Security Halt!
The only Mental Health podcast that shares honest and authentic accounts of living with mental health issues, that's also hosted by individuals fighting the same fight you are!Providing information and resources for help with a heavy dose of humor and entertainment. Helping you find hope and the strength to fight on.
Security Halt!
Episode 193: Seth Ewing, Founder and President of Operation Tabletop
Today's guest is Seth Ewing, the heart and soul behind Operation Tabletop, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing veterans together through the magic of tabletop gaming. From his roots in the Shenandoah Valley to his enlistment in the Air Force, Seth's journey is marked by resilience and a love of gaming. Discover how limited Wi-Fi during deployments turned board games like "Zombies" into a lifeline of camaraderie and escape, contrasting sharply with the isolating effects of online gaming.
The path back from deployment is often fraught with challenges, a reality Seth knows all too well. Hear his raw and honest account of grappling with job loss, personal tragedy, and the search for a new purpose. Seth's transparency about masking his pain through Operation Tabletop and subsequent battles with video game addiction, alcohol, and pornography offers a sobering look at the hurdles many veterans face. The discussion underscores the risks of seeking comfort in unhealthy habits and highlights the critical need for recognizing and overcoming these vices to preserve mental well-being.
Yet, there's hope and healing in the therapeutic potential of tabletop games. Seth elaborates on the growth of Operation Tabletop, sharing personal anecdotes and insights into the culture of military alcohol consumption and the power of peer support. Learn about the positive impact of slower-paced games like Dungeons & Dragons, which foster deeper connections and self-improvement. As we wrap up, we celebrate the inspiring journey of finding purpose through tabletop gaming, with a special mention of an upcoming PTSD Awareness event, encouraging listeners to get involved and find support within this vibrant community. Join us for a heartfelt episode that champions the power of community and shared passions.
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security hot podcast. Let's go with a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore, ignore, weather to live off the land job with disposed of enemy personnel to kill period this podcast is officially, unofficially, brought to you by liquid death. Why drink alcohol when you can have bubblies?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, stuff's amazing. Yeah, you gotta get the owner of bone farmless boner that's my wife's favorite.
Speaker 1:It's seth Ewing, the man behind Operation Tabletop, a nonprofit that is bringing veterans together to play tabletop games, to have open discussions about what you're going through, what you're struggling with, and be supported. In this day and age, it's all about insulation, not isolation, and what you guys are doing is nothing short of amazing. So, seth, thank you for being here today. Dude, let's dive into it. Man, tell me about yourself, tell me about your journey. My man, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Pretty humble journey. Just a dumb hillbilly Grew up in the Shenandoah Valley.
Speaker 1:Wait a second. Are you bullshitting me? No man, Nope.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I joined. I was lucky enough to join the Air Force at 18. We're fortunate that they took a chance on me and gave me a job. I've been serving ever since. It's been a great time and yeah.
Speaker 1:Good, that's in my mind just because John Denver is such an amazing artist and when I, when I hear that I have to think of an idyllic place to grow up, is that sort of where your love for table top games uh began.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, kind of so, um, I grew up in like the western part of virginia, so not west virginia, and I was, you know, fortunately, I had a great mom and she was always, uh, you know, encouraging me to be creative, and so I was always like creating little, I was like creating with little board games, um, and we were always playing board games. Our favorite one growing up was clue. That's still my favorite board game today and, um, my mom was really great at that game and I just dove into everything kind of nerdy, but I was kind of well-rounded in the sense that I would get out and be involved in other things as well. But, yeah, I played Yu-Gi-Oh, just super nerdy.
Speaker 2:I got into Magic Avenue in the third grade because my mom worked at a college and some of the students were playing. I was like, what is this? And, and my brother got into it too, and he and I would just go head to head all the time, um, playing dvd or, excuse me, playing magic the gathering sorry, I don't know if you can hear my dog or not, but yeah, man, it's all good.
Speaker 1:For the first three seasons, my dog, my giant schnauzer, charlie, made guest appearances all the time, so totally cool. Fun fact if you do enough podcasts and it becomes a business, you can use your pets as employees and it can be a tax write-off. Who would have thought what?
Speaker 2:And that's how you get audited. That's a great way to get the irs on you yeah, man, it rose.
Speaker 1:It always blew my mind like growing up. If you played card games, you play dungeons and dragons, people always like, oh, you're a freaking nerd.
Speaker 1:And then you realize that when you get in the military it's nothing but fucking nerds it's nothing but people that love video games, love fucking anime, love card games like I love warhammer dnd and there's a vast amount of people. Even within special operations you find people that are in love with these games. It has nothing to do and then now, proudly, we can proclaim and say, yeah, I'm a fucking nerd. I grew up with with halo and and love all the video game. Uh, you know the mythos and and all the different things that come from those games that just enrich our lives, but one of the key things is that it does bring you together with people, whether it's land parties, uh, or sitting down and playing these board games with people. How did that become a vital aspect of your service and in your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so during my service you deploy and you don't have a lot of Wi-Fi, so you kind of resort to the more analog stuff, more archaic things you know you can't just jump online and play video games with your friends.
