Breaking Free From Addiction with Fitness Influencer and Sobriety Coach JD Emmons

JD Emmons shares his journey from feeling like an outcast in his youth to becoming a sobriety and development mentor. He discusses his struggles with alcohol, the turning point that led him to sobriety, and how his faith played a significant role in his recovery. JD also delves into his fitness journey, highlighting the transformation he experienced after quitting drinking and how he now uses fitness as a mental reset. He emphasizes the importance of choices in life and how he aims to inspire others through his experiences and coaching.

Transcript

Robert (00:46)
JD Emmons, welcome to the podcast.

JD Emmons (00:49)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Robert (00:50)
Man, I appreciate you coming on. Look, my first question to you, how old are you?

JD Emmons (00:55)
47.

Robert (00:56)
Wow. So I'm a little bit older than you, I was showing one of my sons this morning, I was showing him your page and he's like, dad, how old is he? I said, I don't know. I mean, he's probably close to my age. He's like, why don't you look like, yo, I try, I try. I'm like, I'm in the gym five days a week and I'm like, and I'm not one of these that's just kind of going through the motions. You know, I'm pushing it. I'm like, I'm trying to.

he was very impressed. So, Hey, look, I know you are a sobriety and development mentor. And I want to get all into that. And I want to go through your journey and we're going to touch on fitness as well. And but I really kind of want to start from the beginning. If you don't mind just kind of childhood and how you got to where you are now, if you don't mind.

JD Emmons (01:49)
Sure. Yeah, so I was kind of, you know, I've always kind of considered myself kind of like sort of an outcast, I suppose. And that's important for later on in my, later on in the journey, that's an important element. But yeah, just, was never really, I was an only child. I grew up in Texas and I didn't really have, I mean, I had a father figure, I had a stepdad.

But it was just, I don't know, I just always kind of felt just kind of by myself, you know, so to speak. I wasn't in sports, wasn't with the cool kids, never went to parties, never really drank. I think I mentioned the other day, you I think the only thing I ever drank in high school was like a Zima or something, right? And, you know, it's kind of funny. But so my childhood was pretty quiet. was kind of a pretty easygoing kid and

You know, I, after high school, I to university in Arkansas, University of Central Arkansas, and that's where I met my wife. We met, and I think it's pretty fast. Within six weeks, something like that, we were married. Yeah, was pretty fast. She knows the timeline a little bit better, but it was really quick.

Robert (03:06)
Within six weeks of meeting her?

Yeah it is.

Wow.

JD Emmons (03:16)
Yeah, we just and so we've kind of grown up together. I was 19. She was 18 I think from there, you know kind of fast forward quite a bit We went on to have kids we met some families that that had a lot of kids that were doing things That were intriguing, you know, they were just doing things a little bit different than how the world was doing it And so we just kind of latched on to that so for about Let's see for nearly 20 years

That's kind of the lifestyle that we led. We did farming. We were really close-knit family, drove the big van. A lot of times being mistaken for being Amish in some of the areas that we lived in. I don't know. guess at some point we had some businesses going that ended up, some of them finally ended up doing fairly well, got a little bit of financial success.

got kind of tired of living the dirty life. Farming is very dirty and it's just long hours and landscaping and we did that as well. And so we kind of found something that was a little more lucrative and a little more, I don't know, just was better financially. And that kind of put me in a...

different crowd, I guess. And so I had a little bit of experience with some people that, I mean, it's kind of basic, but the interesting thing to me was like their ability to, what I deemed as being a man, they knew what scotch was and they knew how to drink it they knew what cigars were and they knew how to smoke them. I had never done any of this stuff, right? And so it was also during that time,

that I kind of got exposed to the fitness world a little bit. I was always really tall, really skinny. And so these kind of all happened at the same time. I was 39 years old. So that was my introduction to alcohol. my personality, when I find something that I feel like is gonna bring value to my life, and at the time I really thought that it was gonna be a connector for me.

you know, with people because I, like I said earlier, I'd always felt like an outcast, right? So this was like, finally I'm in the locker room with the guys, you know, is kind of like how I, because I never had those experiences. And so I was, you know, we pretty much would talk about nothing most of the time, but I was at least in the cool crowd, so to speak, just a lot of insecurities, I think, you know, and that was, that was my way of, adapting or, you know,

Robert (05:43)
Yeah, yeah, right.

JD Emmons (06:01)
walking through that time. And alcohol eventually, you know, when I first started drinking, of course, just like everyone, don't start off drinking thinking, this is going to be a problem one day, right? You think you can do a little bit different because you didn't spend all those years. Like I always knew that drinking in excess was bad for your body, like health-wise, right? But I was going to do it different. I was super healthy. You know, we were organic farmers.

We ate everything great. Our environment was really good. We didn't do a lot of the things that can bring harm into your life. And so, yeah, thought I could just do it different. And it turns out, I found out about nine years later that I had a problem. And that's when I realized that I was going a different direction than my family.

Robert (06:58)
So you're saying you're going in a different direction. If you don't mind sharing, was it affecting you?

JD Emmons (07:05)
So, for about seven years, feel like I, it feels weird saying, but I feel like I did pretty well with it. The job that I had at the time required me to travel quite a bit. And so, I would be gone most of the week. My typical schedule was being gone Monday through Thursday. I would drive home anywhere from Florida to South Carolina, wherever. North Carolina is where we were living at the time.

