The Creative Director Who Thought He Came Here to Die

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Nathan's Tribute to Walker

00:00It's good to see you, man. I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me and share a little bit about who you are as a person. Before coming in here today, I was just really thinking — you were one of the first people I actually saw when I got to Greenville, before I ever knew your name. And what I think about is that you are just a shining light. Your energy, your demeanor, your kindness — it's one of those traits that I truly admire, and I just thought I'd start out by letting you know what I felt and thought of you.

"My Character Defects Are My Problem"

01:28Thank you. As much as I appreciate that, the one thing I've learned in recovery — particularly in the last maybe six months or a year — is that my character defects are my problem, so that means I'm the problem. What may look good on the surface, I do genuinely think I am all of those people, but what's your motivation? Sometimes I wince a little and wonder if my motivation was pure. What I've spent a lot of time on lately is understanding that I've never been able to change my character defects and I've never been able to stay sober, and I've done both now.

I've really never stayed long enough or come close enough to AA to let it have any effect. I knew if I immersed myself in AA, I'd have to admit I'm an alcoholic, and once I know that I'm something, it has to be my responsibility to change — to start working on those character defects and motivations. I didn't understand how sick my thinking was. I hovered around the rooms of AA, I went religiously to a lot of meetings because I enjoyed them, but I wasn't acting on any of it — zero practical application of any kind of recovery program.

But recovery, I've heard this recently, is progressive just like the disease is progressive, and now I feel like I'm in a community of people I love and feel loved by — whether that's at FAVOR's all-recovery meetings, which are still key to me. What's unique about Greenville is that FAVOR's message is multiple pathways to ending substance abuse, and I agree with that, but I don't agree with that as a program alone — I need a community, and I also personally need a program of recovery, because I didn't have any guideposts for my life. All of my consequences came in the last ten years. I didn't have job issues — I was actually quite successful, compensated well to do something I was very good at. What does that bring? Entitlement, arrogance. I had an unstable track record where I'd stay with a company seven or eight years, go to the next one for more money, then go back to the old one because they'd pay me more — just no guideposts in life, and it all looked fine on the outside.

Sometimes all the appearances can be there, but I now know my heart's changed, because I can look someone in the eye now and say I'm trustworthy, and I know I wasn't. I know what it feels like to have the insides match the outsides — not just the car and the home and the trappings, I've had all that my whole life — but to know the difference, and to figure out how to be comfortable with that, because I don't have the same life I had in New York.

The Interview Begins: New York City & First Drink

08:47Quickly — I do want to interject that I lived the first eighteen years of my life in Houston, Texas, where I was born and raised, but really all of my adult life was based in New York City. I moved there two days after I graduated college and was successful pretty quickly, on a very upward trajectory. But as much as I said I didn't have any incidents — think of all that active-addiction personality I brought into those companies. Of course I thought I was the shit. But in here, I thought I was shit. Aligning the two is what my recovery is all about now — do the insides match the outside. If I'm full of fear, you're going to know it before I tell you, because you can tell when somebody's mind is five days, three days, six months away. I couldn't live that way.

Growing Up with an Alcoholic Mother

09:02I have to rewind a little bit. I grew up in an alcoholic family — my mother was an active alcoholic, really almost until the end. The way I can best describe it is I was always worried about my mom. Then when I started drinking at sixteen — I'd never had a girlfriend up to that point — everything changed. I stopped worrying about her, but that worry turned into rage, because now I was seeing her from a different perspective, and my mom became a woman I really despised. As I increasingly became her, the intensity of my rage toward her only amplified, because I felt like I'd gotten screwed on that side of things.

I wouldn't call it trauma — I don't want to minimize that word — it just felt like real dysfunctional parenting. My mom wasn't a reliable parent, but she also did the best she could; she didn't break the cycle she grew up in. Only in recovery did I begin to see that, and I could let go of some of that anger and turn it into forgiveness, love, and compassion. I used to say if there's a heaven, I'm not interested in seeing my mom there. I'm in a much different place now — I have a lot of compassion and empathy for what she went through. But guess what — I did more or less the exact same thing.

