WMH Season 2, Ep 7: Changing The Narrative on Mental Health, Substance Abuse & Addiction

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 2, Episode 7 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie Waechter: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health. I'm so glad to have you here today, and today is a very exciting episode because I'm going to be speaking to a guest who I don't know very well, but who I follow his work and I think that what he is doing is really amazing. And so I'm going to learn just along with you all about this really amazing guest. And his name is Jeff Johnston. He is the CEO of the startup Brighton, excuse me, and the founder of the Living Undeterred Project.

He's also the host of the Living Undeterred podcast. So excited to talk more about that. And he's joining us today to talk more about his inspiring journey from struggling with alcoholism and compulsive gambling, to becoming a mental health advocate and an author. And it is a true testament to the power of resilience and determination. And on this episode, we are going to talk about that journey and how he was able to overcome and what it takes to change the narrative on mental health, substance use and addiction. And that's something that we really deal with a lot here in Las Vegas, in southern Nevada. So I think this is perfect timing. So without further ado, I'd love to bring on Jeff to the show.

Jeff Johnston: Hi Katie. I'm honored to be here. This would be an engaging conversation. I have a good feeling about this tonight.

Katie: Thank you so much. Yeah, it is really exciting to have you here. Like I said, I don't know you very well, but I have been following your work and just excited to learn more about you. So with that, tell us in your own words who you are and what you do and why mental health is so important to you.

Jeff: Yeah, well thanks. I'll give you a good backdrop here to build some context as we move into this, because what I'd like to do is really make this less about me and more about we. And I've done these before where I consumed myself in telling my story because vulnerability can be an addiction as well. And I realized that I need to be more aware of the environment and be attentive to questions people have and maybe roads we can go down that are more inspirational and less chaotic and tragic. So however, as I say, when I keynote, I have to sometimes go into the abyss to get out of it. So let's just start with where this all started. So my name's Jeff Johnston. Again, I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And my whole life I aspired to be a successful financial planner. That was kind of like what I wanted to be after I graduated college.

So from 23 to 50, I built this thriving practice in the Midwest here. Had nine full-time staff, seven advisors in our firm. We managed $800 million, I mean good numbers for our industry. And from the perception of the public, I had kind of made it. I had the beautiful wife, her name's Prudence, three boys, Seth, Ian and Roman, big house, fancy car, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As you're going to find out, it was complete illusion. And I didn't know that at the time. I really thought that was my dream. That was my purpose in life, was to invest money for people, make a lot of money, and be a capitalist. Well, on that day, October 4th, 2016, so we're inching up on eight years now, I got that call every parent dreads where our oldest son was found dead in a hotel room from a fentanyl poisoning.

And it was the end of a horrific, hellish, nightmarish, I don't want to even say journey, but experience where death was given Adderall at 15 for attention deficit, and it just went from alcohol vaping, marijuana, drunk driving, breaking and entering cocaine, prison, heroin, death. Wow. Yeah. So that's the first time death came into my life and knocked on the door and said, Hey, you know what? I'm taking somebody you care about. You don't have as much control in your life as you think you do. What are you going to do about it? And in hindsight, so we all have the benefit of hindsight. So right now I understand that was the message from death. But at the time I didn't realize that I was angry, I was devastated.

I made a choice early on, and this was another illusion that was painted in my life, is that I told people I was going to be this strong, strong guy, this dad, this husband. And so I started writing a book to honor Seth, and I did a podcast called Living Undeterred. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute and just immersed myself in passion and advocacy for my own therapy. But the reality was behind the scenes, I was just falling apart. I told my business partner, I needed to stay home for about a year, work on my mental health, and all I did was drink for 14 months. And what your listeners and followers don't know is I was an alcoholic for 32 years prior to Seth's death, a compulsive gambler for 20 years. So there's the illusion that I referred to that there was this illusion that I had it made, and really I hadn't made anything except a miserable life.

And Seth's death really catapulted me into this amazing, or transcended me is a better word to where I'm at today. And so I quit drinking, I'm sorry, for 14 months after Seth died. I drank like every day. And finally December 24th of 17, I decided to quit. And I haven't had drop since, and it's been the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm not going to lie. You bury a child. If you can't find some inspiration from that, then I don't know what you're doing. And that's not being judgmental with grief, but it's like that was how I looked at it and it didn't work out so well. On June 29th, 2021, a day after our youngest son turned 18, so my wife died from alcoholism. She was 46. We were married 21 years. So they're both right over my shoulder. So death came again. Hey Jeff, I'm going to take half your family now. Whatcha going to do about it?