Speaker 2:Um, and so my first deployment it was a. It was a really chill deployment. It wasn't anything, uh, but my friends and I I made some, made some friends out there and we would play this game called zombies all the time. It was like this tile based game, super fun. And that's when the nerdiness started to kick back in for me, cause after I joined I kind of lost it and it was like focusing on my career and the professional duties. And then after that deployment, I was like dude, this is awesome, I started getting back into more tabletop stuff rather than video games. I was like dude, this is awesome, I started getting back into more tabletop stuff rather than video games. I was still into video games, but I sort of my love for tabletop kind of came back a little bit there. And so when you're deployed you just notice you can really build strong bonds at the table and over some games, like especially cooperative ones, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people forget that. You know it's easy to. You know log in from your pc, get on steam and just bring in, just numb out on playing a shooter or playing league of legends, whatever your vice is just, but you don't really connect, even in chat, like it's more abuse than like connecting with friends, cause the nothing's worse than a call of duty lobby.
Speaker 2:It's the absolute worst.
Speaker 1:There's not a lot of support there, there's no. You're not walking in there saying, hey guys, I think I'm going through depression. You're going to go through there and really quickly realize that nobody cares about you. But in that sort of like face to face, and even there's there's a lot of new venues where you can actually play tabletop remote with people. Something about that method of engaging with people actually allows people to be a little vulnerable. It allows people to open up. You feel a little more connected in those games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do most of our gaming online through they're called virtual tabletops. Virtual tabletop websites like Roll20 is the one that we use the most and it can be almost as immersive as being at actually at the table. It's pretty much as close as you can get um online to being at a table Uh, but nothing actually beats being at the table. The grip of peel of, you know, holding a mini or rolling some dice Uh, you just can't beat that. And uh, but yeah. But what the online piece does is it allows us to connect to more people. That creates, you know, a bigger web for us to be able to reach out to and, um, you know, insulate more people yeah, let's take it back for a second.
Speaker 1:Like, how did this concept of operation tabletop? How did that start? Where did that come from?
Speaker 2:yeah. So if the catalyst sport was back in 2017, my brother, tory, committed suicide and that hit me really hard. I but like most men, I did the the tough guy thing where I just bottled it up, buried it and then I put a tight lid on it, and that lid, or that cork that I stuck in there was to keep it pressed down was my professional duties. I just buried myself in work like any other man would do and focused on just being better at my job, and that worked for a time. I, you know, I made rank. I got a really really good, a really prestigious job. I committed myself to that for a few years, but the Air Force divested of that job, that squadron that I was at and so that's when, whenever I learned that, that, that squadron that I was at and so that's when, whenever I learned that that was like around 2021, that's when the court kind of came off and the emotions started coming back up because you know, that thing that I was using to hold everything together, um was coming undone, Right, and I wasn't going to be doing that job that I've worked really hard for. Um, yeah, and so I started the only thing that was kind of keeping me going at the time, um was D and D. Those D and D sessions with my friends every weekend, uh, it kind of became that lifeline that I didn't even know I needed, because before I was just doing it for fun. But then I realized this is actually helping me.
Speaker 2:And some time passed, I was dealing with all this emotions. They started slowly bubbling up, coming back to the surface, bubbling up, coming back to the surface, and I talked to my friends, my dnd group, about the idea of like hey, like this is pretty helpful to me, like I don't, you know, I know it's probably helpful for you guys as well. Like what if we brought this to the community right? Like what if we figured out like a way to create a community where vets can come together and play? And we started doing some research. That's when I found Dr Jared Kilmer. He's a clinical psychologist, great dude. June 1st actually, we're having a roundtable with him with Tabletop Misfits. But I saw an article about him and the work that he was doing with the va and he had he had you. He was using dungeons and dragons to to treat ptsd in the va and it's like there you go, evidence-based, that helps.
Speaker 2:Support like this does help people. Um, granted, we don't use it as a therapy tool, it's just innately like therapeutic right. Yeah, um, so about the time it's a little like we developing the idea, developing the idea, uh, building some research, learning how to be a non-profit leader, like what does that take? Because I have no idea what I'm doing. Um, I have, like, these leadership skills that the military thankfully gave me, but I don't know how to apply it into like a business, you know? Yeah, so I had to do a lot of learning on that side. Then, my last deployment, I came back and I came. I came back to no unit, so I didn't have a job. Yeah, so I actually didn't have that job anymore. I was like, all right, cool, now what? Yeah, so I actually didn't have that job anymore I was like all right, cool, um now what?
Speaker 2:so just show up, it's a game job's gone I mean to be fair, like the air force can do air Force things, like I'm not pee pee hearted about it, you know. No, I mean I did really enjoy that job and it was very rewarding and you know, it did work really hard for it. But it gave me a lot of purpose. But that purpose was gone. I had to like move forward with OTT to kind of fill that void to, because I hadn't I hadn't addressed the main issue, which was dealing with the loss of my brother. Right, I was just trying to mask it some more with this new purpose which is operation tabletop.
