Episode 388: The Power of "I Get To": Surviving a 130 MPH Crash and Finding Purpose with Christian Struthers

0:00All right, everybody, I want to tell you about today's sponsor, Wired for Addiction, and honestly, I am so excited about this partnership. You might remember Dr. Evelyn Higgins from when she came on the show to talk about the biomarkers of addiction. That episode landed in such a powerful way for so many of you, and I really believe in the work she's doing. Here's the thing, if you or someone you love has been caught in chronic relapse, addiction switching, or treatment that only works for a while, the issue may not be behavioral. It may be biological, and that changes everything. Dr. Higgins and her team actually measure the underlying biomarkers driving these patterns, dopamine, cortisol, inflammation, mitochondrial function, and then build a personalized plan to bring your biology back into balance.

0:52She put together a free guide for you, the Biology of Addiction 10 Core Biomarkers, downloaded at theaddictedmind.com forward slash wired. That's theaddictedmind.com forward slash wired. There'll also be a link in the show notes. And I want you to know, you are not broken. Sometimes your biology just needs to be understood, and I think that brings a lot of hope. All right, on to this episode. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Addicted Mind podcast. I'm Dwayne Osterlund, and I am so glad you're here.

1:31Addiction isn't necessarily the problem and drugs and all that. it's our answer to the problem. There's an underlying, again, I was sober, I was doing great. And then I couldn't deal with the pain. I didn't know how to deal with the pain. I didn't know any other way to deal with it.

1:53Today, my guest is Christian Struthers. He's a motivational speaker, recovery advocate, and founder of Dog Dash 3K. Now, Christian was the golden kid. Baseball scholarships, a great family, a dad who worked himself to the bone to give him everything. But underneath all of that was an ego, a taste for chasing the next big feeling and a habit of using pills to bring himself back down from all of that hype. Then in 2016, a night out with a friend ended with a car going 130 miles an hour, a crash that really should have killed him. And he talks about a stranger who appeared out of nowhere to cut the seatbelt that was choking him.

2:41And he has no idea who that person was. And then Christian woke up two days later, not knowing if he'd ever walk again. So we talk about what it's like to lose everything you thought made you strong and have to rebuild from a hospital bed. We get into the moment a nurse told him, you don't have to do this. You get to do this. and how that one sentence became the philosophy that changed his life. And we talk honestly about relapse, about grief, and about how his dog Millie carried him through the darkest parts of his recovery. But before we jump in, if this podcast has been meaningful to you, take a moment to rate and review The Addicted Mind on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

3:26Even better, write a review. Those reviews help people who are struggling find this show. They mean a lot to me. And follow us on social media so you can stay connected. All right, let's get into this episode.

3:48All right, Christian, I am so glad you're here. As I was prepping for this episode, as I was talking about earlier, I was just looking at some of the pictures on your website from your crash and that whole situation. So we're going to jump into all of that and how you changed your life. So why don't you just introduce yourself and we'll go from there. Awesome. Yeah. So my name is Christian Struthers. I was born and raised in Northern California area. I had a great, great family. I was the poster child. I played baseball. I showed up right on time. I left right when you're supposed to. I was kind of had a silver spoon of sorts.

4:32My dad worked his butt off to give us everything we ever needed. And yeah, that's kind of where my journey started is in high school. So it looked, it looked good from the outside. Everything was going great. You were doing awesome. Everything was, yeah, man, no worries. And that's kind of what, so I, my ego, they call me Superman, you know, and my, favorite superhero was Iron Man. Oh, I loved Iron Man. Right, right? He was the best. But everyone called me Superman. So it started with ego. Then it went to bad choices and with no consequences. And then it went to addiction. It went to drugs, drinking, smoking.

5:14And that's kind of how everything started. So you had everything together. You had everything kind of going for you, right? the, you know, you're playing baseball, you got a family that was supportive and. I'm tall, I'm six foot, I got a good smile. Like I had baseball scholarships, you know, it was all just, it was great. Everything always worked out for me. But a little bit of a big ego. Exactly. Exactly. Started getting that ego. And then that led to just always searching for the next fun thing and trying to have the most fun in any situation. And I say fun because now in my sobriety and getting better and still working, and I still struggle.

