” I picked a different spot and got riding and I think we went through the golf course, and then we came out on Northern. I was right behind you again. The fitness wasn’t quite there yet, so you’re slowing down a little bit more. I’m like, “I’ve got to go around them. Otherwise, I’m going to get dropped,” because I’m not that fit either. If I’m not sucking on somebody’s tire, I lose the draft and I’m done. I went to go around you, and when I went to go around you, something shifted. I’m not even sure what happened, honestly. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground.

You and I had never talked, never met and then I met you in a recovery meeting. You’re like, “I know you from somewhere.” I’m like, “No, you don’t.” You’re like, “No, I know you from somewhere.” I’m like, “No, I really don’t,” because all we know each other is with helmets. That’s how we see each other on the regular.

I recognize you by your bike and your helmet.

That’s it. Anyway, so what’s your version of the story? Was this my fault?

No, it wasn’t your fault. You’re right. It was like my third bike ride ever. Walter Clark, who we both know, he’s like, “Let’s come let’s come out on this hour of power, which is like a fast ride. It’s not a beginner ride. It’s my third time on a bike and in a group ride. I was going down Northern, and you’re right, I wasn’t very fit. I shifted my front gear. I downshifted my front gear and that’s what caused me to jerk. Next thing you know, you run into me and you go over thebhandlebar. I felt terrible. You were out for quite some time. The next thing I knew, you were back with the brand-new bike. You didn’t know it was me, though.

No, I had no idea.

You did not know it was me until we went to a recovery meeting. There was a guy that I was his sober companion, a guy that we all know. I pulled you aside and I said, “I don’t know if you know me, but we know each other from this bike ride. I’m the reason you crashed. I’m the reason you broke your collarbone.” That was 2016. It was 2017 when we actually formally met.

Connected, yeah, because you said, “I know you’re from somewhere.” I’m like, “No.” You’re like, “Do you ride bikes?” I’m like, “Yeah.” You’re like, “Yeah, I know you.”

I definitely remembered because I was the reason why you broke your collarbone. I felt terrible.

It’s funny, that’s the first time we met, but we’ve kept up with each other ever since with a common interest in recovery.

I didn’t know you were in recovery. I see you at a meeting and it’s completely out of context. One of the things I love about being in recovery is you just don’t know. You don’t know who’s going to be in recovery. I had a guy who does works on my cars, or he has done work for me on my cars. I remember I knew him. I met him through a mutual friend. He had done work for me on my cars. One day, I’m at a meeting and I look across and I see this guy, and I’m like, “I know that guy.” It’s like, “It’s my car guy. He’s here too.”

You never know who you’re going to meet.

You never know. I’ll tell you that it gives me a sense of comfort when I see people in recovery out in the real world.

Whether I’m doing yoga, I’m cycling, I’m climbing Camelback Mountain, I’m at LGO, I’m getting coffee. It’s just like we’re everywhere.

People don’t know because recovery is a thing that people do on their own and you know them in the meetings. Otherwise outside of that, you know.

My Journey To Healing: From Chaos To Clarity

It’s like, “Wait, you’re a friend of Bill?” It’s like, wink. It’s like, “Yes, that’s where I know you from.” Walk me through your journey through recovery. Walk me through your story. What happened? What was life like and why did you end up getting into recovery?

The household that I grew up in was tragic and traumatic at best. I did get a value system from my family. We certainly didn’t live up to our value system, but I did get one.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up here in town, right at Tatum and Shea. Paradise Valley-ish area. I grew up in a private Christian school until I was invited to leave in the seventh grade because I was pretty unruly. I had two older brothers. I’m the youngest of three. As the youngest of 3, you have 2 older brothers, they’re best buddies before you show up. You show up and they’re like, “What do you want, Butt-head?” That’s what they would say to me.

We’re close now, but back then, we weren’t. Looking back, you normalized it when you were a kid, but as an adult, you’re like, “Yeah, that was off.” I was involved in church and I was a little bit of the black sheep in that culture there. I met my wife at the time. I saw her in community college, and I was like, “that is the girl I’m going to marry.”

What made you the black sheep?

I was loud and outspoken. When I say I was invited to leave that Christian school, I was kicked out of that Christian school. Just personality, ADHD, before we actually had Ritalin back then. I was bouncing off the walls. I was always in trouble. I was always needing attention and affirmation, good or bad. I was a little bit un-housebroken. I had to put it that way. I saw my ex-wife now. We were married for 22 years, but when I saw her, I was like, “That’s the girl I want to marry.” I saw her in community college.

I knew right away. I went home that day. I told my mom, “I saw the girl I’m going to marry today.” Sure enough, it just went that way. I think this is the way it is. As kids, we don’t know anything different. We’re like little sponges because we can’t feed ourselves. We’re vulnerable and needy. We know how to poop and pee and eat. That’s it. As you’re growing up, you’re absorbing all that energy of the household and mine was chaotic. You absorb all that. Now you’re an adult, and you’re going into real life and you got this sponge full of crap. You get into a relationship and it squeezes that sponge a little bit, and that starts to come out.

 

What did you say? You’re on your best behavior for, what, like 90 days?

The First Step Towards Recovery: A Prayer And A Meeting

When you first get into it, yeah, 90 days. The honeymoon stage. Now you’re like, “Okay, this is two people trying, and they got their own sponge story.” Now you’re trying to cohabitate and do life together, and she’s beautiful, and you’re in love and all that stuff, but now you’re like, “Really?” And vice versa. I wasn’t housebroken and I had such compulsive behavior in a lot of ways. One day, I decided I didn’t like who I was because I had two lives that I was living and it wasn’t fair to her. For whatever reason, a switch went off in me and said, “I can’t live like this anymore.” My first, second and third steps were all in one shot.

I had this moment where I was like, “This isn’t who I want to be.” I went home. I got on my hands and knees and literally prayed. I didn’t really know who I was praying. I just said, “God, this is not who I want to be.” I can’t seem to do anything about it. I keep trying to fix myself. No one out here in the world knows who I am. I’m just on my own. I’m trying to fix myself and correct myself so that I can be a good partner, be a good friend, all those things. I couldn’t do it. I said, “I know I’m not right where I want to be. I need help.”

How long had you been living this double life, or these multiple personalities?

Probably the first three years of my marriage. I got married at age 22. I met her at 19, I was married by 22. Throughout the dating and all that stuff, double life. She’s a lovely lady. I got no complaints. Even now, we’re good friends. That was it. Right now, I’m working with a couple of sponsees who are right in there in that step two. They’re like, “How do I even do the God thing?” A lot of people in our culture were raised in a church or raised in something like that, and it’s maybe different than higher power in recovery that we find.

They’re really battling, what does that look like? What is finding a higher power, turning my will over, all that stuff? For me, it was, it was like everything I’ve tried has not worked. I know I absolutely don’t want to be this character. I need help. That is the one lever I haven’t tried to pull. “God, I need help.” It’s my belief. It’s a core belief of mine is that if you ask God, and however you want to define God, you want to call him universe, higher power, use the acronym, GOD is Goodness On Demand, whatever you want to call it. However you want to define God, I think if you ask, something’s going to happen because it happened for me. I prayed that prayer, and within a week, I found myself in a 12-step meeting.

