Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. My guest today is Nikki Six, who is best known for being the bass player and primary songwriter for the legendary rock band Motley Crew.

And although Motley Crew still tours, he also has another successful

band called 6am. If you've read Nikki's first book, The Heroin Diaries, or you've seen the movie

The Dirt, you know that he spent years battling addiction. Fortunately, he's now sober,

and he's written a new book called The First 21. In it, he describes how his

childhood shaped him, from his father leaving when he was young to moving around a lot of times.

His childhood left some deep scars. But he's learned how to work through the pain to become a

better person. Some of the things he talks about today are how he now looks at his childhood

differently, how he got sober, and the steps he's about today are how he now looks at his childhood differently, how he got

sober, and the steps he's taking to overcome the adversity he faced. Make sure to stick around

until the end of the episode for The Therapist Take. This is the part of the show where I'll break

down Nikki's mental strength-building strategies and talk about how you can apply them to your

own life. So here's Nikki Six on how

overcoming a rough childhood can become an opportunity to grow mentally stronger.

Nikki Six, welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. Hello. Nice to see you, Amy. It's so good to see you.

It's great to talk to you. I've been a Motley crew fan for a very, very long time. So how wonderful to be able to talk to you. It's great to talk to you. I've been a Motley crew fan for a very, very long time.

So how wonderful to be able to talk to you. And it was great to be able to read your book

and hear the backstory. I knew. I'd seen the movie The Dirt. I knew about the heroin diaries.

I've heard of those sorts of stories. But in this book, you decided to talk about your childhood. What made you

decide to do that? Well, it was an interesting thing. I had done a few books and I really

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