Speaker 2:So I got back and I really started spiring out of control. I was consuming tons of video games, alcohol like not just beer, but like bourbon, that like drinking it like every day. And this is when you know it's when you have a problem is when you're hiding it from your wife, right, I think. Yep, yeah. So I would like sneak drinks all the time. And I was playing video games every day. Uh, not good ones either, like the toxic ones. And um, I was also consuming lots of porn as well. Uh, not quite an addiction, but just too much. So, um, you know, I'm not afraid to admit it like I'm not.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, but it's important things that yeah, nowadays we have so many things we can consume to numb us out, to get us to avoid life and dude. We have to talk about it pornography. Pornography is now available at your fingertips, like in every sort of app, every app. It's not it's. It's something that, to me, is we don't talk about it enough and we don't share enough how it's affecting specifically males, whether it's our and I know it's affecting our, our kids and our youth, but adults as well, like the the fact that you can pick up your phone, go on twitter right now and be inundated with pornography and you go to, you go to reddit, you go to all these apps that don't they're not even supposed to be apps for pornography and they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's ridiculous nintendo switch man. You go on nintendo switch and they have hentai games.
Speaker 2:Now they're everywhere um I didn't know that yeah, they're not full nudity, but it's still hentai, so it's like someone. Man, I'm like no shame, like there's no shaming, like whatever you're into, that's cool, man. I don't want King Shamer or whatever. You want to play those games. More power to you. It's important to know for your mental health, right, because you are what you consume the unholy trinity, video games, alcohol or any sort of substance. It's not a good recipe, it's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and it gets. It gets, um, like, swept under the rug. We don't really talk about it and and the reality is we need to, we need to understand all these things can, like, quickly get out of control, just like you, like you were vulnerable enough to share. It becomes one of those things where we're trying to numb out, we're trying to seek pleasure rather than say, hey, I'm going to be okay with discomfort right now, I'm not going to seek out these things on a daily basis. And it rewires our brain really fast. Really, the evidence is out there. It rewires your brain really, really fucking fast.
Speaker 1:And anybody who's having a hard time I don't blame you. This is not a thing about judgment. I don't blame you if you're seeking out all these different vices. It's just understanding that when you're ready, you can overcome this. It's not an arduous thing to develop discipline. It's not a thing that you're gonna have to oh god, what was music? No, you should be excited about not diving into these things anymore. You should be excited about like in video games man, they're fun and addicting. You can get in the sky room and just fucking sit there smithing daggers for hours and then enchanting them so you can sell them for fictional money. I'm saying it as somebody that struggled with that for hours like over eight hours like I played that game.
Speaker 1:So, seth, I played that game so fucking much. It maxed out everything they're like. The only thing that could save my life was the fact that at some point something corrupted and I couldn't get access to like my original file anymore, and then I basically walked away from console. But for a long time you get so addicted to this idea that if you just forge these enough of these daggers and you made enough money, you'd be able to get all the things that you need. And it's like dude, what are you giving up? You're giving up the real world for this fictional world, purely because you're struggling with something in the outside world.
Speaker 1:And I was dealing with insomnia, I was dealing with a whole bunch of other things and it was that one thing that I could have, that I, or I thought it, that one thing that I could have, that I, or I thought it was the one thing I could have, that I could feel like I, I could like, actually have control and achieve something. And it's ridiculous, it's funny. Now you laugh about it now and you're like Jesus, like I gave so much of my life over to a fictional game. And and now, looking on the backside. It's like so many of us are still struggling with that, still struggling with being it, and luckily we're not the only ones talking about it. Tons of people have come out and talked about it. You know, joe Rogan talked about his unhealthy addiction to Quake another game that will literally take your soul.
Speaker 2:We haven't played that one, but I mean, I mean, yeah, that's old school man, you can do it and you can get into any. Like skyrim's about, like that's a great game and yeah. But you're right, like you spend a lot of these times, like a lot of the time on these video games, and it's somewhat value-added because it's fun. Right, it's a bit of an escapism, but where does where does the line get drawn? Where you start to get into the realm of addiction and it's starting to replace normal activities. Right, like you're choosing to play a video game before going to the gym or choosing to play a video game over spending time with your spouse.
Speaker 2:That's when it gets a little dangerous and for some people, some people can just play an hour and jump off and flip, flip the switch on and off. I was not one of those people. Um, when it comes to video games, I will grind and grind on it, like, just like skyrim, before you do anything. You start smithing daggers, man, and you just you grind away and get max level and then you start the game exactly, and then steal uh every iron ingot you can find and then murder every helpless uh mbc I love skyro, but it's the thing about it, though it's like it now is it's kind of an isolated game because it's not multiplayer.
Speaker 2:It's super cooperative. There's a great game out right now. I'm going to give them some publicity. I guess they don't need any more. Baldur's Gate is based off of D&D 5th Edition. It's pretty much as close as you get to playing a tabletop game through a video game style, and so it merges the two really well. They did a great job of merging those two worlds and so you can get in and be very cooperative with your friends. So that's a great example of a great video game. But other video games like Apex Legends hopefully you don't sue me for saying this, but it's super addictive because it's got this very fast pace, it's got the loot boxes and it's very exciting and so you can, and it's designed.
