Latest / The Junto Podcast / E45: When Booze Breaks the Family - Confronting Alcohol’s Damage

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E45: When Booze Breaks the Family - Confronting Alcohol’s Damage · The Junto Podcast

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Hello America, welcome to the Junto podcast where we promote the practical applications
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of critical thinking and bold creativity I'm your host Edgar Mills. Thank you for joining.
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Hello, good people. Welcome back to the Juneto podcast. This is episode 45.
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I appreciate you guys for staying with me.
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I appreciate the feedback that I give from you guys.
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So yeah, thank you very much. So today's episode is a touchy one,
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but it's one that it's around.
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It's always, it's out there. You know somebody, you've worked with somebody,
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you may have been the guy,
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But we're going to talk about the effects of alcoholism and,
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well, the effects, for sure,
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on young families especially and on you as an individual and how we can help
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other people try to defeat it.
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It's a problem and it's an accepted problem and it's a glorified problem.
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And booze, unlike drugs, you know, booze are glorified.
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They're just universally accepted as correct and normal.
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And there's bars all over the place. Every restaurant sells booze.
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I myself enjoyed having a cold Guinness with my mates at the pub.
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But much like anything, much like politics, much like food, anything that's
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done to extreme or in excess, it's bad and it will have negative effects, some worse than others.
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So alcoholism right if you're a young young guy youngish
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right in your 20s 30s even
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even if you're in your even in your 40s man now if you're if you're still boozing
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in your 40s we there's some issues that need to be addressed probably but it
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creates i'm not talking about your social drinker now i i was talking about
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yeah it's glorified and going out to the pub and this and that and being social.
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But in moderation, right, it's okay to go out and have a drink with your mates.
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But what if you're at home drinking alone, you know, in the middle of the day
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to try, you know, for whatever reason, right?
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That's a big problem. And that, and it just, all it does is create,
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it's a touch point for other problems.
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If you're, have a young family, you have to know that children of alcoholics
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are something like four or five times more likely to become alcoholics.
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You are more likely to be divorced or get divorced.
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You are more likely to cave in to domestic violence.
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You are more likely to spend and waste money on unimportant things.
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But let's talk about more importantly, though. Let's touch on the effects on
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your kids, man. Kids aren't stupid.
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And just because you make them go to their bedroom and close the door don't
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mean they don't hear things don't mean they don't know what's going on and it
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creates an anxiety in those kids and a,
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and it puts them in a different frame of mind where they have to they're looking
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for some kind of mental escape or even physical escape or they're or they're
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seeing a behavior that as far as they know, is normal and correct.
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So they think that, well, this is the way it is. It's okay. And it's not.
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And if you're a parent and you're at home drinking, drunk, and you're not present
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with your kids and your wife,
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I mean, it can go from, oh, well, you know, I was tired from work to like you
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got to start answering questions at some point.
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And then you're blacked out in your bed, and then you rage because somebody
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wants you to get up and participate in life.
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And then you create a scene in the house and scares the kids.
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Disappoints your wife, etc.
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And it just crushes, destroys the family dynamic. That happens. That happens.
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And look, folks, I'm not speaking about alcoholism from a necessarily judgmental position.
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I myself have, in my younger years, found myself awakened.
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Laying face down in a gravel parking lot in a pool of vomit with the sun shining
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down on my face and my head throbbing.
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Yeah, it's a ridiculous scene, but it's a ridiculous thing to get to that point.
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But I know what it's like. I understand. The question is not,
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well, does it have bad effects on the family? We all know that,
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right? Everyone knows that.
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It has negative effects on, well, just your marriage in general.
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It has negative effects on your relationship, your ability to hold a relationship
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with anyone, but especially even your kids.
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It can lead to, well, infidelity. Yeah. It can lead to domestic violence.
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Yeah, because you don't have control of your own mind, and then you take it to that next level.
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That's not okay, folks, under any circumstance.
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It creates stress. It can create financial instability, and ultimately,
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it can create divorce and loss of your family and your kids,
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and even more so, ultimately, loss of life.