If you ask God, something's going to happen. Share on X

It was through a friend that I got on the phone with, and I started saying, “I’m going to be getting a divorce, and things aren’t going so well.” He’s like, “What are you talking about?” He told me, “I’m in 12-step and I got a meeting on Monday. Do you want to go with me?” As you say, people have no idea they’re are in recovery. The cool thing about recovery, when you walk through the door, no one’s bragging that they’re at a 12-step meeting, like, “I’m in a 12-step meeting.”

Some people are way more vocal about it. A lot of people aren’t. You just don’t know.

At the door, no one’s bragging. It’s an immediate sense of community. You might walk in a little bit holding your cards close to your chest. Once you start to realize that authenticity wins here, I don’t have anything to hide. The more authentic I can be in the community, the better. That’s what we’re lacking, it’s community.

Yeah. It’s like, put your ego at the door. Do you want to talk about your drug of choice, behavioral choice, whatever you want to call it?

I can be compulsive about anything, but my drug of choice would be sex. Since I was little, I just never could have enough.

Do you think there’s a difference between sex or alcohol or any other substance?

Definitely. I can struggle with alcohol a bit. Every now and then, I got to put it in check. With alcohol, it’s just not in my apartment. I don’t need it. It takes me a couple of days to get it out of my habitualness if I’m starting to drink more than I would like but it’s like, I don’t know, I think if you got maybe eating disorder, you’ve got to face that thing three times a day. At least three times a day. With alcohol, I don’t.

It’s tough. I don’t have to have alcohol for survival. I think sex is somewhat at the same level. It’s a creative energy, it’s a connection energy and a relationship. It’s just something that’s gone haywire, where it’s way out of balance. I think sex addiction is a tough one. The longer I’m around people, for whatever reason, maybe it’s written on my forehead, they’ll just decide to talk to me about sex and what’s going on in their life. I’ll help out where I can. It’s more common than you would think. It’s surprising who you meet that has a problem.

Numbing The Pain: From Addictions To Social Media

I think there are a lot of people that are alcoholics and drug addicts, and they come into the rooms of AA and then next thing you know, they’re like seeing a hooker. They’re married, but then they’re seeing a hooker. It’s like, “How’s that?” It’s like trading one addiction for another addiction.

I met a lot of people in sex addiction recovery who started in AA. They started there. They took care of that.

It’s easy to move because it’s like they’re just looking for relief. What’s the solution? The solution to my pain is either you walk through it, which is really painful and really hard, or you can just numb out.

You can just numb out. I was thinking about that. I was thinking, “What is the pain?” When I look at success, like, what is success, health is the new success. We can talk about physical health, but I would just say overall healthy, mind, body, spirit, when am I healthy? I’m healthy when my nervous system is regulated, when I can literally just sit in my own skin and be comfortable. I think that’s hard for addicts. I think it’s hard for culture in general. We’ve got the fixes of the scrolling on the phone.

TikTok, social media, Instagram, Facebook. There’s lots of ways to just numb out and not feel your feelings.

How do I feel good in my quiet space? Can I just sit and be comfortable in my own skin? That’s where meditation really started to come in. I’m just going to chill out. I was the person that says, “Do you meditate?” “No. My mind’s so busy, I can’t do it.” How many times have you heard that? “Really? If you push through that.” Your mind never quiets down, but you learn how to work with it.

It was funny, when I was at a Joe Dispenza event, I don’t know if you were at this one. He shared this story. He was talking to somebody and he said, “Yeah, you should go to one of my events.” They said, “I’m not a good meditator. I have ADHD.” He’s like, “Really?” He’s like, “Is that your affirmation?” It’s like, “That’s good.”

That’s a good one.

You’re not a good meditator. You have ADHD. You’re saying that you can’t learn anything.

When you say that, it’s the limitations. The thing that really started to shift for me in the last 5 to 10 years is to quit looking at the limitations. Life is limitless. Those old stories that we tell ourselves are not only ours. They’re in our DNA. They’re our parents. They were our grandparents. They go way back. We just find these little stories that we tell ourselves, and we loop on them. It’s funny. You were like, “I went to Joe Dispenza’s last weekend in LA.” I was like, “I was there. You were there?” I get a lot out of that.

I just got into the Cancun retreat. I think I told you that. It’s sold out within ten minutes. By the end of the first day, there were like 10,000 people on the waiting list.

Something happened in there.

I’ll tell you what, the registration opened, and I was thinking we could just click, apply, pay. No. There were like twelve pages of initials.

That’s an anxious moment.

I got in, and then my girlfriend’s over here, and she’s still not in. She got in too, so we’re good. I lost my train of thought. I was going to go somewhere else with this.

That’s okay.

It is totally okay. How long have you been in recovery?

Since September 3 of 2003.

Long-Term Recovery: 22 Years And Counting

This is what I was going to ask you. Did you figure out what was at the root of your behavior?

I would say I do because in 23 years, a sponsor told me once, “I’ve never seen anyone work the program as hard as you.” I sat around when I was working the program like that. I beat myself up, that I wasn’t working the program hard enough. That right there is it. It’s the shame. There’s something wrong with me. I’m defective. That’s a little voice that, believe it or not, we all have somewhere in the back of heads at different times. I love having conversations with people. I never met anybody that I didn’t see that in the conversation.

I could see it in the way they spoke about themselves, or how they identified, or, “I got ADHD.” They’re already hanging their head like, “There’s something wrong with me.” Do I have ADHD? Probably, or am I just a really excited, exuberant guy that is designed to be in front of people, designed to make relationships, designed to be good at making connections? How do you want to reframe that? Do you want to be a guy that’s got something wrong, a label? I’m not saying ADHD isn’t a thing. It’s something we know, but it doesn’t have to be a limitation.

It would be shame and self-hatred. That’s a hard one because the religion I was born into, it was very harsh. There was these strict rules and all that stuff. I learned early on, there was something wrong with me because we’re all born defective. There’s something wrong with us. We’re going to hell. Those are the messages that I got as a young boy, and they have stuck with me all the way through life.

Here I am again, because at ten years old, how much actual processes happen up here? You’re just absorbing everything. As a 20-year-old or maybe a 25-year-old, some developmental stages, looking back, you go, “That’s weird.” How does an 8-year-old or a 5-year-old know how to comprehend life after death and all that stuff? Why we jamming that down his throat? My mom was a religious fanatic. She was harsh. There was a lot of abuse, a lot of spanking. She would quote scripture when she did it. That’s my story.

You thought that was normal.

I thought that was normal. She would even say, “God told me.” Now it’s like, “She’s speaking for God.” As a kid, you don’t know any different. It’s not up here where you know that’s what’s going on. It’s just in the background. It’s in the subconscious. I talk a lot about shadow work. That’s shadow. You can’t see it, but it’s affecting you. It’s really affecting your behavior and what you do.

Once I really got a good grasp on that, I would go to meetings and I would see it, I would see it in this guy and that guy, the same common thread. A lot of self-hatred, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt. “I’m not good enough.” How we motivate in this culture is with shame, it seems like. Hopefully, we’re developing. Hopefully, we’re moving past that. It takes a minute to unwind that. It doesn’t just go away.