How He Landed in New York City

11:40How I got to New York is through college — the last couple of years, I had a circle of friends, and two of them ended up becoming very successful and influential in the design world in New York. They moved there about a year ahead of me, and two days after I graduated, I moved too, not with any intention of working for them, though I did eventually. My dad gave me a good amount of money as a graduation present, and I walked home a lot in the beginning because I didn't have money for the subway — I paid my dues in New York. But I have a gift, and it came so naturally that it didn't feel like work, which compounds your ego, because you're thinking: I don't even have to try, and I'm good at it.

So it never felt like work, and I kept going up and up. I still consider myself very good at what I did, but I ultimately disappointed people at every juncture. I left New York with my tail between my legs because I more or less couldn't find employment anymore, at least not at the level I used to.

Coming to Greenville "With My Tail Between My Legs"

14:13I disappointed a lot of people, so I came down here not drinking — went to a couple of AA meetings — with my tail between my legs, so to speak.

A Christian Uniform Company — "Complete Control... Perfect for an Alcoholic"

14:58I went to work for a Christian company in town. They wanted a higher-end men's line and wanted me to lead it — run our retail store in Charleston, our design team, our processes, our e-commerce. I had complete control over everything. Perfect for an alcoholic like me. We spent a lot of money trying to build a legitimate brand, and they had the resources to invest in it — but they got bored with it quickly, because they're in the uniform business and their attention span isn't the longest. That cost more than they expected, so I had to terminate contracts with people helping me get it off the ground, and then they folded me into their uniform design team. All my mojo went out of me. We did great work for their corporate clients, raised the service level, but it was still uniforms — deciding whether to put a blue pinstripe here or a red one there. The decisions didn't require much creativity.

Painfully Insecure People: Life Inside the Design Industry

18:53[Nathan asked what impact the industry's anxiety, stress, and perfectionism had.] It's interesting — I've never really thought about it that way, but the design community at large, at least my experience, is full of painfully insecure people. You're in this bubble where everybody's competitive, but not on the surface — they're figuring out how to be a better version of you, or sizing you up the moment you walk in the office. There's a lot of insecurity, even in people leading huge companies, people who've done extremely well their entire brand-building life — and they're as insecure as anyone.

The Trappings: Business Class, Great Hotels & Feeling Like "The Shit"

21:05I certainly had all the trappings of that nice life. You travel a lot in the industry, and they treat you well — great hotels in wonderful cities across the globe, Tokyo to London to Paris. You fly business class while the rest of your team uses points to upgrade, so you kind of feel like the shit. But going back to what you said about your observations of me — that's who I was with my team. I needed to be very, very lubricated. I needed to be under the effect of something to get there, and today I don't.

"I Thought I Came Down Here to Die"

22:18So I came down here, and this is going to sound a little maudlin, but I thought for a moment that maybe I came down here to die. I was working for the uniform company, coming home every night after a long day and drinking and drinking and drinking. Then I had to have back surgery and go on opiates — opiates and alcohol. I lost my job. I knew no one in the south, had no sense of community here at all.

That painful insecurity started, if I had to trace it, when I moved to New York without much of a plan. I went back to the company I'd spend lots of years at, and there was a guy hired just ahead of me who became my North Star — the way he dressed, his sensibility — and I felt inferior from the get-go, comparing myself to him on a brand-new design team. That competition isn't where my drive comes from anymore. I don't need the validation of someone else today. All that insecurity — I'm the best version of myself now, even though if I could be back in New York doing what I used to do, I'd be ready for it. That's just not in the plans right now.

I firmly believe if you work the steps in a twelve-step program honestly, wholeheartedly, painstakingly, it's impossible to be the same person. I didn't really take a real stab at the steps the first time. I'm doing it a second time now, and I'm finally at peace with myself, at peace with my past. I'm ready to go back to work, so to speak, and yet — I'm sixty-two.