5:56I'm human. I still struggle. But with that, I realized that's empty fun, right? Like that was not fun at all. Now being able to do these things and tell my story and connect with others, that's fun. That is true, true fun. Right. It's like excitement without purpose. Exactly. Okay. So how did this start to evolve here? And what happened? How did you start going down this path? And you're starting to do all these really exciting things, maybe a little bit empty, but what started happening? When did stuff start going off the rails? So really, it was my first year in college. I went up to Chico and I was playing baseball in Chico, California, and that was a party college.

6:41And so it was just that recreational fun. You know, it was the parties and that turned into me getting cut from the baseball team. So then I went back home and shortly after I got a job with events, color runs, mud runs. and I was the hype man. It was just the crazier I was, the more money I made and everyone hyped up around thousands and thousands of people. And you just got to be crazy. So that's when it really started unraveling. I had to go find that, right? That was the weird part is I didn't grow up in a bad area. We weren't in a bad area with work. I had a great job. I got paid to travel.

7:24I mean, the whole nation I got, we went everywhere. And so that's when it really started to unravel. You had to hype people up. So you had to bring this high level of intensity to the situation. You had to bring it. You had to create like this energy. Yeah. And that's always been me. Again, I was a catcher. So I was the team captain. I was the mouth on the field. So I've always been the, Woo, yeah, you know, I've been that dude, you know. So it was relatively, again, kind of came easy for me. But in certain times on my days off and even working at times, it was pills. Pills were a big thing for me.

8:06Xanax, painkillers, and any sort of that was kind of like my to-myself time, you know, when I wanted to relax type. So you'd have this high energy and then you could take, you know, yeah, like Xanax, bring you back down. and an opioid can bring you back down. Wow. So you're like regulating going up and down. All over. Yeah. So that's when I couldn't turn it off. And then all of a sudden I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd. I'm finding the wrong people. And that was 22, 23 when that really started to hype up. And then you start to realize like, okay, maybe this is too much. Or were you just caught in it?

8:49There was never any consequences for what I did. I crashed car after car after car and got away with it. And no injuries, no, I got speeding tickets. I got, I just, I never went. I never went to court. I never paid them. I remember crinkling them up and just throwing them down and never even thought about it again. And for the time being, there was no, no consequences for my actions. So it kept on saying, oh, I got away with this. Okay, I got away with this. Now I'm getting away with this. And so that was really my downfall was getting away with everything. Right. And you could use your charm and your smile.

9:31That's right. And so it was, I think, 2015. I rolled my car. I was drinking and driving and I rolled my car with a buddy in it. And I finally got a DUI for that. And so that kind of woke me up in a weird way where, again, I didn't drive after that. I was trying to take care of it. I went back to being a weekend warrior of sorts in the addiction and drugs and partying where I'd work all week with my dad and construction. And then on the weekends, I would go out to the color runs and I would party hard, you know. Right. And then a year later, 2016, August 3rd, 2016, my buddy hit me up and it was his birthday.

10:16And so he wanted to go out and I needed something. I needed weed. And so he had weed and I needed that. So I was like, hey, I'll buy you some drinks and you can give me what I need. I'll give you what you need. And we went to three separate bars. We were at the third bar. And that's the last thing I remember is standing outside of the third bar smoking a cigarette. And what had happened is he was driving and we were up here in Montana. I live in Montana now. And so we were up here in Montana and we were on the highway. And people, witnesses say that we were passing them as if they were standing still on the highway.

10:57And the speed limit up here is 80. Most people are going 80, 85. And I had been taking videos. I was the passenger. I was taking video. I was hooting and hollering and having a great time. And we were going about 130 miles an hour. So exhilarating. Yeah, it's always chasing the adrenaline. I said I was another drug of sorts, you know. And so we ended up going into the center divide. It's like a big space in between the two highways, either direction, and just a big grass center divide. And he ended up trying to pass a car on the right-hand side. And there was another car there. So he swerved back over to the left.

11:39And they said, I flipped for a football field and a half inside the car, end over end. Oh, my God. I saw the pictures of the car on your website. And it's just a mangled mess. My door got ripped off. And it went all the way on the frontage road. It was about 100 yards away. I'm getting ripped off. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, so he got ejected and he didn't make it. And when the car landed, it landed on its driver's side window. And they say that I was, my legs were hanging out the window and I was essentially bent backwards. So when you're sitting down like this and your legs are at a 90 degrees here, my legs were at a 90 degrees behind me.

