Latest / Breaking Down Addiction / #21 Kristian Moore — Recovery Beyond Abstinence and Learning to Truly Heal

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#21 Kristian Moore — Recovery Beyond Abstinence and Learning to Truly Heal · Breaking Down Addiction

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: I was acting as if I had a death wish, but I was looking for relief.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: How they say that it's our it's we think it's the solution to our problems, but really it's just a it's just a sign and symptom of the underlying problem.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Breaking Down Addiction, a podcast brought to you by National Addiction Specialists.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Johnny Phillip, and we're joined today by my friend Christian Moore.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, thanks for having me so much.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: This is my first podcast, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm just gonna share my truth.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: We we will get to the truth, we'll get to some tough questions, but it'll also be a lot of fun.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, maybe emotional.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Probably knowing myself.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we got to know each other over the last six months or so, and we do the same thing in work, but before we get to any of that, I always like to ask the first question for all these podcasts is if you were sitting across from yourself in active addiction, you're like at your deepest bottom, what would you say to yourself?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: I would say everything that you are afraid of doing and everything that you feel like you're not capable of doing, you are gonna do exceptionally well at all of those things.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um you just have to give yourself a chance and like and believe in yourself and stop being so paralyzed by fear.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um you're gonna be able to do it, and you're gonna be able to do it sober.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's what I would say.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fear, fear is it was a big thing for me, and it's still you know, I'm almost at 14 years of sobriety.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I still That's amazing, though.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It it still looms.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: The fear.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it that that fear changes sometimes.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: It evolves over time to look different.
• 2:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just life, life changes.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: It used to be like fear of becoming an adult and having all the responsibilities that come along with that and learning how to like take care of yourself.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Say it louder for the people in the back.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: And like, and uh even like learning how to get the electricity turned on at wherever you're gonna live.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, even things like that were just terrifying, you know.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: And now it's more of like, all right, like what are we gonna do now that we've got things going?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how are we gonna save some money and how are we gonna improve ourselves here?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: How are we gonna take care of ourselves physically?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like it evolves over time.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna help more people?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because that when I was starting to get sober in the first couple of years, that's what kept me sober is that connection.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I almost it was hard to talk to anybody that wasn't an alcoholic or an addict.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm still like that almost to this day, too.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: How much clean time do you have now?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: I have about six years.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: December 31st, 2019 is my sobriety date.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Before COVID.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right before COVID.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: I entered the rooms in 2017.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: My first rehab was August 2017.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it took a few tries, but yeah, like the literally the last day of 2019.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: I remember seeing my first COVID meme um right before I went into treatment.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I I just was like, something about a bat, you know.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then I like complete treatment, and all of a sudden the world just shuts down.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a strange time to try to get sober.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: It had to have been difficult because there's the saying that runs rampant in recovery is that addiction is the opposite of connection.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're in in COVID times, we're all forced to be isolated and away from other people.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Not a good thing for people like us, that's for sure.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: And uh people may judge me when I say this, but the I feel like with the reason that I got through that is because my home group stayed open.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: We stayed open.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: All of the other home grooms that seemed like it, especially in the Nashville area, you know, like they stopped and just started going virtual.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'm in Murfreesboro and mine didn't.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: We uh spread out the tables quite a bit.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: We did virtual as an option too.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: We put germex everywhere, we made sure to like disinfect everything and try to like, you know, we didn't hold hands and whatnot.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I was so grateful for that because I had been furloughed for my job.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: I was unemployed, had nothing to do, you know, and it's supposed to stay away from everyone.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I went to my meetings and I stayed sober.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think I've ever grown so much in my life than that than that year.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you think that year with COVID times, you getting sober, do you think that made you stronger?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It helped to solidify your recovery.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: I think my higher power was like, listen, we're we're gonna shut down the whole world so that you can focus.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm probably not that special, but that's what it felt like, you know, so that you can focus on staying sober and like developing these connections and learning and doing what they say in these meetings, you know, like that's what you're gonna focus on.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So what was different from that first time that you went to treatment in 2017 to when you went back towards the end of 2019?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: I was older.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: I was older.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I feel like my prefrontal cortex finally like developed at that point because I went the first time I was 22, but the last time I believe I was 26.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And at 22, I was so young.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: I was so young, I was so I mean I still am, but naive, dumb, you know.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: My decision-making skills were not very good, you know.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was hurt.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: I was I was like emotionally and mentally hurt, you know.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was not ready to to take those kinds of suggestions quite yet.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you got you got sober pretty young, even two years after your your almost three years after your 2017 stint.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's you're still pretty young.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean in my twenties, I was not ready to give that up.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I w I was two days into being 33, but so like hats off to you with being so young and trying to tackle that.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then also during COVID, there's there was a lot against you.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you overcame that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: And yet somehow it all worked in my favor.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's a higher power thing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: I still wrestle with even the word God and the term God, and but it was definitely a higher power thing that all of that panned out the way that it did.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um I feel bad.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I so sorry, you and I have that in common.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah with struggling with the G word.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I well, that's good to know because it seems like I know a lot of us do, but then after a while, once you've been sober for some time, you you're supposed to have like the developed that, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like that's the goal is a relationship with your higher power.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, I have a belief.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: I have a belief.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: We're still working on the relationship part.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that may take decades, who knows?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that's okay.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: And that's okay.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: I have to remember that somebody told me, you know, the 12 steps of spiritual awakening.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: They were like, Christian, are you awake a hundred percent in the morning when you wake up?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm like, no.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, right, you're struggling to put on your pants, find your keys, get the coffee, feed the dog, whatever it may be.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're not at a hundred, you know, like you're not graduating when you hit step 12.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: A spiritual awakening is just the beginning.