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If you continue to drink, it will lead to an incident sooner or later. Statistics don't lie.
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And if you're out there and you think you're above the statistics, you're not.
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The best way not to be a statistic is not to partake if you have a problem.
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Now, why would somebody have a problem? Hey, sometimes it's,
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I'm told it could be hereditary.
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You know, it's in your genes, I'm told sometimes.
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Some people just have impulse control issues and it feels good.
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You drink to a point to where you get a buzz and that feel everything feels real good,
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but you don't have a regulator on it all right and then so you get your buzz
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and it feels so good that you want to keep it going then you drink yourself
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into a blackout next thing you know you think everybody's plotting on you and
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you want to fight and whatnot,
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You know, you're no longer in control of yourself. And for some people,
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maybe that's where they don't want to be in control.
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They want to be in a position where they don't have to be in control.
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Maybe. I guess that's possible.
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I don't like that, that state of being.
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I absolutely want to be in control. I have, I'm a control freak.
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I have a problem with control these days. I need it.
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So yeah we know we know that it's bad the extreme results are bad we know that,
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but but why why does it slip into like full-blown alcoholism now obviously my
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experience comes from like soldiers and first responders and that kind of stuff.
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And these people have seen or continue to see gruesome things, things that,
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normal that you shouldn't have to see, but it's out there and it happens.
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And somebody has to deal with it. Usually that's, well, first responders in
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this case, or soldiers in the case of war.
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I've seen some things in combat that I never want to see again, ever.
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And if my wife had to see some of those things, I would feel horrible,
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absolutely horrible about it. and I certainly don't want my grandkids to see
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the things that I've seen.
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First responders see it on a daily basis. You know, people, you know,
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cops especially probably see some, you know, there was a video I just shared on Instagram.
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I don't know where it originated, but a dad was holding his three-year-old with
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a gun to his head and he came out of an apartment and the cops approached,
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and they were screaming at the guy to stop and he didn't stop and for whatever
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reason the cops decided to shoot the guy well the three-year-old got shot as
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well now i think the dad pulled the trigger and i think the cops also shot the kid,
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that and that was a video i put that out it wasn't a you could see the incident
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but it was from like a badge cam or a chest camera or whatever the cops have
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on so you didn't get the graphic, graphic details,
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but can you imagine being, well,
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one, can you imagine being the cop that shot the kid?
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Oh my God. I mean, if you're going to turn to alcoholism, I guess that would
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be it, right? That would be the time.
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There's gruesome stuff out there, folks. And there's a lot of guys out there,
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women, you know, men and women in the first responders have PTSD, something like 30%.
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Have PTSD and, and I've got my own issues with PS. I'm not saying I have PTSD.
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I'm saying I have my own feelings about the label.
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And, you know, I guess different people process things in different ways.
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So I don't really know how to address that.
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And, but what I do know is that, you know, just being a tough guy and manning
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up, you know, don't always help you with that.
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And if to man up means you got to go pound beers in order to kill the feelings,
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then that's wrong. That's the wrong answer.
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If you need to go pound beers to kill the feelings and use that numbness as
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some kind of shield against the pain.
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So it's a method to deal with it. It's just a very bad method,
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and it has effects that are beyond you. It affects people beyond you.
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It's sneaky, alcoholism, because, you know, maybe even as a teenager,
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I know when I was young, you know, there was parties on the weekends,
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high school, you know, who's ever parents were out of town.
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Somebody always knew, had a brother or somebody who was 21 who would go buy,
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you know, a keg for the party.
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So whosever parents were out of town, that's where the party would be.
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And, you know, you got a bunch of teenagers drinking. And that's a social thing,
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and it's kind of fun. But even then, you can probably remember back to then.
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You can probably remember that one guy that always took it too far.
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Yeah, you can probably remember that one guy. But as an adult,
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right, as a grown person with responsibilities, and you're drinking alone and,
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home in the middle of the day, you know, trying to, to numb your feelings and
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you don't want to talk to anybody because either you don't want to burden them
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or you don't think that they can take, they can take what you,
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what you're dishing out and that it's just too much for them or whatever.
