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From Pain to Purpose - Russ Blaylock · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

0:03
Welcome to the Propane to Purpose radio show.
0:06
I'm your host Viva Fulton. In this show, we explore the
0:10
incredible journeys of resilience, healing, and
0:12
transformation. In each episode, we will sit
0:16
down with individuals good faith, unimaginable struggles
0:19
and turn their pain into power, heartbreak into hope, and their
0:24
challenges into meaningful change and finding new purpose
0:27
in life. Through candid conversations and
0:30
inspiring stories, we will uncover how pain, whether
0:34
emotional, physical, mental, or spiritual, can be the catalyst
0:39
for profound growth and a deeper sense of purpose.
0:42
So if you are looking for motivation, insight, and real
0:45
stories of triumph over adversity, you're in the right
0:49
place. Let's get started on this
0:51
journey from pain to purpose. Let's give veterans a voice
0:54
through military broadcast talk. Hey, hey, welcome everybody.
1:00
Welcome to the From Pain to Purpose radio show on military
1:04
broadcast radio letting our veterans voices be heard.
1:09
Today is Saturday, August 22nd, the year of our Lord 2026, and
1:16
it's hot in Texas hot, hot, hot. It's 106 today.
1:20
Can you believe it? I I what Last weekend I was on a
1:26
camping trip with my daughter and her fiance and and soon to
1:32
be stepson. We went tubing down the
1:34
Guadalupe. The water was refreshingly cool
1:39
because it was coming out of the dam from Canyon Lake.
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So you know, when you are enjoying cool water like that
1:50
and just just relaxing, you know, the memories are there.
1:55
And I mean, I've, I feel very blessed that whenever I took my
2:00
kids out camping like that, it was, you know, at least once a
2:06
year we tried to enjoy doing something like the Guadalupe.
2:11
But it also was going to hit home on the culture side of
2:15
things because those of you who grew up in Texas went to
2:20
colleges in Texas, you know exactly what I mean about
2:25
getting on the Guadalupe or any of those rivers down there going
2:30
to being always meant alcohol. So today's episode is going to
2:35
talk about alcohol. AMJ says camping.
2:41
Hello, sweets. Hey, MJ.
2:44
We need to chat. We need to we Yeah, we need to
2:48
have a conversation. So.
2:50
So anyways, you know camping is one of those things I've
2:54
enjoyed. I've been enjoying my summer
2:58
doing lots of RV project and getting it all refurbished.
3:04
I have to have some trips coming up pretty soon.
3:07
I know you guys are watching and watching the evolution of the
3:12
RV. It is taking shape.
3:15
I'm not going to take the RVI, don't think for this trip, but I
3:19
have Campbell Britches. Yep, I use that word.
3:23
I have camo. I have camo.
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Guess what that means? I am going to go.
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I'm going to go do something interesting that I haven't ever
3:32
done before at the end of September.
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I'm going to Wyoming, going to go hunting, so that'll be new.
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I, I enjoy learning new things. And part of it, you know, is
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that side of me. Maybe it's because I'm a
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veteran. I grew up with my dad hunting.
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Mom did a little bit too when we were little.
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But I want to know, I want to be able to take care of me and
4:01
mine. You know, if the shit hits the
4:04
fan, yes, let's be real, the shit hits the fan and I've got
4:07
to feed my family. I need to know how to take care
4:11
of my family 'cause I don't have AI, don't have a spouse who's
4:15
going to Hut and take care of me.
4:18
MJ says yes ma'am, I need to make sure I can eat and I'm not.
4:23
I'm not a vegetarian, so I'll be honest about that.
4:27
I like my protein and I like Buffalo.
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I like bison. I, you know, I like gay meat.
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But I want to know how to be able to go take care of it.
4:38
And myself. I'm not afraid to learn that.
4:42
Yeah, obviously I've been bow hunting.
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Well, I haven't gone bow hunting, but I have, you know,
4:46
done the archery thing, expanding my horizons, and I'm
4:52
going to use that figurative side of things.
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I don't need a man to take care of me.
4:58
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know too many men who
5:01
could take care of me. But yeah, He hasn't come out.
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MJ says come on up. We'll teach you.
5:08
All right, I we may have to put that in the works.
5:11
MJI told you we got to talk. She says me either like it blood
5:15
red. Rare.
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I do too, right? Yeah, it's yes.
5:20
All right, so getting into the topic today, I'm going to
5:26
transition and kind of tell a bit more of my personal story of
5:30
things. If you've read my book, you can
5:32
see the original cover here. I need to get a poster for the
5:36
newer cover that came out last year.
5:38
Same book, MJ says. Oh, poor man, poor man.
5:43
Well, I haven't found one strong enough for me yet, so maybe he's
5:47
out there. Anyways, my second husband, I, I
5:55
don't talk about this public. I haven't really talked about my
5:59
second husband very publicly. I have many of his family
6:04
members who are still alive, of course, and but they know that
6:10
he had an issue as well. Mark was an alcoholic and it led
6:15
to some different situations in our marriage.
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It affected, I believe, our children, my children even from
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my first marriage, because I was married twice.
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I, I and both men have passed away.
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We'll, we'll leave it that right.
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So Mark was my second husband. We, I grew up next door to his
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grandparents from about 12 years old.
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Our lives did this and came back together.
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And you know, I loved him dearly.
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So don't get me wrong, I loved him dearly, but he had an
6:53
alcohol problem and it did affect our marriage.
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It did affect ultimately our family in the very long term
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because he developed stage 4 liver disease and passed away in
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July 2015. Can't say that I haven't had my
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own little challenges with alcohol.
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Typically my response when I was going through all of that in the
7:24
divorce, I'd have my bottle of wine and go paint A room.
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That was my therapy was and it's funny how we use this language,
7:36
right? It is the how we describe
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things, but my therapy was I literally took it out on the
7:44
wall. Kids were not at home, so I was
7:48
not affecting anybody else, but just enjoying my bottle of wine.
