How a Sober Nomad Built a Life He Won’t Escape

And one of the easiest ones that was introduced to me was drinking and drug and it's a solution until it's not.

“But you look pretty young, so you started at a young age?”

Yeah, yeah, I started pretty young and then got sober at 21. And then travel being a huge part of my healing and it really is so much more of a hardest things I've ever done as get sober, but the easiest thing I've ever done is stay sober. Yeah, it's because of the life that I lived today. Zach Spoward is an author, clinical coach, and founder of nomadic addict. A platform built around sober travel,

recovery, and experiencing life fully without drugs or alcohol. With a masters degree in addiction counseling and nearly two decades of sobriety, Zach now combines clinical coaching with global travel while sharing the lessons behind his book, Love Unlock. We're just people coming together to have a good time and the beers and the drinking and the drugging isn't necessarily going to serve that.

“You can't just give up something and have this emptiness without feeling it with something else, right?”

So a big part of my work whether it's on the clinical coaching side of things or the nomadic outside of things is just helping people get in touch with like what is that inner voice? Like what is it that they're potentially trying to run away from? Like what does it look like to build a life that you don't want to run away from? Whether that's through like drugs, alcohol, and it's not about escaping ourselves in travel. It's about finding ourselves along the way through

it spans the globe, like a super-highest coal, internet Elvis, ready to fire from here. In today, Apple is going to reinvent from home. It's not over! I'm telling our weirds! The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to a special edition of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and I'm here in the South Beach Miami Studios,

but our guest here is virtually coming in from Bali and we're going to get to know all about them today in this special edition of the Zoomcast where, you know, we get to talk to some of the

best entrepreneurs, the disrupters, doctors, I mean all kinds of amazing people. So yeah, let's get

“into it. So yeah, where, what's your name? Where are you calling from? And what's your business?”

Yeah, thanks man. So my name is Zach Spoward. I'm in Bali, like you said, in Bali Indonesia, but born and raised in the U.S., probably told by my accent. Yeah, so I'm a clinical coach, I'm a dual master's clinician. I just finished his book, I'll send you a little bit about earlier here. I don't know if it's in the screen, love and act that guide to self-acceptance and conscious relating. And then I got the legacy maker show coming out here pretty soon too, which is

all about the sober, sober journey, you know, being sober almost 20 years in travel in the world, solo and sober, and it's a big, big, big part of my story. So excited to chat with you about it. Thanks for having me on. Wow, wow. So 20 years as a, as a, as a no-mad. So 20 years sober, 20 years full no-mad, but, okay, it's like 20, 20 years sober. And then, but you look pretty young. So you started at a young age? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it started pretty young and then, and got sober 21.

So it's a big part of my story is like, how you can get sober to young age, even though it's, I know alcohol free is a little bit more cool these days in trendy, but at 21, I was 20 years ago, it wasn't quite the case. So it was a big part of my story getting through that, getting into a lot of, a lot of mischief, and then travel being a huge part of my healing and meeting cool people and doing cool stuff along the way. So back in the day, right? Like, when you're young, you got the

high school parties, you're drinking, you got the college parties, and you're drinking, and it just seems like, oh, it's for fun. But a lot of people take it differently. You know, like, I was drinking

all the time, but I would never felt like addicted, you know? Even though I was drinking,

you know, several times a week, it was always like socially drinking. Some people were not the same, you know? They were less unfortunate, where, you know, that lifestyle did become an addiction, and I remember one guy didn't make it through college, right? Because he was too far deep into it, right? But, you know, after I got into college, I did continue that social kind of drinking, but then one year, it just completely stopped. But I had no feeling of addiction. I just thought,

okay, I just dropped it, right? And it was, it was in tough at all. But you're saying that at a young age, it wasn't you or in the other bucket, where it was tough for you, and you were, like, addicted. Yeah, I mean, a big part of the story is all about, like, it being super, super anxious at a young age, and coming up with trying to find solutions,

particular. And it just kind of turned my, my anxious mind off. And once I was able to do that, I was like, oh, this is great. This is a solution to my problem here, which is getting so sick to my stomach with anxiety. I would throw up. And yeah, eventually, it's a solution until it's not. And so I got myself in some mischief, you know, pretty, pretty quickly at a young age, you know, between 15 and 21 and then getting sober at 21. So yeah, I mean, it's not like that for everyone.

