Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #104 - Don Tresohlavy - Iraq War Veteran

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#104 - Don Tresohlavy - Iraq War Veteran · The Chris and Mike Show

• 0:02
  Yes, we are live on YouTube, ladies and gentlemen.
• 0:07
  We are live on YouTube. I warned him we were in a
• 0:22
  rock'n'roll theme. Yeah.
• 0:31
  I'm old enough to remember watching people having fun doing
• 0:34
  that. It doesn't look as much fun
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  today. Yeah, that was actually.
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  Right. That was a probably.
• 0:41
  Yeah, No, right there. That song, that was us.
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  That was, that was Freeman from Nemesis.
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  Oh, welcome to the show, Donald. How are you today?
• 0:51
  Oh, doing great, guys, doing good.
• 0:55
  And if you're just joining us for the first time, this is the
• 0:57
  Chris and Mike show. We are actually now streaming
• 1:01
  live on YouTube every time we record our episodes.
• 1:04
  If you happen to be on Twitch and want to watch this on
• 1:07
  YouTube and all the kind of fun stuff, hey, join along because
• 1:10
  there we are. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  So Donald's kind of a cool dude, man.
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  He he's a, he's a military veteran.
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  Thank you for your service. Yes, thank you for your service.
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  My military family, my son's a Marine active duty right now I'm
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  hanging out in California. So you were let tell us a little
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  bit about your military background if you would.
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  Donald, do you prefer Donald or? Don, Don, Don.
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  OK, Cool, Don. So give us an idea of your
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  military background, Don. Sure.
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  Yep. Well, I did three years active
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  duty. I was a combat engineer
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  stationed in Vilsack, Germany. Shout out to 84th engineers.
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  I love you guys still today. Oh yeah.
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  All righty. OK, so I spent 15 months in Iraq
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  way. The way I very much remember it
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  is I went into the combat zone on my 23rd birthday.
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  I was still in that combat zone. What year was this so?
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  What year was he? What year was that?
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  This was 2007 to 2008. OK.
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  OK. And then I got out in 2009 and,
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  well, you know, on paper, OK, Yeah, it looked like things went
• 2:39
  really well as I got out. I we used my GI Bill and I, you
• 2:44
  know, got my college degree. Sure.
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  And within six months found this great job working for the
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  railroad. All right, on.
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  And this is this is like 2009 to 2012, like end of 2009 to 2012.
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  So if y'all might remember, this wasn't a fun time to look for a
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  job. Not at all.
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  Yeah. So I felt very lucky in that
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  case, yeah. For sure.
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  But I also wasn't really having all that great of a time
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  readjusting to civilian life and all of that.
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  So I, you know, I went back and I went back into the reserves
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  for a little bit, but I, I didn't spend much time there.
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  But in the meantime, well, the reserves end up they pick up on
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  some things from my deployment and I end up getting ordered,
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  basically ordered to seek help. OK.
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  OK. And I did begin working with the
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  VA, and I am not one of those people who is going to complain
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  to you about how bad the VA is. I'll tell you they were great to
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  know. Yeah, because I've heard, I've
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  heard both. I mean, it depends on, you know,
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  the person itself. But yeah, some people just slam
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  the VA and like you, some people, you champion it because
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  they did what they needed to do so.
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  It was kind of, it was a long process.
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  I mean, I they started working my PTSD claim and we had to go
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  through the process. They started me with 40% and
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  then I had to repeal and and we got it up to 60 and then 70 and
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  after 11 years. OK.
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  All right, so I come home from work one morning, 7:00 AM, OK.
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  And now you know. I'm about £350 at this point.
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  And how tall are you? How tall?
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  How tall are you? About 6 foot.
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  OK, so I just want to put in perspective because you know
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  when you're sitting down, people don't know how tire.
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  So 6 feet tall, £350. Wow.
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  That's a bad boy. Not in good shape.
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  At this point, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So, and like I pretty much did, every time I got home from a job
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  on the railroad, I grabbed a beer, started drinking, Yeah.
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  And then just opened up my bank account to do some usual stuff,
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  pay some bills, Sure. That an extra $20,000 in there.
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  All from the VA. Yeah, right on.
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  That's that's how I found out. I was 100% at that point.
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  Right on. And yeah, hey, I I mean, hey,
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  guys, celebrate that by getting hammered, of course.
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  Absolutely. But why not?
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  You know, you remember I had to, like, call out sick from work
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  that night. Like we don't do anything.
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  OK. Gotcha.
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  Yeah I remember going like wow, I go back on call in like 2
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  hours and I'm hammered. She'd probably.
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  Call out. Sick out no prior prior to to
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  that moment in time were you because we talked a little bit
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  alcoholism, things like that. So when you when did you drink
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  and start, you know, take us back to when that did it start
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  during the military or did it start coming out of the military
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  to kind of bury those demons and keep the keep the demons quiet
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  or explain that a little bit? Well.
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  The drinking was the drinking was a thing in the military.
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  Sure. Like at the very early onset of
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  it, OK, I think a lot of the drinking came from the fact that
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  I couldn't smoke pot. Oh, OK.
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  That's really where I think a lot of it really just started
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  because I mean like. I completely understand that
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  for. Sure, yeah.
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  I've been in that situation too, like.
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  I'm going to. That Ave. is taken away from you
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  and that's what you gravitate towards is the next thing,
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  right? Exactly.
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  And even like and, and the railroad, you couldn't smoke pot
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  either, so. And that was my situation.
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  I was told I couldn't for a large portion, you know, 10
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  years. So I get it, man.
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  And that's kind of the avenue that I was headed down because
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  that's you have you find a replacement for something,
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  right? Exactly.
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  And unfortunately 1 is a negative and the other is a
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  positive and they take the positive away from you and they
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  leave you with the negative. Isn't that, isn't that weird how
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  the world did that right? You take something that's not
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  habit forming, that has so many benefits from the health and
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  psychological aspect, but instead oh you can just go drink
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  alcohol which is has the the even if you're not an alcoholic,
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  drinking alcohol on a daily basis has a negative impact on
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  your body. In Access for sure, yeah.
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  Yes. So continue your story, Don.
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  OK. All right.
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  So now unfortunately, something the military instills in you
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  that's probably not great to apply to everything is never
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  quit anything. Right.
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  Of course, instead of quitting my job like I probably should
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  have. Right.
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  I decided to just start smoking weed and let fate decide.
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  OK. But I mean, at this point,
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  unfortunately, it didn't go quite the way I was really
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  hoping it would, where I would just start smoking weed and not
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  quit and not drink anymore. Oh, that, that did not happen.
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  I just added weed to it. I did drink.
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  Less OK now were you just drinking beer or was it was it
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  liquor and a hard alcohol beer? OK, it it was beer that was that
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  was what the weight was coming on.
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  Definitely, Yeah. OK.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I passed 20 years sober
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  back in, in February. So I get, I get that for sure
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  because you know the beer, you know it, it definitely packs on
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  the weight. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll talk
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  about that. Definitely.
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  That's definitely alright. So basically it takes about a
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  year but I do finally get hit with a drug test.
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  Yeah. Yep, and you know, I leave the
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  railroad and just that. Oh my God, we could do a whole
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  podcast on that fucking story. So let me ask you this, let me
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  ask you this question. So you test positive for part of
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  the drug test and there's no there's no type of assistants
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  like, hey, you know, maybe Don has a problem.
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  Let's get him into this little. It depends on your union
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  contract. Oh, OK.
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  Well, everybody has different rules in their contracts.
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  And I was offered treatment but I'm not going to go to rehab for
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  fucking weed, especially when I. Right, we we have the same
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  option. You go for 30 days, but then
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  you're subject to random tests at any time for any reason.
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  And he would be under the same like they could the very next
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  day after he goes back to work, they could pop him again and
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  then he's done. And that's what they're going to
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  do. Gotcha.
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  So they, so they want they offer you that out of a union level of
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  of. It's part of the contract.
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  Right, but then. But then if it's a random thing
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  your second time, you'll see you later.
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  Bye. Yeah.
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  And they're going to wait maybe a month or two, and then they'll
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  say, Don, we're going to need to see you down at medical.
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  And, you know, he's still been smoking weed.
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  And now Don's done. So he just chose to walk away.
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  OK, gotcha. So most unions know nowadays
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  because this is back in 2009, but most more 2910, right Don?
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  Well, the R12 2012 was when I was hired out on the railroad.
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  I left in 2021. So nowadays, Chris, yeah, most
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  of them have come to their senses weren't included and they
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  just threw that out. They don't test for that at all,
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  right? They test for everything else on
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  your hard drugs. Right, You got test for the
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  cocaine, the cocaine and the heroin and the Columbia.
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  Yeah, yeah, The Columbia. Columbia.
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  Bam, bam. OK, I got it.
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  So. So summarizing Don's story so
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  far. So you're in the military, Iraq
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  war veteran, you finally get 100% disability.
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  You wake up one day, 20 grand in my bank account.
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  So it's time to, you know, get your party on.
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  You kind of threw caution in the wind, started smoking pot again
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  while working for the railroad. Fast forward several years, you
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  get tested, you get popped. You opt to just do your thing as
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  opposed to the rehab because you're not going to go to rehab
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  for just pot. Why not?
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  So here we are so now we're we're here we're you you you
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  lost your job on the railroad. Now let's, you know, pick up the
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  story from that point all. Right.
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  Yeah. So now, like basically OK now
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  realize between the railroad and the military, college was my
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  only real break in life. Like I, these are two careers
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  that are life consuming. You know, yeah, yeah.
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  So now I actually have free time for the first time ever really.
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  Which is a bad thing for an addict, right?
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  Well, probably, yes. In general, I'm not going to
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  disagree with you. Oh yeah.
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  Also, I have a tendency to buck the norm.
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  OK, OK, really at this point, like, 'cause the first thing I
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  said with this is if I'm going to not work, I am not going to
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  just wake up and drink all day and yeah, like, I'm going to do
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  stuff, yeah. You got to have some purpose in
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  life regardless. Yeah, I'm like I'm only 36 at
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  the time. OK, OK.
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  But so I, I mean, that actually really did help.
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  So I kind of went from like maybe drinking a case of beer
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  every single chance I got, which was on the railroad schedule
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  close to every day. OK.
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  To like probably 15 every other day.
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  So I did reduce and also like the other weird thing that just
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  sort of like straight healthier was I suddenly had a sleep
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  schedule again. Oh.
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  First thing I did like 'cause I was a conductor so I was totally
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  on call 24/7. Oh wow, oh wow.
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  Yeah. Wow.
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  So like the first thing I did was I was like, all right, 10:00
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  PM, that is bedtime. Yeah, 6:00 AM that is wake up
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  time. Gotcha.
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  OK, Yeah. OK.
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  So like that, that part went great, but the problem is like
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  15 beers every other day is still quite a lot.
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  That is, That is quite a lot, absolutely.
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  I'll attest to that as well. You know, I mean, I'd maybe,
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  maybe, maybe maybe I dropped about 15 lbs.
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  That's about it driving that much.
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  But you know, Fast forward now we get to the winter time.
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  Winter sucks in upstate New York.
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  There's nothing to you don't want to go outside.
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  I don't know. Outside in the winter.
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  Time because it's cold, right? Yeah, exactly.
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  That's when I finally at least get bored enough that I'm like,
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  all right, I got to go find a part time job or something.
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  Yeah, you know, and all in the same month I find this part time
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  job, I'll just say a department store.
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  I don't want to say where, but and and the same month a friend
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  of mine like tells me about mushrooms, right, psilocybin.
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  I said magic mushrooms in the text because I never spell
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  psilocybin. I've no idea how.
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  To spell, OK, that's good. MMM has Mike has experience with
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  mushrooms, which is why this will be a good conversation.
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  Because he's been there and done that.