And so I would do a lot of commuting and then I would come home and on the weekends we would work our different businesses that we had a couple of businesses that required like setting up at trade shows or setting, you making products. And, and plus I had, you know, up to that point, 10 kids, right? And so I had a lot on my plate and I felt like I juggled it pretty well. You know, our marriage was, our marriage has always been, you know, with it struggles, you know, in trials, but we've always been.

pretty intentional about getting through those things. So, and I was doing all that while I was, you know, attempting to change my physical state, you know, and I'd already done some transformation in my early 40s. And so I just felt like I was doing really well. And then, and then I started feeling, it was really the holidays that, that I think that I remember vividly things feeling, feeling, just feeling disconnected.

And that's when I started to really fight it more in my head. I would never admit to myself that I had a problem. And that just kind of heightened the battle, I guess, is a way to say it. It just really made things more tough. Because I probably knew subconsciously that I had a problem, right? But I didn't even want to verbalize it to myself, not even in my mind. Because I knew that that would kind of open up the door for a lot of

I don't know, just a lot of, well, I didn't know at the time, but I had these assumptions that it would open up the door for a lot of loss or lot of embarrassment or a lot of, you know, I don't know. I had no idea what to think, so I didn't even go there.

So, but it was feeling disconnected. Nothing was satisfying anymore. We were even doing better financially. We had moved to the property that we're on now, which it's a pretty amazing property. it was, and I just kind of kept this place as kind of like a party environment. And I think I just would kind of disconnect from reality into that party environment. But then whenever real situate, like real get togethers, you know, like

family events, mainly holidays would happen. just couldn't connect with anyone anymore and I just felt super disconnected.

Robert (09:51)
And you and you were drinking were you drinking during those I assume? Yeah.

JD Emmons (09:53)
yeah, yeah, it had gotten pretty bad. You know, when I first started...

Robert (09:58)
Was it like a drinking to function type? that, or you've got a family event, you've got 20 people coming over and hey, I've got to have some drinks so I can loosen up and get ready.

JD Emmons (10:02)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Right.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I always, I've always had a problem speaking in groups of, like if there was two or more people in a group, like count me out. I'm not gonna, not that I'm great at it now, but it's alcohol really, I felt like alcohol really allowed me to function in those environments.

and not feel so weird, you know?

Robert (10:38)
Yeah, Luke kind of loose loosened you up and made you feel more relaxed.

JD Emmons (10:42)
Yeah. And interesting about that, when, you know, one of the realizations I've had is that my, any, anything that I ever did good, you know, in quotes while I was drinking was already there. Like alcohol just, I may have used that to expose it to myself, but I mean, that wasn't probably the original intention, but I look, I look back now and I'm like, if I did that while I was drinking that I must be

I must be capable of doing this. And so you just have to fine tune it. And that's easier to do whenever you're, when your mind's present, you know, when you're not avoiding reality, then you can pick out the things you need to work on,

Robert (11:22)
Yeah, so it was basically a crutch for you, correct and kind of

somewhat of an escape from reality or escape from maybe your self-consciousness or self-image of yourself?

JD Emmons (11:31)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, don't, not so much my self image, at least not...

Because when I got into fitness at the same time originally, I was six foot one, I was 149 pounds, 155 was the most I'd ever weighed. And so I was a pretty thin guy, right? And within a year or two, I'd put on about 30 pounds. And yeah, and originally it was mainly muscle. I wasn't really able to gain much fat.

Robert (11:54)
Yeah, you are. Yeah.

JD Emmons (12:09)
But that kind of changed and I understand now how that changed. Like just the way that your body metabolizes things, everything changes. And that took probably five or six years for me. And then I was near, I was up near 200 pounds, you know? And for me, that's fairly heavy. know, I wasn't obese or really overweight necessarily, but I was heavy for me, for my friend.

Robert (12:34)
Yeah. And you're getting it. You're in your forties then, right? Early forties. And it's not like you can, you know, I remember back in college, you could have scarfed down a dominant large Domino's pizza and drink a few Budweiser's and you get up the next morning and you can still see some abs and stuff, you know, as you get older, you can sniff a piece of pizza and the next morning you're bloated. So yeah.

JD Emmons (12:37)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so my self image had been changing and I had a lot more confidence in myself. I started noticing that when I would go into rooms, like in the workplace, people looked at me different. So my self image, I feel like was fairly good. It was at least as far as physically. I think it was more of just my ability to converse with people or, I still struggled with still feeling a little bit out of.

out of connection with people because the topics that we enjoy talking about as a family were always much different. I don't know anything about sports. know, like we were talking the other day, I don't know much about sports at all. And so it's a conversation that, you know, I can sit and listen to somebody, I couldn't, I wouldn't know a name. barely know positions. That's just, and so, but I could fumble my way through that a lot better with when I was drinking, right? Cause then you're one of the guys, you might have a funny thing to say or whatever, you know.

And so it, but it, but it was really more so being used to avoid the reality, all the pressures that I was having, you know, just all the businesses, the traveling with work, I had stopped doing that. And so we were, you know,

There was just a lot of pressure that came from all those things. We have a lot of kids, as you know, when they get older, there's bigger decisions. And my wife always likes to talk about business. That's not in a bad way. At the time, I thought it was bad, it was annoying. But now it's just like, it's not necessarily business that she likes to talk about. It's growth and growing and always learning and moving forward. And I was like, you know what?

Robert (14:16)
Yeah, and kids, 10 kids, yeah.

