Ken Cox| Sobriety & Success: A New Perspective

Summary

In this episode, Christian Brim interviews Ken Cox, an entrepreneur who shares his journey from a troubled upbringing filled with violence and substance abuse to finding purpose through boxing and mentoring youth. Ken discusses the impact of alcohol on his life and business, his health crisis that led to sobriety, and the importance of core values in personal growth. He reflects on the social pressures surrounding alcohol consumption and the challenges of maintaining sobriety in a society that encourages drinking. In this conversation, Ken Cox shares his personal journey with alcoholism, detailing the hidden struggles he faced as a highly functioning alcoholic in the business world. He discusses the impact of alcohol on his life and career, the importance of support and therapy in his recovery, and the transformative power of self-love and core values. Ken emphasizes the significance of wanting to change for oneself rather than for others, and he introduces his upcoming book, 'Reclaim Sobriety', which aims to help others on their journey to recovery.

Takeaways

• His upbringing was filled with violence, drugs, and alcohol.
• He transitioned from broadcasting to IT and faced challenges with alcohol in corporate America.
• Ken's health crisis led to a diagnosis of alcohol-related liver disease.
• He found solace in boxing, which became a crucial part of his recovery.
• Ken opened a boxing gym to help youth and instill core values.
• He emphasizes the importance of finding joy and purpose in sobriety.
• Ken reflects on the societal pressures to drink and the challenges of sobriety.
• He advocates for a focus on happiness and strength in recovery programs.
• Ken's journey highlights the need for personal responsibility in alcohol consumption. Nobody knew I had a problem.
• I was a highly functioning alcoholic.
• I lost my medical insurance over this.
• I had alcohol poisoning a couple of times.
• Self-love was huge for me.
• I had an existential crisis at seven years old.
• I developed a very aggressive attack towards anything.
• I was doing it in protest.
• Your life seems brighter on the other side.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.305)
Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Ken Cox. Ken, welcome.

Ken Cox (00:12.44)
Thank you, Christian.

Christian Brim (00:14.309)
So for our listeners, why don't you give us your bona fides, a synopsis of your story to date.

Ken Cox (00:23.18)
Wow, okay. So a little about me, Ken Cox. I guess I'm going by the title entrepreneur now. I prefer business owner or operator. like... Yeah, so what I do is I create projects and I run them and they either are successful or they're not, right? And when they're successful, I keep doing them. When they're not, then I shut them down.

Christian Brim (00:31.931)
Good. I like that.

Entrepreneur stands to French.

Christian Brim (00:47.067)
There you go.

Ken Cox (00:51.72)
I come from what I call a rough and tumble upbringing. so early in life, I was surrounded in a lot of pain, a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of sex, a lot of alcohol was kind of my upbringing. And that was just normalized in my life and then led to, you know, some...

Christian Brim (01:07.823)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (01:17.582)
lot of great times that I've had throughout my life. But then, you know, there's also been some very, very damaging things that that that has done for me early in my career. You know, what's childhood? A lot of trouble all the way until I was 18. Once I turned 18, I had some some goals in my life, right? I found for a while in my high school, we had a speech and speech and debate club that also led you to our TV and radio club.

And I fell in love with that, right? So once I found something that I liked to do, I still drank a lot, I still did drugs, but I was able to stay out of trouble because I had something I could focus on. Focused on that for years. 1999, I left that world, the world of broadcasting and entertainment, stage management and stuff like that, and I moved into IT. In the entertainment world,

Christian Brim (02:11.579)
Okay.

Ken Cox (02:16.322)
Drugs and alcohol are prevalent just everywhere, just on the table, right? When I went into corporate America, those are gone Monday through Friday, nine to five, but boy, boy, did they pick up on happy hour, right? And where I succeeded very, very dramatically, and I think this is happening today still at a huge rate, and what I'd like to try to help some people with in this world is that a young man or woman

Christian Brim (02:28.761)
Yes.

Ken Cox (02:47.118)
know from the female perspective, is highly rewarded for their ability to do happy hours in a specific way that brings in lots of business. And the longer you can stay at happy hour, you know, if you can turn that into after hours, then you can close more business and you're rewarded for damaging behavior to yourself, right? Doesn't damage the company, brings company money. But if you can...

