423 The Sober Founder: How Recovery Principles Built a Business — and a Movement
When Nothing Goes According to Plan — and That's the Point Andrew Lassise didn't get sober because he wanted to. He got sober because a judge gave him a choice: jail or rehab. He chose rehab. And as he'll tell you, that was the best decision he never really made. Andrew's story is the kind that makes you laugh out loud and then quietly reassess your own life. At 16, he was blacking out at parties. By college, it was a daily habit. By his mid-twenties, he had a 0.24 BAC DUI, three failed breathalyzer readings on his own car-mounted device, and a pocket breathalyzer he'd purchased on eBay to cheat the first one. "I could have just stopped drinking," he admits now. "But that wasn't an option until the judge made it one." What happened in the years that followed is a masterclass in what recovery actually looks like when you apply it everywhere — not just to the bottle, but to business, failure, and the relentless uncertainty of building someth...