12:25oh my god and they said that the seat belt was choking me out it was wrapped around my neck and witnesses say that somebody came from afar cut my seat belt and then disappeared back into the crowd wow to this day i have i don't know who it was i don't know what it was i don't it's a such a slash like it's such a clean cut of a seat belt barely any threads hanging off of it It is just, and they said that saved my life before the paramedics were even able to get there. Wow. And you don't know who did that. You have no idea. No idea. No idea. Like a mystery. Yeah. I get, I still get chills. Every time I tell that part of my story, we try to reach out on social media, you know, and it's been nothing.

13:14It's just crazy. Like they say he came from the other side of the highway, not the direction we were going, not the direction that the cars were stopped. came from the other side of the highway out of nowhere. And it kind of gives you a sense of like a higher power or something, some other force here, whatever that is, right? Who knows? Another person led to do it, but kind of like the universe looking out for you said you're not done yet. Yep. And so paramedics got there. They lifted the car up off me. They tell there's this big guy. I think he played for like the Seahawks. He was like an ex-lineman for the football team, you know?

13:48And they say that he lifted the car off me by himself. Like he sprinted and beat all of them there and picked that car up off me. And so then I was life flighted about two hours away to a hospital. And I broke my neck. I had two strokes, punctured lung, broken ribs. My hip was up in my dislocated and up in my stomach, essentially ripped my pelvis off my spine and it was broken like this and like this. And so I was bleeding out from that internally and I'm O negative blood. So I can only receive my blood, but I can donate to everybody else. So my parents finally found me in the hospital and the doctors were coming to him and they said, if he doesn't stop bleeding out on this last bag of blood, we don't have any more.

14:45And you guys need to start thinking about what it looks like without him, basically. And I stopped bleeding out on that last bag of blood on that last day. They got it all together. And so it was just thing after thing. And then waking up in the hospital, seeing my family around me, they were there. My mom didn't leave my side for two and a half months. Every day that I woke up, she was right there next to me oh my goodness so you this is all happening but you only remember from that part of you were at that bar smoking a cigarette sitting outside and you don't remember this event like i don't know you just woke up in the hospital two days later two days later when i finally woke up you know oh my goodness so what was that like here you are waking up around you what what was that experience.

15:42And that's fuzzy for me too. But they tell me that the first question I asked, I couldn't talk barely. I couldn't see because I can't see out of my right eye still. Right side of my body wasn't working from the strokes. And they say the first question I asked, I was trying to swing a hammer and I was asking if I could work again. It was the first thing that I thought of when I woke up. So I don't know why. I don't know. I mean, that's important, right? You know, yeah. So that was. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So you start. So all this starts to sink in. I mean, I imagine at some point this starts to sink in and you're like, what the hell?

16:20Yeah. And I was bedridden. I didn't sit up probably a month where I laid on my back and I didn't leave the bed. I mean, that's for everything. That's eating, going to the bathroom at 26 years old again. I had to wear a diaper. Wow. And that's really started to get depressing. It was, I went from traveling the world, working, being a fine-tuned machine, doing anything and everything that you could put your mind to that you wanted to do to being in this bed. I imagine that's just so humbling. Like you just, you're just broken down. I mean, you have nothing else. Nothing. And them telling me I was never going to walk again with the injuries that I had.

17:04They didn't know if my pelvis would be able to hold weight again or be able to do anything. So I'm looking at being in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And that's when I had a hard time with physical therapy and doctors coming in and telling me. And I just threw a fit one day. And I was like, I don't want to. I have to do this. I don't. Why me? Why me? Like, what did I do? And I had a nurse look at me. And she said, Christian, you don't have to do this. You get to do this. Oh, wow. And that's where my I get to comes from. That right there switched for me. That nurse had a piece of wisdom.

17:44She did. And that's what changed my life. And now I'm walking. I'm doing back to work. I get to do all these speaking events. I get to do chores. I get to do the hard things. I get to make the decision today to be better, to keep moving forward. And so that's what I get to means to me and why I tell people. And people look at my story and they're like, oh my gosh, like, I can't believe that. And I was like, me? I hear other people's stories and I feel the same way. Well, I feel like I was lucky in what happened to me. And I couldn't imagine what other people are going through, what that is. we're all fighting our own battles, right?

18:30Oh, yeah. But I'm just imagining at that moment, like how you had to do that total shift and that nurse came in and just gave you that shift of that frame. Because I also saw the pictures on your website too of you in the hospital. I mean, like you're intubated, you're, I mean, you look like a mess, right? That still, even with that, I can't imagine that's an easy haul, right? I mean, you've got a, it's hard work, but I mean, that shift in your mind, that shift in perspective, I mean, that does change everything, but I imagine it's still hard. It's still hard. That was, what, 2016? So I was 10 years ago now, nine, 10 years ago.

