Episode 417 - Dr. Tony Dice - The Journey From Navy SEAL to Meth Addict to World Class Counselor

Summary

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Cleared Hot Podcast | Episode 417

Guest: Dr. Tony Dice
Host: Andy Stumpf
Date: November 24, 2025
Title: The Journey From Navy SEAL to Meth Addict to World Class Counselor

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Episode Overview

This candid episode chronicles the extraordinary journey of Dr. Tony Dice—from humble beginnings in rural Northern California, through the trials of Navy SEAL training, a dark descent into addiction, and ultimately his transformation into a respected counselor for veterans, first responders, and addicts. Alongside co-host Michael Gray, Andy and Tony have a raw, wide-ranging conversation about peak performance, addiction, recovery, mental health in the military, and the hard realities of reinvention. Their discussion delves deeply into the cultural and psychological challenges faced by high performers, the dangers of unchecked addiction, the realities of transition after military service, and evolving therapeutic approaches.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Days: SEAL Training—Brotherhood, Failure, and Persistence

• Tony’s Introduction to Andy & Michael: They reminisce about starting BUD/S SEAL training together in class 212 back in 1997, discussing the physical and psychological demands, the camaraderie formed, and the unique challenges of Hell Week.
• Cheating Death and Rules: Tony tells stories about bending the rules in SEAL training, like attaching himself to his swim buddy with 550 cord and sewing a blood pressure cuff into his Speedos to pass drown-proofing.
  • “That’s the story of my life. It should have an asterisk—‘Dice: not legal.’” (Dr. Tony, 03:36)
• Injury and Setback: Tony discusses dislocating his shoulder during Hell Week, being rolled from his class, and facing the prospect of career-ending surgery. The medical staff said no one had ever graduated after such an operation, but Tony persevered and eventually graduated with class 219.
  • “They said, ‘Our goal for you is to get your shirt on by yourself. No one with this operation has ever made it through training.’ I was like, ‘So you’re saying I can’t—yet?’” (Dr. Tony, 19:11)
• Brotherhood and Sacrifice: An outrageous story about helping a classmate fake an injury to avoid an unwanted Navy assignment, illustrating the loyalty and moral dilemmas faced.
  • “My head is literally going: would a good friend do it? Or would a good friend not do it?” (Dr. Tony, 13:04)

2. Military Culture & Its Darker Sides

• Alcohol & Performance Culture: They candidly discuss the SEAL and military subculture, where drinking rites are ingrained and identity is shaped around excess—“You drink to indoctrinate, to elevate, to commemorate, to separate. Anything that involves emotion—me and some alcohol can solve it.” (Dr. Tony, 40:53)
• Addiction Under the Radar: Tony admits that even during his service he began dabbling in cocaine and ecstasy, reflecting a coping mechanism and the tendency for high performers to push boundaries.
• Personality Types in Special Operations:
  • “The obsessive-compulsive nature of an addict or alcoholic can lend itself well to being hyper-focused on a mission. I’m going to achieve it at all costs.” (Dr. Tony, 45:00)
• The Hidden Toll: They discuss how peer pressure, stress relief rituals, identity, and lack of healthy coping strategies set the stage for substance abuse and mental health crises after service.

3. From Operator to Addict: Spiral and Reckoning

• Post-military Struggles: After separating from the SEALs, Tony’s life descended into heavy drinking, cocaine, and then methamphetamine use. He discusses the “cage opening” sensation of leaving the military—and suddenly having no structure.
  • “It was like I’d been in a cage for almost a decade. When they took the cage off, I could do whatever I wanted. All my freedoms came back at once… and I could just go.” (Dr. Tony, 47:07)
• Functional Decline: Darkly humorous and sobering stories—like wheeling a couch to the top of a water tower, getting arrested, nearly ruining his Navy prospects, and surviving by the skin of his teeth.
  • “They charged me with terrorist tampering with a city water supply, which is a felony… I had to go to court, my whole life riding on the judge’s word… He goes: ‘Reduced to trespassing, contingent on you joining the Navy.’” (Dr. Tony, 35:36)
• The Meth Years: Graphic descriptions of hardcore addiction, three-day benders, excruciating withdrawals, a broken marriage, and alienated fatherhood. A harrowing turning point:
  • “I was training my whole life to be a hero. My son needs me, and I can’t get out of this room. I stopped looking in the mirror after that. I hated that guy.” (Dr. Tony, 64:14)

4. Redemption: Hitting Bottom, Recovery, New Mission

• Entering Recovery: Tony details his rock bottom and the decision to enter rehab, selling his own car to pay for treatment.
  • “I almost didn’t go back—if it wasn’t for me looking out that window and saying, ‘Maybe this shit will work.’” (Dr. Tony, 71:09)
• Structure of Recovery: Insights on 12-step programs, narrative therapy, and the “holistic change model”—how successful interventions for veterans and first responders must be tailored and involve strong group identity, empathy, and post-therapy support.
  • “There’s much more said on how you do something than what you accomplish.” (Dr. Tony, 74:04)
• Long-term Sobriety: Tony has now been clean for 15 years, credits sponsorship and community, and is driven to give back.
  • “If you’re someone who’s hesitant to have some buy-in, just look at the embedded theory found within [12-step recovery]. It’s not hocus pocus. There’s some solid theory at work.” (Dr. Tony, 90:04)

5. Becoming a Counselor & Helping the Helpers

• Therapist and Advocate: Tony describes returning to school (initially fearing his brain was “fried”), powering through an associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD. His doctoral research focused on interventions that work for the veteran population.
• Work with First Responders: Launching Bishop & Dice Defense—a company that embeds mental health support “by stealth” in tactical training for police and fire departments.
  • “For a year, we’ll train you with all the cutting-edge gear. On year two, we bring in the mental health therapy. It’s a bait and switch—but it works.” (Dr. Tony, 92:57)
• Barriers and Stigma: They explore why even improved official programs still face silence and resistance; the necessity of trust for veterans and police to open up.
• The Challenge of Leaving the Tribe: The psychological loss of task and purpose after military careers, and the urgent need for deliberate “de-programming.”
• Force Multipliers:
  • “I’m looking for those ten-exers. How can we continue to grow this exponentially? Every day we don’t do this, people are dying. Their families are blowing up.” (Dr. Tony, 135:09)

6. Reflections on Parenting and Legacy

• Breaking the Cycle: Tony openly discusses talking to his children about addiction, providing age-appropriate versions of his story, and creating “amnesty” windows for confession—a practice learned from the military.
• Living Amends:
  • “My living amends to my kid is to be a kickass dad today. Every day I do that is part of the amends to them for what was done.” (Dr. Tony, 81:47)

7. The Power—and Limits—of Therapy

• Gratitude and Acceptance:
  • “Everything in my life had to happen exactly the way it did for me to end up in this chair, for this guy sitting there… I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” (Dr. Tony, 133:14)
• Loss, Limits, and Hope: Tony reflects on not “winning” every case, the chaos-adjacency of therapy work, and how the best therapists must maintain boundaries, get support, and accept that timing and luck are huge factors in successful intervention.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “There are seven levers under there… I don’t know what any of them do.”
  (Tony, joking about microphones and starting the conversation, 00:53)
• "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
  (Dr. Tony, on rule-bending in SEAL training, 07:37)
• "All you could see was the distance between where you are and your goal. That's why people quit. They get overwhelmed by the view of time."
  (Andy Stumpf, on SEAL candidate psychology, 16:19)
• "You drink to indoctrinate, you drink to commemorate, you drink to separate... If you drink and get in trouble, you're done. But if you do anything good, here's a case of beer."
  (Dr. Tony, 40:53)
• "It was like I’d been in a cage for almost a decade. When they opened the door, I could use how I wanted to use. I could party how I wanted to party. Zero accountability."
  (Dr. Tony, 47:07)
• "For me, I was beginning to realize addiction was part of my life even back then... I really liked the pain, the chase, the edge."
  (Dr. Tony, reflecting on addictive traits in early training, 32:41)
• "I stopped looking in the mirror after that. I hated that guy."
  (Dr. Tony, on reaching rock bottom as a parent and addict, 64:14)
• "Once I did that investment, it felt like I took all my poker chips and said: I’m in. If I don’t get this, my parachute’s not going to open."
  (Dr. Tony, describing checking into rehab and his all-in approach, 73:04)
• "There’s more said on how you do something than what you accomplish."
  (Dr. Tony, reflecting on lessons from recovery, 74:04)
• "If you want to change someone's perspective, share a story with them. They'll see something in a different light."
  (Dr. Tony, on the power of honest narrative, 118:37)
• "For so many, it's everything... That badge, that Trident, it's your identity. But what is it worth?"
  (Andy Stumpf, on the struggle to let go and seek help, 97:45)
• "My living amends to my kids is to be a kickass dad today."
  (Dr. Tony, 81:47)
• "The gifts of desperation, that point you hit where you're willing to do it a different way... it can come from anywhere—a DUI, blowing up your family, a shift in perspective."
  (Dr. Tony, 77:22)
• "Every day we don’t do this, more people are getting further down that path of self-destruction... I’m looking for those force multipliers."
  (Dr. Tony, 135:09)
• "It’s almost like you’re being selfish by not allowing others to help you… It’s a huge honor when someone asks for help."
  (Dr. Tony, 137:54)
• “Let go of what you think you know about your life. That need to control caused so much strife, and led to so much of me trying to bury my feelings in addiction.”
  (Dr. Tony, 135:44)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:01–14:40]: Intro, SEAL Training Tales, Brotherhood, Cheating the System
• [14:41–23:04]: Early Life, Decision to Join SEALs, Upbringing
• [38:23–46:10]: Platoon Life, Alcohol Culture, Addictive Personalities
• [47:06–56:18]: Leaving the Military, Loss of Structure, Downward Spiral, Contracting in Iraq/Afghanistan
• [61:55–67:22]: Meth Addiction, Hitting Bottom, Neglect, Deciding on Recovery
• [72:15–75:35]: Rehab, Turning Point, 12-Step Model, Commitment to Recovery
• [76:22–91:25]: Becoming a Counselor, Research on Treatment, Launching a Company for First Responders
• [135:09–139:56]: Reflections, Parenting, Force Multipliers, What Comes Next
• [137:54–139:56]: Final Takeaways, Asking for Help, Connection

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Resources & Further Information

• Dr. Dice's Book: Available for pre-order on Amazon ("DrDiceBook.com" for behind-the-scenes and mailing list)
• Bishop & Dice Defense: Training and mental health for first responders (seven states and growing)
• Follow Dr. Dice: On all major social platforms at "@Dr.Dice"

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Takeaways

• Transformation is Possible: Even the most “high-functioning” or elite individuals can hit rock bottom, but change is possible through community, humility, and structure.
• Military & First Responder Culture Must Evolve: Rituals of toughness often mask unaddressed pain and self-destruction. The right support system—not just for individuals, but for entire communities—can change lives.
• Your Story is Powerful: By owning your narrative, sharing it honestly, and seeking connection, you can help yourself—and countless others—heal.

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“If you ask me for help, I take that as a huge honor. Like you trust me enough to ask for help. You're giving someone the ability to ask to be there for you.”
—Dr. Tony Dice [137:56]

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For anyone struggling, remember: You are not alone. There are people ready and honored to help.

Transcript

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Okay, I got the red smoke.

[Michael Gray]

Sun runs north and south west of the smoke.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke.

[Michael Gray]

I'm looking at danger close now.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, wait a minute. Give it to me. I mean, it cleared hot. We don't do the headset. The cool guy, like, I don't want to look like.

[Michael Gray]

So I used to do the headsets, right? And it's pretty cool because it can. Because it's so close to your ears, it'll like draw you into the conversation.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

But it's also, in ways that I have a hard time describing. It's a little bit restrictive too, because you'll feel it tugging on you sometimes. And then. Why did we take them off for the first time? Do we have a guest that was wearing like a cowboy hat or something?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I honestly, I don't remember. You know, I don't pay attention.

[Michael Gray]

That is actually one of the truer statements. I'll catch him over there. It doesn't adjust at all.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's the height you sit at.7 levers on the bottom.

[Michael Gray]

I know. I don't know what any of them do. Just move the microphone. Something for you? No. I forget why we took him off the first time and it just became comfortable. He keeps it on because he can manage to make sure that the audio levels like, gotcha. Once in a while. And I use that term lightly. Every once in a while he'll have like a. Hey, guys. Talk a little bit louder.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's because everybody's pretty good about keeping it close. I don't.

[Michael Gray]

I'm not. I can't even look at it.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What about F bombs? Can we drop?

[Michael Gray]

It's the Internet. You can talk however you want to about whatever you want. We can talk about hypothetically. Flags. We can talk about whatever you want, man. It's up to you. First question is easy though. When is the last time you and I saw each other? Other than 10 minutes ago, dude.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Fucking 2, 212.

[Michael Gray]

Mother. So that was 97. We started in January of 97. Right, dude.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And that class 212, when I got my welcome to Bud's orders, the graduation date with my birthday.

[Michael Gray]

August 15th.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yep. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh, cloud's parting. It's meant to be gonna fucking get through.

[Michael Gray]

So you were forward planning there a little bit. I like the headspace. I appreciate the headspace.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. That was it. But that's when I knew you. And you are changed, my friend.

[Michael Gray]

Well, I was 18. I would hope I changed.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, yes. I mean, I remember the first time Seeing you and thinking you were someone's kid, I didn't think.

[Michael Gray]

I will post this picture. This one. So I probably floated around 215. Now, I didn't get into 200 pounds until my mid-20s, but I was 6ft tall in buds. I just was 150 pounds.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So it was more like, you're a Beeple. You're the guy that gets fished the balls out of the gutters. Kind of. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I will post this picture in this portion of the episode because people don't believe me that I was that size. I wish I could find my driver's license from graduating high school. People would probably report my parents to child protective services for malnourishment. But I was. I couldn't stop eating. I gained weight in butts, like five pounds. I mean, nothing crazy. I didn't come out of there. I mean, we all came out of there with really bad hip flexors and a six pack that was completely useless. But, yeah, I'll post this. I was tiny, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah. And that. It's crazy to even have that picture. Cause it's like you said, you're not in it. I'm not in it. See the guy right in the middle? We'll call him Bingo to preserve his name off the Internet. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And then this picture from Hell Week. I mean, come on.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But Bingo and I. And this is. This story deserves to be told. Bingo and I were swim buddies. We were like, full on. He can swim his ass off. We actually had a little piece of 550 cord we would attach to each other during the swims to pass. And I would push him on the runs.

[Michael Gray]

Side note, not legal.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Not legal. Dude, there were so many things I did that. That's the story of my life. It should have an asterisk. Say, dice not legal. Yes. Yeah. But I would literally push him on the runs. And together we were gonna make it through this fucking program. And I did not make it through hell. Week of 212. And what day did you roll? Wednesday, man.

[Michael Gray]

So I went back as an instructor for about 18 months. And I didn't want to, but it was fascinating. I loved it. I didn't love it right away. What I. There's a couple things I discovered there. One, I really like teaching. I really enjoyed the process. I'm not going to say I'm an educator by any stretch.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I wouldn't label my instructors as educators.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. But I also, you know, the whole time I was there, I didn't yell a single time. I would do all the core value speeches or the core value evolutions on Wednesdays. And I would let it.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Were you a proctor?

[Michael Gray]

Even the classes? I wasn't a proctor. It was supposed to. I was in E6 at the time. That's where I picked up 01 through the LDO program. But it was supposed to be E7 and up for the core values. I would just. And I would ask to go do it and I would just do Q and A. I would let them ask me anything they wanted about the teams. You know what's funny? The students had legitimate questions about life as a team guy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, I believe it.

[Michael Gray]

What do you think about getting married young? What should we do with our money? What does it actually look like? Stuff that I wish our instructors later on. Right. Like maybe halfway through or something. And that was the thought process I had. I knew I wanted to go back to the teams. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. You know what's weak coffee made for people who hit the snooze button and complain about the weather that is not black. Black Rifle Coffee. BRCC is veteran founded roasted in America and built for people who put in the work in the gym, on the range or out in the mountains. If you are looking to stock up for winter or grab a solid gift, go with waken the neighbors for high caffeine beyond black for something darker or atomic Llama, their seasonal roast with cinnamon and brown sugar. That just hits right this year. BRCC backed organizations that actually make a difference. Folds of Honor, Hunter Seven foundation and more. And as we head into America's 250th birthday, they are doubling down on that mission. So whether you are running a cold morning workout or sitting in a deer blind or just trying to survive family holiday chaos, BRCC has your back. Find it at Walmart, your local grocery store or at blackrifflecoffee.com Black Rifle Coffee veteran founded American Roasted. This is America's coffee. And I had the realization that that means I'll be working with these students. So why would I do anything other than try to make them as capable? Oh, it's possible.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I wish you were my instructor.

