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Tracer Rounds with Jeffrey Baxter Air Force Veteran · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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MBR giving veterans a voice. And welcome back to the Tracer
1:09
Rounds show. And I'm Terry, your host.
1:11
And with me tonight is retired first star Jeffrey W Bexter.
1:14
Welcome, Jeffrey. Thank you.
1:16
Thank you, Terry. It's definitely a pleasure to be
1:19
here with. You really glad to have you.
1:20
You reached out and you kind of gave us a little back story of
1:25
your service and then what you're doing now.
1:27
And so we are really interested. I know you've already been on
1:30
the H train show and gave a really good interview and gave,
1:33
you know, part of your story there.
1:35
So we're looking forward to hearing it on this platform.
1:38
So can you tell us a little bit about your military service,
1:42
maybe some of the highlights where you were stationed that
1:44
you really liked or maybe some really big lessons learned and
1:48
then we can transition into what you're doing now and, and the
1:52
why? Absolutely, yeah.
1:56
Thank you again. This is an amazing opportunity.
1:59
I, you know, I, I thought a few times today that I'm actually
2:04
surprised at, at that I'm still alive and, and, and able to be
2:09
here. So I don't take this for
2:11
granted, but military career, 32 years still serving the the
2:19
country, but I spent 21 years on active duty in the Air Force.
2:25
I was I had a little odd career though, if you will.
2:27
I had three different jobs. I came in the Air Force and I
2:31
was the loadmaster on C1 thirties.
2:34
I did that for right just short of nine years and we were doing
2:40
what they call hey, hos, high altitude, high openings,
2:44
unpressurized flights, dropping, training some Navy Seals down at
2:49
the John F Kennedy Warfare School.
2:51
But as we were coming down, I had a what's called a sinus
2:55
block. And in the altitude chamber
2:57
every year the medical staff would kind of walk you through
3:00
what that would look like. But basically I couldn't clear
3:04
my right eardrum. If you've ever heard of the
3:06
medical term balsalva, you hold your nose and blow your ears and
3:10
they should clear. If you're on a commercial plane
3:14
when you go up, it's automatic. You probably notice sometimes
3:16
when you come down your ears get clogged.
3:18
Well, I couldn't, I couldn't get mine unclogged, so I knew what
3:22
it was. We leveled off and got the Afrin
3:26
out and that didn't work. So got the pilot to ascend as
3:30
fast as we could several times trying to get it to clear on its
3:32
own. And so, you know, we're on the
3:38
headsets with command post. They get a wake up flight
3:42
doctor, he's talking to me. And at the end of the day he
3:45
said you're just going to have to strap in and come on down and
3:47
see what happens. So we were coming through about
3:50
8000 feet and exactly like they told me, the altitude chamber, I
3:54
started filming the tingling in my forehead.
3:57
And then it just felt like a railroad tie hit me.
4:00
And next thing I know, I woke up and I was in an ambulance and,
4:06
you know, going off to the doctor.
4:07
And so that ended up being a really funny story after that,
4:14
you know, U.S. military after tragic events, some people think
4:18
were crazy how we looked and laughed at certain things.
4:20
But sometimes, sometimes that's what you have to do to to get
4:23
past it, right? But well, I wasn't able to.
4:27
I was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base.
4:29
I was in the 61st Airless Squadron.
4:31
Well, here I am up at then Pope Air Force Base and I couldn't
4:35
fly back and the the Navy has one aircraft at the time that
4:41
could fly at mean sea level, but it was overseas and they
4:45
couldn't get it. So that was my first and only
4:47
time I had to get it on a Greyhound bus.
4:50
And let me tell you, from North Carolina to Arkansas, the places
4:55
I never realized where and why they put Greyhound bus stations
5:00
where they put them, but they do.
5:02
It was a very interesting journey.
5:04
I can imagine. But yeah, so I from that point,
5:09
you know, they gave me an opportunity.
5:11
I took several months to see if my ear would be able to pass the
5:15
pressure test and it couldn't. So I end up having to medically
5:18
cross train. And at the time being, you know,
5:22
about 1% in the Air Force are enlisted aircrew members.
5:27
And so since I had wings and I've been to survival school,
5:31
the Air Force offered an opportunity.
5:33
Would you like to get into intelligence because you have an
5:36
understanding of aeronautics, how things fly?
5:40
You would be great, you know, working in fighter squadrons
5:43
around other aircraft, you understand how missiles surface
5:48
to air missiles work and and things of that nature.
