Latest / Breaking Down Addiction / #25 Bruce Gates — From Shame to Self-Acceptance: Addiction, Recovery, & Finding Purpose

Transcript

#25 Bruce Gates — From Shame to Self-Acceptance: Addiction, Recovery, & Finding Purpose · Breaking Down Addiction

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So now all the connections I had to like healthy people that were in my life cut off.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm smiling.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Breaking Down Addiction, a podcast brought to you by National Addiction Specialists.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you got Johnny Phillip here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be your host today.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I brought my great friend, bestie, uh Mr.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Bruce Gates.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's a fellow treatment advocate, person in long-term recovery.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: You've done business development, you've worked in the treatment world for I'd call it a decade.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: A decade.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll get into all that, but I like to start all these podcasts out with the same question.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that is if you were sitting across from yourself an active addiction, let's call it your like deepest low.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to yourself?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a great question.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh first off, thank you for having me.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's always great.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um hanging out with you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's wow.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know it's kind of emotional when I think back.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it feels like yesterday when I when I conjure up that memory, um, which I'm thankful for.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure we'll get into that later.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But um things what I would tell myself is things do get better, um you may feel hopeless right now, but that's not going to last forever.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um on the other side, it's quite beautiful.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is peace, there is joy, there's forgiveness.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um you will learn to love yourself again.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: There is love.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: There is love on the other side.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I always, when I ask that question, I always say to myself, when I'm when I'm listening to an answer from our guest, I always try to remind myself that I'm worthy of love.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't think I deserved it at that point.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Same.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Same.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's huge.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's emotional even saying that out loud because I, you know, when I think back to that moment, um I didn't feel any of that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um from the beginning of my journey, from being a kid, I didn't feel lovable.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't feel like I mattered.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel like uh anyone cared.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I felt very alone.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: That that hurts me because I love you so much.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're one of the most beautiful people that I know, and you're this huge walking heart.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um but let's you're mentioning the beginning of your journey.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's take it back to you.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you had your first drink at like 10 or 11.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well what do you remember about that?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy, yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very young.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my aunt, who is uh an addict as well, um, I was visiting her and my cousin, who is about a year older than I am, and she had some girlfriends over and asked my cousin and I to sit at the table with them as they were playing, and I still remember the game, it was uh quarters, you know, quarters for the shot glass.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, you know, I wanted to be part of, and so me and my cousin sat at the table and proceeded to get really drunk.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember feeling this uh moment of accomplishment because my cousin passed out and fell out of a chair and I kept going.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was holding, I was going to win this.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thinking already in my head.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: At that age, with no experience.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: No experience.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is my first drink.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I got drunk that night, you know, and uh I remember waking up and it was horrible.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was hung over.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I remember throwing up and feeling sick.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom, who was also there, um, came down the stairs, looked at me and said, That's what you get.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So she knew that you learned a lesson.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, or she didn't care is what I took it as.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, there you go.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, that was my first drink.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So how long did you learn your lesson there until you started wanting to drink?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Very long.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, after the hangover subsided, you know, and things got back to normal, um, I was ready to drink again.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so any time that I spent with my cousin, um, we would find ways to get alcohol.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my aunt uh multiple times would provide that for us because she was doing drugs with her friends, and she would send me and my cousin up to the bedroom, but she would make us a picture of whatever they were also having.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I remember having margaritas, pina colados, you know, like these mixed drinks or whatever, and we would go up to the bedroom and and proceed to to get drunk.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is your aunt still alive?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: My aunt, my yeah, she is.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: She is, and she's not doing well.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: She's still like, you know, an active addiction and um fading away.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, her health has declined rapidly, um, and that still hasn't stopped her.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So okay.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to fast forward that far.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was just curious as to where she was in life.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So this didn't stop you, this hangover at 10 or 11, and you keep you keep going.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where does this bring you up into like high school?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And does other things get involved?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Does other drugs get involved at this time?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my stepfather uh is an addict as well, and that's who I grew up with.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was a pothead and alcoholic and and did other substances that you know with my aunt.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Him and my aunt were close.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I remember sneaking in to his weed stash and getting high by myself for the first time.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was like 14 or 15 at that moment.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I was still drinking any chance that I got.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then at 15, I got high.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get high the first time you smoked?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That feeling, and I still remember that feeling.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um nothing mattered.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: The anxiety was gone.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wasn't scared.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was a lot of fear in my household.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of abuse that was going on.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my stepfather was very abusive to my mom and to myself.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we can go into that later.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when I smoked pot for that first time, I remember not thinking about any of that.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt free.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt calm and I felt happy, and I felt like I was on cloud nine.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, I thought I was in the clouds.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I remember I wanted that feeling.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: No anxiety.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is just bliss.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first time, yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: No anxiety, no paranoia the first time I smoked bot.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: You found another thing to add to your arsenal to make you feel better and like yourself.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think you were running from or chasing?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um from the dread of life, really, um, of being me, you know, I was so uncomfortable in my skin at a very, very young age.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I knew that I was different very young.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that how I felt was not accepted because it was always thrown in my face.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, like I was called a faggot very early on.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was like not even 10 years old when that happened for my stepfather, you know, calling me a faggot.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Stepfather.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not in school.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is not in school.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that hardly ever happened in school, to be honest.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was always terrified that that would happen.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: That you would be that I would be called out.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I didn't want anyone to know that part of me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was terrified that I would get beat up or made fun of or ostracized, not have friends.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I carried around this immense amount of like shame and hating who I was and not even understanding that I was gay, heard the term, didn't really understand what that meant, but knew that I was attracted to guys.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when I got high or drank, I didn't feel that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel that care.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I went out there and said, Oh, by the way, I'm gay.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The guilt and shame went away.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the guilt and shame, that part, that heaviness that I constantly felt, the anxiety, the depression, was alleviated.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like just taken away.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just, I'm sorry that you felt that way.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so you were you hiding your preference then at that age?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Very much so.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I grew up um first I grew up in LA.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, that's where I was born, and I stayed there until I was almost 13.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then my stepfather, he couldn't keep a job, he kept moving us um from town to town around LA, and then uh in the mountains uh right outside of LA, and then moved us to Arizona.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when I moved to Arizona, it was a very small town, like 13,000 people, very conservative, you know.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's where I was really scared of ever being found out.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um my stepfather, like I said, would continue to call me a faggot, would continue to, you know, ridicule me, make fun of me, um, extremely verbally and and physically abusive.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the person that's helping raise you.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and he didn't help raise me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was just there.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was uh he couldn't keep a job, he didn't provide for food, uh, hardly ever.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't even count how many jobs he was in and out of, and there was a lot of times he just didn't work.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so my mom was like, you know, on food stamps.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up very, very poor.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in a trailer that didn't have water or like heat.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So like to flush the toilet, we would have to wait.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, when we took showers, we had milk jugs that had holes poked in it, and we that's how we would take showers.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So all of that compounded on top of like feeling gay, like feeling this feeling of being different, which me being gay, and that shame of like living poor like in this condition that was embarrassing that I didn't want anyone to find out.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I would just hide all of that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even imagine.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I grew up in a middle class, you know, blue-collar family.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um I've always been very thankful for that.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for sharing that, you know, the how you how you were raised, and there's no shame in it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's where your family was.