JD Emmons (14:41)
It's, I mean, the times got earlier and earlier that I would start, but for a long period of time, it's like, you know, it's six o'clock, it's five o'clock, it's three o'clock, now it's 11 o'clock. you know, I'd start.

Robert (14:53)
So it eventually crept up to being a morning, something you were doing in the morning.

JD Emmons (14:57)
Yeah, yeah. More so, yeah, more so in the get togethers, which we had a lot. So yeah, it was a lot.

Robert (15:03)
Yeah, yeah, almost making excuses. Was that almost making excuses for get together so you could drink? Did you ever find yourself doing that?

JD Emmons (15:11)
No, I wouldn't say, I just really enjoy, I really enjoy getting together with people. It's one of my most favorite things, because especially primarily the majority of the people that were coming over were my older kids and their spouses. We did have some close family friends or some close friends at the time, turns out were mainly just drinking buddies, but then we would get together and play guitar or whatever, but I didn't necessarily create, like there was,

there was enough events just creating themselves. And this was the hangout place because we had the best situation for a lot of people.

Robert (15:42)
creating social.

makes sense. How much at the height of your drinking, how much were you drinking a day a week and how much?

JD Emmons (15:59)
I could go through a half a bottle of bourbon in one night, easy. Yeah, so these terms, again, this is like bro terms to me. I didn't really know. So like a typical 750 milliliter bottle of bourbon, I could go through that in two nights easily. yeah, when I was at heavy get togethers,

Robert (16:05)
Like a of bourbon.

Yeah. So, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

JD Emmons (16:30)
Whether it was a holiday, I could do that in a day. Not a problem. But my typical, my average was probably every two to three days, a bottle of bourbon.

Robert (16:40)
Wow. So you're talking anywhere from three to four bottles a week.

JD Emmons (16:45)
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, and that's just the bourbon part. You find workarounds and little tricks so that you don't feel poisoned or you don't feel bad, right? And so you could throw in a few white claws in there or drink a bottle of wine in one night. Because I could handle a lot more wine and I could stay at that good place that I like to be at.

I could stay there lot longer with wine. It was a little bit cheaper too, you know.

Robert (17:19)
Man, I just think about the brain fog. You're talking about everything you have going on. And I think about the brain fog you had to have.

JD Emmons (17:22)
yeah.

Yeah, I did. The interesting thing, and I think to a degree this is a problem that I see with a lot of men, is that if you have a tendency to kind of be tenacious about things and push through, like no matter the pain, somehow you're able to find a way for a period of time. Like eventually, I think that's what I ended up battling, was I couldn't do that anymore. Not as well. But I would push through.

you know, that Sunday morning, because I just drank so heavily on Saturday or whatever, or whatever day is.

Robert (17:56)
pop a few Advils and...

JD Emmons (17:58)
Yeah, had your, knew how to sleep a certain way. I knew how to, the right amount of Advil, when to take them. I knew how to take a hot shower the right way. Like there was just so many little things, you know, that we do to cope, but eventually those things just don't work as well. And then you kind of run out of, you kind of run out of the momentum or the power, I guess, to kind of pushing through life constantly gets.

old, you know.

Robert (18:28)
So was there an aha moment when you were like, I'm done. This is it. I have to stop. Was there a moment in your life and do you mind sharing it?

JD Emmons (18:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. It was.

It came in two parts. in January of 23, just following on the tails of December, the Christmas right before that, so 22, that was whenever I feel like it was pretty rough, it was pretty bad. That was my lowest Christmas, I guess. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get fit and I'm gonna only drink on the weekends because, you know,

this is really unhealthy for me. I'm having trouble walking upstairs. That was the first stage of it and I kind got into fitness a little bit. My desire to reduce my drinking lasted about a day and so I was just back to drinking every night again. So that went on for about 11 months and I did a lot of things in there to try and...

you know, kind of physically prevent me from drinking. Like I signed up for a marathon. You know, you'd think if you were training for a marathon and you haven't ever run one before that you might change your diet and your drinking habits, but I just worked harder, you know, and that just eventually led me to the, the final straw was Thanksgiving of 23. I was, it was just, it was my lowest, the lowest point probably of all of it. And

Robert (19:48)
Right.

JD Emmons (20:07)
it took about two days after that. I was on a Saturday. I, I, I don't know exactly what happened the night before, but I must've been like, okay, I do have a problem, something like that in my head. But I know the next morning, my first thought when I woke up out of bed was, I guess I'm not going to drink anymore because I just vividly remember that thought. And, and it was based on the fact that I finally admitted to myself that

that I had a problem with this and this thing that I was letting control my life was stealing me for everything that was important for me, my family, my business that we had worked really hard for. There was just a lot of neglect. And so that was the pivot point. In my case, I don't necessarily...

I won't say it was overnight, but it kind of felt like it was an overnight thing, but the desire for drinking completely went away. And it was from that point on that I don't struggle with, I really want to drink. There's times when I've said, I would definitely be drinking right now, because it's super stressful or whatever, I've heard people word it like, I want to be in the moment. I don't necessarily want to be in the moment of

Robert (21:19)
Yeah.

JD Emmons (21:29)
pain, but it is helpful to get through those trials whenever you're of what's going

Robert (21:37)
So when you're around other people, you have people coming over. Because I'm sure you still enjoy having people over. Are they drinking? Are you tempted? Or how do you handle that? Or is that just gone from you?

JD Emmons (21:51)
So, yeah, we don't have as many get togethers anymore for many reasons. One, lot of the people just aren't in my life anymore. Obviously my family and my kids are, but really the friend groups have, there's very few friends that are around anymore. But like my wife might have a glass of wine still, some of my kids might have a beer here and there. We just went.