19:12And there's days, I said, I'm only human. And there's days where I still struggle with it. I'd still to this day, I'm like, why'd that happen? You know, it was finally the consequences catching up with me. You're one bad decision away from having those consequences catching up. And you get another opportunity here. Like that's an amazing thing. Like you said, I get to do something else. I get to do something different. How did you start to take this and, and make it meaningful for you because i mean so many people when we have really bad things happen to us either from our own fault or not our fault or whatever right it's it's so hard to get to that space where you are 10 years later where you can say this is actually i've turned this into something good so just life is always taking care of me in the weirdest moments i think it's my mindset as well that allows it but when i was coming out of the coma my parents didn't know what i could hear what i couldn't hear and they promised me a dog that was there if you just make it we'll get you a dog you know so two and a half months later we hadn't talked about it we hadn't but two and a half three months later i get out of the hospital and i'm like well where's my dog where's that where's And we found a German shepherd.

20:38Her name was Millie. And she was going to be my service dog. But she turned into a princess. And I healed up a lot better than I was supposed to. And she was there for me in my darkest days. And when I was at home and I didn't want to get up, she was right there by my side. And she helped me through those dark moments. And so I started an event called Dog Dash. And it was just for her and to celebrate her. I wanted to give back to her for helping me through those times, being my motivation at times. I remember when I was in a wheelchair and I still wasn't supposed to be walking yet. The doctors were telling me, no, don't even try.

21:21It's not going to happen. And she'd be pouncing at me and she'd want to play. And I'd be sitting there and I'd be trying to stand up. I'd be trying to play with her. And so those were the little moments that helped me just cherish that I had this dog. And so giving back to her is really what started my journey and my purpose. And so then it grew and it's turned into something way bigger than us. And we now donate 100 % of our profits back to animal shelters. And we help people connect with dogs because I believe something other than yourself. I still didn't really care about myself, but I saw what I put my family through.

22:02I saw what this dog, this unconditional love that this dog had for me, that my mom had for me. And I wanted to give that back to them. I finally realized and saw that I need to give, that I want to give. Oh man, what a powerful story. Because it's like, Billy gave you that, give back to this dog and then you can take it and give it to others. It's like it almost grew from a little seed and just started to grow. And then you started to see these things. That's just so powerful. And at the time, I didn't even know that I wanted to do motivational speaking to get into that world and talk to people and share and save lives in that way by telling my story.

22:46but it evolved into that because at the dog dash events, I would get on the mic and I would, you know, all the people that were there, I would tell them my story. And then I had people coming up to me and tears just, and they would share their story with me and what their dog has done for them and what their dog does for them. And so it just, it grew into this thing. And I was like, oh, this is why I'm here. This is why my seatbelt was cut. This is why I stopped bleeding out on the last bag this is why i can walk again this is why my right side of my body came back like this this is it this is fun now we're going back to that fulfilled fun to filling other people's cups that's fun and really like be able to feel that and be able to give that back even in those darkest moments like you said you know we're all human and sometimes we have those dark moments But when we can sit back and we can reframe it, right?

23:43I get to do this. I get to experience. And that in and of itself is an amazing thing, even if it's hard and challenging and difficult and feels hopeless at times. And just one I get to instead of, oh, I have to drive to work. Oh, I have to sit in traffic for two hours getting to work. No, you get to have a car. You get to drive. You get to go to work. And when you change that, you just see all the beautiful things around you. You see how amazing your life can be. Right. Yeah. And you're able to see it and hold on to it. Tell me a little bit about the Dog Dash 3K. Did I get that right? Yeah. Yes, sir.

24:25Yeah. So you're building this event and I wasn't sure. And I hope this is okay to ask. Is Millie still with you or? So she's not. She ended up getting heart disease. oh i'm sorry about seven years old and she actually passed away on my birthday november 1st she passed away and i don't i don't believe in coincidences out of all the days of the year yeah she chose my birthday you know and it's still hard that was my soul dog you know that was she was my that's still yeah that was hard yeah i would imagine how like in this story ongoing story right as you you learn to live with the grief and loss from your accident and you have this beautiful soul dog like you said that has carried you through this and then you've got a letting go of that and with all of your new learnings and experiences how did you navigate that piece too Not very well.