I can relate. I get this feeling right here. It’s like the guilt, the shame when I make mistakes, when I do things that are not aligned with my values, and then it’s just like, “How do we move on? How do we move past that?”

The key thing there was feeling. How do we do with feelings? When I talk about a nervous system that’s regulated? How do we feel that and not doing anything with it? How can I sit in it, identify it, move through it? I think guilt has a point. If you bash up against the guardrails of what’s okay for you, you want a little notice like, “I don’t like that. I’m going to redirect myself.” Guilt has its place. It’s just how we let it go. Serve its purpose. Move on.

 

I think it’s good to notice if my behaviors are not aligned with my values. One of the things I’ve heard that I like is I get to feel my feelings, all of my feelings, not just the good ones. That’s a beautiful thing. Being in recovery, getting to feel all my feelings. I can make decisions and do things differently if I want to. The reason why I love my behavior, the reason why I act the way that I do, the reason why I’m honest, the reason why I do the next thing, is mainly because I just want to feel good.

You’re like, “If I do that, I’m not going to like that. It’s going to suck.”

It’s going to haunt me. That’s why I’m doing the next right thing. I’m honest, I’m not being dishonest. It helps keep me in check.

There is a point to it. There’s a point to guilt. There’s overactive guilt that’s way beyond. Even the things that I wrestle with, because I’m always looking at right and wrong, measuring that kind of thing. I don’t think you necessarily identify that all on your own. The thing about community is that you can bounce it off your friends. I like to see myself in other people. When I see someone doing something that I can see in myself, I’m like, “Okay.”

It’s one of the beautiful things about sponsoring, guys. Seeing myself. It’s like, “That was me.”

You learn a lot by sponsoring.

It’s like, “That was me. That used to be me. That could be me.”

Yeah. I see where that still shows up.

“I’m glad that’s not me. All the different things.”

“I’m glad I moved past that.”

It’s a good reminder.

Intergenerational Trauma: A Mother’s Influence

That would be the common theme, though, that self-hatred, self-loathing, whatever. It looks different for different people how they got there. Again, I always reflect too. It’s cultural. If you know my mother, her abuse, when she was abusing me, she would spank me and say it was from God, but that was out of her own shame. If I didn’t grow up to be this perfect child, that would reflect on her as a mother. She doesn’t want to feel her shame, so she’s whipping me into shape.

For me as a kid, I’ve always been a sensitive person. I’ve always been what some people call an empath. I’ve always been to take on other emotions. When somebody feels good in their heart, I feel it. When they feel sad, I feel it. As a kid, so not only are you feeling the pain of the abuse, you’re also feeling the pain of their shame. That’s how it’s transferred from parent to child. It’s just from generation to generation.

What’s your relationship with your mom like now?

I had quit talking to her until she was in hospice. I would say there was a heavy level of mental illness that was really undiscovered, or maybe it just progressed over the course of her life. She’s a sweet lady. I got a lot of great things from her. She loved people. I love people. She had her demons. They were unaddressed. I think she hid out in the church with her demons.

There was almost a decade I didn’t talk to her. When I was diagnosed, I was 27. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She didn’t handle that well. That’s when our relationship broke. I didn’t talk to her for a lot of years. I was in a recovery meeting, and it was a tight group. We did retreats three times a year. They’re like, “When are you going to talk to your mom?” I’m like, “I’m not going to do it.’ One guy’s like, “When my mom was in hospice and she couldn’t respond to me, it was the best conversation I ever had.” I went home because that was the thing. We challenged each other. I went home and I planned to go to New Mexico and catch up with her in hospice.

How was that?

It was good. In hospice, they say people are closer to the other side, so a little bit more open energetically. I remember it was the first time I felt empathy for my mom, because I could see her still fighting to be alive, or like, she had something to do and she looked great, or her skin was great. Her hair was great. Everything about her. She was only 65, but her mind was gone. She had some form of dementia or whatever.

I think one of the things that really helps me is that there’s a woman, I forgot her name. She says everyone does the best they can with the tools they’ve been given. For me, just thinking that, like, for example, my stepmom won’t talk to me. I just remember that it’s like we’re all doing the best we can with the tools that we’ve been given. When I remember that, I have empathy.

There’s another guy named Don Wood. He says if you understood the atmospheric conditions in which a person grew up, you would understand why they are the way that they are. It’s like I just have to have love and kindness and know that it doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m not taking things personally, the four agreements. I have empathy, and I feel a lot better about myself when I don’t take things personally, and I have love and compassion for the other person.

One of the things that helped me do that was that when someone’s being harsh with me, I say to myself, “They’re being ten times harder on themselves on the inside.” That’s what’s spilling out. That’s what’s coming out of it. When I look at that, I’m like, “Wow.” It doesn’t mean I don’t have boundaries, and I’m just going to sign up for it.

 

When I fall into judgment, sometimes I wake up and I go,” I’m just judging everything today.” I’ve been doing recovery long enough that it causes me to pause and say, “What am I saying to myself?” If I’m judging everything out here, that means I’m judging myself on the inside. Judgment separates us. People want to judge, but it’s like when you’re face to face with somebody and your eyeball to eyeball, judgment falls away. If it’s on a computer screen, if it’s a keyboard warrior, if it’s whatever it is, if I want to judge people, then it really turns me black on the inside.

Stand on that judgment, really. I read so many books and there was so much about really taking the time to consider that judgmental voice and see it, and just tried not to judge anything for a day. This is good. This is bad. Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul. That was the first time I read that. I did a lot of reading in early recovery.

There’s a guy named Michael Bernoff that talks about the subconscious mind. When I’m judging someone, when I’m talking negatively about someone else, that’s the story I’m telling my subconscious mind. It’s just not good for me. Even like my dogs, Wayne and Betty, I love my dogs. “You guys are so smart. You guys are so good.” That’s the story I’m telling my subconscious mind. I’m smart, I’m funny, I’m attractive. I’m all of the things I want to be.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. The judgment, that is a big shift. The other thing, too, I think, is that when I’m really critical of something, that is exactly what I don’t love about myself.

That one’s a hard, that’s why I say to people, “Use mirrors.” Why is that getting me? That’s because I don’t like that about myself. When I feel myself go there, and I’m a boss, and I’ve got employees, and I can be a not nice guy. Sometimes it’s my job, but then sometimes it’s like, “No, I’m out of line here.” However, I see where I’m going and how I’m behaving. I try and create a culture in my business where people are allowed to speak up without like, “Dave, you stepped on me there.”

Unveiling The Truth: My MS Diagnosis

Let’s talk about MS. What happened there? Tell me about that journey within your journey.

Yeah. I’ve grown up always active, athletic and I thought I was physically pretty healthy, but no. I woke up one morning, took a shower, got out of the shower, got dressed, got ready for work, went to go put my keys in the ignition of the car, and I could not get the key in the ignition. MS is interesting. It had been cooking along, but it never really got out of my schema. In other words, I wasn’t seeing where I was not performing. It’s just one day, our neurological awareness is always changing.