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So you start to drink and then as you start to drink, it builds this like an
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internal loneliness, right? You're with somebody.
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You might even be in the same room with your wife or your kids,
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but you feel lonely because you're not sharing all of yourself.
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So opposite of that, you're isolating yourself internally, your feelings.
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And so that loneliness even, you're dulling that a little bit,
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but all it's doing is digging deeper into you.
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And then you're distant or if you get drunk to a point to where now you start
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becoming belligerent even.
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So putting yourself in your own self-imposed lockdown,
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booze and not talking to your family, that's not sparing your family any pain.
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That's just creating a different kind of pain.
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And then any genuine connection and closeness that you have.
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You're undermining that. And your kids feel it. Believe me, they do.
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Your kids feel that. Your wife feels that.
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And here's the thing, man. Those of you who listen to me regularly,
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You know that I value individualism, rugged individualism, stringent individualism.
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And you be who you are. You do all those things. You act of your own accord.
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And you own your own failures and successes.
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But now you're adding a different variable in there.
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Alcohol is becoming a thing. And if you can't, if that alcohol is winning a
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battle with you, well, then your individualism has, is it enough?
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You need to seek help with somebody else.
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You need somebody to help you haul that load, man.
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Sometimes you've got to hand the 240 off to somebody else and take a break.
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So be a rugged individualist. But if you start losing the battle,
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man, step up. Hey, I need a little help.
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Whether it's a trusted homie, whether it's a therapist, or whether you trust
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your wife enough to be honest with her.
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Do you trust your wife enough to be honest with her?
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Or are you afraid that if you are honest with her that she will no longer see
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you in some kind of whatever way you imagine she sees you? Share the load.
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Share the load because this is not one that you just, okay, well,
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I'm just going to fight through it.
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It's going to, well, statistically, it's going to win.
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Once the alcohol is in your brain, you no longer have control over yourself.
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It's no longer you anymore.
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Yeah, your individualism has been clouded. It's gone.
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So don't use individualism as a reason not to reach out for help.
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It warps your brain. It does.
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And to a point to where you It becomes addictive, and all that craving overrides anything else.
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And then you'll start to unintentionally, but then eventually,
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just intentionally, it won't even matter to you the way you start missing things
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like being present with your family.
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And they'll see that. Your family will see that.
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And there's a, I'm going to say there is a selfishness involved there,
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whether it's from like a self-pity or whether it's from like even a noble to
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where like, I'm going to keep all this to myself because I don't want to hurt
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anyone else with my pain.
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It's still selfishness, however well-meaning it may be. But that selfishness, it's unhelpful.
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It's unhelpful.
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And I promise your family will survive honesty.
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It might be rough, but they'll survive the honesty.
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It won't survive abuse or absolute negligence.
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So when you're going for that numbness, right?
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If I'm just going to, I'm going to drink a bottle of wine just to numb out this,
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this pain I feel, but then, and your kids are just what,
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where are they at? What are they going to get from that?
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It's a selfishness above and beyond that, right?
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You're fixing something and the argument is creating two or three other problems.
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So I'm always talking about individualism, but I'm saying that if you can't
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defeat the alcohol by yourself, then individualism is not the way in that instance, right?
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And I talk about liberty and individual rights and individual liberties a lot.
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But all you're doing is undermining your own freedom there because now you're
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subservient, not to a crown, not to a political party, but to the booze.
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You're subservient to the booze. So you're not any more free, right? Right.
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And so you go on these bend, these benders and you, and you drink and, and you, you pass out.
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You, well, you drink, right? You're at home. Your family's at home.
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You drink to a point to where you no longer have a memory of what you're doing, you know?
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So then disaster ensues, right? You don't know what you do. You wake up the
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next morning, your wife's assed up.
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You're like, oh, what, what, what? There's puke all over the bathroom. Yeah.
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About that. You don't get a free pass because you don't remember what you did.
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You don't get a free pass because you don't remember what you did.
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And what it's going to lead to is eventually there's going to be an incident.
