G-0PEXN4B5CS He laughed so loud the nurses came to check, he just lost his leg - The Brave Man Project with Hamish Niven

Episode 3

He laughed so loud the nurses came to check, he just lost his leg

Published on: 15th July, 2026

Al Richards woke up with one leg missing. And yet his room was the one full of laughter. New staff were warned about laughter in a room - if you hear a room having a good time, that's Al's. What made it remarkable was everything he was laughing in the middle of.

"There's nothing we can do. Your foot will continue to die."

"I'm done. I'm having him take it. The pain I'll go through is going to be healing pain."

Al is a podcaster, speaker, co-founder of the Healing Utah Success Summit and a newly certified crisis and recovery coach. In 2025, a plaque blockage cut off the blood supply to his right foot until it began to die beneath him. He chose amputation over a dying limb. Barely out of hospital, four weeks later, addiction took his wife.

This episode is about surgical choice, grief, and what it takes to turn towards the storm like the bison instead of running from it.

What we explore:

  • The two-hour ultimatum — choosing amputation over a foot that was dying underneath him
  • Why ego is a man's worst enemy: not crying, not asking for help, not seeing the doctor
  • The "message in the mirror" — Al's morning routine of gratitude and self-love
  • Losing his wife four weeks after losing his leg, and refusing to let grief become identity
  • Vessels, not victims — the Drama Triangle, paying it forward to new amputees, and walking towards the storm like the bison

Connect with Al:

Podcast: The Other Side of Addiction (Apple)

YouTube: The Other Side of Addiction

Instagram: @mralrichards

TikTok: @alrichards780

LinkedIn: Al Richards

Facebook: Al Richards

A little about Hamish

I spent 25 years building a life that looked successful from the outside, but within, it was the opposite. Everything was falling apart, and I was throwing fuel on that fire. The joy of life had fallen away. Late November 2018, I had to make a choice: live or die. I chose to live, and everything changed. I had to confront the pain I was carrying, look at the stories, and change. I built The Brave Man Project because there was nothing like this when I needed it.

Podcast website: thebravemanproject.com

Hamish's website: hamishniven.com

YouTube: The Brave Man Project

LinkedIn: Hamish Niven

TikTok: @hamish.niven

Instagram: @hamishniven

Personal Facebook: Hamish Niven

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About the Podcast

The Brave Man Project with Hamish Niven
Stories of men who have fallen and climbed higher.
This is not a podcast about fixing yourself. You are not broken machinery.

The Brave Man Project is for the man who is brilliant at his job and dead behind the eyes - the one everyone swears is fine. Raw, unedited conversations with men who wore the mask so long they forgot their own face, and men who took it off and found the world in Technicolour.

No formulas. No five-step plans. No burnout experts. Just the truth about what falling cost them, and what it actually took to build something real.

The show moves through two lenses.

The Mirror reflects the lie you've been telling yourself: "I'm alright, mate." Men who were Captain of the Universe, who loaded bricks onto their backs until the weight turned lethal - the heart attack at thirty-seven, the iron mask worn through a marriage, the three drinks needed to sleep. Then they fell. And they chose to look. Their story is your story, a few years back. And they got out.

The Window expands the view. Men who woke up and saw in colour - not because their circumstances changed, but because they did. They don't reflect your collapse. They prove you were never broken to begin with. The Mirror asks, "is this you?" The Window asks, "could this also be you?"

Your host, Hamish Niven, spent twenty-five years filming other people's lives while avoiding his own. Professional, reliable, the man who always showed up - all of it a performance. When addiction brought him down, he didn't find recovery. He found the man buried alive under his own competence. He holds the space here the way he wishes someone had held it for him: no judgement, no advice, no applause.

This is for the man tired of the noise and the bullshit. The man exhausted from carrying a mask. Whether the universe is currently kicking you into the foetal position, or you're simply sick of the black-and-white grind.

The performance is over. The real work starts now.

About your host

Profile picture for Hamish Niven

Hamish Niven