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh my gosh, that makes so much more sense.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because I was thinking I'm supposed to be like some spiritual guru at the end of the 12 steps, you know, and now I have the ability to help people get sober, you know.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just not the truth.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this directly goes into my next question, and that is I mean, this is different than the God that we're talking about right now, but you grew up in a religious environment.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I could I did too.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Catholic school until I was in fourth grade.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a whole nother, that's even like up a level.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did it cause pushback for you?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you like it at first?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, tell me about that part of your life and what what changed or what is the same.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I grew up, I'm from Nashville, born and raised in Nashville.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I'm from the buckle of the Bible belt.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: And my I grew up going to Church of Christ.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not like my family was like so devout, like we have to be there every single Sunday, we have to be there every single Wednesday.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: We did our best, you know what I mean?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: My mom was a Sunday school teacher for a little while.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but Church of Christ is different than the schools that I ended up going to.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I did public school until the fifth grade, and then I went to a predominantly Southern Baptist, and then in sixth I went to another predominantly Southern Baptist.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: They were non-denominational, but it was Southern Baptist.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: And there are some differences between what you learn in Church of Christ and like Southern Baptists.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like Church of Christ is telling me I have to be completely dunked underwater in order to go to heaven, you know, and dancing and singing and that kind of thing was, you know, not really okay.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: We sang hymns, you know, no instruments allowed.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then um at Davidson is where I went, Davidson Academy, um, six through twelve.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like you just ask Jesus to come into your heart and you're saved, you know, like and you try to live by those principles, and that's how you go to heaven, you know.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: But I was also learning that like they would tell me that cats and dogs don't go to heaven, you know.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: We had like mandatory chapel on Thursdays, random drug testing to make sure everybody was staying on the straight and narrow.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: You get expelled, you know, if you don't if you get three strikes and you're out on the drug test, unless you play sports.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: But and then um, you know, if you come out as homosexual, you'll get expelled.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: If you come out as pregnant, you'll get expelled, you know, like you it was very, you have to stay straight and narrow, you know, um, which is a lot of pressure.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, even if you are kind of like raised, you know, Christian with those values and whatnot.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I was confused.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: It was very confusing.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: I remember in fifth grade, I brought like a little fossil that my my dad really loves fossils and science stuff like that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: I brought that to my fifth grade class for show and tell.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: And on the back, it said like my dad had put like 3.3 million years old or whatever.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted to show everybody my cool fossil.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: I said it was 3.3 million years old.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: And my teacher sat me down, they all giggled and said that the earth had only been around for 6,000 years.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, this is news to me, you know.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like my dad said it's been here God knows how long, you know.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Being told two different things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, in in a variety of different ways growing up, so it was all very confusing.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: But up until I was about 16, 17, I mean, like, I just believed it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you believe.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: The sky is blue, you know.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna I'm a Christian, you know, that's just how it is.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: And a flip switched somewhere in 1617.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: I had a boyfriend at the time that talked to me a lot about his the way that he saw it, you know, which was different from the way that I saw it.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: And then something, a a switch flipped, and um I didn't believe anymore.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I I lost it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: I it completely 180, you know.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and at the time I thought that was a really good thing.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: I felt a weight had lifted off of me.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I don't have to believe what everybody believes, but at the same time, I I didn't have faith, I didn't have a purpose really anymore.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I kind of made my purpose.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna do what I want.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Was this thought before you started using?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, okay.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: It was.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: It was right before I started using.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: When when did you start using and and what was it during this time?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was I was always a goodie tu shoes.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna do anything like that, you know what I mean?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's just not what good Christians do.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: And uh 16, 17, my best friend at the time um had met someone who smokes a little marijuana, you know, and um that did not go to our school.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna try it because I had always struggled with anxiety and depression growing up.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: They put me on psych meds when I was nine.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um my mom and the and the doctor that decided that that would be good.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which I I don't blame them.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I cried a lot as a kid, like a lot.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: There was definitely something there that was going on, you know.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you think you needed medication?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's a whole nother story for another day.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: But no, I feel I wish that they would have waited and like maybe tried therapy first.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I do believe that my mom was doing what she thought was right, you know.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think my dad was too on board with the medicine idea.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: He never has been.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he's a more holistic kind of guy.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it helped.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: I stopped crying, you know.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm sure it was a difficult decision for them to make.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But those were different times.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, go ahead.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's very true.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: And my mom had been prescribed a lot of medication too throughout the years for her various illnesses and stuff.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, a pill is probably the first thing she thought of, you know.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of explains it why she was more okay with it and your dad wasn't.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: And but it's something I struggle with um still to this day, is you know, the meds.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but at 17, I decided, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a try because I was struggling really hard mentally at the time.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like I really wanted to get away from my home life.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was very dysfunctional.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: I really want I couldn't wait to go to college, couldn't wait to get away, couldn't wait to change the way that I feel because I'm miserable.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: I was miserable.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And um, there wasn't too much to be miserable about, but I was miserable, you know, and that's depression.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it never it doesn't make sense all the time.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: But when I tried marijuana, um, I intended on just taking a little puff, but they handed me a bong and I was like, what is this contraption?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an intense way of first smoking weed.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It really was.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: And uh needless to say, I got pretty high, you know.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember from that day forward, that experience, I was like, this is it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: This is the cure to my depression, this is the cure to my anxiety, this is the cure to all of my fears and insecurities.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: I am happy in this moment, everything is great, you know.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like I feel like my third eye has opened and I can see reality for what it truly is, and I can get past all this crap inside my head.