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There's going to be a DUI or there's going to be, you're going to be so blacked
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out, drunk and out of control that the cops are going to get called or you're
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going to put your hands on your wife or your children,
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blaming the booze, but the damage is no less It's severe.
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And then you're going to be, well, I only drink this, I only drink that.
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Bullshit. That's bullshit.
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And then if you play it out to a logical end, then you got family services,
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Department of Family and Children's Services coming around, knocking on your door.
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And look, folks, if you already have a relationship with defects,
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and then you're introducing booze into the situation.
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Almost a conscious effort to have your children taken away from you.
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There is no winning. You lose with the booze. You lose with the booze.
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How do we get out of it? How?
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Well, one, we have to recognize there's a problem.
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That's always the first step in anything is identifying that there is a problem.
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And if you can't identify that, if you refuse to acknowledge that there's a problem,
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then you're just being disingenuous either willfully
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ignorant or just ignorant you can't outrun statistics you cannot be a statistic
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but if you're doing all those things you're going to be you're going to be a
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statistic you have to identify that there's a problem you have to look at the signs.
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You have to have some small level of discipline, but yeah, you have to want
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to quit, right? That's just it.
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Identify the problem, then understand the potential outcomes of this problem,
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and then make your mind up that this is not going to be the problem in my life.
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Just look at the situation objectively.
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If you're drinking alone in the middle of the day, you that that's a
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sign that's a problem if you're driving home
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from work and all you're thinking about is stopping to get a bottle of
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booze that's a problem if you're getting ready to go to a function with your
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family and you're shaky because you don't want to go to this function so you
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want to get go hit some booze before you go that's a problem and look at those
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things do those things exist in your life.
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If they do, yeah, you got a problem.
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Would a typical rational medical professional therapist look at what I'm doing
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and think that, yes, this person is an alcoholic?
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If so, that's not a conspiracy. They're not out to get you. If you're doing things, yeah.
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You know, when I was in the Army and every time you do your medical PDA,
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pre-deployment health readiness assessment, And they asked, do you have more
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than one drink per day or week or whatever it is?
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And then it's like, do you drink more than two drinks in one sitting?
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And every soldier in my, you know, you're looking at this going,
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what are these people talking about? Yeah.
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Of course, but you always put the right answer though, right?
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You don't put, yeah, I drink, you know, eight Guinness in one sitting every
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weekend. Some people through the week, right?
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I was never much of a through the week drinker, but sometimes,
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especially when I was in Korea, holy cow, I was probably, and I'm not saying
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this because I'm proud of it.
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I'm just telling you, I have been through some good and bad, for sure.
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But, and it's a slight exaggeration, but I mean, I was probably drunk as much in Korea as I wasn't.
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I did a lot of drinking.
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It was too easy to do. It was ridiculous. It was, anyway, where were we at?
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Spot the problem. Spot the problem. Identify it.
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And then resolve, like, are you going to just let this ruin your life?
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Understand that it will. And then go, okay, all right.
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And then realize, man, that you're carrying that heavy rock and you're carrying that 240, right?
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And you're like, okay, I need to pass this 240 off for a little while.
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You're not quitting. You're just getting a little help, right?
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Just lightening the load just a little bit.
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Lightening the load a little bit.
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And let people help you who love you. There are people who love you,
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whether you think there are or not. Let them help you.
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Get past the like, oh, he's just going to slam me.
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Get past that. Get past that superficial stuff.
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And then just accept the real help, right? Accept it.
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And then once you've accepted that, okay, I could use some help.
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But now, if you know somebody, just help them without pushing, right?
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You don't push because that'll create a resistance.
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That's the way the American man is. If you push them, they will resist.
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So just show them paths.
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Just show them paths and then help guide them through.
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And if you're a spouse of one of these people with a problem,
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you have to not only set realistic boundaries, but you have to adhere to those boundaries.
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And if the boundary is, hey, there's no booze in the house, then that's the way it is.
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Is. No booze in the house, period.
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And then every so often you go out to eat and instead of getting booze,
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you just get sweet tea and be done with it.
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An alcoholic, generally speaking, good people cannot have any alcohol, period.
