Latest / Recovery Chronicles / Recovery Chronicles Ep. 185 - Frank P.

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Recovery Chronicles Ep. 185 - Frank P. · Recovery Chronicles

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Recovery Chronicles.
0:06
Speaker 2: My name is John Tragg and my sober date is
0:09
Speaker 2: June seventeenth, twenty nineteen. Join me as we hear from
0:12
Speaker 2: people who are on this journey that we call recovery shows.
0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Recovery Chronicles. This is Joan Tragg,
0:23
Speaker 1: and today I have a real special guest with me,
0:27
Speaker 1: Heartview alumni, author and just long time person who's been
0:35
Speaker 1: sober for many, many, many years. And I'll let him
0:38
Speaker 1: share his story, but I'm real honored to have the
0:41
Speaker 1: opportunity to have him here with me, and so welcome Frank,
0:45
Speaker 1: and thank you for coming.
0:46
Speaker 3: Glad to be here.
0:48
Speaker 1: So I learned about Frank, I don't know, maybe a
0:52
Speaker 1: few weeks ago through one of our board members and
0:57
Speaker 1: shared with me that you were nearing.
0:59
Speaker 3: Your fiftieth birthday, fiftieth sobriety birthday.
1:04
Speaker 1: Fiftieth sobriety birthday. So that's the first time that I've
1:07
Speaker 1: ever handed someone their fiftieth coin. So that was so
1:11
Speaker 1: exciting for me to go and pick that up and
1:14
Speaker 1: be able to meet with you. We met, I think
1:18
Speaker 1: was it last week or the week before we met,
1:20
Speaker 1: and just guy to hear some kind of some history
1:24
Speaker 1: on your experience and just you know, it was a
1:27
Speaker 1: long time ago and things have changed a long time,
1:29
Speaker 1: and you've done tremendous and been so active in the
1:32
Speaker 1: recovery community too. Until that's huge, So let's dive into
1:36
Speaker 1: it a little bit. Start me off first, where are
1:39
Speaker 1: you from? And tell me a little bit about growing up.
1:42
Speaker 3: I grew up in the northern North Dakota on a farm,
1:49
Speaker 3: and we were pretty good sized farmers. But I recently
1:56
Speaker 3: started doing writing a piece of the Secrets of the
1:59
Speaker 3: Prairie and thinking about that neighborhood and how much alcoholism
2:05
Speaker 3: came out of it, how much tragedy came out of it.
2:10
Speaker 3: And the focus is on isolation, and that isolation is
2:15
Speaker 3: never a good.
2:15
Speaker 1: Thing right well, And I think, as both of us
2:19
Speaker 1: know bey and recovery, that that's one of the biggest
2:21
Speaker 1: things that can make the addiction. He's really really tough
2:28
Speaker 1: in trying to even find a path or find a
2:34
Speaker 1: way or thinking of trying to get out of it.
2:36
Speaker 1: When you're isolated, you almost don't want to. Then you
2:41
Speaker 1: get to a point where you're comfortable in that setting too,
2:43
Speaker 1: which is dangerous.
2:44
Speaker 3: But the human species needs other humans.
2:50
Speaker 1: For sure. So tell me about when do you recall
2:54
Speaker 1: having having your first drink?
2:56
Speaker 3: Probably about age eleven, and I don't ever remember drinking normally.
3:05
Speaker 3: I got drunk the first time I drank. My father
3:10
Speaker 3: would make a twenty gallon crock of beer probably every
3:15
Speaker 3: six weeks, okay, something like that, and they were parents
3:20
Speaker 3: were gone for some reason overnight, and so I and
3:23
Speaker 3: my two brothers imbibed a bit.
3:28
Speaker 1: So then for you, it was always something that was
3:31
Speaker 1: pretty accessible, right, I mean in terms.
3:33
Speaker 3: Of yeah, fairly. But you know when I say I
3:42
Speaker 3: never drank normally, I never did. I got drunk the
3:44
Speaker 3: first time, and I don't ever recall drinking with any
3:48
Speaker 3: other purpose in mind. It was to block out a
3:52
Speaker 3: whole lot of things, and it worked. It worked for
3:55
Speaker 3: a while.
3:57
Speaker 1: You did you feel like after that first time of
4:02
Speaker 1: drinking that, I mean, how soon did it become something
4:06
Speaker 1: that became a regular part of your life?
4:12
Speaker 3: Well, by age sixteen, I had dropped out of high school,
4:17
Speaker 3: and so there was no longer any restrictions on anything.
4:21
Speaker 3: And I actually left home at about thirteen and a
4:24
Speaker 3: half and pretty much on my own after that, so
4:30
Speaker 3: again no real restrictions. So whenever the opportunity presented itself,
4:37
Speaker 3: I took advantage of it.
4:39
Speaker 1: So what did you do when you were that young,
4:41
Speaker 1: when you're on your own?
4:43
Speaker 3: I did a combination of things. I worked for a
4:48
Speaker 3: neighbor about six seven miles away for a summer. That
4:52
Speaker 3: was three brothers that farmed together. I worked at the
4:59
Speaker 3: truck stop unsee, way before I was qualified or you know.