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And, and this was in my older, my house back over in Fort Worth
7:58
that I, I flipped. Fortunately, I was very blessed
8:02
and able to flip it. But rehabbing the home was my
8:06
therapy. And that's how I started even
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writing my book, Welcome to My People Garden, because I started
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working on my own figurative backyard and dealing with the
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trauma of what I had experienced as the wife of an alcoholic.
8:26
And you know, I, I struggled then and still struggle
8:35
sometimes talking through it myself that I was the victim of
8:41
domestic violence. Alcohol played a huge role in
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the way Mark lived life. You know, it was the Crown and
8:53
Coke. It was, it was Crown and Coke,
8:57
right? It, it wouldn't be just a couple
9:02
of beers. It would be like the whole 12
9:05
pack. I've not been, you know, for me,
9:10
I get drunk on a glass of wine. I, I, I'm, I don't and not have
9:17
ever been a huge alcoholic binger by any means, though.
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I alcoholism comes in different shapes and sizes, but it's also
9:31
a cultural thing. And by that I mean, you know, I
9:36
took my daughter and her fiance and, and little Asher, 5 year
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old Asher and I, you know, we went to the, went to the circus
9:45
last night. All this candy, all this sugar
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is out there. And I, you know, started
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thinking about the shows are walking through because I kept
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seeing all these liquor stands and I'm like, oh man, I get it,
10:00
I get it. You have all the sugar for the
10:03
kids and you got all the liquor for the parents.
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The the parents need the liquor because the sugar is going to
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the kids and the only way they can deal with the sugared up
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kids is to drink the alcohol. But in some ways we in the
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military culture, this is all just my opinion, my
10:22
observations. Sorry, people garden.
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We've gone from this culture of seeing things handled the way
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we've grown up, you know, hey, let's go pop one after work.
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Well, popping 1 is not popping a firecracker.
10:39
It's popping the can on a, you know, on a beer, right?
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Open up a new bottle of whatever your favorite alcohol you know
10:47
is and whatever you're going to mix it with whatever we we have
10:52
had this culture. I remember even it when I came
10:55
back from Desert Storm, everybody was going to the NCO
11:01
club or I didn't ever go to the officers club, but it was always
11:04
about going and getting drunk. That was the answer.
11:07
Go celebrate, have a beer. Are you miserable?
11:10
Go drink something. It the answer is found in a
11:14
bottle. And we haven't adopted a culture
11:17
of figuring out how do we transition the culture side of
11:22
things to be able to move forward without alcohol being
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part of the answer. And so that was like really
11:31
obvious last night. And we think that we're going to
11:34
move the needle on the 22, those of you know what I'm talking
11:37
about, 22 a day or whatever the Disney number is of today that
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we have not moved our culture any any different than what it
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was, you know, 2000 years ago. What am I talking about on this?
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I'm going to read something. So I'm going to substitute a
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name. And I want you to figure out who
12:03
am I talking about? John Doe got drunk on wine from
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his new vineyard and lay uncovered and passed out inside
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his tent. His son John.
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I'm just saying you know, could be built whatever found him and
12:20
told his brothers outside leading to a well known family
12:24
conflict. Once you know John Doe woke up
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Anybody figure out who I'm talking about?
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This is this is scripture mind you right This is scripture.
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We have not changed since the days of Noah.
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I was just reading the paraphrase from Genesis 921
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through 24. Noah got drunk, passed out in
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his tent, found his son Ham, found him naked in his tent, and
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Ham went and told the world Noah was drunk.
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We as people have not changed and we're still ratting on each
13:07
other and we're still thinking that culture is going to change.
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And yet, you know, for whatever reason, Noah found the answer in
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the bottom of a bottle and didn't.
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Maybe he didn't go to God with it.
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So what do we do, right? What do we do as a culture?
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How do we fix this? Well, my guest today is Russ
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Blaylock. He reached out.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I think that I'm only the one who's reaching out, talking to
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people in my people garden. Sometimes we put people garden
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reaches out to me. And so Russ is going to join
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with us. He's going to share his
13:44
experience on acceptance and finally realizing time is God's
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time, not mine. Born and raised into the
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agricultural community of the mid cities and the Dallas Fort
13:58
Worth Metroplex, Rush shares his story of riches to rags,
14:03
resentments to redemption at the end.
14:06
Sorry at the lens of his primer. Through the sorry, I don't have
14:11
my glasses on. Through the lens of his primer.
14:13
The gift of addiction. Yes, gift.
14:16
I told you all pain to purpose, right?
14:19
His rock bottom cultivated a relationship with God, now
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calling him to community outreach.
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Russ offers hope for rehabilitation from
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institutions, addiction of self, fear and family chaos.
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And at 50 years old, he believes it's never too late to sit all
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the way down in the chair in silence so you can hear your
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higher powers vision for you. Welcome Russ Blaylock.
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The interview of the week is brought to you by Jersey Mike's,
14:57
a sub above. Hi.
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Russ, welcome to the Propane to Purpose radio show.
15:07
Hey, thank you so much. That was a great intro.
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I appreciate that and I'm glad to be here.
15:12
Good. All right, Well, why don't you
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tell folks a little bit about yourself?
15:19
OK, again, I appreciate it. Eva.
15:22
My name is Rest Blaylock. And you know, it's really kind
15:26
of strange just through you mentioned just kind of who
15:30
reached out to who. And as I explained before, we
15:33
both had a mutual friend. And because of that, I kept
15:36
seeing you pop up on my Facebook and something called me said,
15:42
call this lady, reach out and just kind of see what she's
15:45
doing, learn a little bit more about what you're doing for the
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community. And I did.
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We had a little conversation. And you know, you're right.
15:53
Things have not changed for thousands of years as far as
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like how we cope with the war at home, the war in our minds,
16:04
day-to-day living. And yeah, it was a problem for
16:07
Noah, and it's still a problem for us today.
16:11
And so it's been my experience. Like you said, ironically, I
16:15
grew up in the agricultural community.