[Michael Gray]

It was a different time. Our instructors were a different time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They were. They were different. Well, it was also peacetime to chain. Yes. Yes.

[Michael Gray]

And I think the. The metric there was how hard can we make it? Because that was the measuring stick that was available at the time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That was it. Yeah. It was a different era then.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. But yeah, I hope I was different.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I mean I was but lingo, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Let me finish that story about lingo.

[Michael Gray]

I love the 550. So I'll break this down. All right, so there's two mile ocean swim. What's the longest one? Is it five and a half nautical.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Miles there is that huge swim. Yes, but, yeah, it's fins, but it's.

[Michael Gray]

The compound all the way down to Imperial Beach. It's 5.5 nautical miles. Right. So I think that puts you at just over 6 statute. It's the only thing you do in the day. If you can swim, that's great in a pool. But guiding is one of the things that will get students. And so that is somebody has to lift their head up and navigate because you're going north up towards the Hotel Dell. And then you come back and you see like these serpentine patterns. Good swimmers will fail because they can't navigate. And the other swim buddy has to stay right next to you. And it's hard to do unless you have a small piece of 550 cord attaching the two of you. Let me just tell you as an instructor, if you had been caught with that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, I know.

[Michael Gray]

There would have been consequences.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

One of the biggest, you know, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. Yeah. I could not float to save my life. I mean, I was so freaking negative going through buds and I was practicing ground proofing and practicing, practicing. Only thing, only part I could not do was the, the. The floating part where you just breath holds float. And I was.

[Michael Gray]

You were just.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Legitimately, legitimately. I dolphin kick and go down. If I touch the bottom, I fail. And so I'm practicing, practicing, and I'm trying to work out what do I need to pass this, you know? And I started bringing little baggies of air Ziplocs and seeing how many ounces of air would I take to be able to squeeze this by. And I figured out, you know, it was just, yay, maybe 12 ounces. 16 ounces of air. Yeah. Is all I would require. So I took the blood pressure cuff out of a. I pulled the bladder out of a blood pressure cuff and I sewed it into my Speedos and I put the bulb right up here by my front, my nuts.

[Michael Gray]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And I was like, the move is.

[Michael Gray]

You gotta put an equal one out the back. If you're gonna go codpiece, you gotta go potato in the back, too.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It worked. It worked. I passed. Did not get busted for it. Hold on.

[Michael Gray]

So you're telling me when we were doing the drown proofing test. So I'll break this down for people.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Break it down.

[Michael Gray]

This is the. This test does not mean you are drown proof for clarity. This is a test that is all about comfort in the water.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right. You freak out subsurface.

[Michael Gray]

And this will take a sec. Because the test itself is. They tie your feet together. Your arms are tied behind your back. There is a one to one ratio. There's a student watching you. There's instructors, there's. There's doctors there. It's bobbing up and down. It's the length of the pool, back and forth. It's floating. And then you pick your mask up and do a flip, whatever it is, incrementally. I mean, the first time I think we did this, we actually weren't. We had just put our hands behind our back. So even though that might sound horrendous to people, they don't just do that to you on day one. It is a crawl, walk, run for speed.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It is.

[Michael Gray]

It is.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But it. The legend precedes it. Every.

[Michael Gray]

Everything. Life saving. What is going to happen to us?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, gosh, yes. Oh, so that was.

[Michael Gray]

So you had a bloodb pressure cuff in your Speedo.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

In my Speedo.

[Michael Gray]

Well played, sir.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I mean, yeah, that was my whole buzz plan. It's like, figure it out as you go, you know, that's the only way. Yeah, yeah. And so darkest time of my life. Why? Why? I. Wednesday I was. Had a dislocated shoulder. I was trying to hide going into.

[Michael Gray]

How did you dislocate it?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Coming off the cargo net.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Came back, felt over rotated coming down because you know, you drop toward the last work free arming it down the cargo net.

[Michael Gray]

He's talking about an obstacle on the obstacle course, which is another one of the time devolutions every week.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

High, right?

[Michael Gray]

Oh, the cargo net.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Cargo net. Oh, no. 30, 40. How tall is it? It's freaking tall.

[Michael Gray]

I would say 80.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

80Ft tall.

[Michael Gray]

There's a. It's as tall as the top of the slide for life, which is up there. That's four stories.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So it's at least 40ft.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I'm gonna. It's 600ft.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Can we just Google that real quick?

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, Michael's not that great. Okay, let me make it up. It's 600ft. If you fall, you're definitely 600ft.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's big. So about halfway down, I lose control over, rotate and come down my shoulder, and I do a. What's called an anterior dislocation, and it chips Some of the bones. And so I'm trying to hide that.

[Michael Gray]

And so would it stay out or would it just come out?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It would come out. I'd pop it back in and come out each time super painful. And I'm trying to hide it. And the thing is, I'm not getting my arm up under the boat, and it's not staying up. And the instructors are pulling me back, and they're. And I'm. I'm hiding. I'm not telling them about it. I don't want to get rolled. I don't want. I'm not telling them about it. I just need a minute. And they end up pulling me out, checking me out. And while they're checking me out, the class goes. And by that time, the instructor's saying, it's too late. You know, you're going to get back to medical and you can check. It's over, Dice. And I'm like. And by the time I get back to the BUDS compound, I'm disoriented and kind of just know what's going on. I remember.

[Michael Gray]

Well, by Wednesday of Hell Week, we've been up for a piece. Was this before they put us down to sleep for a couple hours? This was because this happens on Wednesday.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

A lot of this makes more sense now that I got to see it from the other side.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I have.

[Michael Gray]

Dude, I don't know about you.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I remember very little. Very little. Yeah, yeah. The timeline's all distorted when this happens, but I do know I was left, like, my. Whoever the instructor was who brought me back from. From. We were the. We were like, on a meal run, gallery run. Brought me back. He left me. And then another instructor comes out of the instructor's office and then says, you gotta ring the bell. And I'm like, no, you gotta ring the bell. And I was like, oh, I went over there. I rang it. I just remember my. My spirit. Soul crushing. Yeah, yeah. And then they have the whole X Division, X Men. You're formerly not a man. It was just a horrible, dark feeling. And bingo. Made it through buds. Made it through Hell week. Yeah. And then we were out after Hell Week. We went out one weekend down in downtown San Diego, and he got a dui. Oh, he's gone with me in the car. And I remember watching him get it. Now we're both washed out. He takes it harder than me. And he comes up to me drunk one time and says, dice, I need you to ask a favor. I want you to break my leg so I won't go to the Fleet. And I said, dude, you're drunk. Come back and talk to me when you're sober.

[Michael Gray]

And I thought you were gonna say, which leg?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

He comes back and talks to me when he's sober.

[Michael Gray]

Like, listen, you're drunk, so this is a good time. Which leg you want?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Perfect. He asked me, and he comes back when he's sober, and he says, hey, if you don't do it, I'm asked. I'm. Ask someone else I don't trust to do it. So I'm thinking. My head is literally going, would a good friend do it or would a good friend not do it? Like, I'm torn. There's a good argument for each. Yeah, yeah. And so I said, okay, let's do it. And we threw him up against the side of the rack and put a pillow on it so it wouldn't leave a boot mark and blew out his leg. I yelled, corpsman. They took him away. He ended up having several operations on his legs. Walking with a limp. We went out a couple times, hanging out together. We met up with some dancers and pole dancers, perhaps. Yeah, very. Let me just call them dancers. But they had a lot more money than we had.

[Michael Gray]

Cash business.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Cash business.

[Michael Gray]

Small bills. Usually.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

He fell in love.

[Michael Gray]

I think you mean lust.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, they got. They got married, moved. They moved, like, to Oklahoma. And that was the story of bingo. I mean, are they still together as of 20 years ago, yes. That's all. That's the last time we had contact.

[Michael Gray]

So I can say definitively that's the first time I've heard that type of story end that way.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Oh.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So, I mean, but in this place, ex div. Man, it was like people would be actively thinking about suicide. It was.

[Michael Gray]

It's the well of souls. So that is something that I found very interesting when I went back as a student or as an instructor. As a student. You know this. If somebody quits, you might see them in passing for the next 48 to 72 hours. But they actually do a really good job of separating them. And I remember, honestly, zero people who quit from 212. And I don't mean that negatively, but the path is different because we were on our trajectory towards, at least we hoped, graduation.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

As an instructor. Oh, boy. You get to. You see these? And you can. You can. It's so palpable. You can see it on their face. I took that opportunity to sit and talk with them.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

God, you're so much nicer.

[Michael Gray]

Well, let me finish where I'm going with this, and you may change that. I was fast. So I am aware of, I am aware of the Navy spending millions of dollars trying to figure out who makes it through buds. What's your sport background? Did you come from a broken family or a nuclear family? Where did you come from in the U.S. what are your, like millions of dollars? They had the pre training program, all that stuff. I'm not aware of them doing a single bit of studying as to why people quit. It's like, why don't we look at that to see if we can reverse engineer it? So I started asking these students just what happened? And I, I got the same answer almost every time. And you were about, you were saying that I'm such a nice guy. I got that info so I could use it against the other students. So you're free to change your opinion.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God. No, man.

[Michael Gray]

You know what the answer was though?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What was the answer?

[Michael Gray]

View of Time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I can, I can agree with that.

[Michael Gray]

They got overwhelmed. They viewed where they were and how far away their goal was and all they could see was the distance between the two.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You can't comprehend how far away six months is. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Or in Hell Week, when an instructor is standing in front of you and you are doing. They changed it to surf immersion.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

In our day it was surf torture. Do you know what's funny? You know what? They didn't change the evolution. So the evolution is identical. They have picked a vernacular that offends less people. Meanwhile, you're still laying in the ocean when an instructor in your, you know, let's say you're at Monday. Sun's going down Monday night of Hell Week, which is a rough one, and you've been out there for what feels like a couple hours, and an instructor is just walking down the line talking to you about, how long can you be this cold because you can't even stand up. I mean, you remember how incredibly painful the hip flexors were when you were that cold and you can't.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. Looked horrible.

[Michael Gray]

And you just have an instructor standing there like, how long can you do this? Because you're just going to be this cold for my entire shift and then tomorrow I'm going to come find you. So if you can invade their thought process, of perspective, of time, their likelihood of giving up is astronaut. It exceeds the coldness of the water, the tiredness of Hell Week, the hunger, the irritation.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You'll do 20 evolutions and it's still Monday night of Hell Week. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I mean, instructors are setting their watches to the wrong day and time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I Mean it's or not knowing when or run ends that. Remember those, those beach runs, Those are the worst. Those are the worst.

[Michael Gray]

If you tell me I'm gonna run 10 miles, I can wrap my head around that. If you tell me I'm gonna run until you say stop. That's how people quit, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dude, like every time we loop back and.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, yeah, but those students and I tried to do it, I tried to do it with as soft a gloves as possible. Because I tell you what, there is one emotion that they almost all share with me and that was regret. Even in the 48 hours after it happened. What you're talking about people contemplating suicide and just the well of souls. And just like they. They were already there. They were in it. And so I got the information, but it was. It was high. 90th percentile of people.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, absolutely. Oh, my God.

[Michael Gray]

I can't believe that they didn't give you a medical option.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They did. They did. I went back, you know, but before the end of the day, they were like, you're getting going to medical chiller looked at and.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh my God. You know when they see the bone chips and you're injured and you know.

[Michael Gray]

So they rolled you.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They rolled me.

[Michael Gray]

Okay. Which is going to pull you out of X division. You're going to go to ptr, which they then changed the name of that too. So I lost track of that vernacular.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. But they did roll me. And so now all of a sudden they set me up about boa. They're looking at me and they want to do what's called an open bankart operation on my shoulder, where they cut you top of the shoulder all the way down, pull the head of the humerus out, pull out all the bone chips, put in two screws and a couple pins and sew it back up again. And I'm talking to the doctor and I'm telling him about my plan to class back up again probably in several.

[Michael Gray]

Days, if not a few weeks.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know. And the doctor is looking at me going, he said, there's two things. One, our goal for you is to get you to put your shirt on by yourself. And two, no one with this operation has ever made it through training. And I was like, so you're saying I can't yet? Yeah. And so we go through the operation and I plug into the Bud's medical right there on the compound, and they have me working in supply. So I'm like, I'm in the facility, I'm seeing all the instructor staff every day. I'M always doing the Bud Shuffle. Which for those that don't know, is from the day you check into buds, you're running and it's this really slow kind of.

[Michael Gray]

Except for one week after Hell Week. And you walk slowly in tennis shoes.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. And you are. I did that everywhere I went. And I made sure I was in their face that I wanted to come back. And I followed my rehab to the letter and they gave me a shot, you know, they put me in class 219.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, wow. Whoa. So that's a year later. Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. So not even that. I mean, it was. It was less than a year. And they're like, we're gonna watch you. Because I could. I had. I passed in high marks on all the qualifications and the pull ups and all that. And I was raring to go and I hit the class hard, but I was a freaking prankster all the way through. Yeah. I mean, going into the next Hell Week, I. I checked out the instructor's ride to go get it gassed up and I took it. Alec off the base, Alec off the island, went to Best Buy and we had. I had taken a bunch of rubbers from supply, sold them in town, used that money to buy a stereo for the instructor's car, put speakers in the bed and put a big amp in it. And so they were going to be souped up for Hell Week, which by.

[Michael Gray]

The way, let's just. I'm going to throw a disclaimer. None of this is authorized. But much like the Monday morning room inspections where there's cans of Copenhagen and donuts.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Nowhere in any doctor actually in doctrine, you would probably be punished for those things. But if the right instructor comes around the corner and sees those things. Yes, you're going to have a good day or a better day than you were about to have.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So first night of Hell Week. The instructors at first loved this new. I mean, they had Metallica turned up for breakout, blah, blah, blah. Right in the middle of the apex of all the flashcraft, all the shit going on, it goes and smoke comes out of the ride and it fried the electrical system and killed their truck.

[Michael Gray]

Now that becomes a problem.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

First night of Hell Week.

[Michael Gray]

Hey, at least you got a breakout. Cause as you remember from 212.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

We got nothing.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

We got nothing. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Cause I think they hated us so much.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They hated it. Yeah. There was no breakout. Oh, I'd forgotten.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. Remember all the tents and they just. I was in the farthest tent north and I heard them yell. We all heard them yelling. But Only the southernmost tent got out first, and they're all on the surf, and we're all looking through this little vertical as if. What, are we going to delay it? Five minutes? Yeah. And actually, in the end, they were just pissed at us.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. So because of that, they became pissed at us. Yeah. Yeah. Especially. Who's Dice? Oh, you're. They brought it. Brought the pain.

[Michael Gray]

Why'd you want to go down that career path in the first place? What got you interested?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Good question. You know, growing up, I was the oldest of eight brothers and sisters raised in the mountains in Northern California. And I know you're from NorCal, but I'm.

[Michael Gray]

You're from north. Santa Cruz is dead center of the state.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah. And it has a population. We're talking. Horse Creek was my hometown, and it had population 89.

[Michael Gray]

Wow.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

3 miles from the Oregon border as the crow flies. And it is. You know, there was, like, One girl within 100 miles, my age, and she didn't like me. That wasn't related to me. And so it was. We were all homeschooled, too, up in the mountains, so it was like, really isolation. I remember running away when I was 16. Just get the hell out of there. But a lot of crazy escapades. I love making booby traps. That was my favorite thing in the world. And I ran away all the way down to San Diego and jumped into junior college down there. I know. And I had an Indiana Jones hat on, a fedora, and a leather jacket, because those are my. My heroes back then. And so I'm walking around campus, still not getting laid at 16, but in a junior college and just like, changing majors or majors a bunch of times. And I hit this EMT course, and that. That kind of sung to me. I was like, holy shit, I could be a hero with this information. Yeah. Yeah. And so I got on a fire rescue rig back up in the town of Yreka. Northern, like, more back in Northern California. When I turned 18, I did that for a couple years. I transferred to Northern Siskiy ambulance, and I did the ambulance for a couple years. I love the idea of someone dialing 911 and they're calling like they're having the worst day of their life. And I'm. I'm coming to help them.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And then. But, you know, each one of those jobs, you know, the fire rescue, you're like, hoping the ambulance gets there and the ambulance, you're hoping the cops get there, because they're all like, you know, the escalation of force. And I Was getting ready to transfer over to a sheriff's office. I was hiring. And my chief pulls me up and goes, dice, what are you doing? He said, you're just hopping around every couple years. And I said, well, what's the top of the food chain? He said, a Navy seal. And that was my entire decision making matrix. I just said, all right.