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That's it. That's it. I'm sure there's some people out there that have defeated
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the problem and now they can drink one or two and be responsible and all that.
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That's probably the case. That's probably okay.
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But, man, it's too easy to slip.
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So if you're a spouse, not only do you need to set these lines and these rules
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that you both have to adhere to,
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but you also have to be accountable to them.
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And as a spouse, you have to hold yourself as accountable and as responsible
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as you do your alcoholic spouse.
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Yeah.
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There's a whole lot of responsibility. And then helping a person get over a
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strong problem like that,
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helping them regain their individual accountability and responsibility is a
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big responsibility in itself.
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But if you're not willing to partner in that, then, I mean, how much are you
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invested? You know, you need to be willing to partner in that.
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Of these people who have these problems, if it's your husband or your spouse or your wife or whoever,
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or your son or daughter, be empathetic.
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I used to have a problem with that. I used to be very harsh judgmental-wise, but be empathetic.
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That will drop the defense mechanism, right? and that'll allow them to open up a little more.
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And being empathetic and then just helping to guide as opposed to direct will
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probably help a lot with that.
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And then, look, most problems can be logically solved.
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I can sit down and logically say, look, if you continue to drink,
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this is likely to happen, this is likely to happen, and here's going to be the end result.
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Well, for some people, that's just to, well, whatever, that they may or may not believe it.
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But you also have to mix in a little bit of faith.
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And yeah, I'm always going to go back to faith and go back to,
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you know, well, what would Jesus do, right?
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I understand that there is a responsibility to be good.
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And if it's not to yourself, if you don't care about yourself enough to be good,
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you need to be responsible and care enough about your family to be good.
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And that's got to be good enough.
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Because once you take on a family and you take on that responsibility,
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then that's what it is, folks.
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So, yeah, pray. Pray about it together and be sincere.
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You don't have to be beholden or subservient to the booze.
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A trick. You could even say it's a trick of the devil.
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Yeah. It gets in there and it messes with your mind and it clouds and it hides
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and it obscures reality and it usurps your priorities.
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Whatever you think your priorities are, as soon as you booze,
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it changes your priorities.
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And you can't let anything artificially disrupt or change your priorities.
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You have to stick with them and there has to be or one you have to love your
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family but check it out I don't I think the a big problem is that if you don't love yourself,
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it's hard to love your family you have to love yourself and by loving yourself
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really loving yourself that means you won't taint yourself with the booze and
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if you love yourself then you
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love your family and you don't want to taint your family with the booze.
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So you got to have that love. Then there's got to be some reasonable rules,
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some guidelines, some reasonable things like, okay, I mean, practical things
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like, okay, there's no booze in the house.
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Even if you still want to have a drink at dinner, as long as you're not the driver, right?
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But have some rules that or tangent, like, okay, no booze in the house,
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period, or no booze while I'm doing this, or no booze while I'm doing that,
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and slowly but surely phase it out.
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And then as someone who is helping with this alcoholism, your spouse or your
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brother or or whoever have a little bit of grace and a little bit and empathy.
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Even if you've never been in that situation, still, you can be like, look, I.
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I can see your pain. Let me help you. Don't just be judgmental.
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And then just be straight and just be honest. Don't be an enabler. Don't be an enabler.
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Always speak honestly and directly, always, about the problem.
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Don't give them an opportunity to dance around, you know, using semantics, right?
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I just, oh, well, I only drink this much or I only I only do it whenever this or that or the other.
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That's just, yeah, it's it's reasons, right? It's excuse.
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Why do I drink? Well, the reason why I drink is but that doesn't make it OK
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just because there's a reason.
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But making an excuse for your drinking to try to to say, well,
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yeah, here's why I drink and here's why I should be able to drink. That's the problem.
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So understand that excuses are separate from reasons. They're different.
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And you can have a reason why. There's several reasons why.
31:27
But you don't have any excuse why.
31:32
It's not to be excused.
31:35
Leads down the road to neglecting your family, or it leads down the road to
31:40
domestic abuse, and I mean physical hands-on abuse, there is no excuse.
