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cover of episode 409: Turning Back Cognitive Decline Post-NFL | Bernie Kosar

409: Turning Back Cognitive Decline Post-NFL | Bernie Kosar

2025/6/24
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Ancient Health Podcast

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Bernie Kosar: 我非常欣赏Dr. Chris将东西方医学结合的方式,认为这是一种协同效应,可以整合两者的优点。我个人的健康之旅也受到了这种思想的影响,我一直在努力寻找将传统西方医学与东方医学相结合的方法,以达到最佳的治疗效果。我很高兴能与Dr. Chris进行交流,并分享我在健康方面的经验和见解。 Dr. Chris Motley: 我很感激Bernie能成为一个声音,帮助有特定健康问题的人。Bernie在采访中展现了他的真心,而这正是人们康复的方式。东西方医学结合的观点很有价值,可以为患者提供更全面的治疗方案。

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Bernie Kosar, a retired NFL player, recounts his health challenges, including multiple surgeries, seizures, and diagnoses of early-stage Parkinson's and cognitive decline. He discusses his transition from relying heavily on medication to embracing a holistic approach focused on diet and natural remedies.
  • Over 60 surgeries and 80 broken bones sustained during his NFL career
  • Diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's and cognitive decline
  • Transitioned from heavy medication use to a holistic approach
  • Emphasizes the gut-brain connection and the importance of diet in cognitive health

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Hey guys, Dr. Axe here. I want to personally invite you to check out my new podcast, The Dr. Josh Axe Show. In each episode, I cover the science and principles behind how to grow and body, mind, spirit, and take your health to the next level. In my

own personal career as a doctor, I've witnessed firsthand the potential holistic healing and mindset medicine has to improve our lives. From healing my mom holistically from cancer almost a decade ago, to recovering myself from a serious spinal injury and turning that pain into a New York Times bestselling book this year. I have a ton of practical tips to help you achieve a breakthrough and transformation in your health from the inside out. I

And also interview incredible guests like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Mark Hyman, Dr. James D. Nicolantonio, Dr. Casey Means, Carrie Underwood, Dave Ramsey, Craig Rochelle, Christopher Motley, and Vani Hari, Will Cole, and so many more. And for a limited time, I'm giving away my best-selling book,

Thank you.

principles I share in the Dr. Josh Axe podcast will bless you and your family. Let's embark on this transformational adventure together. Again, that's joshaxe.com slash podcast. I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West in the world of medicine. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and here we explore how modern Western science and traditional Eastern wisdom come together to unlock the body's full healing potential.

Each week, we'll dive into powerful tools, techniques, and approaches from both sides of the world to help you optimize your health and live with vitality. Let's bridge the gap between ancient practices and cutting-edge medicine. Let's get started. Hello, friends. Welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Motley, and today I'm really excited. I have a very special guest. Our friend Kathy got us an introduction, but I have...

Super Bowl champion Bernie Kosar on the podcast with me. First of all, Bernie, thank you so much for being on here with me. I'm very thankful. Honored to be with you, Dr. Chris, today. And I don't want to sound like I'm reciprocating in my compliments, but as a guy who's developing some good outcomes on my health journey, I want to thank you for some of the good coaching points that you've bestowed upon me.

Oh, I'm so glad to have helped in any way. And, and I really am thankful. And again, reciprocating your message for everybody out there listening is you've had your health journey and you're taking the active steps to be a voice, to help individuals with certain types of health conditions. And I'm just so thankful and impressed that, um, your heart is so, so big. And, and I really mean this, like everybody out there, uh,

If I could say anything when you see how Bernie will say things on interviews, how he inflects on it, you can tell his heart's truly in it. And that's how people heal. And

I want to go through some things with you today, Bernie, but I'm just, again, I guess I don't know, say nervous. I'm just really thankful I got to be here on here with you. And whenever we talk about the Super Bowl and we talk about football, you know, my family, I grew up in Kansas, so I had to become partially Chiefs fan and my family's other parts were from Georgia. So I had to be Atlanta Falcons fan. All I have to say is that my brother is one of your biggest fans. And he always told me because how tough you were.

And it was true. Like we always saw how tough you were and like you never, I mean, you're always in the pocket and, but I want to say, um,

So through all this journey, Bernie, I know with being in professional sports and the injuries and such, I want to talk about your journey. I want to talk about your story. I want to be quiet and let's just talk about what you're going through and some of the health concerns that you have been working on and the things that you're seeing advancement in. Can you give us the backdrop backdrop and you can talk about anything about your story, about your career, about your health?