We just went to the beach for a week, early September, and there was, you know, a few of them had a bottle of whiskey or bourbon or whatever and some beer. Like, it doesn't tempt me. have, if anything, the thing that I have to be careful with now is like, you know, it's like watching somebody eat a McDonald's. You know, it's like, what that's doing for you. you...

Robert (22:41)
Yeah.

JD Emmons (22:45)
Because you you see if you see somebody have the problems that come with like eating a diet of McDonald's, right? Then you're like, but if you just didn't do that, then and so it's the same thing. And so like when they when someone would wake up on Sunday morning at the beach or whatever, because they maybe had a beer more than what they wanted because they got caught up in the moment or whatever, you know, and they're like all foggy minded. I'm like, well, you know,

But I mean, it's a pretty easy fix, you but it's, don't, they don't, they don't drink in excess at all, you know, like there's no concern. So I don't, I don't really, like I don't, if they ask me, you know, I might say something, but they, their view on alcohol has changed so much since I've stopped, you know.

Robert (23:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, you're a role model for them, kind of mentoring them as well. They see it. mean, look, the best leaders, they say, aren't the ones who tell you what to do. It's the ones that show you, that lead by example. So I want to ask you this.

Did you, you didn't go through a program, you didn't go through AA, even those, and I'm not not correct, you didn't go to any of those type programs. And I'm not knocking those. I mean, those are phenomenal. And you know, you're fortunate that you were able to quit the way you did. How, I know you're a man of faith. How big does your faith play into it?

JD Emmons (23:54)
Right. Right.

Originally during my time of drinking, actually used the fact that I was a Christian as an even bigger reason for me to drink. As weird as that sounds. So because I still don't believe that alcohol, that having a drink is a sin, right?

Robert (24:25)
Really, how so?

Right. Yeah, I agree.

JD Emmons (24:33)
I just don't. think that anything you do in excess, it comes with consequences and maybe there's a point that someone could say it turns into a sin. don't don't split hairs like that, but I think it's a lot more about the heart. But the reason that I would use that sometimes is because I remember before I was drinking, I remember so many pastors, I guess, harping on alcohol, Meanwhile,

they're drinking sodas all day long. Meanwhile, their congregation is obese and just all these different health problems. And we were so into the food and health world that I just remember thinking, I have a feeling, because I wasn't really around alcohol much. I didn't know a lot of the problems that came with it outside of your stereotypical bumbling drunk alcoholic. But I was around a lot of unhealthy people.

Robert (25:04)
Right. Yeah.

JD Emmons (25:28)
for me to focus on something like alcohol as a big problem and then just ignore all this other stuff that's in everyone's life. Like little kids don't have drinking problems, right? But they have eating problems. And so I really, I was really big on I can be healthy and I can drink and I'm a Christian. And I also, grew up in,

some Southern Baptist churches for a while, that was a part of my life. And so there was a lot of things like necklaces were wrong, or dancing was wrong, It never resonated with me. And so I really got into, for a period of time, and I don't think it was too far off. I just think that I didn't realize the power of alcohol.

Robert (26:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

JD Emmons (26:20)
I don't think it's about what you wear at church. don't think it's about, I don't think even if you ate at McDonald's or whatever, like not to pick on them, but or to, or any other kind of, you food that may be not be the best for you. That's not necessarily a sin either, but it's just, it's just, you know, how we're taking care of our bodies. And I could really see it in the food and health stuff, but I couldn't see it with the alcohol stuff. Cause I just, I wasn't educated on alcohol.

It was really more about as long as you don't get drunk, then maybe it's not hurting you as bad.

Robert (26:54)
Well, and it's easy to excuse it too. mean, when you look at, you know, as you're talking about the, the, the preacher, if the preacher, if you're sitting there and listening to somebody upfront talking about sin and they're overweight, they're unhealthy. It's kind of like, well, I mean, I just have a few drinks and I'm very healthy. Look at me. I mean, it's everybody sins and this just kind of minor and I'm fine with it. I'm not getting drunk. And I mean, it's kind of easy to excuse it though.

JD Emmons (27:21)
Right, right.

Yeah.

Robert (27:24)
I'm being faithful in my marriage and everything else. So yeah, I get that. What about in your journey of stopping drinking? How big is your faith played in that?

JD Emmons (27:37)
Yeah, so someone asked me once if there was like this prayer that I was praying that I feel like got answered. And specifically, I'm sure there was, but I can't remember a specific, like I was just on my knees praying that God would take this from me. But I know now that my family was, my wife specifically. But now that I'm...

not drinking.

my faith has, I've gotten a lot more diligent in just understanding God's character more, you know, and really digging into that and not just taking it for granted that I'm a Christian, right? I feel like there's, and part of this is, you know, like watching my older, especially my, have a, I think he's 18 or 19. I don't know, I lose track sometimes, but.

Robert (28:20)
Yeah, yeah.

JD Emmons (28:35)
But he's really digging in right now to the Word. And so we'll have these conversations. so that, I've always been like, I knew the basics of the stories. I knew the basics of what it took to be a Christian, I guess. But there's so much that I didn't know. even, I would say that I originally became a Christian when I was like 12.

but it was just kind of something that was just there. I wasn't really active. this other than, you know, how we've raised our kids, but even that, you know, to a degree got off track, at least from my involvement, you know, while I was drinking. Didn't realize it at the time, but I look back to now and I'm like, that's pretty bad. But because of the example, because of, you know, the cover that I was...

