From Overdose to Overflow: The Comeback Story of Joe Rivera

Hey, everybody, it's Rebecca Silence with a very special edition of the Healing is Possible Experience for you if you have ever fantasized and dreamt about your comeback story. You know, I specialize in comeback love stories. Well, today's special guest on his birthday is known as the comeback king, and he went from Park Avenue to a park bench and then made his comeback and is here today. I already have chills. To tell us all about how to be good to ourselves again, no matter what we've been through, how to make our comeback and how to come back even stronger. Not just coming back to who we used to be or what we we used to have, but coming out even stronger, even more fired up about life. Welcome Joe Rivera, to the Healing Is Possible Experience. I am so honored and privileged to have you.

Oh, man, I'm blessed to be here and. And grateful that you asked me to be on the show.

Amen. All right, let's just go deep right away. So tell us first and foremost, what does healing mean to you.

Man? You know, healing means self care. Healing means connecting to a higher source, you know, that's greater than yourself. Whether you call it God, the universe, the infinite intelligence, whatever you believe, connecting with that higher source to help you through the healing process. Because I believe that when you connect with that higher source, and that's when you're going to be able to unlock your fullest potential. And in order to fully heal, you have to be in that connection, and you have to learn to be able to forgive. Because forgiving doesn't just go for the person that you're forgiving. Forgiving is for yourself. Whether it's forgiving someone else, forgiving yourself. And, you know, healing also means letting go of resentment.

Yeah. So for you, healing is about connection to source and letting go. That's profound. Yeah, that's profound. And forgiveness. So connecting to source and letting go. So you can forgive and you use the word self care. Talk to me about what self care means to you, because I'm pretty sure it's not bubble baths.

It can be bubble baths.

I love a good bubble bath.

But self care is taking care of your mind, your body, your soul. Self care is, again, connecting for that prayer and meditation. Self care is going to the gym and working out, taking care of your body. Self care is also taking care of your mind. Right. What do you. What are you allowing to come into your universe? What are you feeding your brain? Because what you feed your brain and the stories that you tell yourself and allow yourself to intake is what shapes your Destiny. You know, self care is also being able to sit with yourself and connect and spend time getting to know who you really are.

So tell us who you really are and how you got there, man.

Hope you all got your popcorn.

I'm here for it. I'm gonna sit back and enjoy.

So I. I went from Park Avenue to Park Bench. I was emotionally, financially, and spiritually bankrupt. I lost everything. I even almost lost my life. I had my dream job in the financial industry as a stockbroker in the early 2000s. I'm 25 years old, making seven figures a year. I should feel like I'm on top of the world at this point, but seven figures a year? Nah, that ain't good enough. Because I live in a world with a belief system of never enough. I want more. I want eight figures or nine figures. I'm chasing that fast life. And at this point in my life, being spiritually bankrupt, money's the only higher power that I know. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make more money. I'm putting in late nights at the office one evening and this dude, we call him Johnny Connect, we call him that because he had the connections to get his hands on anything you can imagine. Keep in mind, we're in New York. So this dude swears that he's part of the Mafia. He sits down at my desk, now take this little round pill and forget about it. You're going to produce even more. Wall street is also known as drug street and everybody's doing some kind of drug. Rebecca. I'm already smoking weed, drinking, or having some kind of mind altering substance in my body every single day for the past 10 years at this point. So I said, fuck it, why not?

Did you know what it was? You did cut out for a second. So did you know what the pill was?

So, yeah, that's when I got introduced to opiates.

Got it.

And that's when my battle with substance abuse took off to the next level. And my life went dark and was completely unmanageable. I'm out there risking my life every single day. I overdosed twice. The last time, it took six cans of Narcan to bring me back to life.

Wow, Joe.

Six cans of Narcan. That same night, I'm laying in the hospital bed. I wake up, I pull the EKG electrodes off my body, leave the hospital, against medical advice. And then when I get outside, it's the middle of winter, I'm in a hospital gown, shivering, looking like a crackhead, like Pooky from New Jack City because of all the opiates that were being taken out of my system. And the first thing that I do, I go call the dealer again to go get high. A week or two later, my sister invited me for an event. At that event, I don't remember exactly what it was, but something clicked. I looked at my sister, she looked at me and we both started crying. She knew exactly what I was going to say. And then the words came out. The words my family was waiting to hear for over a decade. I said, I don't want to do this anymore, sis. I'm a shell of my true self. I'm tired of writing my obituary. I want to begin creating my legacy again. After that, I made the decision to achieve sobriety. My story is not unique. Many people struggle with vices. Mine was drugs and alcohol. Someone else might be gambling, sex, shopping, overeating. Whatever that vice is, it interferes with us being our true self. By having us isolate, not being fully present. It creates character defects. For some, life may become unmanageable. They may lack direction. Some people lose motivation in their self esteem. I promise you, you don't have to live like that. There's a better way to live life. It took me nearly a decade to regain control over the steering wheel in my life. Over the years, I had a lot of coaches, done a lot of self help programs. Some of work, some have not worked. However, I put together some powerful strategies that have helped me build a foundation to create my own destiny. I believe living in purpose closes that gap.