What Drinking Actually Did for Him: "It Gave Me Wings"

26:17[Nathan asked what drinking did for him.] In the very beginning, sixteen years old was the first time I drank, and that became drinking every day through high school — either that or smoking pot. It gave me wings. It gave me the confidence to go up and ask a girl out — imagine being sixteen and never having had a girlfriend. It wasn't that I hadn't had one — it was why: I was so worried about my mom that I never brought anyone home from school, because I didn't know what I was coming home to. That unpredictability was the hardest part of growing up in an alcoholic family. I was seeking a spiritual solution all my life, I think, but we didn't grow up with that — I'm sure I heard the words "Jesus Christ" in our house, but only as a precursor to swearing. No spirituality, not even an untraditional one, though my mom played around with meditation a little. Our family to this day is incredibly fragmented; we all just figured out how to make it through on our own, and I could mask a lot of that when I was making money.

I started a strong, mature relationship with a woman who had a child, and her family was very family-centric — I stopped flying out west to see my own brothers, which created tension, since this was already girlfriend number six. We've learned as a family not to depend on each other, and that's the biggest disappointment — though my brothers have always been supportive, flying in during the in-and-outs of those final New York years, when every ten years I was a mess.

[Nathan asked whether those "messes" were tied to drinking and substances.] Everyone knew, even then — I had plenty of money, I was at the top of my game.

The 40th Birthday Party Intervention

32:02Going back to the reason I never really immersed myself in a twelve-step program — I knew I'd have to look at myself, and I was more or less in active addiction through all of my therapist appointments. I'll never forget a very intelligent, very militant therapist who didn't take insurance and said to me: "I can't guarantee your life is going to get worse if you keep drinking, but I can guarantee your life will never get better." That was the story of my life until I stopped.

So — forty years old, I rent out a steakhouse in Manhattan for my birthday, everybody flies in, and I decide to disappear for the day and show up at my own dinner. I get there, the party isn't happening — everyone's upstairs waiting, and my brother is the one who says it to me: "You need to tell all of us what's going on." I was drunk, on something else too, Xanax or some form of it. I realized the jig was up, but I didn't do anything about it, because I didn't have to — money let me make it look okay. I sat through my entire 40th birthday party drinking coffee and water for four hours, in the middle of a real drunk, in the middle of my own intervention. There'd been instances before — flying to my brothers in a crisis, needing a drink at seven in the morning before I could even go for a walk with them. So much of my life has played out as just a massive cry for help. What I'm grateful for now is that I'm an alcoholic, because I never would have known what was wrong with me otherwise.

"Describe Old Walker to Me": A Hard Look in the Mirror

34:38[Nathan asked him to step outside himself and describe "old Walker" objectively.] Incredibly immature, didn't know it. Incredibly self-reliant, knew it. I'm able now to look at how selfish I was — not in a malicious way, just that my thinking was always so full of shame for what I'd done. I raised a child for a period of time, and I think I did that well, though really more like a best friend co-parenting than a father — I love him to death and he loves me, and that time together is incredibly invaluable to me.

But so much of the rest — I used to travel with more or less a bar with me. I'd get to the hotel, we'd work all day at the factory, everyone would meet for drinks in the lobby, and I'd go upstairs and knock back a lot first, then come down thirty minutes later to join everyone. How can you possibly be doing your job if your primary motivation is when you're going to get to drink the way you need to? Very immature. And truthfully, at sixty-two, I'm brutally aware now: if it's someone else's fault, why would I ever change? This isn't about parenting or sibling relationships anymore — it's my responsibility, I'm an alcoholic, I have to take responsibility for changing, or I'm just going to keep making the same immature, self-seeking, fear-driven choices. I was suppressing so much I didn't even know it — I just put on blinders and kept going, telling myself someday this will all work out. And then I started having financial problems, because I got fired, and that created a lot of instability. But damn, am I grateful for everything I've been through now, because it's been a bitch.

Financial Collapse & Moving Toward Rock Bottom

38:29You'd mentioned getting down here and recognizing the drinking challenges, but then having a surgery and running into the experience with opiates.

Opiates After Back Surgery

38:57I've broken a lot of bones and had a lot of surgeries. One of the earliest ruptured two discs in my neck — they had to put a plate in, I still have the scar. I was on Dilaudid for a long time in New York. To be perfectly honest, I was able to get off any opiates with MAT — medically assisted treatment — and that saved my life, got me out of it permanently, maybe twenty-some years ago.