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  You've been there, done that. So I've never done it.
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  I've never done any psychedelic even though I've written songs
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  about it just from outside looking in.
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  Changed my life too, Don. So, yeah, yeah.
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  I want to ask you one question real quick, not to interrupt
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  your story, but did we gloss over the fact that you were
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  medically discharged from the military?
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  I was medically discharged from the reserves.
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  OK it. Was an honorable discharge from
• 15:05
  active duty. OK, I I don't want to that
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  that's a very important point in this story because otherwise
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  there's dumb people listening, not dumb, maybe not informed
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  that are going to think this guy's just a lazy piece of shit
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  and got lucky. And I just want to reinforce the
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  fact that you are honorably medically discharged from the
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  military and you had a hard time reintegrating into society,
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  which is a very common story with veterans, right?
• 15:34
  That that, yes. Yes, OK, so continue on with
• 15:37
  your story, but I think that's a very important point in your
• 15:40
  life's, what do you call it, Chris?
• 15:42
  Your life's resume your. Life's resume?
• 15:44
  Yep. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:46
  Continue on. So now you're, you're starting
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  to experiment with psychedelics, which I have been there, done
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  that many times all. Right.
• 15:53
  So I I got the first one there, the guy it tells me about the
• 15:59
  heroic doses like the 4G or more.
• 16:02
  Heroic doses, that's what I call them too, yes.
• 16:04
  Yeah. OK.
• 16:05
  So, so for people, so, so remember for people that don't
• 16:07
  understand because not everybody's understands this
• 16:10
  topic. So what's a dose?
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  So real quick, yeah, people have probably heard of micro dosing
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  and they've heard of what they consider people saying tripping,
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  right? Correct.
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  Yep. You are not tripping when you're
• 16:22
  in micro dosing. You are kind of altering your
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  reality so slightly that it's only only really noticeable if
• 16:29
  you pay attention, right? You'll notice just simple things
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  like I don't feel as agitated or, you know, areas where I
• 16:38
  would have had road rage or something like that.
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  All of a sudden I'm calm. OK?
• 16:43
  A heroic dose is we're going to let the walls melt in front of
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  us and we're going to a different dimension in our mind
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  or in reality, nobody knows because it's so realistic to
• 16:55
  you, it doesn't matter, right? OK.
• 16:58
  And in that dimension there's love and there it's just
• 17:02
  overwhelming, like the universe is hugging you all at the same
• 17:06
  time. I'm getting goosebumps as I'm
• 17:08
  describing it, right? Because if you've been there,
• 17:11
  you long for that just peace. It's just complete peace.
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  And knowing that there's something on the other side,
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  that whether it's in your mind or whether it's reality, it
• 17:25
  doesn't matter because when you come back from that, you're a
• 17:29
  changed person. And Don can tell you what that
• 17:31
  meant to him, but to me, it meant I went from being a
• 17:38
  complete control freak and asshole over everything in my
• 17:43
  life and a negative person to a complete positive person and
• 17:46
  understanding that everyone else is a human being, right?
• 17:49
  With their life's resume and their reason for living, that's
• 17:53
  cool. So.
• 17:54
  So for an ignorant person like me, that would be the equivalent
• 17:56
  of just taking one hit off a joint as opposed to smoking 10
• 18:00
  joints in an hour. Yes, OK.
• 18:04
  Yes, OK. I just because I you know that
• 18:06
  put that's a. Great way to put it.
• 18:07
  OK, because I I. I really want people to
• 18:09
  understand and listen to us because if they haven't done it
• 18:11
  like myself, I want to get it understanding because you and I
• 18:14
  have talked about it, Mike, before.
• 18:15
  Yeah, so I get it. But that helps me understand the
• 18:18
  difference between micro dosing and a heroic dose.
• 18:20
  So a heroic dose is kind of like I'm going to the desert with Jim
• 18:23
  Morris and drinking some peyote. I'm going to see God.
• 18:25
  That would be like. Putting enough to fill the palm
• 18:29
  of your hand with mushrooms and you alone take that.
• 18:32
  That's your heroic dose. OK.
• 18:34
  That's about 7 to 10 grams, right, Don?
• 18:37
  Yeah. Make sure you don't have
• 18:39
  anything to do for the next 12 hours or so.
• 18:42
  Oh yeah, we. We can get.
• 18:43
  To that part, yeah, but OK, yeah, so, so.
• 18:46
  Continue your story. This is very interesting, but I
• 18:47
  wanted to kind of break it down just in layman's terms for, you
• 18:50
  know, the people that don't understand what we're talking
• 18:52
  about. So continue, please.
• 18:54
  Very fascinating. All right.
• 18:56
  So my buddy, he gives me 6G and he tells me, all right, first
• 19:01
  night, do just 2G and see how it affects you.
• 19:05
  OK, Well, John. All right.
• 19:07
  Yeah, sounds great. So.
• 19:10
  Well I invite my buddy over, he brings over his VCR and we watch
• 19:16
  man. Yep, like watch.
• 19:18
  Friggin Star Wars before it was ruined with all that CGI
• 19:23
  bullshit. All right, all right, the 2G
• 19:28
  haven't just an absolute blast. I am like, OK, I didn't really
• 19:36
  know what to expect, but right, you know, and who and who would.
• 19:39
  You're really, really. Good.
• 19:40
  Yeah. You enjoyed watching this movie,
• 19:44
  All right. And the next morning I'm like, I
• 19:48
  still notice. I'm like just kind of bouncy
• 19:53
  today. Something really energetic.
• 19:56
  All right Hon. Going.
• 19:57
  On. Here.
• 20:01
  So that's a great way. To describe it too.
• 20:03
  Something's different, right? Yeah.
• 20:06
  Like I, I just couldn't put it on it.
• 20:09
  So, well, Like every morning I skipped on down to the gas
• 20:14
  station, bought a case of beer, took it back to the house, threw
• 20:19
  it in the refrigerator, Right. And, but, well, as far as I was
• 20:25
  concerned, I didn't think about that beer for about two more
• 20:27
  weeks. Really.
• 20:29
  Isn't that awesome? That's.
• 20:31
  Crazy that's how it works. So just.
• 20:33
  So if you're just joining us, so this is Don and he's talking
• 20:36
  about his journey from alcoholism and, and when he got
• 20:39
  introduced to, to mushrooms and he was drinking 15 to 15 beers
• 20:44
  to a case of beer every other day or so.
• 20:47
  And then you, you have this, this 2 milligram dose of, of
• 20:51
  magic mushrooms as you call them.
• 20:54
  You bought beer and you didn't even think about it for two
• 20:56
  weeks. Like it changed you 4G dose?
• 21:00
  In between that. OK, but that's just.
• 21:03
  Yeah, but that's. Amazing that that completely
• 21:05
  shifted your mind to to where you because I'm like I said, I'm
• 21:09
  20 year alcoholic. So when I stopped drinking, I
• 21:11
  just stopped drinking on a dime because that's kind of my
• 21:13
  personality. But I struggled more so after my
• 21:18
  first year with temptations that he did the first year 'cause I
• 21:20
  was so hyper focused on getting to the first year.
• 21:22
  Here's another thing. To not gloss over OK.
• 21:26
  All right, he did. 2. Doses.
• 21:30
  Right, He didn't sit there and just pop mushrooms for 12 hours
• 21:34
  straight for seven months in a row.
• 21:38
  He did 2 doses what, a few days apart, right?
• 21:42
  That's usually how everyone does it.
• 21:43
  Because one thing that I've made very clear down and I want you
• 21:47
  to reinforce this is psychedelics are not something
• 21:51
  that you long to do right away again, right?
• 21:54
  It's that intense. You don't, you don't wake up the
• 21:57
  next morning and go, let's see, I'm getting goosebumps again,
• 22:00
  because this is important for people to understand that these
• 22:04
  are not, this is not crack cocaine.
• 22:07
  This is not crystal meth. This is not something that
• 22:10
  people want to do right away. Again, it's life changing in a
• 22:14
  positive way in all but a few circumstances where people have
• 22:18
  underlying health conditions where they shouldn't have done
• 22:21
  it in the first place, like schizophrenia or something like
• 22:24
  that, Right? Yes.
• 22:26
  And another thing that is very important to note, with magic
• 22:29
  mushrooms, psilocybin, nobody has ever died from an overdose.
• 22:34
  Thank you like that. That is very important.
• 22:39
  Now, yes, psychotic breaks and things like that are possible.
• 22:50
  I have to give it a pause. That is good.
• 22:53
  I had to applaud. That because it's, I mean,
• 22:55
  because Mike and I have talked about that too with marijuana,
• 22:57
  like, you know, name what you find one scenario where
• 23:01
  somebody's overdosed on marijuana or killed someone on
• 23:04
  marijuana, it just, it doesn't happen.
• 23:06
  So that's I, I appreciate you guys bringing that up because
• 23:08
  that's a really valid point that again, people that, that think
• 23:11
  this is taboo, who don't really understand it, This Is Us trying
• 23:15
  to impart this wisdom on you and you choose to do what you want.
• 23:18
  We're not advocating anything. We're just sharing down the
• 23:20
  story. But that's, that to me is
• 23:22
  amazing. So to two doses a few days apart
• 23:25
  and then the desire for alcohol just was wiped away.
• 23:30
  Now for about two weeks though, OK, OK, but.
• 23:32
  Still, I mean, still it was pushed at bed.
• 23:34
  That's impressive. Yeah, Yeah.
• 23:37
  OK, so I. Mean.
• 23:38
  After the two weeks or so I do finally, I'm like, you know, I'm
• 23:42
  sick of looking at this. Drink it.
• 23:48
  And I mean. I'm like, I am pretty like.
• 23:51
  The thing is though, I'm not getting drunk, OK?
• 23:55
  So you're just drinking to have a drink as opposed to drinking a
• 23:58
  good hammer. OK, Which is the way I.
• 24:00
  Do it now. Yes, yes, because I was going
• 24:03
  to, I was going to make sure to emphasize this like I right now
• 24:07
  I call myself, I'm a liquor on vacation drinker, OK, You know,
• 24:12
  I like my last, my last drink was, well, it was a Easter of
• 24:17
  last, of last Easter because I was in Myrtle Beach.
• 24:20
  OK, you know, but like I did like, like I said, I I started
• 24:28
  dropping down at that point. I was really I would struggle to
• 24:33
  get up to 10 beers, OK. Which Which again, which again,
• 24:37
  that's one point in time here. Before magic mushrooms, you were
• 24:40
  15 to 24 beers every day or every other day.
• 24:42
  So and now you. As someone who hasn't been there
• 24:45
  can see, yeah, how his brain is starting to rewire it.
• 24:48
  So yeah, that's impressive. Man, exactly and.
• 24:51
  It's even at some points and times it even felt more like wow
• 24:54
  I think I'm more doing this out of ritual than anything else.
• 24:57
  Like I'm almost kind of forcing myself to drink another beer
• 25:02
  because, yeah, well, I normally would do that now.
• 25:04
  Yeah, I could. See that?
• 25:05
  I could see that and it, yeah, no, I mean, here's the thing.
• 25:12
  And in the meantime, I'm also trying to lose weight and I'm
• 25:16
  going through a lot of, I mean, I'm starting to exercise and
• 25:20
  doing yoga and all that and eating healthy again.
• 25:23
  I've tried a whole bunch of different diets.
• 25:27
  Right now I'm just sort of I I inadvertently do the carnivore
• 25:31
  diet. I bought a.
• 25:32
  Pellet. Smoker and discovered bulk meat
• 25:34
  prices and then here I am. I love it.
• 25:39
  Yeah, but so, well, it's kind of funny because I, I, I'd say this
• 25:46
  also, I tried everything to lose weight except for just
• 25:49
  completely quitting beer. And I literally had the beer
• 25:55
  down. I noticed this about 2-3 months
• 25:59
  ago. OK, all right.