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it taught me how to survive, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was in all honesty.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, yeah, I was it was shameful, and that that's where a lot of living uh a dual life came into play, you know, was I I learned how to do that.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to survive the best way that I could, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that it was healthy by any means, but I lived in this fantasy land in my head, and you know, I tried to portray something else, not this poor kid that was abused and was hiding his sexuality.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I tried to be something different so no one would find out.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So did you go to high school then in Arizona?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did, yep.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what was high school like?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Were you still smoking weed and drinking?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, like what was going on there?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: High school was hell.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm sorry.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I didn't have a ton of friends, um, believe it or not.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you have all the friends in the world now, thank God.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I uh and you know, I was uh so scared.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I didn't, I was such this awkward kid, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: First off, and I didn't know how to connect with other guys.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't play sports, I didn't speak the language, like all of that was very foreign to me.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and so I was very scared and very intimidated, um, and didn't know how to connect.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just so I would stay to myself and eventually throughout the years, like I had girls that were friends, and um, you know, I had a couple of girlfriends um in high school as well, and played that part very well.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or I think I did.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm pretty sure you know people knew, but for me, I was like, okay, I'm playing this part.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just it was a difficult, difficult journey.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I when I think back on it, I just I feel so alone when I when I think back, I was so alone because I wasn't living my authentic.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't living, I won't be in my authentic self, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just constantly, you know, trying to hide everything about me.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Curious question.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: The girlfriends you had in high school, are are they still in your life at all in capacity?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, um, they are not.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, I take that back.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, my best friend of 35 years, we're celebrating our 50th this year, going to Hawaii tomorrow.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're meeting in Arizona.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, we're meeting in Arizona.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, her and I met when I was 15.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We dated briefly at the end of high school, um, but we maintained our friendship through all of this.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was curious as to who you were meeting in Arizona to go Hawaii with.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm glad I asked.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's super cool.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you did meet somebody solid back then.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she's the only one out of high school that I am connected with.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so when I think back, um, and and Desiree, who's my best friend, and I talk about high school, like there's there's not a lot of memories of people that I was close to.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't remember hardly any of them that I went to school with.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I looked through a yearbook and I was like, I don't even remember these people.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for whatever maybe I just did too many drugs, but um, I just don't remember.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had very little uh close connections, you know, and Desiree is the main one.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Danielle and I were watching this TV show.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is a couple days ago, and somebody in the TV show mentioned, you know, the high high school was the best day of our lives.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: We both look at each other in bed, we're like, the fuck is he talking about?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: What high school do they?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what ban is he laying in?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: High school.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, same, same.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I'm I'm sorry that you had that experience.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Just it was so tough for some people, especially that were different from the others that were there.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you asked if like, how did my addiction like did it did it carry on through high school?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I got drunk at school.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would bring vodka in um, you know, cups, 7-Eleven cups, you know, put it in my locker and sip it while I was going, you know, from class to class.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I even got into hard drugs at the end, close to the end of my uh high school year.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like junior and senior year, I was doing meth.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when meth was introduced into my life.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you were still smoking and I was still smoking and drinking, and then, you know, started doing meth, started doing hallucinogens.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I mean, there was a time in class that I was cutting up lines on my desk in front of teachers and hiding it and using, you know, a pen to snort in class.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just maybe like no one really paid attention to me.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was that kid.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I was really good at getting away with things.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Were do you think part of this behavior was the thrill of almost getting caught as well?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or were you just that good you didn't think you'd get caught?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I cared.
• 16:30
  unknown: Okay.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't think I cared, honestly.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's a great question.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I really don't think I did.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's it's extreme behavior.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was very yeah.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: High school, the end of high school was very, yeah, my behavior was very extreme.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I cut class, like I said, I was doing, you know, drinking, doing meth, um, you know, literally like we would have these little they were called bullets, um, and we would pass them to each other down the halls, you know, snorting meth and going to class, you know, um, going in the parking lot of the school and smoking bot, doing lines.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was like literally my senior year.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think I didn't even make half the year, and they still, for some reason, like said, okay, you're graduating, get out of here.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I still graduated.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember, like, there is a big part of senior year that I do not remember at all.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was high even during graduation.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So your usage is compounding at this point.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's getting more extreme.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: You do end up homeless at 18, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: How did that happen?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where were you?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: What what was that like?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I'm gonna go back just a little bit.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So at 15, I no, I was like 16 at the time.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I ran away.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was like, I was done living in that condition with the abuse.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't blame you.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had a friend who didn't live too far from me.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we lived in the middle of the like the desert, so outside of the little town.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there was like nothing but trailers, like I said, uh out in the middle of nowhere, no running water, uh, no heat.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm done.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then so I climbed out of my window and ran down uh the field, you know, uh through the cactuses and ran to a friend's house that was about a half a mile away.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they let me stay there for a while.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, eventually I had to come back.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this is a really screwed up story, but uh at school, my mom ended up showing up at school with the cops and told the cops that, you know, because you're your age at this point.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm 15.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: She could pull that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: She pulled it, and so I told them what was going on with the you know in my household.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: The abuse, the the drug abuse, um, you know, that he was beating my mom, that he was beating me.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom flat out lied and said, He's lying, that does not happen.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: She protected him.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: She protected him and they forced me to go back.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that started a cycle for me where I would run away every every chance that I could.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then by 18, um, I had nowhere to go.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't gonna go back and stay there.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like who would do that, right?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I would stay at friends' house when I could.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't sleep outside uh too often.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, thankfully, like someone would just sneak me in and I, you know, but I was bouncing from place to place to place, but I didn't have you must have been tired at that point, figuring all that out, not having routine.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it given what you were doing.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It became it it was so normal for me at that point.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that was your routine.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: That was my routine, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, where am I gonna say now?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get it twisted.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I did feel the anxiety of it all all the time.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just hit it, you know, like I it would constantly go on in my my head, like, where am I gonna go?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I gonna get my next meal?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, um and that was it was scary.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a scary, scary time.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually at 19, my aunt said, Why don't you come to back to LA and stay with me?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went back there for several months.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was really strung out on meth at that point, and um kind of weaned off of that for a little bit, then found some guys to hang out with and got introduced to ICE, um, which was just another version of meth.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh really strong and started doing that.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Went back home, and that's a whole nother story.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So went back home to Arizona.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Went back home to Arizona, uh stepdad and mom.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And mom.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I ended up helping this guy who lived right next door to my mom, who was a paraplegic.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he had gotten into some legal problems.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where some transparency is gonna come into play.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he had to go to court.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I took, he asked me to take him, and I did.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um they told him either you're gonna go to jail for several years because he had a gun in a bar and shot, you know, shot straight up.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't shoot at anyone.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But they're like, you're gonna go to jail for two years, and then, you know, you'll be done with it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can go on um house arrest and you would have to report, you know.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um house arrest all day.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: All day, right.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I helped convince him to go to jail because I knew I would have a place to stay, I would have his vehicle, and I would take care of the property until he got back.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was me, survival.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what can I do to change my situation, regardless of how I treat anyone or the consequences of anything, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he went to jail and he gave me access to his checking account, gave said, here stay in my trailer.