5:08
Speaker 3: And I don't know whether I lied about my age
5:10
Speaker 3: or not, but probably sure, and I did. I Uh,
5:15
Speaker 3: the first real hard physical job outside of farming was
5:19
Speaker 3: being a brick tender on a construction project. And I
5:23
Speaker 3: was probably fifteen at the time. So yeah, being on
5:29
Speaker 3: your own that long young is not an easy start,
5:33
Speaker 3: but you do what you got to do, right.
5:36
Speaker 1: So did you find when you're working with groups of
5:40
Speaker 1: folks that were a little bit older that alcohol was
5:44
Speaker 1: just kind of part of the part of the day
5:46
Speaker 1: or when the shift was over and that type of thing.
5:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just part of the norm, probably more
5:53
Speaker 3: so than than now. I don't know that for sure,
5:59
Speaker 3: but I spec that, you know, nobody seemed to object
6:05
Speaker 3: to helping a fourteen year old get some alcohol.
6:07
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, So lead me into kind of your maybe
6:12
Speaker 1: your late teens early twenties. What does that look like
6:16
Speaker 1: for you in terms of where you're at in life?
6:21
Speaker 3: Late teens. When I was sixteen, I took off of
6:23
Speaker 3: a custom combining crew and we harvested weet from Lubbock, Texas,
6:27
Speaker 3: to Carliles, Saskatchewan, and then back down. And when I
6:33
Speaker 3: think about it, it was really insane. I drove a
6:41
Speaker 3: truck from Carlisle, Saskatchewan, down to Wellington, Texas with a
6:46
Speaker 3: combine on the back and another one on a trailer behind.
6:50
Speaker 3: I was no more qualified to do that than the
6:54
Speaker 3: man in the moon. But it's what in front of you,
6:58
Speaker 3: and you just do it. But I started running with
7:02
Speaker 3: some pretty bad folks down in Texas and that we're
7:08
Speaker 3: all part of the custom combining crew. It was not
7:12
Speaker 3: attracting future brain surgeons, I can't assure you, but you know,
7:21
Speaker 3: my life is dotted by angels. And I was getting
7:29
Speaker 3: myself in some real trouble down there, and the potential
7:33
Speaker 3: of getting in worse trouble. One of the guys that
7:37
Speaker 3: was part of the crew was running speed out of
7:42
Speaker 3: Texas in hub caps and what have you. And you know,
7:48
Speaker 3: so just that far away from getting involved in that
7:51
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. And the guy that owned the custom
7:55
Speaker 3: combining crew, we were staying in an old trailer house
7:59
Speaker 3: of his for free, and he just came one January
8:04
Speaker 3: morning with a bus ticket and he said, you're going home.
8:09
Speaker 3: You don't belong here. Wow, you don't belong here. He
8:14
Speaker 3: owed me nothing. He didn't really know me, you know,
8:18
Speaker 3: but he knew enough to know that I didn't belong
8:20
Speaker 3: there and gave me that bus ticket. And it was
8:26
Speaker 3: Selvinick at that point because it redirected my life. I
8:31
Speaker 3: got back to North Dakota and got my ged and
8:39
Speaker 3: then from there went to LPN school okay, and became
8:45
Speaker 3: a licensed practical nurse.
8:47
Speaker 1: Okay.
8:48
Speaker 3: So I had periods early on where I had periods
8:54
Speaker 3: of stability. Yeah, Nursing school and early work as a
9:02
Speaker 3: nurse was a real stable period. It didn't last, but
9:07
Speaker 3: there were those stable periods that were enough to give
9:11
Speaker 3: me a glimpse that there might be hope. Sure. Yeah.
9:18
Speaker 1: So when you were in LPN, were you working like
9:22
Speaker 1: a hospital nursing home? What was there type as a uration.
9:26
Speaker 3: A nursing home. Then at s A's here in Bismark,
9:33
Speaker 3: went into the Army Reserves, the hospital unit that was
9:37
Speaker 3: attached out here or at Lincoln the three eleventh, and
9:43
Speaker 3: was in that hospital unit for six years, and that
9:49
Speaker 3: was both a stabilizing and unstabilizing time. That summer camp
9:56
Speaker 3: could involve a whole lot of drinking, but I was
10:03
Speaker 3: high enough up the food chain where I had some
10:05
Speaker 3: responsibilities that didn't allow me to quite runs as others did.
10:11
Speaker 1: Okay, And so when you are in those roles kind
10:18
Speaker 1: of what took you to your next step in life?
10:20
Speaker 1: Do you think when you're in the military and those
10:24
Speaker 1: types of things.
10:27
Speaker 3: I started to have some geographical cures, you know what
10:37
Speaker 3: I means? Yes, sure, for really no other reason than
10:43
Speaker 3: out of control grandiosity. I think if you look at
10:47
Speaker 3: it in hindsight and then you look at it clinically.
10:52
Speaker 3: Took a job in man Cato, Minnesota, wasn't really qualified for.
10:58
Speaker 3: So now I'm starting to Peter princip lost. It started
11:03
Speaker 3: going down hostile own cars, et cetera. And no one
11:13
Speaker 3: including me really saw alcohol as part of the problem
11:17
Speaker 3: of that, but it was there, and it just no
11:23
Speaker 3: doubt about it. When I was in my early twenties,
11:32
Speaker 3: I had started doing some doctrin for elevated liver enzymes.