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I was born and raised on a nursery, a large plant nursery
16:22
in Colleyville in the 1980s. And you know, it's funny because
16:27
I remember the day that my dad got the bright idea of not only
16:30
try to grow oak trees and rose bushes and sell those, but he
16:34
went through a kind of a period of time where he thought he
16:37
would start his own vineyard as well.
16:39
And, you know, and Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the things
16:42
that I've heard is they say that man's had a problem with alcohol
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since we first learned how to step on a grape.
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And it's true. It's true in so many ways.
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And basically, I grew up in that kind of a lifestyle, which was a
16:57
great, great childhood as a kid until I got old enough to
17:00
realize that things were not happy inside the house.
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I had 45 acres to roam of a nursery and and get into my own
17:12
head, my own play space as a kid.
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Other kids really envied what I had.
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But I couldn't stay out there in the fields all day long.
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And when I would come home at night, I knew that mom was
17:24
unhappy and dad was staying out in the office on the property.
17:29
And it all kind of began from there.
17:32
And you know, I identified the problem as the drink and like a
17:38
lot of kids who grow up in a household like that, I was
17:41
determined I am not going to be that when I grow up, you know,
17:46
and the apple does doesn't fall far from the tree and the
17:51
addiction problem, it's a family disease.
17:54
But as you've kind of mentioned in like the tenant that we
17:58
believe is that it is a disease of mind, body and spirit.
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So my goals now are just to try to share what I've learned
18:08
through the Hard Knocks of life, and I've had many, and try to
18:11
offer any help or any guidance to anybody who's struggling with
18:14
it. OK, well, feel free.
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Where where is a good place to start in that journey then?
18:23
You know, is it identification, acknowledgement, acceptance?
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You know, where do you begin in that self reflection side of
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things? Yeah, I think that, you know,
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the main thing is, is when you're dealing, let's just talk
18:39
about the individual who may be watching your show right now
18:44
and. They could be veteran or veteran
18:46
or non veteran alike. Right.
18:48
That, yeah. And Full disclosure, you know, I
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am, I am not a veteran and I really honor the people who have
18:57
had what it took to go and serve our country.
19:00
And just from the aspect of what I see in the rooms of recovery,
19:05
we see a lot of veterans. We see a lot of veterans that
19:08
feel like they've been trained to encounter anything and
19:12
everything. And when they come home and they
19:14
have to deal with themselves and their own head, you this may end
19:20
up being something that they ask themselves, do I have a problem?
19:24
Am I relying on something in a bottle to Coke?
19:27
And the old saying is that if you have to ask if you have a
19:30
problem, you probably do. But we don't like to announce
19:34
anybody to be an alcoholic. But what we do is we just ask
19:39
people, do you ever stop and just realize step one, which is
19:44
your life is becoming unmanageable?
19:46
And if the answer to that is yes, then I think it's trying,
19:50
you know, it's time to kind of turn your life over to a higher
19:52
power other than yourself. And so I really asked people to
19:56
kind of pause and just say, if you are really in charge of your
20:00
life, how well are you doing right now, maybe it's time to
20:03
let somebody else take over. I think the hardest part about
20:07
that, and I don't care what, you know, whether it's an addiction,
20:11
maybe it's even a physical ailment.
20:13
I'm, you know, I think that the the next thing I'm going to say
20:18
transcends a lot of different topics is having some honest
20:26
conversations with yourself. Maybe, you know, it's asking
20:32
yourself that tough question. Am I hurting?
20:35
And if so, why? You know, because if you're not
20:40
answering, if you're not asking the right question about why I'm
20:46
running to the bottle, why I'm running to the gym, why I'm
20:51
running to this, well, you're running from something, so
20:54
what's the problem? Yeah, and you know, the short
20:59
answer to that is the problem is really always you.
21:06
There's a chance Pina song that I've heard, and it's called The
21:09
Mountain is You. We have a sign on the wall in
21:13
one of the rooms that says it ain't them.
21:16
And you know, when we're even going through recovery, there's
21:20
no promise that life is suddenly going to get any easier because
21:25
life is life and we have to get to lifing.
21:29
My 2 year coin says that serenity is not relief from the
21:36
storm, but it is the ability to cope through the storm and to
21:41
find the serenity in the storm. And that's what it's about.
21:46
These are not things that people can usually identify until
21:50
there's been some kind of rock bottom that they've reached.
21:55
That's just the way that it works.
21:57
And I think that that's God's plan for us.
22:00
We are supposed to do hard things and I think we learned
22:04
some hard lessons, but it has to be hard.
22:07
It's not something that we can identify as it's happening.
22:10
It usually is something that we have to stop and pivot in
22:13
question after we've had some things that are laying around is
22:16
broken. Yeah, You know, I was thinking I
22:21
don't, you know, And if you watch the video, my intro video,
22:25
I was hiking on the Camino to Santiago, right.
22:27
That's where most of those pictures are from.
22:30
And so there's a saying when you're hiking the Camino, it's
22:34
it's all uphill to Santiago. But life feels like that, right?
22:40
It's it's all uphill until you're going through those
22:43
downs. And the downs are just as rough,
22:46
if not worse than the uphills. But there's, but there's always
22:50
a challenge around the corner. It's not always going to be
22:53
flat, even ground. And that gets boring too, you
22:57
know, I don't, I don't know if you're a hiker or not, but just
23:01
the figurative. If you're, if you're like always
23:05
hiking on even ground, the scenery is not very good, but
23:10
the the challenges are going to be there when, when you're going
23:16
through life. But it having an expect, an
23:20
unrealistic expectation that life is not going to be
23:25
challenging. It's something we have to
23:28
consider because we're we're not properly preparing ourselves for
23:36
those challenges when they happen.
23:38
And the quickest answer is, well, let me, I want to bail
23:41
out. I want, you know, I want to
23:43
drown that issue. Only you're compounding it by
23:48
prolonging it instead of taking care of it.
23:52
Right, right. Yeah.