• 26:01
  And you know, mind you, I've taken mushrooms probably maybe
• 26:05
  once every once every couple of months since then before we get
• 26:09
  too. Far away from that.
• 26:10
  When did you do the next dose after you did those two?
• 26:13
  Because you said that curbed you're drinking for about two
• 26:16
  weeks, Yeah. When did you?
• 26:18
  Do the next dose after that it was.
• 26:21
  Probably. It was probably about a week
• 26:24
  after after I started drinking again.
• 26:27
  OK, Yeah. And then you kind of continued
• 26:30
  to do that all along or did you take breaks from it or because I
• 26:36
  went like a year after my second time.
• 26:40
  I took a couple of breaks drinking.
• 26:42
  I know there was one point. I know I will.
• 26:45
  OK, I know there was one point. I remember I learned the hard
• 26:49
  way that you can't not eat beef because I literally, I remember
• 26:54
  this like, I was on chicken and vegetables all month long and
• 27:00
  nothing but. And I remember texting a buddy
• 27:04
  of mine who's a big diet freak and he says like, and I'm like,
• 27:08
  why am I wiped out after every meal or after every, like, work
• 27:14
  day? And the first thing he asks,
• 27:16
  he's like, yeah, when was the last time you had beef?
• 27:19
  Huh. I'm like because you had no.
• 27:22
  Iron in your diet is that I. I'm guessing that was probably
• 27:26
  it you're getting more into. Chris's wheelhouse now.
• 27:29
  He understands Christian a lot better than I do.
• 27:32
  Yeah, yeah, I, I. Don't understand it.
• 27:34
  Great myself, I just know, like after he said that, I went to
• 27:38
  Burger King, ate a burger and I immediately felt better.
• 27:43
  Yeah. That's crazy, right?
• 27:44
  That, that you just put some, some, some dead cow in your body
• 27:47
  and all of a sudden BAM, your energy level goes through the
• 27:51
  roof. It's it's a trip, man.
• 27:52
  It's absolutely a trip. No, it's interesting, but no, I
• 27:59
  actually got my beard all the way down to no more than two at
• 28:04
  a time, no more than four days a week.
• 28:07
  Right now, that one was. About about three months ago.
• 28:10
  So that's kind of where. I'm at if we're putting this
• 28:13
  into perspective, I went 10 years without drinking at all,
• 28:16
  9/9 and 1/2. So we'll just round it up to 10.
• 28:20
  But. Then I decided because I had
• 28:24
  rewired the way I think, I don't, and I've told Chris this,
• 28:27
  I just don't like feeling fucked up anymore.
• 28:30
  And a couple times a year that I accidentally go over the edge.
• 28:34
  I'm so disappointed in myself just because that feeling is not
• 28:40
  something that I aspire to anymore.
• 28:42
  When we were all addicts, that's the feeling that you aspire.
• 28:45
  That's what you would chase. You would.
• 28:47
  Chase, you would chase to be comfortably numb and then once
• 28:49
  you hit comfortably numb, at least for me, then it was like,
• 28:51
  OK, try to maintain that long enough so then I can fall
• 28:54
  asleep. So now to.
• 28:56
  Yeah, go ahead. Now to put this into perspective
• 28:58
  for people. Yeah.
• 28:59
  Instead. Of aspiring to feel that way to,
• 29:03
  you know, use it to fall asleep as a crutch.
• 29:06
  Kind of like Chris is describing now.
• 29:09
  It's disappointment. You know?
• 29:11
  I'm like, Oh my God, now I got to ride this stupid fucking
• 29:13
  feeling out for the next 6-8 hours.
• 29:17
  Then tomorrow morning I'm going to feel like shit.
• 29:19
  I'm all dehydrated. Fuck this.
• 29:20
  I'm not doing this again because I think a lot.
• 29:24
  I give a bad impression because I usually drink we're in the
• 29:27
  morning, ladies and gentlemen. So I have coffee right now.
• 29:30
  But right, a lot of times people do see me drinking a beer on
• 29:33
  this show. That's like the one or two beers
• 29:36
  that I'll have for that whole day.
• 29:37
  Well, and then and you. Have to understand two people
• 29:39
  that are just joining us and Mike referencing that.
• 29:41
  And Mike's not an alcoholic, no. Mike was never an alcoholic, no.
• 29:45
  So the fact that he can have a beer, it has no impact on him.
• 29:48
  Me on the other hand, if I have a beer, I'm down that rabbit
• 29:50
  hole again. Life, my, my fucking life is
• 29:52
  just so that's going. To rewire your brain right back
• 29:56
  to the where the hole you were in exactly which.
• 29:59
  Is why it took me so long to embrace non alcoholic beer
• 30:02
  because when that first time I did it the brain was like holy
• 30:04
  shit this is beer. The the tongue was like, oh, oh
• 30:07
  the nectar from gods. And then it just didn't know how
• 30:09
  to process because I love the taste of beer, which is why I
• 30:13
  won't touch the non alcoholic whiskey they've made.
• 30:15
  Because I know being who I am, if I had a shot of that fake
• 30:19
  whiskey, it's fucking all over because that was going right for
• 30:22
  the. Jack Daniels?
• 30:22
  Exactly. So you have to know your
• 30:25
  balance. Worry about.
• 30:29
  For, for Speaking of Jack Daniels there, I think maybe a
• 30:32
  year ago or so. I also haven't drank soda in
• 30:36
  like a long time now. That's kind of for.
• 30:39
  Your weight too, man. Yeah.
• 30:41
  Soda like I'm I'm glad to say that soda tastes like shit to me
• 30:44
  now and this is how I found out I was out at the casino one
• 30:48
  night and I ordered a Jack and coke OK, not even thinking about
• 30:52
  it 'cause I mean, I first went to Diet Coke and then put.
• 30:56
  Soda, right, 'cause that Coke's so much better.
• 31:00
  Yeah, but. Just saying this is a full on
• 31:02
  sugary soda with the Jack in it, right?
• 31:06
  And and I just down it and I'm like.
• 31:09
  What the frig? Is this doing to my stomach like
• 31:12
  the sugar and the soda is screwing me up way worse than
• 31:15
  the Jag is right. But Nah, I was going to say if
• 31:21
  you if you look on my channel, the daily dose of Dawn, yeah,
• 31:25
  people, we are going to you see like from a few from about maybe
• 31:30
  two months ago. I did this show there.
• 31:33
  It's called the Hunt for Hulk Hogan.
• 31:35
  OK, right. Early.
• 31:38
  Hulk Hogan was doing a a tour around upstate New York, OK,
• 31:42
  with his new real American beer. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:45
  Oh my God, talk. About fucking American this
• 31:48
  water, I mean. I told you I was.
• 31:51
  I was stationed in Germany. Man, I know good beer.
• 31:53
  Yeah, yeah. No, no.
• 31:55
  No, in Germany, because you bring that up in Germany, they
• 31:57
  drink their beer warm, right? It's not cold.
• 32:01
  It's it's room temperature, right?
• 32:03
  Right, Yeah, which would be weird to me, like because it
• 32:06
  would be weird. But it tastes good the way.
• 32:09
  OK, OK. Well.
• 32:11
  I can't taste it, you know, unfortunately, but you know,
• 32:13
  I'll take your word for it. If I make it there, I'll.
• 32:16
  Let you know. Yeah, Mike and Mike can.
• 32:17
  Taste it for me. But no, I, I, I buy a 12 pack of
• 32:23
  of his beer. Yeah, And I get home and it's
• 32:26
  kind of the same thing again. I'm like, there's about six of
• 32:30
  them left in the fridge and I'm tired of looking at them, so I
• 32:35
  friggin choked down all six of them one night.
• 32:40
  And I'm just, man, this is like the drunkest I have been in a
• 32:45
  long time. Like I end up like going
• 32:50
  downstairs and going to the bathroom and throwing up.
• 32:52
  I'm like oh God, wow. I haven't done.
• 32:55
  This in a decade and a half? Sure.
• 32:59
  Yeah. So I guess.
• 33:03
  So. God give a good shout out and
• 33:05
  thank you to Hulk Hogan. That's one thing.
• 33:11
  I'm glad you brought that up, Don, because I probably should
• 33:14
  put out a public service announcement.
• 33:16
  I just kind of had the same conversation only about cannabis
• 33:19
  with another friend of mine who recently discovered it again and
• 33:24
  had a very bad experience because.
• 33:27
  Modern day. Cannabis is a lot more powerful
• 33:30
  than what we smoked when we were in our 20s, which was basically
• 33:34
  whatever came across from Mexico.
• 33:37
  So. Be careful.
• 33:39
  If you've been away from it for a long time and you're thinking
• 33:41
  about going and dabbling in it again, absolutely go do it.
• 33:45
  It's not going to hurt you, but do it very minuscule.
• 33:49
  You know, if you used to do a lot, do a very tiny amount
• 33:53
  because I blacked out the first time I did the pens.
• 33:58
  You know that stuff that's like 97%.
• 34:01
  Yeah, my blood pressure. Dropped down to nothing and that
• 34:06
  was the end of me so. Definitely be.
• 34:09
  Careful and with edibles because edibles are processed by your
• 34:14
  liver and they're four to five times more psychoactive than
• 34:18
  THC, so be careful with edibles as well so.
• 34:21
  Edibles can be more potent than magic mushrooms, no so.
• 34:29
  They can. They can mimic the same kind of
• 34:32
  effects if you do too much because THC is injected straight
• 34:38
  into your bloodstream because you're smoking it, right?
• 34:41
  It's an instantaneous effect. You feel high right away.
• 34:44
  You know exactly what you just did.
• 34:47
  Edibles. If you read the package it says
• 34:50
  allow 40 minutes to an hour for activation time right?
• 34:55
  If you also read the package, which a lot of people don't do,
• 34:58
  it will show you the dose for the amount that's in each gummy
• 35:04
  or cookie or whatever you bought right?
• 35:06
  Sometimes the package says 200. And 50 milligrams and there's 25
• 35:11
  gummies in there is basically 10 milligrams each, correct, so. 10
• 35:16
  milligrams to a novice is a lot that might pin you to the couch
• 35:20
  for 8 hours. Like you can't move anything but
• 35:23
  your eyes. Yeah, or you're.
• 35:24
  Or you're working out with Donuts and bags of chips because
• 35:27
  you're feeding. That could happen as.
• 35:30
  Well. So.
• 35:33
  Edibles are processed by your liver and it turns the THC into
• 35:37
  another chemical called 11 hydroxy metabolite, which is 4
• 35:42
  to five times more psychoactive than THC.
• 35:45
  Seriously. Yes.
• 35:47
  So. So with does the magic mushrooms
• 35:50
  is that does that pull that out too or no?
• 35:53
  No mushrooms are going to be more psychoactive than THC.
• 35:57
  OK, but 11 hydroxy metabolite, which is the chemical that THC
• 36:03
  has turned into by your liver cause four to five times more
• 36:06
  psychoactive than the feeling you would have if you smoked
• 36:10
  marijuana is what I'm saying. That's that's.
• 36:12
  Crazy. That's how I know.
• 36:14
  That edibles don't affect me the way they affect everybody else.
• 36:17
  Because I can take a 200 milligram gummy and drive to
• 36:20
  McDonald's and get lunch and come back, Dude, I would I.
• 36:23
  Would I'd be I'd be on the floor for days, man.
• 36:27
  They took 200. Milligrams.
• 36:30
  And I was like, man, I'm glad I'm familiar with this feeling
• 36:33
  'cause I just suddenly went, I'm about to start tripping the
• 36:37
  first. Time I did it Don, I had to re
• 36:39
  evaluate my life for like 5 minutes.
