Have you ever considered that the battle raging inside your mind might actually be a matter of life and death? Not just for you, but for everyone your life touches?

This deeply personal episode explores the profound truth that success isn't created through external achievements but through winning the daily battle within ourselves. I share the heartbreaking news of losing a 39-year-old former client to cirrhosis of the liver, leaving behind two young children who will now grow up fatherless – a pain I understand all too intimately from my own childhood with an alcoholic father.

The contrast becomes even more striking when compared with another client who faced identical health challenges – cirrhosis, pre-diabetes, and a doctor's two-year death sentence if he continued his behaviors. Yet this man completely transformed his life, lost 90 pounds, reversed his medical conditions, and now runs marathons while inspiring his community. Same diagnosis, dramatically different outcomes – all because of internal choices.

Through raw emotion and hard-won wisdom, I explore how we often get caught up in meaningless distractions while missing what truly matters. The greatest freedom, I've discovered, comes when we remove ourselves from ourselves – when we transcend our petty needs and desires to focus on serving others. This is what spiritual traditions have taught for millennia: liberation comes through selflessness.

If someone in your life is struggling with addiction or other demons, don't give up on them. Sometimes people need others to fight for them a little longer until they reach that moment when they're finally ready to change. Your persistence might create the opportunity for their redemption, just as others did for me during my darkest times. Reach out today with a call, a visit, or just your presence – it might be the lifeline they need to keep fighting one more day.