Okay, before we get into that, tell us more. So my definition of healing is freedom. I want us to feel free. And when I think about a comeback story, it is about self liberation and setting yourself free and rebranding yourself in a way that you don't recognize you yet. You don't know that you yet, you don't trust that you yet. But we don't get to this point of deciding for you to get sober was the beginning of your comeback. But we don't get to the comeback story. You talked earlier about healing being spiritual and a spiritual connection to source. What had you actually deciding, willing, open to changing yourself so you could change your life?

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, I, I, I tried so many years, so many times to do it on my own, you know, and it didn't work. I kept failing and failing and failing and you know, I was born and raised Catholic, but I completely lost my way along the way. I didn't even know what a Relationship with God was. I thought it was singing our Father Hail Mary and asking for forgiveness when necessary. And I remember, you know, after going to get help to go achieve sobriety, I knew that I wasn't going to do it by myself. I knew that I needed to latch on to something. I knew because I always believed in a, in a God. You know, I just didn't know how to build a relationship. I didn't, I didn't know the difference between religion and spirituality. And through this journey I learned the difference between religion and spirituality. And I learned, you know, to, to be able to believe in a higher source that I call God. Someone else might call it the universe, infinite intelligence, whatever you believe, right. And I knew that believing in that higher source, greater than myself was going to be what was going to help me be able to unlock my fullest potential. I knew that there was no way to do it without that because I tried so many times and it didn't work. So I began to start to learn to build a relationship and to learn that, you know, I don't have this punishing God in my life. I don't have this punishing creator. I have a forgiving creator who forgives me for my shortcomings. Who, who, who, where? Because I, I mean, what's. What addiction and substance abuse did to me cause self worth, self doubt, worry, anxiety, imposter syndrome. And I didn't know how to remove any of that on my own. I had no idea. I didn't even know what imposter syndrome was. And you know, to be able to build a relationship where I didn't have to do it on my own anymore, I could turn my will over and work with my co creator to rid me of those character defects. Or when they do show up and replace it with, you know, my characteristics and my core values. Find me in that level. To be able to lean into those, to be able to overcome my shortcomings, to be able to overcome those character defects and remove those character defects. But it took. That takes work. You know, it took, you know, I learned when I went to re. When I got, went to rehab, they told me, look to the left, you look to the right of you, only one of you is going to survive. I wanted to make sure I was one of those people. And at that, you know, when going through this process of sobriety and, and personal development, I learned that putting the drugs down, nah, that was the easy part. I, I had to really learn to start peeling back the onion and taking stock of who I was. I Had to learn to do the moral inventory. I had to learn to what forgiveness was. Right? We spoke about what healing is, and I mentioned forgiveness. I. I didn't know forgiveness was for me because I never worked on forgiving myself. So I had to learn to look in the mirror and say, damn, I apologize for all the damage that I did. I apologize for the torment that I put your family through. I had to learn to forgive myself, to clean my soul, to do that inner work. I had to change my identity and become a new version of myself.

So beautiful. Joe, my definition of forgiveness. And I write in my book Coming Back to Life, a roadmap to heal from pain, to create the life. You want a whole chapter on forgiveness. It's about loving yourself as much as you did before you got hurt, right? And it is for you. Joe's taking us to church here today. And in a spiritual way, right? Not in a religious way. And I love what you're talking about. About having to look at. I teach with the practice of emotional healing. We all have a survival self. And then what nobody's going to tell you is you don't wake up one day and know who the hell you are. You wake up one day and you have to design and become the you you want to be. And when you're talking about identity work, that's what I'm hearing you describe. Here's who I've been. It's not who I'm willing to continue to be, but I've got to face who I've been to decide who I want to be. We all have the ability to go there. I'm not unique. Joe isn't unique. You can. And I teach this as well. Joe, I love to say, you don't need a breakdown to break through. You don't need to wait for it to get worse. It's a choice to claim your life and to decide to live it fully. Were you a parent? A spouse? Like at the time you got sober? Did you have family yet? Because I know you do today.