Speaker 1:It's designed that way. It's designed. It's designed that way. Like people tend to think that within these tech companies, it's just a bunch of coders and a bunch of people that are just love games, their R and D department is filled with individuals that can say, hey, this is going to tap into the brain of that kid and get them to feel like it's crack cocaine, like it's it's not done. You know, by accident it's crack cocaine. Like it's it's not done. You know by accident. It's. It's well formulated and they do it for a reason. Um, I want to ask you, what about dungeons and dragons? Um, helps individuals that are struggling with things. Why is that game so unique? Yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So besides bringing everybody together to play something that's cooperative, it's also um conversed, like the opposite of you know. Say, a fast-paced video game where you can, you know it's a loot box is very high, like quick hits of dopamine. If that's a thing you know, I don't know, ask huberman labs. I'm not sure how he feels about calling it quick, has a dope me. But um to to layman. And so you are at the mercy of everyone else at the table, your time, right. So it's very slow pace. It can be fast, but people take a little bit of time to read things and to move on and to role play a little bit. And so you're building these connections through the character that you're playing, but then also the person that's across the table from you as well as a person, right. So you're strengthening those friendships in a slower pace environment so you can actually get to know someone versus, like in a video game.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of those, a lot of uh, relationships can be not all but can be kind of superficial because you're just trying to seize that win.
Speaker 2:And so you're just, you know, yelling and communicating at each other to capture the flag or or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, kill the enemy around the corner, um, but in D&D it's a lot of role-playing character and also, if there's something about yourself that you don't really like and you want to work on it not everybody does this or even knows that you can do this or thinks about it, but you can bring that to the table. You can say hey, man, I have some impulse control issues, right, so I'm going to try to be more reserved and not react, uh, quickly to things. So, hey, instead of when I'm not getting my way with this npc, instead of just murdering them, maybe I'll take a step back and figure out how I can, um, get to like, achieve the objective, and so maybe you won't, maybe you don't want to play like a barbarian, because that's exactly what they would do. They would just murder the npc. Um, maybe you could be a bard, right? Somebody kind of raises them up, you know, and yeah, so that's, that's a great way. It helped that, uh, that it helps people, I think, yeah, that's I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, being able to incorporate the things that you're actually going through, like hey, I overreact, I react, I don't respond. Well, guess what? Now your character has to take that cool down moment and they're not going to immediately respond, they have to slowly react to the situation. That's fucking cool. How did you come up with the nonprofit idea? A lot of people think that it's an easy road. But, knowing intimately what it's like to get something off the ground, when did that become the mission, rather than just something you were doing on the weekend?
Speaker 2:yeah. So, admittedly, I thought it wasn't going to be too hard. I kind of went into it confidently, um, and once I started getting up a little and I did more, more research, I was like, oh, this is going to be a heavy lift. Luckily I learned that early on. I was like, all right, well, um, you know, make sure I get some ducks in the row. You know, I hired a lawyer, shout out to trigger lilies. They helped us get started. You know, working on our bylaws and walking us through the 501c3 process, um, they did a great job.
Speaker 2:Um, and then also the website right, like that's, that's a huge lift in itself. Like, how do you figure out how? Like, I don't know how to do websites. I want to build a website. Um, that's expensive to pay someone to do a website. But luckily there's someone locally here in niceville. Uh, I'm sure she's okay if I use your name.
Speaker 2:But, uh, miss nicole munn, with lightweight branding and design, she did our website pro bono. I told her about the mission and she was like, yeah, I want to do this pro bono because this is a great idea, and that really reaffirmed our decision to push forward with, hey, this. You need that sort of affirmation like you're doing the right thing. This is a good idea to help keep you moving forward. And so, yeah, the nonprofit idea is okay. How? How can we best impact the community? And that's we're in money to buy certain things. So that's, that's where the idea for the non-profit came from. So we should do this so that way we can have a larger impact in our community no, and as you're operating right now, what?
Speaker 1:what are some of the things that you guys are able to do? So?
Speaker 2:we just got our 501c3 status in August of last year. We're slowly building because we're an all-volunteer board and so we're trying to take things slow, not too fast, because we don't want to outgrow our bridges, right.
Speaker 1:so yeah, scaling at the right time, and that's something that only you and your team know when it's the right time to move up and scale up. I think one of the most annoying things is when outsiders come in. They're like like, oh, you got to move, you got to start doing this X, y and Z, and there's a lot to be said for help. We all need help in our endeavors, but you have to be able to trust in your board members and trust in your own vision too. Be able to understand like, okay, advice is awesome, help is great, but only I know when it's the right time, because there's nothing worse than overextending and then having to dial it back. It's like, fuck, we only have X amount of money for this year.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing about nonprofit. That's really scary is everything has to be just absolutely perfect when it comes to the finances. You want people to trust you. You want people to be able to look up and say you know eventually, like Operation Tabletop, they're one of the most vetted and highly respected nonprofits out there. But just one mistake can deter all that, and it's definitely something that comes with a lot of um like a lot of headaches.
Speaker 2:I would imagine, my anxiety spikes through the roof every time I have to spend money on it, on any, on any of the programs, because I'm like I just I want to be a good steward, right, like, yeah, you know, I put myself in the shoes of a donor, like I want to know where, like, the money is going and what it's being used for. So we put out quarterly reports, um, every every quarter, obviously. But, uh, and it shows like, hey, it does reflect some shortfalls here and there, but it shows everything we've done for the quarter and it allows people to see, you know, hey, this is what we've done with your money, this is what our impact, and we do that every quarter so people can, um be up to date with that. And it's amazing, yeah, you know, I think that's pretty pretty standard, um, but you know, that's something that we definitely wanted to do because, yeah, we want to be transparent, we want people to trust us.