But when I had my surgery down here, I still had some permanent nerve damage, and the doctors said we need to do this immediately. I told them about my opiate history, but I didn't tell them I was drinking. I came out of the hospital and was supposed to stay with my neighbor for a week — after three days he said I had to go, that I was giving him nightmares, drinking and taking pills like candy, and he couldn't handle it, and he was in his seventies or eighties. I had what's called drop foot from the nerve damage — you walk like a Clydesdale, clunking because you can't lift your feet. I came home from the surgery with a case of Angel's Envy, and things really unraveled. I was still working for the company, and they knew I had no family here.

Hotel Lockdown: A Company Tries to Control the Drinking

43:07They put me in a hotel, day one, with no key so I couldn't get out — though I figured I'd just jam my shoe in the door. They'd told the front desk not to let me bring alcohol into the room. I went down to the lobby shop, took two bottles of wine, told them to charge it to the room since they'd taken my wallet, and walked back up with my shoe wedged in the door. Someone came after me — they must have had a note not to serve me — but I'd already opened the bottle and was drinking it down by the time she caught up. The owners found out the next day. I was just sliding and sliding.

Fired While in Treatment — Losing Insurance Too

44:36I ended up at a couple of treatment facilities, nobody knowing what to do with me, and finally in Charlotte — I don't even know the name of the place, honestly, because while I was there, they fired me, and in firing me, they canceled my insurance too. So now the treatment program wasn't covered either. They came to me with two things: first, you've got to go. Then they met as a group and decided to let me stay and pay over time.

A Back Infection, an ER, and "I'm Not Sure You're Going to Survive It"

45:18I still had staples in my back from the surgery, and in Charlotte it got infected. The doctors there took me to the ER and said they didn't want to get involved, that I needed to go back to my neurosurgeon. He looked at me and said we need to do this tomorrow, but I'm not sure you're going to survive it — I was skinny, shell-shocked, terrified of being in that facility.

Coming Home to Greenville — Three Years and Three Months Sober

45:52So I came back to Greenville. My brother met me in Charlotte and drove me back — we fought like cats and dogs the whole way home. We got home on a Friday, I didn't drink, and I came here on a Sunday. That was three years and three months ago.

Going to AA in New York While Still Drinking

46:56[Nathan asked how long ago Walker first went to a recovery meeting.] At lots of times when I was in AA, I wasn't drinking, but I can imagine — because I was at times — still drinking and sitting in a meeting saying you're not, and that's when it really starts eating at your integrity: I'm wasting everyone's time, nothing I say has any validity, unless I'm honest about where I actually am. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, and I kind of held onto that loosely. I'd gone to meetings almost every weekday through my forties and into my early fifties — the last years of my life in New York were a lot of meetings. What motivated me wasn't that anyone made me; I was beginning to see it in people. I had a 7 a.m. home group near the World Trade Center, a lot of business people, and I was comforted by being known there. I'll never forget a guy named Tom from New Jersey who taught me to make my bed — I still make it every morning, and if I don't, it bothers me. Those little things started piling up, and by then I'd had all the consequences — out of a family, out of a career — and for me, that's what I needed. I needed my gift of desperation.

"It Started When I Was at My Bottom Here and Completely Alone"

47:49What I've learned in the last three years is that I've spent so much time in a state of fear, and if I'm fearful, I'm not as present as I should be, because I'm worried about what's coming — and what's coming is usually not coming at all. I manufactured fears that felt like they'd end my life. Truthfully, coming home at night down here and drinking, thinking about what was going to happen to me — no one understood what I did for a living; down here, when I say I'm a creative director, people just laugh. I've been blessed to find the right company for me now, where I've learned to stay in my lane. That's been humbling, but it's growth — I'm seeing things I just wasn't aware of.