• 36:41
  I went whoa, Nelly, you know, and then I went, I came back to
• 36:45
  baseline real quick. I'm like son of a bitch, you
• 36:47
  know, it's like. It's not as much fun.
• 36:49
  As the way other people describe it, but I wanted to be very
• 36:53
  clear to the listening audience at home that when I talk about
• 36:58
  that, I do not recommend people do that on any level, right?
• 37:02
  And I don't think you would either, no. 200 milligrams.
• 37:06
  Is a lot I mean. Well, like I, I personally, I
• 37:09
  don't really do, I've, I've done edibles before, but I don't
• 37:13
  really do them because I they're too much of A commitment for me.
• 37:16
  I just use them. To sleep so I don't really abuse
• 37:20
  them once. In a while I like to.
• 37:22
  Have a good time on a Saturday afternoon, lay down, watch a
• 37:25
  baseball game and relax. You know, maybe after I mowed
• 37:27
  the yard, I'll do a what you and I are now called calling a
• 37:30
  heroic dose. Yeah.
• 37:33
  But for the most. Part I'll take like 20 to 40
• 37:36
  milligrams before I go to bed and it just kind of helps you
• 37:39
  ease into sleep. You know, I I have anxiety real
• 37:42
  bad and I've always been a person who could never shut my
• 37:45
  brain down at night. So it just kind of helps me ease
• 37:49
  into sleep is the way I use it for, yeah.
• 37:55
  I mean, what I love about smoking it, I can smoke it and
• 38:00
  then I can lay off for 1/2 an hour and then go drive.
• 38:05
  I can't really do that with edibles, things like that.
• 38:12
  Yeah, definitely. I would not recommend someone
• 38:15
  took edibles and went and drove a car.
• 38:17
  No, don't. Do that.
• 38:18
  Don't do that. That's surprising.
• 38:23
  It has such a different effect from a different type of things
• 38:25
  you ingest. The things you learn listening
• 38:28
  to podcasts, my friend. Right, this is the Chris and.
• 38:31
  Mike Show Find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
• 38:36
  Great plug. So how long?
• 38:38
  How long, how long did it take you to really not because
• 38:44
  obviously you're not an alcoholic at all on any level
• 38:45
  now. Because like we talked about
• 38:47
  before coming on the show, you use magic mushrooms to kind of,
• 38:50
  you know, get yourself out of that.
• 38:52
  So how much beer do you drink now?
• 38:55
  I have not drank beer in about two months now.
• 38:59
  OK, so just. Notice any other?
• 39:02
  And how many doses have you done?
• 39:06
  Oh. Mushrooms.
• 39:07
  Yeah, quite a lot. Quite a lot.
• 39:11
  Too many count, OK. But still, it's kept you from
• 39:14
  drinking, which is amazing. Yeah, and not, I mean it's I've
• 39:19
  been doing them for about 3 1/2 years now, so.
• 39:23
  Yeah, OK. And what kind of, what kind of,
• 39:26
  again, this isn't a how to do magic mushrooms, boys and girls.
• 39:29
  This is just me asking questions for real.
• 39:32
  Like just kind of ignorance. How often do you dose like like
• 39:37
  like you know, people that smoke pot and smoke pot everyday
• 39:39
  people that can drink and not have issues with it can drink
• 39:41
  everyday. How how often do you do the mic
• 39:43
  the the mushrooms and and do you do heroic or micro?
• 39:48
  I have I have not done any in about 2-3 months right now
• 39:53
  because of well, I currently my my supply is out basically
• 39:58
  indefinitely. OK.
• 40:00
  Unfortunately. But I mean, other, but First off
• 40:06
  #1 like, it's not like there is any addiction going on here.
• 40:10
  Well, yeah, I think you. Haven't done it for that long.
• 40:12
  Yeah, there's no. Addictive properties to that
• 40:15
  whatsoever. That's why I made it very clear
• 40:17
  that that wasn't something that people aspire to do right away
• 40:20
  again and I have never heard anybody say that about
• 40:24
  psychedelics. OK, and to kind of not take the
• 40:28
  opposite of what you just said, but I'm glad that you found Don,
• 40:32
  because you know how important it is to me that people
• 40:35
  understand that this is saving veterans lives.
• 40:38
  This saved him from being an alcoholic, right?
• 40:41
  It it 100% saved his life. The man was £350 at 60.
• 40:45
  He was drinking a case of beer every day to every other day,
• 40:49
  Right? He was headed for death.
• 40:51
  There's just no other way to put it.
• 40:53
  This saved his life. Yeah.
• 40:55
  He's sitting here talking to us, having a good time.
• 40:57
  He's laughing, he's telling his story.
• 40:59
  It it could have been just the opposite.
• 41:03
  He could have been another veteran.
• 41:04
  It could have been a number. Right, exactly right.
• 41:07
  Right. Exactly.
• 41:08
  And that's a bad thing. We'd rather have Don here to
• 41:10
  talk to him. Yes, it's a great conversation.
• 41:13
  So. So from a personal aspect of
• 41:15
  Don, do you have family, brothers, sisters, ever been
• 41:19
  married, kids, all that kind of jazz?
• 41:22
  Never married, no kids. OK, that you know.
• 41:25
  Of yeah. We don't need to know them.
• 41:30
  Don't sip me out. So Brothers, sisters, brother
• 41:36
  and sister, a couple of nephews, you know, Yeah.
• 41:41
  OK, OK, cool. So.
• 41:42
  What? When you went, When you went?
• 41:43
  Can we talk a little bit about your time in the Iraq war?
• 41:47
  Sure, a little bit, OK, because. I don't, I don't want to open.
• 41:49
  You know, you can stop me whenever.
• 41:51
  I told him he's welcome. To talk about or not talk about
• 41:54
  what kind of rapped about that before the show a little bit,
• 41:57
  OK. Cool.
• 41:58
  But yeah, I would like to. Hear whatever you want to talk
• 42:00
  about too. Yeah.
• 42:01
  What? What branch were you in the
• 42:03
  military? I was.
• 42:04
  I was an. Army OK.
• 42:06
  And you're an. Engineer.
• 42:07
  So explain to those that don't understand what an army engineer
• 42:10
  does. Combat, combat, combat.
• 42:13
  Engineer. Yes, my bad.
• 42:16
  Well, let me put it to you this way.
• 42:18
  My recruiter told me you'd be setting the explosives.
• 42:23
  OK, Then I got over to Iraq and found out.
• 42:26
  Now we actually look for them. Oh, no.
• 42:30
  Oh. So so wow.
• 42:33
  So you're scouring the desert for IE D's basically then?
• 42:37
  Basically yes. There's route clearance was our
• 42:39
  main job. How stressful.
• 42:41
  Was that man? So you're on the front.
• 42:42
  Line of the front line right. Yes, basically we've the swaps
• 42:48
  they put in front of the infantry here.
• 42:50
  Go drive down that road and look.
• 42:52
  Fuck. That.
• 42:55
  So now I say thank. You again, sorry to interrupt
• 42:57
  you, but holy shit dude. Thank you for your service
• 42:59
  brother. So I wouldn't say once it's one,
• 43:05
  once you've done it every day for a month or so, it does
• 43:08
  become normal and your Connor. Your life's still in danger
• 43:13
  every time we do that. No.
• 43:16
  Wow, that's insane. So how many did you find a day
• 43:20
  just. Jesus Christ.
• 43:24
  We quite frequently we wouldn't find any in a day, OK, But you
• 43:28
  know, I mean, usually if we found one, it would take so long
• 43:32
  to dispose of it that Oh yeah, that was our day, OK, You know,
• 43:37
  so. I don't know if this relates or
• 43:38
  not, but have you ever seen the movie The Hurt Locker?
• 43:41
  Yes, yes, I have. OK, OK.
• 43:44
  So I kind of get to the side right there and I'm not trying
• 43:48
  to. I'm just, again, this is
• 43:50
  painting a picture for people that don't understand.
• 43:52
  If so, is the Hurt Locker any in any way relevant to what you
• 43:55
  did? Yes, yes, EOD, OK.
• 43:59
  EOD is like the next step up from combat engine OK.
• 44:02
  EOD is what every. Combat Engineer is supposed to
• 44:05
  be striving to be caught, OK. OK, Yeah.
• 44:09
  OK. I mean, there's.
• 44:11
  A line in that movie where the guy tells him, like, you know,
• 44:13
  let's pull out and let the engineers handle it.
• 44:15
  That's who he's talking about. OK, OK.
• 44:17
  Gotcha, so is is that where the bulk of your your PTSD stems
• 44:22
  from? Just just looking for IE D's
• 44:24
  that are going to potentially kill you and or your people
• 44:27
  behind you. Just the, just the.
• 44:29
  Sheer stress of that. I wouldn't put it all on that.
• 44:35
  Like I said once after, after about after, after about a
• 44:40
  month, your real problem becomes complacency where you stop
• 44:44
  stressing about it. OK.
• 44:46
  I've heard that so many times, Don.
• 44:49
  Yeah, I. Mean, that's why I don't really
• 44:52
  want to blame it on that. Sure.
• 44:54
  Well, yeah. You know, don't.
• 44:56
  Want to get some angry messages from my brother and should they
• 44:59
  see this either no. No, but this is your experience.
• 45:03
  That's what everybody needs to understand is this is the way
• 45:06
  the world seemed to you through that portion of your life,
• 45:10
  Right, Right. Right.
• 45:11
  Oh yes. Yeah.
• 45:13
  Fuck what, everybody? Else thinks at that point, this
• 45:16
  is how your eyes saw the world, going through that time in your
• 45:19
  life. That's what we're asking is,
• 45:21
  yeah, you know, what did you see?
• 45:23
  What did you experience? Yeah.
• 45:25
  Yeah. It's Don's point.
• 45:26
  Of view because your point of view is different than my from
• 45:27
  what even Mike's point of view. I have a buddy I went to high
• 45:30
  school with. He got out of high school.
• 45:31
  He was the polar opposite person you think would ever join the
• 45:34
  Marines, let alone be a sniper, end up killing nine people over
• 45:38
  in, in Desert Storm like you just, and then when he came
• 45:41
  back, he had just all kinds of chaos.
• 45:43
  He just, I mean, he ended up having a drinking issue big
• 45:45
  time. He ended up getting in a car
• 45:47
  accident and going to prison for some time.
• 45:49
  So everybody's, everybody's opinion and viewpoint of their
• 45:53
  time in the military is different.
• 45:54
  So there's no judgement here. There's, I mean, we just want to
• 45:56
  hear your story and share it with other ones, other people
• 45:58
  that listen because you may help somebody not go down that dark
• 46:02
  path like you've gone to by just a simple fact of, hey, magic
• 46:05
  mushrooms got me to stop drinking, you know, and so
• 46:09
  you're, and So what caused your PTSD is completely different
• 46:13
  than what caused my buddy's PTSD, right?
• 46:15
  Because he's over there killing people and then he gets out and
• 46:18
  all of a sudden you can't kill anybody.
• 46:20
  It's illegal. Yeah, you know.
• 46:24
  So, yeah, and, you know, and I come from a military family.
• 46:28
  I mean, my my son has not seen combat at all because we're not
• 46:30
  in that, in that kind of time frame right now.
• 46:33
  But, you know, I know enough people that have been there,
• 46:36
  done that, that, that nobody comes back the same person.
• 46:39
  It just, you know, it doesn't happen.
• 46:41
  Definitely. Not no.
• 46:44
  So let's talk a little bit about because what intrigued me was
• 46:48
  your, your mansplaining, your mansplaining The Handmaid's
• 46:51
  Tale. OK, so MM, have you watched The
• 46:54
  Handmaid's Tale yet? I have.
• 46:56
  OK, yeah, I thought. So so my wife and I watched the
• 46:58
  whole series as well. So and I kind of shared with her
• 47:01
  this morning. She's like, let's come on the
• 47:03
  show today. So I told her this guy down and
• 47:04
  you know, I read your little bio that you sent me and she's like,
• 47:08
  oh man, swinging the Handmaid's Tale.