11:39
Speaker 3: Nobody asked about alcohol. They did every single test under
11:45
Speaker 3: the sun trying to find an explanation for it. No
11:50
Speaker 3: one asked about alcohol, and I didn't find out until
11:54
Speaker 3: years later that that's what alcohol does. But no one
11:58
Speaker 3: would suspect that a nineteen or eer kid is drinking
12:02
Speaker 3: to the extent of damaging their liver. But it's far
12:08
Speaker 3: more the norm than the exception.
12:10
Speaker 1: I think, what were your symptoms to lead you to
12:16
Speaker 1: to the doctoring? Do you think.
12:18
Speaker 3: Bruising very easily?
12:20
Speaker 1: Okay?
12:21
Speaker 3: And so that's what started it. And then from different
12:26
Speaker 3: tests they did, they found the enzymes elevated and in
12:32
Speaker 3: hindsight pre declared to be oh.
12:35
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, yeah, well, and especially as as drinkers,
12:39
Speaker 1: these bruises just appear magically sometimes and there's no clue
12:42
Speaker 1: where that came from, no recollection. I get that. So
12:48
Speaker 1: you're doing some doctrine, they're not. That's not something that
12:51
Speaker 1: they're finding to be the concern. So things are maybe
12:59
Speaker 1: spiraling a bit, then are you thinking in terms of
13:01
Speaker 1: your where you're at in life? So after they're not
13:06
Speaker 1: finding anything as far as with the medical piece of it,
13:09
Speaker 1: and things are not going so great, what kind of
13:13
Speaker 1: what are you?
13:17
Speaker 3: And I should say I had been in mine not
13:20
Speaker 3: for a period of time, and ran for the legislature
13:25
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy four, okay, but never drew a sober
13:31
Speaker 3: breath through that entire campaign. I mean, it was just
13:33
Speaker 3: god howful. And I remember embarrassingly sharing that an AA
13:39
Speaker 3: meeting once because I actually had some uncontrolled a bowel issues,
13:46
Speaker 3: and guy at the meeting says, I don't worry about it,
13:49
Speaker 3: he said, all politicians are full of it anyway, fair enough.
13:56
Speaker 3: But that bad period caused me to kind of rethink
14:04
Speaker 3: and recharge a new path, and so I am enrolled
14:08
Speaker 3: in college. I was going to get my r N
14:11
Speaker 3: degree and then go on for a master's and never
14:18
Speaker 3: quite got there until I ended up in treatment.
14:24
Speaker 1: So prior to that, what was your family situation?
14:27
Speaker 3: Like, well, I'm one of fourteen, and there's a lot
14:37
Speaker 3: of difficult stories in that that family tree. I lost
14:45
Speaker 3: a brother to alcoholism, another brother to drug addiction, another
14:49
Speaker 3: brother to suicide. You know, so that isolated the childhood
15:00
Speaker 3: took its toll on a whole bunch of us. And
15:05
Speaker 3: as I said, as I look around the neighborhood, and
15:08
Speaker 3: a whole lot of others as well. So and we're
15:15
Speaker 3: not close. We don't know one another because we were
15:20
Speaker 3: we were tools, you know, not family. I recall one
15:29
Speaker 3: Sunday after church we were standing outside and somebody walked
15:34
Speaker 3: up to my father and said, he said, Amy, that's
15:37
Speaker 3: a good looking bunch of kids you've got, And his
15:41
Speaker 3: response stuck with me. I was probably nine or ten.
15:45
Speaker 3: He said, well, a good bull always throws a good calf.
15:50
Speaker 3: It was that was the view of us as children.
15:55
Speaker 3: We were chatteled. Well, you know, yeah, I was writing
16:02
Speaker 3: to someone the other day and oh, I know, I
16:08
Speaker 3: have a wonderful son. But one of the things he
16:11
Speaker 3: gave for Christmas was my story. I don't know whether
16:15
Speaker 3: you're familiar with it, but they send you a question
16:17
Speaker 3: a week. Oh, I'll answer. It gets recorded and printed,
16:21
Speaker 3: and at the end of it he's got a book.
16:23
Speaker 1: Oh cool.
16:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And he had asked about where I was
16:29
Speaker 3: in the impact of Martin Luther King's death and the
16:35
Speaker 3: civil rights movement was a tremendous help to me because
16:40
Speaker 3: it was about hope. You can have the worst of
16:44
Speaker 3: the worst circumstances and there's hope. And I'm not unique
16:50
Speaker 3: in that, I know a whole lot of folks that
16:53
Speaker 3: grew up like I did, or even just an abject poverty,
16:57
Speaker 3: who hung their coats on the civil rights movement and said,
17:01
Speaker 3: dang it, if they can, I can. So now we
17:08
Speaker 3: got off topic.
17:09
Speaker 1: No, that's okay, No, I think that's interesting notede to
17:12
Speaker 1: hear that, and especially did, like you said, to be
17:17
Speaker 1: able to take that experience and take that forward. I mean,
17:23
Speaker 1: that's like you said, though, that's that's not always easy
17:27
Speaker 1: to do.
