In The Threshing Floor, a new feature documentary from director Brad Alexander, the story of addiction and recovery is stripped of cliché and sanitized narrative arcs. Instead, it’s replaced with something raw, sacred, and deeply personal: the unflinching testimony of Tim Arrigo, a former addict turned clinical counselor whose story is reshaping how we think about male vulnerability, healing, and redemption.
“The turning point came when I realized why I was so effective in the clinical setting,” Tim says. “It wasn’t just my education or licensure—it was my scars. Clients could see I wasn’t speaking from a textbook; I was speaking from the trenches. The same pain that nearly destroyed me became the exact reason men opened up, trusted me, and finally let someone in.”
That realization sparked The Threshing Floor, a title grounded in both metaphor and mission. “Over time, I began to understand that my story had power—not because it was dramatic, but because it was real,” Tim says. “I knew the documentary had to go beyond inspiration. It had to be raw, unfiltered, and sacred—because that’s how healing actually happens.”
The film, which spans years of footage and personal transformation, does not shy away from the emotional cost of recovery. For Tim, the hardest moments of filming weren’t about reliving his own pain—they were about facing the grief of others’ losses.
“It was losing friends along the way—men I loved, counseled, prayed with, and believed would make it,” Tim says. “Some of them are gone—overdoses, suicides, relapses that ended in silence. Feeling that grief while filming… that was the heaviest weight. There were moments during filming when I’d stop mid-sentence, because their faces would flash through my mind. It wasn’t just my story I was telling—it was theirs too.”
For Brad Alexander, directing the film was a personal reckoning as well. “Tim and I had known each other as kids,” Brad shares. “I saw firsthand some of his story when it was unfolding. We’ve both lost a lot of friends to the drug epidemic too. When we reconnected, I felt like there was a story bigger than us that had a fighting chance to change the conversation at large.”
Brad’s background in skate and punk culture shaped his preference for grassroots, on-the-ground filmmaking. “I thrive in the trenches and just being out there, adapting to the environment, and letting life unfold on camera,” he says. The film’s production was organic, deeply embedded in real spaces and histories—including the skateparks, crash sites, and high school campuses of their youth.
But the most powerful evolution happened during production itself. “I don’t think Tim and I are the same guys we were when we started this film,” Brad says. “Some emotions came up that had to be faced, and a lot of healing came through the journey.”
Producer Reed Stoecker helped bring the decade-long transformation to life through a lens of lived experience and technical precision. “Opening up those memory catalogues, getting vulnerable, and retelling stories of a life that has passed, takes guts and a passionate leader like Brad who is willing to bear it all for the sake of delivering hope to others,” Reed says.
Faith was not an optional layer to the story—it was the center of it. “Without faith, there is no Threshing Floor,” Tim says. “This isn’t just a recovery story—it’s a resurrection story. We weren’t interested in filming a sanitized version of healing. We wanted to show the real war: the war for a man’s soul. Every frame of this film is rooted in the belief that true transformation doesn’t come from willpower alone—it comes from surrender.”
More than just a documentary about substance abuse, The Threshing Floor is a broader cultural challenge to how we view recovery, masculinity, and resilience. “Men aren’t dying because they’re weak—they’re dying because they’ve been taught to hide,” Tim explains. “The film dismantles that lie. It reframes purpose as something that doesn’t come from proving yourself, but from finally facing yourself.”
Ultimately, the team hopes the film helps shift the public narrative around addiction. “Addiction isn’t just a chemical issue—it’s a soul issue,” Tim says. “People don’t end up in dark places because they’re weak—they end up there because they’re wounded. This film reframes recovery as a spiritual awakening, not a clinical diagnosis.”
And if it saves even one life?
“Then we did our job,” Tim says. “You’re not too far gone. There’s still purpose in your pain. And you were never fighting alone.”