• 47:10
  That sounds interesting. So I agree.
• 47:13
  So if you don't. Know a Handmaid's Tale?
• 47:15
  I haven't got as many. Angry reacts to that as I
• 47:18
  thought I would, but it's but. Yeah, well, you know, I mean lay
• 47:23
  out the handmaid's. Tale for people that don't
• 47:25
  understand that are listening right now.
• 47:26
  Otherwise, they're going to be. Lost.
• 47:28
  Yeah, OK. So the.
• 47:28
  Handmaid's Tale is on on Hulu, and it's a series wrapped around
• 47:32
  the fact that the entire world shuts down because it's a
• 47:34
  dystopian. Future.
• 47:35
  Dystopian future. Where you can't have babies
• 47:37
  anymore and the entire United States gets taken over by Gilead
• 47:42
  except for Texas, right? Is it Texas and and Alaska?
• 47:46
  Hawaii. And Alaska, Hawaii and Alaska.
• 47:48
  Are the continental US? Yeah, right.
• 47:50
  And the entire. Continental United States only
• 47:52
  Hawaii and Alaska are left untouched by Gilead and Gilead,
• 47:55
  like Mike said is dystopian world and it's controlled and
• 47:59
  the Handmaid's tale, the handmaids are are are stolen
• 48:03
  from their families because they're fertile and just to
• 48:06
  paint the really bizarre picture for you.
• 48:09
  The Handmaid. Is laying on the bed, legs
• 48:11
  spread, women have become. Sterile women have become.
• 48:14
  Sterile, so the the husband of the wife.
• 48:18
  The wife is holding the handmaid's shoulders, so she's
• 48:21
  engaged by visual participation. So she's behind the handmaid.
• 48:27
  The handmaid's on the bed and the husband is having sex with
• 48:30
  the handmaid while looking at the face of the wife who's
• 48:34
  holding the handmaid down in order to impregnate the
• 48:36
  handmaid. And then that handmaid becomes a
• 48:39
  vessel to carry said baby. And then that baby gets turned
• 48:42
  over to the husband and wife. I forget what the husband's
• 48:45
  called. The commander gets turned.
• 48:47
  Over to the commander. And and the commander's wife and
• 48:50
  then that handmaid typically is enforced to be the nanny of said
• 48:54
  baby or she's removed from the the house entirely.
• 48:58
  And then they end up going working as prostitutes in the
• 49:01
  brothel, which is very dark and violent.
• 49:06
  And just like it's not the. Yeah, it's not the.
• 49:11
  Bunny Ranch brothel in Reno, NV, man, it's, it's a brothel.
• 49:14
  Like you're basically getting raped on every single occasion,
• 49:18
  but you're forced to do that because that's your end game and
• 49:20
  that's what you know, you're forced to do.
• 49:23
  So Don here has a YouTube channel where he's mansplaining
• 49:28
  The Handmaid's Tale. So they tell.
• 49:31
  So there's the background of the show.
• 49:32
  Don mansplain it to us, please. Letter read My reactions to this
• 49:42
  have just been like what the hell I First off, I got to say
• 49:46
  this the pacing on the show is amazing.
• 49:49
  Yes it is. It keeps you in case for sure
• 49:51
  Marvel would Marvel and Star Wars need to take notes from
• 49:55
  that because couldn't agree with him.
• 49:56
  All the same. Stupid loopholes and dumb shit
• 50:00
  going on. Yep.
• 50:01
  Their pacing is so great it camouflages it.
• 50:04
  Yeah, so I'm gonna give them that.
• 50:08
  And all right now I am currently, I've done my episodes
• 50:12
  through season 2 right now. OK, cool.
• 50:16
  What's available? Right now I'm going to
• 50:18
  subscribe. To your channel right now, Yeah,
• 50:20
  yeah. Started to I've started to watch
• 50:23
  season 3, Season 2. I am just blown away by this
• 50:28
  plot line. OK, yeah, the guy, Nick the
• 50:31
  driver. Yep, Yep.
• 50:32
  OK, He's he's that for the people that don't know, he's the
• 50:36
  commanders driver, right? Hand man for sure, right hand
• 50:40
  man. Yep, basically.
• 50:41
  And the commander wants to promote him.
• 50:44
  Yeah. So in order to get promoted, you
• 50:47
  got to get married. Yeah.
• 50:49
  And they make him get married to a 15 year old little fucking
• 50:53
  religious robot. And.
• 50:58
  And on top of that, he's got to fuck her or else she's going to
• 51:01
  turn him in, right? Being a being a gender traitor,
• 51:06
  right? Yeah, Yeah.
• 51:10
  And I'm just sitting there like, who the fuck is raping who here?
• 51:14
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 51:16
  That's the. Brilliance of that writing, Don.
• 51:18
  Yeah. Do you?
• 51:20
  Know Do you know how? Many people that went right over
• 51:22
  their head, yeah. Oh, I'm sure I will bet.
• 51:27
  And I'm, I'm in, I'm I just got introduced to Lawrence, whom I
• 51:32
  absolutely love. OK, OK, I mean no spoilers, but
• 51:37
  I'm about I've watched the second episode of season 3 right
• 51:41
  now. If people haven't seen.
• 51:42
  Seasons 1-2 and three they've been living under a rock, so I'm
• 51:45
  not worried about too many spoilers with The Handmaid's
• 51:48
  Tale unless it's the final season because that just came
• 51:50
  out. Yeah, that's and that's where
• 51:53
  we're. At right now we're in the final
• 51:54
  season as it just ticks down, but I can already.
• 51:57
  Tell this Lawrence guy he's the he's got to be the Saul Goodman
• 52:00
  of this series. He's already stolen the show for
• 52:03
  me. I don't care about anybody else.
• 52:05
  I'm like, what is his deal? Because up until he showed up,
• 52:10
  my main thing about this was like, who's having a good time
• 52:13
  here? Yeah.
• 52:15
  Right, because nobody is I'm. Waiting for everybody to just
• 52:19
  stop and go Hey I got an idea dude.
• 52:23
  God isn't real and we're wasting our fucking time.
• 52:27
  Yep, and just waiting. For everyone to realize this,
• 52:31
  yeah. And it's.
• 52:32
  And, and, and so those that haven't watched it, really you
• 52:35
  should, one of the opening scenes of the entire show is, is
• 52:38
  basically the folks from Gilead stealing women from on under.
• 52:42
  You know, I forget where they're going because it's been so long,
• 52:44
  but they were stealing the women, chasing them down and
• 52:46
  taking the kids. So if the women had kids, they
• 52:49
  steal the kids too and place those kids with other commanders
• 52:52
  and their wives and God forbid they're females because then if
• 52:56
  they're females, what's the path when they reach the edge?
• 53:00
  Cause again, if you think the, the, the FLDS stuff, the, I
• 53:04
  forget what it is, but you know, the wacky side of the Mormon,
• 53:07
  Mormonism, fundamentalist, fundamentalist, all the wives,
• 53:11
  all the kids. It's kind of that I've I kind of
• 53:13
  equated it to that concept that it's it's that kind of forced
• 53:17
  upon with a 15 year old that Nick was forced to marriage
• 53:20
  that's forced upon. You have to do this or else and
• 53:23
  the OR else is you're going to be hanging from a bridge dead.
• 53:26
  Yes, that's. The other thing is they went
• 53:28
  back to the Roman times and they left them hanging there from
• 53:31
  that. That was a Roman trick back in
• 53:33
  the day, yeah. Just to leave.
• 53:35
  You there all over the place. Yeah, actually it probably.
• 53:38
  Started with like Genghis Khan. Probably.
• 53:43
  Probably because he wasn't a very good human.
• 53:45
  No, you know. What was?
• 53:49
  It less than 1% of the less than 1% of the women could have
• 53:55
  babies. Is that what it got down to in
• 53:57
  Gilly in the? In Handmaid's Tale, yeah, I
• 53:59
  think so. I think that's a kind of.
• 54:02
  I haven't really. I think they're still piercing
• 54:05
  together the the beginning for me on this because I gotcha like
• 54:11
  I, I mean my, my other main thing is I'm like, all right, I
• 54:13
  could see where we could get here in a couple of generations.
• 54:17
  I don't see how we're getting. I'm glad you took us there
• 54:19
  because that's where I wanted you to go that this could if you
• 54:22
  watch this series. That.
• 54:25
  Could happen so easy. Look how easy we gave up our
• 54:28
  rights after 911, right The Patriot Act.
• 54:32
  Yeah, look how easily they will give up the rights when COVID
• 54:35
  hit. Well, that.
• 54:37
  Yes, I've always another great point though.
• 54:40
  The Republicans will give up their rights of a terrorist
• 54:43
  attack and the Democrats will give up their rights in a
• 54:46
  pandemic. Well, we're fucked if the
• 54:48
  terrorists ever get a biological weapon, right?
• 54:51
  Which they did. With which I think COVID, I
• 54:53
  mean, not to go down a conspiracy trail, but I think
• 54:55
  that was biological on some level because now look at all
• 55:00
  the stuff that's coming out about that, you know, some
• 55:02
  health insurance providers won't cover anything.
• 55:04
  Now that's COVID related from the vaccinations.
• 55:07
  What does that tell you? You know, you know, and it's
• 55:11
  fine. And whatever that was, I mean,
• 55:13
  I, I like, I never snored before COVID.
• 55:14
  Now I snored and I had COVID twice.
• 55:16
  It's like, what the fuck? You know, So there's that, you
• 55:21
  know, and in the military, like you were out of the military,
• 55:23
  but my son Don, you had no choice.
• 55:26
  Like right. As a as a Marine, anybody in the
• 55:29
  military, you're a Guinea pig for everything when it comes to
• 55:32
  vaccinations. Oh, absolutely right, because
• 55:35
  you're. Property of the government?
• 55:36
  Exactly. So right, but that was his
• 55:38
  thing, like he had no choice, even if and he wouldn't have not
• 55:41
  said no anyway. But even if those that said no,
• 55:45
  you were, you were still you. You take the shot or you're
• 55:48
  you're dismissed and you're not, you're not dismissed with, I
• 55:51
  forget what it's called now. Hell brain fart.
• 55:55
  Oh, with prejudice. Yeah.
• 55:57
  Yeah, like dishonorably discharged because you're not
• 55:59
  taking the shot. Correct.
• 56:00
  Right. And so, I mean, that's that's
• 56:02
  crazy shit, man. And you know, and when Jay
• 56:05
  Jacob, he he had like fucking raging nightmares the first
• 56:08
  night. He he when it was in the system,
• 56:10
  like just did you get vaccinated?
• 56:12
  I did. I got the Johnson and Johnson
• 56:14
  vax, the baby one. I did not.
• 56:16
  I had to because. We were.
• 56:17
  We were runners and we were going on a vacation race and we
• 56:21
  couldn't we couldn't get on the plane.
• 56:22
  We couldn't get to the event without a vaccination.
• 56:24
  Card. Yep.
• 56:25
  Nikki had to because she's a teacher.
• 56:27
  She had no choice. It's like you get, you take this
• 56:29
  or you're tired. Think about that.
• 56:30
  For a second, a vaccination card.
• 56:32
  So for a very short time, this country got everybody to have to
• 56:36
  have a piece of paper to travel, right?
• 56:39
  Yep. Tell me that wasn't.
• 56:40
  Some kind of weird site Geist fucking high level experiment to
• 56:47
  see how far we can control the population for how long.
• 56:53
  Absolutely, man. I think all of that, at the end
• 56:55
  of the day, it was, it was a smoke and mirror at the time,
• 57:00
  because everything's smoke and mirrors, right?