17:27
Speaker 3: It's not, it's not, it's not. But without hope, you wither, right,
17:35
Speaker 3: And that was the critical issue. And I have to
17:40
Speaker 3: say that a piece of that from childhood on was
17:45
Speaker 3: faith I have, for whatever reasons, coming out of that background,
17:52
Speaker 3: I was able to hold on to faith, and without
17:57
Speaker 3: it I wouldn't be here.
18:00
Speaker 1: Carried you through.
18:00
Speaker 3: Yep, it's part of that hope. Yeah.
18:03
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
18:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:05
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit then about how you
18:07
Speaker 1: mentioned about how you were going back to school to
18:10
Speaker 1: be an r N what what did that kind of
18:13
Speaker 1: kind of give me a glimpse of what that looks
18:15
Speaker 1: like then?
18:18
Speaker 3: I was I had quit drinking that Labor day, the
18:23
Speaker 3: labor day before, and but the sober I got the
18:30
Speaker 3: more depression took over and I was severely, severely clinically depressed.
18:35
Speaker 3: I didn't drive myself the treatment. I was afraid i'd
18:38
Speaker 3: put my car into the underpass on the on the freeway.
18:46
Speaker 3: So going to treatment then in February helped start to
18:52
Speaker 3: address that that depression. But it was a horrific struggle,
18:58
Speaker 3: a horrific struggle, and I I look back at it
19:02
Speaker 3: today and I still am in awe of the fact
19:06
Speaker 3: that I was able to come through it.
19:09
Speaker 1: And so when you were at treatment, you were in
19:11
Speaker 1: our Mandan the heart View Mail Facility go a hospital
19:15
Speaker 1: which oversees the Heart River, which is where we got
19:17
Speaker 1: our name, so our heart View yep. So tell me
19:22
Speaker 1: give our listeners kind of a little bit of a
19:24
Speaker 1: glimpse of what it was like there, because it's evolved considerably,
19:28
Speaker 1: you know, to where we are now. But I think
19:31
Speaker 1: that it would be good for people to understand, you know,
19:34
Speaker 1: kind of what it was like when you were there.
19:39
Speaker 3: Well, they had a terrific reputation, and when I was there,
19:44
Speaker 3: there were people from at least a half a dozen
19:47
Speaker 3: states that, through employee assistance programs or just word of mouth,
19:54
Speaker 3: came to Heartview because that was the place that could help.
20:06
Speaker 3: It was I think basically a twenty eight day program
20:10
Speaker 3: at the time, but I wasn't a past learner. I
20:15
Speaker 3: was there fifty one and they had asked whether or
20:19
Speaker 3: not I wanted to stay another week. Oh yes, so
20:24
Speaker 3: I'd probably still be there at I said yes. But
20:29
Speaker 3: there was some very skilled counselors, very skilled counselors, very unique,
20:36
Speaker 3: different personalities. But mine was a woman by the name
20:42
Speaker 3: of Phyllis Roberts who at that time everybody smoked, and
20:50
Speaker 3: still never forget. She'd put a cigarette and a cigarette holder.
20:54
Speaker 3: You know, I'd have it way out here, take a
20:57
Speaker 3: puff and blow it now, mister frank Key, what do
21:00
Speaker 3: you think about that? You know me in that boys,
21:05
Speaker 3: But she reached a lot of people and helped a
21:09
Speaker 3: lot of people. Dick Salvic was the clinical director at
21:14
Speaker 3: the time, and he had a rope jumping group for
21:19
Speaker 3: those of us struggling with depression to try to get
21:23
Speaker 3: some physical activity going. I hated it, but it but it,
21:31
Speaker 3: but it was essential. So uh, I had nothing but
21:38
Speaker 3: fond memories, a lot of tears, lots of tears, lots
21:43
Speaker 3: of tears mine and a whole lot of others, but
21:47
Speaker 3: nothing but but good memories. And I remember leaving there
21:55
Speaker 3: and uh crying and my wife said, what do you
22:00
Speaker 3: crying about? And I said, well, I know I couldn't
22:04
Speaker 3: stay alive here. I don't know whether I can out there.
22:10
Speaker 3: But again another spot of angels. You know, as I said,
22:14
Speaker 3: they doted all through my life. My favorite Bible story
22:20
Speaker 3: is the one of the Prodigals Son. I've steadied it
22:23
Speaker 3: over and over again and read multiple books on it,
22:26
Speaker 3: but it was one that I remembered as a kid,
22:31
Speaker 3: and part of what stuck with me with that story
22:36
Speaker 3: was you can get so far down that you're even
22:40
Speaker 3: sleeping with and envious of hog food, and still God
22:48
Speaker 3: won't have given up on you. So when I got
22:51
Speaker 3: back to Dickinson, I've got a young family to feed
22:55
Speaker 3: and still trying to go to college. So I'm looking
22:59
Speaker 3: for a little odd jobs I can do here and there,
23:02
Speaker 3: and I got one at the Agriculture experiment station in
23:06
Speaker 3: Dickinson taking care of pigs, and I knew I was
23:13
Speaker 3: gonna be okay.