Christian Brim (02:56.42)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (03:09.925)
Mm. Yes.

Ken Cox (03:17.346)
have, if you can take 10 different clients out of 10 different happy hours in a week and close five of those deals, then it's a numbers game and just what it is.

Christian Brim (03:26.565)
Was that your experience? mean...

Ken Cox (03:30.008)
absolutely. And then some of my larger deals, I've closed more deals at a bar than anywhere else.

Christian Brim (03:39.237)
Yeah. So.

Ken Cox (03:40.59)
by a significant amount.

Christian Brim (03:43.131)
So what flipped that switch to say that's not working for you anymore?

Ken Cox (03:50.414)
I'm assuming it still would work for me financially, originally when I was 39, late 30s, early 40s, I was diagnosed with liver disease, alcohol-related liver disease. We, talking with the doctor, and that doctor's passed away now, but basically after a whole series of events where I thought I was gonna die and ended up in the hospital, thinking I was having a heart attack.

It was withdrawal basically. I was in the midst of withdrawal. I had just had strep throat, so I hadn't drank in a couple days and I got called into work late at night. I went into work and just hit me like a ton of bricks. That put me in the hospital. Thought I was having a heart attack. I wasn't. Funny story is I was in the hospital. Out of the emergency room, nothing wrong with your heart, but my blood pressure was

190 over 110 and it would drop down, would shoot up, it was doing all this crazy stuff. So I'm in the doctor's office for hours and he's literally got me hooked up to the EKG machine for hours, right? Like trying to track everything, what's going on, what's going on. And he had asked me a few times, do you still drink? Cause I'd always been honest with my doctor, right? And he asked me, you drink? I said, yeah. I said, how much? said, 20 pack and a couple of fists a day, probably, right? This is where I'm at.

Christian Brim (04:59.717)
Right.

Christian Brim (05:07.963)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (05:16.512)
And it always kind of, know, hey, you didn't knock that off, but this time he asked me like three times, are you sure you're still drinking? I'm like, yeah, I'm still drinking. And it wasn't until he asked me the specific question, when was the last time you had a drink? well, I've had strep throat. So I've had, I'm not drinking two days, but I still drink like, and yeah. So that was, I was doing a withdrawal. and immediately ordered liver panel, diagnosed with liver disease.

Christian Brim (05:28.495)
Right.

Christian Brim (05:33.871)
Right, right, you hadn't quit.

Ken Cox (05:46.05)
and basically says, you can go home and start drinking right now, go home and have a beer and all these symptoms will go away and you'll be dead in two years. Cause you're, you're months away from cirrhosis at this point. You don't have a cirrhosis now, so you've caught it. Luckily we're there, but you're months away from it and, or we can quit, right? If we want to quit, we'll, then we'll support you in any way that we can. The support was miserable. was, you know, Bricks of Xanax was the support that I got.

Christian Brim (06:02.021)
Right.

Ken Cox (06:15.884)
So, you know, a couple years later I got to go through Xanax withdrawals as well. But, yeah, one gift, I guess that's a gift horse that I shouldn't look in the mouth. what I found, what led to the book through that event, that was not when I, I did not reclaim sobriety then. Like I had to quit drinking, right? So, and I was on Xanax, a lot of Xanax, I hated life, right? I just did,

Christian Brim (06:20.635)
Thank you.

Christian Brim (06:37.765)
Yes.

Ken Cox (06:45.002)
Nothing was good. Nothing. I couldn't find joy in anything that I did. And every single thing that I did just reminded me of this thing that I couldn't do. This relationship that I had that I can't have anymore. And it was miserable. But along that path, one of things that I did is I started boxing. And I started going, not like competition boxing, but I started going and hitting the heavy bag as exercise.

Christian Brim (06:46.683)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (06:50.235)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:55.643)
you

Christian Brim (07:06.307)
Okay.