That day happened to be the whammo. It’s so much in the site that you can’t miss it. I went to go put my key ignition and I couldn’t. I literally had to grab my hand, put that thing in the ignition. I couldn’t move the shifter so I had to grab my hand and move the shifter, and I had a headache. I thought, “Yeah, maybe I just need coffee.” I would get coffee every day on the way to work.

You didn’t say anything?

No, I just put a little dirt in it and keep going. I would go to Circle K. I loved Circle K coffee back then. I went to get out of the car, and I’m like, “Something is really wrong here.” I just closed the door and drove back home. I didn’t realize the whole right side of my body was off. I couldn’t use my right hand. I was biting my tongue. I had a hard time walking, and it progressively got worse over the next three days. I’m like, “I probably need to go to the doctor.” I went to the ER, and again, I still didn’t quite know if there was something wrong, but I was just felt off. The doctor says, “Can you touch your finger to your nose?” I’m like, “Yeah.” They’re supposed to have a poker face, but he winced.

He’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to do a CT scan.” There was a neurologist showing up, and it was a scary time. It took a while to get back. MS, multiple sclerosis, relapsing-remitting is the most common form. That’s what I have. That’s 80% of people with MS. The disease will hit you and it attacks your central nervous system and then it’ll back off. There’s some scarring, multiple scars. Multiple sclerosis that happens in your brain. It’s just some of the nerves in there.

Do you still relapse?

I probably haven’t relapsed in a few years. Medicine has gotten a lot better, for sure. When I started out, I was a pin pillow. I gave myself nine shots a week, and it didn’t even work. One of them was intermuscular. It was like jam that thing in your thigh. Not only that, you’d be sick for a day. You’d have the flu for 24 hours, or what felt like the flu. It was terrible. Once a week. That one was terrible. You knew it didn’t work. You hoped it worked.

How did that affect your mental health?

It was pretty heavy. For the first three months, I wasn’t sure I had MS. I thought it might be dying because that my mom was telling me, “You don’t have MS. You got something else going on. You’re going to die if you don’t get this taken care of.” That’s when I quit talking to my mom. It was after that because she wouldn’t accept my diagnosis. The hardest part of MS is accepting the diagnosis.

The hardest part of MS is accepting the diagnosis. Share on X

Once you get on with it, it’s like, “This is a thing. Let’s figure it out. We’re going to get it done.” Until then, you’re still wondering what’s happening. Can I even do my job? When you go to look up MS and you’re learning in the early days, you go to the MS Society, and they’re raising funds. They’re not going to show people like me that are riding my bike twenty miles really quickly on Tuesday and Thursday morning and crashing occasionally. They’re going to show the people who raised funds.

You got a new bike out of it.

I did get a new bike out of it. That was great. I bought it and just looked at it for six weeks when my collarbone healed. It was tragic and traumatic. I look at MS and neurological diseases like that. I think it’s the result of trauma stored in the body. You’ve probably read The Body Keeps the Score. I remember reading that book and just thinking, “There’s something to all those beatings my mom gave me as a kid.” That broke something in me.

Do you know the ACE study, Adverse Childhood Experience Study from like the mi-‘90s? It’s like ten questions. Super easy to fill out. When you read that and you look at your score, and then you look at some of the basic results from that, you’re like, “Wow.” If you have a score of four or higher, they say you’re this many hundred percent more likely to have an autoimmune disease. Stuff relates so you take it a little further. I think I read a book. It was like a deeper dive into that in how some of that trauma as kids affects us as adults in our health. I think it’s totally a byproduct of that.

Yeah. The body keeps the score.

The body keeps the score. I get on with it.

Cycling Through Challenges: Exercise As Medicine

You’re obviously doing okay now. You’re riding your bike, and you’re meditating. You’re doing all these other things. Let’s talk about cycling. How’d you get into cycling?

When I was finally diagnosed with MS by the right doctor, and I felt like we had the right answer. Dr. Volmer, he was the chairman of neurology at Barrows. He was the MS specialist. I told him, “The days I go to physical therapy,” because I was still trying to learn to use my hand, I said, “I feel a lot better.” He said, “Yeah. Work out every day of your life. Drugs are what they are. They’re okay. We’re trying to make them better. The best thing you can do is work out every day of your life.”

The best thing you can do is work out every day of your life. Share on X

I literally work out every day of my life. I started this morning at 3:30. I’ve got a routine, quiet time, do some of my step work, do some reading, and then I head to the gym. If it’s three days a week, it’s the gym. Two days a week, it’s cycling. On the weekends, it’s cycling Saturday, Sunday because I love it. That’s the only time I felt better. If you’re depressed, you don’t want to cycle or you don’t want to exercise but the exercise is literally the thing you have to do.

That’s the thing you need.

It’s the thing you need. With MS, believe me, you don’t want to go work out. I would literally say, “God, the last thing I want to do is go ride my bike right now,” but I would go ride my bike. I would force myself. I have so much discipline in everything other than where I’m addicted, which is crazy. I can wake up at 3:30 in the morning and go to bed at 10:00 at night and rinse and repeat and do it the next day, but I still have to keep this thing in check.

Exercise is a huge part because when I exercise, it gets the right chemicals going in the body, it resets my brain. It’s the plumb line. If I get out of balance, go get on the bike, go pedal it out, and getting on the bike too much can be out of balance too. You go that way. It’s like, “I never see Dave. He is always on the bike.” It’s always about finding the balance. When am I out of balance? Again, you find that in community, people that know you.

When I say people that know you, it’s the lifelong relationships. People that you’re authentic with. They know everything about you. You let your hair down with them so they recognize your patterns over time. One of my earliest sponsors, we’re still good friends now. We go to breakfast every six weeks and he’s like, “Remember back in ’17?” He can recognize my pattern and go, “Yeah.” It sneaks up on my subconscious, if you will.

Speaking of exercising, occasionally, some will say, “Why don’t you just relax? You’re always working out.” Here’s the thing. Yes, I’m working out to be physically fit, but I need my workouts for the emotional, spiritual. Physical, mental. I need it for all the things. I work out pretty much every day. There are not many days that I don’t work out. If I don’t work out, I just feel a lot better when I do. It’s meditational, spiritual and keeps me grounded. It keeps me in a good space.

You and I both are on that same plan.

Yeah. It works. Either that or I’m going to end up at the bar.

Even if it’s out of balance, it’s still a healthier addiction. What are the byproducts? I’m going to feel good about myself.

I’ll tell you what, when I was doing Ironman, that was a little outbound. I’m grateful that I did that. It’s like a job, though. You’ve got to run when you don’t want to run, swim when you don’t want to swim, bike when you don’t want to bike. Get enough sleep, exercise, eat enough. There’s just so much to it. That was a bit excessive, and I am so glad that I did it.

I had to do it once.

Yeah. I did it twice.

You had to do it twice.

I did it my first year and then and I had a girl that I was dating and then I was like, “I’m so glad I’m done with that.” Two weeks later, I was like, “I think I can beat my time.” I signed up again and I told her that I signed up, and she looked at me and she’s like, “You did what?” That was the end of our relationship. It was never the same. She was not happy with me. If you want to stay in a relationship, you probably shouldn’t continue doing Ironman over and over.