Robert (29:05)
Right. Right.

JD Emmons (29:29)
I was leaving my family uncovered. There's just a lot to it. And so now I'm definitely, yeah, it's definitely increased and I'm definitely more in tune with that part of my life.

Robert (29:32)
Yeah.

No, makes sense. That makes sense. So how did you get, I mean, you've always are not always, but in your adult life, you were into fitness and you were in good shape. You stopped drinking. Did you amp up? Did you kind of use fitness? Did you kind of gear up your fitness even more to replace that? Or did you just start? Cause look, you're in phenomenal shape.

Did you see your physique start once you dropped the alcohol, start making radical changes then?

JD Emmons (30:20)
Yeah, I did. I would say that I definitely got...

Robert (30:25)
And also, did you find that, my gosh, I can do more. I can last more. My endurance and my recovery is faster. And, you know, I'm seeing these gains now.

JD Emmons (30:31)
Yeah, yeah. yeah.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think the biggest, the quickest thing that I saw was just leaning out.

My diet had changed a little bit. I got more serious with intermittent fasting, which I practice quite often now. And I was pretty strict that like my eating window was like, I had like a five hour eating window during the beginning.

And that combined with... I made my... My typical drinking time was around 3 3.30 in the afternoon. You know, that was on an average day. And so I just... I switched my morning workouts, which I hated anyway. I switched those to the afternoon as kind of like a... Kind of, you know, just replacing that time. I realize now, and I still do this, but I realize now that it's kind of my afternoon reset now. You know, like my wind down or my...

regrouping used to be drinking. now it's, even though it's physical work, it's now it's going and going to the, we just have a garage gym and just, just putting, yeah, just that, that physical strain on my body. And it really, it really is a great mental reset for me. And it.

Robert (31:51)
Yeah, I do not like, I will go and work out in the morning, but I'm not one that, I don't look forward to that at all. Mine is, mine's late afternoon and I agree it is a mental reset at that, for me as well at that time. And it's almost a daily therapy session.

JD Emmons (32:00)
Yeah, I don't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, I've done the morning things before and I think that especially when I was, you know, working like a normal job, like it's what made sense. yeah, I it in afternoon now and yeah, I definitely noticed the leanness. That was one of the quickest things that I noticed, but also the recovery was a lot better. Now, also, you know, there's a, the other part of my story is,

And I like to disclose this to people because people have their assumptions about this, about what it does or what it doesn't do. But I am currently on TRT. I started this in late April of this year. And that was a tough decision. I didn't want to do it because I knew what it would involve and I knew the potential side effects of it. And the reason, the quick, the...

The quick version of my story is when I started to work out back in late 30s, early 40s, I was around somebody that had access to steroids. And so I did a cycle, I actually did two back-to-back cycles and I gained a lot of strength. I gained a lot of bloating because I wasn't doing much. I was working out but I wasn't doing a lot of cardio type stuff, not intensity type stuff.

Robert (33:29)
Right.

JD Emmons (33:35)
And so I was able to get pretty quick, but I did so much so fast as far as the cycle and it wasn't controlled. was some crap I was ordering online, you know, got sent from France or somewhere, whatever. But I didn't know what I was doing. And I realize now how large that dose was. And it's like, it's unbelievable. know, not everyone reacts the same way. Not everyone has bad side effects, but I feel like that's whenever my natural testosterone production.

Robert (34:00)
Right.

JD Emmons (34:04)
kind of got messed up. And then of course drinking all those years as heavy as I was drinking didn't help anything, but I was able to mask some of the effects of low testosterone because I was drinking so much and a lot of my drinking was combined with energy drinks. That was my drink of choice was a Red Bull and a Michter's Rye. That was my go-to because you got both. You got the effects of the alcohol, but you didn't have the crash of the bourbon, right? So it was horrible for my heart.

Robert (34:24)
wow, yeah.

and the stimulant. Yeah.

JD Emmons (34:35)
And, but when I, when I stopped, I was able to, I leaned out pretty quick. stopped in, I started being pretty consistent when I stopped drinking in November of last year. And so I leaned out pretty quick and I did gain some, some, I don't know about strength. I don't know that I've really gained a lot of strength as far as like the numbers, but my ability to control my body, which is actually more important to me, like calisthenics, body weight.

Robert (34:59)
Right.

JD Emmons (35:04)
It's way more important to me than what I could throw up on the bench. And so I started to get more focused on those things like pull-ups and muscle-ups and front levers and just things like that, alternative type stuff. I was able to quickly, I say quickly, three or four months, by April I was already seeing really good improvement. The problem was, is I started noticing in like March or April of this year that

You know, after my workouts, like I was just kind of done. You know, I just couldn't, the rest of the evening was just kind of shot and it was, and that was progressively getting worse. And so my wife actually had just listened to a podcast. was a business podcast, but it happened to be the guy that started one of these clinics. so I went and got my blood work done and realized, wow, my testosterone is below 200. Like this makes sense. It was at 190 and I'm like, okay, that's probably a problem, know, but.

Robert (35:54)
Wow.

JD Emmons (35:58)
what's the answer? My diet was already on point. My physical activity was already on point. I wasn't drinking. I felt like I gave it enough time and the numbers weren't increasing. So we went ahead and got me on a pretty low dosage. And I'm actually in the process of lowering it even more to try to see how low the dosage can be.

Robert (36:16)
Are you doing shots or is it the cream or what?