Speaker 2:Credibility is everything in this game. So, you know, people need to trust that you're doing the right thing with their money and it's helping the people that need to be helped. And so, yeah, it is nerve-wracking dealing with the finances. I told my friend I was like you know, the first two people I'm going to hire, as soon as we get the funding, is a CPA and social media person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are both full-time jobs and I don't want to have to deal with the finances. Yeah, yeah, that's the one thing I can tell you from experience. Uh, shout out to cj um, you, you have saved my ass in texas and you're well worth every penny. Um, that's, that's a that's who does our books for us. Um, she's amazing, great team member. I am just always late with my monthly reports, but she forgives me. So shout out to our security hall bookkeeper. You are amazing and I promise I'll get better, but I won't.
Speaker 1:It's just crazy, man, when you start an endeavor, don't realize, like lines of credit, checking account, all these different things, and it's like like the way we, we structure and do everything. Like it's, it's I, everything's itemized, everything's freaking, tallied, everything's. Look, and, uh, I am the worst because I'm constantly I'm either doing post-production work for one of the shows that I work on or for my own stuff. And then you know, before I know it, it's I have like 15 emails like I need your monthly statements, like oh yeah my bad what do you see the, the, the program, like?
Speaker 1:when you look at the future, how do you envision operation tabletop growing into a a formidable non-profit? What do you envision Operation Tabletop growing into a formidable nonprofit? What do you see as the next phase?
Speaker 2:Oh man, we have huge, huge ideas, grandiose plans. Luckily, my sister came on board. She is now a council member, nice, and she is a hard charger. And her friend that she links up with is a non-profit leader as well and her name is Erica Gaffney, and she is awesome. She has been instrumental in helping us direct this thing in the right path and putting the bumper lanes up for us and giving us some tools to be successful.
Speaker 2:So shout out to to you, erica, and but to give it some some context, you know, with what we're doing right now, well, like I'll mention that the present, that'll kind of tee up the future, yeah, so right now we are running our program that connects vets. So we're running the roundtable program. That is just the baseline mission connect vets over tabletop games. And then we also want to do a peer support program, nice, yeah, I'm a peer supporter in the air force. I love it. You know, that's helps, it's, it's, it's great. I think there needs to be more peer supporters. We just need the right people to do that, right. So, um, so we're, we're, we've another training slides, we're going to build that out, um, and so that's what kind of?
Speaker 2:The next phase is to provide peer support training so that way, once we start to get these, you know, vets to the table, these peer supporters, who are, you know, highly trained and can you know, in crisis intervention, can recognize some of these indicators and jump on it and ask that difficult question Like hey man, I noticed you're going through this. You've said some things like here's kind of concerning, and then you, man, I noticed you're going through this, you've said some things like here's kind of concerning, and then you know answering that question if they're thinking about committing suicide. And then, way down the line, after I retire, I'd like to come back here to Niceville, get a brick and mortar place and just have people come by. They can grab games off the shelf, get some coffee or some tea which, by the way, coffee and tea are the is the drink of choice for uh, ott, yeah, yeah, we, you know we obviously, uh, alcohol is like the number one abused substance by veterans.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, Absolutely. That's something that I talk about a lot lately in my own journey. I wrote about it. You can go check out the blog at securityhallpodcastcom.
Speaker 1:It's something that we all inherited in the military. When you come in, it's like the thing that you do, whether it's to celebrate or to overcome something. It's constantly in the periphery, it's constantly in your face. Drink, drink, drink. This is what we do. This is our culture. But take it back another layer and look how alcohol was first brought into your life. As a kid, I drank. In high school I drank after football games. It was cool to go to those parties and drink. But why peel it back again? Why was it cool At some point? Some of us saw it on TV. This is what the adults do. This is what the cool people do.
Speaker 1:Reality is, as you get older, you realize that there's nothing great about being told what to do. Everybody's going to tell you what to do. What to do, what to do. Make the decision for yourself.
Speaker 1:When I analyzed and I peeled back the layer and I realized there's no positive factor about drinking. It doesn't bring any greatness into your life it doesn't. It doesn't make me more intelligent if I hold a bourbon in my hand and a cigar in the other. Fun fact cigars fucking life. It doesn't. It doesn't make me more intelligent If I hold a bourbon in my hand and a cigar in the other. Fun fact cigars fucking stink. It tastes like shit. Stop lying to yourself and telling yourself that it tastes good. You know it doesn't. The other thing they're fucking awful, they're just. And the amount of time people have tried to tell oh, if you want to be one of the guys, you're, have a cigar. Fuck that. I want to be me, I want to be me, and nothing about me relaxes with a drink. Fun fact it. It's the opposite. It's the thing that I reached out for when I was suffering.
Speaker 1:And then I kept drinking. I kept drinking because I couldn't get to sleep. I couldn't, couldn't find rest, so I had to drink to get to that point. I don't want to do that. And then, when I look at the health issues, statistically speaking, if you're a regular user of alcohol, if you're a regular drinker, you're more likely to have issues with heart disease, hypertension. I don't want to have that. I don't want to die at an early age because I was drinking too much, and that's a reality that so many of us have to do.
