A Fresh Start: How Streaming on LiveMe Helped an Army Veteran Beat His Addiction
Dealing with issues like substance abuse and addiction can be difficult but for millions of people around the world, LiveMe is a place where they can find support and ultimately overcome the obstacles they face. That was the case for Toby (GRIM WOLF ALPHA ㊂), a bartender and mechanic, who has over 90,000 fans on the app. With the support of his LiveMe family, Toby has not only been sober for nearly two years, but he’s inspiring others facing similar situations by sharing his own journey to recovery.
For our latest installment of LiveMe Spotlight, we talked to Toby about dealing with addiction, how LiveMe helps him stay clean, and why his LiveMe family is his support system.
Overcoming His Addiction
Toby, who currently lives in Minnesota, has always been a naturally social person, but after returning home injured from a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, he dealt with anxiety and was ultimately diagnosed with PTSD. To cope with the pain and stress, he was given medication, but Toby says his dependence quickly escalated from prescription meds to street drugs.
The next 10 years were a turbulent time for Toby as he struggled to get clean. After being arrested for possession, he was given the opportunity to enter a first offender program but halfway through in April 2016, he overdosed and says he nearly died. Later he served over a month in jail before transitioning to a rehab facility.
After rehab, Toby returned home, but his addiction had taken a toll on both his teeth and his self-confidence. Once a social butterfly, he didn’t know how to interact with people anymore. Later, at the 16-month mark of his sobriety, he relapsed and his girlfriend at the time broke up with him. That time was a turning point for Tony, however, and he quit cold turkey. This upcoming August, he’ll celebrate two full years of sobriety.
Discovering LiveMe
While he overcame his addiction with his own willpower and determination, Toby credits LiveMe with helping him to turn his life around. He joined LiveMe shortly after his stint in rehab and became inspired by a popular broadcaster ❤️Yopickles❤️, who has over 300,000 fans on the app, and could picture himself building a large online family as well. After spending a day viewing other broadcasters’ streams, Toby decided to take the plunge as a broadcaster and share his story.
At the beginning of his broadcasting career, he was still struggling with his addiction so he spent a lot of time on the app, sometimes broadcasting for 8 to 10 hours a day.
“Drug addiction takes up so much of your time and when you’re clean, it’s hard to fill that void,” he told LiveMe.
Toby says broadcasting did wonders for his self-esteem and helped him to get back to who he really is. Rather than judge him based on his past or appearance, the people he’s met on LiveMe are supportive of his journey. Often his followers are dealing with situations he’s faced and will ask him for tips or steps they can take to get clean themselves, which Toby says is incredibly rewarding.
“LiveMe is great because these are my friends and I know many of them on a personal level. If you compare my friends on LiveMe and my local friends I talk more frequently with the people on LiveMe,” Toby told LiveMe. “They’re better friends to me than the people I’ve known for 30 years.”
Though he still deals with the repercussions of addiction, the app has been a helpful tool in deterring him from backtracking. He even says what live streaming does for him is like what NA and AA meetings do for addicts. LiveMe is a “global support system” of people he can talk to and the connections he makes keep him positive about what his future holds.
“You get to know each other on such an intimate and personal level on broadcasts that it’s not uncommon that someone has met a person who they connect with in a way you can’t connect with a person you met on the street,” Toby said. “It really allows you to get to know people in a way you wouldn’t normally be able to.”
What’s Next?
After seeing so much success on LiveMe, Toby is currently working toward a full-time career in social media. “My goal is to get to the point where we are able to produce enough content and have enough followers and supporters that we don’t have to work day jobs anymore, in which case the content will be produced even more relentlessly,” he said. In addition to streaming 20 hours a week on LiveMe, Toby is actively growing his following on other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. He is also planning to return to his hometown of Newark, Delaware with his girlfriend Allison, whom he met on LiveMe.
No matter where life takes him, Toby is committed to spreading positivity, telling his story, and helping other people overcome the obstacles they face in their lives.
Photos courtesy of Toby
Read more interviews with our growing community of broadcasters here. Find the LiveMe app in the App Store and on Google Play.
