In this episode of The Hopeaholics Podcast, Blake Mathews shares his story of addiction, adoption, and finding faith through music. Adopted at birth and raised in a Jewish household in Phoenix, Blake started DJing weddings and bar mitzvahs at 13 and built a career in music and nightlife while quietly hiding a worsening addiction for over a decade. By the time he moved to Nashville in 2014 to chase a career in the arts, he was a high functioning alcoholic leaning on psychedelics, convinced they made him a better artist, while the people closest to him had no idea how bad it had gotten.

Blake opens up about hitting bottom in Nashville, calling his dad for help, and getting into treatment within 48 hours, only to relapse after walking away from music entirely and moving back to Phoenix. He found lasting sobriety on a sober hike up a mountain he stumbled onto by chance, and he's been sober since. Today, Blake is the founder of Sober House Records and co-founder of Formerly Intoxicated, a nonprofit bringing music and healing arts into treatment centers and prisons. He shares how a chance encounter with two strangers praying in a coffee shop changed everything, and how he turned his pain into a mission: redemption is real, prevention is possible, and recovery is for everyone. #TheHopeaholics #redemption #recovery #AlcoholAddiction #AddictionRecovery #wedorecover #SobrietyJourney #MyStory #Hope #wedorecover #treatmentcenter #natalieevamarie

Join our patreon to get access to an EXTRA EPISODE every week of ‘Off the Record’, exclusive content, a thriving recovery community, and opportunities to be featured on the podcast. https://patreon.com/TheHopeaholics

Go to www.Wolfpak.com today and support our sponsors. Don't forget to use code: HOPEAHOLICSPODCAST for 10% off!

Follow the Hopeaholics on our Socials:
https://www.instagram.com/thehopeaholics
https://linktr.ee/thehopeaholics

Buy Merch:
https://thehopeaholics.myshopify.com

Visit our Treatment Centers: https://www.hopebythesea.com
If you or a loved one needs help, please call or text 949-615-8588. We have the resources to treat mental health and addiction.

Sponsored by the Infiniti Group LLC:
https://www.infinitigroupllc.com

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro

1:26 Meet Blake Matthews

2:27 Handing flip flops to a barefoot stranger in 100 degree heat

4:33 The fentanyl crisis hiding in plain sight

6:14 The DM Chad got this morning

7:13 Chad's stance on calling it fentanyl poisoning

9:43 Adopted at birth, and the search for belonging

12:12 Functioning addict, DJing weddings since age 13

13:50 Chasing music to Nashville, and hitting a wall

17:21 The night he called his dad

19:09 What his graduation photos actually showed

20:31 Moving home, and walking away from music

22:00 Relapse, one beer with an old friend

23:00 The mountain hike that changed everything

26:40 The recover out loud movement

29:08 Connection as the opposite of addiction

31:35 The lie that drugs make you more creative

33:51 Bringing music into treatment centers and prisons

35:15 The starving artist trap

47:01 First job in recovery, teaching kids life skills

49:20 Leaving it all to go full time into Sober House Records

51:22 Opening his first sober living home

53:39 Raised Jewish, and why Jesus was a bad word

56:19 Two strangers praying in a coffee shop

57:25 The 10pm Bible study that didn't end until 4am

58:21 The night he gave his life to Jesus

1:01:34 Inside his album, Unbury Your Burdens

1:03:11 Still wrestling with depression after finding faith

1:04:22 Stacking wins

1:05:43 The fastest way out of depression

1:09:08 How his family sees him now

1:13:11 What Formerly Intoxicated actually does