Turo Virta: 1:08

Welcome back to the Fit Me Turo Fitness podcast. We often talk on this show about habits, discipline, consistency, and taking care of your health. But what happens when the problem goes much deeper than simply needing a better routine? What happens when the identity you build your life around starts falling apart, and the ways you use to cope begin taking more from you than they give. My guest today is Edra Vansil, a singer, songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and recovery advocate. Whose story includes early success in music, addiction, depression, broken relationships, and eventually rebuilding his life, marriage, family, and creative work. Eso has now been so perforated for more than decade, and his story is not really about becoming perfect. It's about acceptance, starting again, rebuilding trust, and learning to live differently after the life you thought you were going to have no longer exists. Today we are talking about identity, addiction, recovery, self-forgiveness, relationships, creativity, and what it actually takes to rebuild yourself after everything falls apart. Esra, welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to have you here.

Unknown: 2:27

Turo, thank you so much. I'm glad to be on today.

Turo Virta: 2:30

Awesome, but before we talk about recovery, take us back to the beginning and what did success look like to you when you were young?

Unknown: 2:43

Yeah, when I was young, I I grew up in a music family, and as a teenager, I got into a band, and it's kind of like the movies. We were making an album, and and someone called somebody in Hollywood in L.A. and they flew down. And within a few months, we were signed. So I was like this poor small town kid, and suddenly L.A. was involved, money was involved, success. You know, I kind of we we just kind of went hog wild with the normal things that you would think of, like a rock and roll overdose. We we did it, we did everything, and in fact, we did so much of the the you know sex, drugs, and rock and roll that we didn't get around to making the album we're supposed to be making. So we got dropped after a year. So I kind of had this mediocre rise. It was it was about to blow up, and then it just completely fell apart with no other plan. This was my plan. I actually dropped out of high school to be a rock star. I had nothing else. I had no other plan, and it just fell out. And there I was. I was married. I married the photographer of the band, and I had a kid on the way. And it was, it was just kind of like what now? And so my my success was kind of a few years of just blowing up, a blank check, just partying limousines and big hotels, and then just gone.

Turo Virta: 4:08

Wow! Wow!

Unknown: 4:10

Yeah, yeah.

Turo Virta: 4:11

And that was how old you were at the time. I was

Unknown: 4:15

night. That started happening when I was 19, going on 20.

Turo Virta: 4:20

So it was you got like those opportunities in quite early age, I would say, all right, and yes. But then, how much of your identity became became tied to being a musician and being successful?

Unknown: 4:36

Yeah, so much of it. In fact, I probably spent the rest the next 20 years trying to claw my way back to that place. You know, the people that I align with the most when I tell my story and talk to people. It's funny is is guys that were real big in football in high school. They were stars when they were young, and then the rest of their life they kind of feel like they've missed the boat. They missed the opportunity, and they're always trying to find some kind of place. So, I you know moving on from there, I feel like I could never let go of that identity. I I blew up a marriage, you know, in my 20s, and and music started doing well again. I got signed again in my late 20s, but at the cost of my entire life, my health, I was drinking just heavily just to to just get up every day and do this, and kind of felt like I was just walking against all of the world. It was like the world, and my whole life was going this way, but I was going to walk this way, and that against you know I had children at this point, and I just kept going for what I thought my life was supposed to look like. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 5:49

and what was that? At what point did an alcohol change from being something you used socially into something that was controlling your life?

Unknown: 6:01

Yeah, it started. You know, I I really enjoyed. Alcohol actually helped my life. I think in my early 20s, it got out of control at parties every once in a while. But through my early 20s, I still kind of I maybe had a problem compared to my friends, but nothing evident in my life. It didn't affect me. I could drink, I could binge even, but I could come back and go to work, and I could do things I needed to do. When I went through a divorce, and I was probably in my late 20s, 29 years old, it's like I just walked off a cliff with alcohol. Alcohol had become over those years what I reached for for every kind of solution for whether I needed to go up or down, any kind of emotions that were uncomfortable, sex life, everything, alcohol, and I had some drugs in there too, but mainly alcohol for me is I would reach for to change my chemistry to feel a way that I was used to feeling, and then I would say in my 30s, I just became just a daily drinker and really just trying to drink myself off this earth, trying to end

Turo Virta: 7:11

it. And was there one moment when you knew that I cannot keep living like this?