[Michael Gray]

You had never heard of it till that point?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Never. Never really considered it. Never looked at it. He just said it was the hardest. And I said, all right. I went down to the Navy recruiter.

[Michael Gray]

After robust research, it sounds like.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. No research. And I told the recruiter, I said, I want to be a corpsman on a SEAL tent, SEAL team. He said, no problem. You know, here, sign here. And I kind of scanned it and I go, what's an en? He said, don't worry about it. You can reclassify in boot camp. And even I know what an en. Yes. And for those out there. Yeah. An engineman, which, if you look at a ship, a cross section of a ship, the sunshine's up here in the top decks, and there's no sunshine. It's down here in the engine room at the bottom where it's 130 degrees. Double hearing protection.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's the hellscape of a ship. You call us snipes. Yeah. You're down there. And I. And you can't reclassify in boot camp. I tried raising my hand and I asked, can I be some. Another rate? They said, shut up. Sit down.

[Michael Gray]

Recruiters are a rare breed.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I'm still looking for that recruiter. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Mine didn't lie to me. It was a woman. She was a mechanic for the Blue Angels. She just didn't know anything about what she was talking about. But again, in 95, 96, when I started talking to recruiters who did. The students of this era.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

There are websites that exist that have almost every evolution of every single day. Physical requirements. You know what's. You know what, though? The attrition rate hasn't changed.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Nope. Nope.

[Michael Gray]

Because think about it. If you go back to this, being overwhelmed and frustrated. Let's say you start off the third week on a Monday and you're having a bad day, Guess what you got in your mind? Everything you have to do.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right.

[Michael Gray]

It hasn't changed the attrition at all. Because at first I thought, these guys are cheating, so therefore they have to be punished because that's what happened to us. And generational trauma needs to be passed downhill generationally. And then I realize oh, go to town, research it all. Lay out the entire schedule in your head. Because then all I need to do as an instructor is to get you to focus on that. Like, I'll play your game. Oh my God, I'll play your game.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. There's a good postscript to that, to our conversation about, you know, making it through 219. You remember that? The surgeon I just talked about who said that you couldn't do it? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Well, when I did graduate, I wanted to show him. Yeah, I'll show him. Try to tell me what I can't do. And so what I did was I went out to the Coronado Bay Bridge and I got underneath the bottom of it and I started going. There's a little catwalk once you get around the little safety shit and you come out mid span and I drop down in the center and I start busting out a set of pull ups and I get a picture hanging in the center underneath the Coronado Bay Bridge, mid span and send it to him saying, don't you ever, motherfucker, tell someone what they can or can't do.

[Michael Gray]

There are other ways that you could have communicated.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I don't think they would have gotten through to him.

[Michael Gray]

Maybe just take your graduation certificate over.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no.

[Michael Gray]

Oh my God.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And that's me with hair, by the way. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Where's your safety equipment?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah, totally. OSHA sanctioned. Yeah. None. There was a guy.

[Michael Gray]

There you are holding on by fingertips.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And know what I found out about the ship, the bridge?

[Michael Gray]

That this isn't a good idea.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. That it does like a slippery, oily coating over everything from pollution. So as I'm dropping down, I'm like, this is slippery.

[Michael Gray]

You realize this could have been the last photo.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It could. I would have been. Look at the smile on my face. I would have died happy. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Okay. This is giving me good insight.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

This is helping me capture good insight. Says the BASE jumper. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Semi retired. I mean, you can do BASE jumping as safely as possible. At least. I had a parachute. You had a jacket on.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I did have a good jacket.

[Michael Gray]

Good luck with that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Zippers. Did you do any preparation for buds?

[Michael Gray]

I did to the limit of what I could legitimately. The woman I talked to, she was fantastic. She was really cool. She came over. I remember. And again, I struggled to remember a lot of details at this age in my life. Cause we're talking. I was 17 when I actually signed the Delayed entry program. I knew I wanted to do from a very young age.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's how Old.

[Michael Gray]

I was, let's see, you were probably mid-20s.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, I was 24.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. Just listening to the path that you were on. Actually, interestingly enough, statistically, somebody with a little life experience has a slightly better likelihood to make it through because I think that life experience and the just dealing with things not going your way, it helps a little bit.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It hurts a lot more. Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Well, I don't know if you remember Elliot. He was 37.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dude, he was a stud. He was a good leader.

[Michael Gray]

He was a stud. But I also remember he ate 800 milligram motrins. Like a PEZ dispenser.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, yes, yes.

[Michael Gray]

When I achieved the age of 3711 years ago, I thought to myself, what would it take for me to try to go through buds right now? And I realized there's nothing in the world.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh my gosh. I know.

[Michael Gray]

So now I look back and I understand why he. They were literally skittles to him. Just straight eight hundreds. Just. Yeah. So when I went to talk to her, she had. It was a. I think it was a double sided little stack of paper and it might have been six pages and it was things like push up pyramids.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And you didn't get the official BUDS warning order.

[Michael Gray]

No, no. I mean we're talking like, wow, paper thin. So There was a 24 Hour Fitness near where we lived. And so I would go before school and I would get on a treadmill and I would run and I just, I would do calisthenic type stuff mostly. But again, dude, I was £150 when, when I started.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

When we started together with 212, I was legitimately 150 pounds, graduated 155. I mean, I don't know what training I was going to be doing.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow.

[Michael Gray]

I played water polo in high school, so that helped with the swimming. Baseball, not helping at all. And I did junior lifeguards for probably a good half a dozen years and that helped with a little bit stuff like swimming. Well, swinging in the boats, being able to look at the surf coming in like, hey, we should probably hold what we got here and we'll charge it after the set comes through.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Understanding sex, I mean, yeah, that's a big. You could tell those who are from the middle of the country and yeah, they're just. We should paddle.

[Michael Gray]

Like.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no. I was always coxing. I was like, let me do it, guys. Come on. We're gonna just.

[Michael Gray]

To be able to recognize. That was about it, man. I did not.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dude.

[Michael Gray]

Running. I was able to find out when I was in a school that they wore Bates lights. So because I went to a school on the damn neck Navy base over Virginia beach for os, had no idea what was just up, up the beach.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No idea, no clue.

[Michael Gray]

You'd hear explosions and God, no clue. Would run a lot on the sand in baits, but that was about it.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow. No, no, I did a lot of running in those small towns and it was fully like rocky. Like, you know, everyone knew I was training and everyone waving to me. There was a kid like two years before me who went off and tried, failed, came back and hung himself. So there was this sense of like, dude, you gotta make it, man, you gotta make it. And I was this, this is where I began to realize addiction was part of my life. Even back then. I really, I was coming home from a run and I was finishing strong. I live on top of this hill and I'm charged up the hill and there's my get to my apartment and I'm looking out top of the hill and behind my apartment there's a dirt road going further up the road. So I just charge up that like as hard as I can. And now I'm top of the mountain. I'm looking, I'm breathing heavy that good mountain air. And behind the top of the mountain there's a water tower. And I just decide that day to climb around the little security thing, climb the water tower, and I get on top of the water tower, I'm looking over the whole valley and I'm going, this is awesome.

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[Dr. Tony Dice]

And whatever reason, I climb down the water tower, go down the dirt road, I go all the way down to my apartment and I start dragging my car couch out the door and I get it on my shoulders and I go walking up the dirt road and I have this rope and I pull it up on top of the water tower and I put it up there and I'm sitting on a couch.

[Michael Gray]

None of this is pre planned.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

None of this pre planned. This is just like, what actual fuck is wrong with you sitting on it? And I'm like, this is awesome. You know, I mean, just feel and I get up and I go down the dirt road back down to my apartment and I get her getting my, my barbecue. And I kept pulling off my deck desk and deck. And I put on my shoulders and I carry it up the hill and I get the rope and I put it on top of the water tower. And I'm having a steak and a Corona on my couch. The sun is getting low in the valley and I'm swear I'm having literally the best fucking day of my life. Like I'm gonna be a Navy seal. This is all. I mean, just like I could feel just this sense of everything's clicking.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And I can hear this bullhorn going. You on the water tower. And I look over the edge and it's like the power company, the utilities company, the sheriff's department, all these cars coming up. Apparently I've been setting off little pressure sensors on the top of the water tower all day.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Or either your couch was or your barbecue. Let's not forget the accoutrement.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh my God.

[Michael Gray]

You brought up with you.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I climbed down and I try to like guys, you know, I work for the ambulance, you know, trying to like.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They grab me, handcuffed me, put me back a squad car. They send their junior man up to push my shit off the water tower.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Which I'm in the back going, no, not because I love my couch, but because I had borrowed the barbecue from my brother in law who borrowed it from the chief of police. So.

[Michael Gray]

Oh boy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. I mean, there's so many levels to this. But now they charge me with terrorist tampering with city water supply, which is a felony. Yes, I agree. Because that would get me disqualified from Navy. I'm all of a sudden, I'm not gonna be a Navy seal. I'm looking at, my life is ruined. I went from like pure bliss to oh my God, that night. And I had to go to court. I had to get an attorney. I had to show up in court. My mom was there. You know, I'm dressed in a suit. I have a bunch of letters from the community saying I'm a good person to give the judge, try to get him to lessen my charge.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. Anything other than a felony to be okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right? Anything. And I look across the courtroom and there, you know how they bring. I don't know if you ever been to court, how many times you've been in court?

[Michael Gray]

Not for this, no. I mean, I've gone to traffic court.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Not the same thing, my friend. Not the same thing. But they're coming in in the yellow jumpsuit with handcuffs is my brother. He was being arraigned the same day he broke into a sheriff's armory with stealing ammunition. Yeah. Sorry. No, I love you, buddy. But so both of us are in the courtroom, and we're praying the judge gets to our case first, because he's going to fry the second brother for sure. You know, he might give the first brother a break. And the judge got. Thank goodness, got to mine first. And he's listening to my attorney, and then he asked me if anything to say, and I said, you, Honor, I just screwed up. I want to be a Navy seal. I want to serve my country. You know, if you could reduce the charge to anything, I will be grateful. I'll be grateful. And he looks at me. He doesn't even read the letters. He goes, reduced to trespassing, contingent on you joining the Navy. Navy.

[Michael Gray]

It's fair.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Fair. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know? Yes. You know, and he gets to her brother's case, and he asked him anything to say, and the first words out of his mouth is, I want to jump in. Navy seal, want to join the Navy. Oh, did not get the same. Sweet. Yeah, no, no.

[Michael Gray]

Good move, though.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

He's reading the field in front of me. Okay. That actually worked really well.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh.

[Michael Gray]

Okay, so you made it through. Straight through with 219.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Straight through. 219, yep.

[Michael Gray]

What team did they send you to?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Two, which was known as the Gestapo back then, as was one. Yeah, I think Instructor Buchanan had a hand in that. I don't know if you remember him.

[Michael Gray]

I do.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yep. Yep, he did. He, like, instantly when the. When the truck blew up, Dial set his little sights on me, and he goes, I'm gonna. You're going down. And he was always in my ear, all class. And he's like, I'm gonna fuck with your orders. And two was not on my wish list anywhere.

[Michael Gray]

Trust me. The instructors didn't have the ability. Down 2, 4, and 8.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

2, 4 and 8.

[Michael Gray]

Okay, well, that's from Cali, Right. I didn't have any experience on the East Coast.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

And I also didn't know anything about it, but I figured that would be new.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow.

[Michael Gray]

I got Team Five.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Okay. There. I make you feel better? Yeah, yeah. So I went. Team two, went out there and got in a platoon and freaking. You know, it's funny that I was no stranger to drinking. You know, I've been drinking. But it did seem. When I joined the Navy, it kind of leveled up. Like I turned pro in both the paraphernalia. Like we have all kinds of drinking apparatus and then how much we could take and what it meant to your character. And I got in a platoon that way. I would enjoy my weekends to the utmost, you know, really would.

[Michael Gray]

You weren't unique in that. It was always now that I look back, and I say this through the lens of now looking back at my younger self. So I think I walked across the quarter deck at team five because we went. We graduated August 15th.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Your birthday, my birthday straight.

[Michael Gray]

Our entire class went straight to Fort Benning. Horrible, horrible idea. Whoever thought that? Our entire BUDS class. Not that it was a big class, but that's going to be a problem for the instructors there. And then we all split up. I remember the last day when we graduated there. Everybody kind of went. East coast guys went East Coast, west coast guys came home. So I probably walked across the quarter deck in late, late. We'll call it 98. And actually August 15, 1998. No, it's 97. I walked across the quarter deck in 97.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow.

[Michael Gray]

And you'd have a Friday monster mash run, swim run, Mandatory kegger in the grinder.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

New guys who are all chipping in to buy the keg, which I was so happy to do that, but the. The guidance in the action. And again, at the time, I absolutely loved it. But I look back now as to the environment that they were setting up for us, the terrain. You'd have the operations officer. Hey, we're doing a kegger, you guys. You better be the last people to leave. If anybody gets an alcohol related incident or a dui, you know, it's gonna be the end of you. I'm like, I drove to work, so you're telling me that I have to stay and finish off this keg on a Friday. How am I gonna get home? And meanwhile, the operations officer, you find out years later, had three DUIs. So it set up this. If it. If you had an addictive personality. For me, I've been able to drink super heavy during that time of my life.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And put it down. It never got its fingers into me or its hooks into me, but I know people that it did. And I don't know if you could blame the SEAL community, but I think they certainly, they might have helped apply pressure towards people, whatever direction that they were going. But, you know, first ride in a helicopter. What's the cost? Case of beer.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Case of beer. First anything.

[Michael Gray]

First time shooting a rocket. Case of beer. So if you drink and get in trouble, you're done. However, everything positive you do is a case of beer for the first time, first appointment case of beer.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But it goes a little deeper than that.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, it does.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Like, I mean, you drink to indoctrinate, you drink to elevate, you drink to separate, you drink to commemorate anything that involves emotion, like real emotion. Me and some alcohol can solve it. You and I are gonna sit down with a bottle and get through this. Even if up to and including, if you and I have a beef and I can't fucking stand you, our supervisor's gonna have you and I go get a drink and sort this out. Yeah, yeah. So if it's.

[Michael Gray]

But meanwhile, an alcohol related incident is the fastest way out of a team.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Isn't that crazy? It gives you this a weird dichotomy, this universal. Here's a tool that you can use for everything, but if you use it and drive or any incident where you're in trouble and you're under its influence, you're screwed.

[Michael Gray]

Well, and I don't think it's accidental that the vast majority of our friends that ended up taking their lives oftentimes paired that decision with heavy dose.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Very much so. And you know, I've been in this field for over a decade now, and those are the people I end up talking to and the destruction afterwards. But yeah, very much so. That it is, it works until it turns on you. It does. And, but my time in the Navy, I mean, I, I freaking has. I. Let's see, I loved most of my time platoon, they were so times with leadership, as I guess anyone would at times. I was very frustrated and I talk about a lot of that in my book. But like, as you probably know, that first platoon we probably both went through was during peacetime.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I went through two.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah. And that is a different animal. And I kind of equate it to like, say you have a master plumber who's never allowed to touch a pipe. You know, you have all the training and science and knowledge and you just, you're pumped for it and you're deprived of that. And, and plus with that, the good deals, the good schools are few and far between.

[Michael Gray]

So seniority based.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Free fall. They're like, yeah, five, five platoons from now you can go to free falls.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Like, damn. Yeah. So that gives you. If you don't, if you don't give me a mission, I'm gonna make one up. You know, I will go out and get into mischief and trouble and make my own adventures and like if you ever go to a concert and you see some fool up in the speakers climbing around, that would be me.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. I was always that kind of guy. Out of Liberty. You know, let's say let's pull up a manhole cover and explore. Let's go down and see where this goes.

[Michael Gray]

That's not a good idea.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It was at the time, made a lot of sense. But yeah, I mean that's.

[Michael Gray]

And so where'd you go on your first deployment?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, mid cruise.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And you know, I talked about hitting the Gibraltar for the, the training there. There were a lot of, you know, hoo ya moments out there in the field.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And but it's funny that I, I would think I would equate when you, the addict mind, the alcoholic mind, you can make a lot of cool decisions, but there's also a narrowing of your focus of like what, what your actions, how it impacts those around you on a broader scale.

[Michael Gray]

Meaning you're not paying attention, you're not.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Thinking big picture all the time. Especially the more you drink, you get more and more of that tunnel vision.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And I was, I was, I was beginning to feel like I was like a time bomb. Like I really thought because there would be so many close calls and bear in mind you for me, once you go somewhere and you get comfortable and you spend a couple years, I'll start, you know, bending the rules. And I was dabbling a little blow on the weekends, a little ecstasy and, and as were others at the time. And those aren't go well with your military career. You know, they're frowned upon greatly.