25:24Not very well. So I went from not taking any medication home after surgeries. I don't take any pain pills. I've had about 13 surgeries. I got sober. I was smoking weed every single day, all day, back to back to back. I quit that, and I was completely sober for the first time in a long time. I mean, since I was 16 years old type of deal. Wow. And when she passed away, I still didn't know how to handle that. And I started drinking again. And so then I had to go through that. It was just the only thing that I knew how to try to cope with the pain. And so that was the, I always say like, and this is my unpopular opinion, maybe I don't, but it's my thought on it.

26:14Addiction isn't necessarily the problem and drugs and all. it's our answer to the problem. There's an underlying, again, I was sober. I was doing great. And then I couldn't deal with the pain. I didn't know how to deal with the pain. I didn't know any other way to deal with it. So I chose drinking again and I've gotten sober and I still, sorry, Dan, I got it. No, I mean, it's, it's like, I think you're, it's a testament to how, no matter what, we're works in progress, right? We're just works in progress as we move through this yeah this thing we call life right whatever that is whatever that means to us yeah we're works in progress man we are and it's never just straight up or straight down and that's the beautiful thing about life too nothing really lasts forever the bad days don't last forever but neither do the good days right you're not you're not always gonna just be up here and just yeah you know there's ups and downs and ebbs and flows but without the bad days the good days wouldn't be so good and you know vice versa without the good days the bad days wouldn't be so bad but that's life and that's the beautiful thing about is feeling everything yeah even if it sucks i know that sounds weird but i think as you get to that space it's kind of you get to experience it all right like just what you said right yeah you get to experience it all even the hard stuff because sometimes those hard feelings, those hard things make these good things so much richer, but it's still hard, right?

27:49It's still hard. And I would imagine, and you can tell me if I'm off base here, but it's like doing the Dog Dash 3K, even though that's hard in some ways, it's beautiful in other ways. Yeah, and it is. And it keeps my Millie girl alive. We always take a big picture of her and she's always out there. and it's just it's so fulfilling to see all the love to see the dogs come out and they can like tell it's for them you know it's not like a dog park where it's like a little sketchy or like oh you know what's this dog like you can tell that they know like this is for you when we're doing this for you they're all so happy all all different types of dogs from the little dogs to the big dogs and it's just it's awesome yeah that's so awesome christian and i'm so glad you're out there sharing your message to people and bringing hope because when we're in that darkness man it just can be so all-consuming and when we can hear someone else's story of how they got out right how they crawled out of that even though it was hard but it always gives us hope right and sometimes even if we've done it before, we need other people to help us, remind us that this is the journey that we're on.

29:08So I appreciate you coming on. Before you go, I got one question to ask, ask every guest that comes on, someone out there, maybe they're in that darkness right now, and you could tell them one thing. What would you want them to know? You got this. You got this. I believe in you. You're one decision away, one good decision away from completely changing your life. You get to, you get to make that good decision today, right now, right now. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right, where can people find you? They want to know more about you and they want to know more about the Dog Dash 3K. Where do they go?

29:48So we're on all social media, both Dog Dash 3K on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Christian Struthers, Real Life Rambles. It's on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And we both have a website, dog-3k.com and christianstruthers.com. Awesome. I will put all the links in the show notes at theaddictivemind.com too. So check it out. And Christian, I just want to thank you for coming on and just sharing your story, bringing hope to the world and just helping people along the way. Thank you so much for this opportunity. You do amazing things here. And I know this community brings light to the world, brings hope, helps a lot of people.

30:35Oh, thanks, Christian. You take care. You too.

30:40What stayed with me from this one episode is something Christian said almost in passing, that addiction was never really the problem. It was his answer to a problem he didn't have any tools for. And that reframe matters. It's not about whether you're strong enough or good enough. It's about what pain you're carrying and whether you found a healthier way to hold it yet. And I have to say, I love that even years into his recovery, Christian was honest with us about still struggling sometimes because that's the truth. This isn't a straight line for any of us. So if you want to hear more from Christian, follow his story at christianstruthers.com or check out what he's building with dog-3k.com.

31:31I'll have all the links in the show notes at theaddictedmind.com. And if this episode gave you a little bit of hope today, please do me a favor. Rate and review The Addicted Mind wherever you're listening. Write us a review if you can. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and follow us on social media. Every review, every share helps someone out there find the conversation that might just be the start of something different for them. So thanks for being here and I'll talk to you on the next episode.