23:15
Speaker 1: How did you feel about your your strength in maintaining
23:20
Speaker 1: your sobriety when you first got out, Because for me,
23:23
Speaker 1: it was scary when I first started, you know, was
23:25
Speaker 1: done with with treatment and it was I was terrified.
23:33
Speaker 3: Things like that began to make a difference, you know,
23:37
Speaker 3: I began to see that I'm not alone. I picked
23:44
Speaker 3: back up right away with a counselor on an outpatient basis,
23:47
Speaker 3: which was really important to have that continuity of care,
23:54
Speaker 3: and that helped and made a difference. Since those started
23:58
Speaker 3: to give me confidence, I ended up not going into nursing.
24:07
Speaker 3: Dick Selvick would call me and said, hey, we got
24:11
Speaker 3: this call from a farmer in New England and we
24:14
Speaker 3: can't get out there to talk to him. Would you go?
24:16
Speaker 3: And I said, no way, I ain't qualified do that.
24:19
Speaker 3: Well a week later he call again and we got
24:21
Speaker 3: this would you call? And finally I relented. Well, what
24:28
Speaker 3: I discovered was I could make a difference, and each
24:34
Speaker 3: farmer type he sent me out to talk to ended
24:37
Speaker 3: up going to treatment. And I said, okay, Lord, maybe
24:43
Speaker 3: you're trying to tell me something. And I switched to psych.
24:50
Speaker 3: And there were graduate level programs at the time that
24:55
Speaker 3: NI TRIPAA had started at ten of them across the country,
25:00
Speaker 3: Ball State, Creighton University, Washington State University where I ended
25:05
Speaker 3: up going, and I went there because they waived out
25:09
Speaker 3: of state tuition and gave me a halftime ta so
25:14
Speaker 3: I could help my family situation and not break the bank.
25:21
Speaker 3: But the entire graduate school curriculum we were attached to
25:26
Speaker 3: the apartment of Psyche, but we had our own faculty
25:31
Speaker 3: and every course was taken through the lens of addiction.
25:35
Speaker 3: So we got incredibly highly specialized training that has stood
25:43
Speaker 3: for a lifetime. Has stood for a lifetime, and most
25:46
Speaker 3: of those programs, unfortunately have went away, but they made
25:50
Speaker 3: a big contribution.
25:53
Speaker 1: Well having the training, especially at that time, like you
25:56
Speaker 1: talked about, I mean it's even now some times it's
26:00
Speaker 1: tough to find, you know, that specialized training. Some schools
26:04
Speaker 1: don't offer it, and I think it's still a learning
26:07
Speaker 1: phase for a lot of you know a lot of
26:08
Speaker 1: universities and colleges too that you know, that's just becoming
26:11
Speaker 1: more and more of a need in terms of offering
26:14
Speaker 1: the training. But yeah, so that's quite a remarkable you
26:18
Speaker 1: know that you had that opportunity, especially with those other
26:22
Speaker 1: things attached with like waiving the tuition and all of that.
26:26
Speaker 1: That's huge for you and your family. Angels again, yeah,
26:30
Speaker 1: definitely Angels. So when you finished up with school, then
26:36
Speaker 1: what were your next steps or what did how did they.
26:38
Speaker 3: Set that up? I had planned to come back to
26:40
Speaker 3: hurt Pew and do a year long internship in the
26:44
Speaker 3: family program. Okay, that had been my goal, but when
26:51
Speaker 3: you're in grad school, you broke and I did come
26:58
Speaker 3: back and and as I recall an interview also at
27:03
Speaker 3: the bad Lands Center in Dickenson, where I had been
27:08
Speaker 3: an outpatient, but the grad school got a call from
27:16
Speaker 3: a care unit. There was a chain of inpatient treatment
27:22
Speaker 3: facilities called care units all over the country, at least
27:26
Speaker 3: the West Coast at that time, and they wanted somebody
27:30
Speaker 3: from the grad program who was recovering. Well, there were
27:33
Speaker 3: two of us. There was thirty students. There's two of
27:36
Speaker 3: us that were recovering. The other one was a woman
27:40
Speaker 3: from Montana who was going back to Libby to to
27:44
Speaker 3: a pre arranged job. And so I thought, what the heck,
27:48
Speaker 3: I'll go interview. Well, I got offered the job, and
27:53
Speaker 3: shall we say, the rest is history.
27:55
Speaker 1: You know, how did you find you know, when working
28:01
Speaker 1: with people in recovery, with your background and both in
28:05
Speaker 1: recovery and with your education. Sometimes we talk about it,
28:09
Speaker 1: and even one of the recovery groups that I was
28:12
Speaker 1: in even when I first started going through training or
28:14
Speaker 1: excuse me, through treatment, and when we'd have people come
28:19
Speaker 1: and talk to us that were in recovery as well,
28:21
Speaker 1: we always say they had street credit, right, so you
28:24
Speaker 1: know they had that been there, done that type of thing.
28:29
Speaker 1: How did you find that that helped you in terms
28:32
Speaker 1: of being able to connect with people when you can
28:36
Speaker 1: literally say I know what you're going through.