Yeah, no, of course. I. I have. I have. I have two children. I have a grandchild now, you know, and I. I had to. To have my kids. Forgive me, you know, because I was never an absent. I wasn't an absent father, right? But I wasn't being able to be who I. Who I am today. I wasn't being able to be my true self. I wasn't able to. To. To be the best father that I could be. I wasn't able to be present in. In important moments. Because I was just shallow who I truly was.

How old were your kids when you got sober?

My mom passed in 2016, I got sober in 2017. Eight years ago. My son was 13, my daughter was. No, my son was 14, my daughter was 12.

Okay. My biggest reason for doing the work I do for almost 25 years is I want kids to have healed parents. Thank you for caring about that. Thank you for letting your children witness your metamorphosis. It's a really big deal.

Yeah. You know, it's. It's so I won't say that I got sober for my children because I had to get sober for myself.

Yeah.

Or I got sober for them, but they were a driving force and they're a driving force today in me staying sober because they're my everything, you know, And I'm a big believer. And you shape what your kids future can look like by the example that you leave on them. How you lead your children is vital for their future and their success. So I'm grateful that in their most important years, those early teen years, they got to see me as the best version of myself and. And know me for who I truly am rather than being a shell of myself.

Is so beautiful. So it's your birthday. What would you say today to you, eight years ago, on your birthday.

Eight years ago? I would say that you've come a long way. You got a long way to go and take it one day at a time and, and enjoy the moments and. And don't get caught up on perfection because perfection's an illusion, doesn't even exist. Work on focusing on progressing every single day. And that's where the win is beautiful.

Okay, so now let's get into purpose. So how do you define purpose and give us a glimpse into your steps that are tried and true and proven, that have made you who you are today and can help our beautiful audience.

Yeah. So purpose is to me, something that you don't need an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning because your purpose is getting you out of bed. Purpose is something that you're doing that time just flies by. Purpose to me is. Is being of service and helping people in some way, some form, and something that. That ignites you inside and wakes you up. And I remember what it was like to walk around with no purpose, no ambition, no drive. And man, that is not a way to live life. And I also remember when I realized what my purpose was, you know, and after achieving sobriety, I was able to build another multi million dollar business in the financial industry. And even though I'm crushing it and living this incredible life, something was missing. And God kept nudging at me and pulling at me, telling me that your journey ain't complete. There's more to accomplish. I got, I got bigger plans for you, you know, because sometimes I always say, man, God, it's funny because sometimes we have plans and God laughs at them, right? My plan was to stay in the financial industry, build this multi million dollar empire, which I, I did, and enjoy life. Walk off into the sunset. That's what I thought I was gonna do. And God's like, nah, there's, there's bigger plans, you know? And for years, you know, I kept asking God because through this journey of sobriety and, and personal development, I learned the difference between religion and spirituality. And I learned to be able to, to sit with myself. And because I learned that when you do sit with yourself and pay attention and stay present, you could hear that little voice that I call God. You could see, you could feel and interact with God because he interacts with us in so many different avenues of life. Your creator is connecting with you. And I kept asking him, you know, I'm like, I mean, he's my best friend, right? So I was like, dude, how do I give this back to you? I can't give it back to you in a physical form. You don't exist physically. There's not enough thank yous in the world to express the amount of gratitude that I have for you saving my life. Not just the two times that I overdose. What about all those times that I drove home and I don't remember how I got home? Those aren't coincidences. Those are God incidences. And God kept telling me, so you know that, that story that you have, the one that you have inside of you right now, that story don't belong to you. I didn't give you that story for you to hold it inside. If you hold that story inside, you're just being selfish. All the work that we did together to get you where you are today was for nothing. And that's when it hit me. And I saw, man, I'm not gonna argue with the man upstairs because I'm not gonna win that battle. And that's when I decided to build this coaching and speaking platform. And let me tell you, there's no drug, no alcohol will ever give me that euphoric feeling that I get when I'm able to empower someone to transform their life. That's the gift that keeps on giving for me. That's where I was able to find my purpose. And, you know, it's. It's just. It's truly a blessing when we find purpose and. And understand what it is that our Creator created us to do in this world. And I believe that when you're walking and living in your purpose, you're co creating your life with your creator for the life that he put you here for.