It really allowed me to reframe my life into more of becoming a victim versus a victim. And I presented the narrative to my boys. I said, boys, you have one of two rows to go down. This is when Seth died. This is before their mom died. I said, you have one road of anger, despair, and hatred, and you become an alcoholic and an addict yourself, or you have a road of inspiration and motivation, and this can be the single greatest moment in our lives to make a difference in the lives of others. I'm on the second road to ask you to join me. So that's how I presented it as an opportunity. But deep down, I was crumbling and falling apart. And there's some other, well, there's a lot more sidebars to this story, but that sent the template of where I'm at today. So I believe I died on that day.

Seth died and I was reborn again when my wife died and I was reborn. So now I'm 58 and I'm arguably at the best place I've ever been in my life. I cry with gratitude and not pain and suffering. I cry every day. I don't fight it anymore. So I guess the story in this for people is that's my story. You have a story. I'm sure if we talk long enough, you would tell me personal things and I would've empathy for you and try to help her through it. And I think that's the beauty of what you're doing and what we're doing and what everybody is doing as advocates is that we're not going to get out of this alone. We need each other. And things like Covid really isolated us, especially youth today. And that's where my passion really is youth. So that's about a nine minute backdrop of where I'm at today. So

Katie: Yeah. Wow. I mean, it's quite a story and I think a lot of people can relate to these addiction problems within our families and with our loved ones. And it's interesting because after your son died, it seemed like you both, you and your wife both kind of had a choice. And after that grief period, you were able to I think, choose to stop drinking and choose to move forward, and she wasn't able to do that. So why do you think that is? Do you, had she, I know that hindsight is 2020, you can't change anything, but it's just interesting. You were both given the same kind of exact predicament and one of you was able to clog your way out, however messy that was because it is always messy. Recovery is always messy and the other one wasn't.

Jeff: That's a great question. I guess I'll never know the answer to that. And I certainly, I hesitate even talking about her because she's obviously not here to talk about her herself, but at the same time, they die when I stop talking about them.

So I will never stop talking about 'em. But I got to do it in a way that's inspirational and motivational, and I don't tell these stories to get sympathy and pity. That's like that ship has sank. I burned that bridge. I want love, hope, inspiration, courage, empathy. That's what we feed off of. And so I can only say prudence had a difficult childhood. I found this out after she died. I found a diary that she had, which I didn't know about, and she was gone. So I didn't feel bad reading it. Everyone can form their own assessments on that, but I think when you have a loved one you care about that dies and you find journals and diaries they wrote, I think it's pretty normal that we'd want to read it, the days of judging and all that stuff. And so there was some things in that she had written in her childhood that happened that I wasn't aware of. And so I think there was a lot of unresolved trauma in her life and what we call considered today, youth mental health issues, I think. Okay. So

Katie: That's interesting. It seems like trauma and addiction do play a role hand in hand, but then also that addiction tends to run in families as well.

Jeff: Yeah, I don't know. I am probably not your typical recovery advocate, although that's all I do and that's the lane I'm in and I want to help kids, but I am not even a big fan of words like addiction and recovery and sobriety. And you're always free to tell yourself any story you want to tell yourself, any narrative that's out there, you're not obligated to stick to it. So I don't subscribe to a lot of that. I think it's an evolution of self. I think it's a gift I have that somehow I either learned from mentors of mine growing up or I inherited from my family, or I have this unique ability to reframe situations in my life as opportunistic and not curses and penalties and things like that. So even something like death, there's power behind death. I have a reverence, a respect towards death.

I don't fear death at all. And I've come close the Christmas, my wife died. My mom died four months later, and then my wife died. And that Christmas, I don't know how far I can go on the show, but I had a gun to my head all weekend and I got to within three seconds and multiple times. And had I been drinking or using drugs, I wouldn't be here today. So the fact I was sober, I was in an epic battle with death that weekend in my house by myself, and I won this time. Death will win eventually, but I'm not going to go down without a fight.

Like I said, I am a better human being today than before all this happened. I work really hard before I came on the show. I got done with a two hour run on my elliptical. I lifted at some lightweights. I don't eat anything bad. I don't drink. I don't watch tv. I have 10 non-negotiables I call 'em that get in the way of a lot of things in my personal life that I don't budge. I've been widowed three years, I haven't been on a date. People try to set me up and when I talk to people, I tell 'em right up front. I'm not really open to that right now. I don't like being alone. No one likes to be alone, but I have certain non-negotiables and no one I've talked to is willing to understand that. So I just keep moving on and there's more people I'm meeting that enrich my life, and I like to think that I am actually enriching their lives as well.