I'm trying to connect some dots: in your home there was no religion, though your mother toyed with meditation, so spirituality was pretty much nonexistent. [Nathan's question.] Well, I'd say most of the people who attended meetings with me in New York, by the World Trade Center, were Christian, but everything was cloaked in "higher power, god of your understanding," so it didn't require the existential moment it took me the last three years to really have. People ask if my god is the god of the Bible — I don't know, but that's not the requirement for me. The requirement is: do I live and act like I have faith? Not just believe in god, but have faith — that's where my fears began to peel away. I can't manufacture the fears today that I manufactured six months ago. I talk to god all throughout the day now, and that's an incredible tool to catch yourself mid-thought and go, "Holy crap, look what I was about to do" — and then not do it. The repetitive nature of doing what you're supposed to do is golden.

I just never had any sense of how a higher power would even work — I didn't know how to talk to god, because I never had. I didn't blame him for anything wrong in my life; I knew I did that. But I also didn't credit him for what was right. No dialogue with god — not denial, just never knowing what it was like to be in a relationship with him. I didn't know how to structure my prayers, so I started praying simply for the willingness to learn how to reach out to him.

Three Years Sober in New York — Then Picking the Drink Back Up

58:34[Nathan pointed out they'd glossed over three to four years of sobriety in New York.] I was actually sober there for about three and a half, maybe four years — I'd stopped drinking but hadn't done any of the work. I did halfhearted Big Book study groups, half-assed, honestly. You can't take life on without figuring out how to replace what you used to need drugs and alcohol to do, and that just comes with time — no, with growth, because time alone isn't enough if you're not growing. I was worn out. I didn't want to wake up in a hospital or treatment facility again; the best version of me needed to be out in the world, and I just didn't have what I needed yet. All that jealousy and competitiveness — I still had it, at my core, in that first job back in New York.

"I'm Not a Bad Person Trying to Get Good — I'm Sick": The Disease Model

1:00:49[Nathan shared his own experience with opiates after a surgery, and asked whether Walker had faced anything similar.] I had a lot of surgeries over the years — I didn't tell the doctors about the drinking, same pattern. What I didn't understand back then, but understand now: I didn't know what an alcoholic was. I thought it was the homeless person flying a sign at a stoplight. Once I looked at the science behind alcohol use disorder, the physiological explanations, it clicked: I'm not a bad person trying to get good — I'm sick. Society doesn't yell at the diabetic whenever they eat a Twinkie, but somebody with what I have — if I don't drink, I can accomplish anything I feel, a pretty intelligent, well-educated person who's done some cool things. But if I put alcohol in my body, all bets are off, because there's a physical component: it triggers wanting another and another, and it becomes nearly impossible to know when to stop.

There's also a mental aspect — I can't not do it. I don't have a problem getting sober; I have a problem staying sober, because some insane thought eventually wins out: I've been doing good, I'll have just one, or it's the end of the world so what does it matter. If I can remove the physical factor, the mental one doesn't have the same grip. I always say I don't have an alcohol problem, I have an alcohol solution — the only problem is it quit working. You take the alcohol away and I'm stuck with me, and I've used it for so long to self-soothe, to alleviate anxiety. It's an egomaniac with an inferiority complex — if you're recovering, you're getting further and further from that; if you're not, you're just in it.

"A Lot of Your Identity Is Wrapped Up in Your Job"

1:08:49[Nathan asked why so much of Walker's identity seemed tied to his career.] I get so much self-validation from it. The business I've been in my whole life requires a lot of ego, and that ego has its own high — doing great work is its own validation, and I am, and remain, very good at what I do. I don't have the audience I had in New York anymore, and honestly, in the grand scheme, none of it is saving the world — it's clothes. I'm good at something most people don't care that much about, so there's also a don't-take-yourself-too-seriously element. But I'm a better human being now than I was then, when I was so riddled with my own insecurities. This is the final lesson we never graduate from — I can't get to the real things while I'm drinking and using. Now that that's removed, the true internal work begins.

Choosing a Pathway: FAVOR, All-Recovery & the 12 Steps

1:12:54[Nathan asked what motivated him toward FAVOR's community and then the twelve steps.] What I love about recovery community organizations and multiple pathways is that it's not any one thing, it's everything — the opportunity to experience different things that improve the human condition.