• 57:01
  Like you have all the stuff Trump's doing now.
• 57:03
  But if you look at the last page of the newspaper, you see what's
• 57:06
  really going on in the world. And all the ditty stuff is
• 57:09
  drawing attention from other things.
• 57:11
  Corey Haim and all those and and Chester Bennett.
• 57:14
  Right. And Chris?
• 57:15
  Cornell they were all tied to the fact that there was such an
• 57:18
  underlying human trafficking pedophilia ring in the Hollywood
• 57:22
  scene and and all the different parts of the world.
• 57:25
  Nobody believed Corey Haim or Corey Feldman, right.
• 57:28
  They just shut him down, shut him down, shut him down.
• 57:30
  And I look at him, it's like fucking told you.
• 57:32
  I told you right now what he's. Saying seems mild compared to
• 57:35
  what people have heard, right? Because that's the thing, it's
• 57:38
  like, let's desensitize the world, right?
• 57:40
  Which is why I don't think aliens were announced truly
• 57:44
  until this last couple years. Because the Internet has so
• 57:47
  undated everybody with everything.
• 57:50
  You're not going to have the reaction to aliens that you
• 57:52
  would have had 20 years ago, 20 years ago, the world's in a mass
• 57:54
  panic. Holy shit, aliens.
• 57:56
  Now it's like, oh, yeah, there's an alien, there's, there's UFO.
• 57:59
  Let's see, let me get my phone out, you know, but.
• 58:02
  Here's here's I think the rabbit hole goes even that much deeper
• 58:05
  because they told you about aliens, right?
• 58:08
  So if they told you about it, then it actually is deeper than
• 58:11
  that. So then I think it goes to you
• 58:13
  and I have talked about 100 times maybe we're living in a
• 58:17
  situation where timeline shift and they know it, right?
• 58:20
  And there's nothing they can do about it there.
• 58:23
  There's a huge conspiracy that when they started that CERN up,
• 58:27
  that that's when the timeline started shifting.
• 58:29
  Yeah. Yep.
• 58:31
  So let's just. Tell them yeah, aliens are real.
• 58:34
  That's my point. Yep, no I.
• 58:35
  I was reading something yesterday about time mirrors.
• 58:37
  Have you heard of Have You heard about Time Mirrors?
• 58:40
  No, now you're going to teach me something.
• 58:42
  It's all theoretical. Because when I read the article
• 58:44
  at the end of the articles, and this is all speculative, I'm
• 58:46
  like well that sucks. So time mirrors.
• 58:48
  I love shit. Like that I know so time.
• 58:50
  Mirrors are basically it the way it looked, it was, was, you know
• 58:53
  how you got the ring there? The the light ringed on It was
• 58:57
  like that size of mirrors facing each other and it could increase
• 59:01
  communications from, you know, better than they are now.
• 59:05
  It could go through different levels of I sent it to Nikki
• 59:08
  'cause it was such a fascinating article.
• 59:10
  Let me see how I can find it. Yeah, there it is.
• 59:16
  Oh, come on, stupid thing. That's why is it not doing it.
• 59:20
  It's not playing fair anyway. It's just a it's a unique thing.
• 59:25
  I will it's a unique thing that that is is is is it's up.
• 59:31
  It's up in the game as far as technology is concerned because
• 59:33
  you could take you can take these time errors and you can it
• 59:37
  it's supposedly cause again, it's all in theory can can store
• 59:40
  data you know at a more efficient rate that it can it
• 59:43
  can. Communications.
• 59:47
  At a more efficient rate, which I don't know how more efficient
• 59:49
  communication would be. I'm in.
• 59:49
  I'm in Arizona, Mike's in Illinois.
• 59:51
  And where are you at, Don? I'm in upstate New.
• 59:54
  York, right? Oh shit.
• 59:55
  So, I mean, you know, we're covering the, the West Coast,
• 59:58
  the Midwest and the East Coast on the show.
• 1:00:00
  So how, how much more communicating can you get?
• 1:00:04
  Right? But it, it was fascinating from
• 1:00:06
  that fact. And I'll send it to you, Mike,
• 1:00:07
  'cause it, it literally was just like, wow, that's, that's a,
• 1:00:11
  that's a legit type thing. And then I realized, Oh, it's
• 1:00:14
  not real. It's it's all speculation, but
• 1:00:17
  that's how everything. Started right at at one time we
• 1:00:20
  thought there were only two dimensions and people thought
• 1:00:22
  the world was flat. And if we thought anything
• 1:00:24
  different, they would hang you into town square.
• 1:00:27
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:00:28
  Yep. Are you on?
• 1:00:30
  Are you on Facebook as Donald? Dawn.
• 1:00:35
  Yeah, that's my personal profile, but I also have the
• 1:00:38
  Facebook page, the Daily dose of Dawn.
• 1:00:40
  Right? I want to send you this.
• 1:00:41
  Thing that's why I was asking. I want to sign up for.
• 1:00:43
  That too. Yeah.
• 1:00:44
  I'm a Dawn fan now. Daily.
• 1:00:47
  Daily. Dose of Dawn.
• 1:00:50
  Hopefully after this appearance I'll get a whole bunch more too.
• 1:00:53
  We hope you do. Man, that's the whole point,
• 1:00:54
  man. We want to help people like you
• 1:00:57
  help people like us. And it's, you know, it's, it's
• 1:00:59
  it goes all around. Yeah, I meant what I said.
• 1:01:02
  Man, it's awesome to know that you went through the same kind
• 1:01:05
  of deal that I did. Only, you know, your situation
• 1:01:08
  was so much worse because your physical health, I mean, at one
• 1:01:11
  time, I guess my physical health was at risk too.
• 1:01:14
  But it, it, it warms my heart every time I hear a success
• 1:01:19
  story from someone with psychedelics because they've
• 1:01:23
  been demonized as the horrible drugs, just like meth and
• 1:01:28
  cocaine. And you know what I'm saying?
• 1:01:31
  When it's the exact opposite. All I've ever heard is beautiful
• 1:01:34
  stories from people. Yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Well, Nixon Reading, needed a reason to lock up the hippies.
• 1:01:41
  That's it, people. Don't realize that that's the
• 1:01:43
  only reason it's illegal. He was scared of the hippies.
• 1:01:47
  That's a true story. Yeah, he was on.
• 1:01:51
  Tape, that's part of the Watergate, when that became,
• 1:01:53
  when that became public knowledge to the Freedom of
• 1:01:57
  Information Act, We found out that Nixon was afraid of the
• 1:02:00
  hippies. They were gaining too much power
• 1:02:02
  and they were changing people's minds.
• 1:02:04
  You know, when who was it that said drop out or TuneIn?
• 1:02:09
  Drop out? Yeah.
• 1:02:10
  Yeah. Who was that?
• 1:02:13
  I don't remember. It wasn't.
• 1:02:15
  It wasn't. It wasn't linen.
• 1:02:17
  No, it was a famous psychedelic guy back in the day, but he had
• 1:02:22
  such a movement that people. Was it Timothy?
• 1:02:24
  Was it Timothy Leary? That's it.
• 1:02:25
  Thank. You.
• 1:02:26
  You're welcome. Jesus, well, because I was
• 1:02:28
  thinking about Timothy real early in the in the effects
• 1:02:30
  because they did all the even in the military, right.
• 1:02:32
  They were experimenting LSD with our troops.
• 1:02:36
  They were giving. Them heroic doses times 1000
• 1:02:40
  right because they wanted. To see what what impact would
• 1:02:42
  have on them in those poor. Guys, now they went through hell
• 1:02:46
  because they didn't know what to expect, right?
• 1:02:49
  That was a horrible thing to do to somebody.
• 1:02:51
  So imagine this, Don, you and I are talking about what a heroic
• 1:02:55
  dose is. Imagine doing 1000 times that.
• 1:02:59
  Of LSD. Of LSD.
• 1:03:03
  There's a movie on Netflix. I I told Chris about it.
• 1:03:07
  I'll, I, it'll probably come to me while we're talking about it,
• 1:03:10
  but that's the whole premise of the documentary is here's what
• 1:03:14
  happened to our troops and because they were government
• 1:03:17
  property. I think they were.
• 1:03:20
  Volunteers at 1st and then they were.
• 1:03:22
  Forced. And then they were.
• 1:03:23
  Forced. But they were giving.
• 1:03:26
  Them 1000 times what we would do.
• 1:03:29
  What do you even do then? You just, like, lie on the couch
• 1:03:32
  and fall through space. So you have.
• 1:03:35
  You have. One, you have a miniseries
• 1:03:37
  called Warm Wood WORM Wood, which is about mind control and
• 1:03:44
  the LSD effects, and you have How to change your mind, which
• 1:03:49
  is another thing on on on Netflix and then have a good
• 1:03:52
  trip, which is another thing on Netflix.
• 1:03:54
  I was trying to find the relation to the more aspect of
• 1:03:56
  it, but it's not. This one's on Max.
• 1:04:00
  OK on Max Max movie power of Google boys and girls power
• 1:04:07
  gurgle. So, Doctor.
• 1:04:09
  Delirium. That's it, Doctor.
• 1:04:11
  Delirium and the Edgewood experiments.
• 1:04:13
  That's it. It's on on Max Doctor Delim and
• 1:04:16
  and here's the here's the here's the summary of OK, the wow.
• 1:04:22
  OK, the image is the gas mask that you have to go like Jake
• 1:04:25
  had to do the gas mask thing. So it's basically the true story
• 1:04:28
  of human experiments conducted by the US Army from 55 to 7520
• 1:04:32
  years, 20 years. The Army used its own soldiers
• 1:04:36
  as human Guinea pigs and research involving powerful mind
• 1:04:39
  altering drugs. Told through exclusive footage
• 1:04:41
  and first hand accounts, this is a true story of one of the
• 1:04:44
  darkest chapters in U.S. history.
• 1:04:46
  The footage is. Hard to watch.
• 1:04:47
  It really is. Yeah, and it.
• 1:04:49
  Was released in 2022 and and I'll put it on our Facebook page
• 1:04:53
  because the the image they have for this is is creepy.
• 1:04:56
  That's what made me. Watch it, you know damn well
• 1:04:58
  that's why I tuned it super. Creepy image, man.
• 1:05:02
  Yeah, super creepy image. So that would be.
• 1:05:05
  The for the people listening, the they're going to be like,
• 1:05:08
  man, he's a, he's definitely a flip flopper.
• 1:05:11
  I am not. That's the dark side of
• 1:05:13
  psychedelics, right? I would never recommend somebody
• 1:05:16
  sit there and do 1000 times a 10 milligram dose.
• 1:05:20
  Well one thing I would also stress is like I I don't believe
• 1:05:24
  like psychedelics should be legal in the same way they
• 1:05:27
  cannabis is, no. I think it should be controlled.
• 1:05:31
  Yes. Yes.
• 1:05:33
  Like distributing? Yes.
• 1:05:34
  Thank you. I agree with you 1,000,000%
• 1:05:37
  because not everybody is you and I, and not everybody is Chris,
• 1:05:41
  and not everybody's going to use it responsibly.
• 1:05:44
  So yeah, I agree. That's a good point.
• 1:05:46
  I think that it should be legal, but I think it should be legal
• 1:05:50
  through some kind of prescription plan where, you
• 1:05:54
  know, you don't get 1000 milligrams at a time or
• 1:05:58
  whatever, where you could put yourself in a psychotic trip.
• 1:06:04
  So what's your weight down to now, if you don't mind saying?
• 1:06:08
  Right? Now it's about 260.
• 1:06:11
  That's that's. Awesome, and you were plus 350
• 1:06:15
  and you were at your worst. Well, very nice.
• 1:06:20
  That's insane man, but good for you.
• 1:06:22
  I mean with the. With the two months of no beer
• 1:06:25
  that that is starting to shrink down again.