JD Emmons (36:19)
Yeah. Yeah. I do injections once a week.

Robert (36:22)
Do you have to self administer those or do you go somewhere to do it?

JD Emmons (36:25)
Yeah, I do it. And I was already used to it from, you know, before, so it wasn't a big deal. The needles are much smaller now, which is nicer than what I was using before, but...

Robert (36:33)
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. No, and it's, there's some crazy stuff that you do. You're talking about calisthenics and the body weight exercises. mean, it's, it's impressive. It's like, my gosh. You know, going through your site and looking at your, at your post, it's, it's amazing, absolutely amazing. So,

know, you're a sobriety and development mentor. You, you, you have coaching. How did you get to that? Did you see, Hey, I'm, making, you know, I'm going through this transformation. This has helped me. I want to help others. Like how did this come about?

JD Emmons (37:09)
It really just happened organically. I didn't set out on a mission to do this. I've been known to say I don't like to teach. And unfortunately, as a dad, that's one of my biggest roles is to be a teacher. And even when I was working, like I ended up in leadership roles and I'm just like, I'd rather just work by myself, you know, and get the job done. But so I started this Instagram page and in January of this year,

Robert (37:22)
sure.

JD Emmons (37:38)
to kind of document my progress, for one, to hold myself accountable. I started it from zero, so it was a brand new page. I wanted it to be called something that just was like a title for myself, like Fit Over 40 Dad. That just kind of, it encapsulates who I am.

So I just began to post, I was really clumsy on it, didn't know what I was doing. I had some experience with Instagram from our business accounts. So was using it also for practice on just using the platform more and seeing what works and seeing how to create hooks and all this stuff. I think a couple months into it, there was two parts. I kind of got to the place where I didn't want to do it anymore because it was just more like a

taking my time and I have like 50 followers. And a friend of mine sent me a hat with the Fit Over 40, the current Fit Over 40 logo and told me his story and it really inspired me. He's like, dude, this, what you're doing, maybe many people don't see it, but he's like, I saw it. And it's like, and it's changing his life and getting him to think about things and do things a different way. And I think, I don't even think him and his girlfriend, they don't drink anymore. It's like.

and they were pretty heavy into this stuff, right? And so that was really cool to me. I started to see that, okay, this is kind of neat. So it inspired me, especially with the logo. like, I'll start posting again. So I started posting some more, a little bit further along. I don't know what the timeframe was, but sometime in April, I believe, I posted a video that just kind of shared more of who I was. And it was just like, know, it's my name, my age.

I've been married this long, I this many kids, I'm a Christian, veteran, you know, just basic. And that post just went berserk. it was a silly post that I didn't even want to post because it felt stupid, but I did it anyway and turns out those posts typically do really well.

Robert (39:34)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, it's crazy what will go viral.

JD Emmons (39:53)
Yeah, it's so insane. I look at some things and I'm like, I don't even, I just posted this to post it. Like I don't, what value is being brought? But anyway, it resonated with a of men, a lot of people. so that got me more followers, I guess. The account started to grow a little bit. And so I just began to post a little bit more about sobriety because that was a lot of the comments I was getting.

you know, because one of the attributes that I put on there was that I was sober. And so that opened up all kinds of conversation because, know, when you, when you say you're sober now, people, or that you're an alcoholic, people automatically go to, you used to beat your wife and you beat your kids and you were horrible at home and you, know, drunken nights and all this stuff. I'm like, and then I started to defend my alcoholism, right? Like I'm starting to defend them. Like, no, no, no. That the problem like,

To me, that would have been more of an in your face, you have a problem, but I didn't have that. Mine was kind of like silent. And to me, that was a bigger issue. And I started noticing that my responses to these assumptions were resonating with people. And then it just kind of began to grow and get traction. so men and women both were just like reaching out and DMing me, just saying, hey, this is my story or hey, this inspired me to not drink tonight or not drink.

Robert (40:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

JD Emmons (41:23)
It's been a week now and I just started seeing a lot of these stories and it was really cool and it really, I still didn't know what to do with the page because it was becoming very time consuming. So, you know, part of the process of when your page grows, like, unless you're just using that as like, I guess like a ministry, which in a sense, I would rather gear more towards that, but I really needed to figure out how to.

monetize some of my time. I mean, just to be frank, like I just wanted to see, you know, whether it was through sponsored, know, like affiliate programs or I didn't know. And so I hired a coach, a business coach to kind of steer me and they, they kind of suggested that I kind of go more towards sobriety and fitness coaching, but I didn't really know how that was going to look. You know, my style of fitness is very

Robert (41:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

JD Emmons (42:17)
I don't really like programs, but I realized that even when I first started, I was on a program. I did the Body Beast program, and that's what I did. And so I understand the importance of it, because you don't know anything. But it just seems like it's so hard for me to follow a program now. And so that translates into me putting together programs and encouraging people to stick with it.

I really enjoy working out, so that's where I want people to be, but that's a process that I have to realize that it just takes time to get there. And some people may never enjoy it, but they just do it because they know it's important. And so there has to be some sort of guide in place. And so that's the fitness part of it. The sobriety part of it is that's just on an individual basis. I mean, I think there's some basic concepts and some, you know.

aha moments that you can kind of capture to help people, you know, start the process of sobriety. And so that part of it is still being figured out. And what we've decided to do is to start a community based or community style on a platform called school.

and that's gonna be something where it has some videos with information and just education on sobriety and education on alcohol and education on stuff. And there might be some fitness program stuff in there, but it's really gonna be more about the interaction with the people. So the initial version is supposed to be launched next Tuesday. Yeah, that's the, we're having the final meeting.