28:46
Speaker 3: I think a lot and sometimes I write a lot,
28:51
Speaker 3: mostly for my own benefit. But the training was very,
29:01
Speaker 3: very very critical, very critical. I had a couple of
29:10
Speaker 3: just really skilled professors, and my main psychology professor was
29:17
Speaker 3: a Fulbright scholar from Brazil, Concetto Fuscini Miller. I'm sure
29:26
Speaker 3: as long ago gone to the Lord. But she taught
29:32
Speaker 3: me to trust my instincts. And when you kind of
29:38
Speaker 3: grew up paranoid, you know and duck and cover, trusting
29:42
Speaker 3: your instincts is not something that comes naturally, but she
29:45
Speaker 3: taught me to do that. I just a few days
29:54
Speaker 3: ago was talking with a physician and about tendencies to
30:04
Speaker 3: see what you want to see and to hear what
30:06
Speaker 3: you want to hear. And I was so blessed to
30:11
Speaker 3: be trained not to do that, to listen, but you know,
30:18
Speaker 3: hear what's not being said, hear what's not being spoken,
30:27
Speaker 3: to feel the emotions not being expressed. And so those
30:34
Speaker 3: were real, real, real gifts that I had been given,
30:38
Speaker 3: partly from training, I think partly divine as well, And
30:45
Speaker 3: those are the things that really made a difference. Did
30:51
Speaker 3: recovery give me a foot in the door? Yeah, both
30:58
Speaker 3: within the profession and within individual work. But I don't
31:04
Speaker 3: want to minimize the impact to the training.
31:06
Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, Yeah. And a combination of all those things
31:11
Speaker 1: that you know has made you who you are, right
31:13
Speaker 1: and definitely made the impact that, yeah, that you have.
31:17
Speaker 1: So when you were you talked, you just reflected a
31:20
Speaker 1: little bit on that you were You had do some writing,
31:24
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure that we talk about
31:26
Speaker 1: that because when when you were emailing, you said I
31:29
Speaker 1: have something for you, and when we met, you handed
31:34
Speaker 1: me a copy of your book. And so i'd like
31:38
Speaker 1: you to, you know, if you wouldn't mind reflecting on that,
31:41
Speaker 1: because I think that's been a huge piece of the recovery,
31:43
Speaker 1: piece of helping people, but also just a great resource
31:48
Speaker 1: for families. And so what led you to write the book.
31:52
Speaker 3: Do you think it's really crazy when you think about
31:55
Speaker 3: a high school drop out from northern Dakota. You know,
32:00
Speaker 3: I'm drunk on his keister, a whole lot of his
32:04
Speaker 3: childhood ending up, you know, writing a book. And I
32:10
Speaker 3: should say when I was on book tour, my first
32:15
Speaker 3: stop was d C. And so I appeared on Voice
32:19
Speaker 3: of America a translated in thirty six language simultaneously to
32:26
Speaker 3: an audience of over fifty million. Wow, and I'm I'm
32:31
Speaker 3: sitting down here on main floor and they are sitting
32:34
Speaker 3: up here behind glass coverings. Okay, it was called it
32:38
Speaker 3: was a meat the press type format and talk about intimidating. Yeah.
32:45
Speaker 3: And I walked out of there and said, Frank, if
32:48
Speaker 3: you can do anything?
32:51
Speaker 1: Yeah?
32:52
Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah. Who would have thought this country bumpkin, you know,
32:56
Speaker 3: would be doing something like that. CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio.
33:06
Speaker 3: We're all part of the initial media exposure, which was
33:11
Speaker 3: so far beyond who I ever ever envisioned being and
33:16
Speaker 3: very very difficult and painful and intimidating. But I did it.
33:23
Speaker 3: I did it. So how did the book come about?
33:26
Speaker 3: No one on the West Coast had heard of Intervention.
33:29
Speaker 3: They had not heard of the Johnson Institute at doctor
33:32
Speaker 3: Brin Johnson any of that. And so I'm working at
33:38
Speaker 3: this inpatient facility and there says great need and nobody's
33:42
Speaker 3: heard of it, and so I started teaching it as
33:46
Speaker 3: best I knew how, and people just kept encouraging me, saying,
33:53
Speaker 3: you've got to write about this. So I went into
33:58
Speaker 3: private practice, developed a kind of a full scale consoling
34:04
Speaker 3: practice but also a very serious intervention practice. I did
34:08
Speaker 3: interventions in thirty five states. Wow. Yeah, it was my downfall.
34:14
Speaker 3: I became too well known, and I worked myself to
34:18
Speaker 3: the bone and have struggled physically because of that ever since.
34:23
Speaker 3: But they kept encouraging me to write and encouraging me
34:28
Speaker 3: to write, and so I started. And then you know,
34:33
Speaker 3: the old self doubts creep in, and who in the
34:36
Speaker 3: hell do you think you are, you know, to be
34:40
Speaker 3: writing a book. Well, I'm doing an intervention prep with
34:44
Speaker 3: a group of yuppies whose friend is in big trouble
34:48
Speaker 3: with cocaine. They're all wealthy, young executives. And I said something,
34:55
Speaker 3: and I don't recall what it was, but he said, oh,
34:57
Speaker 3: that sounds like a title to a good book. And
35:01
Speaker 3: I said, actually, the titles don't let him die and
35:07
Speaker 3: nothing more was said. And six weeks later, his friend's
35:11
Speaker 3: out of treatment and doing well, and he calls me
35:14
Speaker 3: and said, were you serious about the book? And I said, oh,
35:16
Speaker 3: kind of, sort of, but I put it on a
35:18
Speaker 3: shelf and he said, well, I'm a publisher, I'll help you. Angels. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 3: absolutely again, dotting my life all the way through, all
35:29
Speaker 3: the way through. And so I got serious about it.