[Michael Gray]

I believe they're mentioned a few times.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

In the uj, UCMJ and you know, and I haven't gotten in trouble yet, but it does feel like it's just a matter of time. I was just smart enough to know that if this track record continues, something's going to happen to me.

[Michael Gray]

Do you think based off we'll obviously get to your point?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Sure.

[Michael Gray]

Your professional career and what you do now. Do you think that the career field itself selects for people who naturally like to push those boundaries and barriers?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I think so. I think that the obsessive compulsive nature of an addict, alcoholic can lend itself well to being, you know, hyper focused on a particular mission. I'm going to achieve it at all costs.

[Michael Gray]

Over what timeline though? Because I feel like the longer you extend the timeline, the more that falls apart, especially given their usage of alcohol.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's true, it's true. But you have high functioning Alcoholics who can be stuck in that for decades, you know.

[Michael Gray]

Really?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. I mean, come on, look at your friends base. You have people who've been drinking their whole career. Hard, hard, their whole career. And they were successful in terms of they didn't crater their lives. But in terms of what could have they have achieved? You know, like many of team guys, their 80% is everyone else's 120%. You know, they're cruising by, never quite.

[Michael Gray]

Giving generally high performers for sure.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And I'm surprised that there's more and more team guys now. Team guys who don't drink. There's like I've heard whole platoons who don't drink for performance reasons.

[Michael Gray]

I've heard same thing. Squadrons of damnic same thing.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, same thing. And at first I didn't believe it, had to investigate myself. But yeah. So there is a turning a shifting of tides.

[Michael Gray]

How do you think that will impact their offering from the teams when it's their time to go? Do you think it'll make it a more gradual or a smoother off ramp? Because I think it's hard enough to leave and lose your identity and maybe lose your sense of purpose. And if you're going to bring addiction along with you in your backpack, that could be pretty heavy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, I mean if you're an addict, alcoholic and you know you're going to have a challenge functioning in a platoon that doesn't drink or use. But I think the platoon who's not drinking and not using there have developed other coping skills, other coping mechanisms. And there are other non healthy ones besides alcohol out there for sure. Yeah. But they're going to have, they're going to have less challenges when they go to exit the military because this is what I like to talk about. And people don't realize the people who love freedom most, you know, people who serve in the military, I don't think they even realize until they actually do it give up most of their freedoms to serve in the military.

[Michael Gray]

I wasn't aware.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I mean first amendment people think you can do anything you want to. There's some very hard limits on your first amendment rights. If you're a military man, you're in.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

The military, you give up so many of your rights and for so long and you just almost. You don't even aware of how bad it is or bad or how much of a sacrifice it is until the day they let you out. And for me, I mean Andy, if I can describe it for you, it was like I had been in a cage for this for almost a decade. And when they took the open the cage up and there was a sense of I can do whatever I want. All my freedoms came back to me at one time. And I could. Had zero accountability. And it was like, you let this animal out of a cage and I could just go. I could use how I wanted to use. I could party how I wanted to party. I didn't have anyone to report to. And a lot of people struggle with getting all those freedoms back at one time. And they didn't even realize that they were missing.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I also see people struggle because the teams, I describe it as a very task centric occupation where most of the time the task is presented to you. You get overseas like, hey, here's the battle space commander. This is our lines of operation. This is the target deck. Do me a favor, start at the top and work your way down.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

And oh, by the way, the target deck never gets to zero because it'll just refill. I see a lot of guys struggle. They get out and they have to find their own objective to do. Outside of that, they're great at accomplishing a task. They will struggle in the space where they have to determine what tasks they want to go after given their own devices. What you're talking ability to go in any direction they want to. It's a very oriented job.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

If you think about it.

[Michael Gray]

Actually, we can, we can accomplish almost anything. But if you. And again, I say this with decades in the rearview mirror. Like, man, I didn't have to find too many of those tasks you get out of the military, like.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What am.

[Michael Gray]

I supposed to do today?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no, we need to have a new mission. You need to give me a new. You got to set me on my path. And that is the same, you know, if you don't give me, if you don't give me something, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take up all this time with what I. I want to drink or I want to use. You know, that's what an addict wants to do. I want to drink how I want to drink. And for a long time, the structure the military provided kind of gave me some guardrails for my drinking. You know, like, I have to turn it off at a certain time.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, you gotta be able to perform. So you did about a decade.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, I know, I count a decade of service, including my law enforcement made my fire, rescue, ambulance, five years in the teams. Okay. I check out and it was a decision. And this is like, it's funny, there's a lot of parallels between you and I that I've noted. You know, any handsomeness, obviously.

[Michael Gray]

Chiseled features, height. I understand.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. I get it. Hard. Hard Bear.

[Michael Gray]

I couldn't grow your beard and goatee, though. I look like Abe Lincoln. I could go undercover at, like, an Amish butter farm. Oh, Michael, you could go undercover a grinder.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I already am. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

God. Put the camera on yourself. Show people your haircut.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God. This is not my fault. This is not.

[Michael Gray]

I feel like there was a bowl involved in this.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You gotta wear the hair. I know. It looks like. I know. You gotta own it. Yep. Oh. So, I mean, a lot of. A lot of parallels in our path up until this point. I mean, I remember having to think about reenlistment. And this is pre 9 11. I have this sense that I'm. Something's gonna happen, I'm gonna fuck up. I can see it writing on the wall. And I actually. I want to party. I want to go out and just let loose. I want. I can feel the military being constricted.

[Michael Gray]

And you wanted that more than to continue with the job.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. Like, it's. The pull of addiction had its hooks on me. And, I mean, even the idea of maybe I stay in and not drink as much, that was not even on the table, you know? Or maybe I stopped doing blow. That wasn't on the table. There was just. It had its hooks in me. And so to me, it was like, all right, I'm gonna exit the military right before the fireworks went off. 9 11, you know, that's the following year.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. So I punch out and I give a shot at. You know, I gotta. I gotta make money. I think I tried selling insurance for a while. I did all these little. Put on a suit and tie and tried to get out there and wheel and deal because I'm. I'm drinking heavily now. I'm using a lot of cocaine. I'm using a lot of Ecstasy. I am going out there and all that's expensive. That's funny. The more you use the. The. The more they call it stinking thinking, the more twisted your brain gets. And what you think success is acceptable. I remember having this little convertible Beamer, and I had gotten behind on the payments, and I had this idea that if I could swerve this under the semi just right, all that would go away. That was. You know. And I'm thinking, well, maybe this is because I'm on cocaine is why I'm having this thought. Yeah. And so I get. I let myself sober up. I get Clean, you know, And I'm. And I said, all right, I can still do that. That still seems like a good idea. And I. Right on the 5 freeway out here between Reading, you know, straight line of five goes on forever.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. Pull up alongside a semi. Time. It just was middle of the night. I had to make sure I was on the phone with someone so I'd have a witness to the accident. This is how my brain's working. And swerve it right on the tail end and goes under, spin out to the side, end up in the hospital on my back. In and out of doctor's appointments for a year. The semi company has great attorneys. And I end up just losing the car and having years with the doctor's payments and. And didn't solve all my problems. But, yeah, I guess it made for a story. I was on my way down, you know, and little things like that were happening. 9, 11 kicks off, and all of a sudden, I think I'm gonna be recalled. I think they're gonna call up all the seals and bring us back in. And I'm sweating it because I don't want to stop drinking and using, but they're gonna call me. What am I gonna do? And that's when I realized they have a thing called contracting out there, which is another parallel. But I think you were on the car's eye detail at one time. I was it, yeah. So was I. Yeah. I was out there with Dynacor. Dynacorp. Yep. Dynacorp. Doing the K diamond. Walking with it. Yeah. I did that and did the CAT team for a while, and. Yeah. So now making a bunch of money, were you private side, or were you.

[Michael Gray]

No, I stayed in the military till 2013.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right. That's right.

[Michael Gray]

So I was only. So I was not there during the ambush attempt on Karzai. Blue Squadron was over there at the time. I had just finished up where I was in the tail end of Green Team. So I went through selection in 2002.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Okay, so I came in after you.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. And we were at high risk seer, which stands for Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion. We were up in Washington State, and they basically said, these two squadrons, we're going to surge you over because the Blue Squadron guys are coming back. So I was there for, like, 36 days, something like that. Very, very passive. But we did hand over to Dynacor. They're the ones who took up the contract.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Gotcha. Yep. Yep. And Dynacorp was paying us $1,000 a day to walk, take care Fantastic. I know tax free. I mean that's what they. I heard. Tax free.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Found out that's not entirely true. It's tax free up to tax free.

[Michael Gray]

Ish.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You know, tax free up to 65,000 and you still have to file your taxes. I found out. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

That helps with sometimes.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. So doing that's interesting.

[Michael Gray]

They don't forget.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They don't. They. About seven years later, right on par, they will come find you. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Hello sir. We are just here to talk about your reporting.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But here's like the parallel lives you and I are living. You know, you stayed in those teams and I kept, I went out and I said I kind of crossed over the dark side. Contracting, deploying in the teams and deploying, contracting. I could feel the difference. Like if something happens to me, they're going to send my wife a flag. When I'm in the teams, there's going to be the neighboring support, there's going to be this person died for their country working for a contractor. I'm doing it for the dollar. You know, there's not going to be that same kind of. I could feel the lack of honor in that. I still was over there, you know, for my country. I still wanted to do my part in the sandbox. I still want to go there and play. And this, I don't know if you remember, I mean I did the, the Karzai and I did, went over in Iraq and did a couple of contracts. It was crazy days.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I mean the, the Blackwater insert. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Dude, that's people from the bridge and burned them. Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I mean I, I'm not gonna say I wasn't part of those guys, but I can understand what they were doing because that was, it was, it was wild, wild west. Yeah. In fact, coming from the pre 911 SEAL teams that was like what I thought the teams were going to be like where black passports, diplomatic immunity, walking on the airports with your guns. I mean that was the heyday of that, that contracting era, etc and doing that back and forth, something began to happen to me because I'm making more money than I've ever made before.

[Michael Gray]

Still drinking though.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Still drinking. Yeah. And these are short contracts, three month, four month contracts and you still get to drink at night on those contracts. So this fit perfectly for an addict.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Make a bunch of money, come back to the States and I'm beginning to feel, gosh, you know, I'll see if I can explain this to you, man. You're in the States and I've been Getting like, I hate stoplights because you never thought, you know, you're going in country, out of country, stoplights don't pull up next to me, and I begin to get flinched. And so I. I'm feeling keyed up in the States all the time, so I have to have a couple drinks in me or pop a couple pills so I can drive. And I'm beginning to not like being keyed up in the States. And I know there's nothing to be keyed up about, so I just feel crazy. But I take a contract and go back overseas. There's a reason to be keyed up, and I'm keyed up. I feel sane. So it makes more sense over there.

[Michael Gray]

It makes sense to me.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And I, I.

[Michael Gray]

It's not rational, but it makes sense.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It makes. It's like a cure for PTSD where you just re. Expose yourself. Yeah. And then you're. You're aligned. And this started happening back and forth. But I would get more and more effed up in the States, you know, and I. I remember switching from coke to crystal met death because it. It lasts. What? Listen, if you don't know, you get a lot more bang for your buck.

[Michael Gray]

I do not know.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You do. And for financial reasons, it's a good call. But.

[Michael Gray]

Okay, but what was. Talk me through this decision point where you said, you know, coke is good. Meth is great. I mean, there had to be a day where that was the first time that happened.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Meth was big out in Cali. It was getting bigger. Someone said, hey, you know, this lasts about, you know, six to nine hours. And because Coke on the last 30, and I'm like, oh, that's way more efficient, you know, so let's. Let's go. And it kind of played into, you know, when you do a shot of Jaeger, what's. What's the. Why is Jaeger fun to shoot?

[Michael Gray]

It's not.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's not. But that's the part. That's the part that's appealing, that just sucks.

[Michael Gray]

It tastes like, what I would assume licking a dorm room carpet.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And you're like, it hurts so good. Well, a big fatty rail, a blow. You're like, oh, God, dude, you need to do a rail of meth.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, you snort meth? I thought you smoked meth.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, you can smoke meth. You can snort, you can shoot it however you want to do it. Okay. But when you do a rail of meth, you feel like you're going to have a stroke right then and there. Your head's going. I mean, it is, like, over the top. Not painful.

[Michael Gray]

Six hours, it feels like.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no, no. Just the first hit.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Okay.

[Michael Gray]

I don't know. Michael and I are learning new stuff here, I assume. Michael.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They didn't teach me this in Dare. I know.

[Michael Gray]

I actually. I can't look at his haircut, so. Michael, I'm just gonna talk to you like this. All right.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, I can't either. That's fine. Yes. This is an informative podcast now.

[Michael Gray]

Okay. So in your mind, the rational decision was economically better, but it lasts longer. Win, win. Fifth gear.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Fifth gear. And you're going. You think you can do anything.

[Michael Gray]

What does that feel like coming down from?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's about three days of just hell and loss of energy and just want to curl up in a ball and be miserable and get more. And so that continues. And it's like that. It's an addiction where you feel super productive, but it's like you're over revving and you're peeling out the whole time so you don't ever get anywhere. You will literally look at your wall and you'll, like, pull a screw out of the wall and sharpen it, put it back in, and think that's better.

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[Dr. Tony Dice]

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[Michael Gray]

I guess in some small way it might be.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, you'll take apart anything and everything you own, thinking you could fix it or somehow enhance it.

[Michael Gray]

My cop buddies up here say they know the meth houses because for whatever reason, they like to disassemble things. And so the yards are full of things completely in disarray.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You can't get them back. But you think you can. Yeah, it's like tons of confidence, and you think you can technically. So I thought once I had two laptops that I could somehow switched screens on them, and it resulted in no laptops.

[Michael Gray]

Yes, indeed. Were you married during this time?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, I was.

[Michael Gray]

What?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know, I know.

[Michael Gray]

You left this portion of the story out. Where did your wife join this school bus?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, geez. Okay. So my wife number one, after getting out of SEAL teams, I, you know, dated this fine lady for many years, and I thought she put the time in. We got married on the island of Santorini. I flew in from Afghanistan. She flew out. We got married on a volcano, came back. That should have been like a warning. It's going to be A tumultuous marriage. That poor girl. I put her through so much hell and my bottom for all this because meth does wear on you. You meth does wear on you. And there's this picture.

[Michael Gray]

Did she know?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

She knew I partied. I was hiding the meth use from her because for some reason, even in people who do coke, we don't hang out with the meth people. That's another lower level of disrespect. So I kept that hidden. But it sucks the calories off you. I weighed 130 pounds.

[Michael Gray]

Is it just because you don't want to eat? Does it just kill your appetite?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Kills your appetite. Kills your appetite. And you don't sleep, you'll be up days, three, four days at a time.

[Michael Gray]

Your wife didn't notice that?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, I wouldn't do it at home. I'd go out, you know, and disappear and come back on benders. And which.

[Michael Gray]

Did she notice that?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

She did. She did. She noticed that. And it got so bad, she called one of my platoon buddies to come over and change the locks on my own house to lock me out of my house.

[Michael Gray]

Damn.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, so it was getting really bad. We also had a son, Lil Ronan. And at that time, and I was not a good dad. I was not a good dad at all. And it was getting worse. I remember the. Some of the things that led to my bottom. You know, everyone has. You talk about everyone having a bottom. There was this. I was on a three day bender and remember that H1N1, that swine flu pandemic, Our first baby pandemic?