Robert (43:54)
When, will that launch?

And people can find that, where can people find that?

JD Emmons (44:05)
So it'll be on my Instagram page is where it'll be announced. So just have to stay tuned there. Stories, and I'm sure I'll have a reel that just stays at the top, you know, pinned.

Robert (44:18)
So you have that, you also are offering, you also have coaching as well, fitness coaching as well that you offer, correct? Programs.

JD Emmons (44:26)
Yeah, yeah, that's, and that's, so I have some programs out there that, you know, people can purchase. and, and that's, I just kind of take that on a case by case, you know, I've, I've had a lot of conversations with people and I.

Robert (44:39)
So are they individual programs or is it you're laying out a workout for a week for the masses? How do you do that?

JD Emmons (44:46)
So the ones that are available right now are just like some specific fitness programs that I put together. And then that just, like I'm working with a guy right now and just every four weeks I just kind of change things up depending on where he's at and what his goals are. But watching the mental transformation is incredible. I love that part. So we just have these weekly talks, right?

Robert (45:05)
goals are ya?

JD Emmons (45:15)
I just kind of feel out like where he's at and then he might bring up something. It's kind of two ways what it is, right? Because it's not like I have every single thing figured out. I've just realized some things that are important. Changing your habits is really important. Changing your environment is really important. We do have control over our choices. These things don't just happen to us. Alcohol doesn't just go into my body by itself. No one's pouring it down my throat.

Robert (45:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah we do.

JD Emmons (45:44)
It's a choice. I may have more tendencies than someone else or someone else made more than me, but becoming aware of that is important. so that's what the programs that I have, just having those weekly conversations and just steering people and reminding them that they're the ones that are making the change and they're the ones that are responsible for this change. I can give you all the ideas in the world, right? But it really...

Robert (46:13)
And you know what you talk about the choices. It is choices. It's, it's, know, whether you stop at McDonald's or you go eat healthy, whether you pour alcohol in your body or whether you sit on the couch versus going and working out, going, doing some sort, some form of exercise for 30 minutes, an hour, whatever it may be. mean, it is, it is choices. And so I want to ask you something with the fitness.

the top three exercises for men that you would recommend. If you could only do three to five exercises, what would those be?

JD Emmons (46:47)
So I think, I think what's.

Robert (46:53)
And let's just go kind of with general, not somebody who's been working out, you know,

JD Emmons (46:57)
Yeah, yeah. So that's what I was going to say. It's kind of a two part because my favorite stuff to do is different than what I think, you know, I have to think about it from everyone's point of view. So pushups, like there's so many variations of pushups. You can do them anywhere. You don't need equipment for it. You can use equipment with it, but you don't need it. Pull-ups, chin-ups and pull-ups. I think that there's so many variations of that, you know, just that.

you whether you're doing, you can do core stuff, you can do back stuff, like it's really versatile. and then I think, I don't like anything having to do with leg day, but like really important. but I think the most, so any type of lunge, whether it's, know, like a forward or backward, there's so many variations of that as well. And again, all those things outside of maybe a pull up you can do anywhere, right?

Robert (47:36)
haha

JD Emmons (47:54)
And it has so much, there's with the lunges, you know, have, there's a pseudo cardio effect with that, but it really, there's balance. mean, there's just so many, you know, so many things that are good from it. So those are the things I would say.

Robert (48:11)
Yeah, legs, legs, legs. I hate, I hate doing that. My oldest son loves doing legs.

I don't understand it. hate doing legs, but, and, I do, but you know, it's, it's interesting. I've started incorporating in the mornings. Of course, once you get older, it's the kind of the routine of stretching and loosening up your body where you used to not, you know, didn't have to do that. But then at the end of that, it's getting into, I'll do a hundred body weight squats, just, I mean, ass to heal back up and

JD Emmons (48:39)
Yeah.

Robert (48:42)
I don't know if I really see much from that at all with, legs, but it's really getting that blood flowing, loosening up. And I have found it has helped so much with my knees, my ankle mobility, even, even my, feel like my lower back, it's helped tremendously with that. guess kind of the core with that, you know, cause I'll pause down at the bottom too,

and come back up and Yeah, I I I agree with you I hate leg day, but it's so vital so important

JD Emmons (49:18)
Yeah, is, yeah. Body squats, air squats are, yeah, I don't do a lot of those just as an exercise, but I do it, like you said, as like a workout or a warmup for stretching, just getting a good deep stretch in. Yeah, it's really good.

Robert (49:36)
Yeah. So I want to ask you, yeah.

So I think I saw somewhere where you said no to bench pressing or you don't have to bench press. you, did you have that on your site somewhere?

JD Emmons (49:50)
Yeah, I probably said that.

Robert (49:51)
Tell me, tell me more about that. Cause that's like, that's kind of the bro thing. You know, you go in there and, and, and bench and, and honestly, that's, that's like my favorite. And, so tell me about that.

JD Emmons (49:57)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, so it's kind of two part for me. For one, I really think that it's not a natural movement, honestly. But, and I really, when I do or have in the past, I really do enjoy bench pressing. It just, it screwed up my shoulders so bad that I kind of have a resentment for it. I just feel like there's so many other things that are,

Robert (50:10)
It's not.