Ken Cox (07:16.814)
For most of my adult life, I've been helping businesses grow their business, build their websites, do their back office, whatever programming tasks that they need done. And I noticed this gym that I'm at isn't being run very well. I reach out to the owner. Yeah, so I reach out to the owner. like, hey, what's going on with this? He tells me his story. I'm like, holy shit, that's horrible. I'm sorry that that happened to you. So they had good intentions and things happened to their family that they couldn't execute.

Christian Brim (07:31.323)
That's what entrepreneurs do. They see problems.

Ken Cox (07:46.668)
So we made a deal for me to buy the gym from him. Still searching, right? Still not happy. I'm going through the motions, right? I'm running the data center every day. I'm trying to grow that business. I've got the gym now and I'm there nightly. I don't really care if the gym grows at this point, right? I just know if I don't have this boxing gym that I'm gonna die. That's all I knew. Fast forward several years, I get the notice from my doctor that my liver counts are

those signs of liver disease at this moment, right? So that'll go, that means I can drink again, right? So then we're negotiating, right? We're in this negotiation timeframe. And I get him to say, if you think you can do it, and I'm like, dude, I just wanna feel normal at a happy hour. I just wanna feel normal at dinner, right? off the Xanax, I'm on some other mediation drug to help me with the withdrawal of the Xanax, right?

Christian Brim (08:26.213)
Really, really.

Christian Brim (08:40.493)
Now you were off the Xanax at that point. Okay.

Christian Brim (08:47.749)
Right?

Ken Cox (08:48.238)
So off of those, and he's like, if you can handle one or two beers every now and then, you can do that. That's not possible. Not for me at least. So that led to another series of off and on attempting moderation, right? Which then got pretty bad again in COVID. So post-COVID, right at the end of COVID.

Christian Brim (09:00.153)
Right. Right.

Christian Brim (09:08.293)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (09:16.686)
We shut down that gym and we opened a new one down the street. know, just business model wasn't going to work the way it was. We got, we found a new location. We got a great deal on the rent because you know, everything was shut down and we opened it up. So I'm building this new gym and these kids are knocking on my door every day. They see me building. What are you building? Like build a boxing gym. You teach me to box. Nope. Get out of here. This is, this is, I'm building a gym for guys like me, right? This is what I'm thinking. Guys that are struggling that need to,

place to go. That's what I'm building now on my own terms. And they keep knocking, I keep chewing them away. Jim opens really great, right? We have guys in there, we're doing stuff. Didn't realize that guys like me that have jobs, they get hit, they don't want to do it again. Right? So very bad business. The new business model wasn't good, right? So months into that, I bring the kids in like, come on in, right? Just a little finger something out.

Christian Brim (10:03.855)
Yeah.

Ken Cox (10:14.658)
And these kids start flooding this business. and they all want to compete. And I did, I did, I won golden gloves, St. Louis at some point. I eventually converted from exercise into competition, right? Through all that time. so I started teaching these kids how to box and I'm not a great boxer, right? So I got to hire somebody. I'm okay. So I'm to hire some to come in, teach these kids. But what I do know is mindset pretty much. And I knew that.

Christian Brim (10:28.347)
Okay.

Ken Cox (10:44.064)
it's hard to get in the ring, really hard to get in the ring. And it's even harder to get in the ring and lose and then get in the ring again. Like that's, that's really hard. So one of the things that I did, one of my coaches had a set of core values and I'm like, well, that that's, really helped me a lot. These core values that, you know, for my marketing class and stuff like that, maybe we'll implement that. So we took some time and developed a set of core values for these kids.

Christian Brim (10:52.059)
Hmm.

Ken Cox (11:14.124)
And we talked about these core values and we have all these stories and this program that we created over some years. And then our team, like these kids like change drastically. I see it happen. Like you can see it happening.

Christian Brim (11:23.041)
Mm-hmm. Now when you say kids, how old are you talking about?

Ken Cox (11:29.358)
8 to 15. Mostly that 12 to 15. Butch, right? And their confidence skyrockets and you know, all these things and then they can take a really tough loss and get back right back to work like it's nothing. And it was just amazing to me. And so that's a lot with the book is these 12 core values that we created for these these kids to go from, you know.

Christian Brim (11:40.859)
Sure.