23:54
And you know, and that happens at different stages for
23:56
different people. Growing up the way I grew up and
24:00
watching a father, you know, who was an alcoholic.
24:05
Again, like I said, my determination to never be or
24:09
emulate him, that wasn't really up to me either.
24:14
That was kind of, that was somebody else up there.
24:16
That was their plan of basically, I'm not in control of
24:21
my own destiny. And sometimes my destiny
24:24
requires that I feel those painful experiences all over
24:28
again. But this time it was through my
24:29
own actions. I had fought the urge to ever
24:33
try alcohol. I mean, I was a late bloomer.
24:36
I didn't do it until I was 21. And you know, for me, it wasn't
24:41
a question ever. Was I an alcoholic?
24:44
Because the first time that I put alcohol in my lips, I knew
24:49
without a doubt because that was the freedom that I felt.
24:53
The alcohol was my answer for not feeling quite right around
24:58
other people, Not feeling like I felt in feeling like the way I
25:03
grew up had been different, having to have the courage to
25:07
walk into a room, talk to someone.
25:10
That all changed with my answer to the problem, which is, again,
25:14
me. The answer for me was alcohol
25:18
and I knew that I had the reaction, the wrong reaction.
25:23
I didn't drink like normal people either and there was
25:25
never a doubt that I was an alcoholic from the minute that I
25:28
started. And so so do.
25:29
You think, did the did the avoidance perpetuate it then?
25:36
I mean, did it just once you once?
25:39
It once alcohol crossed your lips, did that actually propel
25:43
you to want to drink more? Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
25:50
You know, if you're, if you're questioning whether or not you
25:52
have an alcohol problem, there is something that we we talked
25:55
about where that it's not only the allergy as we call it, which
25:59
allergy is just the term that means an abnormal reaction.
26:03
But there is a craving. And for me, that craving, the
26:07
minute that I took my first sip, I had found at that point thus
26:12
far, that was my spiritual go to and it made me feel complete.
26:19
So absolutely, it was something for me that I could identify
26:23
early on. And many, many drinkers can just
26:26
drink, have two or three drinks, say I've had enough and put it
26:29
down. That's because their brains
26:31
respond to it normally. But an alcoholic brain actually
26:35
has no suppression of those endorphins that are released.
26:40
And you want more, more, and you crave it.
26:42
And then spiritually from that aspect, we obsess over it.
26:46
We obsess of getting back to that comfort every day when the
26:50
drink is not around. Wow, do you know there I'm going
26:55
to ask this weird question is that there are a lot of food
27:00
products that have tall in it, right?
27:04
They're alcohol based sugars erythritol and and all those
27:07
others do. Are you affected by those sugars
27:11
as well because they're alcohol based?
27:15
Have you ever? Have you ever noticed?
27:19
No, I haven't noticed that. And, and, you know, to be honest
27:23
with you, I haven't heard a lot of people that, that have been
27:27
in my college days, I was involved in the restaurant
27:31
industry, which is, that's not recommended at all to anybody
27:36
who's having any kind of addiction problem, because
27:38
there's something about that community that it, it
27:40
flourishes. And, and I was very into
27:44
cooking. It was not just the service side
27:47
of it, but I got very interested in the culinary side.
27:50
And culturally, you know, with alcohol, it's so glamorized and
27:55
it's glamorized in food pairing. If you ever get involved in the
28:00
behind the scenes in a kitchen, alcohol is utilized a lot in
28:04
cooking. And for me, I could taste it in
28:09
food when it was an additive and, you know, my, my mind and
28:13
my body would pick up on that and it could kick off the
28:15
craving. So today in recovery, I have to
28:17
be, you know, conscientious about certain things that I,
28:21
that I consume or, you know, how something's been prepared.
28:25
Because if it's not prepared the right way and the alcohol's not
28:28
burned off, I can taste it and I can actually feel it.
28:33
Well, I I'm a very sensitive to erythritol.
28:37
It's in a lot of the gums, so I have to.
28:41
It's an additive in some of the candies.
28:44
My body is not like erythritol it, but it's alcohol based.
28:49
I don't have problems with alcohol per SE, but I mean, I
28:53
can feel the difference with whatever, whatever process they
28:57
use on erythritol. I don't know.
29:00
I just thought that would be in an interesting concept for
29:03
people who if they are recovering, you have to be
29:07
mindful about other products that are out there that are
29:13
alcohol based because you really need to read your ingredients
29:18
and understand what those products are and what you're
29:22
consuming because you are what you eat.
29:25
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it makes total sense.
29:28
And then again, you know, with people who have an addiction,
29:35
you know, we typically are people that like to live life to
29:40
the extreme. And because of the way, at least
29:44
for me, my mind works about trying to constantly seek that
29:48
comfort from, you know, the alcohol itself.
29:52
If I pick up on a taste, I mean even a taste of it, it can set
29:57
off a chain of obsession and, and craving.
30:00
You know, for instance, we have a saying too that non alcoholic
30:04
beer is really only meant for non Alcoholics.
30:10
It would make sense, you know, to most people that if I'm
30:12
trying to recover and I'm out mowing the lawn, if I go buy a
30:16
non alcoholic beer, then I'm just kind of getting the flavor.
30:20
What can it do? But it is a spiritual disease
30:25
and it's a mental obsession. So when I taste the non
30:27
alcoholic beer, that can set off an immediate disappointment with
30:32
why am I not getting that buzz? Why am I not getting to sit and
30:35
relax and get comfortable? Why do I still feel
30:39
uncomfortable? Why do I still feel on edge?
30:41
And then a real beer isn't going to hurt.
30:44
And it starts that cycle in the head always.