So it's like we mutually benefit from these relationships and we're all struggling with something, but I don't even like the word struggle. It's just kind of negative. It's like, I don't know. I'm just trying. I'm not that smart. I had a finance degree, so I'm pretty good with that type of stuff. But I practice stoicism most of my life. And I don't know if you're familiar with stoic philosophy, but the ability to reframe, and I think it would help the recovery community a lot. And even with our app, we don't use mental health. We say mental wellness. We don't have users of my app. We have thrivers, I hate that word, user. My son was a drug or used drugs. My wife used prescription pills and alcohol. It's like, why would I call a young adult on my app that's benefiting their emotional wellbeing? They're flourishing as a human. Why would I call 'em a user? What the hell are they using? It's like I'm trying to be that disruptor in a way that I'm trying to change how we approach mental wellness, not as an illness. And our western society so apt to pathologize every normal human emotion

And we stick a label on 'em. Autism, bipolar, manic depressive. I don't allow people in my bubble, in my immediate bubble to use the word depression because I think depression is just sadness. But you can't file a claim on an insurance form writing sadness. You have to put oppression so you can get your insurance coverage to pay for your prescriptions. And it's like there's a game going on here that I'm not happy with and I've lost half my family to this stuff and almost lost myself. And I just got this inner fire in me that I got to keep going and keep building and keep being creative and keep, but do it in a way that we're empowering lives, not scaring lives. And if you think about young adults, even adults for that matter, Katie, what are the two ways you change behavior through fear or inspiration?

Katie: Sure, emotion.

Jeff: So don't do drugs, you'll die. Where's the love in that? There's no uplifting message in that. And I think that's why prohibition didn't work and that's why the war on drugs has been a colossal, colossal failure. And like I said, I don't have a lot of background in this. I got thrust into this kind of, not because I was interested in this industry, but I guess my value add and even to your show is just to bring a little bit different fresh perspective to this. And it doesn't have to be gloomy and an ending and sad. And it can be from the ashes, good things can rise.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. No, I mean I appreciate that you bring a different perspective and I think because your background isn't in mental health, it is important to hear that perspective. And I love what you have to say about words. I mean words are powerful and how we say things as powerful, how we frame things is powerful. And it seems like your superpower is that ability to reframe. And so to reframe my question from earlier, how were you able to claw your way out? Grief, I know from people especially who lose children, I've heard it doesn't ever go away. So what are some, I

Jeff: Don't know why you'd want it to go away.

Katie: Exactly.

Jeff: That's the thing. I don't want it to go away.

Katie: So what are some tips that you would have or some ideas or thoughts that you would have around reframing hard times, reframing these challenges that life throws at us?

Jeff: The best tip I could give anybody that's been given an opportunity to become better through something like death, divorce, bankruptcy, whatever, is to take care of yourself first. A one. First things first. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. And I don't mean that sounds so narcissistic, but I mean, if I want to be a good dad to my other two boys, Roman and Ian, be a good neighbor and a good just friend, I can't do it being drunk or high or a hundred pounds overweight for me. All these things held me back from living the optimal life that I really deserve to have. And death is just another one of these things that is an obstacle to try to have a really good life. So I think reframing is a superpower. I really do. And I think as I've gotten older now, I've looked back at things in my life, and again, I can't subscribe where I've got this from, but I have this unique ability that maybe I'm just naive and that's a strength, I guess.

Katie: I think the ability to reframe is very powerful strength. And I don't think it's naivety. I don't know what it is, but I think it's important to be able to put perspective on things. And I think that when we are lost in our despair and when we have really challenging times in life, it could be hard to see that perspective. And so it's beautiful that you're able to see it, but I like that you also aren't sitting here saying that, Hey, you saw this instantly. No, you did go through these challenges. You did have suicidal moments. You did spend 14 months drinking and you were able to walk out the other side. And that in itself is inspiring.

Jeff: I get asked a lot, Katie, my parents after I speak or they hear me, main question is, did you see signs? Were there warning signs? I think they want to see if there's anything with their kids and stuff also. Then the second question I get asked a lot as well, do you mind, am mind telling me what your coping mechanisms are? What do you do every day to stay in this zone? Right, exactly this zone that you're in. And here's what I do, and this is like five days a week. I'm up by four 30 every morning. And last night I was in bed by nine.