With my cycling, I have a long-distance relationship for years now, which is coming to an end. She’s going to be moving here. I don’t get my weekend rides because every other weekend, I’m with her and the last thing I want to do is like, she shows up in town, “I’m going to go disappear for four hours on my bike.”

You didn’t get her into bikes yet?

No. We’ll see what happens when she gets here. We’ll slowly make that transition.

The Accidental Radio Star: Bumper To Bumper Radio

It works. Let’s see here. Let’s talk about the Automotive Therapist, which I think is funny. The Automotive Therapist and Bumper to Bumper Radio, which went on to become Arizona’s number one car talk show on KTAR. What inspired you to start a radio talk show about auto repair in the first place?

That is a really long story. It was completely by accident. The guy that was the host on KTAR, there’s been a car talk show at 11:00 for the last 40 years. KTAR has been in this valley for 100 years. Used to be that KTAR was on TV that was, I think, back in the day, 100 years ago. He and I didn’t get along. Essentially, he would actually badmouth me on the radio. Out of my going to radio relationships and saying, “This guy’s badmouthed me on the radio,” it worked out that way. “Do you know who can do it better?” I was like, “I do.” That’s how it happened. That’s a real Reader’s Digest version. He was literally hurting my business on the radio.

Did he have beef with you?

Yeah, he had a serious beef with me.

Was that for valid reason?

No.

Is it like one of those people who are not taking things personally, and he’s got something going on, I don’t know what it is?

Yeah. Throughout his career, he picked lots of enemies. That was one thing. I’m this young guy, up and coming, big personality and all that stuff. I think that sometimes, there’s ego thing that goes on. He did not like me. He had an automotive network of his approved shops from the radio and stuff like that. I was part of that. I formulated something called Auto Repair Good Guys, which was a 501(c)3. It was getting shops together. We would fix cars for Wounded Warriors and single moms or single dads. It was really cool. It really challenged his kingdom. That’s what happened.

The Automotive Therapist: Healing Cars And Souls

The Automotive Therapist, why did you decide to call yourself that?

I didn’t run that name for very long, but that’s what I am. I’m literally everyone that comes to when their car is broken down. It’s tragic. They’ve got to get to work. They’ve got kids to get to school. Not only that, I got twelve employees. Each one of them has their own world and everything going on. I’m rubbing shoulders over here to get cars fixed, talking to the customers. I looked at it, I’m like, “This is what I do all day long. I am a therapist,” whether it’s helping my employee work through something or helping a customer work through something, or my own therapy.

Seeing yourself in other people.

You really have to learn to set boundaries, all that stuff, because sometimes as the boss, you’ve got to be that guy, but at the same time, I’m a gentle guy. I just want to be everybody’s buddy. It’s a delicate balance between the two. Automotive therapist, that’s how that came to be.

How has being the Automotive Therapist helped your recovery?

Therapy’s just been in my forefront. When I think of all the modalities, in recovery, I’ve left no stone unturned so I’ve read all kinds of books, and personally, I’ve spent probably thousands of hours in therapy from that kid that was just out of control to having responsibility, an employee and a father now myself. Therapy was just part of life as far as just understanding myself.

What’s your favorite book?

The first book that I read, this is an old author that’s been gone for a long time, M. Scott Peck. Remember that guy? He wrote something called The Road Less Traveled. I think there’s a poem like that too. I read that book and that book really started my journey and then I read The Untethered Soul. I read that book and I was like, “This is great.” That was a game changer. The first time I set out to meditate, I had an out of body experience that changed my life. After that, I read The Surrender Experiment. That’s probably my favorite book. Same author.

I thought that was amazing.

Amazing book. I do the audiobook, and then he personally reads that one, so you get a little bit more feel for it. I enjoy it. I’ve actually read the physical book, but I like the audiobook. Every now and then, I need to tune up and I go listen to it.

I haven’t listened to that in a long time. Maybe I should go back and listen to it.

Every time you come back to a book, you’re going to see something different because you have a completely different frame of reference.

Each time you revisit a book, you'll discover something new, for your frame of reference has completely changed. Share on X

Yeah, it’s like you’re at a different time in your life, so you hear something different.

That’d be a favorite book, though.

Mind Over Labels: My Meditation Journey

Tell me about meditation. When did you start meditating? I know you have ADHD or they say you have ADHD, or you thought you had ADHD.

Yeah. Back in the day, that was one of my labels.

Your affirmation. Tell me about meditation. When did you get into it? How’d you get into it?

One of the things I did in recovery was I did this recovery retreat. There was like 10 to 12 guys that came in and out of the group. We got together three times a year. It was like three days of intense check-in and beating each other up. With love, of course. We challenged each other. Accountability. We always had a book to read, or a homework assignment. The book was to read The Untethered Soul. I was raised not to meditate because meditation was New Age. From the denomination of Christian, I was like, “New Age is bad,” growing up in the ‘80s. We didn’t meditate.

I read this book and he talked a lot about meditation. He said, “We’re not our mind. We’re not our body. We’re further back. We’re the observer.” It was a good book. I picked it up. I read it, and I felt a little guilty. We talked about guilty, it’s going to be some unhealthy guilt. I felt guilty about reading it because it was a little bit outside of my upbringing. I read the book, and then I went to the first retreat, and I show up, and they were like, “We’re going to meditate for 30 minutes. We’ve got this guided meditation.” This guy with this Indian accent that sounded really smart and really spiritual. We listened, and it was like the most peaceful thing ever. I fell asleep and I slept for 29 minutes because 1 minute in, I was gone.

Was it laying down meditation?

I was sitting up. I got home after that retreat, and I said to myself, “I really want to meditate.” I didn’t know how to meditate at all. I sat down on my floor in my office at my house, and I just closed my eyes. I just said to myself, “I’m not my mind. I’m not my body. I’m further back.” Literally, within seconds, I’ve been chasing this experience since, I’ve never had it again, but I was gifted by the universe with this experience. I dropped into my core. In my core, I was this ball of amazing white light.

This whole time, I was kicked out of school, always in trouble, ADHD is an affirmation. Here I am, seeing myself as this ball of white light without this flesh. I was like, “I’m beautiful on the inside.” I was literally blown away. It wasn’t like my thinking mind, it was an observing mind that was having this observation of myself with this ball of brilliant white light. I realized that I was beautiful and I wasn’t defective. There was nothing wrong with me. Back to our self-hatred conversation. I sat there and it was complete bliss. I was in it for a little while, and then I realized I wasn’t alone. I realized there was something else. If a ball of white light could turn and look, that’s what I did.

I turned and looked, and there was a ball of white light that was about 100 times bigger than me. That was God or that was source. I remember coming out of that. When I came out of it, I was like, “I’ve been told not to meditate and God’s been here the whole time. I could have just done this.” It literally was so impactful, it changed my whole being. It took me three months to put my feet back on the ground. It was that impactful. There was that experience, and that was like a metaphysical and esoteric meditation.

I would call that one meditation. I’ve had some other amazing experiences meditating, but nothing on that scale. I got an app called Headspace. I don’t if you’ve heard of this app. I started to get meditation practices, one of those deals. “You’ve meditated for two days straight now. Look at that. Way to go. You meditated for three days straight now.”

