At 24, Doug Wenz was in a homeless shelter. His son had just been born while he was in rehab. His daughter was on the way. The life he wanted felt not just far away — it felt impossible.
Then one night, standing outside a dirty apartment in Florida, everything in his head went quiet. And he heard one thing: go home.
That moment saved his life.
Today Doug is a commercial insurance professional, the founder of a new company, a husband married in September, a father of four — with a fifth on the way — and one of the most vulnerable guests to appear on the Working Dads Podcast. Host Johnathan Grzybowski sat down with Doug for a conversation that went places most podcast conversations never reach.
The Hardest Decision Your Parents Make For You Might Be the One That Saves You
Doug’s father did not enable his addiction. He made the hardest call a parent can make: he locked Doug out of the house at 11:30pm and had a flight to rehab booked for him by morning.
“I had to charge my phone on the outlet outside the house. They wouldn’t let me in. That’s how much trust they did not have in me. But that was probably the thing that my dad did that was the hardest decision he’s probably ever had to make — and the best decision he ever made, because he saved my life.”
Doug has talked to his father about this since. His father still struggles to discuss it. The weight of that night never fully left him. But the outcome — a son who is now 39, sober, building a company, and raising a family — is the proof that sometimes love looks like a locked door and a one-way flight.
For working dads raising children who are struggling: enabling is not the same as loving. The hardest boundary is sometimes the most important gift.
Self-Awareness Is Not Born — It Is Built Through Consequence
Doug was not always self-aware. His relapse in 2020 — eight and a half years after getting clean — stripped everything away again. His marriage ended. He was in treatment. And this time, there was nowhere left to hide.
“I had no choice but to look in the mirror. I had no choice but to face what I didn’t face back when I was twenty-four.”
What came out of that second bottoming out was something the first recovery didn’t produce: real self-knowledge. Understanding his triggers. Learning the microsecond between emotion and reaction. Building the emotional vocabulary to name what was happening inside him before it exploded outward.
He is now the most self-aware version of himself he has ever been. Not in spite of what he went through. Because of it.
For working dads: self-awareness is the foundational skill of both effective leadership and effective fatherhood. You cannot manage what you cannot see. And most men cannot see themselves clearly until something forces them to look.
What is making you look?
The Fellowship of Other Men Is What Actually Saves You
When Doug reflects on what worked — in recovery and in life — the answer is not willpower. It is not motivation. It is not even therapy alone.
It is the fellowship of other men.
“The biggest thing I learned from AA was that the fellowship in that program — the men in that program — is what saved my life. Having the right mentors. Having people you can bounce ideas off of. Everybody who’s successful in life — there’s no way they’re doing it themselves.”
Doug connects this directly to what Working Dads is building: a community of men who are willing to be honest with each other. Who tell the truth about the struggle instead of performing the highlight reel.
“Society continues to tell men that they can’t have feelings. Being a real man is showing emotion. And if you show your child that — right there is the work.”
What Working Dads Can Take From Doug Wenz
Doug went from a homeless shelter to a new company, a new marriage, and a family of five — soon to be six. The road between those two points is not a straight line. It is a series of decisions, consequences, relapses, recoveries, and the slow accumulation of self-knowledge that only comes from being forced to face yourself.
His parting message to every working dad listening: you are not alone. Whatever you are going through. You do not have to carry it by yourself. And reaching out is not weakness — it is exactly what a real man does.
On the Working Dads Podcast, Doug Wenz proves that the greatest generation of fathers is not the one that never fell. It is the one that got back up.
Working Dads is the podcast for fathers figuring out work, family, and everything in between. Hosted by Johnathan Grzybowski, co-founder of Penji. New episodes every week.