31:47
You can give me all the reasons in the world, and we'll process those reasons,
31:52
but you can't give me any damn excuse.
31:56
So look, are you out there are you
31:59
a drinker have you had problems from it before do you think you drink like at
32:05
a level that well but it's okay no it doesn't affect anyone I mean that may
32:11
or may not be true I don't know chances are if you got children in your life
32:15
it's bad whatever it is chances are it's bad,
32:19
are you living with someone who is an alcoholic who has a problem I don't know man and if so how
32:27
do you deal with that are you trying to help solve the problem or does it just
32:30
create a does it just create a fight you know or violence or abandonment like
32:38
they disappear for several days,
32:42
i don't know man but if you handle it correctly you might be able to you might
32:47
be the one to break through their their wall of clouded.
32:55
Mental state, their, their darkness that's, that's clouded with,
33:00
with, with alcohol, you might be able to, you might be able to break in there.
33:04
Maybe, maybe if you change your approach, maybe if you swallow your pride a
33:09
little bit and figure out how you can, I don't know, man, very diplomatically help, right?
33:18
Without accusation, without finger pointing, without score keeping, how can you help?
33:28
And then there's all the programs out there. I don't advocate or endorse or
33:36
denounce any program out there because I've never been on any of those programs.
33:42
So I don't know really how they are.
33:47
Probably some of them are better than others.
33:50
Substance abuse programs. Identify that there is a problem, folks.
33:56
Identify that there is a problem, and then determine that that problem needs to be solved.
34:03
I mean, by definition, a problem needs to be solved.
34:07
Don't just identify that there's a problem and then just...
34:13
Your life. And you just, some days you dodge it and some days you give in.
34:18
So you got to identify the problem that, and then identify that it needs solving.
34:23
And then you have to resolve either as the alcoholic or as the helper or the
34:30
person who's attempting to intervene,
34:34
then you have to determine how, how can we best do this?
34:40
What's the practical way to do this? And then commit to it.
34:45
Yeah, I mean, just commit to it. It's not easy. It's hard. It's very difficult.
34:51
Some people feel the need to be numbed to the mundane daily problems,
34:58
the routine problems of everyday life.
35:03
Yeah, but that's not the way. You need to be clear.
35:08
You need to be present, and you need to be clear in your thinking.
35:13
Well, what if your thinking is clouded up by other intrusive thoughts that have
35:18
nothing to do with booze or drugs, but you're overwhelmed with these other intrusive thoughts?
35:23
When you lay down and take a nap or go to bed, your
35:27
mind's racing with visions of past traumas or visions of how can I pay bills
35:37
or how can we do this or how can I fix this or that? And life is overwhelming you.
35:44
Look, alcohol doesn't fix any of it. It just numbs your brain for a temporary period of time.
35:50
You wake up with the same problems that you passed out with,
35:54
and all you've done is add another problem onto it.
36:00
Speaking, if you're a working class or low-end economic spectrum and you're
36:06
working hard to pay the bills and a bottle of booze costs X number of dollars,
36:12
add that up over a month, add that up over two months.
36:17
When you're struggling living paycheck to paycheck, every cent counts.
36:23
Every cent counts. So if every dollar being spent is not on something beneficial for the family, i.e.
36:32
Milk and eggs, then just in an absolute practical sense, then don't spend it
36:40
on the booze because the booze don't help the family. The booze don't help anything.
36:45
Yeah. Look at your bank statement. Print it off and do a little exercise.
36:51
If you're a paycheck to paycheck type and you don't keep a meticulous budget,
36:57
print off your bank statement and go down and look at every dollar spent.
37:03
Now you're going to have gas on there for your car, nothing you can do about it.
37:07
You're going to have all your bills and the utilities and your rent,
37:10
nothing you can do about it.
37:11
Your car payment, your insurance payment, and even your phone and your internet.
37:16
Those are, you know, you got necessities in life.
37:19
But then look at all the things that weren't necessities.
37:23
And that's to include groceries. So just because you spent 300 bucks on groceries,
37:29
you know, how much of that was spent on non-essentials?