Ken Cox (11:58.05)
goofy teenager to I'm going to compete in a ring in front of an audience half naked and there's only one of two outcomes. I'm either going to win or I'm going to lose and it's going to be embarrassing probably either way. So I found a ton of power in that. Still not even realizing what I was doing for myself. Right? So I'm reading these core values of these kids every single day. Every day I'm reading them and I'm like we're reading them because they're going to become a part of who you are. And

couple of mishaps after COVID.

Ken Cox (12:35.768)
I got in some trouble leaving, it wasn't even alcohol related the last time. The last drink that I had was not even, I got in trouble because I was coming home from Podfest in Orlando, driving home, because my flight got canceled, actually the plane that I had caught on fire, so I had to drive home. That was to get there, so I drove and drove home. Going through Georgia, I got pulled over.

Christian Brim (12:48.912)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (12:57.497)
You don't want to take that one.

Ken Cox (13:05.71)
for a super speeder ticket in Georgia. And I am an advocate for medical cannabis, and I'm a medical cannabis user. And I use it specifically for anxiety and sleep. So high anxiety moments and sleep, that's what I use it for. So I had some in my back in my luggage. I, regardless of what happened, I ended up going to jail in Georgia, in Taylor County. And they were holding me without bond.

for two weeks until I got to my, until the judge showed up. So that wasn't good. I ended up getting out a little, I got out earlier than I was supposed to. We ended up posting a significant bail to get me out, to guarantee that I would come back to Georgia for my trial. But that night when I left, I got to the gas station, because I had to walk pretty far, about five miles to the,

Christian Brim (13:40.587)
No.

Ken Cox (14:02.936)
to get my car and I stopped the gas station and I bought a About two tall boys, like if I've ever deserved a beer, I deserve it now. And I took one drink, maybe two drinks of that first beer and I just dumped them out and like, this is not even who I am anymore. Like, and that was the moment that I knew that I was sober and I was happy about it because I just experienced the wildly traumatic event, right? If you've ever been to...

Christian Brim (14:17.115)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (14:21.498)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (14:26.245)
Brett. No, you don't want to be in county anywhere.

Ken Cox (14:31.342)
No, and Taylor County, Georgia was not a good one, but by any stretch of the imagination, it's the whole thing, right? And I dumped him out and that moment I knew that it's not who I was anymore. And then I reflected on everything that I'd ever done, right? My AA, I did my first AA at 13. I'd been through smart recovery. I'm a huge fan of smart recovery.

Christian Brim (14:36.784)
Mm-mm.

Ken Cox (15:01.708)
I do recovery Dharma. I'm a high flow coach, right, through the cognitive flow coaching. I've taken neuro-linguistic programming courses. I've done all this stuff for these kids to figure out how to train them to do this breathing coach exercise. And I realized that some of the things that I was doing in all these programs were preventing me from living a happy life. They were helping me keep sober, but AA, if I'm saying I'm an alcoholic every day, I'm an alcoholic.

And in smart recovery, I say moderation's okay, then moderation's okay, right? So I didn't have, there wasn't a program that was built for me. Maybe recovery dharma, right? There is suffering in the world, there's an escape from suffering. But that was about it, so.

Christian Brim (15:39.445)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (15:49.07)
All great programs, wonderful programs. They help a lot of people in a lot of ways and I probably wouldn't be here without them. But none of them talked about being happy or being strong in your sobriety. Right? And that's really what I wanted to do because for some, and I don't know why, and I can't put my hand on it, it is challenging for a human to be at a happy hour and refuse alcohol in our society.

Christian Brim (16:16.825)
Yes, Yes, alcohol is a very, not just socially acceptable drug. It's, an, as to your point, it's encouraged. And, you know, I never really understood where the whole, like, how did they get everybody in the country in agreement enough?

Ken Cox (16:19.124)
and you have to be strong about

Christian Brim (16:46.277)
to pass prohibition as a constitutional amendment. Like, didn't quite, and I still don't, I need to research it, but, well, let's hear it.

Ken Cox (16:54.84)
theory on that. And it wasn't for consumption. It was because the petrol oil companies didn't want individuals making their own fuel for their cars.

Christian Brim (17:06.454)
Interesting. I have never heard that angle. Okay.