I sleep really good. My dog is older, he is a little bit incontinent, so he barks. I have to get up at one o'clock and let him out, or let's just say this, I'm honored to get up and let him out at one o'clock in morning. I don't have to get up. That sounds terrible. I love my old dog. I take him out and my brain's going, so I really can't fall. So I don't get eight hours of great sleep, but I do get eight hours. So I get up at four 30, I meditate 30 minutes to 45 minutes every morning, typically in the dark on my deck with my headphones on. It's guided meditation. And I do typically 20 minutes. And then if I'm really in a zone, I'll just do another 20 minutes. But I typically like to do about 30 to 45 minutes.

And then from there, depending on how my body feels, because I'm 58, so this morning my back was really, really sore. I could barely walk, so I decided to skip working out. But normally I would work out right in the morning and then I go into reading. So I have books I read and stuff, and I've got with Attention Deficit, I have four books I read at one time. I just get bored real quick and I go to a new book and I go, I'm going to go back to that one. And so I've never read a book Start to finish ever. It's like I read four or five books simultaneously and then I write, I love writing. I'll just write. Sometimes I just write not to be read or be seen. I just write. It's like my therapy. Yeah, me too. So yeah, I write, I write. I've got some really cool things I'm working on right now. And then about, I don't know, seven or eight, I'll go look at my emails for the first time. So I've been up like three or four hours. And I don't try to get on social media till about four o'clock in the afternoon

At all. I don't watch any tv. I didn't watch the debates. I have no interest in any of that stuff at all. Anything that increases my anxiety level for any reason, I am just not, I choose not to participate now. I follow people that kind of report that I really respect, and they'll give me summaries of the debate and they'll give me, so I do get my information from people. I just don't trust the media I'm being fed. Things that I just don't think are accurate. It's too angry. I have zero anger in my heart. So even the drug dealer that sold drugs to my son, I don't have any anger for that person in some horrible way. He was providing for his family. And he probably didn't know Fentanyl was in the heroin. But if you're in that industry long enough, trust me, the industry will take care of you. So the drug dealer, something, he's either in jail or he's dead. So there's no successful drug dealers I've ever heard of. But anyway, that's my day-to-Day stuff.

Katie: So I think that's amazing. And it sounds like you're doing amazing projects. So tell us more about some of your projects. I know you have the Undeterred project. It sounds like you're writing a lot. Yeah. So tell us more about what you got going on, how you're inspiring others.

Jeff: So the Living a Dessert project was an idea I had, again, with my active mind, I just decided I needed to do something. So I went up to about an hour north of here and bought a 34 foot fully loaded Hurricane Thor rv. Went and got fully wrapped, and I took my two boys and a documentary guy, drove around the United States for 20,000 miles the summer of 2022. That's our map back there called the Living Unde Turd Us Tour. And my dream was to raise a million dollars, give it all to charity, and meet with, I met with 38 nonprofits in 35 states, but we didn't raise any money. We raised $35,000 and I spent 300,000. Yeah, exactly. And this is like a hill I'm going to die in. I don't have any problems spending all my money helping people, what I want to do. And on the tour, and my youngest son or my middle son says, Jeff, you aren't living undeterred. You're living under a turd. That's what he called my tour. But even the tour is financially disastrous. It was. And how stressful it was. And I thought I had what the

Katie: Experience. Yeah,

Jeff: My documentary guy quit the first week. He couldn't keep up with me. And I don't mean that to be a narcissist. I just don't have an off button. And we just went and I thought people would see the RV and Google and say, God, look at this guy, man, I want help him out. I want to donate to his, just nothing. So I said, okay, fine. If that's not going to work, I'll go bigger. So I hired a team. I sold my investment company. I hired a team in DC to build this app where kids are, they live on their phones and parents. And the app is based on kind of the idea of financial planning, where we teach clients to build a financial plan, diversify their investments in say, stocks, bonds, and real estate. But when we look at mental health, there's no plan.

It's just a game of whack-a-mole. Wait until little Junior has a problem. Take to see a therapist walk out with a bottle of Prozac, wait until little junior's overweight, get 'em a gym membership and it just never ends. It's insanity. So we can introduce a whole generation of kids. 2.56 billion of humans on the earth are Gen Zs to this idea of empowered mental wellness planning. And our asset classes are health, wealth, and purpose. So instead of stocks, bonds in real estate, we're showing kids how they can invest. That's great. In health, wealth and purpose. We launched it September of last year. We're in 14 countries. We've got about a thousand thrivers using the app. I've raised very little money, just like most things in my life, I've just decided I'm going to do it myself. So most of this has been bootstrapped by me. We do have some investors. I will say we do have some good investors that have come in, but I haven't been out knocking on doors. I'm just knocking over doors. How's that?