30:47
Said that goes back to something I was talking to my Co host on a
30:51
revivalist show earlier today. You know, the the biggest lies
30:57
that hurt us the most are not the lies that other people tell
31:00
us. It's the lies that we tell
31:02
ourselves and believe. I mean, I talk about it in my
31:05
book, right? I mean, we are, it's not that we
31:09
are our own worst enemies, but the things that we tell
31:12
ourselves and believe are the things that are going to hurt us
31:15
more. I mean, that's what you're
31:17
explaining with the lie that will Will, this one little drink
31:23
is not going to hurt anything. That one sugar cookie, if you're
31:28
on a diet, one piece of pie is not going to hurt anything.
31:32
You're lying to yourself. You're believing the lie.
31:35
Nobody's trying to put that in your mouth except for you.
31:38
But you're lying to yourself and saying it's OK this time and
31:42
it's not going to hurt anything. In the meantime, it starts
31:46
affect, it's a slippery slope. It starts affecting everybody
31:49
else around around you. Yeah.
31:53
And you know, really, that gets back down to acceptance and
31:59
power, what we do have power over and what we don't.
32:03
I have to say that I am powerless over alcohol, and for
32:08
me to drink is to die. But proof kind of in what you're
32:12
talking about of just the way that we lie to ourselves.
32:16
I know that I'm constantly trying to fool myself before I
32:20
try to fool anybody else. And I can buy my own BS quite
32:24
often. So I just turned 50, love
32:29
seafood again. I don't know if I mentioned it,
32:32
but I love cooking. That was all part of it kind of
32:34
growing up too. And you know, about a year ago,
32:38
I, I cooked some shrimp and I went outside and it was a hot
32:41
day like today. And I kind of started to itch
32:43
right here. And I thought, these mosquitoes
32:45
are, they're really bad. And I kind of, I kind of blew it
32:48
off. And I mean, I looked in the
32:49
mirror, they really got me. And a few months later, the same
32:53
thing had happened. I'd eaten some shrimp and I, I
32:56
was outside and I don't know, it just, it didn't click in my head
33:00
that there was a problem that wasn't the mosquitoes.
33:02
And the third time this happened, for somebody who's
33:05
obsessed with, you know, seafood, one of my favorite
33:08
foods, I broke out in hives so badly.
33:11
And I started looking it up. And, yeah, you can develop a
33:14
latent allergy to shrimp, you know, in midlife.
33:18
And I was so frustrated over this from my cooking background
33:23
and all of it. My wife goes, well, what are you
33:24
going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to
33:26
keep eating shrimp. I'm just going to keep some
33:27
Benadryl around. And she looked at me and she
33:30
said that's the alcoholic nature in you right there and because.
33:36
It's you're lying to yourself and you think that there's an
33:40
escape patch over there. Benadryl's the escape patch.
33:44
It didn't stop the allergy. Nope, it didn't.
33:48
And no amount of preparation, you know, mentally, physically,
33:55
whether I'm going to sit down and think I can just drink one
33:58
beer or just eat one plate of shrimp.
34:00
It's I'm not going to beat it. I just have to accept that it's
34:03
not for me. So, you know, I think one of the
34:09
we, you mentioned fear earlier. One of the things is I think for
34:15
a lot of people, and I don't, you know, I never quite figured
34:18
out what, what Mark's fear was. I mean, 'cause he, Mark was the
34:25
life, he was the life of the room, right?
34:28
People liked him for him, but for whatever reason, he ran to
34:33
the bottle. But I think the hard part is
34:38
flipping the switch in your own personal dialogue within
34:42
yourself and. And a friend of mine told me he
34:46
had this revelation a few years ago, 'cause he's about two years
34:50
sober now. I think as well that he had
34:54
somebody asked him when, since, you know, when did somebody
35:00
criticize you for being the person that you are sober?
35:08
I, I think I'm saying it right that, you know, people liked him
35:11
for him. It wasn't because he was
35:14
drinking the alcohol. He didn't have to, you know,
35:19
sometimes just acknowledging who you are, people like you for who
35:23
you are, not for the made-up person you are because you're
35:27
drinking something, people around you attending the events
35:32
because they like who you are as a person.
35:36
And that to me is the most genuine side of things that if
35:40
we as a culture could get used to just living in our own skin
35:45
and and not running, put the mask on because that's what
35:49
alcohol to me does. It puts the mask on to pretend
35:52
that everything's OK. Even when I talked earlier
35:56
about, you know, my own home renovation stuff, the kids
35:59
aren't there. I could put the mask on, pretend
36:02
everything is OK and remodel a room and paint, you know, do all
36:05
that painting. I for the for a little bit while
36:08
I was in, but I wasn't hurting anybody, right?
36:11
I was just in my own personal home and space doing it.
36:15
But I think the hard part, we as a human race have to acknowledge
36:23
and get over that thing that we have to pretend to be somebody
36:27
else when people like us just who for who we are.
36:32
Right. Yeah.
36:33
And you know, The thing is, is that the biggest critic to an
36:39
alcoholic is themselves. Now, that's not always evident
36:44
because let's face it, alcohol doesn't bring out the best side
36:48
of me. Many people like me.
36:52
But what's going on in there is that no matter how much
36:56
validation you can give someone who's struggling with any kind
37:02
of a self-image, it's not going to get through.
37:05
And so they contact, or at least they develop a relationship
37:10
spiritually with who made them perfect as they are.
37:15
No man is perfect, but you know God loves you the way that he
37:20
intended you to be and the service that he intends for you
37:24
to have with the world. It's when we get inside our own
37:27
head and we think we could always do better.
37:30
We're not doing it right. And for me, it was always trying
37:33
to kind of figure out this whole spiritual thing.
37:36
I didn't see any signs of God. So how did I know if I was even
37:39
doing anything of value whatsoever?
37:42
And in my story, it really took going through absolute rock
37:48
bottom to get the gifts of being forced to deal with my problem
37:53
and getting a sponsor who sat me down and said your entire MO is
37:58
fear, everything about you rest is fear.
38:01
And I really had to sit down and analyze and do an inventory
38:06
about just how much fear I had and how I masked that through
38:11
overacting, being the life of the party.
38:13
Like you said, the sloppiest drunk that could be there.