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: He had running water.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was a win for me.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: He had a vehicle that he let me use.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was all these wins, right?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, hell yeah, here we go.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um I forged his checks, cleaned them out, and then got found out, and then the cycle of being homeless again started.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: How long did it last at that guy's house for you before you got?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um God, I was partying so much too.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like four or five months, maybe.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you get found.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you didn't know that part of my story.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that part of your story.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, thanks for your honesty.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is all this is why when we were getting together to try to do this, I was like, your story needs to be told because it's incredible and where you're at right now.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um but so what happens when you get found out then?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know you have so many questions.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so his brother comes into town and basically said, turn in the truck, you know, get the hell out of here.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, put the clamp down.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they threatened, you know, to go to um the police, obviously, and prosecute me.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think my mom ended up convincing uh the individual um to just let me pay it back.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to make sure that every month I was sending him back money.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I forget the amount, but every every month I had to send him a certain amount.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So your mom's sticking up for you here then.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there she was.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I convinced her like I couldn't go to jail, like I wouldn't survive.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so my mom did what she did, and they allowed me to just you know pay restitution.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, that's when I was like, crap, I need to find a job.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was 19.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, damn, okay, here we go.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I found a job working at a jewelry jewelry store.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, at that point, um, I had stopped doing everything because I had a really bad LSD trip and smoked like a half a pound of marijuana with a buddy of mine and thought I was dead, and he thought he was dead, and we thought we saw our bodies like laying on the floor and freaked out.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And shit, where I was living, yeah, it was a bad, a bad, bad trip, and I couldn't get out of it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom um lived in the trailer next door.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember running over there and telling my mom, I'm dead, I'm dead.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, What the hell are you talking about?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Freak, like, you know, and so um at that moment, what ended up happening um is I ended up getting really bad panic attacks.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it was drug-induced panic disorder, um, which ran in my family.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like my mom has really bad anxiety as well.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: It triggered it and it was extreme.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like I felt like I was losing my mind.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it scared me enough to say, okay, I have to stop.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually I stopped everything.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped drinking, I stopped doing drugs, I stopped hanging out with those people because I was so scared of losing my damn mind and not getting back to reality.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so while I was working at the jewelry store, this girl who worked with me said, Hey, I'm going to church.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And do you want to come with?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was at that stage of trying to find peace and answers and who I am.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was like, sure.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I went there and I remember um, and it was a it was a charismatic church, Pentecostal.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I remember at that moment I did feel safe.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not from my sexuality, but safe mentally, and and I felt something spiritually, right?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that was enough for me to kind of get indoctrinated into the world.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: You haven't felt safe in a very long time.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: In a very, very long time.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ever.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that the this community of people were like so loving and and kind, and there was other people my age that I started connecting with.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that began a religious journey for me now.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm no longer doing drugs and I'm on this new path of religion, still hiding my sexuality.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: So no one knew that I was gay, um, and I was terrified of anyone finding out and losing this newfound like safety, you know, like in the church.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was really like hiding it as much as I could, um, but living still a double life.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I would still try to hook up with guys outside of that, um, with no one knowing.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: All on all in secret.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: All in secret, yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the denomination Pentecostal at this point.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did that did that change?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Probably later on in life.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: But um so I mean this this brings up a big part of the story that not a lot of people know.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and you can get into it if you want.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So does this does this church bring you into this point in your life?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what ends up happening is I am so ingrained in the church and the community and the lifestyle of being a Christian and living up to these, you know, standards of this religion.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was like, okay, the next thing I need to do is get married.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there was a girl that I had gone to high school with, and she knew that I was this druggy alcoholic, you know.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So she was like, she knew that part of me, and she like thought it was amazing that I was now sober and going to church.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so she had a crush on me.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did not have a crush on her, um, but I dated her anyways.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was kind of like looking back now, that was my way to conceal and hide.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: She was your beard.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: She was my beard.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I could say that now.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't know, you know, I didn't understand what that was back then.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I used her, you know, to cover that up.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember so we were dating, and I remember um I remember when we decided to get married, we decided to write each other letters and go up to the mountains because we hiked a lot in Arizona.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we said, okay, we're gonna write down every dark secret and we're gonna just get it out of the way and then turn it over to God.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's intense.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was very intense.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I'm writing everything down, and so I did.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I disclosed for the first time that I was gay, um, everything to her.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she did the same for me, and we read it, and we burned it and never talked about it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the church's perspective on being gay um is either one, you're possessed, um, you just need to pray hard enough.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just lust.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you're not praying hard enough, you know, that's why you feel the feelings that you feel.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I adapted to and conformed to that.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I always still felt like I was attracted to men.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought there was something wrong with me.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I not praying hard enough?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I would continue to go to the altar and ask for forgiveness and ask to be saved over and over and over.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a cycle um constant, and that was it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So my life became very exhausting again.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and at the same time, I I was still living this dual life.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can only imagine what you were feeling mentally.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, lost, lost and exhausted, and really not even knowing who I was, and trying to keep up with it all, trying to keep up with the lies, and you know, um, yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all that I knew because from the beginning of me feeling different, I started living that way.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you are thinking that something is seriously wrong with you.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And do you wholeheartedly agree to conversion therapy at this point?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Give it a try.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Or what what was that like?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: So how conversion therapy came into play is um before that, I had decided, okay, what's the next thing that I can do?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I started seeing these other people going to college.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, maybe I need to go to Bible college because people were talking about going to Bible college.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got married and I said, and then my wife now um had our first child, my son, Josiah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, maybe I need to go to Bible college.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the answer, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I was still looking for answers to take this away from me and trying to live this lifestyle.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I applied for college, got accepted, and we moved to uh right outside Dallas, a town called Waxahatchie.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to Southwestern Assemblies of God University to study to be a missionary.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't know that about me either.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to school.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, crazy.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've lived so many, probably so many different lives.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's crazy talking about it too.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hundred lives.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100 lives.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here I am.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I went to Bible college, and you know, and um here's the thing it's not too far from Dallas.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: First time being close, it's a very big city, big party scene, party scene, and you know, opportunity to kind of go explore.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, meet other people and meet other people that I think are like me, right?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, so I went and did some risky behaviors while I was married.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would leave, I would not pick up my wife, I would not pick up my son.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was like an addiction for me.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: It not like it was an addiction for me because I like the connection that I felt there was so intoxicating.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the word.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was very intoxicating.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was, you know, going to bathhouses and going to clubs just so I can feel that part of myself.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And actually that you were normal.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that I was normal, right?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: That there was other people like that too.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so every time I would do something like that, though, um, I'm a horrible liar, by the way.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I have so much uh if I feel guilt or shame, like I'm spewing it out to everyone.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So like every time I would do something good quality, Bruce.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I didn't realize at the time.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I would go back and tell my wife.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she always knew every time I went and did it.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Which looking in I wish I didn't do that to her.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, I really, really wish that I did not do that to her.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was it was very hurtful for her.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're friends today.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I was gonna ask, yes, we're very, very close.