Ken Cox (17:07.688)
And because it couldn't tax that. So, you know, back then when Prohibition was there, you could you could run your your model T off of, you know, off stuff that you made out of your corn in your backyard.

Christian Brim (17:21.851)
Well, that makes sense. That actually makes sense because from a morality standpoint or a health standpoint, I can't see getting that much consensus. But in any case, I think you're right. It is socially acceptable, socially encouraged. And for some people, which I think that entrepreneurs

Ken Cox (17:35.682)
Yes.

Christian Brim (17:51.141)
have a tendency to have addictive personalities, you know, it's, it's, you're playing with fire. Because at some point, you're, you're going to lose control. And for me, I have, let's see, now, of my, of my parents,

and my siblings, I think I may be the only one that still consumes alcohol. Everybody else is sober. My next youngest brother just got sober about five months ago. And he was in a situation more like you, like had a declining liver health.

And it was, you know, it was really for health reasons that he made that choice. But to your point, nothing fundamentally changed about him. And not that I would say that someone goes through that and has to change, but I'd always heard that phrase, you know, a dry drunk. And, you know,

I understood it as someone that didn't drink alcohol but was still an asshole, someone that was still angry, still mad, you know. And I think it's very hard in life to forgo something, anything. It could be ice cream. It doesn't matter. Without having something to replace it with, right? Something that gives you similar feelings.

You can't just take it away because then there's just a hole and that's how you perceive it. But what I was going to say about my alcohol use is I feel like I am playing with fire because I've seen everybody around me. I have done some real stupid shit when I was drinking.

Christian Brim (20:13.657)
I don't drink as much as I used to because I don't like I don't like the feeling as much anymore. And I really don't like the recovery from the feeling. So that's that's what's tempered my drinking. But I also know that every every amount of alcohol that I put in my body lowers my cognitive ability to

to control the compulsion. And, you know, it's, you only get a high off of alcohol if your blood alcohol content is increasing. So it's not like you can, you know, have have a couple of drinks and just stay there and get the same feeling you got to keep drinking to keep feeling that way. And that that does scare me a little.

like am I going to cross that line again? I've not done anything criminal. Well, maybe misdemeanor. I haven't done anything criminal or something that I really regret like, you know, cheating on my spouse or something like that. But, you know, I've set a standard for myself that I don't want to behave like that. I don't want to be the idiot. And that's something that I'm struggling.

Ken Cox (21:43.288)
Yeah, it's challenging, right? You have to, and I guess a way to say it is we've all been to wedding receptions and had a blast. Well, it's kind of hard to dance sober.

Christian Brim (21:52.495)
Right. I can't. My wife sure can't.

Ken Cox (21:57.902)
Right? Well, you can't do it, I don't think any of us can do it good, because it's not our career, but you at least think you can when you're drunk, right? And you do it when you're drunk. Right, so I think learning how to do that sober is a challenge for a lot of people, right? And that's really what you want. You want that amazing night that you've had, that you've experienced, and alcohol can give it to you, you know, even on a Tuesday if you want it to.

Christian Brim (22:08.175)
Or you don't care.

Christian Brim (22:25.901)
Right, right. So how did this affect? How did alcohol affect your business?

Ken Cox (22:40.398)
It's an odd one and I think a lot of business owners are might be in this world, Entrepreneurs, even sales reps at companies, right? So nobody knew, like it was, nobody knew I had a problem or at least they didn't vocalize I had a problem. Because taking a client out for lunch at noon and having a couple of beers is no big deal, right? That's expected.

Christian Brim (22:49.051)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (22:56.229)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (23:09.44)
So for a long, nobody knew who I was without alcohol. Right? The only time that somebody would say, think I might, you know, ask me if I was feeling okay that day. So I hadn't had a drink that day. Right? So, that's just the world that I lived in and I was a highly functioning alcoholic. Like, you know, I'm, I'm not exaggerating too, you know, 20 pack and one or two fits a day was, was pretty, pretty regular.

Christian Brim (23:13.113)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (23:19.641)
Right.

Christian Brim (23:35.333)
That just blows my mind. You're not exaggerating.