I did that for a complete year. Every day I woke up, and I would vary between 5-minute and 10-minute meditations, but he’d give you little tips, little videos. “Your thoughts are like clouds. They just float on by, you don’t have to attach to them. You don’t have to follow them.” He would say, “If you’re up on top of the ocean and it’s really stormy, if you swim down deep, it’s nice and quiet.” I learned to do that.

I would listen to people like Pema Chodron. She would talk about meditation, and I started reading books about meditation. I really fell in love with it. What that did for me was that compulsive instant reaction or impulsive reaction is that I was able to pause from meditation. Rather than go down a destructive path, I can pause and say, “I don’t want that. I’m going to feel guilt, and I’m not going to enjoy that. It’s going to ruin the rest of my day. Why would I do that?”

I could pause just long enough. For my addiction, that was a big deal, meditation. It’s the first thing I tell a sponsee. “Do you meditate?” “No. My mind’s way too busy.” How many times you heard that? “No, there’s no way I could do that.” I recommend Headspace. “Do some headspace.” How did you get into meditation?

I think just being in recovery. I’ve been in recovery since 2011, and I don’t remember exactly, but people in the rooms of AA talked about meditation. My meditation started with 1 minute or 3 minutes. I’ve done things like Headspace and there are a few other apps. Recently, when we went to that same Joe Dispenza retreat, that was the first time I’d ever done like a two-hour meditation. Are you kidding me? There’s no way I could do a two-hour meditation. That retreat was the very first time where I ever got to a place of complete blank.

I don’t know if you experienced that as well. No thoughts. It was so amazing to get to a place of no thoughts. I still struggle. I’m still doing the Joe Dispenza meditations. I did one this morning. I did Changing Boxes. It’s a 28-minute meditation that I did. That’s a good one. He’s got a pineal gland meditation.

Do you remember the pineal gland? Pineal gland is amazing. Talk about really getting yourself to a place of bliss. At the seven-day Joe Dispenza retreat, there was one. Every morning, the meditation started at 6:00 AM, except for the one day it started at 4:00 AM. The 4:00 AM meditation was five hours long. How do you do a five-hour long meditation?

I know, especially when you couldn’t even do one when you started.

You couldn’t even do one-minute. I do my best to meditate for at least ten minutes every morning. That’s how I do it. Sometimes I’ll use an app. Sometimes it’ll just be quiet. Sometimes I’ll listen to like a Ram Dass, sitting by the fire.

That’s so nice.

Yes. I love it. I don’t know if I’ve really connected the dots to meditation being the reason why I’m able to pause when agitated or doubtful, but one of the best things I’ve learned how to do is to not react and just pause and just sit and play the tape forward. How is this going to land? How am I going to feel on the other side of this if I say this thing, or if I take this action? That helps me so much because at the end of the day, like we talked about earlier, I just want to feel good.

You can see into the future when you can pause. You’re like, “Yeah, that’s how that plays out. That’s not good.”

“Hold on. This is what I really want to say. I really want to throw this dagger,” and it never works out.

In my old relationship, we would have these fights. I would come to her and I would say, “This hurt me,” or like, “This is going on.” Oftentimes, she was very defensive and crazy making. What happened was, she’d be crazy making, and then I would go crazy. It all became about my behavior, not her. Not what started the conversation. When I started to see it, we could actually get somewhere because she would point it to all the things I did wrong and say, “That’s great. I wish you would’ve said something then, but right now, what we’re talking about is what we’re talking about.” I could stay in the conversation and not lose my shit.

You feel, “Maybe I’m not happy here.” That’s what happened. It was good for her as well. We literally talked to each other like, “You were my best teacher.” She’s like, “Yeah, you were my best teacher too.” Meditation was like that, not having to run with that impulsive thought to throw a dagger. For me, there was a point in time I used to punch holes in the walls. I had an anger and a rage problem. Going back to my mom, my mom was a rager. Right now, it’s like if somebody was mad at me at traffic, I’m just waving or just go about my day. I used to be like I could road rage with them. This is a really brilliant idea. Let’s fighting traffic with cars.

I’ll tell you what. There’s a guy that I know of who passed. He got shot four times. This is the guy, he’s in recovery. I just think playing the tape forward is one of the best things you can learn how to do for someone early in recovery. Learn how to play the tape forward, learn how to meditate, learn how to just sit and pause before you take action. This guy, he’s got a huge ego. He was in a parking lot at Home Depot, and there was another guy in another car who was on his tail or something like that. He decides to get out of the car and approached this guy. He’s a big guy, too. The guy in the car had a gun and shot him four times.

Pretty much a non-event if he would’ve just gone about his way. That guy’s in a hurry.

I’m sorry for that. I hope he has a better day. You know Bill Goodwin. That’s what he says, “Man, I hope you have a better day. I hope he has a better day. I hope your day gets better,” which is just an easier way to respond and I know I’m not going to get shot.

You bypass all that if you played the tape forward. I wish I would’ve learned to play the tape forward a long time ago.

You had to go through what you had to go through.

Exactly.

The Power Of Psychedelics In Recovery: A Journey To Self-Discovery

Let me see if I have any other questions. We’ve gone through a lot of stuff. Do you think psychedelics have a place in recovery?

Absolutely.

Tell me about your experience.

I’m one of these people in life, I just feel guided. Nothing happens by accident for me. Psychedelics is something I would’ve never considered, ever. Just not on my radar. I’m like, “Those people, whatever.”

The hippies in the ‘70s, LSD. Not to mention your religious upbringing.

Big no-no. It happened to me on a bike ride. I’m on the bike ride. Somebody on the bike ride’s like, “I got something for you.” “Okay, sure.” “Here you go.” “What’s that?” These are micro doses. “Alright, thanks, I guess.” I put it in my pocket. What am I going to do with that?

Psilocybin microdose?

Yeah. I don’t want it, but either way, I never turn down a gift. I’m like, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

When was this?

This was a few years ago. Maybe like six weeks later, same guy. “I got something for you.” “Okay.” “Here you go.” I’m like, “What’s this?” He goes, “This is like six tenths of a gram. A little bit more of an experience.” “Thank you.”

Did you take the microdoses?

No, I just put them in a cabinet. I have zero desire to do this but I appreciated that he thought of me with his microdoses. Thank you. I go to my son’s baseball game that night. I didn’t ask for this. This dad comes in. Another dad. I’ve known this guy for years. Our sons have played baseball for years. He comes and puts his arm around me. “Dave, have you ever you ever consider mushrooms?” Same morning I just got six tenths of a gram. I’m like, “No, Jim.” I was appalled. I wouldn’t ever consider it but they’re in my pocket.

I was like, “No.” He goes, “Very consciousness expanding. Great. Well noted.” For me, things come to me like in threes. I didn’t do anything with that. That weekend, I had a life coach that I worked with, and we had taken a break for several months, and we got back together and she goes, “What do you want to work on?” I said, “I want to work on intuition development.” She goes, “Okay. Do you know what helped me with that? Mushrooms.” I’m like, “It’s written on my forehead.” She goes, “I am not qualified to take you down that journey. You need to find somebody. It’s not me, but yeah, mushrooms.”