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: I want this every day for the rest of my life, you know, and that's what I set off to do.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did you turn weed into something else during this time period?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it strictly weed?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: It was weed up until I mean I drank a few times and I didn't like it.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: And my dad drank a lot when I was growing up.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and by a lot, I mean, it could have been worse.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: It could have been better too, but um I get it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: I saw that alcohol wasn't necessarily something that I it looked like the effects weren't that good, you know.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um and uh it went from zero to 60 pretty quick though.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: I went from marijuana to like cocaine, um, because apparently cocaine is fine.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: Alcohol is not, but cocaine is, you know, that's that weird delusional thinking that we have.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Totally understand that is that it's all right because it's not alcohol.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and I did that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um went to college, got really addicted to ecstasy, MDMA, Molly is what they were calling it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: What it was, I don't know for sure, but Molly is what they were calling it, you know.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I got really sick.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like I was I there was not a moment that I used substances maybe there at the very beginning when I was just smoking weed and enjoying that, but there was never a moment that I that I used like a normal person, you know.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: I had I was had a death wish pretty much, you know, and I used in a way that was pretty reckless.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: It could have been a much worse, but I I also learned I'm not gonna compare myself to others.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do want to earmark this this death wish.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll get back to this.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you were using large amounts more than anybody else in your circle or who you're using with.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: I was one of the only ones using other than the people that I was kind of getting it from, and like maybe a few, like my best fri I had moved away at that point from so I had my best friend that was, you know, also using a lot.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I went off to college, and the boyfriend I had at the time, he didn't want me to.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: He really didn't want me to.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: He just was fine with smoking pot.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: But for some reason, I was I wanted more than that, you know.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Coke, Molly, a little bit of drinking at this point, and you said you felt awful.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was this withdrawal?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: It was it, dude, it led to a lot of health problems, honestly, because Molly, it it's an upper, makes you lose weight really quick.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: I got down to I went from like 125 to 92 pounds in just a few months, just and I stopped eating, you know.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I was the kind of person that would do party drugs, but not at a party.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do party drugs by myself and stare at the wall.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that is not normal.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Come to find out, you know, some people who do party drugs, they'll they're at a party, they're at a rave, they're at a show, you know, and I'm over here popping Molly staring at the wall, you know.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's where my mind went when you mentioned Molly.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, she's going to rave.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: No, I didn't do that until I was sober.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's what's strange about it, is I was just desperate to change the way that I felt.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I was so sad all the time.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: It no wonder I love stuff like that because it makes you euphoric.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: It makes you you have no other choice but to be happy, you know, when you take that kind of stuff.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I so that's actually what I was looking for.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like I thought I was acting as if I had a death wish, but I was looking for relief, you know?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: How they say that it's our it's we think it's the solution to our problems, but really it's just a it's just a sign and symptom of the underlying problem.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I just wanted to feel okay.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: When did you realize that you were in trouble with your usage?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: I had that college boyfriend.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: I had gone to college for two and a half years doing really great for social work.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of funny.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: 22 years of age, or I was not ready to be a social worker.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: I needed a social worker, you know.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You were just wanting to help people.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Help others.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: I had spent my first um, I went to my first psych ward when I was, I celebrated my 18th birthday in my first psych ward.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I hadn't been, I had only smoked weed like a few times, you know.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, because I have always struggled with like suicidal ideations and stuff like that.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: Not always, but like when I was younger.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And um I had that boyfriend in college cheated on me.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, end of the world, end of the world, because I'm so codependent, you know what I mean?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: And he really wasn't all that in a bag of ships, neither was I, but like I was so codependent.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: You were heartbroken.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: And like so much so that the wor life is not worth living, you know.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: I've already messed up my brain quite a bit with all this drugs, all these drugs and stuff, you know.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: You're not seeing clear.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: And no, I'm not.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I drop out of college, go to Nashville, start using heroin.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, oh, I was using meth there at the end in college too.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Just a little bit.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: My next door neighbor, you know, was not the best influence in the world.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Dabbling in meth.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it that's why I'm saying I was getting reckless, you know.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like I and I compare myself a lot when I get into sobriety too, because I'm like, well, I wasn't shooting.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't as bad as this person.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I like I hadn't got a DUI.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's because the universe has blessed you.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: And like, and I hadn't done this and I hadn't done that, and I wasn't, you know, and uh, but I was being reckless, you know, because I didn't care about my life anymore.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: So what?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do a little meth with the neighbor, you know, like it'll be fun, you know, and it'll make me feel better, that kind of thing.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That hurts my soul because you're you're such a bright light.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like the minute I met you, I I think was at the bluebird.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so, yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you were just like such a shining light.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't imagine.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was so happy to be there.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I couldn't imagine you being dim.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it's funny because people don't think, and I asked myself, I literally asked myself, my therap, my therapist, the other day, I'm like, how can I be this way?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: The way that people perceive me and the way that I am, like pretty bubbly and social and happy to be around, happy to do things, want new experiences and stuff like that, and still struggle so much, like with the mental and emotional aspect of life, you know.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but fast forward, I had picked up drinking because I started working in the restaurant industry and I found out that drinking and cocaine was the combination that I liked quite a bit.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: That combination in particular.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And cocaine allows you to drink even more and not black out, not, you know, I can still remember and stuff.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I just I loved it.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: I fell in love with that feeling.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then all of a sudden, six months into drinking, I woke up shaking and like acting really funny and being really confused and having all this brain fog and and my heart racing, and I'm sweating, and I'm like, what's going on?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: What is going on?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I look it up on Google, and Google's like, you're addicted to alcohol.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are going through withdrawal.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Excuse me, what?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: I thought that was a thing you did with heroin, which I only dabbled with that for like, you know, I didn't really do that much of it because I don't like it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: And um, because I want to be up, you know.