"I Laid Down My Guns": A Year of All-Recovery Meetings

1:13:49For the first year, the only thing I did was all-recovery — I went to FAVOR, including Saturdays, probably five days a week. I didn't have a job or prospects for one, and it was exactly what I needed. I'd laid down my guns. I know more will be revealed and more will be asked of me, but I needed a year to just be. I was so beaten up — I had two back operations right after each other because of the infection, three spine operations total. Coming to FAVOR, I finally felt like I was breathing normally. A lot of us there are regulars, at least one or two days a week — we got sober together, we didn't choose each other, but we're in this together, and that small group means the world to me.

The Epiphany: "Drinking for Me Was a Spiritual Experience"

1:15:16Here's what was a huge unlock for me — it wasn't that long ago that I heard it, but now I've absorbed it: drinking, for me, was a spiritual experience. I didn't have fear, I had confidence, I was the best version of myself, funnier, smarter — even though I was still painfully insecure underneath. If alcohol or drugs are giving you that kind of relief, and you don't find something to replace it, you're screwed. I never thought that god, or whatever you choose to call your higher power, could be that replacement — that's the spiritual experience. I used to roll my eyes at people talking about the "spiritual part" of AA — the whole thing is spiritual, and I didn't see any of it until this epiphany, and more importantly, the feeling of not being afraid. It's the most liberating thing in the world, and it's because I trust god now, and I'm living my life as if I do.

The "We Agnostics" Chapter & Finding a Higher Power

1:17:49There's a chapter in the Big Book called "We Agnostics," and I'd encourage anyone to read it and come back and tell me they still don't believe there's a god or something more powerful in charge — I don't think you can read that chapter and still think that. It completely lit the way for me. I know what that first drink does, and the second — but I can't stop there, and the mental obsession to drink, if you have it, sucks until it's gone. And then suddenly it can just be gone, and I can't fully explain why — it's my own inner truth. I need god in my life; a woman I was close with here once told me, dead in the eye, "maybe you need this," meaning faith — not necessarily organized religion, but the essence of it: faith, trust, belief, and doing the right thing every day. It started making sense, and then it started making real sense once I began practicing it — and suddenly you wake up and realize you haven't felt afraid in a month, regardless of what's on paper financially.

I've had to survive on table scraps some months, and in the beginning that was filled with terror — the lights are going to go out, et cetera — but none of those things ever actually happened. I didn't have a spiritual solution, I didn't have anyone to ask: please let everything be okay, and if not, give me the courage to do something about it. That's what my recovery has been like. I had a speeding ticket I had no money to pay, and a business in town that owed me money for product showed up with a check for exactly what I needed, unprompted. I'm not Joel Osteen, this isn't the gospel of prosperity — but trusting and believing creates opportunities, and fear and cowering in it eliminates them. If I'm out in community with people, I have a far better shot at an opportunity than if I'm holed up alone contributing nothing.

Starting Maryn: A Brand Built on the Other Side of Rock Bottom

1:28:12Since 2015 I've had this idea for a brand — the name is Maryn, M-A-R-Y-N — a name I've always loved. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look, hired a local graphic designer trained in Bauhaus principles, and we went back and forth until the logo was exactly right. I built a deck with a close friend who's been very successful in what used to be called advertising — more branding and data now than gut instinct, but I didn't come from that world; I trust my intuition about what will sell. I started with two products.

The Twist: Funded by the Same Man He Disappointed for Years

1:29:55Here's an important part of the story: this business, in its inception, was funded by one of the two partners who owned the company that employed me for six years — the company I was a massive disappointment to, that I blew up on. They gave me the money anyway, because they knew I didn't know anyone down here and would be stuck otherwise. They gave me significant seed money to get it off the ground, and I've taken it and run with it. There's so much sense of accomplishment in that — it never would have happened if I were still drinking; it would have remained a pipe dream. I'm not a business-running person, really — I'm accountable to the financials, but my role has always been making great product and telling a great story around it, whether that's photo shoots, retail experiences, e-commerce, or social media. I'm doing Maryn exactly the way I wanted to, and it's been incredibly successful — I'm selling coast to coast, in stores all over the country. But I've got to keep going, and keep showing up publicly as a healthy recovering alcoholic to keep it going.