5:50
So I was young, but I said, yeah, it sounds exciting, right,
5:54
intelligence. So I got into that and I was
5:56
able to get into drones and around 19, 97, and nobody really
6:02
wanted to get into drones back then, right?
6:04
RadioShack was cool, but drones weren't a thing.
6:07
But you know, Fast forward, it gave me 7 years at the Pentagon
6:11
being able to work for OUSDI and do some things for Secretary of
6:16
Defense Esper and Lloyd Austin, retired enlisted guy.
6:21
That's rare. So I never took one of those
6:22
days for granted. But so I crossed over into the
6:26
intelligence career field. I would, my favorite place I was
6:30
stationed was Omendorf in Alaska.
6:33
Alaska. I loved it.
6:36
It's, you know, most of the people I've ever met, you either
6:39
hate it or loved it, but I, I loved it.
6:43
That is true. I think part of it was growing
6:46
up in Kentucky, you know, I mean, I was country boy, still
6:51
am at heart, but I so the outdoors aspect of it, but also
6:55
it, it was so clean up there that, you know, there's not a
6:58
lot of manufacturing plants. And so I didn't have any issues
7:02
with allergies and the snow didn't bother me.
7:06
The the darkness. That was really the first time
7:09
that I, I learned to be honest with you a lot about depression.
7:13
I didn't know why Alaska has such a higher rate of
7:16
depression, but when the doctors had explained it in our end
7:21
process, it was, you know, and the when, when you have your
7:26
darkness in the winter, that's 22 to 23 hours a day.
7:31
Well, your mind is not putting out the vitamin D levels that it
7:36
should. And that's what causes the
7:38
depression. So in, in base housing, they had
7:40
these certain UV lights and, and the gyms, they had rooms you can
7:44
go into for like say 30 minutes to stimulate your brain to, you
7:49
know, kind of reverse that effect, if you will.
7:52
But that was my PlayStation was, was Alaska, a lot, a lot of ptys
8:01
and deployments. There were some great, great
8:03
places there. I love Thailand, I love Asia for
8:05
the culture. But in intelligence, you know,
8:10
that was a, a really, really great career field for me to be
8:14
in. I I came across some wonderful
8:17
mentors. I always say something and I use
8:23
it now in recovery. As an alcoholic, I don't ever
8:27
say the word wisdom with an I. I say wisdom with an E because
8:32
I've come to realize at 55 years old that I've never created
8:36
anything. And there's nothing in my brain
8:39
that is an ounce of knowledge that I didn't either learn from
8:43
someone else by either getting it from them or why it and then
8:50
using it in my own life. So I'd like to say wisdom
8:54
because one, that's how I keep my disease in remission is
8:59
through my recovery network that I surround myself with.
9:02
But kind of going back to the military in 2008 rolled around
9:08
and I, you know, as I mentioned several places, fighter
9:12
squadrons, I was a instructor down and Goodfellow in the Intel
9:17
officer course teaching critical thinking.
9:21
And I, I always had a dream. I wanted to be a first Sergeant.
9:24
First sergeants in the Air Force are a lot different than first
9:27
sergeants in the Army. You know, in the Army you make
9:31
E8, you can go the first Sergeant route or master
9:33
Sergeant. Well, in the Air Force you can
9:36
be a first Sergeant as an E7E8 or E9.
9:39
So it is, yeah. In the Air Force, it's, it's,
9:43
I'll use Army terms. But if it's own, it's it's own
9:46
MOS, we call it AFSC, Air Force Specialty code.
9:50
So you have to apply for it and get selected.
9:54
And Intel was one of the career fields that was always
9:58
critically manned. So they would never allow you to
10:01
apply for any special duty assignments.
10:03
Well, in 2008, the first Sergeant Manning got so low that
10:08
they said we're going to let two people from each critically
10:11
manned career field apply because they were going to non
10:14
involve senior NC OS to be first sergeants.
10:18
Well, first sergeants in the Air Force is a job similar, to be
10:21
honest, to be like a commander. You don't non involve someone
10:25
who doesn't have the passion or heart to do it.
10:27
Because as a first Sergeant, you know, I work directly for the
10:30
commander. I work for the E9 chief master
10:34
Sergeant, although he or she outranked me.
10:37
I work directly for the commander and my job was to have
10:40
the pulse on the morale of the squadron.
10:44
And so I dealt with people to make sure that they were
10:48
physically, mentally, spiritually and financially able
10:51
to show up to work to complete their assigned mission.
