One man’s fame, success, and glory—and the story behind it all
This week’s guest is one my closest friends in the entire world—someone you might not expect but a person who has made one of the biggest impacts on my life. He was my model for navigating sobriety in the public eye and someone whom I immediately felt I knew and felt safe with—his name is Tony Mandarich.
In this episode we dive into the story behind the glory and talk about Tony’s upbringing, his climb in athleticism and fame, playing football in college, to finally being drafted to the NFL. He opens up about his addictions and the three pivotal events that brought everything crashing down.
Listen to this episode to hear how resilience, perseverance, and being fed up led one man to turn his life around from addiction and commit to a different kind of success and lifestyle—sobriety.
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More than just football
Tony’s story is much more than just football. He starts by sharing his family background, how they escaped communism and immigrated from Croatia to a small town in Canada. As a young kid, Tony vividly remembers being 11 years old and writing down his dreams of one day playing in the NFL.
When Tony turned 16, he realized he could not be scouted in Canada. He shares his brothers sacrifice to move him down to the States, and how that move was the beginning of everything. However, the fame, the success, the glory—Tony’s story is behind it all. For him, football is the platform and tool to carry his greater message.
Addiction to “I’m done”
He shares the moments and thoughts that led up to the first time he injected steroids, the psychological effects that are ten times more extreme than the physical ones, the three tragic events that spiraled him to his breaking point, and the specific events that led to him getting sober from alcohol and painkillers.
Although Tony isn’t proud of some of his past, he has changed his virtues and values to align with who he wants to be. He uses football as a means to share his story, his addiction, his sobriety, and to give others hope. He speaks out about how he had nothing to lose anymore because he had lost everything and himself—how even if you are in a storm of pain, it’s important to trust that there is beauty on the other side.
Tony Mandarich
Today, Tony is a successful and world-renowned photographer and public speaker. After retiring from football, he perfected his own craft as a professional photographer and achieved prominence and recognition for his uniquely compelling images. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The goal is to get back to that innocence of what’s really fucking important 12:00 - tracy
If that's the competition, I need to up my game. 13:30 - tony
I need to catch up and when I catch up, i need to surpass 24:00 - tony
In my opinion i think marijuana is more of a gateway. 27 - tony
Its crazy the lengths we will go to not feel and to take things to the next level. 30:15 - tracy
In order to rebuild the foundation you have to level it completely. 32:35 - tracy
I had a bottle of 90 painkillers and i took 8-10 of them. 35:20 tony
I could watch them slipping out of the bottle into the air, into the water into the toilet and dissolving because they are made of gelatin and i remember the two words I said to myself, I’m done.
I said, I’d rather be a boring sober person than a miserable drunk. 37:48 - tony
There are some areas in my life that are as bad as they can get 41:15 - tony
I always come back to, Does that certain one make my life unimaginable? 43:40 - tony
Enabling an addict is an addiction 44:35 - tracy
It takes an army to keep someone in an addiction. 44:55 - tracy
For me probably one of the most dangerous things is time on my hands 46:25 - tony
There is a certain core of everyone that will always be that person. 46:50 - tony
Turn devices, the extremes, the compulsions, into virtues, channel them into virtues. 47:10 - tony
I'm not as much a perfectionist and I used to be, because ive realized that my perfectionism or wanting to be perfect as i got older was more of a hindrance than a benefit. 48:15 - tony
I don't care if im right anymore, I just want to be the most effective communicator especially to those I care about and that sometimes means eating a huge, huge plate of humble pie. 52:30 - tracy
When I see someone walk through the middle of fire, it's the one word I really attach to things like that are resilience because it's not easy and just because you’re sober, life happens. 01:03:40
The only thing that the 12 step program guarantees you is if you follow these steps we guarantee you sobriety, we don’t guarantee you an income. 1:04:01
As time has gone on, my road has gotten narrower on what I can do or can live with or can’t live with. 01:05:00
“The goal is to get back to that innocence of what’s really f*cking important.” 11:58
“As good as the effects are physically [of steroids] that people can see, the psychological effects you can multiply by ten.” 27:26 -Tony
“It’s crazy the lengths we’ll go to to not feel.” 30:10
“For us to really be willing to do whatever it takes to change our lives sometimes it requires such levels of pain that most people would never talk about, let alone ever wish to experience.” 33:10
“I could watch [the pills] slipping out of the bottle, into the air, into the water, into the toilet dissolving because they’re made of gelatin, and I remember the two words that I said to myself—“I’m done.” 36:47 -Tony
“I looked at my wife and said, ‘the fun is over. I’d rather be a boring sober person than a miserable drunk.’” 37:47 -Tony
“Codependency and enabling an addict is an addiction.” 44:33
“It’s not just the one who takes the substance—it takes an army to keep somebody in addiction.” 44:51
“For me, one of the most dangerous things is time on my hands.” 46:26 -Tony
“Turn the vices, the extremes, the compulsions into virtues.” 47:13 -Tony
“Until it becomes painful enough, there’s nothing anybody can do to change you.” 69:15