Unknown: 7:21

Oh my gosh! Yeah. Well, I wish it would have came sooner, but it was. I was so this. That was 30 when I started drinking daily. 40 is when I had that moment, and I had so many consequences in between. I got a felony, I got my kids taken away, and it's like none of the consequences would stop me. But one night when I was right, you know, just about to turn 40, I was woke up from a blackout, and I had a phone in my hand, and I looked down, and there was just a wall of text of blabbery nonsense. And then every once in a while, as I scrolled, I saw my son, who was about 13 or 14, saying, "Dad, please stop. Why are you doing this? And I just something just crushed inside of me, and I said, "I can't. I can't be this anymore. And what's funny is, you know, I blame my dad for a lot of stuff. I still had all this anger about my dad, and I thought, you know, at least I love my kid. I tried to keep all this hidden from him, which was a joke. I didn't, but I just realized now, now I'm a monster. My dad was nothing compared to me, and I just decided, you know, and I had one of those. They call it a foxhole prayer. I was not religious at this time. I didn't tried not to even say I believed in any kind of God or anything. But I prayed, and I said, "Whatever's up there, I'll do anything. I just don't want to be this person anymore. And it all changed that next day.

Turo Virta: 8:48

Wow! Wow! Because that

Unknown: 8:50

started changing.

Turo Virta: 8:51

Yeah. Of course, one thing I'm very interested is in is identity. So, who did you think you were before everything fell apart?

Unknown: 9:04

Wow! Before it all fell apart, I was a man that had missed his opportunity and wasted his life, and now I was washed up. So I was a loser, you know. I, in fact, I mean, I won't go too much in it, but I mean, I was trying to take my life because I, I, I kind of looked at it. I don't know a better term, but scientifically, I had screwed up so bad that I didn't have enough time in the rest of my life to get back on track. Because how does somebody screw up for 20 years? It would take me 20 more years. I'd be my 70s before I even had kind of a monicum of normalcy in my life. So in my head it was like it's too late, you know. Just just in this thing, so that's who I thought I was. I was, you know, I I only had one choice. I had to be an artist and a musician. That was my identity, and I had failed. And so goodbye. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 10:04

and what then happens physiologically when the identity you have relied being musician on stops working,

Unknown: 10:14

yeah. Well, it started working, stopped working really bad because during those last years of drinking, I would fall off stages. Nobody would play with me anymore, so my music career just died, and and it's kind of a beautiful thing that I needed it to die, and I needed to just be left with just the human Ezra, you know, just me, just being a human on the floor, just really screwed up, without any people applauding, without saying it. People tell me I'm great, and just looked at the reality of myself, and so, you know, I needed it to fall apart. And I would say, as it started falling apart, I lost the one thing that I was still holding on to. And so, when music was gone, there there was nothing left. I had not identified as anything else.

Turo Virta: 11:05

Yeah. And when then you stop drinking, and when you stop drinking, did you immediately feel better, or did sobriety initially force you to face things you had been avoiding?

Unknown: 11:23

Oh my goodness! No, I didn't. Let's let's put it this

way: 11:26

It's it's interesting because I had made these proclamations, like these promises that I would stop 100 times, you know, before this moment. But this one, I don't know what was different about it, except that the next morning I woke up and I took action. I didn't think about it too much. I just went out and I I went to a recovery group. Is what I did that next day. And so, what came with me? I had all kinds of depression to the moment I went to bed. Just straight panic attack all day. So I mean, I was crippled in like emotional pain. That didn't stop, but something did change, which was I knew that I was not staying here, and it didn't really matter if my body was in pain, if I whatever I felt didn't matter. I knew I was not going to stay here, no matter what, because I, I had like made a decisive. You know, decision means to cut, to split. Incision is to put together decisions. I had split something and said, I don't care what I feel right now. I'm not living right here anymore, and so all that pain and all the panic and anxiety, it strangely didn't bother me because my entire world-I mean, my career was getting off alcohol. I cared nothing else about anything.

Turo Virta: 12:59

And who you think you were when you could no longer use alcohol to escape?

Unknown: 13:08

We. You know that's an interesting thing. Is when you go into a recovery group like a 12, they call themselves what? There's tons of 12 step groups. Oh, that's what they are. So I say I'm an alcoholic. My and a lot of people don't like that because they don't like putting that identity, but my identity needed to be that right then. I needed to say the reality of what my life had become. So that actually was my identity in those early days. I'm an alcoholic who's learning not to drink, and it allowed me to focus just there and not on my career, not on music, not on what I, you know, money. I'm an alcoholic. I need to deal with this. It's like saying I'm a diabetic, and nothing's going to change until I start dealing with this. I'm going to die, and so I actually just got rid of the normal idea of an identity, and that's the identity I became was the disease that I was fighting?

Turo Virta: 14:11

Because you also talk a lot about acceptance as strength. So, what does that mean to you?

Unknown: 14:22

Acceptance is-it's an incredible tool, and it's not an easy one. I would say my first years were just so much of of learning to accept my life, and it's not like like I didn't ever like the idea of acceptance because that's like give up, and it's not that at all. It's really just kind of looking and accepting what is right now, even if it's not a good thing, I have to accept that it is my reality right now, and that I have to face it and I have to deal with it. And so, when I do that, especially with other people and situations in my life, and I accept that they are today what they are, and then I can look at what do I actually have power over right now, and I can quit all the the messy noodles, spaghetti brain of trying to figure it out, or get angry at it, or resent it, and I can turn all that power of my attention into what's something I can do about that today. What's the one thing I have power, and I can't do that unless I accept it. Because accepting it is kind of removing the emotional attachment to it and going, "Okay, you are, you exist, you are in my life. You know, what what what can I do?

