Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joe Yurick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Joe, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
We served our country, now we serve our community! We are a Veteran owned and operated junk removal company. Beyond only hiring Vets, we do our best to keep items out of the landfill. Anything that we can repurpose, we take to our garage. There we store items to donate to Veterans in need. We also open it up to the public, the last Saturday of the month and sell these items. Garage sale style, so everyone can enjoy them!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am an ARMY Veteran, joined halfway through my senior year(2000) in the delayed entry program. I worked with the PATRIOT Missile system in the Air Defense Artillery. After 9/11, I was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. I received an honorable discharge in 2004. Now I run a Veteran owned and operated junk removal company. We do our best to give back to the community with the items we pick up. We were also featured on a reality tv show called Operation Hidden Treasures that aired on the Discovery Channel and the American Hero Network. It now lives on a free app called TUBI. For many years, I self medicated with alcohol. To the point that it almost cost me my family. I made the best decision of my life and chose my family and quick drinking over 2.5 years ago. Now, I am on a mission to normalize sobriety with Veterans through my podcast called, This Sober Vet Podcast!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I would definitely say, discipline, intestinal fortitude and love. You need discipline to stay focused on days you are feeling down. You need intestinal fortitude to weather the storm of being a small business owner. But, overall, you need to truly love what you do to be successful. I work to the point that others my call insanity, but it is the love of what I do that drives me!
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
At this point, I am really focusing on my podcast, This Sober Vet Podcast. Our mission is to normalize sobriety with Veterans. This is a conversation that I have never heard, but would like to bring to the world! The daily average of Veteran suicide is 22. That is terrible. A high percentage of that number has alcohol, drugs or some substance in their system. If we can reach the masses and normalize sobriety with Veterans, that number should drastically go down! We are looking for Veterans who are now sober and would be willing to tell their story on our podcast. We are also asking people to subscribe and share with Veterans that they know who are struggling with self medicating. Our hope is that, once they listen to other Veterans tell their sobriety story, that it will inspire them to also get sober.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thissobervet.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DD6yrTjRjDK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567537590503
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisSoberVet
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