10:57
And, and the irony in that is I spent the last 3 1/2 years on my
11:02
career as a first Sergeant helping other people.
11:06
But what, what, what I would come to later realize not very
11:11
long after retirement was I didn't know how to help myself.
11:19
You know, I was really good at helping other people and
11:22
bringing a bridge to resources. So it, that baffled me because,
11:30
you know, I went about 12 years in what I call survival mode
11:33
with my alcohol, but I was blessed that it never affected
11:39
my career. I, I'd say probably the last two
11:42
to three years of my career is, is when alcohol started becoming
11:46
a problem. It was an everyday after work
11:49
thing. But by that time for me, the
11:51
mentality was it was just a normal, you know, after work
11:54
having a, a couple beers. I wasn't doing shots back then.
11:59
When I even when I retired, that came a little bit, but there was
12:03
definitely a problem. There was some self medication
12:06
at the time. I was unaware of what was going
12:08
on. And then that's The funny thing
12:09
about alcohol and the disease is, you know, it, it becomes a
12:13
friend, it becomes an escape. And it always gives you an
12:16
excuse, right? I had a hard day at work.
12:20
It tastes great with wings. I mow the lawn, so I deserve a
12:25
cold beer because it's, you know, 90° outside.
12:30
But what when you realize, you know they always say there's two
12:33
type of people in this world, right, That looks at a glass
12:36
half empty or half full. Terrible.
12:39
Well, when you're the type of person like me that just says,
12:42
are you going to drink it, you're in a very odd category.
12:47
So I would let you all debate whether it was half full or half
12:50
empty. But in my mind is when is
12:52
someone going to drink it? And you know, we, we joke about
12:59
that in recovery because to be honest with you, after I did my
13:05
second stint of inpatient, which I'll get into the first a, a
13:10
meeting that I walked into after that has I have never had a
13:15
place, not even growing up to where I felt more at home.
13:20
That's awesome. So if I get emotional, it's OK.
13:28
It's, it's good emotions because I'd numb my emotions for a good
13:32
12 years and now I accept them as they come because it's, it's
13:37
all living life on life terms, right?
13:40
It's if I'm happy, I'm happy, if I'm sad, I'm sad and I'm OK,
13:44
whichever one that is, because that's just how my emotions want
13:48
to be and I accept it. But I, I remember going to my
13:51
first a a meeting and I didn't understand why I felt so calm.
13:57
And then it took a few meetings to realize that there was no
14:02
judging. There wasn't anything that I
14:04
could say in that room that someone would judge me.
14:06
Nothing. I, I could have walked in there
14:08
and said that I'm, I'm on my 30th affair with my wife.
14:12
I could have walked in there and said that I've got 150 Duis.
14:16
Nobody would have laughed. Nobody would have.
14:19
They just looked and been like I understand.
14:22
Wow. And people don't realize how
14:26
comforting that is. To somebody.
14:30
Yeah, just to be accepted as who you are.
14:34
Another powerful moment that stood out to me was the day
14:37
before I went into impatient, I made a Facebook post that I was
14:43
going away for 30 days for substance abuse.
14:46
Now at that time, my wife knew, my sister knew, my
14:49
brother-in-law knew. I think my mother-in-law,
14:53
father-in-law knew. So they're, they're probably,
14:56
you know, 8 to 10 people, but no one on my Facebook knew.
15:01
But when I sent that, instantly I felt a sense of relief that I
15:07
haven't felt in years. And now when I look back and
15:12
through talking with therapists, what happened was for the first
15:17
time since I had carried that disease, the disease was no
15:23
longer a secret between me and it.
15:26
And my disease did not like that.
15:29
It doesn't like you telling other people you have a problem
15:32
because then support comes and help comes and compassion comes,
15:39
and that weight that you carry starts getting spread across
15:44
your recovery network. And that's why you start to feel
15:47
a little lighter and you could take a breath.
15:51
And that was just the beginning. But you know, what got me to my
15:56
first inpatient was it took several years.
16:03
I mean, I can tell you 7-8 years ago, I would drive by going to
16:10
the American Legion. My wife thought I was going to
16:12
an, a, a meeting. I would see her car at a church.
16:16
This is when we were in Virginia and I was working at the
16:18
Pentagon. I would see her car at an Al
16:22
Anon meeting. Now my brain told me what I was
16:25
doing was wrong, but I didn't have the emotions to feel that
16:31
what I was doing was wrong because my disease just didn't
16:34
allow it because I would I would numb in the emotion.