37:33
And I mean, I mean booze, right? That's what I mean.
37:38
Well, you know, you can cut the fat pills out too. You can cut a lot of stuff.
37:41
Even in groceries, you can cut a lot of superfluous things.
37:45
But just from a practical perspective, I think you're going to find that you
37:50
spend more money than you think you do. You know?
37:55
Practical thinker and that's, that's, that's where you're at, then, then do that math.
38:00
And if you're not, if that's not a thing for you, right, you got plenty of money,
38:03
you, you probably got more money than you need. And you still,
38:07
and you still drink to escape something.
38:11
Then you got to determine like, are your problems, they're yours, right?
38:15
You, you perceive them to be your problems, but like break down the severity.
38:20
Like, Are these first world problems?
38:23
You know what I mean? Are these something that things that can be solved with
38:26
very simple actions or are they real dire, I can't escape this type problems?
38:36
I think you'll find that most of them are escapable from a practical perspective.
38:42
And I know that if you reach out to family members, friends, spouse,
38:49
whoever, and if you reach out with just a little bit of humility and say,
38:54
hey, I have a problem and I want help.
38:59
I can't do it by myself.
39:01
Oh man, the outpouring of love and support will be enormous if you allow it.
39:11
The outpouring will be enormous if you allow it.
39:16
So that brings us back to some of the things I'm always talking about, right?
39:19
This rugged individualism, this loner, tough guy persona,
39:26
and you think vulnerability is a weakness and not to be accepted.
39:36
Well, I talked about this in the therapy episode, I did a couple of therapy episodes a few back.
39:43
If you're this lone or tough guy and you reject therapy and you reject any sort
39:49
of external help, you still, you got to reach out to a friend, man.
39:53
You got, at some point you cannot do it alone.
39:57
At some point you cannot do it alone.
40:01
That's just the way it is. And one of the benefits, you know,
40:05
and I'm only, I'm 53. I say that a lot.
40:08
So I think I've been on the planet for a good amount of time,
40:11
but especially being in the Army,
40:13
you see so many personality types and you see so many problems come and go with
40:21
alcoholism and drug abuse and spouse abuse.
40:25
And even there was a guy in one of my units that molested his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
40:34
There's problems, man. There's all kinds of problems. And I've seen a lot of them.
40:39
So I'm not a therapist at all.
40:43
I'm not a counselor. I'm not anything except a mentor to people who choose to make me their mentor.
40:53
And I have been a leader of men for many years.
40:59
And during that time, I have seen the gamut of problems.
41:04
And in every case, it's eventually...
41:11
Reach out to someone else to get help from another source.
41:18
Because at some point, they break down. At some point, you run out of what you consider to be options.
41:27
But you have to understand, just like I understand for myself,
41:31
you only have a limited scope of knowledge on how to fix certain things.
41:35
And once you've maxed that scope out, you need to go to someone else who might
41:39
have different perspectives.
41:41
If that's a therapist, then let it be. If that's your best friend, then let it be.
41:47
But don't do destructive things to try to solve those problems.
41:52
And if you're listening to this and you're out there and who knows where, you're,
41:58
got some kind of dark problem that you don't want to share with anybody that you know because.
42:05
It's too whatever embarrassing
42:08
or too painful or too whatever share it
42:11
with a stranger share it with me and i will keep in confidence and i won't and
42:16
that's it and i will listen to what you have to say and i'll give you my best
42:21
good advice on on a way forward but even then understanding if somebody gives
42:27
you, even if a qualified,
42:29
certified, you know, whatever therapist gives you the best good advice,
42:33
you still have to implement it.
42:35
You still have to want to fix the problem. And then you have to implement the
42:41
fixes without deviations.
42:43
You can't implement a fix and then sneak back to the booze.
42:47
You have to want to fix the problem and commit to fixing the problem.
42:52
But yeah, good people. That's, that's one of the only things I can do in my
42:57
capacity here on this, on the Junto podcast is that I can offer my ear and I
43:03
can offer my life experience to you.
43:06
And I do so freely.