"If Everything in Your Life Is a Thing, They're All Equal in Value"

1:37:04I had a therapist say to me once: if everything in your life is a thing, then they're all equal in value to you. I was obsessed with having things, and I had the money to buy whatever I wanted, and I did. It all had to crash and burn — it was just a matter of when. Thank god I've still got a few cartridges left to keep going.

Character Defects Today: Sensitivity, Expectations & Ego

1:37:55[Nathan asked what defects he still has to watch for today.] I think I'm incredibly sensitive, and I can still have expectations — expecting someone to treat me the way I'd treat them, which doesn't always work, because you're basically anointing yourself the standard for how people should interact. Six months ago, my first answer would have been crippling fear — I can't deal with this, I'm going to drink. That's not the case anymore. I work with a younger creative team now, people who don't have the same life experience or cultural references, and I have to watch the ego that comes with knowing more than they do — I have expectations that they'll be where I am, and when they're not, it's frustrating, and that frustration is ego, not teamwork. So I try to ask myself: is this mentoring, or does it need to be tough love? I'm still so sensitive — I get sad when I get hurt, even though I know people don't mean to hurt me and it's their struggle, not mine.

Advice for Someone New to Recovery: "Begin the Practice of Prayer"

1:42:09[Nathan asked what he'd tell someone new to recovery or just exposed to it for the first time.] I'd say begin the practice of prayer — begin learning how to pray. I wanted the results, and when I stopped praying for the results and just prayed for the willingness to trust, even without knowing what would happen, that's when I could start chipping away at the root cause of the fear. The root cause is as simple as not getting something you want, or having something you already have taken away — notice the word "things." I have a house full of things. My next area to work on is turning my home into somewhere with more peace and serenity, instead of a shipping facility for my products. But I really think if you can get your head around what alcohol did for you — what it did for me — you have to find a replacement for that, or you're stuck. The other thing: I don't have money to buy things anymore, so the clothes I have are what carry me through now. No more flyers, no more $20,000 birthday parties where I disappear for the day and foot the whole bill — that was so much about me, proving what I could afford. I don't know what the new version of me looks like exactly, but my motivation isn't the same.

"No Flyers Anymore": Looking Back at the Old Version of Himself

1:44:48That wasn't a snapshot of anything good — that I didn't see a problem with flying my brothers in and then disappearing the day before my own party, drinking a bottle of Absolut vanilla with ginger ale, not seeing anyone. Somebody else is going to have to tell me what the new version of me looks like, but I know my motivation has changed, and I wouldn't throw that same party again unless I had a very different story to tell.

Nathan's Reflection: Watching the Growth Up Close

1:46:26[Nathan reflected on nearly three years of watching Walker's journey up close.] I've had a front-row seat to the emotional ups and downs, the fears and growing pains that emotional sobriety brings, and the persevering — the continuing to show up. It doesn't happen all at once. You'd ask me what the moment was that I knew spirituality was working, and it's when I stopped looking and just started noticing — I can't manufacture the things I was afraid of six months ago anymore. It's not even that I can't make it sound rational; it's that I can't believe I ever thought that way.

Closing Thoughts: "It's the Greatest Show on Earth"

1:49:55Recovery can be so rewarding, but for me, my gift of desperation wasn't hitting a literal bottom — it was near-suicidal, thinking about ending it because I didn't believe I could ever do this. I think I would have quit right before the miracle happened — forget about Maryn, all the proof of concept has been demonstrated, but I've got to put more fuel in the tank. Being in recovery is foundational for me; it's necessary, and I don't think supporting it is overly selfish, even though I've taken selfishness to the extreme before. I always felt like I had a chance, but when you start losing hope, it chips away at your belief that things can get better. I didn't know how to get to hope without a higher power. All that self-pity is such wasted energy, and we can live in it for ages — but then you start seeing it in someone else, a guy in his thirties just starting this process, who's wrecked his physical health, and you hear in him the spark of recovery anyway. It's the greatest show on earth, man. It really is life — exciting, scary as hell at times, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Plugging Maryn & Closing

1:50:07I have an Instagram account and a website, mainly for collecting email addresses. The name of my company is Maryn — M-A-R-Y-N — and my Instagram is @maryncompany, all one word.