Well, thanks again. And I'm fixated on your East meets West. And as a guy here,

in the West and loving Eastern medicine. And, and a lot of times today, uh, people are so extreme. It's one or the other. And in your, your beautiful and how you've synergistically could have a convergence of both of them together, kind of picking the best of both worlds and integrating that. And I like to think from a remedial level, I'm kind of doing the same things because I,

It started out for me as my journey as a football player. And, you know, I could go through it. And, Dr. Chris, you've heard it before. But, you know, I'm now probably north of 60 surgeries, 80 broken bones, infections, 14 or 15 seizures. Hopefully the last one was in...

2017 and of those I was in a coma. Those last couple for 72 and 96 hours. Wow. A lot of that was around the consequences of playing football. And when I was playing football, I didn't really take many, if any, um,

medications and for sure not any of the psychoactive pain medications and stuff for playing. But post-playing, you end up having those surgeries. And this isn't at all to cast blame or pick on people, but it is a reality of where we're at. And now today in 2025, you know, the ramifications of pain medications, of Adderalls, of Vyvanse, of attention deficit medications.

PTSD type of pills, the pain meds, the Oxycontins of those natures. But 25 years ago, not as much science was done on it. And guys like myself were somewhat experimented on coming out of

NFL football and stuff. So to really spend most of this century medicated on north of 80 to 100 pills a day, to have had that seizure, hopefully that last seizure, I was in a coma for 96 hours in 2017. And the doctor come out of it and say, hey, you're doing awesome. Keep up with your prescriptions and protocols.

And literally, you know, you're scripted for 960 milligrams a day of Oxycontin, over 100 milligrams of Adderall and Vyvanse. So for almost three decades on those type pills where, again, I'm talking to you in Ohio today. And I love my number 19 when I played. But 19 people today will commit suicide just in the state of Ohio. We've had over...

Over 100 people in the last seven days died from the fentanyl overdose death from the Adderalls that are in the pills in our country now. So it's an epidemic thing that's happening. I'm not proud to sit here and say that I could have or should have been.

either one of those couple statistics. Heck, when I was coming out of that coma in 2017, the doctor said I have five years left of cognitive brain function. To be able to sit here today and know that I'm talking to Dr. Chris and say cognitive and be able to enunciate, articulate, communicate any multiple syllable words when us ex-NFL players

don't really get better. So to have been told, you know, six, seven years ago, I have five years left of cognitive brain function. To be told 11 months ago, I have early stage Parkinson's. 10 months ago, to be put on the liver transplant list, to be told that I'm going to have to get my spleen removed, my gallbladder, and trade out a liver on top of early stage Parkinson's and still dealing with

with a dementia issue. So again, I don't sit here today bragging, trying to throw around coherent, concise thoughts. And still, as I talk to you, Dr. Chris, I don't keep saying things to brag, but

dementia type people, cognitive declining people aren't able to come across like this. So I'm not saying this to look cool, to brag, to sell. I just know how desperate I was. And for here to sit here as a 61 year old man, I'm so proud to have grown up in Northeast Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, awesome manufacturing, steel worker town, Chris. But the quote

The Gosar family, you know, we are lower demographic steel workers. God blessed me, you know, to be able to play football. But when the mills closed, there was no real jobs, you know, for us.

for that. So to be like come from Youngstown, Ohio to play football in a very male oriented. And I say this proudly, but we're so much chauvinistic society where men don't feel pain. Men don't cry. Men don't show their emotion. Men suck it up. Well, I was one of those guys that was suppressing those feelings. And

You know, men had to drink alcohol. Men couldn't drink water with pea protein in it. They couldn't have vegetable juice instead of a steak, you know? So these are things now where I feel like I've been blessed out of this kind of self-need.

to kind of come up with some solutions so that I could be here for it. But then also as a guy who is super proud of being able to have played football and kind of withstood these injuries, autism runs in our family.

So I'm towards the spectrum. So as a guy who has to pretend to be extroverted, trying to pretend to be cool, deep down as a 61-year-old, I'm not. I'm introverted. And I'd rather be on the spectrum. Men could never say that 25 years ago. You would have been made fun of publicly. You would have been ridiculed within your own friend base. And

I've had way too many friends, Dr. Chris, who have committed suicide and aren't with us now or are living in such pain and unproductivity and stuff. So if some Jimmy Johnson used to have this phrase, somehow, some way, figure out a way to make a play and win.