38:17
They weren't necessarily laughing because I was just so
38:20
entertaining. They were kind of laughing at
38:21
the end there because I was a fool.
38:23
And he pointed out, he said 98% of all fears that human beings
38:28
have never come to fruition. And we've got to learn to live
38:32
in the now, Not yesterday, and not what could or couldn't
38:36
happen tomorrow. Well, I think the tendency is to
38:40
catastrophize everything, the worst case scenario every single
38:45
time. But that's if it's not
38:47
happening, then it's not happening.
38:49
Don't let fear drive all of those decisions 'cause sometimes
38:55
man, the, the, the doors that God allows to close are saving
39:00
you from some grief. Believe me, saving you from
39:04
grief that he's going to hate something.
39:07
I've got something better for you.
39:09
Plan. Just wait.
39:11
It's, it's not going to be what you expect on the path that you
39:15
expect, but I've got something better.
39:17
Just be patient and walk with me.
39:21
That I think that out of everything that I have learned,
39:24
this has been a tough journey. Never in a million years that I
39:27
think I'd be raising 4 kids with no dads around.
39:31
You know, this has been tough. And because they passed away in
39:36
2014 and 2015, you know two of them are in the 30's.
39:40
The other two are almost to their mid 20s.
39:44
This has been tough to do this by myself and yet I'm still
39:50
standing and, you know, still I haven't let, I haven't, I
39:56
haven't succumbed to some challenges that might otherwise
40:00
Take Me Out. I say that all because I could
40:05
have very well looked all of this as fear driving everything,
40:10
driven by fear and succumb to the same very thing that took
40:14
Mark out. You know, the alcohol side of
40:18
things. I feel very blessed that God has
40:22
kept me on the straight and narrow going through things in
40:29
your journey. And you mentioned having
40:33
veterans come in and, and you know, participate in the
40:38
discussions in your groups. What has been the one thing that
40:42
has been critical for helping them on the success side of
40:46
things, 'cause I'm a firm believer the community is really
40:49
the answer. We, if we only are ever leaving
40:53
all answers to fix all of our problems as veterans, as the VA,
40:58
then we're actually lying to ourselves about that.
41:01
The community has a lots of answers there.
41:05
And I even we talked about it before the show of some of those
41:11
experiences post World War One and Two and subsequently the
41:17
community has been the biggest response mechanism to help
41:24
veterans come back home successfully.
41:30
Right, right. Yeah.
41:32
It's when I'm sitting in the rooms and I discover somebody is
41:37
a veteran number one. It's almost inevitable that as
41:44
they start to open up, which is a little slower with some of the
41:48
veterans, I've noticed there's a shell there that's hard for them
41:53
to drop because they're coming again from a world of
41:57
self-reliance, systemic ways of approaching everything.
42:03
And now they're back home. They're dealing with what's in
42:06
their head, They're dealing with the family that missed them,
42:09
reintegration in general, getting to know the kids.
42:12
And then they've developed this problem too.
42:16
Once they do finally start to let a little bit of a guard down
42:19
and realize I need help, I don't have power over this.
42:25
I do hear the VA start to come up and I think there's a sense
42:30
of betrayal that they feel by acknowledging that the system in
42:36
place doesn't always serve them. Now, this could just be my
42:39
imagination, but it's something that I've seen a few times.
42:43
And for us in the community that sees a, you know, sees a veteran
42:47
that comes into the room, we have to tell them that's OK.
42:50
Just like when I deal with someone who's had a bad
42:53
religious experience, when they come in and they hear this is a
42:56
program of finding a higher power, which you may or may not
42:59
call God. These people are a little bit
43:02
shell shocked on, you know, how much loyalty should I still have
43:08
to this organization, this church, all of that?
43:12
And who am I betraying of? And sometimes they have to
43:16
acknowledge that maybe they felt betrayed.
43:18
It's OK. Right now is the time to not sit
43:21
there and point the finger. It's the time to look inward
43:23
with you and develop that kind of inner spiritual dialogue and
43:28
develop that relationship with a higher power after you have
43:31
admitted you have a problem, you're powerless over it, and
43:34
it's OK to ask for help. But yeah, we hear it all the
43:37
time. So that, that whole power thing,
43:42
the, the acknowledgement is the biggest critical part.
43:46
I mean, it's almost like, you know, the contract, you're
43:50
writing a con, right? You're signing the contract.
43:52
I acknowledge I'm signing here. Having that self reflection and,
43:59
and, and accepting the self responsibility is the hardest
44:03
part out of all of that. Is that what I'm hearing?
44:08
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's when I'm running,
44:16
when I'm running, and let's just use that figuratively when we're
44:21
running from ourselves. When someone actually calls you
44:23
out on your BS, you can be angry, you can be hurt, but
44:27
there's kind of a relief there. And I know that after enough
44:31
times of being behind the wheel drunk, some of the best sleep
44:35
that I got during my binges were in the jail the night that I got
44:40
arrested. It was when we finally had to
44:43
succumb, to relent, to admit defeat.
44:48
Only then, when you're on your back looking up then can you see
44:52
something that could actually help you.
44:55
The the figurative bottom of the hill, the the bottom is the
45:00
toughest. You know, like when I was
45:04
talking about going hiking those Camino mountains, the downhill
45:11
is worse than going uphill because the that perpetuation of
45:17
falling, falling, falling until you get to the bottom, that's a
45:23
that's momentum goes and more things come with you when you're
45:29
going down versus building up to go up.
45:32
Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
45:37
You know, when you're when you are at your rock bottom, then
45:41
you know, you can either sit there in the shame of it all, or
45:45
you can kind of smile and know that all you can do is build
45:49
from here. And so that's why we tell people
45:53
that if it is giving you a problem and you have your
45:55
innermost self telling you it's a problem because we're not
45:59
always going to listen to family, we're not always going
46:01
to listen to the boss. But when it finally becomes that
46:04
voice, your innermost self, you're hearing it.