• 1:06:27
  So and and no soda. Yeah, that too as well.
• 1:06:34
  Like I was honestly, that's kind of what it came down to.
• 1:06:36
  Also, like I said, I was down to like 2 at a time three times a
• 1:06:40
  week and I wasn't gaining weight, but I wasn't losing any.
• 1:06:44
  Yeah, you're, you're. Flatlining just.
• 1:06:48
  Staying the same. So because we do this a lot, we
• 1:06:53
  squirreled all the way from his time in Iraq.
• 1:06:55
  How long were you in Iraq 3? Years 15.
• 1:06:58
  Months, 15 months, OK. Yep.
• 1:07:02
  And then hung the. Whole and the whole time you
• 1:07:04
  were, you were doing, you were looking for bombs.
• 1:07:09
  Well, the first about six months of our deployment, my platoon
• 1:07:14
  got separated from our company and turned into a makeshift
• 1:07:19
  company with a couple of other platoons and we went and played
• 1:07:21
  infantry. What part of Iraq?
• 1:07:24
  Right on this. This was in Baghdad.
• 1:07:26
  OK. We did that for six months and
• 1:07:31
  then we moved up to the Northern region War Horse, OK, and that's
• 1:07:36
  where we did real clearance for the following eight months and
• 1:07:39
  so. When you would find when you
• 1:07:41
  would find an IED, you talked before how it would take the
• 1:07:43
  entire day that the fine one blow me out of your days just
• 1:07:46
  consumed with this IED, How would you dispose of it once you
• 1:07:49
  got it safely removed from the area or did you dispose of it
• 1:07:52
  there? Well, we would try to dispose of
• 1:07:56
  it. There would be the best way to
• 1:07:58
  do it, Yeah. We wouldn't really try to move
• 1:08:01
  it. Circumstances.
• 1:08:04
  Now our skill level as as combat engineers and was not very high.
• 1:08:10
  Well. You're 23 years old, man.
• 1:08:13
  It's not like 10. Years of.
• 1:08:15
  Experience of how to disarm a bomb.
• 1:08:17
  Yeah, there, there. Were a couple of NC OS that had
• 1:08:20
  gone through special schools and and the special school everybody
• 1:08:23
  wants is Sapper. That's the one.
• 1:08:25
  If you have that little tab that says Sapper, OK, you can do
• 1:08:28
  pretty much anything. Oh but yeah.
• 1:08:32
  But were these? Were these like?
• 1:08:35
  Russian made IEDs. I, I, I believe at the time, if
• 1:08:42
  I recall correctly, they were, they believed they were tracing
• 1:08:45
  them back from Turkey. Turkey, OK.
• 1:08:49
  So when you blow 1, so you come across one because this
• 1:08:51
  fascinates me. So you come across one.
• 1:08:52
  IEDs are just crazy, right? Sharp, no loaded, going to
• 1:08:55
  destroy everything within a large radius.
• 1:08:59
  So. Do you do you cover it with
• 1:09:01
  something in order to dispose of it safely so all the shrapnel
• 1:09:04
  stuff's not flying and, and inadvertently, you know, taking
• 1:09:08
  somebody's arm off? Well, you don't get out of the
• 1:09:12
  vehicle unless you absolutely have to, OK?
• 1:09:15
  So you find these things while you're in the vehicle.
• 1:09:18
  You're not like walking with it. So I had in my head, I
• 1:09:20
  envisioned you walking with a metal detector.
• 1:09:22
  I did too, you know. We thank God we only did that
• 1:09:26
  once, OK, We only. Did that once, yeah.
• 1:09:30
  So how do you find, how do you find it in the vehicle like
• 1:09:33
  that, that that to me would be hard ground penetrating?
• 1:09:36
  Radar. We had the special vehicles, but
• 1:09:40
  First off, we're like God, like probably 30 feet in the air.
• 1:09:44
  Oh no shit. Wow.
• 1:09:46
  So there's. That and some of them had
• 1:09:49
  infrared cameras in various different ways.
• 1:09:52
  They put the ID there during the day, it cooks and then we go out
• 1:09:56
  at night and they show right up on the screen like a.
• 1:10:00
  Signature, yeah. There, there are various ways
• 1:10:05
  like that. Well, I mean, this is how we did
• 1:10:07
  it 10 years ago. They probably got or well, 15
• 1:10:10
  now. Jesus.
• 1:10:12
  So you had a special, you had a special made vehicle just for
• 1:10:16
  that, right? Yes, there were a couple of them
• 1:10:20
  that we would either there be the RGS and the Buffalo because
• 1:10:24
  that's lifted. On a whole nother level, 30 feet
• 1:10:27
  in the air. Yes.
• 1:10:28
  And it's up in the air and the bottom of it comes down in AV
• 1:10:32
  shape, OK. So that.
• 1:10:35
  Way when the IED goes off underneath it yeah, it's.
• 1:10:39
  Pressure. It's.
• 1:10:40
  Slit. So it goes on the outside of the
• 1:10:43
  vehicle, Yeah, so. Half it's either either side is
• 1:10:47
  absorbing half of the blast. That's cool.
• 1:10:50
  I mean, you know, yeah. So when when the.
• 1:10:53
  Buffalo has a big. Arm on it.
• 1:10:55
  Have you ever seen Transformers too, I believe?
• 1:10:59
  There's one. Where the one of them, he's got
• 1:11:01
  a big arm on a big ass truck. That's a Buffalo.
• 1:11:04
  OK, that's one. Of the trucks.
• 1:11:05
  We had now I totally. Know what it looks like?
• 1:11:09
  So when you when you say you're driving and then all of a sudden
• 1:11:11
  everything alerts Woo, there's a bomb.
• 1:11:13
  There's a bomb, so you're parked on top of this thing with your V
• 1:11:17
  and how does it? How do you ignite it?
• 1:11:19
  Then how do you set it off? Oh, well, you no, no, no.
• 1:11:22
  That is just there in case you run over it accidentally.
• 1:11:25
  Oh, OK. OK, OK.
• 1:11:26
  Well, that's why I clarified, because I didn't.
• 1:11:28
  I didn't know. Yeah, No, if you find it, I mean
• 1:11:32
  you, you, you perimeter it off and you try to blow it in place.
• 1:11:35
  OK, so. What's the perimeter you guys
• 1:11:37
  would do all right? Oh God, trying to remember it
• 1:11:41
  can ballpark it. It's been a while.
• 1:11:45
  I don't even really want like, I don't know, 300 meters.
• 1:11:48
  OK, OK, that just gives people an.
• 1:11:52
  Idea that like Chris said you know I was under the same
• 1:11:56
  illusion that you guys were like right over the top of it when
• 1:11:59
  you were blowing it up yeah the. Vehicle.
• 1:12:02
  Was just designed in case it blew up that that was a safety
• 1:12:05
  device that was engineered into the vehicle, right?
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, so 300 meters. Is that's a pretty good range to
• 1:12:12
  be away from it. I got, personally, I got hit
• 1:12:17
  while I was in the Buffalo ones and I always made the joke.
• 1:12:22
  You see, they gave me an award for it and I was like, doesn't
• 1:12:25
  shouldn't the Haji get this? I mean it kind of.
• 1:12:31
  Seems like he did the he he he won, right?
• 1:12:34
  Yeah, Yeah. No, you won because you're
• 1:12:37
  sitting here talking to us. Yeah.
• 1:12:40
  So where do you where did it hit?
• 1:12:41
  You when it hit you. It hit on the on the driver's
• 1:12:46
  side front, like right, pretty much right underneath where I
• 1:12:48
  was. I was.
• 1:12:49
  And then you watch the wheel go flying.
• 1:12:54
  Wow. And OK, OK, so these things, you
• 1:12:57
  know, I, I never thought these things were something you'd mess
• 1:12:59
  with, but that's, that gives a little bit more perspective on
• 1:13:02
  because you hear every now and then that somebody, somebody
• 1:13:05
  gets killed from IED when they, you know, driving their vehicle
• 1:13:08
  and stuff. So I mean, these things got to
• 1:13:09
  be just insanely powerful to penetrate vehicles and blow them
• 1:13:12
  up and shit. Well.
• 1:13:15
  It'll your your regular cars, they'll shred them right to
• 1:13:18
  shreds. Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  What about a Hummer? Oh, yeah, yeah, the, the
• 1:13:23
  Humvees. Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  You don't want to get hit in those.
• 1:13:27
  We had strikers that I definitely did not want to get
• 1:13:30
  hit in one of those. None of them.
• 1:13:32
  What's a striker? A striker is basically a tank
• 1:13:38
  with eight wheels. OK, OK.
• 1:13:41
  I got it. That that'd be the best way.
• 1:13:44
  OK now since. You said tank.
• 1:13:46
  What would happen if a tank hits one of those IEDs?
• 1:13:51
  Well, they're usually kind of screwed because of the tread.
• 1:13:54
  Oh. So you're not going to get.
• 1:13:56
  Hurt, maybe, but your vehicle's going to be incapacitated.
• 1:14:00
  Yeah, disabled pretty easily, but you would be.
• 1:14:02
  Safe inside the tank I. Think it would depends.
• 1:14:07
  Likely. I mean, they do have like what
• 1:14:09
  They do have what they're called anti tank mines there.
• 1:14:12
  Yeah, will literally go underneath the hole, blow like a
• 1:14:18
  hole through the bottom of it and out the top and the 4th of
• 1:14:23
  it will RIP everybody inside apart.
• 1:14:25
  Wow. Jesus now?
• 1:14:28
  Now in your in your time, you don't have to answer this.
• 1:14:31
  You don't want to. But in your time in the military
• 1:14:32
  doing what you did, did you ever did you ever come across the the
• 1:14:37
  after effects of one of those going off and and like coming up
• 1:14:40
  and seeing a vehicle that was destroyed because of it, that
• 1:14:42
  you were just too late to get there type thing?
• 1:14:45
  No, I never saw a vehicle that was destroyed.
• 1:14:49
  And thank God, I never like had anything like.
• 1:14:53
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, never any mass
• 1:14:56
  casualty situations or anything like that.
• 1:15:00
  That's good. Yeah, that's good.
• 1:15:03
  Right on. I think in that.
• 1:15:04
  Respect. It was probably a blessing that
• 1:15:06
  you were the frontline of the frontline, right?
• 1:15:10
  So if that was going to. Happen it.
• 1:15:12
  Unfortunately, it would have happened to your buddies or you,
• 1:15:16
  but you never had to experience that.
• 1:15:19
  Well, yes, and I mean we our my old company can proudly say we
• 1:15:23
  had no deaths. Oh, right on that.
• 1:15:25
  Is that's that's huge. Especially, yeah, I mean, we had
• 1:15:31
  a few evacs that sure happened, but we had no deaths.
• 1:15:34
  That's outstanding. And how many?
• 1:15:35
  How many was in your unit? How many troops in your unit?
• 1:15:39
  Well, our company, that'd be, I want to say 150.
• 1:15:43
  Nice. Wow, that's impressive.
• 1:15:46
  That's a good leadership. Well, that and.
• 1:15:48
  Yeah. Now, were you ever actively
• 1:15:50
  engaged in combat? As far as you know, just you,
• 1:15:53
  you roll up over a hill and all of a sudden there's all the bad
• 1:15:56
  guys. No, I mostly just, I mostly
• 1:16:01
  dealt with the IEDs and they don't really come out to play
• 1:16:04
  during that. Oh, OK.
• 1:16:07
  I mean. That's kind of one of those
• 1:16:08
  things, you bury it and you hope for the best.
• 1:16:10
  Got you set. It.
• 1:16:11
  Forget it. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:14
  Any idea how many IEDs you discovered in your time?
• 1:16:19
  I no, I really want to know. I don't know, maybe like 4050,
• 1:16:26
  OK, that's still that's. Still cool though.