JD Emmons (50:30)
So much better. Although even with pushups, weighted pushups, even if you use the parallettes with a deep weighted pushup, it's still kind of a stationary motion. But I feel like for some reason it's a little more natural to me than the way that a bench press is. And I don't know that I'm really, with the bench press, I think it's great for isolation type exercise, like your chest or triceps, depending on how you do it.

But that's really where it ends. Whereas with a weighted push-up, especially a deep weighted push-up on a parallel, some people would argue you still using core and legs with bench pressing too, but I don't think to the degree that you're with some of the other stuff. Dumbbell push-up or dumbbell presses, there's a lot more isolation going on. So if you want to do that, I think that's a great way to really isolate things.

Robert (51:27)
That is, yes, I do a lot more of those now because the bar is just kind of putting me at an awkward angle. So the dumbbells I found are a lot more shoulder-friendly.

JD Emmons (51:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, and there's things that people do. There's guys that know way more than me that really have good technique and good instruction on how, you're just dead set that you have to do bench pressing, I think they have some really good stuff. I got rid of my, I don't even have a way to do a true bench press anymore. I have a bench and I have a bar, but I'd have to get holders again.

Robert (52:03)
Well, look at you, you don't need to. I see some of the stuff you're doing. It's like, my gosh, this is insane. is crazy. There's gotta be like a green screen somewhere. Like, how is he doing this? This is nuts. So you talked about TRT, are you taking any other supplements? Are there supplements you would recommend?

JD Emmons (52:09)
Just remember the camera

Yeah. Yeah.

I take some protein powders. take a lot of 1st Phorm products, vegan and regular. I do take creatine.

Robert (52:34)
What about creatine?

That's phenomenal, just in so many ways.

JD Emmons (52:40)
Yeah, I guess, you know, the biggest thing I noticed from creatine is gas. So I haven't really, yeah, so I've tried different, you know, the Micronize and the Instatize, I've tried it all and it all just kind of works the same with me, but I still take it. I've been taking it pretty regularly for probably three or four months now. I take probably,

Robert (52:48)
I haven't, fortunately I haven't noticed that.

JD Emmons (53:06)
At the minimum five, but probably, you know, someday seven to 10 milligrams or whatever, whatever the proportions are. But I don't know, I haven't stopped since I've started, so I don't know what the difference, you know, I don't know what I would notice difference. Other than that, I do take a pre-workout. It's supposed to be STEM free, but I still kind of feel it a little bit. And then I take a simple multivitam.

Robert (53:34)
Yeah, I can't do the pre-workouts. I went to the place where I get protein powder and everything else and they had these basically samples. And the guy told me, the guy's phenomenal, but he told me he's like, just take a little bit of it, like in little pouches. He said maybe like a third or a quarter.

probably maybe took a quarter, but you know, powder and literally my heart was racing so much in the gym. It was like my heart was racing. I was sweating and Like I was just really getting into the workout and I'm like, my God. I mean, I definitely had the energy. I mean, I certainly had the energy, but it was almost a scary type, you know,

JD Emmons (54:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, they say that I remember when I first started pre-workouts years ago, I used to run quite a bit and the guy that I was talking to was warning me. He's like, don't be taking this before a run. Like he said, that's his biggest fear. You know, for some of them, I take a real low. The one I take now is, is a really low on the caffeine, really low on the stimulant. just has, it just has a lot of good stuff in it. Mushrooms and other things in it. It's really good. And I just kind of like, it just kind of puts me in that.

zone I guess you know a little bit but yeah.

Robert (54:48)
Yeah. Yeah. JD, look, I appreciate you spending time and telling about your journey and it's, it's impressive. You know, I found your page and I was, I found it and I was attracted to it by the fitness and like, well, this is great. You know, I'm always looking for ideas and inspiration. and kind of saw some of the sobriety, but I was more.

that's a, you know, that may be something I'm going to incorporate into my life. and then we talked and as I've gone through it more with the sobriety and you're exactly correct, whether it's alcohol you're struggling with or other things, can, those vices, can certainly relate and

you know, kind of do a restructuring of your life and seeing where that vice has a hold of you. And just very, very impressed and I appreciate you, of course coming on, but definitely what you're doing and putting out there. It's extremely inspiring. How can people find you?

JD Emmons (55:54)
Just the fitover40dad Instagram is really the main way right now. I do have a website with some stuff on it, fitover40dad.com, that's really just a place. Some people ask about some of the stuff that I wear, personal branding type stuff, and so that's there. But the school community is what I'm, that's gonna be pretty exciting, and that'll be announced on the page.

That's being all built out right now. We're going to go over the final, and then hopefully launch it on Tuesday. That's the goal. That's the hope. And then it'll be just like work in progress from there.

Robert (56:26)
That's great.

Well, I tell you what, it's very impressive and especially for the short amount of time that you've been on there and the followers you have and just what you're doing. And I commend you for that. I mean, I really do. And I'm impressed and impressed with the person you are, what you've battled through, gone through and just, you know, the inspiration that you're giving to others as well. So I thank you for coming on. Okay.

JD Emmons (56:40)
Thank you.

Yeah, thanks.

Robert (56:55)
Jenny, thank you. Hey, and thank you all for listening to dad. Dad's podcast. You can find us on Spotify or, Apple podcast and pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're also on Instagram and YouTube. and don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button and feel free to, leave comments as well. I read every comment and they're extremely helpful. whether it's, you know, advice or whether it's something you're dealing with or just comments about the show with.

with future topics to discover. So thank you all again for listening and we will talk to you next time.