This life lessons that football taught me on the field, it's really paying off off the field. Somehow, some way, you know, I wanted to figure out a way to be healthy, to be cognitively present,

And then somehow, someway, as sometimes embarrassing as it is to say this, I feel it's almost a responsibility to tell other people and other men out there that it's okay to have a vegetable juice. It's okay to pass on the shots.

Simple dietary changes, the connectivity between our stomach and brain, it absolutely, yes, it helps our physical issues that are going on, but a lot of the cognitive, the

The anxiety issues, the depression issues that are going on out there could absolutely be somewhat rectified and help with some simple dietary changes that I certainly believe in. And again, as a inbred Slovak.

who grew up proudly on kielbasa and pierogi for breakfast. That's not the breakfast of champions. Okay. So these are some of the things that almost feel passionate about and a responsibility to share right now, Chris. I love this, this story that you're, you're giving people voices, especially like when you talk about being introverted and now seeing the brain gut connection and with the, the health of the gut, the,

Um, when you started to, you know, started to the juicing, you started to do things like maybe going more vegetarian. You had these different changes. What, when you had your concussions, when you had your injuries, when you found out about the liver failure, was there, was it your own drive that made you go, I'm going to go full force. It sounds like it is like, I'm going to investigate this. Like what brought you into that gut brain connection? What kind of like channeled that, that energy? Yeah.

So a lot of, I think, similarities and some of the issues that you went through with the 2009, 10, 11 Lyme disease. Oh, yeah.

Your ulcer issues in 2017. Yeah. Headline issues in 2009, 10, 11, myself. We were talking about the seizure issues in 2017. Mm-hmm.

I had alcohol addiction issues embarrassingly since the late 1990s, so most of this century, which is into three decades and stuff. So being able to kind of use the reality bluntly, to look yourself in the mirror and say, look, this is what I'm doing wrong. I'm a football player, steel worker town, who went as a business major to the University of Miami.

Why am I doing research with Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz right now? I want to sit and debate research with you, Dr. Chris. I wouldn't have been able to understand some of the simple dietary changes, IV treatments, exosomes, peptides, food is our medicine, the gut-brain connectivity, the beautiful need for glutathione.

when we had the Lyme disease, I don't think I would have, I know I wouldn't have figured out how to turn back my cognitive decline unless it was happening to me. Self-need is a heck of a motivator. So I had all of that going. And Dr. Chris, for our listeners out there that are listening, also there was a massive passion for some of the issues that have happened to me, whether it was

NFL, I live on a farm with pesticide poisonings and petrol poisoning. So some of the stuff you talk about doing, some of the stuff I'm massively fixating on, I'm flushing and detoxing is imperative for our own self-need. But

I sit here as a 61-year-old today talking to you, but if you could go backwards 25 years, here I am in the year 2000, 36, 37 years old. I have a 10, 11-year-old daughter, and I don't know anything that we're talking about, Chris.

We're sitting there at the doctor's and I'm getting prescribed. And I'm quite a few ho-hos north of 320 pounds. And here I am at 210, which is what I played football with at the University of Miami. 36, 37 years old, getting diagnosed with ADHD and depression and all that. And I'm, again, a couple of Pop-Tarts north at 320, which listeners out there, don't eat those Pop-Tarts and ho-hos.

Okay. So I'm getting scripted for north of 100 milligrams of Adderall and Vyvanse. And I have an 11-year-old daughter, Chris, who gets scripted for the same dosage of Adderall and Vyvanse. Well, that sets off a 25-year issue for my family, for me and her. And I'm super proud. My daughter has...

figured out from a functional medicine standpoint. And she started with me seven years ago, helping me get off, off of the pills and then helping herself. This is great because you've taken your adversity and you've, you and your daughter and turn it into something where you're going to help other individuals. You, you have passion and I can see that you want people to heal. Like, how is your, your message helping?

you know, been received, I guess, with other players that have gone through the same thing? Have they reached out? I mean, has there other individuals who've been, you know, through the surgeries and have had the concussions and are having these things because they may not be able to have a voice. They may be afraid to even speak out like other NFL players or just people in general. Has that been like really resonating with those individuals knowing like, hey, Bernie's giving us a voice and we are we're not afraid to talk about like the pain we're going through?