I think it's beautiful. I can so relate to this with going through cancer at 34 while pregnant, and all I had was the ability to stay an emotionally clear channel so I could hear my own voice in God's voice. And I just want to quickly, for the audience, say a couple things about this, because if you're listening and you're thinking, well, this sounds great for Joe and Rebecca, but I don't hear God. I have no idea what that would sound like. I just want to invite you. It can be as subtle as a whisper. And it's gentle, you know, it's divine guidance, intelligence, love. Because it's soft and it's gentle and there's no charge. God's voice, for me anyway, is not. Come on, let's go. There's no harshness to it. And I just want you to know that voice is there, but you've got to be open to it, and you've got to be clear enough to listen. And ego and the part of you that's surviving and is hard on you is. It's going to feel like either adrenaline or like your stomach is sinking. That's not God. It's soft. And I love the way that Joe is talking about this. And I have the same experience. I met. I knew of God before cancer, and then I knew God during cancer. And I remember the moment I said yes to my divine assignment because this was bigger than me, just like it was bigger than you.

And.

And I just don't want purpose in this conversation to overwhelm any of you. I want you to get excited about the discovery process and the profound divine intelligence that is with you always, whether you know how to tap into it or not can assist you. And for me, I learned how to stop figuring things out and to just trust I would be given what I needed when I needed it. And sometimes I'll ask, what would you have me do? What would you have me know? What would you have me say and to who? What would you have me understand? Understand? But I don't try to figure it out. And even coming back to life, I just plugged into God and listened to Little Wayne and wrote this book I was shown and you can be shown. And that is something I think is really important for all of us to consider and to hold on to. Would you say any more about how people can connect to that source, that voice?

Yeah, I'm going to get into it. I just, I'm curious. I want to make sure I heard you right. So you plugged into God and plugged into listening to what you wrote, the book Source. Oh no, I thought you said there was something you were listening to.

Oh, Lil Wayne, Little Wayne.

I thought I heard you right. Little Wayne.

Oh, Lil Wayne is the soundtrack to coming back to life. I don't know if I've ever shared that publicly before, but I would, I would hole up in a hotel three days at a time so that it could just be me and God and Lil Wayne.

That is great, man.

And it would just come through. Yeah, Lil Wayne is the soundtrack of coming back to life. Little known fact.

So, so that I asked you that because I want everybody in the audience to realize how important it is that there's no right or wrong way to connect your higher source. No, that's important because you're right. It doesn't have to be a rough and rugged voice. It could be that soft voice. And, and, and it also could be through different avenues of life, like through nature, through being in certain environments that you higher source. Because guess what, John, God don't connect or your creator doesn't connect with you the same way that he connects with me. He's going to connect with everybody differently because we're all spiritual beings living this human experience. But he all made us in, in our own, in our own soul. Everybody's soul is different. Everybody's unique for a reason. And he's going to connect with you do those different avenues of life. So my connection could look different than someone else's. But it's, it's, it's our duty in life to find what that connection is so that we can align ourselves with our purpose. Because I truly believe that you will not connect with your true purpose if you do not connect with a higher source of your understanding that's greater than you. That's, that's going to believe that you believe is going to help you unlock your fullest potential.

Amen. And for me, I never expected to be a coach or an author or a globally renowned, award winning speaker. It is given to you and it is so much bigger than you. And I just don't want that to sound like pressure. I experience it as a blessing and I Don't think God ever wastes our pain. Take that for what it's worth. But I think there's a core relationship between the core wounds and the core gifts. And if you think you're not here to make your most healed impact, whatever that is, I'm just going to challenge you. The world needs you healed so you can make your difference that you were born to make. And the world needs you. And in my course, the emotional survival kit, I'm talking about in the second step, you, you've got to know what you're living for that's bigger than you. Because I don't know about you, Joe, but I know for me there are plenty of human moments. All this gorgeous work that we're talking about today and what's possible doesn't mean the absence of your humanity or your spiritual moments, you know, that come through in human form and don't feel great. It's just you have the ability to keep going when you know what you're moving forward because of that's bigger than you. And Joe, you were talking about your kids and your work and your purpose. Is there anything else that keeps you going that's bigger than you?

Giving back? Giving back this gift that I've been given and being of service. You know, I think that, I mean, look man, this, this, what I do isn't about money. I mean, don't get me wrong, listen, I love making money. I've been broke and I've had a lot of money and I'd say having a lot of money over being broke any day of the week. But I walked away from a multi million dollar industry business to do this work because I knew that it was bigger than me. I knew that God's plan is bigger than my wants in life and bigger than me living because he saved my life, right? So my life was saved for a reason. And it's to be able to give back and be of service. And man, being a service, whether it's holding the door open for somebody saying God bless you, you know, being, being a contributor to my, to my communities out there, I mean, there's no better feeling than being able back and not even worrying about receiving because I know he got me.