Speaker 1:Do yourself a favor and I'm not trying to shame anybody that drinks. I'm just trying to say, hey, make the decision for yourself. Just go through that line of thought as to like, why do I drink? If you enjoy a beer, awesome. If you enjoy a bourbon, great for you.
Speaker 1:But if you don't enjoy it, if you really don't want to drink, but you find yourself drinking in social settings, or you find yourself drinking because you think that's what you should do, then there's the question Are you living your life authentically for who you are, or are you living to impress somebody else? Look, at the end of the day, we only have one thing that we're truly in control, and that's our own life, like our own choices. Make the decision for yourself. And again, I'm not trying to villainize it. There's nothing wrong with being that person who enjoys drinking, but you over indulge in anything. There's a problem. So that's just my take on it, and I'm grateful for not drinking anymore. I'm grateful for seeing that it didn't bring anything to my life and, yeah, that's just one of those things where it's like, okay, I don't need it. I don't really need it in my life.
Speaker 2:I feel the same way and my life has been much better once I cut out drinking. You know, I think you know people always also drink in social settings. Because that's the you know, because that's the thing to do. You meet up at like a great pub or you know bar or whatever and hang out and it's it's there in your face, like you said, and it's like everybody else is drinking. It's the kind of thing. You can go to a bar and hang out with friends and have had some, you know, have have a pretzel with some beer cheese and not drink.
Speaker 2:You know I do it sometimes. So yeah, there's no issue, and my friends don't make me feel any sort of way about it. They might, you know, harass me a little bit, because you know that's just what friends do, but they're not serious, because that's just what friends do but they're not serious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's important to have that conversation of like, because I've had the situations where it's like, okay, I'm in a social setting, I'll get one of these, I'll get a wheat beer, at least it tastes like. I can put some stuff in it and make it taste better. But then when you realize like, oh, wait a second, go back to your principles, go back to the reason why you don't do it and be okay with saying like, hey, you know what I like? Liquid death. I just like bubbly water. That's fine for me, I don't need a drink, it's not something. And then look back to the way you used to cope with anxiety or social settings and how much you drank. That's a different Denny, that's a Denny that I don't want to go back to being. And when you get older, you wake up feeling like dog shit after you drink just a couple of drinks.
Speaker 2:I don't have it in me anymore. Yeah, once you get into your 30s, man, it's over. Like you can't you have one beer. You wake up the next day. You're like, oh gosh, bro, I'm about to be 40, fuck that. Yeah, so it's even worse, man. But yeah, also, it does heighten your anxiety.
Speaker 2:I don't know how it does for everyone else, but I would notice that if I had just one drink, my anxiety would be spiked and I would be waking up in the middle of the night almost having panic attacks. Uh, granted, that was also cause I wasn't, you know, taking care of the underlying issue, um, which you know kind of go go back to. Is that? Um, you know, I was struggling with those things, alcohol being a big one and I woke up one day and I was like I noticed everything that was happening. You know my wife, jim, and she, you know she's awesome, god bless her. She really kind of helped me see it. It took a while. I'm stubborn, cause she'd be like, oh man, you're playing video games all the time I noticed you're drinking more. I'm just like shut up. No, I'm not. You know like, mind your own business, I'm fine.
Speaker 2:Leave me alone If someone comes to you and you yell at them or you just be like, hey, no, I'm not, you're just seeing things, or whatever. You start trying to cancel it. That's when you know you have a problem. But yeah, she helped me.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. Yeah, if you're in your man room or your study with no lights on, just the blue glow of your TV screen and you're just holding on your controller, with a tumbler of alcohol next to you and people you know, when you get interrupted, you immediately like hiss at them, there's an issue, there's a problem there. That's your wife, it's your family. They should be able to come up to you and say hey, I am noticing that there is an issue here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent, and yeah. So she noticed that and she helped me wake up and I was like I'm not doing this anymore. So I quit drinking, stopped watching porn, quit playing video games their skate, but I like cold, like. I stopped playing any video game, I wouldn't even look at them and I started focusing on mental health and addressing the issue and the loss of my brother. Yeah, you know, thank you, denny, because your podcast helped a lot in that journey. I got linked up with 22 Zero and they were a huge help at overcoming some of those grief and guilt too.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of guilt over the loss of my brother because the night that he passed away I had posted something on Instagram I was in Wyoming at the time, it was like 8, 9 o'clock, it would have been 10 or 11 o'clock posted something on Instagram and I was in Wyoming at the time. It was like eight, nine o'clock, so it would have been 10 or 11 o'clock, uh, virginia time, and he had liked my post. I was like, oh man, I should give him a call, see how he's doing. I haven't talked to him in a while. I was like, all right, um, I was like that that the time ran into my head I was like, oh, it's pretty late there, I'll just give him a call tomorrow because I'll be on my drive down to Colorado and be driving the Rockies. It'd be great to talk to him.
Speaker 2:Then that's when the next day came. I got the call that he had passed away, he had committed suicide. I didn't realize that I had that guilt. It was of like hidden, and it's so subtle, like all of those little things that eat you up. They're really subtle and they're great at eating away at you without you really even realizing. Until it's it's too late, until you're at the bottom of a bottle.