I totally get it. But yeah, it's been a cool life sentence, actually. I was just shark diving in the mall, the use with ocean ramsy and horn, or husband before that, you know, I was in Hawaii and trying to swim with Orca's down in Mexico and, you know, living in

Bali. So it's not always perfect, but it's, uh, it's a pretty cool life these days. So it's

definitely not to highlight the soap 11. Yeah, when, when did you get the, the travel bug? When, when did that star? And also, like, a lot of people, they think of no meds, they think of, you know,

“they see these people traveling the world. How did you fund your expeditions all around the world?”

Yeah, yeah, great question. I mean, there's a number of different ways to, uh, we live in such a cool time, right? Particularly with like AI and stuff. And it wasn't like that for me years ago, but more and more increasingly these days. But there's so many different ways to make money. And, and I think are really kind of adopted this entrepreneurial mindset. And I've had it a big part of my life, but I got into clinical counseling, clinical coaching. I did that for a number of years,

uh, directly as a counselor, um, helping families and, and people that were struggling with alcohol

on addiction and other mental health disorders. Eventually that turned into building facilities across

the U.S. for other people. I had, uh, built one of my own, uh, with the partnership that unfortunately didn't work out the way that I would have liked, but, you know, we, we part of ways. And but I ran that part of the learning process, you know, as you got to find that partnerships so and key, you know, so key. 100%. And that's a huge part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle as well, too. It's like you don't necessarily have to do it all on your own. And also partnerships are like

marriages, right? They're like relationships. So if you pick the wrong person, you're going to find out eventually. And, um, sometimes better just to walk away than to fight the fight. And, but it, but it, but it learned a lot like you said. And so it's all part of that entrepreneurial

“mindset that I think you're touching on. And, and so, but I also realized, and you hear the story a”

lot, particularly in this generation, that, you know, there's more to life than just work in my

life away for somebody else's business. And, you know, the seven days a week, you know, weekends, holidays, uh, chaotic lifestyle of of alcohol and drug addiction treatment is, is just that. It's extremely chaotic, even in the healthy side of it, um, being on, being on the clinical end. And so I realize, okay, this isn't necessarily lifestyle I want to do. So I learned more digital marketing, which has served me well for the Nomad lifestyle. And that's really kind of been a huge crux,

along with my sober travel branding and the coaching that I do, the clinical coaching that I still do today, like helping people in their relationships, helping people with themselves, helping people with their drug and alcohol addiction. Any number of things that come out that I touch on in my book and in my individual, um, you know, one to ones with them. So that, that's all funded it, to answer your question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you were able to do digital marketing on the road.

“Did you set up your digital marketing business before you traveled or you started just traveling”

and then you fell into the digital marketing? How that work out? Yeah. So I got kind of lucky, actually, a buddy of mine, I kind of poached me as it were in the industry. And he had actually launched, a digital marketing agency. So it was his. But he, you know, recruited me to kind of join him. And he knew I had a big travel bug. And he knew I didn't want to be boots on the ground, training people, building treatment facilities across the US anymore. So he's like, why don't you just take

the knowledge you already have, travel and do what you want to do? And, you know, we work remote. And that was at a time when COVID was taken off. That was at a time when you could actually travel, even though it was challenging to. And, um, and so that's, you know, we really launched into that. And that's where I got into, you know, Bali and, um, you know, was able to to build a little bit more of a lifestyle remotely. And then from there, just carried on. The whole brand name,