46:08
That's a beautiful thing. Because if you're having that
46:11
rock bottom and I don't mean, you know, can't pay your bills,
46:14
legal problems, but when you surely hit that rock bottom
46:18
spiritually and you have to ask for help, that's when going back
46:22
up the hill and building upon that really begins.
46:25
So I, I know when we talked last last week, we talked about
46:31
culture as a big thing. It's something I talked about
46:34
earlier, even dealing with the circus last night, You know, the
46:39
culture, the alcohol culture. And I'm not trying to take away
46:44
from alcohol existing. There is a time and a place for
46:48
it. But how do we what's, what's a
46:52
good way we can start changing the culture?
46:56
I see so many industries, whether it's the military or
47:00
veterans, you know, we have all these different, you know, the,
47:06
the local VSO veteran service watering hole, you know, is a
47:13
bar. We have different, you know,
47:19
whether it's the sales industry, whether it's whatever, so many
47:24
of these deals are built built around alcohol.
47:30
Darrell and I were talking earlier today about even the the
47:33
show Dallas, remember the Dallas TV show, So much was built
47:37
around alcohol in almost every scene drinking, you know, some
47:44
whiskey or whatever, right? So much of as always, the
47:50
alcohol culture surrounds us. How do we, how do we change that
47:55
or, you know, just be able to operate, I'm going to use, you
48:03
know, how do you operate in a in the culture that is so filled
48:09
with references to alcohol? Right, right.
48:13
And you know, here's the thing. The big problem with alcohol is
48:16
anytime we watch the Super Bowl, nobody pays $1,000,000 to run an
48:21
ad for heroin that's not there. So I mean, we have one of the
48:28
most destructive substances to to families and the health
48:35
leading to a lot of legal problems that is taxable.
48:38
It's totally legal. It's glamorized.
48:41
It's glamorized in movies, it's glamorized in all culture.
48:44
And you know, the more stress you have, you can always rely
48:48
that there's going to be a commercial on TV that shows you
48:51
how to reward yourself after a hard day's worth of work to know
48:55
this, you know, this drink in your hand in so many ways,
48:59
excuse me, validates your worthwhile, you know, and, and,
49:04
and it shows the drink as the end goal.
49:07
And when you were talking about the experience that you had of
49:11
taking the kids to the circus, you know, if you were to talk to
49:17
me about having a stressful day at work and being able to come
49:21
home and not pour a glass of wine versus me having to take
49:26
the kids years ago to the circus, I promise you, me taking
49:30
the kids to the circus was going to get me drunker faster.
49:34
Because you know our lives, No. I get it.
49:36
No, you get it when I get it. I mean, it's, it's, it's this
49:43
dichotomy. I got to deal with the kids at
49:46
the circus and they're going to be screaming and they're going
49:48
to be crazy and we're going to hype up on sugar.
49:52
And the only way I can get through it is to have a hard
49:55
drink while I'm sitting there. Yeah.
49:57
And you know, the sad, the sad part of that and something that
50:01
I've had to learn in my program of recovery is, you know, that
50:06
is proof right there that the addiction has a spiritual
50:11
component to it. I mean, look at that.
50:14
If I if I have to drink more just to be in the company of my
50:21
kids, my wife, the people that supposedly love me and that I
50:26
love and that's not uncommon. You see that in the rooms a lot
50:31
that that's where we are our most uncomfortable and I don't
50:35
think that that's where God wants us to be.
50:38
It's about being able to sit down and just be and to have
50:42
value. If our organizations either, you
50:47
know, work sales groups, example, rather than going out
50:52
drinking military, certain businesses focus on the family,
50:57
how the family's doing. And you know, one of the things
51:00
that in Alcoholics Anonymous that I was shocked about early
51:04
in recovery, you don't think you're ever going to enjoy life
51:06
again without a drink in your hand.
51:08
It's all I know. But you only know what you don't
51:12
know. And when I started seeing that
51:14
there were camping trips, people were floating the river as you
51:18
did sober, whole communities that were going out rock
51:22
climbing, that we're going to dinner together, sitting in
51:25
restaurants where that you would normally order a Margarita and
51:28
everybody's ordering a mocktail or a tea and having good
51:31
conversation. You know, community is there.
51:35
And if you think that it's becoming a problem, even if it's
51:39
not full blown rock bottom yet, I would encourage you to kind of
51:42
maybe step into some of the rooms and seeing what kind of
51:44
sober communities are out there. And there's a lot of them,
51:48
because there's a life without a glass in your hand.
51:51
There really is. I think it's a slippery slope,
51:54
you know, because we we get back to telling the lies to
51:58
ourselves. It's just one drink.
52:00
It's just, you know, it's just, it's just only over time.
52:07
And maybe that's what Mark thought, you know, it's just a
52:10
drink. And I did not ever like it when
52:13
he would ask me, can you stop at the liquor store?
52:16
You know, my wanting to stop at the liquor store to get to get
52:20
me something meant something different for me versus what he
52:25
was going to take it as. And, you know, go through a
52:28
whole 5th and a night, you know, I mean, 'cause he would finish
52:31
the whole bottle of Crown easy. I mean, he'd want the half
52:36
gallon. That's what he preferred.
52:38
If I'd get that whole or whatever big size that is, it
52:41
was, it was a lot. You know, it would take me
52:45
probably three years to go through that versus and I'm just
52:49
not a Crown person. But, you know, I'd go, I'd go
52:52
for the chocolate liquor that I could put a little bit of vodka
52:56
and I would be happy with that. I mean, it's just our, our
53:01
approach to what alcohol, do, you know, would do in our life
53:06
was different. I had a different motivation
53:10
than what his experience was. His was the escapism.
53:14
And that was very tough. And.
53:15
Yeah. And it sounds it, it definitely
53:18
was probably the escapism, but also too spiritually, Yeah.
53:23
And again, this is a chemical imbalance in the head, but there
53:26
are spiritual components to it. Also, when you have someone that
53:30
drinks the way that I drank, I had someone sit down and say,
53:36
well, you never did really fill that God sized hole when you
53:40
kept pouring that into you, did you?