Turo Virta: 15:40

Yeah, and was there something you had to stop fighting before you could actually Start recovering.

Unknown: 15:49

That that I had to stop fighting.

Turo Virta: 15:51

Yeah.

Unknown: 15:53

Well, I mean, I totally gave up ambitions of music. I gave up. I really kind of quit fighting that I had to be anything other than what I. Today, and once again, that doesn't take away like dreams I have or goals I want to be, but I had to stop fighting anything that would say you're not okay today. You know, because I was a mess back then when I got sober. I was smoking like three packs a day. I got overweight really quick, and I had to accept and actually be okay with this. Is who you are today? That's okay. I could be comfortable, and so I had to really stop fighting myself. It's funny because if you hung around me at that time, you would hear you'd think I was insane. It probably was because I've talked to myself, and if I talked really mean to myself in my head, which I would do constantly back then, I would stop it, and then I would say,"Forgive me. I'm sorry. I wanted to start treating myself like I would treat, be civil to anybody else. I would never talk to anybody the way that I talked to myself. So I would stop it in its tracks and go, "Forgive me, and that would kind of stop fighting myself because myself was my worst enemy, you know.

Turo Virta: 17:09

Yeah. No, and that is very common. And I I see it in in fitness people when we talk. Like of course we all have that kind of self talk, and and when it comes to food or anything, people they tell themselves that no, you know, you idiot, you ruined everything you have done, whatever. And then, like the best thing, what I I always tell the people that would you tell that to your best friend that you something? No, probably not. Then stop using those words to yourself.

Unknown: 17:48

That's right. Yeah, that's. I believe, you know, it's kind of a a belief of mine that I should be civil with myself and with my family, like I would be with him. That I don't get a right to treat myself bad or anybody in my family just because they're my family. And you know another thing I do with that self-talk is you know and I'm I'm human. Sometimes I let it go on too long and it starts dragging me down. But I always this is something that was so hard for me back then. But I reach out to people regularly, and I tell on myself. That's what I just go tell on myself. And I have people I trust that I can call and say, "Man, I have been in my head all day, just beating the shit out of myself. I'm sorry, I don't know if you cuss. No,

Turo Virta: 18:33

yeah,

Unknown: 18:34

okay, but but I tell them myself, and what's funny is after a conversation with somebody, we laugh usually about. I'll tell them things that I'm doing or saying in my head. We'll laugh about it because they do. They know what I mean, and I put that phone down and I feel better. And so, kind of like a a steam pot, you got to pull the steamer out and tell telling yourself, tell somebody what's going on in your life. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 19:01

and that's why I think that accountability. It can be friendly. It can be coach. It can be. It's so crucial that you are not going through these those thoughts only in your own mind. That you have somebody to share them with, and then you can either laugh about them or somebody else is telling you that now, Ezra, stop that shit. What you are just telling that this is not true.

Unknown: 19:25

Yes. Yeah. So it's it's really good. There's, I just I was gonna add some to that because I heard this. I don't know where I heard this, but it's so good. Is when we give ourselves when you we talk to ourselves and give ourselves advice, switch ourselves to a third person to a friend.

Turo Virta: 19:43

Yeah,

Unknown: 19:44

and you know because a friend will give us good advice or a coach, and we give good advice when people call us, but we don't give that to ourselves. So switch yourself to somebody else and say, "What would I tell a friend? How would I speak to a friend about this?

Turo Virta: 19:57

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's a very good advice. And question something I want to talk is about Rebuilding self-trust because obviously you you had after years of addiction you broke so many promises what you made to yourselves and this is something what I see a lot people you know you make in fitness world you know it can be with alcohol now I stop drinking it can be that I start to move more or or eat healthier, whatever. But it's often it's very hard. It's not going to be easy. But how do you start trusting yourself again?