Speaker 1:You know, addicted to video games, they did the porn and then you, that's, that's already when you've already spiraled pretty out of control that you recognize it yeah, and so such a painful thing to go through, but it's something that we need to share because it impacts so many people, so many people like myself included. You get that phone call from a friend and you put it on snooze because you know that they're drinking, you know they're on drugs and it's their habit. They're constantly high and they call you late at night and I don't want to validate it anymore, so I'm not going to answer it. And then a few days go by and you realize, yeah, they were high, they were drunk, and they didn't wake up the next morning. Like that sticks with you. And then you realize, like shit, man, like what if I could have changed this? By what if I could have done something, stayed up. But you realize that we all have a say in our journey.
Speaker 1:And when somebody is going through their worst and they refuse to get help and you know this, this individual had gone to multiple treatment centers, had gone and gotten help and had turned their back from sobriety at that point you have to understand like they're making a conscious choice, like at that, at that moment, there's nothing you can say to keep them from taking more drugs, from taking another shot of alcohol, like, and we can't blame ourselves. We can't sit there and villainize ourselves for those moments where it's like man, I didn't answer that phone call, I didn't answer that text, like it's not your fault, it's not something that you could have stopped, it's not something that gets at the end of the day, just like the previous phone calls, just like the previous text messages, they're still in the throes of addiction or they're still going through that destructive behavior. And we have to understand like, hey, like I was there for them, I was the best friend I could have been. But at some point you got to be able to just say, hey, like I'm not, I'm not going to get through them, and they're not getting the you're, they're, they're combative and they're turning away from all the other resources that you keep pointing them to.
Speaker 1:And it's just one of those things where I realized, okay, active and willing participant in recovery, we all have to be that. We all have to be that active and willing participant in our own treatment. And being able to say like, hey, I'm going to do the most important rescue mission ever and it's saving my life, like, and that's. It's a hard thing to understand, but once you understand it, it's like, okay, everybody has to say in their own rescue mission Like, and unfortunately, some of our greatest friends and the most wonderful people and you know, once you take that first initiative to be an active one, participant in your own recovery, your own mental health journey, it's.
Speaker 2:It's just like, um, you know, if you take that first step towards the, you know doing something that's negative towards your mental health journey, right, you start on the downward spiral. It's the. It's the same. If you go in the right direction, you can be on an upward spiral. And there's a great book about it. Forgot the author's name, please forgive me, but it is an awesome book and it talks about the upward spiral and how just small steps you can take to bring yourself back up to a hundred percent, like who you are right, get back to you, and that's kind of what you know.
Speaker 2:I read that book, or listen to it, um, and yeah, that was super helpful as well. And, uh, that's, that's that's what OTT wants to do. They want to bring people to the table, because that's that first step just social, like getting social and doing something fun is that first step to you taking charge of being it, cause you have, we can't bring you to the table. You have to take the first step and actually come to the table and play, and that's that first step to towards that upward spiral and if we can, you know, help facilitate that and you can be on your be on your spiral. Yeah, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:How many times did I?
Speaker 2:say upward spiral, I think I love it.
Speaker 1:It's perfect, but it's true. It's true, man, but it's true. It's true, man. Small steps forward, we get more small steps forward and, before you know it, that little baby step that you once thought was impossible, like getting out of your room when you're dealing with depression now you're getting out of your room, you're taking a shower, you're going to meet seth and sitting down and playing one video game and, yeah, you're vulnerable, you don't like being here. But then one person makes you laugh and one person says something that resonates with you and, before you know it, you play for a couple hours. Then you're vulnerable, you don't like being here. But then one person makes you laugh and one person says something that resonates with you and then, before you know it, you play for a couple hours. Then you're going back home and then maybe depression kicks back in for a little bit, but then your phone goes off with a reminder for the next meeting and you're like, fuck, yeah, okay, that felt good, I'm going to do that. And then you show up and you play again.
Speaker 1:One more step forward, now. You've been doing this for a few weeks now, and then in comes a stranger that was just like you at the very beginning of that, that journey, and you're able to tell them and give them encouragement to keep coming. And then the next game set up, the next game opportunity comes up and that person shows up. Now you're excited that they're going forward just like you were. Our success gives other people the hope and inspiration to continue going through the process and then that it's a self-feeding loop of positivity. It keeps you going seeing somebody else. When you see Seth succeed and you see Mark succeed and all these other people, you're like fuck yeah, we're doing it fucking together. We're in this flotilla of self-recovery and healing and it's fucking awesome. It's a great journey and before you know it you don't even recognize the old you because you have a new person that you're seeing in the mirror. And, yeah, along with that comes being able to go and handing off that person, that next level of care, to actually seek treatment.
Speaker 1:But a lot can be said for peer to peer support. Just being around positivity, being around good people and getting outside of that negative echo chamber that's the most important thing. That's where change occurs. I saw it within myself, just within social media. I will be the first to post stupid memes about military stuff and soft stuff. But one thing I don't dive into is horrible negativity, because I want you to come in and laugh at frigging stupid memes but then also come and see inspiration and hope from some of the podcasts. There's enough trauma induced posting out there and there's enough batshit in the world. We need more operation tabletops and Seth.