Ken Cox (23:39.798)
No, I'm not exaggerating. You go to lunch and you have two or three tall boys with the guys there, that's nine beers, nine 12 ounce beers. And then sitting at home, I like the program, I like the ride, I like to create, I like to do those kinds of things. Sitting there with a fifth of crown, mean, every day it was 10 beers and a fifth. That was about the minimum of a day.

you know, the better, the bigger days would be more. So if we're out to a party or something like that after work, then yeah, that would be definitely, definitely significant amount.

Christian Brim (24:16.995)
Well, then I can understand why your liver was screaming at you.

Ken Cox (24:21.804)
Yeah, absolutely. I I lost my medical insurance over this, right? In the midst of Obamacare, my medical coverage said, no, we're pulling you. You're not gonna, we're not gonna cover this.

Christian Brim (24:29.008)
Right?

Christian Brim (24:33.669)
So did you have any other physical symptoms that besides the withdrawal, mean like you didn't know that you had liver problems.

Ken Cox (24:44.376)
It did not, well, I knew that I had, unfortunately for me, when I was 20, I got hit by an 18-wheeler. So I've had some pretty significant medical issues through that. In that accident, I've got some fused vertebrae in my lower back. So any back pain that I had, I contributed to that. I didn't contribute it to my liver. So...

Christian Brim (24:53.604)
Okay.

Christian Brim (25:09.445)
Got it.

Ken Cox (25:13.418)
Now knowing what a toxic liver feels like, absolutely was the liver pain. Like it was significant whenever the flare up would happen or something like that. It's almost where you can't walk. My nose was turning colors. I had that kind of thing starting to happen in my life. I'd had alcohol poisoning a couple of times. So I've had a...

know, wake up and have to go get an IV to kind of get the pinkish and the purple-ish out of my skin kind of deal. But yeah, I guess if I say it that way, yeah, I did have some medical issues before. I didn't recognize them as associated to the alcohol, right? I could associate it to something else so easily that I just blew it off to that's life.

Christian Brim (25:46.714)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:53.348)
Okay.

Christian Brim (26:06.469)
Did you do you attribute any of your your success to somebody else because I feel like that this would be almost impossible to do without help.

Ken Cox (26:28.27)
I contributed to, you know, I use the joke occasionally and it's not a very well formed joke by any stretch of imagination. People ask me, you what do you think about getting a coach or getting a mentor? And I say, yeah, everybody needs coaches and mentors. But the trick that I use is you don't have to tell them that they're your mentor. You don't have to have an agreement with anybody, right? So I can't say I had a person.

Christian Brim (26:35.995)
That's all right.

Christian Brim (26:49.007)
Fair enough.

Christian Brim (26:56.059)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (26:56.31)
I know that the kids in my gym and the people in my gym and my wife and kids are a reason. They gave me energy to keep going and stay there. I would say the biggest thing that helped me would be the neuro-linguistic programming. Myself talk. How I talk to myself and how I feel about myself was huge coupled with EMDR.

Christian Brim (27:03.163)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:19.515)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (27:25.71)
were the two things that are external, and I talk a little bit about them in the book, I don't know that everybody needs something like EMDR. I think everybody's gonna need therapy.

Christian Brim (27:35.383)
And what EMDR is an acronym for what?

Ken Cox (27:40.34)
It's ID sensitization.

Ken Cox (27:47.214)
trauma reprogramming or reprogramming your mind. reprogramming or reprocessing. That's what it is. So you go through this process of eye movement. You take a narrative or a thing that's happened in your life and you want to reframe that. You go through this and then you talk about reframing it with alcohol and other drugs. Or even what I found is even risky behavior, right? Can be triggers from

Christian Brim (27:48.942)
Okay.

Ken Cox (28:16.152)
past trauma and things like that. So we just haven't processed the things that have happened to us. Things happen and we blow them off or we stand strong for our loved ones or we take a drink or do our drug. And then we don't have to actually sit through the emotions of that happening. So we don't process it properly. And EMDR lets us reprocess all of those things.

Christian Brim (28:41.039)
Did you use a professional therapist or a psychiatrist? Okay.

