Matt Cozy

Content Creator // I spend my time working, yapping, and lifting.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

ima probably pin this tweet

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@hutchinson I’m so happy for you man. As a long time follower this really made my day. Thanks for sharing this with us brother. 🖤

[Hutch @hutchinson]

Wanna share a particularly enormous personal W with you guys! Bit a long read so I won't blame you for scrolling past this post, but I promise it's a wild story with a good payoff.

I've been very open about my story of getting a bipolar diagnosis pretty late in life. The diagnosis came many years after causing a lot of financial wreckage with an insane gambling binge I went on, which itself was followed by a couple more years of absurd levels of avoidance and more really bad decisions that quickly cascaded into something so catastrophic that it could no longer be ignored.

There was a four month stretch in my life when I spent every waking moment in a poker room. I mean literally every waking moment. I stopped making YouTube videos and decided I was going to become a professional poker player and I was going to pull this off because I was a natural (I was not a natural). Multiple 24+ hour sessions. My longest was 52 hours that started with $100 that I turned into $5k, and ended with me snap calling all in on the turn with a set of 2's, all because I was too delirous to see that there was a possible straight for my opponent. That was the worst drive home of my life holy shit.

There's a lot more to the story about how I landed myself in that spot but those details aren't very important. TLDR: lots and lots of pain. During this months long binge, I wiped out every cent I owned and after that, I resorted to taking on significant debt through probably a couple dozen different predatory loans of varying amounts. I was so far gone at that point that none of it seemed real.

Untreated mania is really crazy, as I'm sure most of you understand from some of the more high profile examples we've seen in the media. I knew what I was doing was the pinnacle of self-destruction and yet plowed forward without much hesitation. Looking back, I think that this implosion was intentional for reasons that are difficult to explain in a way that makes any sense to people that have never experienced serious mental illness. And I convinced myself that I could gamble my way out of the problem at each new, much more destructive step of the way. Not a terribly original degenerate gambler's story tbh. Many such cases.

This episode eventually stopped but by the time my debts could no longer be ignored, the cumulative amount owed from the loans + multiple tax liabilities was north of $200,000(!!). Seeing the exact number I owed on paper crushed me in the moment. I had no idea how I would ever work myself out of that hole. I had no faith that I could pull it off. I couldn't pass the blame to anyone else. I. Was. FUCKED.

Untreated bipolar is a pretty decent excuse all things considered but the truth is that I knew I wasn't alright even if I didn't know the particulars. I could have sought help. I chose oblivion instead. It seemed like the best option at the time🤷‍♂️I'm sympathetic to that version of me now after years of treatment and sobriety because it's obvious in retrospect that I was dealing with a lot of pain that I didn't understand, but I truly hated myself when it came time to look at my mistakes and finally start actually dealing with them.

The shame of it all was difficult to bear and I don't think I could have managed the weight of it without my partner, friends, and family. My beautiful Esmeralda in particular was a crucial part of this story. She helped remind me in the moments when I felt hopeless that I would eventually get through it with time and hard work. I remember feeling bad for her when she would say these things to me, thinking that she was wrong about my ability to ultimately get through it.

I set up multiple installment agreements that totaled thousands of dollars every month (not fun) at a time when I had nuked my income and business (REALLY not fun)...and then I just got to work and kept making those payments. I really wanted to just ignore it all and find excuses to not have to build up my business from the ashes of where I had left it, but I doubt Esme would have tolerated that for more than a week. The only play unfortunately was to adult the ever living shit out of this problem.

For the last 10 years, I was reminded of the enormity and the consequences of my past mistakes around the 15th of every month when the was automatically withdrawn from my account. It really sucked in the beginning, but eventually over years my shame turned into something that more closely resembled determination. Wiping out the loans one by one helped with that, and eventually all I had to focus on was Uncle Sam and the great state of CA.