35:36
Speaker 3: I would write mornings. My secretary would transcribe it in
35:41
Speaker 3: the afternoon, first thing in the morning. I'd kind of
35:45
Speaker 3: go through, make corrections, and then write more. In a
35:51
Speaker 3: matter of weeks, the transcript was done and off to
35:57
Speaker 3: the publisher. Publisher was called Beyond Words Publishing. Not long
36:07
Speaker 3: after that, Parkside Prentice Hall combination picked it up, okay
36:14
Speaker 3: and developed a much wider distribution. Nice so yeah, and
36:19
Speaker 3: it was in print for twenty some years.
36:22
Speaker 1: I was googling it as well, and and looking at
36:28
Speaker 1: the book that you gave me, and and you know,
36:30
Speaker 1: to see and I mean, yeah, it's available for sure,
36:33
Speaker 1: and it's exciting to be able to, you know, to
36:35
Speaker 1: see that in terms of how many copies do you
36:39
Speaker 1: think that you've sold? Fifty that's awesome. Yeah, congratulations, very good.
36:44
Speaker 3: Unreal, unreal.
36:46
Speaker 1: So can you talk a little bit about we We
36:50
Speaker 1: reflected on this a little bit when we met, but
36:53
Speaker 1: you had in the past have come and talked to
36:55
Speaker 1: groups and and hoping to do that again with you know,
37:01
Speaker 1: with heart View. What do you find are some of
37:03
Speaker 1: the things that help you to kind of kick off
37:07
Speaker 1: those conversations. You know, I've gone in and talk with
37:10
Speaker 1: patients and told my story, and I always feel like
37:13
Speaker 1: the you know, when I first walk in. You know,
37:15
Speaker 1: some people there know that I work there, some people don't.
37:19
Speaker 1: Usually it takes a little bit for everybody to kind
37:22
Speaker 1: of get on even ground right, it's kind of like, well,
37:24
Speaker 1: who's this lady and why is she here? Type of thing,
37:27
Speaker 1: and what do you think has helped you to get
37:31
Speaker 1: kind of that grounding level to help people to start
37:33
Speaker 1: resonating with what you're having to say.
37:36
Speaker 3: I wish I knew I put the bottle or maybe
37:40
Speaker 3: put it in another book.
37:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
37:47
Speaker 3: They have to perceive you as being authentic, and there's
37:55
Speaker 3: no substitute for that, there's no shortcut to that. Some
38:00
Speaker 3: thing has to transpire early where they feel like you're
38:03
Speaker 3: authentic because they'll smell a phony in a heartbeat and
38:11
Speaker 3: and stop listening, you know, between now and Labor Day,
38:17
Speaker 3: when it's my official fiftieth I'm trying to give back
38:21
Speaker 3: in the volunteer and treatment centers and other places to
38:26
Speaker 3: share what will work. And I recently was down at
38:29
Speaker 3: Prairie Recovery Way the hell out in the boondocks, but
38:35
Speaker 3: gorgeous countryside, but I sat instead of stood, partly because
38:47
Speaker 3: of health reasons. But but I do think it made
38:49
Speaker 3: a difference. And I don't think people want to hear,
38:54
Speaker 3: for the most part, another drunk alogue. They know enough
39:00
Speaker 3: of those, right, So what I ended up focusing on
39:07
Speaker 3: was little lessons that had big impacts. And oftentimes it
39:16
Speaker 3: was what somebody else said that you know, made a
39:22
Speaker 3: real difference in my life. And it may have been
39:26
Speaker 3: somebody at a meeting, maybe somebody had to talk, it
39:28
Speaker 3: may have been somebody on radio or television. But one
39:35
Speaker 3: of the stories I shared is I used to be
39:37
Speaker 3: very physically uptight. My body was just rigid. I was
39:41
Speaker 3: packing around so much tensioned in my system. And when
39:45
Speaker 3: I was in Portland, Oregon, I lived on the Vancouver side.
39:49
Speaker 3: She had to make it across the Columbia river every day,
39:52
Speaker 3: but if there was an accident on the bridge, you
39:54
Speaker 3: sat for hours, I mean literally hours, and it was
39:59
Speaker 3: a great time if you're packing tension to stew and
40:03
Speaker 3: to create more tension. And one day I have been
40:11
Speaker 3: sitting there for hours and I get across the bridge
40:14
Speaker 3: and I'm listening to NPR, which I did a lot
40:17
Speaker 3: and still do. They were interviewing a ninety year old
40:22
Speaker 3: Indian chief and they said, what was your secret to
40:27
Speaker 3: such a long life? And he said, when I was
40:30
Speaker 3: a young boy, I decided that when it was snowing,
40:34
Speaker 3: I'd let it snow. Boom boom. Now, yeah, good, traffic's heavy,
40:43
Speaker 3: I'll just let it be heavy. Yeah, I'll just let
40:47
Speaker 3: it be heavy. When it's rain and I'm just gonna
40:50
Speaker 3: let it rain. And I could just feel the tension
40:56
Speaker 3: draining out of my body. So, you know, I have
40:58
Speaker 3: a series of those that have had an impact on
41:03
Speaker 3: me that that I carry with and if I can
41:06
Speaker 3: share them in some way it helps somebody else. I
41:09
Speaker 3: know there there was a number of Native patients, and
41:12
Speaker 3: I know that story I had some real meaning.