Unknown: 20:46

I would say the biggest impact with that is going and taking care of the a lot of the things I was ashamed of, and doing what I could to remove those because I think that's what it is. I'll always have that problem. I um. I always have this problem of trusting myself because I'll tell myself I'm going to do something and I don't do it, and sometimes I'll do that a lot, but I can overcome that with just you know with a lot of different things. But I can't overcome it if there's like this whole foundation of a life of and of things that I'm ashamed of in my life, and if people that I've hurt that I never, I have all these loose ends in my life, and this is something again. I think the recovery program helps a lot with this. Is that I had to go and like, there's there's a saying that I should be able to walk anywhere in the world with my head held high, and I couldn't do that at a time. There's parts of the my neighborhood I didn't want to go because I had hurt somebody or I'd done something wrong here, and I should do what I can do to fix those things. Not just say I'm sorry, but try to fix some of those things so that I can go anywhere with my head held high. And when I have that kind of confidence in myself. It's okay if I have a little season that's off where I've I've I've kind of done. It's kind of like my children. They have a season. They'll tell me, "Hey, I'll be there. I'll be there. And maybe they're going through something, and there's a month where they're just late all the time. Well, they started a new job. I don't just toss them off because I trust them, we have something that we understand. So I can do that with myself if the bigger, more the grosser, bigger things in my life are taken care of. And so I've spent years trying to, and I'm not perfect at this, going back into my past and trying to fix things, mostly with people that I hurt, things that I've taken, things that I've done wrong, and tried to, and that could be with therapy, that could be confronting some fears, confronting some people, and so that way, I have a confidence in my life that I never had before to face these these problems of trusting ourselves,

Turo Virta: 23:09

and curious to know what you think was in your case self trust repealed through big changes or very small actions.

Unknown: 23:28

Oh, it's it's really small. I mean, smaller you can get it. I think is is the better. I think there is a broad. You know, this is the talk of goals and everything. There's kind of a mission. There's a place I'm going, but to get there, you know, as as cliche as it sounds, it's about every little step it takes to get there, and something I try to center my life. And this is, you know, kind of a living in the now. This is something everybody is very popular now, but to actually live within a day and not worry about tomorrow, not worry about the past, but take care of what needs to be taken care of today. Is how change actually happens. There's there's a something of think trying to think our way out of problems. I think is the worst way. There's a place for thinking. It's about acting our way out of problems. So if I'm a lot of the the big things that we think we're going to do, they're all in our head. Actions are tiny; they're just little things we do every day. And so, I try to stay out of trying to make big plans in my head all the time. My day should be filled with actions. Actions are what matter to me, not what I thought up or an idea I had. Those can be written down and dealt with at the right time. What did I do? What did I actually do?

Turo Virta: 24:55

Yeah. Was there when you learned to trust yourself? Was there one promise you learned to keep yourself, like where did you get started?

Unknown: 25:13

I promise. Well, you know that's that's the thing. If if you can change one huge thing, like for me, it was drinking alcohol. Then I since then I quit smoking and I lost 50 pounds. I've restored my marriage. I've built a business. So there, there's these, you know, we call them juggernauts here. Juggernauts-they're the big blockade. If that can be knocked down, everything else-it's not that everything else was easy. They're all hard, but I don't doubt that I could do it. I really don't doubt I could do really anything I set my mind to do, because I've taken care of the one thing that I thought I could never overcome, and that's why I always say, spend. You know, if you've got a juggernaut, a big thing, that's where your focus needs to be. Because if you could change that one thing, and it might be smoking, it might be a bad diet. Be wait, the thing that you think you never would change, you have this power suddenly to change things you never thought possible, because you have a belief now that you can.

Turo Virta: 26:18

Yeah, yeah, I I couldn't agree more. Like this is, it's in in in my job coaching. Like, cause usually when people contact they contact me, they are highly motivated people. They want to have a change, and often, you know, it's hard to not know what all you need to do. Like if your goal is whatever, it's getting stronger, losing weight, whatever. There are so many things, and why then? I believe that people haven't been able to like if they are if somebody is looking something that what they try to achieve for years they haven't achieved they have tried different things and for example weight loss if they have tried so many diets as that then they come to me that whatever keto or intermittent fasting or some diet would have some name attacked into it that that was working. I said it was not. Why you are not doing it anymore? Because if you can't do those things all the time, it's not working. It works maybe for short time, but never in a long term. And and those things like usually when people come to me, of course they are. They might be they have got first of all, which is a huge thing to get that courage to write a coach or talk to a coach, so they want that change. And then you know, often people think that now I I need to get most out of it. I need to do everything what I know that I need to be doing to reach my goal, but this is that is actually probably the worst way to get started if you try to do everything at the same time. And now it's just like earlier this week I started with one client, and and she had, of course, several tries severe overweight, and the only thing she was thinking, like was earlier in my career, I would say that let's do whatever you want. I support you. I'm here, kind of your cheerleader, but now I learned that this is not if you if I let people do what they think they need to do. Usually they try to do way too much what is actually realistic, especially if you have tendency to break promises what you make to yourself. So we started. It sounds ridiculously small, but three times a week, five-minute walk, planning, making one new healthy receipt. That was the only action plan for first week. And today, got messages from her and said that she feels so happy and proud of herself that she was able to go three times a week for a five-minute walk, and she was cooking a new receipt. What she actually what was delicious, and she loved it. And you think that what is this? This is it's way too little. I need to do so much more. But this is how you get started. This is how you start to change your identity. You start to keep promises you make to yourself, and then, of course, it's not that that is not, it's not gonna. With this, this action plan says not going to. This is not the final action plan. It's how to get started, and then, then once you learn, you trust yourself keeping those promises, then when it feels after maybe a couple weeks, weeks, months, you start to feel like that now I can actually do it. Then you can start adding things more, but not in the beginning like new year resolutions. Like absolutely, you do five different things, and whatever happens, then happens. Some life happens, and and you can't keep those. And then said, "Ah, I try next year again.