16:37
And so I would just drive by as if it was nothing and just go
16:42
there to have my few beers and, you know, then go by and get my
16:46
bottle and, and that was my routine.
16:49
And, you know, when, when hugging your own daughter feels
16:53
like hugging a stranger, it's, it, it's crushing inside.
16:57
And, you know, I've had people who still to this day think it's
17:04
a choice. And I, I, I, there's really only
17:09
one analogy I can use. And and and it's almost like
17:13
telling someone to take a 1/2 a box of ex lax and when it kicks
17:19
in, make a choice not to go to the bathroom, right?
17:23
Right, Yeah, there's no choices there.
17:25
You already know what's going to happen.
17:27
Correct. And and that was the same way it
17:29
was with alcohol for for me, it was never a choice for me.
17:37
You know, people thinks that it's yeah, I calculated that I
17:41
was going to get off work and go by the bar that was
17:43
premeditated. But I didn't have a choice of
17:48
passing that bar and going straight home.
17:52
I was going to stop and I was going to numb or drink enough to
17:57
get my thoughts out of my head. Now, my thoughts weren't like
18:01
suicidal, homicidal. My thoughts were so much grief
18:05
and shame of all the lies that I've told my wife and all the
18:09
things that I have hid and the amount of money that I was
18:11
spending. And that just builds up over
18:15
time, that emotional baggage. And you get to a certain point
18:18
to where there's just, there's no way out but to stay in
18:22
survival mode. And you know, I'll give you a,
18:27
a, a little synopsis between 2011 when I retired, my wife and
18:35
I got married right after we retired.
18:37
We were in a relationship for a couple years.
18:39
We had long distance and then she had moved to Texas to be
18:43
with me before I retired. So she got to experience the the
18:46
first start first Sergeant thing and she hated the BlackBerry
18:49
because it just went off 24/7 in the middle of the night all the
18:53
time. And we, we still, we don't
18:56
really joke about it, but we would go out to dinner, we would
18:59
take two cars on the weekend. She's like, 'cause I know your
19:02
phone's going to ring and you're going to have to leave, you
19:04
know? And it was true most of the
19:05
time. And so I would come back home to
19:08
my cold meal and she would have to sit at a restaurant and eat
19:10
by herself. And but that came with the job.
19:13
But from 2011, we were blessed to get pregnant and our now 12
19:19
year old daughter, while she was born with a very debilitating,
19:25
life threatening disease, it was called dextrocardia.
19:27
It's called dextrocardia. And it's basically your heart is
19:31
kind of flipped backward. And so she was given about a 50%
19:37
chance, 40 to 50% chance of even making it to delivery.
19:41
And so as this process went along with more specialty
19:44
doctors, we found out she had CDH, which is congenital
19:48
diaphragmic hernia. And that's, yeah, that's in
19:53
utero is your diaphragm doesn't fully close.
19:56
So it left a small hole and her small intestines came through
20:00
that and it was covering her lungs.
20:02
And you know, the reason why I bring that up is, is I knew that
20:07
I needed help with my drinking during that period, but my
20:13
disease would tell that you can go get help now and put all of
20:17
the stress on your wife. So I just stayed in survival
20:22
mode because that's what I was trained to do.
20:26
I carry the weight. I just keep keep moving and, and
20:30
things kept coming out. And these aren't excuses.
20:33
These are just the reality of your disease.
20:37
We'll always find a reason and you accept it.
20:41
And that was a couple of years of us through physical therapy.
20:46
Lindsay did survive. She's thriving.
20:49
She's, we were so blessed. But you know, my wife Lisa was
20:53
in the hospital for a month because they thought they were
20:57
going to have to do an emergency C-section.
21:00
Lindsay made it. I may be wrong, but I think it
21:05
was 32 weeks, but we had a little over 70 people in the
21:09
delivery room we had yeah, we have what's called ECMO.
21:14
If you're, I'm not if you're familiar with ECMO machine, but
21:17
that's because they were concerned about pulmonary
21:20
hypertension because there's a a, you'd almost think I'm a, a
21:24
pediatric doctor, all I know all this stuff.
21:26
But there's a, a vein that comes off the umbilical cord connected
21:31
to a baby called ductus phenosis.
21:34
Well, she was missing that. So more of the blood from Lisa's
21:39
vocal cord was going into Lindsay.