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. From the players' perspective, the response has been humbling. I want to say awesome because lots of people are coming up to me

Again, I keep saying 61 to you. There weren't many 61-year-olds hanging out in New Orleans going and doing those parties and stuff because it's really tough for us to cope and get out there anymore. And it's not just a financial thing. Forget actually the financial thing.

The ability to be cognitively present and actually know and take care of ourselves on the road, at night, in other situations has almost become impossible for a lot of us. Again, I'm 61. None of us get better. When I had what I hope was those last couple seizures at 54,

Eight years ago, I couldn't really travel by myself. A lot of the guys now that I see, they've been super appreciative. But one of the things is that I could tell that the time is now for them. They really do need it and they want it. Unfortunately, I'm finding that a lot of guys who didn't play

who are my age, who didn't play, they want to do it, but you end up talking so much to them that there's almost paralysis by analysis. Yeah, yeah. So like for a football player, at the old days, Chris, I used to play, I used to have smelling salts in my pocket, okay? Oh. I pull this out. You smell ammonia, okay? Yeah.

So now there's a study, I'm a trustee at the University of Miami, where instead of smelling, still smelling ammonia to clear brain fog for concussions, you should be smelling essential oils, menthol, frankincense, lavender. So for guys like myself who have midbrain fencing, like Tua down in Miami, where you get midbrain paralysis and basically

The center of our brains are dead.

So to get some activity in there, natural activity, I'm trying to replace my unhealthy habits with healthy habits. So for the young kids out there, high school kids are still doing ammonia smelling salts, college and pro kids. So I don't say this to sell, okay? But this cuts down vaping and it increases natural endorphins in you. And it's just a diffuser that you can use.

So some of the older people, like you think it's being functional medicine, healing our stomach so that our brain comes along with it. People think it's so hard and stuff, but doing, I'm drinking simple things like hydration with water. Roy's in at the Cleveland Clinic who's part

Partners with Dr. Oz. He's a massive believer in roasted coffee. That's the number one thing to flush and detox the liver and the brain.

Well, we took that principle and tried to sterilize that dirty coffee bean and sterilize it raw to keep the microbiomes in there, Chris. So when you keep the microbiomes in the raw coffee bean, the effects of the flushing and detoxing of the liver and your internal digestive system, it

is a really nice glucose control. With my Vitamix, we Vitamix our vegetables and we chew our fruit and you get a couple simple things like that. Us actually, the football players, really get into it because we tend to be compliant and used to those type things. As you aren't used to those daily regiments,

sometimes don't develop the healthy habits as quick as I think they would want to, to get these good outcomes.

Yes. It's, and, and Bernie, when you have, like, I heard that you, I saw that you have your own coffee line. So you guys created your own coffee line. You say the microbiome is in there. And so when you do coffee, this is, I really want to know, do you drink a cup of coffee every day? Is it, what does it require? Like two cups a day, three? I mean, what would be a good dosage? So, so Dr. Dr. Mike Royson, who is, uh,

He loves it. He says drinking six to eight cups of black coffee a day. He likes his roasted. So for the football fans out there, I love Dr. Royce. And he's one of the greatest guys. Nice. He believes that for sure our children should live to be 100 years old and for sure the grandchildren.

But I ended up arguing with him as much as I used to argue with Bill Belichick. So with the guy who had all those injuries and then was on all those pills and was addicted, addicted to, you know, again, I'm not proud to be sitting here telling you that, but I was addicted for 25 to 30 years on almost 100 pills a day. Wow.

I would go from the late 90s and retire in 97. I would be able to go 72, 96, 120 hours, three, four, five days without sleeping. So when Dr. Roizen said, hey, drink six to eight cups of coffee a day, I argued with him like Coach Belichick. Like, I go, bro, I'm never going to sleep again. But what I'll do with this, I took the principle and

And with Dr. Oz's also with his green tea and the extract of the green tea, I found that between those two guys, when you leave those microbiomes in there, I keep mine now in water. So it's just a raw coffee powder with pea protein that I'll put in my water. And that's sustainable energy for me. So, Chris.