Unknown: 30:16

Right, right. That's right, man. I mean, I mean, that's so much what I did when I first tried to get sober. I had a mentor, and I said, "Okay, you know, at first it was just I was gonna, you know, stop drinking. But then the next week, I talked to him, and I'd been thinking about it. And I'm like, you know, I'm gonna quit smoking. I started running again, and I'm gonna get start this new business. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's start with the thing that's killing you. Yeah. Then we could those other things we can worry about later, because that's so true. Because it's not about you know. Let's just like I'll use weight loss. It's not so much about the weight loss. It's about like you're saying. It's who am I? I've got to become somebody that you know that is them. You know that's my lifestyle. That's who I am. That's who I. Identifies. I meet people that quit smoking, and all they do is talk about cigarettes and like, oh, I miss it and all this. You haven't you haven't quit smoking. You're just waiting until the next time you're you're weak. You have to. Your identity has to change. I'm no longer a smoker, so of course I don't want a cigarette. But it's like you're saying, if you're looking for this big goal, which I think is a very Western thing of like, oh, I gotta have it right now, three steps, everything's quick. But changing your identity, it could be quick or slow, but either way, it's going to be a well plotted path. You know, it's not going to just happen from trying to get the big prize for grabbing Facebook prize, you know. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 31:49

and this it's a came to my mind like one I can't remember where I heard it, but good example. What is your identity if it's smoking cigarettes? Like if somebody offers you a cigarette, and how do you are going you are going to respond? If your response is that no, thank you. I'm trying to quit. Or if you if you are answering that no, thank you. I'm not smoking.

Unknown: 32:15

That's it. That's the difference. That's the

Turo Virta: 32:18

difference. That's the difference. What is your identity? Ident identity is all about like what you are telling to yourself. If it's if you are actually you are not smoking, or you are someone who is trying to quit smoking. Trying

Unknown: 32:30

to quit, yes. And you could do that the rest of your life and keep smoking, keep trying. Yeah, yeah,

Turo Virta: 32:36

yeah. No, until until you are not able to answer that question without even thinking. Honestly, your identity haven't changed, and that is what you probably need to work on.

Unknown: 32:49

Yes.

Turo Virta: 32:50

So, what is cause then? What what is it with identity? Because it's it's always in a in a sense that you often notice or people notice that they are slipping into old thinking patterns. So, what would you do? What tips you would give someone who start to go back to old thinking patterns?

Unknown: 33:15

Yeah, this this is for me is taken care of with a routine. I call it. It's more than a routine. It's a template of the way I live my life, and this is why once I have to go back to you know people that go into pro you know recovery programs they say I'm an addict you know I'm a alcoholic they do this because it's so easy to fall back into an old template and an old way of doing life and so when I know it's easier to say I have diabetes. I know I have to take my insulin the same way when I'm an addict. I have to live my life in a certain way, and so it. My life is very structured around routines in my life, and it's more than routines. It's what I do in certain instances, and I mentioned a few already. Like one, if my if I get into racing thoughts, where resentment thoughts for me are thoughts that go around and then they start back again, like a replay of a soccer game. It's slow motion, and we keep trying to replay it. Those are real dangers for me. So those are an immediate phone call to somebody, and I go sit with somebody and kind of go with through what I'm doing. I have a spiritual routine I do every morning prayer meditation, and I've barely maybe missed one or two mornings all these years. I have a routine at night that kind of looks at my day and how did I do? What could I do better tomorrow? It's about five minutes, and these are just little, you know, like a tent. I've got the stakes around my tent that hold everything in place, and they're very little. I don't spend a lot of time here, but they make my days gratitude. I spend a lot of time in gratitude and writing gratitudes, and so there's quite a few of them, but they're little things that my life has become, and they're what I do every day, and they've worked so well that I keep them in place

daily. That's another thing: 35:17

is if they're not daily, then they just get lost for me. Some people can do stuff intermittently. I have to have something that reminds me of who I am and what I'm doing in this world every single day of my life.

Turo Virta: 35:32

Yeah,

Unknown: 35:34

or forget.

Turo Virta: 35:35

Yeah, no, absolutely, and and this is it's so important to have that kind of routine. But what about then for you? Is recovery less about never struggling again, and more about how quickly you respond when you notice it.