21:41
So the right side of her heart was getting bigger and bigger
21:43
slowly. And they would have to come in
21:47
and look for high drops, which basically water forming, which
21:51
would be the indication that our daughter with in utero was going
21:54
into heart failure. And if they started seeing that,
21:57
that's where the emergency C-section came in.
22:00
But but God bless us that she, Lindsay peeked out in utero and
22:05
she was able to get the 32 weeks.
22:07
But they were concerned that when they cut the umbilical
22:10
cord, one, if her lungs inflated, would they be able to
22:16
withstand the pressure because the small intestines were
22:19
covered and they couldn't tell if they developed thick enough.
22:22
So an ECMO is a machine. And you know, when you talk
22:26
about addiction, sometimes things are just, you just talk
22:30
real what it is. But an, an ECMO machine
22:33
basically is, is it is where they take the baby immediately
22:36
and they literally have to cut it from ear to ear, pull the
22:40
veins out, hook it to a machine immediately and it pulls the
22:44
blood out of the arteries and oxygenizes it properly and puts
22:49
it back into the body so the organs get the right balance of
22:52
oxygen. Well, we were very blessed that
22:56
we didn't need the ECMO machine. They were waved off well, at the
23:01
time. You know, I look back now and I
23:05
got through it by drinking every night.
23:07
I, I don't know how Lisa got through it at all.
23:12
I think that's just the, the, the strength of being a mother.
23:16
And I didn't have that level of strength, matter of fact level
23:23
of strength in my life. You know, my, I look back now in
23:31
those 14 years of Al Anon, my wife actually showed me the
23:35
blueprint of how to work a program.
23:40
And I'm now working the same program.
23:44
I'm just doing it as the addict through a A and she learned it
23:49
through Al Anon of setting boundaries.
23:53
Al Anon teaches the three CS that, you know, you didn't
23:59
'cause it, you can't cure it and you can't control it.
24:04
And at the time, you know, when she started setting boundaries,
24:07
you know, I, I, I was resentful for that, right?
24:11
It's like, you know, what are you doing?
24:14
Like, you know, when she would ask me to leave, to go to a
24:17
hotel, my disease immediately out of my mouth was, well,
24:21
that's not going to help. I'm just going to go there and
24:23
drink more and probably kill myself, you know?
24:26
And then she started getting the, you know, Jeff, that's your
24:29
choice, but you need to pack your bags and go.
24:31
Because she understood at the time by if she would have
24:34
allowed me to stay home, she was just enabling my disease.
24:39
And that I had to come to the realization, even if it meant
24:42
death for myself, that I would never be able to accept that I
24:48
was an alcoholic and truly get the help I needed and get this
24:52
in remission unless I did it for myself.
24:55
True. Yeah.
24:57
And I know I kind of jumped all over the place a little bit
25:03
there, but. So.
25:07
That gives you a little snippet of the 12 years of survival mode
25:10
from the retirement up to Lindsay being born.
25:15
And then we were in living in Virginia and my father-in-law,
25:19
unfortunately was diagnosed with dementia.
25:22
And so we moved him from South Carolina to be closer to us in
25:26
Virginia. Not an excuse, but at the same
25:30
time, it's like in my mind, it was another thing for my disease
25:35
to go, well, you can't go get help now because I mean,
25:39
Lindsay's still going through physical therapy because she was
25:42
in the NICU for almost 3 months. So she was going through
25:46
physical therapy because she had no, her neck muscles weren't
25:48
working because she was in the NICU, right?
25:52
Moving around. And then we had I had to move my
25:54
father-in-law, which was really my father because mine passed
25:57
away when I was 22. And.
26:01
So like, but in, in the now hindsight, it was just life
26:06
happening, but I, my disease use it as an excuse to continue to
26:11
put off getting help. But I, I couldn't say that to
26:14
myself that hey, this is just my disease, 'cause I didn't know
26:18
that I had a disease that I just knew like, well, what do I do
26:22
today to you'd have enough to drink this afternoon to make you
26:29
feel normal and be able to, to do what you have to do.
26:32
That's what addicts do. And so I lived that for a long,
26:37
long time and you know it it, it strained the marriage, no doubt.
26:44
I'm blessed that I didn't have infidelity.
26:47
I'm blessed that, you know, money wasn't an issue.
26:50
It didn't lose a home. I'll even say that I was
26:52
privileged. The two impatience that I've
26:55
been in half the individuals, human beings that I met there
26:59
were homeless and I realized in my second rehab that I was there
27:05
to be humbled and they were there to be given hope.