41:15
Speaker 1: For well meaning for everybody though. And you're right, but
41:21
Speaker 1: you're right too that you know when you're stuck in
41:23
Speaker 1: the middle of something like that. As an example, when
41:25
Speaker 1: I got my way here, the train is stuck on
41:27
Speaker 1: the road, and so your first thought is are you
41:31
Speaker 1: kidding me? Like, come on, you know, but.
41:34
Speaker 3: That train was going to be there a while.
41:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's the thing. Though, I turned around, went
41:39
Speaker 1: all the way over to Seventh Streets I could go under,
41:42
Speaker 1: And as I was waiting to go underneath, the train
41:45
Speaker 1: started moving. By the time I got over, we hear
41:46
Speaker 1: the train is gone. So had I just let the
41:49
Speaker 1: train do its thing, I would have got here at
41:51
Speaker 1: the same time as driving all the way around.
41:54
Speaker 3: So it's got so many applications.
41:56
Speaker 1: Does mean yes, I should have a Yeah, I should
42:00
Speaker 1: have had the conversation with you prior to the trained situation,
42:04
Speaker 1: and maybe I would have just hung tight and waited.
42:06
Speaker 3: Ye.
42:08
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit more about your plans.
42:11
Speaker 1: You're going to try to visit with some more groups,
42:14
Speaker 1: and you went out to PRC and I'm going to
42:18
Speaker 1: visit with some heartbeat folks. Any other groups that you're
42:21
Speaker 1: hoping to get in front of or agenda.
42:23
Speaker 3: Yet But I am I'm ready willing and able.
42:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, you have quite a story though, and I
42:30
Speaker 1: mean it's I.
42:31
Speaker 3: Don't love church groups, you know, any church groups that
42:34
Speaker 3: are interested, you know.
42:36
Speaker 1: And I think I mean it because faith is a
42:39
Speaker 1: part of this, Oh for sure it is. And and
42:42
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is that no matter where
42:44
Speaker 1: you go to talk about something like recovery, there's there's
42:48
Speaker 1: always someone that can resonate with you. Whether they share
42:50
Speaker 1: that with you or not, well they.
42:53
Speaker 3: Do by becoming defensive.
42:55
Speaker 1: Oh yep, I've seen that. I have seen that myself. Actually, yeah,
43:01
Speaker 1: I think too that. You know, it's one of those
43:04
Speaker 1: things that we say it all the time, but it's
43:06
Speaker 1: like it's pretty rare to find someone that's not been
43:09
Speaker 1: affected by addiction in some capacity. If you find someone,
43:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never I don't know that I ever have.
43:15
Speaker 1: And so it when you share things like that and
43:18
Speaker 1: share the story of hope that that you were talking about,
43:23
Speaker 1: that it's impactful for people but also shines a light
43:27
Speaker 1: that there is possibility and it can happen. Sobriety, it
43:33
Speaker 1: definitely is something that can be achieved, not without work
43:38
Speaker 1: and persistence. And so I want to first of all
43:44
Speaker 1: again congratulate you on your successes of many I want
43:50
Speaker 1: to also say that.
43:51
Speaker 3: You know.
43:51
Speaker 1: When we were visiting last week, one of the things
43:54
Speaker 1: you said which really has stuck with me since since
43:56
Speaker 1: we talked, is you said, I'm the most blessed guy
43:58
Speaker 1: that I know.
44:00
Speaker 3: And absolutely absolutely having that in spite of all the
44:07
Speaker 3: failures and stumbles and difficult spots, I am the most
44:11
Speaker 3: blessed guy I know.
44:13
Speaker 1: Well, we are blessed to have you to share your story.
44:17
Speaker 3: Thank you.
44:18
Speaker 1: The community is blessed to have you back here in
44:21
Speaker 1: Bizmarck and to be sharing and going out and meeting
44:24
Speaker 1: with groups, and so I can't thank you enough for
44:27
Speaker 1: doing that. Congrats again on your fifty years. Thank you,
44:31
Speaker 1: and we'll be uh, I'll be reaching out to you
44:34
Speaker 1: so we can maybe have a cupcake on that Labor
44:37
Speaker 1: Day weekend celebrate.
44:39
Speaker 3: Very good.
44:39
Speaker 1: All right, thank you so much for being here. I
44:41
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
44:47
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Recovery Chronicles.
44:51
Speaker 2: Find out more about hertviewat Kurku dot org. And keep
44:54
Speaker 2: moving forward, remembering the story is yours and you are
44:57
Speaker 2: the author.