This is a trip. We're using this as a transition for people off the semi glutides to, you know, you lose a lot of weight because I'm drinking a lot of water. It's raw coffee and pea protein. So it's really sustainable energy all day. And I absolutely for people listening, I'm not trying to pick on the food industry, but ultra processed food.

processed fast food is massively our enemy. If you can moderate to get rid of that and you supplement water, raw coffee powder, and pea protein, you can help but get a little better from your physical standpoint and lose weight. That's amazing, Bernie, because when you put the raw coffee powder, I love these things, these

the remedies and you guys are putting them together and you drink through it all day. I know you can tell you have a burst of energy. Your body's like starting to take out the unwanted, you know, toxins and trans fats and such. It's true. It's like when you had Lyme, Bernie, I know like when you first got diagnosed, were you starting to experience like brain fog, fatigue, flashing lights or migraines? What was like your first step you started to notice like

I know I've been hit in the NFL. I know I've had injuries, but what made you sort of start to look into Lyme disease? - So all those symptoms are what I had and I just brushed them off. Football, alcoholism and drug addiction. Okay, so, and unfortunately I had all three of those

And again, I don't say it for sympathy nor to be tough. And I don't want to win an award, add a fourth one to that Lyme disease. But they became so unmanageable, Chris. So, you know, I'm a father of four trying to hold it together. And the cognitive decline of football with those other things.

And then you add, I live on a, I'm talking to you on a farm here that in the dark days, I was a fracker and I have an old fracking pet farm. Well, that leaked into my water on my water. Oh man. So I had to, I, it, again, I, it's disappointing when it happened, but I,

And again, maybe it's just me trying to make the best out of it. But if that doesn't happen, I don't learn how to flush and detox like I have, Chris. You know, if that's the football didn't happen, if the petrol poisoning didn't happen. So then in the pursuit of flushing and detoxing myself with that.

There's an expert down in Oldsmar, Florida, outside of Tampa, that does Lyme disease. And I had happened to be there for bluntly addiction treatment. And there was a Lyme disease component for it. And I just happened to see some of the people and they diagnosed me with it. Hey, friends, Dr. Motley here. And let's talk about healthy blood circulation, heart rate and blood pressure.

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Wow. You have been through so much. I mean, trials, truly, Bernie. And when you started to make the connections, what was...

People use the word aha moment and you knew that something was going on. You're like, I have cognitive decline. You talked about seeing your daughter and that, did it just hit your heart? Like that you had a burden to see, like, you know, your family healthy, yourself healthy. Did, was there a particular point that just like, it just, you felt impressed? Like I've, I've got to just make some changes. Yeah, there, there, there were a few, but there was one or two in particular. And I don't say this one a lot. I,

because it kind of takes away from the the seriousness the factuality of it or some people say it takes away from the seriousness or the factuality of it but you know when you're laying in there in bed and and now when you've been in a coma a few times like me and you've been knocked out unconscious you know double digit times like me you actually become a attuned to it you you

I'm a little, I don't want to say used to it, but you're a little bit used to it. So that being said, you know, a couple of the mine, and again, I don't want to say this to make this the focal point because sometimes people really get into this. But when I was unconscious for those four days in 2017, and I was on probably again, almost a hundred pills a day and, and,

Knowing I should have been either one of the suicide statistics, which is somewhat in my own hands there, or by accident, one of the overdose statistics. You almost have a choice to make. While I was under, you know, it was almost like I felt like the culmination or convergence of all this thinking and science and thoughts that I've been putting together over the years almost crystallized to me. And they came into me in some really...

kind of simple ideas. And bluntly, the food is your medicine one came out real fast. I came out of that coma with understanding to fight a mix, bluntly, my vegetables. Because again, I said the joke earlier, but it's true as

As a good Slovak boy from Youngstown, Ohio, you eat kielbasa, pierogi. You don't eat vegetables. You eat meat. You're made fun of if you drink water, not whiskey. And it's hard even now to get good water. So, you know, those type things are really predominant within my head. But as that was happening to me, I almost felt like,

You know, I was at that crossroads, that Jimmy Johnson, somehow, someway make a play or somehow, someway I'm cashing it in. And I know what the outcome is going to be. And it's not going to be pretty for me or my kids to hear, you know, that I'm not going to be with them with that. So it's almost like at that time, I was kind of shown some of the stuff from a food is your medicine perspective.

The thing for us guys, it's really hard to admit. And when you are addicted, especially with the pills and stuff, is how do you get through it and get through withdrawals? You could say, well, why don't you just stop?

OK, well, if it was just self-discipline, you could do that. But in bad withdrawals, when you're on 900 milligrams of Oxy north of 100 milligrams of Adderall and Vyvanse and you're drinking. OK, how those withdrawals, that's a five to seven day withdrawal.