27:09
But at the same time they were bringing us equal to say, but
27:13
you're still addicts. You're the same.
27:17
The disease doesn't know it doesn't.
27:20
It doesn't care. It doesn't care about rank.
27:22
It doesn't care about if you're a CEOI mean Robin Williams had
27:26
access to the most. Latest.
27:29
Experimental drugs. His whole job was to make people
27:32
laugh and he was one of the best at doing it.
27:34
And all the money in the world and they find them hanging on
27:39
the back of a door. You know, the disease doesn't
27:43
care. It doesn't discriminate.
27:46
And. But what led me to that first
27:51
inpatient was my wife had asked me to move my car out of our
27:58
driveway. And at this point, the marriage
28:04
was strained. She was sleeping in the guest
28:07
bedroom for about a year. Thank God, you know, we never
28:12
had any physical violence in the home.
28:14
That happens a lot. But thank God that when I drank
28:18
that that just wasn't in my DNA. It could have been, but it just
28:21
wasn't. So I but she asked me to
28:25
parallel park my truck. We to free up some room in the
28:29
driveway for the next day for another vehicle coming over.
28:33
And as I was parallel parking I, I ran into my neighbor's car.
28:40
Now my disease immediately kicked in.
28:43
Now that I look back, I looked around.
28:45
I, I don't know, it was somewhere maybe 9/30, 10:00 at
28:48
night, but nobody was outside. It was dark, nobody saw
28:51
anything. So I got away with it.
28:57
And then I looked over to the left in the garage and my
28:59
daughter was standing in the garage and she didn't say a
29:03
thing. It.
29:06
It was just a look on her face, this puzzled look, right.
29:12
And I realized at that moment. That I.
29:17
Just brought my daughter into my disease without her even knowing
29:22
it. And.
29:28
That that. Stuck with me for a little bit.
29:30
I don't know why that moment did, but it did.
29:34
She came in and said I think she called out for my wife if I
29:38
recall. But I came in the house and my
29:40
wife was in the guest bedroom and said you have to come out
29:43
and do this. And as I was walking out, she
29:46
started recording me on her phone because she could tell
29:49
that at that point I had been drinking.
29:53
And, you know, I end up leaving and going for a drive.
30:02
And I don't know if it was the second or third time I and I
30:09
didn't, I didn't know about this stuff until after my second
30:12
rehab, but my wife had called 911 on me on more than one
30:17
occasion when I was out driving. Oh.
30:20
Wow, I didn't know. Any of that until after my
30:23
second impatient and I came home and we started talking about
30:26
some of the past and and and that you know that when you're
30:30
sober. I I thought walking into
30:32
impatient and having to go through all that was the hardest
30:35
thing. No making amends.
30:39
Making. Amends to people in my opinion.
30:42
This is my opinion. My journey is the hardest thing
30:46
when you have to sit across the table and look at someone that
30:50
that you do love and you have to tell them things that for some
30:55
people you know will never come back into your life.
30:59
But you have to tell them because the only way to cleanse
31:03
your soul and truly be able to do the 12 steps properly and
31:10
actually be able to have peace with yourself is to not.
31:16
You can't hold anything in. You know there.
31:19
There are rules to that. Now if, for example, I had an
31:23
affair, I don't go over to the neighbor and tell the husband
31:26
because that's an innocent party that you're going to harm.
31:30
And that's. Where your sponsor helps guide
31:32
you through when you do amends, right, There are some amends,
31:36
you just you have to find a different way 'cause you don't
31:39
want to hurt innocent people. But I started learning stories
31:43
about myself and my disease. I didn't know that my daughter
31:46
used to walk around. If I had a mug or a cup and sat
31:50
it down to go use the bathroom, she would walk over and take a
31:52
sniff in it. Oh wow.
31:56
Like I, I. Never knew she did that until my
31:58
wife told me. And like that that just it
32:01
crushed me that you know. And then I remember my wife
32:05
asking, I don't know, paraphrasing, but you know, have
32:10
you noticed that Lindsay doesn't have her friends stay the night
32:13
at the house anymore? She goes to their house because
32:16
you just lay on the couch. You don't, you don't do anything
32:19
with them. And the other dads go out on the
32:22
trampoline and they, they do stuff with them and, and, and
32:27
you know when you start really realizing how long that had been
32:31
going on and the memories that you were robbing of your, of
32:36
your child and the vows you made to your wife, the people that
32:41
you love the most. It's.