Speaker 1:I think that and I said it when we talked earlier in a couple of weeks ago what you're doing just the advocacy and the nonprofit work that you're doing is beautiful, but the byproduct of that is you're giving other veterans a clear cut path to success. You're allowing other people to say, holy shit, seth built a nonprofit. Maybe I can do it too. Maybe I don't have to sit here and just wallow in my misery. Maybe there's something to be said about finding my own passion, my own purpose, and if Seth is fucking doing this, maybe I can do it. And that's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1:It's being able to put a representation, being able to put a veteran face. Oh, shandy, you're not even a veteran, you're still in. You're still doing the damn thing, being able to put that face to other service members and say, hey, I'm out here, I'm changing lives. I'm, I'm the way, come with me, follow along this journey. That's beautiful, seth, and I hope that isn't lost on you, and I hope that when you rally around with the rest of the members of your team, you can have a little bit of a celebration. I know you're not exactly where you need to be and want to be. You haven't hit that pinnacle moment, but, man, you've already done something that is groundbreaking and if you haven't celebrated that yet, I want you to make time to celebrate that today. Yeah, I can't tell you how phenomenal, and to have been a part of the catalyst for that truly honored man thank you very much for saying that, those kind words.
Speaker 2:yeah, denny, yeah it's. It's been a journey, and I did struggle a lot with insecurity, um, when starting this up, because at the same time, I'm addressing issues with my brother and I have a lot of anxiety, so that was feeding into it, yeah, and I was like, am I even smart enough to do this? Like, can I do this? And I have great people, um, in my corner being like you got this, like, uh, you know if there's people way dumber out there than you who are doing things like this and you're having good success, not that you know there's anything wrong with with them, but, uh, you can do it too, man. And so I that you know there's anything wrong with them, but, um, you can do it to me, man. And so I was like you know what you're right, like you know we can do, we can do this, we can make an impact or we can save people's lives, uh, and it's awesome, um, it's given my, my life a whole new meaning, and this is how I identify myself now, like I identify myself as a non-profit leader.
Speaker 2:Operation, operation tabletop, like you know, great, I was still very proud of my, my, my career in the military and proud to be an airman, um, but military's not my identity, my sole identity anymore. It's this, and, amongst other things you know, know, being a husband, um, and a father to my puppy, um. But yeah, man, it's, thank you. And I'm really excited to where this thing goes. You know the the combination between the tabletop community and the veteran community coming where where this whole piece is. Lot of great things are going to happen and I almost have to put some reins on it because people are going to want to run 100 miles an hour with it and we have a lot more work to do. We'll celebrate later.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, Seth, you got a big event coming up. If you wouldn't mind plugging that real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Next month, as you know, it's PTSD Awareness Month. I believe it's also Men's Mental Health Awareness Month as well, but we'll focus on the PTSD side of things more specifically. But the idea is that we're having games every Saturday in the month of June in order to provide a place for vets to come together and come to the table and see how tabletop games and board games and role-playing games are helping people and can help you get to that upward spiral and find a new hobby, but then also spread awareness throughout that. Right, you know, hey, these are some great resources that are out there that you might not be thinking of that can help you. And you know, denny, I'm really glad that you're going to be a part of that as a roundtable, because you I mean man, you've been in this game way longer than me and you've already. You've been obviously active and now veteran and you've been through the VA process, and so you can really give some insight to people out there who are struggling or don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah. So that's the intent and, at the same time, we have awesome creators uh, content creators, twitch streamers coming together to raise money for us as well, because we're just focusing on providing a space for people. We're not really soliciting donations. We're just providing a space and spreading awareness, but these content creators in the tabletop community are going to be doing their own live streams. This is all put together by one of our partners, which is NorthWolf911. His name's Steve Great dude. He's a Coast Guard vet and he's bringing a bunch of people that he knows together to just raise some money for us, and also Wounded Warrior Project, as a bunch of people that he knows together to just raise some money for us, and also Wounded Warrior Project is a part of that too, and so I feel great about it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Well, seth, I can't wait for this event. I know it's going to be awesome, and if you guys want to get involved in Operation Tabletop, just pause the episode right now. Bring up the description. I'll wait, go ahead, everything will be right there for you. Connect with Seth. Where can they connect with you, seth? On Instagram.
Speaker 2:So we're on Instagram at Operation underscore Tabletop and we're also on Facebook and we have a website OperationTab, operation tabletoporg. If you go to our website and go to join the community, we also have a link to our discord and definitely jump in there, um, because, as we're, you know you're talking about with, you know, keeping the keeping those that positive vibe going, like we have people posting, you know, the daily runs in there or pictures of their pets, and it's just where everybody's communicating and it's not always about tabletop, it's just games, it's just that's connecting, yeah, and it's it's, it's great, it's a great community.
Speaker 1:Heck. Yeah Well, seth, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your your passion with us. And if you're out there struggling and you have a passion for tabletop games, check out Operation Tabletop, hit them up. And if you're local, definitely attend their events. And to all you listening out there, thank you so much for being here. Take care of yourself and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. If you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe and head on over to our patreon, where you can be part of our community and get access to all of our episodes as soon as they drop. And remember we get through this together. Take care, take care.