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: She sounds very understanding and loving.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: She was not.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um we was not.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we it was very tumultuous.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are now.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have grandkids now.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Stan corrected.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, things things are things are really good, and I'm very, very thankful that um we are like my I'm very close to my family, and my ex-wife and her husband were all very, very close.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it wasn't for a very long time.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I hurt her deeply, you know, um, very, very deeply.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so for two years, that's what I was doing.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Going to bars, going to strip clubs, going to bathhouses, going to parks and hooking up with dudes in the parks, because that was the thing back in the 90s, you know.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's how people met and connected.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was doing all these things and feeling so much shame and so much guilt and just feeling broken and like, when is this gonna stop?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why won't God just take it away?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended up moving back to Arizona because I like she found out, like I she ended up cheating on me as well.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so things were just crumbling and falling apart.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get the family out of Dallas.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and before that happened, we just had my daughter.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have two kids, Bible college, I'm living a dual life, she's living a dual life, and we're like, okay, everything is crumbling around us.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's the next step?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't remember who decided what, but we ended up deciding, okay, let's just go back.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went back first, she did not.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I had my kids for several months because she didn't want to come back, rightfully so, right?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: So she's like, you know, you gotta have all your fun and do all this crazy.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go do my crazy stuff.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so she did for several months, and I just I had my kids, my mom helped me, you know, take care of them, and um, I got a job there and back in Kingman, Arizona, and um, but still not coming out, um, still hiding that part of me and still going to church and still trying to figure out how do I tap into this God thing that's gonna take it all away because it's not going anywhere.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Becky ends up coming back, my wife, and we try to reconcile, and I'm still doing the same thing, living a double life, still hooking up with dudes.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually she's like, I can't do this anymore.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, neither can I.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where a gay conversion therapy comes in.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I find this like a last hope for it was a last ditch hope to save us.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in my mind at the time, was to save me because I was losing my mind and I was so exhausted and so tired, and I just wanted it to go away.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted the gay to go away.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I wanted to live like everyone else and and not have this hanging over me anymore.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just so, so, so tired.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember getting accepted into this gay conversion therapy, which I never had heard of before, so I know nothing about it.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand what it is, but I I do understand that maybe this is uh, you know, the answer that this is gonna bring me freedom.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is this in Arizona?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, this is in Memphis, Tennessee.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I end up in Tennessee.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: So from Arizona, I come to Memphis.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the program was called Love in Action.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they bust me there.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um Becky and the kids cannot come, so they're living their life without me.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I go to it's a live-in program, um, behavioral modification.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um is this a specific amount of time?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: So not licensed.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not licensed.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it can, you know, go for several years.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: There was people in there that had been in the program for like a couple years.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't agree to any kind of time, I don't believe.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was just like, okay, let's go on.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give this a go.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's give it a go.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: What however long I'm gonna stay is how long I'm supposed to stay.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm there, and three months into it, they decide to bring Becky and the kids.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Becky agrees to come.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: She lives at one of the houses that are for females with the kids, while they're trying to reset and reprogram me.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they wanted us to reconcile and be this normal, happy family.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Normal, happy family that they could promote.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, see, gay conversion therapy works.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: I at that point said to them, regardless of what the outcome is, if I'm gay or straight, like I don't want to be married to her.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just don't want to be married to her.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I knew that I wasn't in love with her, I knew all the harm I had brought to her, I wanted to be done with the marriage.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: They did not like that answer.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so they really harped on me reconciling with her.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember laying on the bed and saying, Okay, God, if you don't take this gay away, like if you don't take it away, I'm done.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was still there.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up hooking up with a guy, kind of telling on myself, got kicked out of the program.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: They told her, my my wife at the time, that she was not to have any contact with me because I was living in sin and the devil had gotten me.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's when I came out.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know what?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stay in Memphis.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be who I am, and I'm gonna learn how to do it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna live your truth.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Live my truth, whatever that looked like.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even understand what that looked like at the moment.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified, but I remember renting a room in Memphis from this old guy, and I was like, okay, what am I gonna do?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a job and I worked, here's another life.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I worked as a sleep tech.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I did sleep studies on patients that had sleep apnea.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I worked at a hospital, um, had no experience at all.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: I got trained in the field.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wild.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so well that so well, yeah, yeah, so wild.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did that so I could provide for myself.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, how do I connect with people like me?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where my addiction kicks back in.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: This triggers a relapse, a relapse, right?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know, I don't even know if it's a relapse or not because even when I stopped, I didn't do AA, I just stopped because I was scared.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was like, you know, clean and sober as we know it for seven years.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Seven years at this point.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing like church was it for me.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was my addiction, I guess.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long run.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a long run, yeah.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to a bar and got drunk and was like, yes, and met people at the gay bars and you know, started like feeling a little bit more comfortable with who I was and trying to figure out what that even meant.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sharing your story at this point?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, okay, no.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I still created, you know, some story in my head and verbally to other people.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they didn't know that that I was married or had kids or was in gay conversion therapy or why I was in Memphis.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um that I didn't start getting honest for a very while like a a couple years.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was still, you know, scared of living my truth.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It took a long time for me to say I was gay.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Society and the people around you beat you around, yeah, beat beat you down so much that you didn't want to live that truth.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, and it was traumatic.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gay, you're not going to heaven, you know, you're gonna burn in hell.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to try to reprogram that because that was going over and over and over in my head.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was burned in your brain for seven years.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Burned in my brain, yeah.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Burned in my brain, you know, for seven years.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Seven years, yeah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there were there was a lot of trauma.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was a ton of trauma from being in gay conversion therapy, and I haven't we haven't even discussed the stories there, but um, it was horrible.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just tried not to think about it.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I kind of pushed it off to the the back of my my mind and started to try to find myself in any way that I could.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: So drinking and going to bars was a thing that I did.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and eventually, you know, found my first partner several months uh of coming out, and that was something new for me, you know, and it was not good.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was the old I will say this, uh, and people who know me know this.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he was the first guy I ever loved, first person I ever loved, um, deeply.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was chaotic, but it wasn't a good relationship, it was not a good healthy.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was not good.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, could you imagine?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who just got out of gay conversion therapy is going through a divorce, has two kids, and is trying to figure out who they are.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now's a good time to get in a relationship.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna have the most relationship or drinking again.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, I'm also an addict.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I didn't even know that.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even understand that.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it just didn't go well, you know.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the the gay culture that I was part of at that time was partying, you know.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I got introduced to a lot of, you know, wealthy people um that would throw house parties and you know, like we got to do elaborate dinners and black tie events and you know, all these really cool things that I thought were like, oh, I have arrived.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're sitting on a rooftop smoking Cuban cigars, you know, and I'm like, what is So I lived in that fantasy.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was not reality for me.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it was my fantasy and I loved it and I craved it.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be like them.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be accepted by them.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, the relationship was very toxic.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we were also very obsessed with one another.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would always come back for like four years.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was in that relationship until I finally ended it.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was the hardest thing I had had done at this time was leave him.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Did you leave him in the middle of your usage?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was still using.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I just started, you know, I mean, my using lasted for uh over a decade.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: So four years into beginning to use again.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would do a lot of things behind his back.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of cheating going on, there was a lot of lies, and there was just all kinds of uh of infidelity.