Ken Cox (28:44.786)
I did. Yeah, I've been in therapy since the age of seven. I had a pretty violent outbreak at the age of seven.

Christian Brim (28:56.473)
Meaning you suffered abuse or someone else in the home suffered abuse?

Ken Cox (29:02.126)
started

I guess I had an existential crisis. At seven years old, I made the decision that I'll never be a victim again. And anything that tried to victimize me, I remained a victim to alcohol and drugs for a very long time, but I developed a very aggressive attack towards anything that I felt might try to victimize me. And I felt like name calling and stuff like that, I was quick to...

quick to be violent, because I learned that violence stops almost all situations.

Christian Brim (29:42.765)
Yeah, I when when you were going through this final process of getting sober and since you've, you know, been in therapy since seven. I find so much of my experience and my loved ones experience is that just like you said that the avoidance

of feelings, you know, negative feelings. And it sounds simple. But, you know, we create all kinds of mechanisms and coping measures to avoid it. Where was there something different that last time?

Ken Cox (30:37.934)
I've through, for the first time I went through a different kind of therapy. For the first time in my life, I was experiencing self-love. For the first time in my life, I had a set of core, now I've always had a set of core values. I'll be happy to tell you what my original core values were prior to developing. I always use them as a joke, right? Like don't get dead and don't go to prison.

Christian Brim (30:42.597)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:48.656)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:57.659)
You probably didn't write those down and put them up on the wall.

Ken Cox (31:07.308)
Right? Which meant that I could do anything up to getting dead, and I could do anything that meant anything that all the way up to going to prison. So a night in jail to me wasn't a big deal.

Christian Brim (31:10.256)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (31:16.357)
How did you get married?

Ken Cox (31:19.182)
I mean, she was a party girl when we met, right? So, and I can't believe her father didn't try to kill me. I was working at a bar and she was working at the bar down the hall, the next to the neighboring bar. I was bartending at night. I got in some financial trouble. So I picked up a bartending job for a couple of years. And cause that's always an easy way to make some extra cash.

Christian Brim (31:22.327)
Okay. Okay.

Christian Brim (31:36.037)
Yeah.

Ken Cox (31:47.264)
And she worked at the bar down the hall from me. And we met and we drank quite a bit. When she got pregnant, about two years after we met, then she stopped and I didn't.

Christian Brim (32:04.079)
How did that work out?

Ken Cox (32:06.158)
horribly. On the surface it was fine, you There's the whole time where you're like, you slow down in life, right? And you're at home. Instead of leaving work and going to the bar, I'd leave work and get a 20 pack and go home. I'd still have my lunch with people and I'd still go to happy hours. And in the early days, you know, was, I'd be home by 10, but then it was always stretching till 11. you know, I was blessed at a...

Christian Brim (32:08.389)
Yeah.

Ken Cox (32:34.722)
turning happy hours into after hours and then just going straight back, you know, hitting the, either running home and taking a shower, hitting the Y, taking a shower and hitting the, getting back to the office, right? That was something that I was capable of doing. And evidently for some people, alcohol energizes you. And I guess I'm one of those people, right? Cause I could just run unbelievable amount of hours just back to back without even thinking about it. So it wasn't good.

Christian Brim (32:53.499)
Mm-hmm.

Ken Cox (33:04.59)
I would say she was in way over her head and didn't know it. But we had two wonderful kids together and there was always the ability to keep the bills paid, food on the table. I mean, basically she was single for a long time, right? Cause I just wouldn't come home. I'd get home at two or three in the morning, right? But I would always.

Christian Brim (33:09.637)
Mm.

Christian Brim (33:23.792)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:30.607)
Yeah.

Ken Cox (33:31.436)
mustered up and family events were always drinking anyway, right? So it just fell into the norm.

Christian Brim (33:38.021)
How old are your kids?

Ken Cox (33:39.982)
13 and 17.

Christian Brim (33:42.683)
Okay, I want to circle back.

Ken Cox (33:44.79)
And my son is, to add to the challenge, my son's 13 and he's nonverbal. So that adds to all the challenge that we have in our life. And quite frankly, she was focused on raising him for a lot of that.