nomadic addict is sort of my silver travel brand name. That's, um, that, that, yeah, that really took off for a while, too. Fantastic. Fantastic name. Yeah, thanks. But thanks. Yeah. So it's, it's been fun, you know, documenting the adventures, Egypt, Jordan, like, you know, over 50 countries and blogging about it. Yeah, it's cool. The over 50 countries, um, how long, uh, in each country, roughly. Sometimes I'm just stopping through. It might be a week. You know, there's a sort of a

calculated intention. Um, but that said, I went to Egypt with the intention of just seeing the pyramids for five days. And I stayed for six weeks. And that's the beauty of being kind of a nomad on your own terms when you get to that space is you can go with the flow. I mean, I had a whole year called the Year of No Intention. And, uh, we should talk about in the show, the legacy makers show,

Maldives and goes to India and Jordan and Egypt and South Africa and before, you know, it, you know, you spend a year just bouncing around with, oh, that you know, yeah, the year goes so fast. Honestly, like, I lived in, I was a nomad also for a while, uh, mostly Southeast Asia and, uh, and also Europe, but, uh, yeah, that's 16 years goes by so fast. Wow, 16, man. Yeah. So you told it? Yeah. I mean, honestly, no, it's more than that because I'm still just traveling my amies,

the current current spot, you know, but been here for two years. I did a differently, you know, I lived in different places, um, and kind of, yeah, just all different ways to travel, right? But for sure. Oh, she said Miami for the World Cup. It's awesome. Oh, okay. What? Yeah,

“it was so amazing here during the World Cup. Honestly, great. It's almost like, what do I do now?”

It's true. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you landed in Bali. How long you've been in Bali? And then you set up this nomadic addict and tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so I've been in Bali about, uh, about five years, kind of like my buddy, it was sailing around the world with this family. He stopped here. He's like, this is the greatest place in the world in my opinion. He had traveled all the way over. He, what's Canadian, but he'd been on, on a catamaran sailing all over.

He said, dude, this place will never be like this ever again. He's like, you can get in on a business

visa. It's, you know, 350 bucks, whatever it was. He's like, come, I'll pick you up from the airport. I promise you'll never regret it. We'll go around on my way. What's, what's, what's that famous dish they have again? Nasi go rain. Nasi go rain. Yeah, come back to the ride ride. I was played a nasi go rain, you know. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. So he picked me up from the airport. You know, the next day I was got on the surfboard.

“And we were, uh, we were on his catamaran, you know, a surfman, a pretty untouched wave break.”

And I'm just like, man, this is a guy. I had just randomly met through a friend, you know, get me at the airport here and, and, and here we are. So it was a really, really cool, you know, to, to have Kickstarter things that way and it's just kind of stopping looking around like, man, just with this huge level of appreciation of how that started. But to answer your question first,

I'd always had a love travel. I got into scuba diving. I got scuba certified in the Caribbean,

went to Mexico and was scuba diving and took my brother there, love the ocean, love traveling. And I realized early on, I got sober in Los Angeles. I lived there for about five years. We should be good friends, dude. We should be good. Yeah, we should be good. I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm an advanced scuba certified. I love the ocean, you know, let's go. I'm with you. I'm with you, I'm with you, man. That's great. Yeah, yeah. We'll get you out with some Tiger Sharks or whatever, man. Let's do it.

“I'm going to be actually for my birthday in a week here. I'm going to be in Tonga doing the humpback.”