43:09
I offer my life experience to you. I'll.
43:13
And if you think, oh man, this guy's probably got some good insights, then I'm here for you.
43:17
And that's not just with alcoholism, folks. That's what, you know,
43:20
whatever. I'll help you in whatever I have the capacity to do it in.
43:25
But we're talking about alcoholism. And even, I didn't talk a lot about addiction, right?
43:31
It's very similar, but just different effects. But these are,
43:36
well, alcoholism is one of the major problems in America.
43:40
There's been the war on drugs, right? And we know drugs are a problem.
43:44
But alcoholism is that one that people slide under the table because it's accepted.
43:51
Yeah, it's just accepted until something bad happens.
43:55
And then when that bad thing happens, the person gets hammered,
44:00
gets thrown under the jail.
44:02
But nobody there's no war on alcohol and
44:06
it's strange right if a person is drunk
44:09
driving kills someone goes to
44:12
jail nobody says anything about banning booze or banning automobiles and then
44:18
in contrast yet somebody goes and shoots somebody and everybody wants to ban
44:22
guns it's bizarre so yeah alcohol
44:25
is just an accepted evil in in society yeah because booze have been
44:30
as long as mankind has been around just about, I guess,
44:34
since they figured they could ferment grapes. There's been booze.
44:40
So it's accepted in a societal way.
44:43
And, you know, is that good? Is that sad? Is that good, bad? Who knows, man?
44:49
The social lubricant, booze are the social lubricant.
44:54
It's accepted. So what that means to a person with a problem them as you have.
45:03
Sort of two battles, your own addiction and then society's view of like,
45:07
oh, alcohol. Oh man, you just got to control your drinking.
45:11
Well, for some people it's all or nothing. Yep.
45:15
And that's sad, but that's the way it is. If you can't drink lightly and socially
45:21
and, and, and not need it and not succumb to it, then don't drink at all.
45:27
That's, and that's sort of a point-blank
45:29
way of putting it, but that's the ultimate goal, I think, anyway.
45:36
It ain't just about handling your booze. Yeah, if you can't drink,
45:41
don't drink. Don't drink.
45:43
Don't add that problem to your life. Don't add that problem to your children
45:50
who don't yet have problems.
45:52
You know, they're dealing with their own little problems at school, right?
45:57
You know they go through these different phases especially in
46:00
public school where there's cliques and there's there's little
46:03
rich kids and then poor kids and then there's angry kids
46:06
and violent kids and then you got all the pretty little cheerleader girls and
46:10
you got all the and then you got the bullies and they're all trying to hide
46:15
something or they're all trying to to look and act a certain way to be liked
46:22
or to be popular or whatever.
46:24
Your kids have got so many other freaking problems to deal with and you don't remember them.
46:30
Maybe, maybe you forgot about them or maybe as you grew up, you,
46:34
you're like, oh, those aren't really problems.
46:36
Those are just small change. Well, in their lives, they're big problems.
46:40
So the last thing they need is a parent at home passed out and vomit.
46:48
A cycle. Man, I'm over, I'm just, you know what?
46:52
I'm not, I didn't, I offered some solutions. Yeah, reach out, folks. Reach out.
46:57
Reach out to me. Reach out to your best friend. Reach out to your spouse.
47:01
Reach out to your preacher.
47:03
Reach out to someone and dump all your, all your garbage, all your suppressed,
47:13
pent-up, horrible things.
47:17
Dump it all. Get another perspective so that you can live truly freely,
47:24
so you can be free, free from those alcohol chains.
47:33
Be free from that so that you can truly be free.
47:37
Because no matter what the government's doing, and a free mind, you're free.
47:43
You have clarity and decision-making autonomy. And when you have booze in your
47:49
system, you don't have that.
47:51
So if not for your family, if not for your own health, do it for your own freedom.
47:57
All right, good people, do reach out.
48:01
Dgutopodcast.com. Go to the Contact Us section. Everything that goes on between
48:06
me and you will be strictly confidential.
48:09
And that is all. I love you good people. Do good. Be good. Reach out if you need it.