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: And and I was like, that's just not six months into drinking, you know, alcoholism, being addicted to alcohol, that's something that happens to a guy under a bridge with a brown bag.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like there's no way I could possibly be addicted to it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was safe from that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm 22 years old.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: Are you kidding me?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was so I was like, no way, you know?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: And come find out, yeah, very much when you drink large amounts of alcohol like that, about a liter a day there at the end, your body becomes addicted to it, you know, not to mention emotionally and mentally and spiritually, you know.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so I had to drink after that in order to function.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it went, and and that's why I landed, you know, in rehab in a psych work.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Which led to rehab again for like the millionth time.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because I was so physically addicted that I was just it went zero to a hundred real quick, you know.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: And if I had carried on, I would have been um not alive.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was it vodka?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was a little uh everything.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was god, and that's the problem too, is I was mixing it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: I was just I was acting crazy, you know.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of it was whiskey, actually.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was vodka towards the end.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I quick question, because I was drinking about a liter a day too the last six months of my usage.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And run me through what a day looked like during all of this.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just so we can envision it and what you're coming out of here.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: There at the very end, it went from in college, I was stoned and getting high, staring at a wall in a 400 square foot studio apartment with um a boyfriend I was way too codependent on.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: So that sounds great.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Getting high in a closet and whatnot.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then I meet in with or I end up with my best friend living with them, once again getting high in a closet.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: And uh then I'm at the bar.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: I become a bar rat, especially at this one particular bar because I just showed up one day and there were people there that wanted to buy me drinks, and so I decided and there were drugs in the back, so I decided to stay.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And you were like, this is my place.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and so and I'm like barely existing at this point.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like hardly working.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm working at this other restaurant that has not the best influences in it either.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm hardly functioning.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's a miracle I can make get food into my body at this point.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, nobody knew that though, because when I'm drunk, I'm fine, you know.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: So it seems, other than acting crazy.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you start drinking in the morning or in the afternoon and all that?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Apparently, if I can wait till about 12, that means I don't have a problem.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, it's it's noon somewhere, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: But waking up and immediately immediately doing cocaine, you know, whatever.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Not that big of a deal.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: And but I would start drinking probably around noon, um, or I would use the cocaine to get me through the day until I could get through the end of the workday, and then start drinking around 10 or 11 p.m.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: and uh and uh fight through the withdrawals, you know, all day.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: And there were a few times where it felt like I needed to go to the hospital, you know what I mean?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm like, no, I'm gonna power through.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and I would just spend so much time at that bar with those people just bar, what bar was it?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was called, oh my god, it's just so embarrassing.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was called the clubhouse.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was in Goodlitzville, Tennessee, it doesn't exist anymore.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: And if anybody from the clubhouse is watching this, I did have fun.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: I love all of you, but that was a bad time for me.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: That was a bad time for me, and I'm sure anyone who could could see it a mile away, you know.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: I remember hearing people being like alcoholic and like looking at me, and I'm like, you're one to judge.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're here just as much as me.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, you know.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and you know it's bad when the people who are drinking just as much as you are whispering about how you're an alcoholic.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Apparently, I was not acting very normal, you know.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was taken the very last day.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: No, not the very last day.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was taken uh from the bartender called 911 on me at one point um during one of my relapses.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And at the clubhouse?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and because I'm over there.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: Good on them.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank God.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Thank God.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Seriously, because I'm over there making a fool of myself saying, you know, you know how we are when we get too emotional and we say things that we don't necessarily mean, and you end up, you know, having to go to the psych ward or whatever.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know how it goes.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: And uh thank God that they cared about me that much.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm over there arguing with the police officers about how I'm going to an AA meeting.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're like, uh no, you're going to the hospital.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so were you uh put on a 72-hour hold and then go to treatment somewhere?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: I've actually, I think I've been to the psych ward slash detox probably like seven times in my life.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then I've been to treatment about six times.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: And in that short span of time from 17 to 22, I was not okay.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: I was not okay.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was spiraling, I was just in a dark place, you know.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, hats off to you though for not giving up and trying, even if there was some intervention, i.e., somebody calling the police at the bar or the EMS at the bar or something.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: And my family too.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't want to give up on me either.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: They were trying, they were trying really hard.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: They must be really ecstatic about how your life has changed.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, they are.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: They are, and they knew that I was capable of it all along, and I'm glad they didn't uh give up on me.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, has your relationship obviously changed since you know the way that things were back then and now?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've never been too terribly close with like really any members of my family besides like maybe my grandmother.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and uh, but yes, it's gotten significantly better.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up and it was my mom and dad and my sister, and she's four and a half years older than me.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: So there's been a gap between me and her for a while, you know.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was just the annoying little sister for a really long time, you know.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: But we're working on it a lot.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um dude, we got that in common.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: My sister's five years older than me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's it makes it difficult.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's just an awkward gap.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's so far from where we are in life.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:44