So it's a, uh, a valley. If you haven't done that, but it's, it's amazing. And, and I love that. And yeah, it's, I was like, we got some of their stories. But, but I learned in LA when I was first getting sober, my biggest hangout, my biggest struggle. And this is my invitation for everyone that I work with, is, you know, feeling like I can't do certain things because other people don't necessarily want to

do them with me. And then taking that first step, that leap of faith, I've like, okay,

well, what does it look like if I do it by myself? And that just opened the doors. You know, I started going to movies by myself, started going to dinner by myself, the beach by myself, that turned into a plane ride to Mexico by myself. And then once you're doing that, it's like scars the limit. You know, you can really go anywhere, literally. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes so much sense, you know, because it's, it's crazy, like, when I live the New York City for a bit,

that was like the first time I lived in a major city. And then I was like, there's so many people, but you can't meet anyone, you know? And then I had all these like realizations. I was like, man, there's so much time in a day, but here everyone's rushing and crazy. You know, it was like, all these like, you know, dichotomies, it was like, yeah, everything's close, but, you know, I feel like I have to like go travel longer than I used to when things were farther because of

whatever traffic or getting on subways and stuff. I don't know. But you're, you're so right. You know, if you just go on dates with yourself, right? That's it. That's it. It's corny, right? It sounds cliche. We all read the self-help books. I mean, shoot my book, my book is the self-help book, but you know, it's all there. We've heard it before. It's not new information, but it is a matter of doing it. And particularly on your cell phone, I tell people too,

like, try to go out and not look beyond your cell phone, especially in this day. And it's that's really hard to do. We try to not be on Instagram or whatever and just take a break and just sit with yourself. It's going to be awkward as hell. Almost guarantee it. It's going to times going to go by slowly, but that's where the work is. It's like, okay, what's coming up for me right now. So you can do that, man. You can do anything. 100% convinced. I talked to a lot of people that

were struggling addicts, you know, and we have that heroes journey here. And a lot of people,

for an award. It was on couples empire, right? Because this guy was, yeah, he was the most addicted

“to the hardcore stuff. I mean, fentanyl, heroin, you know, when it wasn't heroin, it turned into fentanyl,”

which turned into literally everything out there, living in the trackhouses, stealing, going to jail, it was something like, yeah, multiple multiple times, right? Went to rehab like 15 times. Yeah, it was the saddest story because on the day that he was picking up his his one-year sober medallion, right? His he had a twin brother and the twin brother was also addicted to stuff, right? And he was like, hey, man, I'm having a relapse, come pick me up. And he's like, okay,

I just got to pick up my medallion and then I'll come swing by, right? And then by the time he picked

up a medallion and then went to go pick him up, the brother had like overdosed and the twin brother

had overdosed and died, right? And then on that's the day after, right? The twin brother was living at their house, right? Trying to get sober at the time. And he had a package delivered to him, right? Just like a handwritten stuff. And it was filled with all the drugs that this guy was addicted to in his past, right? And he's sitting there at the lowest time of his life when his twin brother just died, right? A year sober and he's like, oh my God, everything that I would want is right here

in his envelope and he flushed it down right away, you know? And then he said something to me, he was like, because they had gone fishing at like four in the morning before their nine a.m. episode, right? Wow. And that him and his wife and he's like, yeah, we go on these fishing trips to the Caribbean, to all all places, right? And he's like, he's like, I have to look at myself and has like, when's the last time you were in the Caribbean, you know, on drugs, you know, a dick

of this and that, right? And he's like never, you know? So he's like, doing that travel, you know,

“doing these adventures, getting it to fishing, changing one addiction for another addiction, right?”

Yeah, you can't just give up something and have this, this emptiness without feeling it with something else, right? Yeah. Why like, you know, that nomadic attic, right? That's, that's him also, it, and that combination that formula works, you know? So tell us more about your business model a little bit, right? How do people find you? I guess you're a marketing guru. So tell us about your business model, right? And sometimes, marketing guru, yeah, you know, that stands to be debatable, but yeah,

maybe. But yeah, I think, I appreciate that. Yeah, a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that for for me and for everyone else that's listening because, yeah, I think it, it does, it's not a one-size-fit-all, you know, and people might not want to do this solo, sober thing that I'm doing, you know, there's, there's times out there where, you know, they might like the, the more conventional

“style of living. And so I never try to tell anybody that like, you know, you have to do it this way.”