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sound chaotic.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was so chaotic.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and there was drinking and there was fighting and there was locking each other out of houses and calling police, and like I mean, it was just crazy.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I was living the same life my mom was living with hers.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Her, you know, you're like repeating the cycle.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my stepfather.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what she was doing with him.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, oh god, I have to get out of this, you know, um, for my sake and his.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I finally decided I'm done and um and left and jumped into another relationship and jumped into another one and another one.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember when I left Nick, Nick was the first guy I was with.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the pain was so deep for me.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I am never going to feel this way again.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: I remember exactly saying that to myself because I had to move away.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: I literally move to a different state to get away from him so I would not get back together with him.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved from Memphis to South Carolina, where one of my friends moved to so I can get away from him.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I lived out in the middle of nowhere, like close to Greenville, um, in this tiny little apartment where there was cows.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, where the hell did you put me?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because my friend's like, oh yeah, I got you set up for an apartment.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I had no idea.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my God, I was removed from everything.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just being so depressed and heartbroken.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, and and that's when I said, I'm never gonna feel this way again.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I jumped into other relationships, when I came back to Memphis because my kids were there, got my head straight.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: So your wife and kids stayed there.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: They stayed in Memphis this whole time.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they started building, she started building a life with the kids there.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was not included in that.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um she would eventually let me see the kids on weekends, like every other weekend.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was part of the divorce decree.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I I got to see them every other weekend, but I was either hungover.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I wouldn't use around them.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I did drink around them, but like I didn't use, I may have been coming down off of stuff though.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not you're not showing up the way that you I'm not showing up, right?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not like really there for them.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not being part of life with them, but I'm physically there.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know what is worse, you know, me not being there or me being there, but not really being there.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a tough, it's a tough call.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was very, very tough.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: But all the relationships that I was in, all the way up to I got sober, I remember telling myself, these guys are gonna do what I want them to do, or they can leave.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no middle ground for me.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was that guy.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I cheated when I wanted to cheat, I went out when I wanted to go out, I did what I wanted to do, and I was that person for a very, very long time.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: For seven years, I was that that person, and eventually everything came to a head.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Rock bottom.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Rock bottom.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: 38 years old.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: 38.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: What did that look like?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And where where does it go from there?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get that far ahead, but no, no, no, that's fine.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: So my last relationship was with a guy named Denny.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and he was very codependent, and I could use him, and I did.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he enabled me, and I knew he would.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: So my drinking was getting really bad while we were together.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um I remember trying to find a remedy.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: I w drinking and using and and all that stuff.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, not a lot of people knew that I was using.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was hiding that, like smoking crack and doing meth and all of that, like doing the pills.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not too many people knew that.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you having withdrawal symptoms at this point?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was having DTs and and you know, I was self-medicating um when I was going through that.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't know that was DT.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, I just don't feel good.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, you know, as I'm having heart palpitations.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know what to do.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to fix this.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, give me some benzos, and I'm gonna be okay.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's when my uh benzoaddiction kicked in.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was like, okay, somebody's gotta give.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was still together with Denny at the time, and I said, We had gone on a trip to St.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: He took me for my birthday, and I was like, Oh, that sounds like a good solution.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we move to St.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Louis?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was I was like, you know what?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do these damn steps.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Relocation.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be better.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna change things.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna change everything, things will be better.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved to St.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Louis and I lived there for two years.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Things did not get better.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: My drinking and using ramped up even more.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I met friends there, and they were partiers, and I partied right along with them.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to say this, I played in St.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Louis many times, and we're I can't remember the venue like two times ago we were in St.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Louis.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but we ended up finding a gay bar because there was a bunch of our friends in town.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a block away from the club, and they had karaoke going on.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, we had a 10 out of 10 night there.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was so fun, and the people were so awesome.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you might have found some fun.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I found a lot of fun.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up breaking up with Denny while I was there.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I realized I was just using him and I didn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't in love with him.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look back, it it like it makes me sad because he's such a good guy.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I ended up I ended things with him.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed roommates because we had just we were there for maybe not even six months.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um that probably worked out great, right?
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna tell you so it it it does work out for me.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because eventually um I spiral and a big thing happens, and I'm gonna be transparent again.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some people know this, some people don't.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, I'm a huge advocate, but while I was in St.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, I found out I was HIV positive.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: That changed everything for me because now everything that everyone told me would happen to me was happening.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was tainted, I was, you know, um no good.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't deserve to be alive.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I get for leaving God, leaving the church.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I spiraled to the darkest place before I get sober, um, and fell into this black hole where I could not get out.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I was completely felt completely alone, felt scarred, felt like I was carrying around that scarlet letter that everyone saw and wanted to stay away from.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just not knowing how to get out of that.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I used more.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: I started having panic attacks again.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the doctor prescribed me benzos, then prescribed me sleep meds.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was on seven different types of meds at one point, and it was to bring me down.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they were trying to do, but I would just go and these are my symptoms.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm like, I feel like I'm having a hard attack.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just and I'm still drinking and using on them.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just all kinds of out of whacked, right?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I the panic uh attacks get worse, and I was like, I just need to, I know how to fix this.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go home and be with my kids.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go back to Memphis.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I end up back in Memphis, um, still with Denny.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Denny decides to like rent an apartment with me.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: We were not together, but he said, okay, you know, he was gonna take care of me and be there for me.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he was.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I used that situation um where I still went out and drank, still using when I got back, nothing changed.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Things continued to spiral.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started noticing I didn't have control.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I ever did, but the little control that I thought I had was no longer there.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, this is where, well, maybe if I stopped drinking during the week and only on the weekends, this is where this comes in.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if I only drink beer, that happened.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've you know, because I've done all those.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and even Denny was like, you just don't need to drink hard alcohol.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's your problem.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know what?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I would drink beer, and the same thing would happen.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and so maybe I need to mix it up again.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, oh, just wine.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's it.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, well, I'll just do wine.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I did that, and then I was like, well, at least I'm not drinking alone.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm drinking alone, then I have a problem.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's another thing.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like I'm not drinking alone drink with that.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not drinking 40s out of a brown paper bag, like I'm okay.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, eventually I started drinking alone, can't get a job, depressed, can't get out of this depression.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: My anxiety is through the roof.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking benzos, doing drugs, drinking.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm out.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm just wack-a-doo, like just wack-adoo, and start doing math again.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, do you how much meth are you doing?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a little app called Grinder that we all know.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and people that use, they use a certain terminology to indicate that they do what we call Tina, which is math.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would find those individuals, hook up with them, and then I started disappearing for days on end.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where it starts getting really bad for me.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is about 2013 at this time.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would leave for days.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Denny would be calling, like, where are you?