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and it, but now, I mean, I'm finally caught up and I'm older now too, you know.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: So we can talk about things.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: How's your relationship with your sister?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's getting a lot better.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: We spend more time together and stuff.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: We particularly bond.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, this is too TMI, it's probably for my family, but we if they watch this, my bad.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: But um, we particularly bond over how messed up our mom is.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and I I've successfully been no contact.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: I say successfully, because it's a good thing in my brain.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: I've been no contact with my mom for a little a little over a year.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that's gotta be tough.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: It is tough, but it's also a relief.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a relief.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's the the most healthy option for me.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Option for you.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I and I have to, I've worked very hard to, and people may say that that's like harsh, and I it is harsh.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it is.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm no contact with my mom who is sick physically, mentally, emotionally, you know, and uh who could probably use some help, you know.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I've worked so hard to get the toxicity out of my life so I can stay sober, so that I can stay alive, um, that I'm not willing to put up with it anymore.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not will willing to stick around hoping that it'll change, you know.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hard boundary to lay down.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, like again, hats off to you for the thank you.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: And hopefully it doesn't stay that way forever.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: But like for now, I'm fine with it that way.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to lay those boundaries for you and also for them.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um to show that I hope things change.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I hope so too.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: And but I think it was about time that, like, you know, I had to learn that there are consequences to my actions and that if I behave a certain way, people don't want to be around me and they shouldn't be around me.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a good influence.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's a hard truth, yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and and I was capable of changing.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: I was.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know how they tell you constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thank God I did not turn out to be one of those people.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: My mom, I feel like she might be one of those people.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and who knows, maybe, maybe not.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's okay.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it just it makes sense.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: The things that I'm learning, the things that you hear in recovery in the rooms of recovery, when you're in treatment, when you know you go on this healing journey, these are the things that you learn, you know.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're great tools.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like you're a lot happier and healthier right now.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I'm not to mean switch gears here, but I do want to get back to this death wish that you were have been toying with most of your life.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what did that look like back then?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, well, it was basically make decisions towards self-destruction, you know, and don't this seems dangerous.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hard stop.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: And and like, screw it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna do whatever feels good in the moment, you know, and if it leads to my death, probably a good thing, you know.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there were times where I I didn't believe in praying anymore, but I were I was kind of hoping that, you know, this line or whatever it may be is gonna be the last one, you know.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, or I just didn't wake up, you know, um, would be ideal.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sorry you went through that.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like a lot of us get to that point.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, that's how it is, an addiction, you know, like and it's not even that life was all that difficult.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like my family wasn't supportive, it's not like I didn't have people that love me.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's that mental health is real, man.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's what's up, what's going on up here?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: And and like the underlying issue of my drinking and my using is that for some reason I do not feel okay in my own skin.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like debilitating, you know.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but in recovery, you get to learn how to manage that feeling in a much healthier way in hopes that that feeling eventually will go away, you know.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times it has it it has gone away for the most part.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're a wonderful person.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: I just hope that my story can like help other people, you know.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um absolutely, yeah.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: If there's one, if we touch one person doing this and they live, it's worth it.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: And and I feel like that not really of any doing of my own, I feel like, but the gifts and the way that I am and my personality and the and the things that I say, um, for some reason my high higher power instilled that in me.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it has been able to help help others.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um do I think that that's like my sole purpose in life?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, maybe not.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like, but I feel like I have the ability to help others, and so I should try whenever the opportunity arises.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'm I'm super grateful that I've gotten to.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I I consider like a podcast to be one of those ways.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I consider opening the door for someone at the grocery store being one of those ways.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: I consider doing what I do for a career as one of those ways.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I've learned throughout working in the recovery field for the last five years that I'm not meant to be, at least not right now, one of the people that sits down one-on-one.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like I wanted to be a therapist one day, right?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do it.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Kudos to them.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: I can't, I'm not gonna be able to do it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's tough work.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I can't do it.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm too AA would call me selfish.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: I say mentally ill to handle all of that.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what you can handle and what you want to do.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You obviously have worked on yourself.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would say go down any path and take that ride as long as you can take it.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I do want to so we we jumped forward and I do want to jump back a little bit.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So your last treatment stay and psych ward stay, 20 late 2019.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you said that you grew up a lot during that, you matured.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: I did, and it was because I hung around in the rooms of recovery.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: When I I went to Cumberland Heights for their 15-day um first step program in August 2017, and from then on I did really well about staying in the rooms.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Did I do really well when it comes to like getting a sponsor and actually working the steps and like doing like getting in the middle of the boat and doing all the things as they suggest?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: But I did go to meetings and I stuck around and I would get a sponsor and I would call them and we would maybe work a step or two, and you know, that kind of thing.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: And even though I wasn't doing it right, it was helping, you know, because I was finally, I stayed long enough so that I could understand what the heck these people were talking about, you know, because at first it's just what the heck?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you're talking about God, and I'm like, uh, you know, I'm getting indoctrinated again.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I got away from this.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: And uh then I started hearing what they were really saying, f finally, you know what I mean?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, oh I am these people, so to speak.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like I am these people, and these people are me, you know.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: I I am do you think I'm a part of.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that you were restless, irritable, and discontent?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: As it says in the literature?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, during a lot of it, for sure.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um for sure.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: What brought you out of that?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that you're going to meetings, dabbling with your sponsor.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what other tools are you implementing at this time?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that you're a really big fan of music.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is bringing you out of the darkness, I guess?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um at this point.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: During that time, before actually committing to the darn thing, was being around people, connection.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't really care much to hear what the people at the meetings were saying quite yet, but I sure did love being around them because they were smiling and they were laughing and I was not, you know.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I was very still a shell of a human being on the inside, incapable of like speaking or looking at people in the eyes.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: And very like insecure, no backbone, scared to death, like deer in the headlights type deal.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I liked that people were coming up to me and smiling and talking to me and asking me about myself and like wanting to connect.