To run on the black cracker trail in Bali, it's everywhere too. So you can't be strong and focused on that, you know, it's so easy to go on the beach, have a beer, have a mixed drink, be social, but I mean, yeah, you have to have a program and be focused on that. Yeah, so yeah, so a big part of my work, whether it's on the clinical coaching side of things or the nomadicotic side of things, because they're kind of one in the same is just helping people get in touch with like, what is that

inner voice? Like, what is it that they're potentially trying to run away from? Like, what does it look like to build a life that you don't want to run away from? Whether that's through like drugs, alcohol, you know, sex porn, gambling, whatever, even traveling, arguably against, you know, do my own thing. That can be its own addiction, right? Yeah. So it's like, what are we trying to run away from? And it's not about escaping ourselves in travel. It's about finding ourselves

along the way through the relationships that we make through seeing how other people live their lives, you know, establishing different layers of humility and just awareness of like, man, like, you know, look at these people over here in India, you know, live in this way or look at how the ball and these live and how humble they show up day in and day out, sweeping, you know, and working for, you know, dollars a day and really taking that on. So I take people on that journey if they

do come with me. It can be anything from, you know, literally tiger shark diving with, with ocean rams in Hawaii or potentially the Maldives or what it was just doing that. Maybe the humpback whales like we just mentioned. Oh, shit. I don't know, Gordon Ramsay. No, ocean ramsy is she has her own Netflix documentary called the shark whisper. It's pretty cool, but it's all about she's throwing the dough with the great whites. She's outside of the cage. If

you haven't heard of her, it's pretty pretty big, you know, check her out. But great, great person,

all that stuff. And but really quality quality human being herner has been. So I only mentioned that because it's like, it's an opportunity for people to have some beautiful exposure to some other great people that are out there. Like, what does it mean to get in the water and be with these animals? What does it mean to not be afraid of sharks potentially anymore? But to see them as the doctors of

“the sea because that's what they really are. They're eating the dead and dying and without that,”

you know, our sea would suffer. So that's the ocean conservation shout out. But really it boils down to like these are the kinds of experiences I bring people into today. And it can be on land. We can go do a water healing in Bali. We can do a, you know, Egyptian pyramid tour or in the desert,

which is amazing. I've done that too. So and it can be any number of things, you know,

surf trips, whatever. Or slithery, whites and scare the addiction out of you. Yeah, exactly. I've been on the great white thing yet. We can do the tiger sharks. But the great whites is, uh, I've done a cage great white, but yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's true. So, but it's just about like, yeah, being in the moment, coming back to yourself and like, okay, I'm living life. I just did a real yesterday, you know, just highlighting, like, you know,

let me show you what sober travel is all about. And it really is so much more one of the hardest things I've ever done is get sober, but the easiest thing I've ever done is stay sober. It's because of the life that I lived today. That's quite powerful. That's amazing. Have you ever had someone on your trip kind of relapse? No. Thankfully, no. A lot of my trips end up being kind of more one to one.

I'm definitely open to multiple groups, but and you know, I'm not necessarily like bringing in

people that are like quote unquote sober. I'm just leaving an open-ended frame for people at the come, alcohol free, drug free. And that's really what the trips are organized around. So I'm not trying to take people that are necessarily, you know, 10, 15, 30 days sober and force them into, like, an environment where they're going to be uncomfortable. It's about, you know, I do some screening and it's about touching me. So, you know, why do you want to calm? What are you looking

for? And creating a group of just good people. It doesn't have to be like, oh, I'm Zach and I'm an alcoholic and oh, I'm J. I'm whatever, right? Like, it's like, no, we're just people coming together to have a good time and the beers and the drinking and the drugging isn't necessarily going to serve that. So I just did a dirt biking trip with the friend of mine in Bali and he's not necessarily sober, but at the end of the day, neither one of us are picking up a drink or a drug.