Dehydration, shaking, puking, not sleeping, you're at risk of dying, your heart stopping, the convulsions, the possible seizures, the inability to function and take care of yourself, let alone anybody else, is tragically impossible for that. For the withdrawal part of it,

cannabis if smoking cannabis would get you through withdrawals i'd be fine with it and i would say that but that wasn't how i did it some of the rick simpson oils tinctures and what they're able to do and they're high dose so you need to know what you're doing with that and back yeah

Back eight to 10 years ago, they were incredibly psychoactive. Now I'm part of a company and I massively do a lot of research and we have a DEA license to study cannabis and transport it across state lines. And we've done a lot of research on the healing principles of it, in particular your stomach. So I make Crohn's, Crohn's runs in our family, irritable bowel, LSD,

is another issue for so many people out there. We have orphan drug designation for pediatrics for kids with Crohn's disease. And we are able to do targeted delivery of high dose Rick Simpson oil cannabis to your stomach

And that is able to absolutely handle your Crohn's, colitis, irritable bowel. Now, I don't drink or do drugs anymore, so I bluntly don't mind some of this psychoactivity. But for people who don't want the psychoactivity, yes, you could target it now and mitigate the psychoactivity while healing your stomach. Because now, again, you got withdrawals.

You need five to seven days to pass. I mentioned earlier, I'd be going 72, 96, 120 hours, three, four, five days not sleeping. Bad delta to get through a withdrawal. So-

In the science, there's a wannabe doctor now, again, trustee at UM, have great guys with Dr. Tony Post at University Hospital, Dr. Michael Roizen, I keep talking about at Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Oz. If I do too much Oxycontin, Adderall, Vyvanse, cocaine, the brain is tied to the heart and lungs. If you do too much of that,

Fentanyl being substituted in your Oxycontin or Adderall, the brain shuts off the heart and lungs. You have an overdose death, you die. The research of cannabis is if you do too much cannabis, the brain isn't tied to the heart and lungs. So if you do too much of it in thesis, you're going to fall asleep.

Well, Chris, I was so desperate, okay, not functioning, told I have five years left of cognitive brain function, beginning of the show, I couldn't say cognitive, I couldn't survive, I couldn't be a human to myself, let alone any use to my four kids. So the thesis, the science really held up. I did it, okay? And the initial principles, so a lot of some of these things

Treatments I do are off of functional holistic cancer protocols. And the Rick Simpson protocols for cancer treatment, you do 60 grams in 90 days.

In the withdrawal world, if you're just going to sleep, okay, the more you could do, the more you sleep, in thesis, the more also you heal. Oh, wow. So I slept through my withdrawals post that seizure, Chris, probably 20, 22 hours a day,

Of those five, six days, I came out of it not now. You're not healthy.

But you are not addicted. And once you're not addicted and you know I could get on with Dr. Chris and not have to have a pocket full of pills and not be shaking and being able to put your hand out there like this when you are a Parkinson's patient and, you know, a recovering addict and you can still do this, you know, that's something that you're proud to do. So that was something that I started doing.

that got me started. And then one of the great people always, when you take pills, they're always saying, oh, side effects, side effects, side effects. And almost all side effects are negative. One of the things we found when we were putting me to sleep to get me through withdrawals, that's how we found out, Chris, that the stomach was healing. Wow.

Because in seven days, you would say, oh, I don't sleep. Let me have a couple of drinks to drink myself to sleep. Well, that's bad sleep. The sugar metabolizes in you. You tend to wake up three to five hours later. But we found out with the sleep of the high dose oils that it's really deep sleep, REM sleep and healing really is occurring in REM sleep and the high dose sleep.

cannabis we could also do it in hemp now for the non-cannabis people but it's also massively anti-inflammational so modulating inflammation within the body which all of us have so here we have a guy all the surgeries and broken bones i'm talking about and now i'm not on pain pills and i'm not on cannabis like today i don't even have to take the rso

Not even in pain. Now, I do take the raw coffee powder all day. That's where, you know, and when you're in that pain pill world, you're in that Adderall world, ADHD world, Vyvanse world, high blood pressure world, cholesterol world. What do they say to you? Well, you're going to be on these pills for the rest of your life. You're on these till you die. And I would have been on RSO.

So if that, if I can feel good like this, but to be able to also feel good,

not be making it up, it's really a bonus. So that's the message I'm trying to share with people. I almost feel, Chris, again, it's a responsibility to show people you can do it. Again, your message, you say it beautifully, man. You could do it. Just a few simple changes has massive effects in terms of just your overall health and happiness and the effect you can have on others.