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, yeah, I do.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

This was during that time. And I was in this house on this bender. And I remember the daycare calling my phone. And when you're that messed up, you don't answer the phone. You just let it go to voicemail and you listen to message. And the daycare said there's been an exposure of the H1N1, the swine flu, to one of our technicians or someone at the daycare. We're having everyone come up and pick up their kids. Well, to me, twack down my mind, I'm like, oh, my son's in trouble. I need to rescue him. Okay, I gotta. Let me get my shit together, you know? Let me just hit the pipe one more time. Let me, let me get my. Okay, let me just get straight. Let me get straight. The phone rings. It's my wife calling. It goes to voicemail. She's saying she's upstate out of the area. I have to get them. Okay. Let me just get myself straight. Let me hit the pipe again. Let me get straight. The phone rings at daycare. Phone rings. My wife. I'm sitting there for three hours trying to get myself out of this room. I mean, getting myself ready and all over the place. And I'm. I remember. This is. I remember looking at that phone, Andy, and saying. And turning it off. Yeah. Pushing it under the bed and just using. And realizing my entire life I had been training to be a hero and my son needs me, and I can't get out of this room. I stopped looking in the mirror after that. I hated that guy. I mean, my spirit had snapped. I remember using differently then. Like, even drinking. Like, you know, everyone has a point where you're looking at a bottle of, like, say, vodka and you have a third of the bottle left and you're already shithouse. And you know you shouldn't, but you just say, eff it, and you finish the bottle, just. And just kind of this. I deserve it and I don't even care what happens like that. It's like a passive suicide. Yeah, that's where my. My addiction went to, like, this self hate this guy, you know? I weighed 130 pounds on my frame. I got turned down for contracts. So, Dice, get your shit together. You look like shit. And I'm, like, trying to tell everyone I'm just running a lot. And I have a picture of me back then that I keep on my desk today. And I looked like I was a pow. You know, just skin and bones, eyes sunken in dark. That's what I looked like. And I remember a couple days, and then. I mean, a couple weeks from then on another, like, bender where I'm just going hard. There was 3am and there's these two little boys that were up at 3am for some reason. They're like 11, 12 years old, blue jeans on, no shirts, with those. Those Airsoft guns, you know, little pellets.

[Michael Gray]

Yep.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And they're. They're. They're shooting at each other and they have horrible weapons handling skills. They're shocker sweeping the shit out of me. And I'm flinching and I'm getting angry with them, and I say F this. And I go upstairs and I pass out. Out in the pile of dirty laundry, and I. I'm awoke by one of them pointing the pistol at me and kicking me in the leg, saying, hey, freak. A freak. And I roll over and I look up at the gun. I look past the gun, I look into this little boy's eyes. It's like they were shark eyes. It was like there was no innocence left in this little boy. He had seen too much shit. He had seen, you know, all these drinking, using addict shit. He did not look like, like a little boy anymore. And I realized in that moment that that's going to be Ronan, my son. My dad died of this disease when I was young. I'm going to die of this disease and this is going to happen to Ronan and that man. I don't. That was the one, whatever that was. I got up, I went downstairs and this is not my house, but back then you could go into anyone's kitchen and if you rummaged around through drawers, you would find this big thing called the Yellow Pages, which was our Internet. We didn't really have Google this. And I just went through looking for treatment centers. And I put my finger down on the Farley center, shout out to the Farley Center. And then I went down, checked into treatment. That was me saying, I got. I gotta stop this, this pattern.

[Michael Gray]

What modality of treatment did they use?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I checked in there and like, you know, like you said, the three days of me coming out of it, not knowing what's going on, hating it, like everyone talking sound like Charlie Brown's parents. Like about the third day I realized, oh, these are those 12 step recovery people. And me being pissed off, like I wanted to leave. Like, I've heard, I've seen these guys. Then my parents tried to them out. They're kind of cultish. And you know, day three goes by, I'm like, day four comes and I'm staring out the window in my little treatment room, not even paying attention to therapist, just kind of staring because. And I remember this thought of like, well, you're fucked either way. What if this shit works? What if you. What do you got to lose because you hate the guy you became? And it was like my world. You know those little view master slide things, you pull a lever and a little thing goes. It was like my world went click into one little click. And I was like, well, fuck, maybe, maybe. And okay, maybe. And I, I looked at my therapist. His name was Dre Summers, man. And he, he sees me make eye contact the first time and he's. He said, where the did you come from? And I said to him, I think I want to be here. And I began to like, share a little bit in the group.

[Michael Gray]

Were you still married at the time?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I was still married at the time. Yep, yep. Still married at the time. I don't know why my wife was still putting up with me. I mean, I was just finally in treatment. Just a mess of a man. Dre. Day three goes by. Day four, Day five goes by. Day six comes and they take me out of my group. And they say, your insurance has deemed. We're going to transfer you out of treatment. Your insurance will stop paying, and we're going to take you, step you down to, like, outpatient treatment. And I'm looking at them saying, wait a minute. I just now wanted to be here. Like, literally two days ago, I decided to be here, and you're kicking me out. And I remember getting so fucking mad. I mean, I was grabbing my seat and yelling at them, and people are coming in the room trying to calm me down because they gave me hope and they're taking it away. And I was so angry. They were. They said, if you had $9,000, you can stay. And I was like, who the fuck comes to rehab with $9,000? You don't come here. No winning streak. You know, this is crazy. So they asked if I could borrow from someone, and I called everyone. No one would lend me money. And I did have one card left to play. And I asked him for a four hour pass. And my therapist was legitimately worried I was gonna rob a bank. He was like, what are you gonna do? I'm like, don't worry about it.

[Michael Gray]

Reasonable concern, actually, now that I think about that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And he made me tell him, I said, I have my car. I want to go sell my car. And so he gave me a four hour pass and I went down to CarMax. I'm sure they screwed me over, but they gave me a check that had enough to cover the rehab. And as I'm walking across the Carmax parking lot, I'm realizing I don't have to go back to rehab. Like, this is. This is a good run. And I almost didn't go back if it wasn't for me looking out that window and saying, maybe this shit will work.

[Michael Gray]

Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. But it is not the traditional product that you've heard me talking about. This is Agz. Ag1 for me was about my morning routine. Or is it's not past tense. I put a lot of thought into my morning routine. The time I'm going to wake up, how I'm going to spend that time. And you see people posting on social media a lot about this, this rigid and structured morning routine. And I think that's amazing. But how many people. And I put myself in this category, don't put the same amount of effort into the tail end of your day when you need to rest and recover. And I get it. Sleep can be affected by being a parent, a professional, an athlete, how hard you're training, traveling, fill in the blank. We all need to maximize rest as much as possible. AGZ helps your body and mind wind down before bed. It optimizes your sleep quality during the night and you wake up feeling well rested without the grogginess. That is the absolute worst. Many people ask me what AG1 tastes like. It's hard to describe AGZ. Kind of the same thing. My flavor profile might be different than others. I'd say it's herby in nature. It's actually quite delicious. There are no artificial flavors, no artificial sweeteners or added sugar. And you can drink it warm or cold. You could drink it with water or milk, whatever suits your fancy. AGZ is also an excellent source of magnesium. Each serving of AGZ delivers 250mg of highly bioavailable magnesium, providing over half of your daily value. So if you're ready to turn down the stress and focus on your rest, head over to drinkag1.com ClearedHot and you're gonna get a free frother with your first purchase of AGZ, I.e. drinkag1.com ClearedHot back to the show.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I took it straight back to the Farley Center. I didn't even go to the bank, didn't trust myself with cash. I endorsed the back of the check and slid it in and said, will you guys accept this? And they took an endorsed check as payment.

[Michael Gray]

How long were you there for?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

28 days. 28 days. And believe me, once I did that investment, it felt like I took all my poker chips and said, I'm in. And it was a lot like rigor school for me. Did you ever go to rigor school?

[Michael Gray]

No.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Well, for those of you who don't know what rigor school is, it's an army school. And you know, platoon will probably send one person from the platoon to rigor school where you learn how to pack, repair parachutes. And their final exam for that class is you pack and jump your own parachute. It's a pass fail class. Everyone in that class pays attention. I mean, like no other school. There's no goofing off. Everyone there is like dialed in in rehab. I was like, if I don't get this, my parachute's not going to open. I'm gonna die. And I was just like, I need to get this. And so for 28 days I went through it, it just like whatever, you're gonna laugh at this. There was one therapist there who said that I didn't know how to self soothe as a kid. So what she told me to do is go down to Walmart and when you get your free time and buy yourself a teddy bear. And for the rest of your time in treatment, I want you to carry that teddy bear with you 24 7. And I was like, I'm a Navy Seal, I don't do teddy bears. And she said, just a suggestion. So I went, fuck. And I went down to Walmart and I got myself this little black teddy bear and I put a skull and crossbone armband on. So you look kind of tough.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And for the rest time treatment, I carried it, not understanding how this was helping me, but I was so willing to do whatever they said. Yeah, I had 100% buy in. I was like, I can't do this. All my best decisions got me here. I need help getting out. It was a 12 step program based, you know, I got myself a sponsor, did the whole 12 step thing. About a year after getting out of rehab, I had gone through the whole step, 12 steps and everything in my life had kind of shifted a different perspective, different approach to things. To sum it up, before that point I was fully the end will justify the means kind of guy. Like mission first, first just get there at all costs. After going through my recovery journey, it was more I was realizing that the journey will justify the ends. I mean there's much more is said on how you do something than what you accomplish. And that was a huge watershed moment for me and my understanding because I mean I was, I believe that what made me special is I got shit done. You know, if you were my friend and you called me saying you had a flat tire, I would ask you for the year making model of your car and on my way to you, I would fucking find your car out there in the world and steal someone's tire and bring it to you to save your the day for you.

[Michael Gray]

You are aware that cars come with spares, right?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, but you wouldn't be calling me if you didn't have a spare.

[Michael Gray]

I'm just checking.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know, but I appreciate the headspace.

[Michael Gray]

But also yes, behind door number two is the car with a full size.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And that's what like a sponsor would throw at you saying, hey, your friend just wants you to come help change his tire. That's really what he wants. He doesn't need this super over the top hero move. But I had to let all that go because of all the chaos I'm causing in the world.

[Michael Gray]

Have you been clean since those 28 days?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

15 years. 15 years, knock on wood, man.

[Michael Gray]

You have to be the statistical anomaly in that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Believe it or not, there's a lot of studies out there. And my story, after getting out of recovery, I began working with guys, I call them sponsoring other guys. I began really, like, realizing I'm much more empathetic than I realize. I, I do kind of dig this, this connection of sitting down with someone and talking with them. And I made me think about my, my therapist, who I believe saved my ass by coming to work with a cup of coffee. That's all he had. When my entire training pipeline, I had kit bags and current gurneys and M4s and all this shit to kind of come and save the day. He came to work with a cup of coffee and I was like, that guy's a badass.

[Michael Gray]

Pass.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So I went back to school and got my, my, my two year degree in social services, a little tcc. I was worried that I had fried all my brain cells, that I wouldn't work. I was kind of scared going back to school, but I passed the actually good, good grades.

[Michael Gray]

Was there a difference in how you felt your brain operated before the, shall we say, accelerant that you were using? Occasionally.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I mean, it really, I really was worried that I had, because I had really just pushed the RPMs. But I got straight A's that first two years. And then I continued my four year degree in human services at Old Domain University, stayed on for my master's and, you know, got my counseling credentials, my csac. And five years in, I went back to that same treatment center, the Farley center, and asked them for a job. Wow. And on the day, like on five years to the day, I said, five years ago today, you guys saved my life. Can I come back and work with you guys? And they hired me and I worked there for many years. Loved it. But in that time, I was becoming obsessed with the law enforcement, first responder, veteran community, and how their path looks different going through treatment. And they had different defenses and they struggled with different things and they were a little harder or a lot harder to open up. And so it kind of prodded me to like, well, let's do some research and study, let's go back to school. I went after my PhD and I got my doctorate in counseling and dissertation was on what interventions work best for the veteran population and just kind of delve into what does success look like. And the studies that are out there, there are a number of them that look at people who try out 12 step recovery and those numbers are really low. If you look at people who successfully complete all 12 steps, who engage in a program recovery that lasts more than 12 months, months that significantly boosts the outcome. So that makes sense. Yeah, it does. Any program, if you stick to it, the more time you and energy invest into it, the better success you're going to have. But it does take a level of someone having some, some buy in, you know, and they talk about the gift of desperation, you know, that point in which you hit a spot where you're willing to stop doing it your way and just like go 100% in into a different way of life, you know, and there's some good arguments out there that that can be a dui. It could be, you know, blowing up your family. It could be there's a chemical bottom you could hit with psychedelics where you go and you have a shift in perspective and you realize that, oh my gosh, I've been looking at this totally different. So there's, there's these different bottoms. You can find that where you shift your perspective and you realize what you've been doing and you engage in a program recovery to get out. Because even a psychedelic treatment involves some sort of therapy afterwards where you have to engage in a program that lasts a period of time. So in, in all of that, in this journey into education at the doctorate level, I began to really look at 12 step recovery groups. And I did not know this. There were like over 200 different 12 step fellowships out there. Really? I mean, most people know Box Anonymous.

[Michael Gray]

Is probably the most recognizable.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

There's AA and there's NA. You know, AA came out in 19.

[Michael Gray]

Was it Narcotics Anonymous?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, AA was 1935. And in 1953, NA, Narcotics Anonymous came out. And that was because AA was. Drug addicts were going to AA and having success so much that they started.

[Michael Gray]

Their own thing that checks out.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. They wanted to call it Addicts Anonymous, but it was taken. Aa?

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I'm not gonna share an acronym.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

When in that journey did it fall apart with your wife?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Ooh, good question. Because I, I came back from recovery and from the Farley center and thinking that, okay, I quit. This is what you've always wanted and it's a trap a lot of people fall into where they think that just because you stop, all the chaos stops. But you know, you take a, you take a alcohol, a drunken horse thief and you sober Them up. What do you got?

[Michael Gray]

A drunken horse thief. That's sober.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right. You still have all these other. I'm still a manipulator. I'm still like all these other defects of character are still in full effect. And you know, my pattern with my wife at the time was that I'd get in trouble and she'd yell at me and that was the power differential in the house. Well, I come back and I'm still up sober. This is the power differential that we're going to engage in still. And so there was a lot of still chaos in her house. And, you know, we stuck it out in recovery for a number of years. She actually ended up engaging in a program recovery herself. And so we've never really knew each other sober really, in all other years. And so that, you know, that relationship did not survive recovery. And we both loved our son deeply.

[Michael Gray]

How's your relationship with him now?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Our son? My son? Yeah. Little Ronan, he came up to me like almost like six months ago and said, dad, I think I want to be a frogman. And I know, I know, Ronan, I love you. And you are, you are in for. There are so many, many less painful jobs out there. Truly, truly.

[Michael Gray]

Psychologically, physically, emotionally.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know, but he is like, you know, he's, he's, he's doing it right. He's out there training. He has some good SEAL mentor program he's gone into and he's out there swimming and running and, and that.

[Michael Gray]

You guys are in a good spot, though.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

We're in a good spot. I mean, and that's. Gosh, you know, you worry about it, you know, because I had those early formative years, I was not, not the dad. And part of my amends to my son, you know, amends to my kids. I'm actually remarried now with five kids. But part of my amends to the kids is because you can't. They don't want money. They don't. Well, they might say they want money, but they. To make up for the past. You can't go back in time and give it to them. What they want is a kick ass dad today. So my living amends to my kid is to be a kick ass dad today. And every day I do that forward is part of the amends to them, what was done. It's my living amends to my kid. But the second part of that is I believe this disease is genetic. I do. I think there's, it's. It follows lineages.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's passed down and I Can see in all my kids that a little bit of addiction in their lives and that should they get themselves jammed up, I am providing an example of the way out.

[Michael Gray]

You know, how do you talk to them about that potential genetic expression? Because sometimes educating them that that exists can help as well. But you also, you know, you don't want to scare them to death. I mean, how do you broach that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Topic with your first thing I do is I tell them, listen, it isn't that drugs and alcohol are bad. It's the opposite. They're awesome. They are, absolutely.

[Michael Gray]

This is a new parent child.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And I tell them, yes, they are. They'll blow your mind. They are too good. That's the problem. And, you know, you have a propensity for addiction. And I tell them, here's my story. This is what happened to me. And I share. I have a version of my story I share with them for every age cat when they're really young and as they get older, I retell the story and I let them know what happened to me. Like just a warning to them. And I tell them, I can't stop you from using. In fact, I've actually introduced something I learned in the military between you and I to them in raising the kids. That's worked very well. I call it amnesty. Like, I will walk into my kid's room and I'll say, for the next 15 minutes, you have amnesty for whatever you'd like to share. And they know they had to learn this over time, that whatever they tell me in that 15 minutes, they will not get in trouble for no matter what. Like, it's a chance to kind of put it, put it, open it up. You would not believe how many things they want to tell you. Like your adventurous sneak climbing the target rooftop and sneaking out at night, or, you know, stealing a bottle of wine from 7 11. All these little adventures they've been on.

[Michael Gray]

I do this with my daughter, and at some point I go, I need you to stop. You're telling me too much. I don't want to know. Please continue to lie to me. To me. I have always told my kids, if you lie to me, you're going to get in more trouble for lying than you are what it is you're lying about. And it's tough sometimes. All of my kids have opened up, and most of it has just been around.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I mean, because it's funny. You can set these conditions and standards where you can have these conversations and, I mean, we'll be at dinner and I forget you Know we're laughing about something, and my daughter be like, dad, you don't even know when you thought all three of us were doing this. This is what we were actually doing. And I'm just sitting there term. And I'm remarried as well. I was married for almost 20 years and have been remarried now for just over three. And my wife is just sitting there like, oh, my God. It's her first marriage. No kids.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God.