So it's because, you know, you leave it out there on the bike, you leave it out there on the volcano,

“you know, on the mountain. That's what it's about. It's about experience.”

You're like, what is it? Walter, Walter Middy, that then movie or something like that? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a secret life of Walter Middy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're just goes around, you know. I always ask people on the show,

what are you most excited about? It could be, you know, maybe things at the forefront of your industry. It could be projects on the horizon, but what you got cooking, man? Yeah, thanks for that question. Well, you know, the biggest thing I like to to really just highlight and celebrate is is, you know, the fact that I'm no longer in the space that I was and in really bringing that table and attention. I mean, you mentioned that other guy and he lost his brother. I almost lost

mine. I was responsible for drinking and driving accident where my brother fractured this, he wanted to see to vertebrae and he could have easily been paralyzed and he's gone on to be sober himself. So I'm grateful for that. But I spent time in jail on, again, that's that's outlined

“in the show and it's outlined on, you know, in my story. And so when you say, what am I excited about?”

Well, I'm grateful to say I'm excited about a lot of things that I jailed, like in and not for least of which is that show coming out, you know, the branding work that I've done my book, you know, Love Unlocked, which, again, is hard to see. Oh, there you go. I got a guide to self-acceptance and conscious relating. It's, it's my clinical experience. And this is not an AI written book. This is this is 15 years and two degrees compiled into inner, inner work. That aligns with

the automatic, got to brand. So helping people find their passion, their purpose, their calling is really what I'm excited about and leaning into this brand. And I got an opportunity to speak on on stage next week. I've been doing a bunch of traveling. All of that stuff I'm excited about, the show being released. It's been a little bit delayed with some edits, but I'm really, really glad to get this out. And I just couldn't be more, more pumped about what I'm out right now.

Physically, emotionally, spiritually. And the people that I'm attracting the opportunities that are around. So I'm excited to meet more people. I'm excited to be put out there a little bit more. Yeah, you got too much, man. That's too much, all right. Come down a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just playing with you. But yeah, I mean, you're living it. You're living it, bro. And that's uh, oh, I came up with a fantastic, and yesterday's podcast, right? You ever heard of the

math ain't math in, right? Yeah. So I was talking with another therapist on our love expert show. And she's like, when people, you know, when they can't life. And then I was like, oh my god,

But yeah, your life is life. And you know, your math is math. And you got it all down. You got the

“book, love unlocked. Uh, I think next chapter is going to be the next book is going to be a life on”

locked. Uh, I'm going to see it. I want to see it, bro. But uh, thank you so much for for joining us on the

show. How do people find you? Yeah. Thanks. So the simplest way is just uh, zaxpower.com,

zacspodwart.com. You'll find the book. You'll find nomadic addict. It's all attached to that website. You can

“find all my Instagram handles and stuff there as well. Gotcha. Gotcha. So you want to be jealous,”

tune into his Instagram, right? Uh, but where's your next talk? Talk what quickly drop that? Where's your next talk going? Yeah. So it's called the villain within. It's all about getting to understand our shadow selves and like the parts of us that we want to hide from. Everyone loves a hero's journey. Everyone loves to be the hero. But too often we don't pay attention to the villain that lives within us. So yeah, that's a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah. It's been a

pleasure, man. Uh, I'm glad that we finally found the time to link up. And uh, this is my first

“zoom podcast, but I think it was a total success, amazing show. Uh, amazing guy, amazing business.”

And yeah, again, uh, you got to send me one of the books, man. It's uh, sounds amazing, right? I want

to get my love on lack, too. But uh, yeah, for everyone out there joining us, uh, thank you for joining us again. And like I said, you heard it here, man. We talked to some of the greatest entrepreneurs, right? And the nomadic entrepreneur lifestyle is out there, too. And the sober lifestyle as well. You just got to go out. You got to unlock it, uh, like my man says. So yeah, we'll see you another, uh, again, for another episode of Living Your Legacy. Thanks, everyone. Cheers.