• 1:16:28
  That's 40-50 people that you are, you know, vehicles that you
• 1:16:31
  saved. Absolutely.
• 1:16:32
  That's impressive, man. That's very impressive.
• 1:16:37
  So this is the Chris and Mike show.
• 1:16:39
  This is Dawn. You can find him on Facebook at
• 1:16:41
  the Daily Dose of Dawn, right? Yep, and then same thing on.
• 1:16:45
  YouTube Daily dose of Dawn. That's correct.
• 1:16:48
  Yep. OK.
• 1:16:49
  And he's. Currently a mansplaining,
• 1:16:51
  Handmaid's Tale. And then what else have you done
• 1:16:53
  on your YouTube channel? Because we're going to go
• 1:16:55
  subscribe, obviously, but let, you know, pitch yourself a
• 1:16:57
  little bit. What other stuff do you have on
• 1:16:58
  there? Oh.
• 1:17:00
  You see, if there's a if there's a theme to this thing, it's
• 1:17:03
  living with adult ADHD, OK, Right.
• 1:17:06
  Man, I play Fortnite, I climb mountains.
• 1:17:10
  I go on and down all go again, man, I'm all over the place.
• 1:17:13
  Right on. That's cool.
• 1:17:15
  That's cool. Anything else you want to talk
• 1:17:18
  about? I don't know, what do you think?
• 1:17:27
  Mike, anything else you want to ask Don while he's here?
• 1:17:29
  Anything else you want to converse about?
• 1:17:31
  No, I'm just glad that you made it through the other side, man,
• 1:17:35
  and that, you know, you battled your demon.
• 1:17:38
  A lot of people don't understand that saying that you're sober
• 1:17:41
  doesn't mean that you don't still have some kind of what
• 1:17:45
  they would consider vice, right? So people are going to be
• 1:17:49
  saying, well, that poor feller, you know, he used to be an
• 1:17:52
  alcoholic, but now he smokes pot all the time.
• 1:17:55
  Good on you. Because those people have those
• 1:17:58
  people that say that. I always make the joke, I know
• 1:18:01
  that you've never smoked pot because you don't understand
• 1:18:03
  what it is, right? Alcohol takes you away from your
• 1:18:07
  reality. Cannabis brings you so far into
• 1:18:11
  reality that you are closer to it than anybody who has never
• 1:18:15
  done it has ever been. That's the difference.
• 1:18:18
  Alcohol sucks you away from society.
• 1:18:21
  Cannabis brings you right back into it at a level that most
• 1:18:24
  people have never understood. Yeah, let's, let's.
• 1:18:27
  Touch real briefly on on the impact that smoking marijuana
• 1:18:32
  has for you, like you know it can be used for antidepressants,
• 1:18:35
  anti anxiety. What is it for you that it helps
• 1:18:38
  you deal with? If that makes any sense.
• 1:18:42
  It makes perfect. Sense great question.
• 1:18:45
  I mean the first, the first thing it helped me with,
• 1:18:47
  especially with the health wise was regulating my appetite OK?
• 1:18:52
  Very much. Because I was definitely one of
• 1:18:54
  those people that, like, didn't eat until the end of the day and
• 1:18:56
  then ate one stupid big meal. Yeah, I would be that.
• 1:18:59
  Person without it a lot of times.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, yeah. And and I mean, that was like
• 1:19:04
  the first big, big helpful thing was like, you know, I could take
• 1:19:08
  a little hit in the morning. Yeah.
• 1:19:10
  You know, for again, I'll actually eat breakfast now.
• 1:19:14
  Yeah. Well, that's good.
• 1:19:16
  Well, because, you know, not eating is not healthy.
• 1:19:23
  Right now. Anything, anything else to add
• 1:19:25
  to that? Either one of you I.
• 1:19:29
  Would say that it definitely makes people who are introverted
• 1:19:33
  more extroverted. That would be another.
• 1:19:36
  Misconception. You know, a lot of times I would
• 1:19:40
  just disappear from society if I didn't have a way to calm my
• 1:19:48
  anxiety, right? Because I have like social
• 1:19:51
  anxiety where big groups of people just I don't like being
• 1:19:54
  around him, right? He likes being.
• 1:19:56
  In front of them on a stage instead, yes, I like.
• 1:19:59
  Him at Bay? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:01
  And then I don't have to talk to him.
• 1:20:05
  Do you? Were you?
• 1:20:05
  Already an already social person where you like talking to
• 1:20:08
  people? Or did that help you kind of
• 1:20:11
  bring you out of your shell? I've never really been a
• 1:20:16
  sociable person. That did bring me out of my
• 1:20:18
  shell in high school. Definitely.
• 1:20:21
  Yeah. I mean, even nowadays, even
• 1:20:24
  after the mushrooms, you know, I'm like, I socialize with like
• 1:20:28
  3 people. Yeah, well.
• 1:20:30
  I would. Say that you and I have that in
• 1:20:31
  common in our personality trait. Chris doesn't know a stranger,
• 1:20:35
  right? He's going to talk to anybody
• 1:20:36
  for any reason that seems like they want to have a conversation
• 1:20:39
  about whatever subject. That's just, that's part of his
• 1:20:43
  genetic makeup, right? You and I are more if we know
• 1:20:47
  you, we'll talk to you for hours.
• 1:20:48
  If we don't know you, it's hit or miss whether we're going to
• 1:20:51
  have a conversation or not. Probably not.
• 1:20:55
  Now you. Have.
• 1:20:57
  Here's one thing I. Forgot to ask you you, you had
• 1:20:59
  referenced military, GI Bill, whatnot.
• 1:21:01
  So did you actually? You went to college.
• 1:21:03
  What did you what did you get a degree in or did you?
• 1:21:06
  Criminal justice. All right on.
• 1:21:08
  So am I going to have an affinity for serial killers?
• 1:21:12
  Yes. Fascinating.
• 1:21:16
  So, but you never did anything with the criminal with the
• 1:21:18
  criminal justice degree job in that in that world.
• 1:21:23
  No, by that time, and honestly I'm glad I didn't.
• 1:21:27
  Yeah, I like there is a lot of correctional officers around
• 1:21:32
  here. Yeah, me too.
• 1:21:33
  There's. A lot.
• 1:21:35
  There's a lot less. Thank you very much, Governor
• 1:21:37
  Hochel, but you have no idea. How bad I wanted the next words
• 1:21:43
  out of your mouth to be. Yeah, I became a serial killer.
• 1:21:47
  No. Well, I always actually, I don't
• 1:21:50
  know if it'd be a serial killer, but I always said if I became a
• 1:21:53
  corrections officer, it would just be this vicious cycle where
• 1:21:58
  I'm there guarding some asshole and throws a bucket of shit on
• 1:22:02
  me. So at this point, I got no
• 1:22:04
  choice. I got to kill him.
• 1:22:06
  Yeah, so right to death. Now I'm in prison myself.
• 1:22:11
  And then? I'm going to get pissed off at
• 1:22:13
  some guard, throw a bucket of shit on, yeah.
• 1:22:16
  So here's the way. Here's the.
• 1:22:19
  Way that I have heard it put best because we're a present
• 1:22:22
  town too. So I'm, I know a lot of guys who
• 1:22:25
  have worked there. They basically say we're
• 1:22:28
  glorified babysitters and our only responsibility is keeping
• 1:22:33
  people from keeping these guys from killing themselves.
• 1:22:36
  And what are they in there for? Killing people, right, right.
• 1:22:40
  So that's a very stressful job, keeping people who are in there
• 1:22:44
  for mostly killing other people from killing themselves.
• 1:22:49
  Yeah, that, that really. Put it into perspective for me.
• 1:22:52
  I don't know if it does for anybody else, but I never
• 1:22:54
  thought of it. That way, but that's
• 1:22:55
  interesting. That's a really interesting
• 1:22:57
  approach. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:58
  Hi there. Boys and girls are going to wrap
• 1:23:01
  this up. This has been the Christmas mic
• 1:23:03
  show. You can find us on Instagram,
• 1:23:04
  Facebook and YouTube. You can find Don on YouTube and
• 1:23:06
  Facebook with the Daily Dose of Don.
• 1:23:08
  That's a Don. He's a very interesting human
• 1:23:12
  military veteran, had some active duty.
• 1:23:15
  So definitely subscribe to his channel, follow his journey and
• 1:23:19
  his path. Great guy for what we know in
• 1:23:21
  this short amount of time. Don, thank you very much for
• 1:23:23
  coming on the show. Absolutely.
• 1:23:25
  Thanks for doing this man. Great time guys.
• 1:23:27
  No problem, Yeah, and and we. Always wrap up the show with
• 1:23:29
  this. Don't let the bad days win.
• 1:23:31
  If you're feeling depressed, you're feeling anxious, reach
• 1:23:34
  out to somebody. Somebody Loves You.
• 1:23:35
  Somebody will miss you if you don't wake up tomorrow.
• 1:23:37
  So don't be that person. Don't leave that hole in
• 1:23:39
  somebody's heart. We're all here to help and
• 1:23:42
  support you. If you need any help, you can
• 1:23:43
  reach out to Mike and I personally, or you can just
• 1:23:46
  Google help and you're going to find all kinds of avenues to get
• 1:23:49
  some support to help you deal with whatever kind of a
• 1:23:52
  situation you're dealing with today.
• 1:23:53
  So just remember that Somebody Loves You.
• 1:23:55
  Somebody will miss you. Or, if you're so inclined.
• 1:23:56
  Come on the show and talk like Don to the show.
• 1:23:59
  Have a great. Time.
• 1:24:00
  Just tell your story. Sometimes it helps just to talk
• 1:24:02
  to people. It does.
• 1:24:04
  Right. And it may, I know Mike and I,
• 1:24:06
  we look forward to this. So it makes our day that much
• 1:24:08
  better having these conversations with people like
• 1:24:10
  Don because you learn something new every day.
• 1:24:12
  I had no idea that that you had vehicles that actually could
• 1:24:16
  search for IEDs. Mike and I both thought it was
• 1:24:19
  you get your get your, you know, what do you call those things
• 1:24:22
  again? I forgot now the metal
• 1:24:24
  detectors. Metal.
• 1:24:25
  Detectors. Walking down the streets and
• 1:24:26
  just going back and forth, sweeping for a bomb, sweeping
• 1:24:29
  for a bomb, I was right there with.
• 1:24:30
  You, brother. So I learned the same thing
• 1:24:31
  today. This has been fascinating.
• 1:24:33
  Thanks again for doing this. It's very nice meeting you, Don.
• 1:24:36
  Thank you for your service. Yeah, have a very.
• 1:24:39
  Welcome, you guys have a wonderful.
• 1:24:41
  Day Don, we appreciate you man. Have a great day bro.
• 1:24:43
  Nothing but love. Thank.
• 1:24:44
  You again for your service, bud. Hey, Dave.
• 1:24:47
  Peace, Peace. This is the place where you will
• 1:25:13
  go. Be on the trail behind your
• 1:25:15
  eyes. Feel yourself and need yourself.
• 1:25:21
  Take a moment, Look until you see him fight the battle.
• 1:25:25
  That's you. Both will fight the battle, but
• 1:25:31
  you both will. Who is his baby?
• 1:26:55
  The. Oh, when it.
• 1:27:06
  Goes around. Here everywhere you ain't no.
• 1:27:10
  Creature. We're playing smile and you
• 1:27:14
  should give grace on the almighty day.
• 1:27:18
  You gotta dream who in your life to keep a soul in every man.
• 1:27:27
  Take the trail behind your eyes. Feel the soul evolution now.
• 1:27:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:43
  Take a moment. Look at you, see him fight your
• 1:27:48
  bail and see you mostly. You gotta, you gotta.
• 1:28:18
  You gotta, you gotta, you gotta.