Christian Brim (34:00.805)
I want to circle back to your answer so because I don't know that I heard the complete answer. What was the difference this last time?

Ken Cox (34:11.086)
Self-love, self-respect, and a set of core values that I had instilled into myself that when those core values were conflicted, that it felt it was uncomfortable, right?

Knowing that I have respect for myself, how could you poison yourself? It just doesn't work.

Christian Brim (34:33.413)
So the difference then is that you replace the old values. Before when you quit drinking, you didn't replace the old values.

Ken Cox (34:45.518)
And I was doing it in protest. when I quit drinking, was, anytime that I quit drinking, prior to the last time, it was court ordered, doctor ordered, or wife ordered. Right? And I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to quit drinking. I didn't want to have to do it. And in my mind, and I've said this a bunch of times, alcohol for me from the age of...

Christian Brim (34:48.858)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (34:58.874)
Right.

Ken Cox (35:13.336)
five, six, seven years old was the thing that I could do that.

made me a man in my head, right? And it gave me comfort. It took whatever thing that was going on bad in my life and made it go away. So that was my best friend.

Christian Brim (35:21.173)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (35:33.369)
Yeah. And I think that that example that you say, you had something you cared enough about to stop drinking, but you didn't really want to do it for yourself. I think that's a key because if you hear all the time, well, if an addict doesn't want to help, you can't help them.

Sometimes you can manipulate cajole force a change in behavior, but it doesn't stick because the desire isn't here that you want it. And that's a difficult thing that I have found in my journey that you when

Something's not right. You don't like the situation as an entrepreneur. You want to change it. You want to fix it, right? But if the person that you're trying to help doesn't want help doesn't see that there is a problem, then there's nothing really you can do but love and support him. But that's a sad place to be because you know,

Ken Cox (36:58.67)
Thanks

Christian Brim (37:00.889)
You love somebody, you your kids, your spouse, your sibling, whatever. That's a dark place to be, because what do you do?

Ken Cox (37:12.654)
And it's weird you say dark place to be and it's literally

is so bizarre that your life, literally your vision seems brighter when you're on the other side of that. Like my memories are literally physically darker than they were, than they are.

Christian Brim (37:26.971)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (37:31.225)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ken, how do we find a copy of your book when it does release?

Ken Cox (37:40.27)
So right now between now and November 19th, and I'm not sure when this episode is going to release, if you go to ReclaimSobriety.com, you can download a free copy. The only thing that I ask is if you read it and you like it, give me a review when it comes out publicly. November 19th, that offer goes away and it will be available on Amazon and anywhere else that I can get it on the shelves. So, and you'll be able to get it still at Reclaim Sobriety. It just won't be free any longer at that point. But there's...

Christian Brim (37:59.637)
Love it.

Ken Cox (38:07.03)
We have all the versions. We've got a hard copy, soft copy, and we've got the e-book coming out. I am currently working on trying to figure out how to get the audible version done.

Christian Brim (38:16.763)
hire somebody. Don't do it yourself. I can tell you that I didn't try. But after looking at what had what was involved, I'm like, I'm glad I didn't try this myself.

Ken Cox (38:27.968)
Yeah, so that's where I'm at with the process. Super excited, the reviews that I have are phenomenal. I could not be happier. you know, it took, I've been writing for a long time. That therapist at the age of seven, one of the first things she had me do is start writing every day. So this is my first, I've got a book with Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank that came out last month.

called Many Paths to Profit. This is my first like totally my project that I'm releasing to the world that's personal in any kind of way. And this is wildly personal. So it's very interesting.

Christian Brim (39:00.079)
Right?

Christian Brim (39:09.317)
Well, congratulations and thank you for sharing it with us and the world. It needs to be there. So thank you again for your time and your candor. I appreciate it.

Ken Cox (39:17.357)
Yes.

Ken Cox (39:23.544)
Thank you, Christian. I appreciate you having me.

Christian Brim (39:25.731)
Listeners, if you like what you hear, please, if I can use my words, leave a review of the podcast, share the podcast with another entrepreneur. If you don't like what you're hearing, shoot us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear. Until then, remember you are not alone.