Here I am on Instagram and pops up in my Instagram feed. Here’s someone that could be a guide. I went and met her, and I’m like, “I could lose my shit with you.” We met another time. A very smart lady. I felt very connected. She was very comfortable. She described the protocol to me. She has a Master’s in Psychology and Art Therapy, and that was her thing. Not a licensed person, but had done a lot of work herself. It was obvious. We set it up. There’s a ten-day diet leading up to it.

Anything good, you don’t get. No weed, no coffee, no alcohol, no dairy, no pork. When you’re going through that ten-day process, what happens is whatever you need to deal with starts to come to the surface. We talk about numbing out. Numbing out keeps us from dealing with what we need to deal with. For ten days, you start to get agitated, irritable, you’re in that place. I feel like the veil thins out in that process. By the time it was mushroom day, it was fast all morning until time. She showed up and we did it. It was the most profound experience. I can still vividly remember everything about that journey.

It was six hours long before she said goodbye. She said, “No cell phone, no nothing for the next 24 hours. Just journal.” I journaled and journaled some more. Very profound. We had meetings before. We had meetings afterwards to integrate. Everything that I learned, I went over my journals with her and everything like that. What that did for me was if you want to see into your shadows, into your blind spots, mushrooms will show you that. If you want to learn how to self-soothe, mushrooms will show you that. There are different types and my particular blend was great. It really opened up that third eye or pineal gland. It was profound.

 

I would say it would be like a year’s worth of therapy in six hours. Not only that, when you’re done, one week in, you’re still processing. Two weeks in, you’re processing more. You’re still integrating for the next several months. Three months later, I’m still thinking about that first but I did that every 6 weeks for 18 months. I tried some other medicines, some other psychedelics. They were all beneficial. She was my guide. She would take me through it. It was all done with a blindfold hold on. It wasn’t like I’m going to go do mushrooms. It’s not a party. It’s hard work.

We’re not talking about some people have microdose or six tenths of a gram for a little bit more experience. This is like six grams of mushrooms. A hero’s dose. I had no idea what I was doing but I trusted her. She knew what she was doing. She’s one of my closest friends. We’ve been on a lot of journeys together and we’re the point where when we’re in ceremony, I know what she’s thinking. She knows what I’m thinking. We can read each other’s thoughts. It’s cool. It really turbocharged my recovery, my healing journey. I think in the last journey I did, I did it by myself. I told her I wanted to do it by myself.

I got together with her. I said, “I want to do a journey on my own, but I don’t want help. I need to learn, because you’re there. You can hold my hand if I get into a bad place but by myself, I have to hold my own hand.” I think recovery sometimes is about being in that hard space and being able to take care of yourself and self-soothe and move past whatever you’re working through. That journey was probably one of the most profound.

Everyone has a different experience. There are some mushrooms. It’s just rainbows and unicorns and everything is lovely, depending on what it is. I had to learn to self-soothe. I came out of that one a different person. It totally changed my world.

What would you say to a person who’s interested in learning more about it? Especially people in recovery from alcohol or drugs. How can you treat a drug with a drug? What would you say to that? What would you say to the person that’s curious?

Treating a drug with a drug just like Adderall. Treating a drug with a drug. The nice thing about it is mushrooms are not synthetic. They’re a part of, part of Mother Earth. Look at indigenous tribes and how they use medicines and stuff like that. I think it’s maybe a different drug. Maybe it’s like drinking herbal tea. It does something for you. Everything we do changes our chemistry. I get that it could be scary. I’m a I’m a drug addict. Why am I going to touch a drug? I think in the right scenario, in a therapeutic setting, and I think that’s what I had. It was a therapeutic setting with care and all that stuff.

It’s the intention. It’s a setting. Are you eating mushrooms to go have a good time at a concert just to screw around? It’s the journaling before, it’s the intention, it’s the prayer, it’s the meditation. It’s really like, do I want to do some deeper work?

I think I would struggle to do that psilocybin recreationally. I tried it once. I didn’t like it. For me, all it is, is work. It’s a beautiful thing because I have these. My journeys can be really intense as I’m coming into the medicine. There are even times I look at her, I go, “Why do I even do this to myself?” It can be so intense, all the feelings. I really got a good understanding of my rage. I got a good understanding of my control. These things that held me back, the limitations that I could surrender, but then I’m there. There’s a God moment that you almost always come into, which is total peace. When you go back into real life, you get to borrow from those hard moments and say, “I’ve been through worse than this.”

You can’t do anything about it. I’m at the height of just discomfort, and I can’t do anything about it. On the other side of that discomfort is peace. I know that, and I borrow from that. I think that’s the way addiction or relapse or whatever. There’s a build of anxiety, and it builds and builds. At some point, you think you’re going to die if you don’t succumb to this drink. You get up to here and you think you’re going to explode. When you don’t do it, you come down the other side and you’re like, “I didn’t die.”

It may be a phone call at the top to get you past it. That curve, it tends to flatten out. There are tools. When you show up, you’re powerless to the addiction. Really, you learn to govern yourself through the process. When you’re at the beginning, “I’m completely powerless over this.” As you get into it, you’re like, “No, I’m not powerless. I can make a phone call. There are things I can do. I’m going to call Tim. I’m going to go on a bike ride. I’m going to do something other than what’s going to be destructive. I’m going to play the tape forward. I don’t want that.”

Embracing Authenticity: Finding My True Self In Midlife

In your personal writings, you’ve talked about finally learning to be true to yourself in midlife, saying, “The beauty of midlife is finally deciding to be me after years of trying to fit in.” Can you tell us more about that realization?

Yeah. When you come to the planet, immediately, you show up, look like this, do this. You don’t read the mastery itself. Don Miguel Ruiz.

I have not read that, but I’ve heard about it. It’s on my list.

You show up and you’re taught. You show up needy because you need to be fed, and vulnerable because you can’t do anything about it. These people that feed you and take care of you and grow you up, and even the culture grows us, our immediate culture being our family, but the culture grows us too, is that we are all striving to have community and to feel welcome and to be a part of something.

Somewhere along the line, we just play a role. We throw on a costume to fit in so that we’re accepted because we need community. I want to feel welcome, and we are a pack animal. Somewhere along the line, whether we know it or not, we abandon our true identity to fit in so that we are incongruent with who we are. If I was in my family, the way I was raised, the values that my parents placed on me, some of them fit me, some of them didn’t.

Basically, you’re domesticated by your parents, your siblings, your aunts, your uncles, your coaches, your teachers.

One of the things that I always thought to myself was I’m not a creative person. That’s one of the things that I believe has to happen in recovery. You have to do something creative. I was like, “I’m not creative.” That was my affirmation.

That’s the first thing I think when I hear that.

I told a guy that I work with, I said, “I’m not creative.” He goes, “You’re not creative? You built this business. You’re an independent transmission shop and you’ve built a brand. You’re not a chain with marketing and all this stuff, and you’ve been able to do it. That’s creative.” I picked up a camera and I started taking pictures, and I started to write, and I started to learn my creativity. I started making decisions that more aligned with who I was and what I wanted to be. We talk about discomfort sitting by ourselves. That’s where we could act out because we’re uncomfortable. If we’re not living as ourselves, and we’re not feeding and nurturing our soul the way it was meant to be nurtured, we’re going to be uncomfortable.