[Michael Gray]

She grew up. I would call it. What would be the best way to describe the way. She had a lot of rules. She followed them.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow.

[Michael Gray]

I had a lot of rules. I followed some.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

But so my kids, once they get going, and, I mean, we're sitting there laughing, and I'm to the point of crying about some of this stuff, but then the gym, I'm like, you guys need to stop.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. But you value the relationship.

[Michael Gray]

To me, I always want them to be able to call. Like, they need to be able to know that, like, if you need something or if something's going on, like, the first thing is, I'm coming. The second thing is we can talk about it way later or never at all if you don't want to, but we'll solve the problem first.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yep. Yeah. You value the. The trust and the conversation more. Because my parents, God bless them, they were disciplinarians and they came down hard and all that did was make me be sneakier, like, okay, that was horrible. I don't ever want to get caught again, you know?

[Michael Gray]

Is that how they were raised?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, I'm sure that's how they were raised. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

How did they deal? Were they addicts as well?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Alcoholics, Addicts? Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

How did they deal with that? Did they even acknowledge it?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

My mom definitely gave my dad a bunch of shit about it, you know, and that caused a lot of grief, a lot of fucking fights, you know, and all the kids are hiding while they're fighting and. Yeah, that whole alcoholic household. But yeah, it was. It was. It's been. Their parents were. And, you know, it was a common thing to have. You know, the dads who are an alcoholic and sons are alcoholic. And so, yeah, it was. It was pretty much in our family. Genetics from the get go.

[Michael Gray]

It's rough. Yeah, to a degree. I mean, that's, I guess, a sense of unluckiness. I don't know what other term that would be. Genes are interesting. They don't have to express, but you definitely have the potential.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, you're right. And so all of that coming in, me learning about 12 step recovery and the 200 different groups of 12 step recovery groups out there. I mean there's Gamblers anonymous, there's online gamers anonymous, there's entire treatment centers like inpatient treatment centers. Online gamers, I believe, I believe it. There's debtors anonymous. There's Debtors Anonymous.

[Michael Gray]

People addicted to being in debt.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Addicted to being debt debt. There's under, under earners anonymous. People who habitually seek out employment less they're worth. It's a self worth issue.

[Michael Gray]

Human beings are so messy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But every one of those groups use the same 12 steps.

[Michael Gray]

Huh. Which you know, came up with a 12 step program.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dr. Bob and Bill W. Came up with it back in 1935. And, and it's funny, I looked at in my PhD program I really delved in what's going on here. How can this work on such a variety of not just chemical addictions, but behavioral addictions?

[Michael Gray]

And who was this guy who stumbled across this? Was this a hypothesis of his that ended up turning out really well? Was it accidental?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, I mean it started off, I forget which name of the religious group that they were part of. They had to start off with six steps from there and they added to them and it was a lot of work went into it. But I don't think they realized the embedded theory that they were actually installing. And then that's what I began to look at in my doctoral program and I realized that wait a minute, this is stuff we're not strangers to. Like steps one, two and three. It's pretty much in line with stages of change. What a therapist looks like. What is your readiness to change? Are you in a place to realize you have a problem? Are you in a place ready to do something about it? You know, that's what steps one, two and three are. Steps. Steps four and five are narrative therapy. Like you know, lay out your entire life and let's discuss it and I'll share part of my life and we'll have this restoring take place, you know, and in that process you begin to realize and have empathy for your own life and you begin to have some buying like this person I'm going to root for. That's when you kind of begin to like care for yourself and love yourself again. Steps, you know, 6, 7, 8 and 9, that's all cognitive behavioral therapy. That's when the change engine comes in. You begin to change how you're interacting with the world around you. And it's actually working. You're actually trying because you care about yourself again. So this is now it's, you're really, you're rooting for yourself. And steps nine, ten. I mean, whoa, steps. Hey, there's the 12 steps. Yeah. And steps ten.

[Michael Gray]

Michael, good job. I know you did a pretty good job, Michael. I'm not looking over at you.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Appreciate it. Steps 10, 11, and 12. It's existential therapy. It's like, where are you and how you connect with the world around you? What's your purpose? What's your place? And so if you take those four modalities, stages of change, narrative therapy, CBT and existential, those are all common therapies that are in practice around the world that therapists are familiar with.

[Michael Gray]

Interesting.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And so what I've done with that, and I call it the holistic change model, is I say, hey, if you're a therapist and you're working with someone in 12 step recovery, here's some insight of how you can work with them effectively. This is the process they're going through. Here's how you can interact with them. If you're someone who's hesitant to have some buy in, in a 12 step recovery program, you know, take a look at the embedded theory found within and know it's not a bunch of hocus pocus religious bullshit. There's some solid theory at work here. And if you're someone who's so averse to 12 step programming, you can look at the holistic change model and say, all right, I'd like to follow this direction, this formula without engaging in all the 12 step recovery. And so another huge benefit of 12 step recovery groups is that they're available in every language on every continent, they're all free. And there's 200 different groups. You're going to find a group that you can participate in, that you can agree with, you can align with with. So they're so readily available even on the web now, it's not even a transportation issue for you to find one. Yeah, yeah. So I guess you would say I'm a huge proponent. Once I found out, wow, this is how this is working. This is how this is reaching so many people. And I mean, there are SEAL groups out there. Like all seals is a 12 step recovery group.

[Michael Gray]

Just seals.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And so the ability to find camaraderie, which is important for you to stick to any program recovery exists. So the holistic change model is what I came up with to assist therapist to get people on board. I did write a book and I did start a company. And the company is Bishop and Dice Defense. And it was centered Around.

[Michael Gray]

Who's Bishop?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Bishop, Scott Bishop. Shout out to Scott out there.

[Michael Gray]

Also, why'd you give him first base billing?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Because actually we tried that out. We said, you know, Dyson Bishop defense did not sound near as cool as this. Bishop and Dice defense, try it out.

[Michael Gray]

It's a coin toss for me. I could go with either.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You could go with either. Yeah, I know. Okay. He dessert. He's an awesome guy. He was a, you know, he knew the industry. He was like a contract wizard. He's like this, the brains of the operation. I, I was been working with there with addicts, alcoholics for 10 years. You know, I had the credentials to work with them. And what we wanted to do is get to veterans, law enforcement, first responders, the people who are averse to therapy, the people who don't want to talk, who say they don't need therapy. And what we want, what we set out to do to get to them, it's a bait and switch. We'll go into your police department and we'll provide you with all the cutting edge gear all way the, the training and tactics. We can plug in with different vendors to get you set up. And we'll go out there and talk shop with you all fucking day for like a whole year. And on year two, we'll bring in the mental health therapy.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, so you gotta crack the door so you can get inside first.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Exactly.

[Michael Gray]

It's not a bad approach, dude.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And we, we're in seven states now. Bishop and Dice defense. And we were out there, gosh, it's, it's our nation's heroes, man. The guys who out there, who. The first thing they tell you when you're a part of one of those units is handle your shit.

[Michael Gray]

Do you think they're still telling people that? So I left the teams in 2013. I did my last deployment in 2010. It was the vast majority of the year. And one thing I noticed, and again this is looking back and I guess I noticed it a little bit at the time, is that they were making a much greater emphasis on the family.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Involving the family. You know, they coming off a deployment, they would put you through tld, which is third location decompression, which is essentially a drinking stop. And I'm not sure 72 hours is enough time, but it right. We're working inside the military model. It is what it is. Intent was probably in the right spot. Family counselors, counselors for children, counselors for spouses. And there was a lot more talk about destigmatizing, going to See a mental health professional. And if that continued on that trajectory, man, I feel like that's a different foundation inside of the specialization.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They are definitely in a place where they're giving people another chance. You can go away to treatment and you can come back again. The barriers to doing that, and this has existed since back when we were in, is that if I raise my hand in any way to signal that I'm in trouble, I need help, you're gonna take me off and not let me play. You're gonna ground, you're gonna bench me, you know, and that exists not just, you know, the SEAL team that exists in the fire department. And whether or not there's a clear path back, I don't know. But even fathom that I have to stop drinking too, you know, that's a big part of it. Like, there's no path back where I can still drink and participate. So there's a lot of areas where just questions need to be answered. But to ask the questions would imply that I'm in trouble. So I'm going to remain quiet longer than I need to. And what we've been doing to help with this, and we're seeing a lot of positive results in is these anonymous groups we set up where people can log in from different departments and just ask questions. You know, you're talking to someone who's in the professional in the industry and answer questions like, what happened to, if I say this at my command, what happens if I ask? What does that look like? When does the red flag popped up just letting them, am I in trouble? Even this is what's happening. Should I be concerned? And those kind of basic questions is the beginning of, okay, I am in trouble, or I'm not in trouble yet, or I could be concerned. We're getting a lot of positive feedback, people willing to come in. And it could be just as simple as someone's chief saying, hey, yo, Jimmy, go log into Dr. Dice's website and just talk. Because they know I'm not affiliated, you know, with anyone's command directly. I don't have to answer to anyone. I'm just a place where you can ask questions. And I'm a private entity. I'm not part of their system. And so having that distance between them gives me the place where I don't have to tell anybody anything.

[Michael Gray]

Do you have any level of mandatory.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Reporting when these anonymous programs, when they're just coming and asking questions, they're not officially a patient, so I don't have any mandatory reporting. Okay. What I mean If I feel that someone is in a place, I'm going to follow up. And I tell that I said, if you come in my group and you let me know that if you, if I some way think you're going to hurt yourself, know that I'm going to do X, Y and Z. And I'm straightforward about that. So I let them know that I'm going to follow up with, you know, I'm going to track you down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I. I get the unwillingness to want to stop playing the game, but I think you have to ask yourself, what's the trident worth? What's your badge worth? What's it worth to you now and what's it worth to you for the rest of your life? Because at some point you got to give it back. Like you get to keep the one you were issued. But the community is going to move on. You're not as important as they will try to make you feel like when you're a part of it, they will replace you with the next youngest heartbeat available. And if you did nothing to take care of yourself while you were in. All of that shit's coming with you when you go past it. So what is all this worth? I don't think I would have been able to. It's tough. I mean, again, I say this looking in the rearview mirror. I would not want to. Would have wanted to give up the job that we had. But what if it saves your life?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's just your identity, man.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, but what is that worth?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

God, for so many. That's. That's everything, you know?

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. And I think for me, it was a part of that phase of my life as well. I, I can't sit here hypocritically and say that I, that I would have a perfect response to any of those answers either. But now, again, looking back, I mean, one thing that I think did help me throughout my entire career is I constantly would tell myself and verbalize it, this is what you do. This is not who you are.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And that's greatly healthy you're doing that. But that is something that on a much broader scale, we don't see people doing.

[Michael Gray]

Why do you think that is?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And it's weird that different, different groups have it, like, worse almost. I mean, a team guy. As you can imagine, it's a pretty firm part of its identity.

[Michael Gray]

For sure.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

For sure. But you know who? I see it even to a greater extent in law enforcement. I see, I mean, I mean, pictures.

[Michael Gray]

I think that's a harder job than what we did.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I believe I 100% agree with you. I put it in this kind of these terms. You and I would take a deployment, we go out in country, and we return home. Law enforcement is forever on deployment at their home. Yeah. Never, never not on deployment. You know, they were forever in country.

[Michael Gray]

It's constantly driving back intersections or wreck sites or shooting sites.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Mentally, here's my impression of law enforcement. Enforcement, their dukes are up. I have. My hands are up in a fighting stance right now, and their dukes are up. And no matter what you say to them, they're like, oh, I'm good, I'm good. And for them to lower their guard and open up, this is so uncomfortable. That takes a lot of trust and buy in. And so when we go in and we're working with law enforcement, we understand that this is the journey of the connect and trust. Trust is a long, complex one that we need to engage in. And it would take that full year to gain their trust.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think after 15 years being sober, that the young man you were before is still in there?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. One of the reasons I keep that picture on my desk is to remind myself that that life, that guy's still available to me. It's, you know, I have that option. If I want to go down that road, I know where it leads. Yeah. I mean, it's tough.

[Michael Gray]

It's tough to know that's still in there. Does it still tug at you from time to time?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I've gotten really good at playing the tape forward. Like, you know, if there was a situation when, you know, a bunch of guys here, guys are handing out shots. I mean, I was like, oh, those days. I mean, that tape, to play it forward with, like, what would shots mean to me? I go, bam, bam, bam. I'd be thinking, we're get some blow tonight, and you and I are going to Vegas.

[Michael Gray]

Somehow, the night ends in Vegas.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Michael is meeting a entertainer for the first time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You're looking for wives number three.

[Michael Gray]

He's gonna need a wig, though, if we're going down there.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. Oh, they would probably have those go all the way. We'd bick it. We get them skinned just the sides, all the way down, all three of us.

[Michael Gray]

I'm in.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It's a cult. I'm down.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, you're. I guarantee you, you're down because you have to look in the mirror with what's on top of your head right now. I'd be down anything other than this. Yeah. I'd be down to Cut my head off if I was you. What do you. So the 22 a day, the suicide number, which I honestly don't know if there's a solution to. Just because you'd have to solve suicide society, why Which I don't think there's an answer to that, as horrible as it may be. Why do you think what can be done, you think to reduce that in the community of people that we came from? Because statistically, man, it's off the charts.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No. And here's how my conceptually how I think we're there. The military is a war machine. It's not a mental health machine, it's a war machine. It is. You go into boot camp. Boot camp is not a peaceful process, it's a violent process. It's like your introduction almost like what bullying is like, you know, and it's.

[Michael Gray]

Not a bad description.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I mean you are, it's, it's a violent process becoming part of the military and you are pretty much trained that every single problem could have a violent solution that becomes part of your drop down menu. A possible solution for this is this violent option. And there are other options on your drop down menus, but violence is always one of them. So when you get out of the military, those drop down menus continue with you. And if you're in an altercation on the street, it drops down and you have to say no, I can't do that right now. If you're in an argument with your wife, you gotta say no, I can't do that right now. If you are feeling like the earth would be better off without you, a violent solution of suicide drops down and you have to convince yourself that's not a solution right now. It's part of that constant drop down menu. And if you're under the influence, it's harder to negotiate or figure out why that's not. So we have to come to grips with. We have different dropdown menus than the civilian sector because we've had this process, this brainwashing called boot camp in the military. So I think if we look at that as right, there needs to be an. An A deboot camping. There needs to be a more intense process to become a civilian again.

[Michael Gray]

I totally agree.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And that needs to happen. And also we need to.

[Michael Gray]

I'm going to add to that. I don't think it should be under the purview of the military. Ooh, I like it because I agree with you. What does the military exist for? If you actually, if you. Let's take it all the Way back to brass tacks. It's to fight and win war.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yep. At the end of the day, that's it.

[Michael Gray]

It's a profession of arms. Boot camp is the reorientating yourself from a me centric world to a we centric world.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right. How to live and not fight in.

[Michael Gray]

Close proximity in the Navy. Which taught us nothing about what we did in our career beyond that though. Eight weeks doing that and that's one of the shorter boot camps for the military, I believe. TAPS was a seven day course of which I attended none of. But don't worry, left with all the required signatures that I needed. So okay, eight weeks to onboard, one week, let's call it two weeks to get out. That's already a skew because in that you have everything you might have put into your backpack. I actually think this is the perfect role for NGOs and civilian organizations where it is their entire core competency because I'm sorry, I don't care how much money you give to the military in addition to their current budget. Budget. They are going to suck at off boarding people.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, they are.

[Michael Gray]

They're going to suck.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It is not part of the mission. It's not part of their mission.

[Michael Gray]

I don't think they care. Yeah, the SEAL community, when you leave, will try to keep you until they realize you are steadfast in your decision and they will replace you. And I'm not saying they do that. I'm not saying that negatively and it's not spiteful. Their job is to fight and win wars and to train hard and to be ready to go solve problems that people can't find solutions for. I don't blame them for that. Pissed me off at the time, but I don't blame them for that. But that space of getting out, maybe it falls under the VA, I don't know. But there are so many 501 C3 veteran based, service based organization. I think that's the sweet spot for this to happen. Now that's like obviously a grandiose and painting sunsets, which is easier, way easier to say than do. But I do think it has to be a separate, separate distinct entity outside of the military if it's going to be successful.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I totally agree with you man. And I think that that is, I mean we put, they put so much effort into putting you in the military mindset.