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would turn off my phone, I wouldn't answer anyone.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: My best friend, Christia, I would not answer her calls, Desiree wouldn't answer her calls, like I would just disappear.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're probably not sleeping much at this point.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sleeping, I'm up for days, methed out, doing all kinds of uh, you know, things that I never thought I would do.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I would come to you and be like, oh crap.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would go home.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would lie, of course.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would not, even though I mean they could tell.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, you're lying, we can tell.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, you guys are crazy.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about what I'm doing.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's none of your business.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're not together.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: We just are roommates, you know, and then friends.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, Don't worry about what I'm doing.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: Worry about what you do, you know.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very defensive and did not want to admit what was going on with me at that point.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it got so bad that Denny's like, I'm not watching you kill yourself.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm done.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: He moves out of the apartment.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a job.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh shit.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a place to live.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a place to live now.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have anyone taking care of my bills, buying me food.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, too, my ex-wife said, No, no, you're not seeing the kids anymore.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: So then the kids get taken from me.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then my friend Christy, who I'm still friends with today, she goes, I'm done with you.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now all the connections I had to like healthy people that were in my life cut off.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm spiraling.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: Kick back into the survival mode and said, Okay, I know these guys that I usually hook up with with meth.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna let them know.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I reached out to them and said, Hey, this is what's going on.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: My roommate, he's a dick.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: He left and like I have nowhere to go.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, come on, you live with us.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm I'm couch surfing, staying with drug dealers, and have a steady supply of meth being fed to me.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're continuously hitting a new low.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: Lower and lower and lower.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I start selling all the things that I had, um, had nothing left, not not my dignity, like nothing, not relationships, not my dignity, um, no peace whatsoever, anxiety through the roof, feeling lost more now than ever, and scared I was gonna die.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember laying in the bed that was not mine, um, laying in someone else's bed and thinking, God please help me.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna make it.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually there was a couple things that happened that transpired that got me out of that situation.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: One was a guy, his name is Aaron, and he was a guy that I one of the first guys I went on a date with and I had a crush on when I first came out, and um he got really bad into his addiction, so I stopped being friends with him.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he got sober, I didn't know that.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw that he was online and we were talking, and he said, Hey, let me come get you.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he took me to a meeting, and I remember going to a meeting and I was methed out.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I don't remember much of what was going on in that meeting, but I just remember going and feeling like a little bit of hope, like just a spark of hope.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um eventually, Denny I reached out to him and said, I can't do this.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I will come get you.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have five minutes to get out of that house.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I'm not ever helping you again.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: Little did I know, he showed up, like he said he would.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: You got five minutes.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: I grabbed the last bit of belongings that I had in a bag, like a trash bag, and jumped in the car.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he tells me this is what we're doing.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking you to treatment.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: I knew nothing about treatment.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had not never been to treatment before, but I knew I needed help, and I was scared that if I didn't go then, that I wasn't gonna make it.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I mean I was at that.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking you're gonna die.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna die.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna die, or someone's gonna kill me.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, either because I was putting myself in really crazy situations of staying at drug dealers' houses, you know.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: Trap houses, probably.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I was putting myself in all these situations where there was a good chance that something bad was going to happen eventually.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it scared me enough that I was either gonna die or be killed, that I said, okay.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he and another friend in St.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Louis had been working behind the scenes to get me into a treatment center.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know this.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so he goes, I'm gonna take you to go see your kids.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is Denny, and you're gonna get honest with them.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so prior to me getting honest with them, when they were worried about me getting so skinny, I would tell them, Oh, well, it's because I picked up running, I just run all the time.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my answer.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, sure, dad.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um bad liar.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a bad liar.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just run now.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I show up and they're both out there, and I just tell them dad's doing drugs, dad needs help.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the sweetest thing that my my daughter said to me, and it's so funny.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Well, dad, at least your cheekbones are really awesome.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: She found one thing she could compliment me on, so I wouldn't feel bad.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's just the sweetest ever.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember hugging them, and they said, Stay as long as you can.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember committing to stains to six months.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to a treatment center in Memphis called CAPS, which, if you know CAPS, it's pretty rough.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when they brought me to CAPS, bro, like I was like, Where did they take me?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is a psych ward.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's no way.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: My first roommate, the first night I was there, you know, I'm sleeping on a really thin blue mattress.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it was like a jail mattress because I'd never been to jail.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what is this with a thin blanket and a flat pillow?
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: And my roommate was in psychosis.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he would sit up and talk to himself and have conversations.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, nope, I know what they did.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: They took me to a psych ward.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is it, my life's over.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna be in the loony bin for the rest of my life.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's literally what I thought the first night I was there.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, um, someone handed me uh the big book.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the second week I was there, handed me a big book, and I started reading the stories, and I was like, oh, this is familiar.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is so weird.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is really weird.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I started paying attention, and then I was like, I just need to stop doing math.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's my problem.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized while I was in there to be sober, I had to stop everything.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh shit, I'm an alcoholic.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I read, When you start drinking, you can't stop.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about your second drink.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: All that made sense to me ever since I the first time with my aunt when I drank, I was ready for the next one.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're a compromised person.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: I watched this.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um the big book made me get it, but what made me really get it was I watched this documentary on Bill Wilson, and there's some guy talking in this is like 1937.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's some guy talking in a bar, and he said, It's not it's not that I can say no to the second drink.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's once I have that first one, I'm a compromised person.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: My I can't make that decision then for the second one.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's like soon as you say yes to that first one, something switches, and it made sense to me.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every time that I drank, something switched, and I'm always thinking about the next drink every time.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it made so much sense to me for the first time that now I have hope.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know what's wrong with me.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a damn alcoholic.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized, oh wow, you're also a crackhead and a meth head.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even realize I was smoking crack, but I watched a video that they made us watch, and they I was so clueless.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: I always thought it was bad meth.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I'm like, why are we smoking out of a straight pipe?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: This stuff doesn't get me high.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, I was smoking crack.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's how out of it I was.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I was so out of it because I would do whatever you had, I didn't have to know what it was, but yeah, I was like, oh, okay, so I'm I'm a junkie, I can't do anything.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was in treatment that I made all those connections and said, okay, I have hope now.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it changed.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was no longer afraid to be in treatment, even though I was with, you know, pretty rough people.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was this happy guy that probably annoyed the shit out of people because I was like, Oh, I'm gonna live, you know, because I didn't I didn't have any hope when I went in there, had none.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I did.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: My ex-wife came and supported me.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: She brought my kids to see me in treatment.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had friends reach out and write me letters, Desiree writing me letters in treatment, my friend Christy writing me letters, Denny coming to see me in treatment, supporting.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I started feeling this hope and this love that I hadn't felt.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember this moment um in the morning they would wake us up pretty early, and we would go out and smoke a cigarette.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting on the concrete outside, and I remember the first time that I heard the birds chirping and the wind blowing through the trees.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why, but I've in that moment I felt alive again.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: I felt connected, and it was it's the great, I still remember that to this day.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that feeling that I had was like I can hear the birds chirping, and I could hear the wind blowing through the colour.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're seeing in color.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing in color, yeah.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so moving to me.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a important moment for me that kept me going.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm really glad that you did the work and you realize this.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so So did you end up staying the six month at CAP?
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: I fulfilled my, yeah.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which is not normal for me.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, I'm not good with commitments up until this point, right?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: You fulfilled your commitment.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: I felt for the first time, and it felt I felt accomplished.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I did something right, you know, and I felt good.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um did you do any aftercare?
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: I went to um a sober living home.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was horrible.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was shit.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: And stayed there for like two or three months, and then ended up at an Oxford house.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: So and I stayed in Oxford House for almost two years.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up working for them.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's another story.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this part of the story.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so you were with Oxford for a while.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was with them, so I worked with them for a year and a half.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: 2016 through the middle of 2017.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what transitioned you into mental health co-op?
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or was there something?