There's a whole lot of relevant experiences during this phase of my life. More mistakes were made periodically and I eventually got the help I needed. There's a lot that went down, good and bad and everything in between...but this is already a long post so let me get to the real good stuff and close it out.

I just got the news today that I have completely satisfied all of my tax related debt. I'm really proud of myself for somehow pulling this off and I'm really glad to have the people in my life who were there for me in ways that I don't know I'll ever be able to repay. I still don't fully understand how I managed to do it because there were many, mannnnny moments of profound self-doubt, uncertainty, and forces totally out of my ability to control.

But I did it. I fuckin actually pulled it off. Jesus Christ. Hard to put into words this feeling right now compared with the moment of seeing the dollar amount of how much damage I had actually caused. The levels of truly fuckedness I was at cannot be overstated. And today the balance is ZERO. Holy shit lol.

Anyways. It goes without saying that I obviously could not have done all that without my viewers and community that made this career possible for me. I somehow made it through all that mess, at times having to be carried somewhat. And in the process of all of that, I discovered a newfound kind of drive and love for the work I get to do. I could not have done that alone.

You guys saved my fucking ASS my god. So thanks for that!😬

PS - to anyone reading this right now considering a career in professional poker, I would personally not recommend it.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@ForwardLeaks pretty much

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@ShanieceSaysHey @InfinityWard You guys always kill it. Awesome to see the creators getting the spotlight

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@MrDalekJD Do you think this game has the “sauce” to not only maintain the series where it is but to also build the momentum to push the series forward?

I feel like COD games have a duty to seize in the current moment while also setting the trajectory.

Thanks for doing this.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@DexBadgett Happy Birthday my dude. Happy to see you doing well!

[Ms.K @mskmalibu]

Btw in your 20’s and 30’s you’ll start rediscovering the niche interests and hobbies you had as a kid. It’s very important you revisit them. Your younger self was actually on to something

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@oliverhenry My gut tells me you’re using AI to make entire sweeping portions of the content. (Including creative copy, thumbnails, etc.)

I’m not an AI doomer but YouTube goes through great lengths to detect and suppress it if it’s not woven in correctly.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

Precisely why I started making these videos

Genuinely makes my day.

[RattPack™ @RattPack]

9 years ago today, Logic released his 3rd official studio album Everybody

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

2-3 videos per week for over a month

cool.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

I swear I did not know I was coming back to YouTube when I wrote this.

I ended up uploading 11 videos in roughly a month following

I must’ve known in the back of my head I really wanted this again

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

My biggest regret when it comes to Call of Duty content creation is switching from personal, community based content to Call of Duty news, Class setup slops, and commoditized gameplay commentary.

During the “slop” era of my channel I received the most views and growth but-

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

There’s just something special about late night life advice with Town zombies gameplay in the backdrop

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

How to Stop Wasting Your Life:
https://t.co/tfIMVutY2p

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

How to Stop Wasting Your Life:
https://t.co/tfIMVutY2p

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@ApollosMission Well done Apollo

I’m beyond happy for you my man

[Tom @Syndicate]

Wow, I just remembered the word ‘Derp’ was a thing 😅
Was our young era on the internet worse than today’s?
Surely not… right!?
But we did have things like Nyan Cat, ADSF Movies, Arrows to Knees, Shmoyo snatching yo people up 😅

It was a hell of a time to be alive!

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

If you think Black Ops 7 MP is bad I want you to look into the mirror and realize how genuinely wrong you are

It laps BO4, BOCW, & BO6 undeniably.

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@ApollosMission happy birthday!

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

I realized my Xbox friends list is a graveyard because everyone just finished their level and moved on.

Nobody abandoned you.

Their lives just got loud, and they had to silence the noise to build something real.

The view is a lot better on this side, though

[Matt Cozy @MattCoze]

@KARNAGEclan game was so bad they had to drop it with modern warfare remastered and drop another bo3 dlc 🤣🤣🤣