Amen. So what exercise or homework assignment would you give people? I want it to be something around, you know, this idea of facing yourself in the mirror. What assignment would you offer our community so that they can meet themselves where they are, but also at the same time meet a version of them that they long to be?

I love that I Would say to write down something that you're holding on to for resentment. Write down something either that you're holding on to resentment or something that you haven't forgiven yourself for. And, and then write down what life would be like once you remove that resentment and you forgive yourself and actually look in the mirror and apologize to yourself for it. Because what, none of us are perfect. So there's no way that somebody could sit here and be like, oh, you know what? I don't have anything that I could forgive myself for. I don't have any resentment I'm holding on to. That's bullshit. Come on, man. We all have resentment. We all have something that we can forgive ourselves for because we're not, we're not perfect. We weren't made perfect. We're made. We were made as, as, as humans that are gonna make mistakes. And we gotta learn through those mistakes. So write that down. And then, you know, look in the mirror and actually forgive yourself and actually let go of the resentment. Maybe the resentment is on somebody out there. Call that person, tell them that you had a resentment against them. I dare you. Watch how much gets lifted off of you when you make that phone call. And then the last step, that's a two part, right? The last step is look in the mirror and give yourself a powerful affirmation about yourself. After you do that.

Do you have one you use?

Do I have my I am statements?

Yeah, give us some examples of the ones you use and I'll share some that I use as well.

So I have. I am a successful spiritual being living a human experience. And I could do anything I put my mind to. I have. I am chosen to do God's work. I have. I am courageous and will overcome any fear that comes my way. I have. Man, I got so many on my wall. So what I do is I put, there's at least 15 to 20 right now on my wall I kind of look at every day. And I say to myself, two that.

Really changed my life the most because I grew up being told I was a worthless piece of shit. I wouldn't amount to anything in domestic violence. And so two that really transformed my identity were I see you as innocent and I see you as capable. And I recommend that not just for how you see yourself, but I see everyone as innocent. I see everyone as capable, and I speak to only the greatness in them. But I'm only equipped to do that because I've been doing that with myself now for a couple decades every single day. And then another when you're working with people affirmation that I've been using since I was privileged to get on the radio almost 15 years ago. Now I would literally say, okay, God, now get Rebecca out of the way and speak through me however you will, and please allow me to serve at my best through you. And the point is not take Joe's words or take my words. The point is, find your own. And your purpose can be as simple as you're connected to your authentic self, or you're committed to being love no matter what, or you're committed to being all of who you are and seeing and speaking life into all of whoever the person in front of you is, you can't get it wrong. But if you're wanting more fulfillment, if you're wanting to feel like you've achieved your comeback, there's so much in this episode today to get you started. Joe, is there anything we missed that you really want to share with our community? And then I want them to be able to access your pillars. So we'll talk about that next. But is there anything else you wanted to share, final thoughts?

Yeah. I think that a lot of people don't find what that purpose is because they allow fear to get in the way of. Of starting whatever the project is, of going out of their comfort zone. I mean, there's. There's so many things, right? And I think that something I always tell everyone about fear is you can look at fear two ways, right? I mean, you could look at it as everything and run, or you could look at it as face everything and reforge. And when it comes to fear, fear and faith are the same two things, right? It's believing something that's there that you can't touch, you can't feel, but you know it exists. Lean into your faith to overcome your fear all day, every day, man.

So good, Joe. So good. All right, how do they get in touch with you and access your pillars?

Yes. So you could DM the word chosen on ig and you could. My IG is going to be at with Joe Rivera. DM the word chosen, and I'll get you out the gift, and I'll also get you access to my newsletter, and.

It'S with Joe riveraithjoe Rivera.

And it's the three profit pillars to success to reformulate.

Oh, you want that free gift? Everybody take him up on it. And whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you're watching, drop in the comments. What you took away from this episode, we would love to hear from you. Any questions? Are welcome. Healing is possible for you. And Jo just modeled for all of us. A success story. A comeback story of healing that isn't rare. It just takes desire and commitment and courage. And I already know you've been through enough. You've already been through what's way more painful and way harder to survive than coming back to life ever could be. And if you can survive survival, you can survive alignment. We love you. Thank you for being with us when you could have been anywhere else. And as always, remember, be careful with each other's hearts. Love you all. See you soon.