53:42
And and that's the thing, there's nothing wrong with
53:46
anybody out there who can drink like a normal person.
53:50
I envy them and every alcoholic wants to be them.
53:53
But we have to accept that we're not so, so.
53:56
That's that's weird that you bring this up because God has
53:59
always been a huge part of my life.
54:03
So my alcohol side has been like this versus God is this, you
54:09
know, I mean, it's I have had a very healthy relationship with
54:15
God all these years. So my dabbling in the world, you
54:20
know, worldly side of things has been pretty minimal.
54:26
But, you know, that's been the that was the weird thing that I
54:29
remember talking with Mark about was, you know, him as an
54:34
alcoholic. And I had had called him one
54:37
time. This was when after we had
54:38
separated and I was like, you have like the devil talking on
54:42
your shoulder about all this stuff, you know, And he goes,
54:45
yeah, the only person I hear is you.
54:47
But but then he was flipping and saying that I was this holy
54:53
roller because I was going to church and I was just, I was God
54:58
was my answer to get through all of this.
55:02
It always has been through all of these trials that I've gone
55:05
through car wreck, 2 divorces, both guys passing away.
55:11
God has always been my answer. It is not been alcohol, you
55:16
know, it's I'm not saying it didn't ever become a a
55:23
occasional answer. I'm not going to say I didn't
55:26
ever get drunk. I have, but I've typically done
55:29
it at home and it wasn't hurting anybody so.
55:34
I don't know. Well, I just, it's, no, I, I
55:39
totally hear you. And you know, The funny thing is
55:41
that in the, in, in the 1930s, when, when the psychologist, Dr.
55:50
Carl Jung, he, he was trying to deal with some Alcoholics that
55:54
would come in and the psychiatric community realized
55:57
that they, this was a hopeless disease.
56:00
There was no pop psychology that could seem to cure the
56:04
alcoholic. And he had heard about some of
56:08
the development that was going on with the Oxford Group and
56:13
with the early formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
56:16
And he wrote a letter to Doctor Bob and to Bill Wilson because
56:22
he had heard about the program that they were putting together.
56:24
And he started referring some of the alcoholic patients that were
56:29
coming to them to look into the program that they were
56:33
developing and what he had come up with the conclusion of.
56:37
And he wrote this in a letter to Doctor Bob.
56:39
He said that he had felt that the alcoholic was trying to have
56:44
some kind of spiritual connection and that they were
56:47
constantly chasing that. And he knew that he could lose
56:51
his license if he tried to even suggest anything like that.
56:55
So he took great risk to recommend that the 12 step
56:59
program might work. And as it started to, you know,
57:04
we, we look at it and we realize just how much turning your will
57:08
and your life over to a higher power.
57:10
And again, we, we emphasize this is a spiritual program.
57:13
It's not a religious program. So you come in, if you have a
57:17
resentment against the church, set that aside because this
57:21
isn't about the church. It's about inner self, inner
57:24
peace. That's so interesting you bring
57:27
that up because I don't know if you were aware.
57:30
You know, the Revivalist radio show on Mondays at three with
57:35
myself and my Co host the, you know, Daryl Hartley, we talk
57:39
about kind of this very thing in a way that, you know, it's a
57:44
veteran ministry geared towards moral injury, healing and
57:47
recovery. We're talking about soul repair.
57:50
When you're replacing God with alcohol, you're placing God in
57:57
your life with whatever addiction it is that you have.
58:01
Could be shopping, could be drugs, could be sex, could be
58:05
whatever else. You're placing that hole that
58:08
you talked about while ago, that hole of God.
58:12
You're placing him in your life with something else and
58:17
expecting different results in the healing and recovery side of
58:22
things. I don't know.
58:25
This is this is great food for thought to lead into Monday
58:29
because you know, we're doing our Genesis recap.
58:31
So have about a minute left. I think it's what the time says
58:35
about a minute before the closing video.
58:38
What's one question I should have asked but didn't ask?
58:45
Oh goodness. Well, you know, I mean a lot of
58:51
we've talked a lot about, you know, spiritually.
58:53
I think maybe you should have asked what's it look like now?
58:56
And what's that that walk look like now?
58:58
And here's what I always try to tell people, you know, when we
59:05
turn off the alcohol, we still have that hole.
59:07
And I tried, I was a dry drunk for two years without the
59:12
program, a 12 step program. My blood pressure was through
59:15
the roof. My pulse rate was at one O 5 at
59:17
rest, two years sober. And I had a doctor tell me,
59:20
can't get your pulse down? You're going to have to have a
59:24
pacemaker. When I started into a A, within
59:27
four months my blood pressure went to normal.
59:29
Nothing had changed in the drinking except I started
59:33
feeling a connection with God. And I don't see God in the
59:39
headlights. I haven't had a burning Bush
59:41
moment yet. What I tell people about this,
59:44
it's all about listening, doing the next right thing.
59:48
When you don't know what else to do, you can help.
59:50
You can walk over. If you're completely powerless
59:52
over everything, you can offer to help somebody somehow, some
59:56
way. And when I'm doing the next
59:58
right thing, if I adjust my rearview mirror and I've just
1:00:01
kept going, I see God in the rearview mirror.
1:00:05
I see that he nudged me during the right fork in the road.
1:00:09
And so when we don't know what to do, just listen to your
1:00:13
innermost self and pray about it and keep on driving and you're
1:00:16
going to see God in that rearview mirror.
1:00:19
Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us,
1:00:22
Russ Happy to have you on the show again.
1:00:25
I look forward to watching your journey and May God walk with
1:00:29
you every step of the way. You're such a joy.
1:00:33
So anyways, thank you all for joining us today on the From
1:00:37
Pain to Purpose radio show here on military broadcast radio,
1:00:41
letting our veterans voices be heard.
1:00:43
You'll have a great week. Hi, I'm Beaker with Military
1:00:48
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