32:45
I don't know how you ever get over that.
32:47
There's no way of making up. You know.
32:51
I do know that once you make amends, I'll never, ever tell my
32:56
wife I'm sorry for being an alcoholic again.
32:59
Because once you make amends, all I can ask is how can I make
33:04
this better? Because I can't live in the
33:07
past. And if I have anyone, for any
33:11
addict who has people who continually ask, you know, why
33:16
would you do this? Why, the best thing they can,
33:19
you can tell them is, you know, 'cause if you want to help me go
33:23
to Al Anon, learn about the disease, but I may have to cut
33:28
you out of my life because I can't live in the past like
33:32
that. I, I move forward, I take
33:36
responsibility for all my actions, but I can't live there,
33:41
you know, And it's the old saying, like the rearview
33:43
mirror. Why is it so small compared to
33:46
the windshield? Because you're only supposed to
33:49
briefly look into it every now and then should look through the
33:54
windshield to see where you're going.
33:55
That's the analogy I use in recovery.
33:58
I can't live in the past now. Moments like tonight, you know,
34:02
I, I share some things. The.
34:06
DUI that I got that was devastating.
34:11
I, I don't know how I was able. Well, I knew how I was able
34:15
because I manipulated the system.
34:17
I got a DUI in South Carolina. And because it was a very small
34:22
town, one of the prominent lawyers that I drank with who
34:26
went to the University of Columbia was a good old boy in
34:29
South Carolina. And he was able to get it
34:31
dropped down to a reckless driving.
34:33
And then he got the judge to be able to say, hey, if he goes to
34:36
a driving course, I'll get it expunged from his record.
34:41
Wow. Now at the time I looked at it
34:43
as I won. I beat the.
34:47
System, That's what I just that's what my disease made me
34:50
feel, made me think. And three weeks later, I was
34:55
sitting at the bar having a beer with the lawyer.
34:58
Thanks, man. Oh wow.
35:02
I mean I. I, I, I, I never had the
35:04
emotions to stop and just think what just happened to me.
35:08
Yeah, that I can lose my clearance and I can lose so
35:11
much. But.
35:14
You know, the things that addicts do is, is there's no
35:18
level that an addict will go to. I mean, right, No.
35:21
Low OH. Absolutely they'll they.
35:25
Will you know, I've, I've heard so many stories from people
35:29
close to me that have struggled with alcohol or drugs or any,
35:34
any, you know, substance of any kind that alters the mental
35:38
state or the consciousness as you were.
35:41
And I've heard it all like, you know, like just lie after lie
35:48
and, and they believe it. So they make you believe it
35:50
until you stop believing it. You know, you there's a point in
35:53
time where you go. Yeah, that's not, that's not the
35:56
case. It's not true.
35:57
But it, it takes a while to get to that point because, because
36:01
most I'm because from what you've told me, you're, you are
36:05
a high functioning alcoholic, meaning that no one really knew,
36:09
but you had to have the alcohol to keep going.
36:11
Because once you reach a certain threshold with alcoholism, you
36:16
have to continue to drink or you can't function because you're
36:19
going through withdrawals, you're having issues.
36:22
So, you know, there's there's people that are high functioning
36:26
and you wouldn't really know that they're they've had any
36:29
alcohol. You wouldn't really tell
36:31
necessarily unless you were really in that space where you
36:36
could watch them and see their habits and see what they're
36:39
doing and then know that. But they're so good at, you
36:43
know, convincing themselves and then convincing you that this
36:47
thing is so when it's not well. I can tell you, you know, it was
36:53
very dangerous for me to have this disease, especially being
36:57
in the intelligence career field.
37:00
I can tell you, you know, without getting, you know, all
37:05
of the details. You know, I can tell you that,
37:08
you know, I, I from a career standpoint, I was fortunate
37:12
enough to be able to work in an environment to where I was at a
37:18
relatively very high level with special OPS command working on
37:23
counter narcotics. And at night time, I knew
37:28
exactly where to go on Reddit to be able to go and buy vitamin C
37:34
from a certain distributor, knowing that vitamin C with a
37:38
certain number. I'm not going to give away these
37:40
details because that I don't want to do that, but but I know
37:45
the websites that I can go to and buy by a vitamin C with a
37:50
certain number behind it, knowing that that's actually
37:52
Xanax. Oh wow, it's.
37:56
That easy, and addicts will find a way.