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I started seeing all these crazy characters, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I love being around people.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: I love these people, you know, and they're all kind of screwed up like me.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it sounds like you found good meetings too.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I first moved here from Wisconsin, I went to a few meetings sprinkled out over time, and uh nobody really said hi to me.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I it I I don't think I found the right meeting.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, probably.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it may have been, and everybody has different experience.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure that I had a different experience because I was a young girl.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was 22 years old, and like I'm coming in there all like, you know, like I'm I'm obviously I'm struggling, but like I'm happy to like, you know, I'm bubbly.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just a bubbly person, but I was still struggling really hard on the inside.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so our experiences may differ because of that.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I had like mostly men coming up to me, and I had to learn, you know, that like you you pick and choose and you use your discretion, your judgment, your discernment, you know, on who is there for you and who isn't and who you should talk to and who you shouldn't.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I learned lots of lessons along the way.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: You don't put anyone on a pedestal because they may not be walking the walk, you know, they may ha talk the talk very well, but they may not walk the walk.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's okay.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: We're all here to get better, we're all sick, you know.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: And uh um, and I had to I had to learn that.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, um, I think if you're willing to put yourself out there, the people the people will come.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you're you're committing to AA at this point.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Did you do the 90 and 90?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like what yeah, were you I didn't know you did 90 and 90?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: I did.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: I did even when I wasn't even fully invested yet.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: No shit.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: I did because I wanted to be around people.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'd been isolated for so long.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I wanted to be around people, and I just sat there and sometimes wouldn't say anything.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I would I had nothing else to do.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: I had a car and an enabling mother who gave me money when she shouldn't have.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so I had gas.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Another reason why I got so addicted to drugs too is because I love to manipulate my mom.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh very enabling, not a good thing to do.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and on either part, you know.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I had gas, I had a car, so I went to a ton of meetings.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: I did, and I it was in Nashville at the time, and Nashville is a plethora of meetings, really, really cool meetings.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: So did you meet some homies?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did major homies then.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: Not major, because I'm bad at making major homies.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: I really am bad at making major, but I know a lot of people and I connected with a lot of people, and even if it is on a surface level, uh it's better than no connection at all.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: So totally well said.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: During during recovery, whether it's like at the very beginning or towards the middle of your six years that you have right now, what's the hardest hitting truth that you had to face during this time?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: I would say what I'm going through right now is what is the hardest truth.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm trying not to I'm not gonna cry because I'm we talked about this beforehand.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you can you can if you want.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I I know other people like it's funny because I cry all the time, but when I see someone like crying, I'm like, okay, now get it together.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: And like you cannot get it together, but I try real hard to get it together.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's contagious for you.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: It is, it's very contagious.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just a crier.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but probably what I'm going right now, because I did the darn thing, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, at the end of 2019, I feel like I was like, you know what, I fully surrender.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: I cannot control, I understand what it means to be powerless.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: I have to stop pretending that I can control this, right?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um and uh I did the darn thing.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: I got the sponsor.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she was uh quite the a big book thumper, which was great.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: I also went to Stillwaters twice.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh I think you're familiar.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, um very hardcore.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was very boot camp recovery type thing.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was very, and I'm coming to realize too, it was very punitive, which may not be a good thing for everybody.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was very like I had to wear an alarm clock around my neck for two weeks for being linked to group.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: I learned accountability uh during that, but I was also a bit humiliated, and also I think I developed a little bit of shame connected to making mistakes.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know you have to make a lot of your own meals there and do all the cleaning and it will be recovery related, like a few recovery-related books.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really watch TV.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's very strict.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it was very 12-step.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: We're not teaching anything else, you know.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like crammed down your throat.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, times a hundred.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: And which I needed at the time, a hundred percent.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: Love still waters, went twice, so apparently I liked it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I learned a lot there, and uh I think it definitely helped save my life for sure.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: The hardest truth that you ask you're asking about is here recently, six years sober, it's been it began around four and a half, five.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm starting to realize that some of the things that helped me at the beginning are almost harming me now, if that makes sense.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: It does.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's not something that I feel like a lot of people talk about, but I feel like other people are experiencing it too.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's not it's that abstinence only, you have to do it this kind of way, black and white thinking, in order to recover.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like I'm at the point now where I'm like, what the hell does it even mean to recover?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like what is recovery, you know?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I've I've thought it's I've had this idea of you have to do it, you know, the way that Stillwaters does it.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: You have to do it like the way that A preaches.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I don't do it this way, I'm not gonna make it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to live, I'm not going to have recovery.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not, I'm not, and even it just goes down to I'm not doing it right.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: And for a kind of person like me, apparently it's very important to do things right.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: I have to do things right, you know.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: And if I don't do it right, yeah, I am gonna die.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: To drink is to die.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of your programming.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and stemming from childhood, you know.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and then yeah, still waters didn't didn't help in that regard.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: It was very black and white, you know, like the moment you make a mistake, the moment you make uh you put you leave a cup out, you know, like you get a consequence.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Totally understand.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: I learned that there are consequences to my actions, 100% did, but that's not how it works in the real world.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a bad person if I leave like the cup out at night, you know.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a bad person if I go about my recovery in a way that looks a little bit different than other people's, you know, or at least what I've been exposed to, you know.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I totally get it because I've been judged over time on how I do things or how I don't do things, where it's like, where the fuck do you come off of telling me what I can and can't do?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I you know, there's been situations where I'm like, I have five years more than you, but maybe uh maybe I'm starting to seem restless, irritable, and discontent in this.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: I will figure this out.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've been judged for not going to a certain amount of meetings still and stuff like that.