[Michael Gray]

That's what they do. Yeah. You're lucky that you get two weeks for taps. I hope that you do whatever you do there.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, it. TAPS couldn't Tell you no, I mean I did not. None of that. I was just trying to get out as fast as I can and just get on my life. Yeah. But yeah, there needs to be a deprogramming and there needs to be this attachment of the role addiction and mental health plays to suicide, how closely they're linked. And gosh, that would be. That would chip away at this huge issue we have.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I don't think we can ever get it to zero. I think the absolutist approach to that is a bad way to talk about it. A reductionist approach is way better.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Better.

[Michael Gray]

I think at least we could try to target it as close to zero as possible.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And you know, the being in the military is a sacrifice for many, many levels. And that is part of it is that it's going to impact you in your life. You're not the same person anymore.

[Michael Gray]

I would add to that first responder law enforcement. You know who gets left out a lot of that conversation too is 911 dispatchers.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Gosh. And that role. I can't think of a more.

[Michael Gray]

You're not getting a phone call. Call where it the ring 9 1. They're like listen, this party is amazing. We're having the best birthday party ever.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

Daughter just got a pony.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Chaos.

[Michael Gray]

Every, all the grandparents are in the best of health. No, none of those calls are happening right. Every single call is probably this existential somebody's worst day and you're on the phone trying to help them through that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Trying to figure out what they're going through through this. This crazy loud, loud panic communication. It must be very. I can't imagine how frustrating it is to not have an idea.

[Michael Gray]

I also wonder how much they know about the follow up from those calls. I'd be curious if they ever get resolutions.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Open ended stories for them one after the other. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I don't know. I don't know if they would have time. I don't know if a database exists. That is not a job. I think there's enough money to work for me to do.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

We've had a few dispatchers roll through group therapy. We've had a number of. Of gosh, firefighters, believe it or not, struggle with. They, they have just as many issues. But everyone loves a firefighter and they don't think they have any problems.

[Michael Gray]

Is their biggest issue that they just wanted to be cops?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. They just wanted to be in calendars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Of which the seal community is not innocent.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know.

[Michael Gray]

Have you seen that calendar?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No. Is there a new calendar? Out. Are you in it?

[Michael Gray]

No.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They're.

[Michael Gray]

What? Michael? God, I'm gonna regret this. I won't look at you. Michael, can you please try to Google?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh. Oh, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Navy SEAL calendar. I know some of the people who were in this.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Of course you do.

[Michael Gray]

And I don't know if they're. I don't know if there is a particular year.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I bet you there's 212.

[Michael Gray]

There's not. I am praying. I'm not a religious man. I am praying that there aren't pictures of this on Google, but I bet there are going to be because I know most of the guys that were in this. Let me just tell you, their skin was glistening. I feel like there was baby oil. I feel like they applied it to each other.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, I know too much about this.

[Michael Gray]

Well, it used to. So I did a platoon with one of the guys who showed up in this, and let's just say he was confronted with said imagery relatively regularly and not like, good job, buddy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh.

[Michael Gray]

So, yeah, I've seen this calendar. What have you found, Michael?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Just on images. Not a whole lot, thankfully. Speaking of shameless images, look at my. My screensaver.

[Michael Gray]

I know. The coffee shop.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know. That was my first.

[Michael Gray]

Our manager, Connor did that. Honestly, I could care less, man. It's. It's Michael Gray image. I like it.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Therehere we go.

[Michael Gray]

Two over to the right. To the right.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

It just says hot. Maybe we got a beret on here. So this, I don't think is. I mean, we don't wear berets.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

We don't wear berets. That's a little artistic. Yes.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, 2004. Yeah, that's up, Michael. Up. Yep. Son of.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God. Look it.

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[Michael Gray]

Oh, it's only on Pinterest, thankfully. Yeah, let's. We can go ahead and not go any deeper into this, Michael. The rest of their lives to satisfy this. Yeah, I knew I could, actually. Still, I mean, let's look at the air lats. Michael, do you know what air lats are? Second guy from the right.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Keep total air lats, you know. Okay, so we got an MP5 there and we have some looks like M4s. We with Vietnam era carrying handles. Those are rubber weapons. There's a reason why those are out of focus. That's probably in Coronado.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Son of a. Oh, my gosh.

[Michael Gray]

Look at that stance on the dude on the right.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Just. Yep. So calendars and then you have books. What's up with seals writing books? You wrote one.

[Michael Gray]

What are you talking about?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You wrote one. What are you talking about?

[Michael Gray]

I did. But I tell you what. I think I'd have to. I don't even have a galley copy. They gave me six galley copies of which I'd just gave away. I think the first sentence is. This isn't a book of war stories. There's not a single war story in the book.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's exactly what my story. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And I'm okay. But here's the thing. I actually. I believe people can do what they want to with their experiences. If somebody wants to write a book of war stories about their experience. Absolutely. More power to you. I have no issue with it. Unless they start having a flirtatious relationship with the truth. Truth.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Gotcha. Yeah. No, no, no.

[Michael Gray]

As long as they. I mean, they earned it. It's their right to talk about it. The community writ large. And obviously I can't speak for the community, but doesn't seem to be a fan. And I'm okay with that too.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, that's how it should be. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no, no. When I wrote my book, it was like from the very beginning. This is not your shoot em up, bang bang C war combat stories. This is about someone blowing their life up. You know, this is literally like what someone who is a high performer and what addiction can do.

[Michael Gray]

You became a high performing addict.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

First off, I don't know if you guys know this. I'm gonna win addiction. That's what's dangerous about our community.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It is.

[Michael Gray]

There's not a lot of people who live in the gray. It is cannonball into the pool or I don't like swimming.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. It exactly. Turn it all the way on. Yeah. Or I don't do that. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

When did your book come out?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Let's see. It's on pre order right now on Amazon. You can go ahead and find it now. Hope to drop the hard copy online the first year. And so what was your writing process? I know, first off, I asked every.

[Michael Gray]

Author this because I'm fascinated.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

My hat's off to anyone who's written a book because it was not easy for me at all. Did not come I'm not a writer.

[Michael Gray]

Did you try to do it sequentially in a narrative form, or did you. You Would you remember something and try to carve that out and then maybe put the. The limbs on the tree as you went?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. My first approach to it was making a timeline because I wanted this to be kind of memoir. I went all the way back in childhood, try to look for, you know, evidence of addiction in childhood, and. And. And kind of follow that story arc. And then in that. Where did the. What did addiction, I mean, recovery look like? You know, this part of my life. Life was when I was in denial. This part of life was when, you know, and kind of at the end of each chapter, I. A little bit about reflecting back. If I. You know, this is what I should have realized I was doing, but I didn't. So I started out with a timeline, you know, this huge master timeline. And then I. Over that, I overlaid the recovery aspects of it, and then I just tried to tell the story. And that's when, like, all the writer's block and started not coming out. So what I did was then, all right, well, I'm pretty good at public speaking. I do a lot of public speaking requests. I do safety stand downs. I do all this stuff. So I just labeled each one of my stories. I think there was 83 different parts of my, like, stories of my life. And I would just record myself telling a story, and I would get, you know, get up on a zoom, just da, da, da, da. And then I would take that. The transcription of that, and I would just try. I would write it out how I would type. Because we don't talk how we type. Yeah. And so. So.

[Michael Gray]

But you could carve away at that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

So you'd start with, like, a boulder of granite, and you're chipping away at that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Exactly. And they started putting that. So 83 videos I made of my life and then started, like, piecing them together and get kind of getting this. This book out. Some of the. I want to say the issues were that when you go to the publisher, they're like, so many times you're like, that's a war crime. You cannot write that. Or they would say that. That the statute of limitations is not up on that. We can't. And they're there. I mean, over and over and over again. That is illegal. And I'm like, dude, my whole life was illegal. I was not a good guy. And when you read my book, you'll find yourself not rooting for me. I'm sharing the dark side of my thought process. And I was someone who would cut corners. I was someone who's gonna figure it out at all costs. And so you're not really rooting for this guy, you know, until, like, you blow up with life and then recover. You're like, oh, he's gonna maybe do it. Yeah. So it's not a, like, you know, oh, yeah, book until the end. But, yeah, I. I just. I carved it out that way. What I did do to try to preserve the story arc is I started posting these videos on. On YouTube as I went through, and I do a little blurb. You know, I wanted my. My audience to kind of like, follow along. And so I would post the videos as I went on so that they. So. So. So the real story, despite, regardless of the publisher cuts out, the real story is gonna get out there. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

The story arc, the publishing part of it going through. I'm assuming you did the same editorial reviews. Illegal reviews. Yes.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Gosh.

[Michael Gray]

Well, I'm very glad that it went through some editorial reviews. Cause I found out I'm an idiot when it comes to grammar.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, I am. Yes, I am.

[Michael Gray]

Thankfully, there are people out there with a vast mastery of the English language, which I do not possess. And I'm really glad the first draft. Draft will not see the light of day because there's some semicolons in good spots now and commas and single words.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What was your process? How did you get through that?

[Michael Gray]

I. So I found writing to be very easy. The first thing I ever did, I.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Found that I was a super genius.

[Michael Gray]

No, I'm not a super genius. My. The book that I wrote. I did not want to write a book. I actually got tricked into it by my buddy Mike, Gloria lover, who. We were going to write a combined book. He was going to write. We were going to look at some topics and discuss it from different angles. And we would identify who was talking by whether it be the font or italicize it, whatever it is. So we had to write a test chapter. And when it came to bringing them together to pitch it, only one of us had written some test stuff. I pitched it, but the very first thing I ever did that I'll call Consumer facing Outside of the military. Military is I started a blog. I was not a good student in high school, but I always enjoyed English class. And I'm not claiming that I'm a good writer by any stretch, but I enjoyed writing the blog. It was called Confessions of an Idiot, aptly titled still up.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

But I have.

[Michael Gray]

I found podcasting a couple years after that. And this medium is way faster for me than sitting down and typing because I will usually type and then reduce from what I wrote to try to find efficiency in words. Words that takes me a lot of passes. And a lot of times right here I can just sit down and talk. So I had an outline of what it is that I wanted to write, and I've been trying to think of the best way I can describe what the book will be, because it comes out in April, and I know there'll be like a podcast tour associated with it. I know people will say, well, what is the book about and what are you hoping to get out of it? And I realized it kind of goes back to what I realized when I was a Bud's instructor. I liked teaching. Teaching. And I look at our old job, and a lot of people, I have realized, view it as unattainable, which, statistically, they're correct. But if all you have at the end of that are stories that can entertain people, what. What does that mean about your experience? Because I think what we learned, the things that we were taught, the things that they, under a lot of pressure, helped us navigate through. And for a lot of people, they become really key principles in their life. I think that has utility beyond military service, but almost nobody gets to experience that. So it's my best attempt to take the experiences that people think are unattainable and apply it to everyday life.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

There we go.

[Michael Gray]

So that's the best explanation I have.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, that's really. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Through the lens of largely, honestly, my own mistake. Mistakes.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. And it's funny experience. Sharing your own experience. If you can just stick to that. How freaking powerful that is. There was a. The process of sharing your story, and it sounds like a lot of what you're sharing is part of your story. I remember seeing an interview with Steven Spielberg and he said this, and it stuck with me ever since. And I teach at odu, so I use this a lot. Lot is that if you want to, you can argue statistics and facts all day long, and you won't get anywhere in terms of changing someone's perspective. You share a story and you will have a decent chance of changing someone's perspective because they can see something in a different light. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And if you look at most of the arguing that happens online, it's through the former versus the latter.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

They want to hit you on the head with what they consider to be the truth or statistics, and then the other person does the same thing.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You see a good movie, and it shifts your perspective on a different event. You're like, I did not realize that. And you find yourself moving more in terms of your perspective. When you share in someone's story, you get this look under the hood of what's really going on. Yeah. It's a crazy experience. And just being honest about what happened to me, you know, even though it's much of what I talk about in my. My story is not stuff you. I would. Why were you sharing that kind of stuff? You know, it's. Because that's what happened. You know, that's what shaped me. And there's. I think there's a lot of people out there who've done a lot of stuff that they're just ashamed of or they can't believe they did it. And, you know, we all have those skeletons in our closet, you know.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. I'm sure there's people out there who would claim the opposite of that, but I think they probably are just liars. You know, people are messy. They're imperfect.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They are.

[Michael Gray]

I look back, you know, you opened with, I'm a different person than I was in Buds. Like, I hope so, man. I mean, I don't even recognize myself or the person I was or how much I thought I knew or the way I was. Like, God. You know, the interesting thing, too, is even if I was able to go back in time. Time.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

I wouldn't listen to myself. I wasn't even a person that was formed enough to understand what I would tell myself now. So that now I wish I could just go back and tell myself to buy Bitcoin, you know, because that would probably solve a lot of problems.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. Oh, I would not. Like, who the fuck are you, old man?

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I know.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I wasn't even at a place and, you know, because I've heard a lot of people talk. Well, this is the book that I would want my younger son, myself, to write. And I thought about that, and I realized I might have read it, but I wasn't ready, and I needed to make some of those mistakes. And I. Actually, as weird as this is to say, is I want people to make mistakes because I hate to tell you, that's where the growth comes from, the pain. I don't want it to destroy your life.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Right.

[Michael Gray]

But maybe take you right up to the edge. What you think the edges learned.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, it takes. It has a toll on those around them. It. It. It destroys a lot of families, a lot of lives. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

How did your current wife.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know.

[Michael Gray]

Did you hit her with it all at once over a first date. How did we do this? Is this a rip the band aid off type thing?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Let me just share the context here. I was. I was, you know, going back to school. I was on pursuit of my master's degree at Old Dominion University. And there was this professor there who was just amazing. I mean, she was smart, she was passionate. And I was sitting in the front row going, holy shit. She had her doctorate. I put her on this pedestal, and I was sitting there going, wow, I got an A in that class. I did all the extra credit. And the following summer, she asked if I wanted to co present a. I guess she liked one of my papers I wrote, and I said, sure. And I remember, like, wow, a year after that, like, asking her out, and ended up, you know, dating and marrying my teacher and.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, but what part of that did you say, by the way?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

On that very. That convention we were presenting, she asked about, you know, you know, aren't you going to order something? I said, no, I don't drink. And at that point, I had, like, two and a half years of recovery or three years of recovery. And she was like, what, Three years? And I talked about my whole giant crash burn blowing up my life, and she was like, whoa, blown away. And to share a little bit of her story, she dated me for several years. And in that time, I mean, she was. I thought she was a normie. I thought she just, you know, she just handled her wine. And a couple years during us dating, she really became aware that, wow, I'm not feeling things the same as other people. You know, I'm not living life at, like, full strength. I'm. My dad passed, and I barely cried, you know, those little things. And so she found her own road of recovery in there. Yeah. So we both ended up in recovery. And so now we're five kids now, and I'm a short shout out to Vika, Noah, Ruby, Luke, and Ronan. You know, you guys rock. But growing up in a household with two parents in recovery, that's a lot of. That's a lot of recovery lingo they pick up. And a lot of, you know, looking at the world differently, a lot of processing, and I think it's a huge gift you can give your kids. You know, it's that this idea that you can freaking kick ass at life and have a blast and not do it with drugs and alcohol.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

There's one particular canoe trip I take them on every year. Every year, second or no, third week of February, we take him out into the great dismal swamp. And it's just this huge swamp. Some years we're breaking ice with the canoes. You're paddling upstream. We camp out on this island and it's a bunch about 20 guys, and we're all in recovery and we just do it religiously. It's always kicking the nuts. It's always miserable. It's just. You get out there and you have like a cup of coffee and it's so wonderful because it's so miserable and you're just. And everyone's laughing from. For no fucking reason, you know, just dick and fart jokes. And it is just the kids, you know, my three boys, they just. They don't miss it for anything. They can't believe these guys are having so much fun, you know. And granted, I'll take them out a day early and we'll set up booby traps to try to catch everyone, like flash crashes and whistlers and just, you know, just trying to make it extra adventurous. But. Yeah, but it's just a going out there and just freaking being crazy creative. And they love it. They love the idea of that these guys somehow connect. And it's funny how that gallows humor freaking works. Yeah, there's something to that for sure. Yeah. And that's. They get this a little taste of that. And those are all those gifts you can give your kids that tend to live on.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I love that as a counselor, somebody's been doing this for a long time. Do you have. I'm sure there are success cases in failure cases. Maybe not the correct terminology.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No. Reset relapses.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. Do you have any. I mean, obviously don't give any specifics, but are there people that stick out that kind of just haunt you, that you dealt with and it just, for whatever reason, couldn't click?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, gosh. It's a great question and it's a powerful question because there are, you know, there are like amazing success stories and there are horrible downward spiral stories that you're just like, wow. And the thing is, for someone to enter into recovery to get it, there's gotta be this nexus of they gotta be in a place where they can receive it. Like, they have to be open to recovery and they have to be access to recovery. You know, they're a place where they can go to meetings, get a therapist. There has to be this nexus of those two things happening, happening. So it all becomes this big timing thing, you know, and you. Whether we're where I intersect with them, it's like it's almost like if I'm lucky enough to intersect when they're at that point where those things cross, they can have a positive outcome. And if it's not, then it's going to be a negative outcome. So it's not like I can claim, I can't, I'm not claiming the wins. It's just like, wow, I happen to be in their life at the right time. And I mean I can't take credit for the losses either because you know, it didn't work out. You know, it's. Everyone's story is different. But yeah, I mean someone asked me once like, you used to be a Navy seal, now you're a therapist. Aren't you bored? And I'm. My answer is like, you, you have no. A therapist is a lifestyle, is a job that's chaos adjacent like that. I mean I live alongside this, this population of these stories that go way beyond your wildest action thriller out there. I mean just the situations people put get themselves in, the crazy plot twists. I mean the lives of an addict alcoholic are not boring. They are intense and dramatic and oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. You know the guy who has going to court for DUI on the way to the. The court gets a dui. This is the second time that's happened. You know that stuff is happening out there. Those are, these, these, this chaotic lifestyle are full of those types of stories.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of suffering in those stories too.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

There's a lot.