Katie: Yeah, sometimes it's what you got to do.

Jeff: Yeah. I don't have patience to beg for people to help me. It's like, I got this thing going. You either onboard, we'll change the world, or you can wave when I drive by. It's

Katie: Like, so that's amazing. So can people download the app now?

Jeff: How can Yeah. It's just Brighton Wellness, so B-R-I-G-H-T-N.

Katie: Okay.

Jeff: So, and Brighton, when my son died, when Seth died three weeks after he died, his daughter was born. So I have a granddaughter who's now almost eight, her name is Brighton.

So I named this initiative my life's Passion. After my granddaughter, I took the O out. So it's B-R-I-G-H-T-N. And it's wellness and it's free right now. But on nine one, we're rolling out our membership agreement. So at that point, it won't be free. But the feedback I'm getting, kids love this way, we're engaging it, we've gamified it with points. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I'll be honest with you, I'm just pinched myself how fortunate I'm to be in this position to give back. And I'm 58, should I be retired? But I'm never going to retire, ever in my entire life will I ever retire. And I think as a financial advisor, I should have been more adamant about teaching people to never retire because that's a horrible word. It's a horrible idea. It's got the word tire in it. I'm tired. It's stupid. It's a dumb concept. And I think we ought to just take it off the table, and I think you should just work until you don't want to work anymore.

Katie: Right, right. Change the whole way that we even approach the idea of work and retirement and doing what you love. So it's amazing you were able to find, I think, something really beautiful out of a really tragic situation. So anyone who's struggling today, who's maybe listening to this podcast who is drinking and gambling compulsively, what message might you say to that person?

Jeff: You don't need to be fixed. We don't need to come in and save you. You're perfectly fine who you are. You're at the right place in your life. All these things are lessons. All these things are opportunities to learn from. You don't need to live backwards. Live forwards. Pain is unavoidable. Suffering's a choice. So as much as you want to talk about how miserable your situation is, somebody has it worse than you, I guarantee it and somebody has it worse than them. So it's perspective, it's respect, it's gratitude, and you're not a victim. I look at it this way. Seth died at 23. He could have died at two. My wife died at 46. She could have died at 30. Things could have been worse. I got gifted a beautiful granddaughter out of this whole thing. I'm the luckiest person in the world. I have to think that way because if not, I'm going to end up doing what I almost did two years ago. I don't ever want to go back there. I don't ever want to go back there. I'm not afraid of it, but I don't want to go back there. I was too comfortable dying. That's what scared me the most about being that close to death was I was okay with it. I work hard every day. Every day. There's no day off for me. That's my story.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. You got to work at it every day. And it's not like it's, again, I guess we want to reframe that word work, right? Yeah, not work. We get that honor of being able to work on ourselves every day and to have gratitude and to change our perspectives. And I know that can be hard in the moment, but I really love the perspective that you bring to the show. So this was a really powerful conversation. So thank you so much for joining me today. I was just really blown away by your story and how you approach life, and so I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Jeff: I'm honored to be on the show. And I'll be honest with you, I have to think that most people in my situation would be doing the same thing. I have that much faith in humanity. I don't think I'm anything special. I think I just, I'm doing, and everybody that was in the same situation I'm in, I'm assuming a lot of people would be doing bigger things than I'm doing.

Katie: Well, I think you're doing some pretty amazing things. So I'm excited to download the app. So anyone who's listening, please download the app. And if there's any other way that people you want people to get in touch with you, just let us know now. And

Jeff: Our website is www.brightonapp.com, and we have a merch line coming out. It's a mental health mental wellness merch line with shirts and hoodies and sweats. And it's not Brighton marketing, it's more about the mental wellness industry. So we're excited about that. Our new upgrades with journaling and mood tracking. Some really cool things are coming, but it's just an exciting time to be in this space.

Katie: It is an exciting time. Yeah, there's a lot of need, but there's a lot of purpose. There's a lot of people trying to help and there's a lot of innovation, and I think that you're right at the cusp of all of that. And so very exciting times. Thank you so much for joining me today, and definitely we will be around. We will definitely be in touch, and I'd love to have you back anytime.

Jeff: I'd be honored. Thank you, Katie.

Katie: Thank you. And have a great day, everyone. We'll see you every first and third Wednesday of the month live, and then join me on www.katierosewaechter.com to catch all of the replays of our episodes. Thanks everyone!