Unknown: 35:55

Yeah. No, I mean, in fact, so this is-it's kind of a paradox. I think that recovery for me is the ability to face more. And more responsibility, and not run away. In fact, as as I've recovered over these years, not just from alcohol, from other things, my the responsibility level that people have placed on me has gotten bigger and bigger. The struggles I have now, and the things that I have to carry each day, are larger than anything I ever thought I could, that's recovery for me. Is how much can I carry and not run away, and and so now I don't take all that at once. These all came very little, and I'm like, okay, I'm ready for this responsibility. I'm I'm ready to struggle through this, you know, and so it's definitely not running away from struggle. It's facing struggle. I think life is a struggle in in a real sense. And so I forgot the second half of your question, but maybe that answered it.

Turo Virta: 36:59

Yeah. No. That that was it. Was it was just like more like how quickly if you it's if it's more about how quickly you respond when you notice it that that if you are struggling oh yeah

Unknown: 37:13

yeah that's huge yeah yeah for me it has to be very quickly I actually have a lot of friends that have quit you know drugs or alcohol over the years, and I've had few that go back,

and it's what it is: 37:29

is they they get used to not responding, and so I take it deadly serious that I respond very quickly, and the best way to do that is just to keep a routine in your life, keep people in your life that are doing the same thing you're doing, and that also changes your identity. Like my whole crowd around me, everybody in my life is trying to change their life in many of the same ways I am. So if I'm falling, it it allows me a very quick out. I can always tell somebody because they all understand we're all doing the same thing. But anyways, yeah, very quick. You know, sometimes I'm human. Sometimes I've had seasons in this 13 years where I have not been quick, and I've started falling back. And thank God, I just I got back on my game. You know, because I got very close to a disaster again. So it's it's very dangerous to me.

Turo Virta: 38:27

Yeah, then I want to talk and ask you about rebuilding relationships a little bit. So, how do you rebuild trust with your family when words aren't enough anymore?

Unknown: 38:42

Boy, you know, I think the best, like example of this is a story with my son. So my son, he's now 27. So he lived through this, this with me. This was his childhood. Was a drunk father. So how do you fix that? Well, I tried to when I started getting better to fix it with words, and that wasn't having

Turo Virta: 39:08

it. So

Unknown: 39:09

what it is is I really I decided at some point that what I have to do is really become a father, and what a father is for me is somebody that he can depend on. And so I actually told him I quit giving him any advice. I I don't you know I don't deserve to do that anymore, and I told him, you know, if you ever want to talk to me as a father, you tell me. Otherwise, I'm just a confidant. I'm a friend here to help you, and so I let that be on his side. And then in the meantime, I started changing my life to become a man that he can rely on. And what happened eventually is he started working for me, now he's my manager of my business, and it was very slow. But what had happened is he became he began to be able to depend on me. When he called me to do for help, I'd show up. I was there, and I started having money. I started having stability in my life, so I could help you know in situations. So it's kind of like turn away you know you might even this is a big topic because my wife you know filed for divorce when I got sober. She was done. They might you might lose them for a while. Turn your attention to becoming the person that you need to be to love and take care of them, because maybe they don't come back, but maybe there's somebody else in your life. When I did that, my whole family eventually came back to me. My wife came back to me, and I can take care of her now emotionally and every other way. Not because I chased her down and said all these things, because I went and changed my life so I could be that man that can take care of her. Yeah.

Turo Virta: 40:51

So was there what what you learned? Like was what you what I hear? What you just said is that you were instead of promising with your words that you are going to change, was obviously that I'm sure you. You have done it several times. Oh yeah, 1000 times.

Unknown: 41:10

Right, 1000.

Turo Virta: 41:11

What what do you learn about sowing that change rather than promising its change?

Unknown: 41:18

Yeah, I I had a thing when when I started on this venture, this change in my life. Like you said, previous times I had tried to quit, and I let everybody know, "Hey, it's okay. I'm changing. It's going to be okay. Made promises, told my wife I was going to be better, and then broke all the promises. This time, I decided not to tell anybody I was doing anything, and I think that's kind of when I'm changing something now. I try not to tell anybody except if I had, I've had coaches before or mentors, except them, that I'm working with them to change. So I actually allow no energy to go out on words for promises or anything, because what what do they matter if I don't truly change? Why even say anything? You know, and I just learned that from experience. And so now, if I'm going to change something, that's between me and whoever's helping me do it. It's no longer to try to get somebody's emotion because really I'm trying to manipulate somebody to give me what I want. It's very self-centered. I'm manipulating you by saying these words so that you'll give me what I want. So it's already a bad deal. Just go change, and focus all that energy right there.

Turo Virta: 42:33

Yeah. So you also talk a lot of lot about discipline, but recovery isn't simply a matter of trying harder. What role does discipline actually playing.