[Michael Gray]

How is a counselor just in general. How do counselors create a barrier or maybe they don't and this is impossible that they don't end up carrying some of that from the people that they're working with.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

They, they do. I mean I'm not immune to that. There are for say a, a therapist who's also in recovery themselves actually have a higher relapse rate than the general population.

[Michael Gray]

Therapists in recovery themselves have a. Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Is that because of what they are on the receiving end of?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Because they, they kind of. To equate that I'm doing all this work with people. Other people's recovery. I'm not working on my own recovery. You know, they don't. Their own investing.

[Michael Gray]

They're externally investing.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And they think that, think that counts as working on them and so with that.

[Michael Gray]

Need a martini?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's right. Neither one. Yeah, they got.

[Michael Gray]

It's just one.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Just one. Like who the wants one?

[Michael Gray]

No, I mean are disgusting.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Having your own therapist becomes super important. Also being in recovery, having a sponsor, that's a huge support that people don't realize. Let me for a second, just kind of talk about a sponsor. Imagine someone that you knows every single secret in your life, knows your entire life story, is especially attuned to your negative defenses. You're really attuned to what you react to, knows what triggers you have, is just up to date in real time with all your issues, who you have access to 24 7. That is a resource that you can't even buy. You know who's doing it for free, by the way. You know, that is just a tremendous resource to have on tap. So having a sponsor is a big deal. Having a. For me, you know, having a. My spouse is. Also works in the counseling realm, is also in recovery.

[Michael Gray]

I've heard you shouldn't care. Counsel your spouse.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That's a good question. You should not counsel your spouse, but you should communicate. However, you should communicate well with your spouse. But no, not counseling. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

That would be rough. Two counselors, you're like, wait a minute, are you using counseling on me? Stop using counseling.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

We both went to marriage counseling before. And so it's like two therapists going to a therapist and we're all in the same room. I know.

[Michael Gray]

That's a cycle of billing that's hard to understand.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yes. And be like, I know it. I know it's technique she's trying to use on me right now. And I'm gonna counter with this.

[Michael Gray]

That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. You know, behind the curtain, you're like, oh, I know how this works. I'm gonna get.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my gosh, he's playing good copac. Oh, would you.

[Michael Gray]

Would you go back and change your life if you could? Let me caveat this. If you do, if you change your life, there's a risk that you don't have what you have now.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, good question. Powerful question. There's a term in recovery called a grateful alcoholic, you know, meaning that you're grateful that you are an alcoholic, which is a powerful statement because it comes with the whole. All the chaos that my life brought to get to this point. No, my life right now. I have this huge, like, life map tattooed on my leg. You know, it has these GPS waypoints in my life. Change course. In the center of the map, there's this huge key.

[Michael Gray]

What datum did you use?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What? What datum did I use?

[Michael Gray]

Did you use WGS84?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I did.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I did.

[Michael Gray]

For the Latin 8 or 10 digit grid.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God.

[Michael Gray]

You went lat long?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It did Latin long. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Nobody can read lat long.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It looks good in a tattoo.

[Michael Gray]

Unbelievable.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know.

[Michael Gray]

Unbelievable.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

You will not find the treasure. No.

[Michael Gray]

I'd have to go on to chat GPT and ask it to convert, but.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

There'S a huge key tattooed over lies and on the table key is this word gratitude. That was the key to me being released from addiction. The bonds of addiction. I need to be grateful for my life, and that means being grateful for all the fucked up shit that happened when I was a therapist at that new treatment center. When I went back to work there, Dre Summers, my therapist, still worked there, and he took me under his wing. After about a year, he went on vacation. He asked me to his cover group. I'm sitting in his therapist chair with his clipboard and his pen, and in walks this addict who sits down in the same chair that I was sitting in five years earlier. And he's looking out the same window that I was staring out. And I'm sitting there looking at this, and I'm realizing in that moment that everything in my life had to happen exactly the way it had to happen for me to end up in this chair, for this guy there. And, I mean, I was trying so hard not to, like, break down and cry. Like, I was like, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is.

[Michael Gray]

That would be calling for a therapy session.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That would be that the therapist is.

[Michael Gray]

Crying, as you said, just a complete mess. Am I in the wrong room?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my God. And I knew then that that's I'm right where I'm supposed to be. It had to be this way. So now I would not change a. Anything, man. My life had to unfold in its horrible, painful fashion for me to get here.

[Michael Gray]

What do you want to do the rest of your life?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

My tagline on my. On my email is, how can I be the greatest amount of good for the most amount of people? You know, what are the force multipliers out there? One of the reasons I'm getting this book out there, and to be honest, this book is much like my company, where it's a bait and switch, which it looks like a cool, fun read that's going to be, you know, enjoyable, but it has a recovery hook into it. The same thing with my company. You know, I'm going to get out there, talk shop, we're going to have fun. But there's mental health sides coming. I'm looking for those force multipliers. There are people out there that I recognize When I work with them, that you would be an effing awesome therapist. You know, you have a way of connecting. You can get out there and. And the therapists, military, law enforcement responders who in their recovery find their way into these roles, can 10x this recovery, you know, like, if I can get out there and I can find ten more of me. Boom, boom, boom. Now we're helping a thousand people. Now they're helping 10,000 people. Now they're. That. That's what we need to do is get those force multipliers out there. So me moving forward, whether through this book, through my company, me, I'm looking for those 10 Xers. How can we continue to grow this exponentially? Because there's people who every day we don't do this are dying. Every day we don't do this, their families are blowing up. Every day we don't do this, more people are getting further down that path of self destruction. So yeah, when I leave here today, I'm looking for the next stop. How can we. How can we level up?

[Michael Gray]

It's awesome, man. Would you have ever imagined in your wildest dreams, as of course you were sitting on your couch on a water tower with a barbecue, that this is where your life would lead you?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dude.

[Michael Gray]

So in that moment there, if you had been given a notebook in an unlimited amount of time, would you have ever written this down as a fathomable.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my gosh. The very first time I allowed myself to think about maybe I want to be a therapist, I could barely say it out loud. You know, I mean, to be working in the social services was so 180 degrees out of what I thought I wanted in life.

[Michael Gray]

Life.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. There's no way. And I think that's something that letting go of what you think you know about your life, you know, that's. That's really what a lot of me has been like. Okay, let go. What I think I know this time I control that must be this way caused so much anguish and strife and led to so much of me trying to bury my feelings in addiction. Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's been part of that growth is letting go. What I think I know.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, it's awesome. Awesome. The book. So who'd you go with for a publisher?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

For a publisher? I went with the name is. Is my brain Peaceful Profits. Okay. Yep.

[Michael Gray]

Awesome.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

The best avenue for people to pre.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Order, go to Amazon.com okay.

[Michael Gray]

And when does it come out? What are you targeting?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Hold on a second. Amazon.com Yep. And if you go to DrDicebook.com you get on our mailing list with all our behind the scenes footage, you know, extra, extra content. And right now I think it's 5.99. And for the pre order and it's boom.

[Michael Gray]

What do you want to leave people with? We've been at it for like two and a half hours.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, Jesus. Yeah. What? I want to leave you with a couple things. You know, like I said, a shout out to my family. I love them. My wife is a freaking superhero. I'm so grateful to have her out there. So some gratitude sending her way. What I want you to do is, you know, besides looking at the book, I was checking out the social media stuff. If you're out there and you're hurting, gosh, if I can transmit this to you. The ability, it's like when I allow you to help me me, that's like a huge honor. I'm allowing someone to do. Like if you ask me for help, I take that as a huge honor. Like you trust me enough to ask for help. You know, it's almost like you're kind of being selfish by not allowing others to help you. You know that. That ability to give that purpose to someone to open the door to say, hey, can I talk to you about something? Those little. That micro step, that little bit. Just realize that, that that's a huge honor. You're giving someone the ability to ask to be there for someone for you.

[Michael Gray]

I would add one thing to that.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Sure.

[Michael Gray]

Every time I've done that, every single time I've been met with nothing but people willing to help as much as possible. Humans are great at a lot of things, but reading minds isn't one of them.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I have never had somebody say know, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And it is truly, it's a respect and an honor thing. There's so much tied up in. And it's almost. If. If you don't do that, the person is left forever. Like, dude, why didn't you ask me? You know, like y. I was there, man. Why?

[Michael Gray]

I have a list of friends that I could apply that directly to.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. And it goes both ways. You know, I know our lives have done this little parallel thing and they. They've intersecting these two times in a pretty crazy way. But if they continue of us having some sort of relationship, you know, that ability to just talk about stuff back and forth. Yeah, those are. Those are level up in the relationship. Those are serious level up. We could be best of friends. But it takes it to another level when I ask for some Kind of help and assistance.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, I agree.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. So to my, you know, our party message out there, is that that small little conversation, that one little. Hey, can I ask you something? As simple as that. Hey, you got a minute or just that. I don't think I'm okay.

[Michael Gray]

It's a tough one for guys. Specifically.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It is. Specifically. It is. You know, but that is the lead in. And it can go as deep as you're comfortable with. But just the idea that you have broken the ice and began that, gosh, that's the beginning of getting to a solution instead of living in the problem.

[Michael Gray]

I agree. Do you do the socials? People can get ahold of you on social media?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, pretty much. I made it easy for you. Go to any. Any social platform. Go, Dr. Dice. I'll pop right up. You go to Dr. Dice. Google me. Dr. Dr. Tony Dice. Dr. Dice. Pop all the videos. Pops up.

[Michael Gray]

Hell yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

Right on, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know. It's definitely. I thank you so much for having out. Having us out here.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, my pleasure.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

The platform, many of the guests you have are along the same thread. I'm super stoked.

[Michael Gray]

The.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

The. Those populations tend to really. We love these platforms. And the more we get people talking about how common this stuff is, the more we can normalize. Addiction is freaking widespread. And we're so good at like, I'll stop drinking, but I'll go to the gym three times a week.

[Michael Gray]

I was gonna say, you see, people switch one for the other, and it's 100% possible to be addicted to something you can consider healthy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And you'll auger your life in and your attempt to be a competitive exerciser.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes, I know. And you spend how much? $1,000 a month on supplements. You know, you went from coke.

[Michael Gray]

Expensive pee.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yes. Oh, you're so right. Oh, my God.

[Michael Gray]

Well, thank you for these pictures, man. I honestly, I cannot. God, why are we smiling? Why are we smiling? This picture is from Hell Week.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It is from Hell Week, man.

[Michael Gray]

There is.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Hoo.

[Michael Gray]

Yah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

God.

[Michael Gray]

There's nothing in that. Oh, God. Blast from the past, Michael. One day you could be in this picture, but you would have quit before him.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Week.

[Michael Gray]

If I'm being honest and objective.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Scary fear in the air of like, what the hell's about to happen.

[Michael Gray]

I was terrified the entire way through training because I didn't. I didn't know. And I didn't know if I was good enough.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah. Yeah. 180 people who swear they're going to die before they quit.

[Michael Gray]

18 originals.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That last day Yep. Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And the honor man's in jail.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Jail, is it? Wow.

[Michael Gray]

You didn't hear this story?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No.

[Michael Gray]

The honor man of class 212 is a man named Ben Seifried.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wait a minute.

[Michael Gray]

And his wife.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I know him. He was my. He called me when he was on the lam. I got interviewed by the FBI. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

What did he have to say?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

He called. He called me two times. He called me. The first time he called me before all that stuff went down. Before he called, did he say, I.

[Michael Gray]

Feel like I might want to cut people up?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, my gosh, yes. We were having a discussion about the best way to dispose of a body.

[Michael Gray]

Okay.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

And I told him that this is a joke.

[Michael Gray]

Everybody in law enforcement, you cut them.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Up and you put the body parts in different, you know, dumpsters around, basically very similar to what he ended up doing. Dude. He calls me later on and he asks me if I would be willing to help him on a ransom money drop. And I was like. I said, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Like, he wanted me to meet, like, off the pier in scuba gear. I said, stop. I said, listen, cyber, they know not. There is nothing. They will look for you harder than rancid. Please don't call me again. I don't know what this is about. I don't want to be part of this. But, I mean, that's. I remember when he met his girlfriend. I was with him at the bar at the Bell, the Brass Bell. And I remember that. Him hooking up, and he was a ball of chaos. Yeah. I was there with him.

[Michael Gray]

So let me ask you this, because my wife and I were having this conversation because she is fascinated by him. I have some fleeting memories. I remember he was a little touched. We're all a little bit touched.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

She answered on the dance floor. And his gun would fall out on the dance. Dance floor.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, but that happens to the FBI, too.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

So, I mean, what are you going to do?

[Michael Gray]

I was talking with my wife, and I was saying to her, how do you think this happens? Because either they were both twisted, or one of them was twisted and converted the other. But are you at home one night and you say, listen, honey, I don't know how to really bring this up to you, but I have. Have some things that I'm interested in that I have a hard time talking about.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

I really like Hooters paraphernalia.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah. I really, really want to kill people and cut them up. And I was just curious if you might be into that. And does she go, why I so like, it is possible that two completely insane people found each other. But how do you have that conversation? How does the initial, initial pickleball go across the net? How does this happen?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

How does it start? Yes, dude, I bet you with those two it started that very first night.

[Michael Gray]

Shut up.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

No, no, I mean, she came in with a different guy than him and.

[Michael Gray]

What do you think? The first. She's like, your skin smells good, I'd like to wear it or something.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It was, I mean, Cypher saw her and he was like. I approached her in front of him and there was a. An attraction and they were instantly like, we're gonna get married.

[Michael Gray]

And they were both crazy.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Then they. Yeah, I mean, they're just. It was full on Natural Born Killer kind of Mary, Mickey and Mallory Knox style.

[Michael Gray]

He has mandatory parole in like two years.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Really?

[Michael Gray]

I'm gonna try to get him on the show.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Dude, get him on the show. I'd like to come on the show and talk him say hi to you.

[Michael Gray]

But yeah, I mean, there's only one question and it's like, hey, man, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

What the, dude, you can get him on the show, man.

[Michael Gray]

Oh, you've already been tried, convicted and spent your time. There's no need to hide anything behind the curtain. Let's, let's go.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, that would be a good one. Oh, I hope you do it. Please, please do it.

[Michael Gray]

I don't think he will probably want to, but I will make an attempt at it.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Oh, I think there's probably definitely a book there. He's got to write a book.

[Michael Gray]

I feel like anything he writes or makes or profits from is likely going to be directed else where probably is going to go to the families. As it should.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

As it should. That would be good. Yeah. But he still, he needs to answer some questions for us. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I believe in the end they tried to blame each other, so.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, they did.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

It went bad. Sideways. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

The divorce didn't even survive being in separate prisons. I mean, who could have seen that?

[Dr. Tony Dice]

That speaks to our community where we both know someone like that personally. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

I try to tell people, you know, words don't always mean. Mean what you think they do. Honor, man. Honor.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Ish.

[Michael Gray]

You know. And again, they picked that on the class based off who had failed the least amount of evolutions.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, he was a hard charger, man.

[Michael Gray]

Yeah, he physically didn't fail any evolutions in the class. That's why he got the honor, man.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Wow.

[Michael Gray]

It was. I remember them having the discussion about it was nothing beyond that and whatever.

[Dr. Tony Dice]

Yeah, I remember he kind of lived life like a video game. Yeah. When we would go out and he would just be running from the cops, like. Yeah.

[Michael Gray]

And then there's that. All right, thanks, man. Bye.