Bob Stubblefield on Vietnam, Violent Rock Bottom & Building a Treatment Empire Across Tennessee

Bob Stubblefield was a functional alcoholic by junior year of high school — honor roll, sports, academic scholarship to UT. Then he found drugs, failed out, lost his deferment, and got drafted to Vietnam. When he came back, the spiral continued: failed marriage, nightclubs, criminal behavior, and a night that ended with him beaten half to death by police, waking up in a locked psychiatric unit.June 6th, 1984. That was the last day he drank or used. He's been sober 41 years.What followed is extraordinary. A community service sentence at a halfway house accidentally launched a 40-year career in addiction treatment. He and Austin's father became business partners and spent decades building treatment centers across Tennessee — deliberately placing them in small towns and Medicaid communities that every other company ignored.And Bob has been tested. Vietnam PTSD. Two heart attacks. Bladder cancer. His stepson died, leaving behind two children. His wife Cathy battled cancer for ten years, went into remission, then it came back — she passed away at home surrounded by friends who had no idea that morning would be her last. Bob walked out of her room into a house full of people who loved him. He describes it as God's direct provision.Through all of it, he never picked up. This is the conversation about how — and why.The Way Podcast — stories of recovery, faith, and second chances.