Unknown: 42:50

Yeah, it's definitely not trying harder. In fact, it's it's more the discipline is kind of what I was talking about earlier. It's a way of life. My discipline is more about the way that I live my life, and that's emotionally how I feel inside. But it's also those routines in my life. It's not hard. Like I don't set hard routines for myself. They're very tiny, you know. But but they're a structure,

Turo Virta: 43:18

yeah.

Unknown: 43:18

And they allow me not to depend on willpower all the time. Willpower is great, but we run out of it, so I can't have willpower changing me. Just the environment. I would call it an environment. My environment has to. The ecosystem I live in has to help me when I'm weak, and so I have taken myself out of the ecosystem that that says you know drinks and drugs and eats all day and smokes all day and beats myself up and put myself in an ecosystem that's uplifts me spiritually, uplifting with friends that are changing, with mentors in my life, with the stuff that I watch and consume is helping me have a better outlook on life. Do you see it's a whole ecosystem?

Turo Virta: 44:06

Yeah,

Unknown: 44:07

that way, my willpower can be good or bad in one day or not. It's it is like that. It's a lot of great willpower. My ecosystem is going to hold me.

Turo Virta: 44:17

Yeah. What about then? In your opinion, can productivity or achievement became another form of escape.

Unknown: 44:30

Yeah. Oh yes. So much, and I've gone down that road too. You know, anything I consider anything that is running from the silence and the way that I feel, trying to change my the way I feel with something out there is already taking me off course. So these things of productivity, I'm very productive, and I I like to achieve. I like to make music. I've made lots of albums. That should be about the joy of making albums and putting them out. If it's if it is trying to change the way I feel, such as I can't sit out here in the backyard and just be quiet and be okay with the way I feel inside, then already I'm I'm using that thing, and if you're using it in that way, it's it's just going to be destructive, and so that little saying of trying to change the way I feel with outside things is how I look at it. Anything that I realize, oh, I'm trying to change how I feel inside. I just need to pause, and that's where I need to focus. Is why do I need to change the way? Why do I need to work all day and not come home? And why, you know, why can't the canary in the coal mine for me is why can't I sit in quiet without a phone and watch the sun go down or sit? You know, that's the one thing that if I can't do that, there's something really wrong going on because that's the that's the biggest prize I found was to be able to have peace and to feel be okay with the skin, you know, being in this.

Turo Virta: 46:06

And it's it's it's so hard. It's or for some some people it is. Yes, but then as you are like you said, you are very creative person. What happened to your creativity creativity when you got sober?

Unknown: 46:26

I didn't. So first of all, I didn't focus there anymore. I had my career was getting my life together, so I didn't care about music. And kind of a beautiful thing came. So previous years was all about ambition and trying to achieve and get noticed. My creativity came back as a therapy. Really, it came back because one of the biggest things that happens when you start removing these things from your life, like alcohol, smoking, food-you know, bad food-is there's a big gaping hole, and there's all these emotions that you haven't dealt with. So creativity became a therapy for me, so I started taking those emotions and turning them into songs. And so it's beautiful because music came back to me, and I was no longer using it to to get famous or to get people to watch me. I was using it's natural. I think what its nature is is to help understand myself, to help me, you know, help me through struggles and help me understand other people, and so it changed into something I really love now that it's a part of my life.

Turo Virta: 47:38

Yeah, and how did that change your definition of success after? Here we go.

Unknown: 47:49

success, I success for me now. I I'm in a business, and success for me turned into the success of the people around me, and that sounds very noble, like you know, like oh yeah, great, save the world, but I really found that my true joy comes from seeing the people around me successful, and so, and and that's in every way in music. It's it's seeing joy on people's face. When I go to play now, it's not like look at me. It's like I want to give you something. I want to give you a night that you remember. In my business, it's about the employees and the people that work with me. That I want them to have a stable foundation under them. I want them to come to work and be have a good culture. And it makes it fills me with joy. And through all of this, that's what I found that life is all about. Like all the money and the babes and whatever I've wanted. That's not what filled me. What filled me was just the people that I love and seeing that I can I can add to their life with what I have, you know.

Turo Virta: 48:54

Yeah, and that is that is I think that is a. It was for me also at some point it was all about me and you know, or if it's about money or how I feel, and and now if I see like the best, what makes me-it's not about money anymore or anything else. It's about like if you are like you said, I can so much relate with this that if I see that I can help somebody to success to change their life, that is what gives me the biggest payback than is any money in bank account?

Unknown: 49:34

It just gave me chills because I think of the future, and it hadn't been a lot of times. But when somebody's really, I've been a part of somebody's life changing. It's one of the greatest feelings on earth.

Turo Virta: 49:46

Oh yeah, absolutely, and that there is nothing like there is no amount of money that you might think that until I get that money, I can do things you don't understand, you don't have. But no, if you have enough money for for someone, is that money is what is what means success is that how much money you make or you have in your bank account. But it's not if you have needs, you have place to live, you have a food to eat, then more in at certain point it doesn't make you happier.