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, there was something before that.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: So some really bad stuff happened with Oxford.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I resigned, and that that set off a whole bunch of uh anxiety.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would say it opened up my eyes that just because you're in recovery doesn't mean you're a good person.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm that guy, I'm very naive.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to believe the best in people, like I do.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that I do now.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am, but then I was so disappointed in myself that I just believed like, you know, if you're in recovery, you're a good person and you're gonna do the right thing.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is not true, and I needed to learn that lesson because there were some people that I really cared for that did some really shady stuff, and this organization that I thought was great ended up not being what I thought it was, and I was cut off from everyone again, and that was very hurtful.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I that was the first time.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in my recovery was a huge lesson, it was a huge lesson, and it took me down, it took me down really, really far.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was extremely depressed.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was the first time I ever thought about suicide.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't know that either.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't talk about that often.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had suicidal ideation while you're in recovery.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: In recovery.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: Early recovery.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Early recovery, yes.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm like two and a half, three years sober at this time, and I felt that deeply, and it scared me.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: And thank God that I had people in recovery that I had built when I first got sober, when I got out of treatment.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one of this guy named Jared, who I just love dearly, he shared with me his story and his he suicide is part of his story.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like he had uh multiple attempts.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember reaching out to him and telling him I had to reach out.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the thing that was different this time.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm sober and I don't need to keep this to myself.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I reached out and it got me out of it.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I started getting connected more in AA and stuff you know, started talking about it and it got me out of it.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's wonderful.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I think this needs to be normalized in early recovery or in recovery period, because I'm coming up in 14 years in a few weeks, and which is wild to think of, but you're going to make mistakes.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to life is going to life, right?
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no shame in that to experience these things in recovery.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: Just because you're in recovery, your life doesn't mean it's 100% perfect.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's things that come up.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember at like eight and a half, nine years, I remember like me thinking, well, I'm sober, I don't like myself.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I just wanted to add that.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's extremely important.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, I know that I thought I had to do everything perfectly.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if I didn't, once again, there's something wrong with me, right?
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I learned a lesson that you're right, we don't get sober to be perfect because we never will be perfect.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: We get sober so that we can live life and live it without going back to drugs and alcohol.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_00: We learn how to just be part of life.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't understand that.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it helped me to grasp that understanding, and it was so deep, it deeply impacted me.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it helped me go through for the next, you know, I've been sober almost 12 years, through all kinds of different, different like life experiences, like deaths and uh changes of jobs and divorce recently.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it helped me to not spiral and pick up.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna say, going through something like a divorce.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I know a lot of the story, but what was it like being sober going through that or deaths?
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll back up just a little bit.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So um I stayed sober for uh, you know, five years and decided not to get in a relationship because I knew how I was in my past relationships.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I used people, I cheated on them, I didn't know how to be in a relationship, I didn't know how to be in a relationship with myself.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how to be alone.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to learn those things.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I probably was scared to get in a relationship, let me just be honest.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I stayed sober and single and learned how to live by myself and loved it.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God, I love being by myself now.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never felt that feeling.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that I took that time to do that because I think it's super important for me to be okay with me when no one's around, right?
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be important for everybody.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I never had that.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had been in a relationship since I was 15 until I got sober.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in relationships and early recovery, and early recovery, right?
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like so I realized, okay, I don't need to jump in a relationship.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So for the first five years, I didn't get in a relationship, and then I met Kevin, who ended up being my husband, and things moved quite quickly for many reasons.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_00: We thought we were older and wiser and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we both thought we wanted the same thing, and I got married, and it wasn't.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Without going into too much detail, um things were were horrible for me, and I ended up getting very, very depressed in that relationship and started getting very dark for me and feeling very alone.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And on the outside, it looked like I had everything.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, I do, but I don't.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm just sorry you went through that.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually I got out of it and realized that I deserved more.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I was like, I need to put myself first.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it took a lot for me to get to that place.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um got a lot, a lot, a lot.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I had amazing friends in recovery that stood with me and encouraged me that hey, you don't have to stay in this.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you deserve more.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you do deserve someone that's going to love you and show you affection and be there for you and put you first sometimes.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not if you're gonna be alone and be happy, and then if you're gonna be in a relationship, you must be happy as well.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because it was extremely unhealthy, right?
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I was keeping myself in this unhealthy, very lonely situation.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I found the courage, finally, things just kind of escalated to a point where I was like, okay, you know, and I was so scared of making that, I was terrified of making that decision.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know this because you were like, we were friends during all this, and and I remember just saying, Okay, well, then I want to divorce, and walking through that, and I never walked through it alone.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people came in my life and were in my life that helped me get through that.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I left, I remember when I got my first apartment.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I left September of 2024, and in that next month, I got my first apartment.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember when I walked in and I slept with it for the first time, I no longer was carrying all this anxiety again, and this weight was lifted.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember feeling so free.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I didn't realize what I was living through.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize it until I was out of it.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_01: You were glowing, you were glowing when you got that place.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I met you for coffee shortly after you got it, and you're like, you were a Bruce that I've never seen before.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, fuck yes.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I felt like a Bruce I like never knew before.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, this feels good.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And now I get to rediscover myself.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in therapy, and I remember my therapist told me he was amazing, and he goes, You get to write your next chapter.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So write it.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Wow, what do I want this to look like for me?
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I want to figure out what I like and what I don't like, and put me first right now.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, you know, I didn't do everything perfectly, I never do.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I stuck with it.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm still single to this day, and I choose to be single.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not ready to jump in a relationship.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe I will, maybe I'm a hopeless romantic.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me just say that.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_00: But after going through that and feeling the freedom that I feel now, I'm just not, you know, my grandbabies, my kids, that's it for me and traveling and being with my friends.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: You seem like a happy person.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So and when you're not looking, is when you find somebody special.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you never know what time will bring you.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you've been on this physical um journey as well for your health.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a good segue.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: You freaking look fantastic.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_01: It is a good segue.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the good segue.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, what changed for me is like when I left that relationship, right?
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I started trying to work on myself and I had gained a lot of weight.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was depressed, and I was eating my feelings, and that's what a lot of us do.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd done it forever.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't happy with my appearance, I was super self-conscious and um didn't feel lovable uh or attractive.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that not only had to do with like my appearance, but also because of the relationship.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was trying to.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_00: You were coming out of it.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was coming out of it too, yeah.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Traumatic relationship.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Traumatic relationship, right?
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, you know what?
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have grandkids now, and I'm like, I want to be the best version of myself.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be healthy, I want to learn how to be healthy.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started this journey.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um 2025, the beginning of 2025 is when I started.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I started working out and and you know, making that more consistent and um, you know, feeling good about myself and and feeling good when I was in the gym and feeling more attractive and and uh just I don't know, things started changing.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Were you meal prepping as well?
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was not I would try like that.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was a hard, hard thing for me for the first year.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Was like I was still kind of eating my feelings.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I that did not get under control.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_00: What changed for me is like getting in the gym and loving it and loving how I was seeing some of the changes, right?
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my appearance started changing and I felt confident inside.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that was changing too, and I was getting noticed, and you know, people were like, Wow, you look great, and that like felt amazing to me.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually after that year, I was like, Okay, I want to, I need to go further and I can't do it on my own.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Next level, baby.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_00: What's the next step, baby?