The more in line with our values of who we are, and maybe value is not the right word, but in line with what it is we want to be. I always say it like this. There’s who we are, and there’s who we think we are. Those are two different things. Everything in between here and here is stress because if I think I’m this, but I’m really this. I’m always trying to be that and I can’t be that because I’m not that. I’m stressed out all the time. Everything in between here is a drink.

There's who we are, and there's who we think we are. Share on X

Neither of these is wrong. Really, some of the things I aspire to be are great, but I move this a little bit more into reality as I’m mature. At the same time, I grow and I’m able to come closer. This is maturity here. In midlife is I don’t want to do that. I don’t like that. I’m not interested in that. Where before I would go along to get along. That may happen in a relationship, or may happen in whatever our cultural surroundings were. I used to go hang out with people I couldn’t stand. I would just do it. I would do it because I just thought that was the right thing to do.

Yeah, I just always wanted fit in. I wanted people to like me. Tell me I’m okay because I didn’t have that growing up. I thought I was bad. I was defective. Tell me I’m okay. I was seeking outside of me validation all the time as opposed to just being me. When you’re just you, it’s like putting out a bat signal to the universe. Guess what happens when you become you? People show up. It’s a bat signal. It’s just what happens.

The right people show up.

The right people show up. You’re like, “When I spend time with you, I’m fed, I’m filled. I feel better as a person. I enjoy it.” That’s it. It’s like I am literally hanging out with somebody I want to hang out with versus hanging out with who I think I should hang out with.

It’s like you attract what you are. If I come across authentic, the authentically me, I’m going to attract people that are more like me, which is what I like.

Yes. It’s amazing how it happens. I got this new friend, Vernon. He and I met in the airport. I sat down getting a drink before I get on the plane. He’s next to me and we start talking. He’s into photography. He’s in a video. I’m like, “You are my guy.” He’s this guy that has this big, gentle heart. I’m like, “This is my people.” We’re hanging out. We’re good friends. You attract what you are.

Become authentic and what shows up? Authentic people. Become an a-hole, what shows up? A-holes. Share on X

I don’t know if it’s like a universal thing. As I say, put out the bat signal. Become authentic and what shows up? Authentic people. Become an a-hole, what shows up? A-holes. Who do you want to hang out with? I’ve got to go deal with me. The other thing too is that the last part of my recovery is self-love. What is self-love? Massages and selfies? What is his self-love? Really coming to the place, and I think mushrooms help me with that. Coming to a place where I can really see my beauty.

How did mushrooms help you with that?

They just put you in a space where you can see it all. You can find your beauty, you can find the richness in who you are. Through those journeys, like each journey teaches you something new. In those ten days, that mushroom is intelligent. At least I make up in my mind. It’s intelligent. It gives you what you need. That self-love piece is the only love that will never leave you because we have relationships may come and go, we want to be accepted, we don’t want to be rejected. We take exception here or take exception there to fit in and to receive love and be part of that community.

When you love yourself, no matter what happens out here, that’s the only love that can never be taken away from you. I love myself. I’m fine. I’m fine with or without it. Anything beyond my own love is just a bonus. When you can see that as a bonus, great. You’re not always valid for people like you and I’ve spent a lifetime at doing that. Have you ever heard the term people pleaser? I know you have.

 

Of course.

Yeah. I go around pleasing the world, not pleasing myself. There is parts to serving. I like serving people, but in some ways, that’s my own self-care. If I get out of my own brain, I serve people, I just love myself more. It feels good.

I think serving people is different than people pleasing too. I don’t know if there’s a fine line, but it’s like, am I being of service or am I letting someone cross my boundaries? I think that’s the key, I guess.

I think that’s the work. That’s the wrestle between these dualities that we work with.

Beyond Rock Bottom: Gratitude And Growth In Addiction Recovery

What was your rock bottom?

I think we all have more than one. I’ve had more than one, but early on it was really realizing I wasn’t who I wanted to be. Later in life, I really worked recovery, back to my issue being sex. I worked recovery to save a marriage. I spent some time in active addiction and was okay with it. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing because I had to learn to love myself at my worst place. Even though I was in an active addiction, at the time, I didn’t think it was active addiction. I thought maybe I bullshitted myself. Sometimes we can do that.

You were the last person to know.

Yeah. I just I realized that I did it and I love my self through that process. Some of that self-hatred, some of that self-love is like, “This is where I’m at. I’m still going to choose to love me because I’ve never beat myself up to a better place,” and we beat ourselves up. It’s only a flash in the pan. It’s the work underneath. I did come to a place of self-love, but when I realized that if I didn’t deal with my addiction, and I played the tape forward, it was going to be a lonely life, and it was a life that I didn’t want. I saw it straight.

Anything I missed? Any other questions I should have asked you?

No, not at all. I think we covered it pretty well, but. It definitely is a journey. I would say the gratitude of addiction recovery is that when my mother passed away, I had 14 guys from recovery. No one knew they were from my recovery. They were just my friends. It’s my friend and we know each other from Bill. It was like, these are all people that know me. I’ve let my hair down with them. They know me at my worst, and they’re there and they love me and they support me. I have so much gratitude, and it sounds like I have gratitude for the addiction because it forced me to be real and authentic.

Without that, I don’t know that I would’ve pursued real relationships. It’s like multiple sclerosis. I smoked a pack a day when I was diagnosed. I quit smoking. I look back on MS and it’s been a beautiful thing because it forced me to learn to take care of myself. It got me to exercise. It moved me. When things move us, they’re good things, and you can be grateful for them. Even though there’s plenty of not pretty in there. There are days you’re like, “That was a tough one. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.” On this side of it, you can look back with gratitude.

It’s like, life happens for me, not to me. Just knowing that everything happens for a reason now happens exactly the way that it’s supposed to. It’s like when you’re going through tough things, it’s not fun. On the other side, there’s always relief, to my experience.

Yes, for sure.

Dave, how can people find you? How can they learn more about you if they want to connect or whatever?

Instagram is the way I connect with everybody. Instagram is @Dave.Riccio. You can find me that way, for sure.

Awesome. Dave, it’s been awesome to have you here. I really enjoyed getting to learn more about you and I’m sure I’ll see you on the bike soon.

For sure. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. I’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Dave Riccio
• Tri-City Transmission and Auto Repair
• Bumper to Bumper Radio
• The Untethered Soul
• The Body Keeps the Score
• The Road Less Traveled
• The Surrender Experiment
• Dave Riccio on Instagram

 

About Dave Riccio

Dave is an ASE Certified Technician and has been in the automotive industry for over 20 years. He got his start working on cars by helping out his grandpa fix the family vehicle. When he got his first a car, a Jeep, he was hooked.

Dave loves working at Tri-City because he loves people. From customers, to employees, to vendors, Dave enjoys interacting with people. His goal is to influence his corner of the world for the positive.

In his spare time Dave enjoys mountain biking and spending time with his family.