Unknown: 50:26

Doesn't don't make a difference. No, no, no, and that's another way of escapism is thinking that I'll change when I get this or that, or if I haven't. It's usually I just need more money or a better job. The truth is, is you if you don't change where you are now, you're not going to change then, and you know, so it's the change doesn't. As long as your needs are taken care of, it doesn't need more money for you to lose weight or to quit drinking. You know.

Turo Virta: 50:58

Yeah. So if someone listening who recognizes themselves in your story. It's important to stop stop trying to solve everything alone and ask for help.

Unknown: 51:14

I mean that's the key, really. I had to, and and it's not just. I think I was real turned off on asking people for help because when I was younger, people would get in my life and they start trying to take control and everything, it's asking the right people for help, someone that can help. And you know, and I'm I'm all about coaches. I've had a few coaches in my life. Asking somebody who has that particular skill, or who's dealt with what you've dealt with and overcome it. That's the key right there. And that's the key: is that you actually kind of put yourself in a position, and it's really kind of I had to humble myself and ask people for help, and it was very hard, and to let them into my life, and nothing would change until I did that, and so it it really was the first step of of change was allowing people into my life, and I have to say, allow their imperfections too, because that's part of of understanding that we're all have problems. It doesn't mean that one thing I do now is, if I need help with marriage, I ask somebody who has a great marriage. If I need help with business, I ask somebody who has a great business. But I don't ask a great business guy just because he's successful about marriage. He might have a terrible marriage. I don't want his business. And so I accept that all these people have flaws just like me. But if they have a strength in an area, I want I want to sit with them and understand and allow them to see where I'm weak in that area, see what they can do to help. So it's I think you know I have to say there's something more than what the other person can give you in the power of actually just in you opening up and letting somebody else see because it's that's one of our biggest problems. If we're isolated, we hide, we think we're so unique, and when we let people see, and we they let us see in them, we start to get a great thing, which is we're not that unique. We're all very similar. We all deal and hurt in the same ways, and then we can start changing because we don't think our problems are special. We realize, oh, people do overcome these problems. They're not the most unique things in the world. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 53:33

and if someone listening today and is there and thinks that or knows that something in their life has to change, but the idea of fixing everything feels overwhelming. What would you do as a first step?

Unknown: 53:55

Well, there. I think you. We usually know the one thing that is at the the root of it all, and it's usually the thing that we use to hide from the world, you know, and I had a I had a coach that I too was trying to do all these things, and I was trying to become better at business. But I'd an artist my whole life. I didn't have the routines to do or the communication skills to do business well, and I came to him with all these things that I was trying to change at the time, and he just stripped them all away. I actually spent an entire summer waking up and spending like two hours with a notebook. I thought I was going to be learning, you know, computer stuff and Excel sheets. He had me sitting out in the woods with a notebook and starting to understand systems and start to draw them because I like to draw, and so I like the idea that when you're going to work on something, pick the biggest thing that's holding everything else back-the dam that's holding the flood back-and just spend a season on that. Let everything else go. There's a saying that sacrifice the 1000 for the one. Takes a lot of courage to do that. The one thing, if you could change this one thing, what would you want to change the one that will have the greatest effect? So that's where somebody else in your life helping you pick that one thing, and then let it all go. People, it's okay. Let it fall apart. Our lives can fall apart. We can we can get it back together. They can get messy. Let it get messy and just work on that one thing. Yeah.

Turo Virta: 55:32

And what is then the next right thing in your own life?

Unknown: 55:39

In my own life, right now, I'm actually trying to get in shape. So I've lost the weight, and I've got I eat healthy now, and my daughter is a Pilates instructor, and so I started taking Pilates. So I'm actually now trying to get my body in shape, and I tell you, it's like a whole new venture for me to go and work out. And luckily, I have someone in the family that. That's helping me, and so that's my next right step. Is just kind of focused on that. I'm getting older. I need some more, you know, muscular structure.

Turo Virta: 56:16

Yeah.

Unknown: 56:16

And so that's where I am.

Turo Virta: 56:18

And Boris, then, what does a good life mean to enter myself today?

Unknown: 56:27

Good life for me is peace, and and being okay with with who I am inside the skin, and that's a good life. It almost doesn't matter what's going on as long as I have peace.

Turo Virta: 56:40

Thank you. Where can listeners find your music writing and your work?

Unknown: 56:47

Best place is my website. It's just my name, ezravansel.com. You can also find me on Spotify or all the streaming platforms under my

Turo Virta: 56:56

name. Amazing! I will put links to show notes. So go to check ESS music website. And thank you so much for coming to show. I really, really inside talking with

Unknown: 57:09

you. You too, Turo. Thank you for having me on.