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was introduced to this guy named Steven at a part.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was at a birthday party um and we had a mutual friend, and we were sitting across from each other and we started talking about fitness because I was like, that's all I I loved talking about fitness.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Oh man, you should meet my trainer, Tyler.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I went through the same journey and he showed me his before and afters.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, nope, call on him now, you know, like literally, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's my boy right there.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I reached out to him and we started training November of 2025.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been six months now.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember going in there and I was like, okay, this is the goal.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I told him, I said, look, the goal is I want to um be the best version of myself, not only for me, but for my grandkids and for my kids.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to run with them, I want to be able to travel with them, I want to be able to be mobile.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, because my family, you know, they're not all the healthiest.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to fall down that path.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to be as mobile as I can for as long as I can.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also want to inspire people my age.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Those were the things that I had told Tyler.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started listening to him, you know, all the bait he taught me how to eat differently.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he wrote my nutrition plan, kept it very simple.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You have to make it simple for me, man.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you complicate it, I'm out.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I already know me.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would be the same.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know me.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he wrote it out and I just followed those steps.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did I do it perfectly?
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I will tell you 80% of the time I did.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when I messed up, yeah.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I told him, I would tell him this is the difference we were talking about yesterday.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh he taught me how to train correctly.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was training correctly, and I didn't realize that I wasn't.
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was correcting my form at every every exercise.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I started noticing differences in it.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that like, you know, I was encouraged me, it inspired me, it excited me.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, because I'm starting to notice changes.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kept pushing forward, I kept showing up.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then the nutrition, I was like, okay, just write it out.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just follow it.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, you know, things were changing.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was losing weight and I was gaining muscle.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my God, this is amazing.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we just kept going, it kept going.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I built this uh, you know, community with them.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So other guys that work out with them were all pretty close and we like encourage each other.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they're like my cheerleaders, I'm their cheerlead cheerleader as well.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fantastic.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I never in a million years thought I could get here.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ever.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've never looked like this in my life.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was huge.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Stuck with it.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had a spraying ankle, I had I hurt my lower back twice, I had tendonitis, and I still showed up.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You pushed through the pain, I pushed through it.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the great thing about Tyler is I would always communicate with him.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_00: He he said, You have to communicate with me.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we would alter our workout, you know, when I would have an injury.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you have a sprained ankle, he's not, it's not we're not doing legs, baby.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm like, oh, that's okay with me.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so like we would change it up.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when I would travel for work, or when I was travel, because you know I love to travel, when I would travel, I would make that as an excuse to eat whatever I want.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, no, no, this is what we're gonna do.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he would write out a schedule for me when I went out of travel.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay, we're gonna just do this breakfast and lunch, and then you could eat whatever you want for dinner.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, Oh, I never thought about that.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I started implementing that into my life.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I travel, I just do that.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I would travel for work, I would be like, okay, well, I, you know, I eat out with people all the time, you know.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, this is what you're gonna do.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go to the grocery store first.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your list.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have packets of rice.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You here's some uh precooked chicken, and here's some veggies, and here's some yogurt.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you're gonna do.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I started doing that, and I was like, oh, he introduced me to like this new way of living that I didn't understand or couldn't conjure up myself.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_00: I needed someone to help get me there.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he did, and it was amazing, it's been amazing.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, congratulations, yeah.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you have some photo shoots coming up in Oahu and Omawi, yeah.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So safe travels.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've been going for quite a while, which uh time just is a thief in here and in life, flies by.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_01: But um, do you want to touch on two more things real quick?
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh before in recovery and everything that you have going on in your life right now, what gives you hope today?
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_00: God, so many things give me hope um today.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my grand uh grandkids, baby.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're so cute, too, by the way.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They like I have three now.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um what a blessing.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the best.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So my granddaughter, she calls me quite a bit.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And like yesterday when we were FaceTiming, and the thing that uh is just the the best feeling in the world.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I never thought that I would be a grandpa one, um, or ever feel this way, but she always goes, I love you, Poppy.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I just like melts my heart, dude.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is the best feeling.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is amazing being a grandpa, um, and showing up for them.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I I have a trip coming up to see my son after I get back so I can visit with my granddaughter.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I just got back not too long ago from seeing my my grandson and my new granddaughter with my daughter.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, seeing them and being able to be there for them like I wasn't with my kids.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I seriously love that, and I can totally level with you.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Carter's been doing this thing now.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna be two and a half in a week, and she's been doing this thing where she gets her face right up close to my face, and then she'll she'll say it on her own now.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_01: She'll say, I love you, da-da.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Best feeling.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's nothing to do with that.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_01: You can't describe it either.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nothing.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can give me a million dollars.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, doesn't feel as good as this.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, hearing their voice and seeing how excited they get when they see me.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and being able to hold my brand new granddaughter, like, and just not wanting to give her up.
• 1:24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I held her so long, um, is the best feeling.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm so happy for you.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I I can't wait to see more time that you guys spend together and um hear more stories.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Watching them grow up, you know.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seriously excited for you for that.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, last last question is is uh let's say somebody out there listening or somebody that has a family family member that's struggling.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody that's struggling out there, uh what would you say to that?
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, that's such a tough one for me too.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um that one hits deep, right?
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have family members that are still out there.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um you here's the thing, you never know what it's gonna take for someone to get sober.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_00: You never know, right?
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hope that we hold on to.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like my sister is still out there, my aunt is still out there.
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't give up hope that maybe one day, because if I got sober, so can they, right?
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like that that's what I hold on to.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I would tell parents is for oh that's such a hard one.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I am a parent and I'm a grandparent now too.
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_00: It and it's hard to do, is you can't force them to go, you can't force them to get help.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: What you can do is love them, have boundaries, have healthy boundaries with them, which is so God, it's so difficult to do.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um for the person that you love the most.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I will tell you this, I will leave with this.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_00: What saved me is when my friends and my family had hard boundaries and said, We're done until you get your life together.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when they put up those hard boundaries and I felt like I was alone and I had to figure something out, um, I got to a place of reaching out and getting help.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I tell Denny all the time, I'm still friends with him, but um, I'm so thankful he did that.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful he moved out and took care of himself.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_00: He put himself first for the first time, which helped me get to the place that I needed to get to to get the help that I needed.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now here I am almost 12 years later.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I that that's such a good note to end on.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we could touch more about um you know the things that you've done in recovery and and sobriety and in your life and the things that that you do.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe we'll have you back for episode two at some point.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that'll be cool if it's your journey where you're at in like the next nine months to a year.
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I I appreciate you and thank you so much for coming in today and taking the time and all of the things that you said.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm sure some of it's hard to share.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh haven't thought about it in a while.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I love that you're living your truth and your best life and you're being your best self because that's what the whole world loves seeing.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you're such a beautiful person inside it out.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't love you more if I tried.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know how much.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I adore you.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for having.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was amazing.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for doing it.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh please, everybody out in Listener Land, please like and subscribe to the podcast.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um if anybody is struggling, please reach out to somebody that can help.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh me and Bruce are big advocates of that.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we love you and be good to your friends, your family, and everybody that's around you, even if they're a stranger.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Much love.