Truly. When you mentioned or talking about sleeping through your withdrawals and using the THC oils, and I need to look up, it's Rick Simpson, like the oils because

When we can take natural products and use them responsibly, like, you know, for your health. I mean, like, think about it. If you weren't able to do that and sleep through it, it would have been horrible. You know what I mean? Like for that recovery. And now you're you're that's what I love is when you're taking a message and saying, hey, this is not something to be afraid of. If you know how to utilize, you went through that experience.

to allow other people to go, Oh, I know what you're feeling like, and this is what I did. And that's what this, to me, your journey is, is so beautiful because now you know what people are going through and how you handled it and how you work through it. I,

I'm just intrigued by like the oils that are helping with the Crohn's disease. This is, that is amazing to me. I haven't heard, I've heard of it helping with that, but are you more going into your typical day? And I know you said you have taken, you haven't taken anymore, but do you find that patients that have gone through and they're going through what you've gone through, that it's good for them to like, you know, take the oils? Do they do it? I mean, with the stomach, was it, I mean, orally or was it like in,

inhaled or was it like injections of the oil? Yeah. So it is a, uh, it's an oil that you could take sublingual as a tincture as a capsule. Oh man. And the capsules, I really liked it. Okay. Because that went right into the stomach. So if, if, if you want to mitigate the psychoactivity, um,

and get it right into the healing of the stomach, the capsules got it down there quick. Yes. Wow. And it was so simple that I, and that coupled with

Heavy, and when I say juicing, smoothies. I mean good water in your smoothies, and I really mean, and juices. I don't mean the pretty clean ones. I want your fiber in there, in your celery, in your carrots, in your root vegetables. A lot of people say it doesn't taste great.

How many, for all the listeners out there, especially for us football player, steel workers from Ohio, how many shots of whiskey and Jack Daniels and shots of death have we done that we didn't like? If you don't like a vegetable, a celery, carrot, water-based with a little ginger, lemons smoothie, at least it's a shot of life. Yeah.

That's the truth. I love these. These are great. These acronyms are so, and these lines are so good. You're right. When you, when you realize that there are things that you need to do to like bring life, like in your typical morning, and I'm sensitive time, I know, and I can't keep it too long, but I'm, I say, Bernie, do you like now, since you change your whole outlook and you're helping and your cognition is so, is so good and you're able to talk and have good full, you know, uh,

uh, enunciation and such, when you started feeling this way, people would ask, like, how did you start off when you, you know, when you get up in the morning, do you have like certain daily rituals or something that you like to do? And like with the juicing, or is there certain things you like to help with detox early?

Yeah, so again, I keep saying that when I was an alcoholic pill taker, my routine was to swing my right arm over to my end table and make sure the pills were there. I'm able to now just get out of bed.

Okay, looking forward to it and know that going downstairs, the routine of the morning for me used to be, you know, I'd have taken a pill or two that was next to my bed. Okay, then I would have went downstairs and probably been late.

And what was ever on the kitchen table from the night before, whether it's the pizza, the pie, the cake, the cookie, you know, could have grabbed something like that real quick. And so many of us Americans, whether they're donuts, Pop-Tarts, Froot Loops, you know, Ho-Ho's, Twinkies. Oh, God, we get so...

that makes it so easy and convenient, okay? It's so simple to do. So I start my day as just getting up and then having that Vitamix right there. And I know people have the bullets, make that little, you know, 10-ounce, 12-ounce thing. I have that 64-ounce Vitamix garbage disposal. It cannot come from a chauvinistic world where the men aren't supposed to be there.

Men don't cook. Yes, we do. Okay. I don't know how to turn the stove on. I don't. Okay. But most of the food has too much additives, chemicals, preservatives in it. And then what remaining nutrients are in there, you're probably cooking them out anyway. So I don't even go that path. I go right to the blender. And it's almost idiot proof for me. Yeah.

You know, good as pH water as best possible. And then a couple sticks of celery, a couple sticks of carrots, a little bit of ginger, water, and chug it. And I'll put my, again, I don't do things for taste, so I'll put my raw coffee powder and pea protein in that. I'll drink 30 ounces of that right there. Wow.

I don't say that to sell, but if you want to lose weight, you want to get your stomach brain going, you want to have energy in the afternoon, in the late morning. I mean, that's as simple as it gets. And it does work.