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I totally get it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whatever works for you, everybody's recovery program is different.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it changes and it evolves over time.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'm learning more.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was exposed to abstinence only 12-step models, and which was amazing for me.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: Could not have asked for anything better, honestly.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: That is obviously what I needed, had it wouldn't have happened to me, you know.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: Love it, love all the people there.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's why I am alive and seated in the seat today.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_03: But the last few years of working in recovery, I'm starting to believe in more for myself.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: That harm reduction, you know, and like maybe not abstinent only, and like the non-punitive type models.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what we do.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you and I both work in the MAT sector.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Suboxone.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: You guys, do you are you gonna do injectables?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we will.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: We gotta get our license, but yes, we will.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: So um Vivitrol, Naltrexone, Sublicade, um, all of all of those things.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: This is all harm reduction.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of stigma around it still.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Less than there was five, six years ago.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: But um with fentanyl around, it's a relapse once and you're done.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always say it's like you can't treat somebody if they're dead.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: And you you've got to get them to the point where they believe that change is possible, you know.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what would you say to somebody that is still thinking that there's stigma around MET?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm still battling it in my head.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: I still am.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like I still have, I'm still learning, you know.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I had a conversation with our one of our NPs yesterday about the difference between subutext and suboxen and why there's so much stigma attacks, just subutex more so than suboxen.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: Come to find out, the science that I have been taught is completely wrong, you know?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Subutex is normally for an allergy patient to Suboxone or pregnant or nursing woman.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And because there is not the blocker in the subutex.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is in suboxone.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and either one is fine to take, you know.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: There should not be, oh, they don't need to be prescribed in subutex, you know, like either one is fine to take, you know.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, it's really hard to get a prescription for subutex.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: It is with with the state and the regulations and the way that it is and all that.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're not one of those two people exactly.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: And but either way, I think what I'm trying to say is I'm still struggling with the stigma attached to harm reduction.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: And it's crazy.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of us are, because um, even in this realm, because it's just a newer model, you know.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a newer model.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: People have not been exposed to it as much.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so we don't we fear the what we don't understand, you know.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a really good statement on it.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I M E T is not part of my story.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm classic old school alcoholic.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: Vivitrol is the only kind, and now Trexone is what I was on.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe it worked.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: I believe it worked.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: Coincidentally, it was at the same time that I started working a good 12-step AA program.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know which one was better, but yeah, apparently the combination I did very well because I wouldn't be six years sober today had it not.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I was just curious as to what your thoughts are, and if you're a bit new to the job because you guys just opened, uh, but uh you do have a history with MAT.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just interesting to get people's thoughts on MAT in general.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I love talking about it.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I've seen it save friends of mine's lives.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it 100% does save lives.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you, I mean, if you really think about it, like I don't know, I love metaphors, and I I thought about this metaphor the other day.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: So you give somebody, you hand somebody a joint of marijuana and you hand somebody a shotgun, say make yourself feel better.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's basically the same thing as saying, you know, is handing somebody a joint, handing somebody, you know, like a shot of fentanyl, and say, you know, make yourself feel better.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: Which one would you rather them choose?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're gonna want them to choose the joint, you know?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and not everybody can make it to that 100% abstinent point.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to make it there in order to start making progress and change.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: You can make it before you get there.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: You can never get there 100% abstinence and still make progress and change.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like, who am I to tell you that the only way that it works and the best way is that you have to be 100% abstinent for forever from everything?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like who am I to like say that to someone?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's just not the truth.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: And and that that's the main issue that I have right now with 12 steps is that like they'll tell you that it's if you don't do it that way, then it's jail institutions, or death.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's not necessarily true, you know.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's how I feel on that.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm going through right now.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, thanks for sharing.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're we're getting closer to the end.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so you've you've made amends, you work with a sponsor, you're part of the rooms.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's been the hardest part of all of this?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: The hardest part, I'm gonna be honest with you.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I have been very blessed in my story that the last six years have been very good to me.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's that's how it's supposed to be.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you see in the rooms of of recovery.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that's you start treating it, you do the darn thing, whatever that looks like for you, life gets exponentially better, and sometimes a lot in a very short amount of time, you know, you see it happen to people all the time.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I love going to meetings, is because it's amazing what can be accomplished in a short amount of time and the progress that you can make in the rooms of recovery.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so my challenges are very much, you know, Cadillac problems.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_03: They're, you know, like they're not that difficult.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome for you.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_03: The hardest part for me right now is just learning how to be a somewhat healthy and functional and nice individual in the way that the world is today.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and be okay with sitting in my feelings and being okay with doing daily life without being with being in my skin, you know, with and and uh making trying to make every decision that I make be towards self-improvement and not self-destruction.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: Because for some reason, my default is self-destruction, you know.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying real hard to make the self-improvement be the default, you know.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy for you.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Such a great way of looking at it.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: I got I could talk recovery with you forever.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: I could too, obviously.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a yapper.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um if there, if there's somebody that's listening now that is struggling, whether it be a woman struggling or a man, what would you say to them and to give them hope or to help them see the light that there's change possible?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: I would say something early I learned in NA was it's not how much you use and it's not what you use, it's how you react to it.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: That is the issue.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, no matter where you are in life, no matter how bad you think you are, or how not bad enough you think you are, you are capable of making decisions towards self-improvement, towards a life that you know is going to be better and that you know you are capable of.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: You just have to get out of your own way.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you you really and you have to believe that you are worth it, that you are capable of it, you know, before you can even take the actions to get you there.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're right.