Oh, totally. You can tell. So, Bernie, do you have it on your website? Like, I mean, of course. But I mean, do you have like your special links and stuff that they can get? So I'm redoing. You know what, Chris? I'm actually redoing all of this right now. And bluntly for you and for the listeners out there.

It is genuine. The last part of recovery when you are at this age and you really do have the diagnosis as I had, the last part of recovery and probably the hardest part is you really don't know how to manipulate, negotiate, not tell the truth anymore. Being able to be genuine in what you're really doing, because that's all you could really remember. Be doing the website

I had to ask for permission to go back and double down on this stuff. Yeah. Really only in the last, say, five or six months that I not only have been convinced it works. So, you know, being able to come up here and talk, you can't really fake your way through poor vocabulary and stuff.

and some of the issues with the dementias or Parkinson's. So to be able to talk like this is one thing. But then also, Chris, it's just in the last few months I've been paying attention to my blood panels. So I have blood panels that actually back it up. So...

I didn't think that things like raw coffee powder, when again, when Dr. Roizen started talking to me, but I almost argued with him now, I didn't think something so simple was going to work so quick. I didn't think something as simple as vegetable juices with the fiber in there was going to make such a big impact that, I mean, those simple, those simple little things, you exponentially move, you're able to keep moving forward.

Oh, I'm telling you, it is evident. And I'm with you 100%. The simple steps that you think do not make...

a change. Like people would say, oh, take aloe vera. And I think, do you say taking that, a cup of that every day is going to make a difference? I'm like, heck yes, it does. I've seen patients that have literally had ruined intestines and they've actually gone to numbers and blood work just by taking aloe vera juice. You know, those simple steps to make things work. And I got to make sure I got you on time, Bernie, because I really love this convo. I wish I could keep talking with you. You're so inspirational. I wish I keep, ah,

As we were doing this, I wanted to make sure you had my number too, and I'd love to get yours. So definitely like after we get done with it, we'll exchange when we stop the recording, we'll do that. And, um, and I'll keep in touch and I'll help any way I can. And, and Bernie, I mean, can you give us where your website is, what your website is, what your, you know, your, uh, social media feed is. Can you let us know what, how people can reach out and see what you're doing?

Okay. So I'm growing it right now. So I'm on Twitter is the most one I'm at at Bernie Kosar QB, but kosar19.com is my website. And some of the products at Kosar Wellness, I'll be putting up, but kosar19.com. I have a little bit of my story and some of the raw coffee powders and Kosar Wellness stuff that I'm doing. But again, just because I just...

in the last six months really became reconvinced of what I'm doing and being healthy that I'm really proud to be sharing this now with everybody. Well, you always have an open invitation. We'll exchange contact.

info, but you always have an open invitation here ever for your story, for anything else with Husqvarna, you come on and I will promote the heck out of it. And I, I really mean that. And, and the work you're doing and Bernie, I just like people out there. I do this with my patients. I just like to ask a couple of questions before you go. What is your, okay. What's something that people don't know about you, like a hobby or something? What do you like to do? Like certain things that people say, Bernie Kosar loves to do this, you know, or something that's not known.

I don't know if it's not known. I'm on the farm here and I like I like nature, hiking, meditating. I wasn't comfortable when I was younger admitting that, you know, I could be in the nature and meditating. Oh, yeah, I love it. And I mean, meditation grounding. What's your favorite music or favorite band, favorite song?

So music and music therapy is a big influence right now. And again, the University of Miami and their music school is doing an incredible music program with brain research, with TBI and cognitive decline and stuff. And I never went out and played a football game without listening to ACDC.

A lot of us ex-players want to be musicians. A lot of musicians want to be players. So to get a chance to run with some of the guys these days like Kid Rock.

It's just, it's pretty fun. Yeah. I mean, you're inspiring my friend and I know I'm a very conscious about time, but I'll exchange. We'll, we'll stop recording here and then we'll exchange and I'll let you get to what you need to do. Everybody. We're so thankful for Bernie being with us with his message. And I know that you got it. He's inspiring.

We'll have him on again if he can. I would really mean that. And so everybody, if you like this content, please send us a message, a comment, and just reach out to Bernie through his website. Pick up the coffee. I am going to do it. I'm going to get the protein. And we really appreciate you, sir. Thank you so much for joining us today. Awesome, Dr. Chris. You matter. Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Here we go. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you soon.

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Remember, true health is about balance, mind, body, and spirit. So stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore how ancient wisdom and modern science can work together to help you thrive. Here's to your health, balance, and well-being. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and I look forward to our next episode together.