• 51:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_03: And whatever those actions may be, just know that even though if you've been told otherwise, or if you truly don't believe it right now, you are capable of it.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_03: And somebody told me that if if you don't believe it right now, that's okay.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_03: You can borrow some of my belief.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: Hell yes, I love that.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that meant a lot to me, you know.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like, it is possible.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, even if you believe you are bottom of the barrel, never gonna change.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's just the thought of it is overwhelming and impossible.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: It is possible.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it just one day at a time.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: Literally one at the beginning, five minutes at a time.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: Just let the five minutes be towards self-improvement.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: Let this next five minutes be towards self-improvement and not self-destruction.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're a shining example of this.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've come out of some super dark places.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: What what you were saying, it made me think of this story.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: The the last time I was in treatment, somebody told me this story, and it it might not be real, but it's it's a good metaphor for having an issue and not wanting to fix it.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a guy walking down the sidewalk and he sees an old man with his dog, and there's a dog laying on the nail in pain.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: He just walks past it and says it's like, oh my god, what's going on here?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: The next day he walks past the dog and the old man, but the dog is still on the nail.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: The third day, the same thing.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy just he asked the old guy, he's like, Well, why what's wrong with your dog?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why is he not getting off the nail?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and the old man says, uh, it must not hurt enough.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that spelled out for some reason, just thinking about that, because I also love dogs.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh cats and dogs do go to heaven, by the way.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: They do, they do, 100%.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_03: And even if there isn't a heaven, there is a cat and dog one.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to go to that one.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um But thank you so much for sharing all this hope and sharing parts of your life that I'm I'm I'm sure are are tough to share.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh I hope that I can do it with like as much like sorry, I cry a lot, gratitude and humility like possible because I do not have it figured out at all.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I still struggle, and I am a human being, you know.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh some of the things that I may have said may not even be true, who knows?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: At this moment in time, like I just know that that's my truth, and I hope to God that it can help other people because like I needed I needed it, you know.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: The whole reason I even wanted to be a social worker is because a social worker talked to me when I was 18 years old in my first like ward, and they made me feel heard for the very first time, you know.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that with the way that that person just made me feel, that is the way that I want to make other people feel, you know, in every interaction that I have with people.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I hope, I hope I'm doing that, you know.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: You absolutely are.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen you live in action.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully this helps people too.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I hope so too.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody out there, if you're struggling, please reach out to me or or Christian Morris felt with the case.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not as crazy as I seem.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: I think I can help.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're a lovely person.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: You can totally help.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: Steadfast help just opened.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just I speaking of opened, I I appreciate you for opening your heart.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's I can't help it.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: I just see vulnerability.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Vulnerability is contagious.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way I wanted things to go when I started a podcast.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to see real shit.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, 100%.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's an it's enough with the fake shit.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny because we go into recovery and we're like, oh, we can take our mask off, and we put a brand new mask back on, you know.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: I want to get that mask off too.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, but yeah, Steadfast.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're downtown Nashville, um, harm reduction model.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, everybody that works there, I've been so blessed.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: I found it on LinkedIn, I found the position on LinkedIn.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think the universe was like, here you go.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly sweet people.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and they're in it for the right reasons.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm super excited to see what we all do, uh, what Steadfast can do in the future.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh, we're open for virtual and in-person.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_03: We take walk-ins.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_03: So if it's if you wake up and you decide today is the day, last hangover of my life, you don't have a wake-up bag, this is it.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Walk on over to Steadfast Help.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: We will help you.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's right by St.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas downtown.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate all the work that you're doing and all the stages of different work that you've done.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've told me about other facilities you've worked for.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: And likewise, thank you.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: We're in the business of of saving lives.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and even if it's just even if it is just a walk-in appointment and you decide, you know, I'm not going, or I call NAS and it's like, eh, never mind, this isn't what I want.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: We still helped them.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: The seed has been planted.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: They know.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and when we when you first showed up, the first thing we talked about is we do the same thing at different facilities.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're not competitors, we're colleagues.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many people to help in this state and beyond.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need to work together and we need resources.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you've you're gonna be a great partner, you have been a great partner so far.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Even though you just opened, I just really appreciate everything you do and thanks for today.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_03: Likewise.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Johnny.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lots of love to you.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.