37:59
Yeah. And that's really what led to my
38:05
demise, was I thought that I was smart enough.
38:08
Well, number one, I knew that I could get off alcohol if I had
38:12
benzodiazepines because that's what they used to detox you off
38:15
of. So I thought I was smart enough
38:18
that if I got enough Xanax, I can weave myself off of that.
38:22
Well, in reality, Xanax is no different than taking a shot.
38:27
It works on the same part of the brain.
38:28
I mean, you could take someone who drinks 1/5 of whiskey a day.
38:32
And I'm not giving medical advice, I'm giving advice that
38:34
I've been told by medical professionals.
38:38
And. They could switch you over to
38:41
the dose of Xanax that would have been equivalent to 1/5 and
38:45
you will have no withdrawals whatsoever.
38:47
You will feel like as if you drank that fifth during the day.
38:50
Wow, I wouldn't have known that. Medically, that's why alcohol
38:56
and benzodiafepines are the only two drugs that you can die from
39:01
with withdrawals, because you will have a seizure.
39:06
Heroin, cocaine, you will not die unless you have an
39:11
underlying heart condition, something of that nature.
39:15
But you may feel like you're going to die, but you won't.
39:19
And. You know, it, I was so educated
39:23
that, you know, I, I, I didn't know what dopamine was, you
39:28
know, until I got impatient and got really explained to me that
39:34
over the, all the years that I was drinking, you know, our
39:39
dopamine has a baseline and that's our pleasure.
39:44
And, and I, and, and of course I was educated by the doctors to
39:48
say that as human beings, intimacy is really the highest
39:53
level of dopamine you can get. And when I obviously when I say
39:59
intimacy, you can use your imagination to for that.
40:02
But the problem with drugs and alcohol is over time it it
40:06
pushes your baseline higher and higher, which is why your your
40:12
actions become more riskier and riskier because you're chasing
40:15
something that you're never going to be able to fulfill.
40:18
That makes sense and. That's, you know, that's the
40:22
reason why if you go look at Eddie Murphy, you know, when he
40:24
finally come out and said that, hey, he was a sex addict and he
40:27
had to go get professional help because he got arrested at 2:00
40:31
in the morning, you know, picking up a prostitute who end
40:36
up being a transvestite. And they got public.
40:39
And he had to admit that he didn't realize at the time how
40:43
far he was going because he kept looking for something the next
40:50
thing because he could never satisfy and get to that dopamine
40:54
level because he kept pushing it higher and higher.
40:58
And when I started learning the chemical side of it, for me,
41:02
that helped me a little bit with understanding what I was doing
41:05
to myself and what it was going to take in long term sobriety to
41:10
be able to get my brain to slowly the chemistry to come
41:14
back. But you know, getting to that
41:16
point, you know, the addiction part it I mean it, it didn't
41:21
nearly ripped everything out of my life and it will alcohol and
41:24
drugs. I'll stick with the alcohol,
41:27
which is a drug, but alcohol is, is is very slow and progressive.
41:34
And but there are only three options for addicts.
41:39
It's institutions going inpatient, jail or death.
41:44
Those are your three options. Those aren't very good options.
41:49
They're not. But one of the three will
41:51
happen, right? That's statistically or those
41:56
are the facts. But I went to my inpatient, my
42:00
first inpatient, and I would say Papa said I wanted to be there.
42:05
I really felt that, you know, I wanted to be there.
42:08
But if the car accident wouldn't happen that night, I don't know
42:11
if I'd have made the call, but I knew that I needed help.
42:15
So something intervene just enough for me to go in.
42:19
Yeah, at the right. Time at the right.
42:21
Time and then when you're inpatient around day 789 well
42:26
you feel wonderful because your drug of choice is out of your
42:29
system and so here I am on the phone with my wife talking about
42:33
hey at 30 days I get to come back home to my wife who's
42:38
living in in a rational world is going you're still in detox What
42:43
are you talking about wanting to come home.
42:46
She's still trying to process 12 years of of being deceived and
42:53
lied to. But as the addict, my disease
42:58
tells me to tell her. Why are you so angry?
43:01
Why aren't Why aren't you happy? I'm here?
43:03
I'm doing what you want me to do.
43:06
And the disease is so cunning and baffling and it just.
43:10
It fools you so fast. Yeah, it's.
43:13
A It's a liar. Oh.
43:15
Absolutely. But I learned enough in that 30
43:21
days and then right after that 30 days, I immediately the next
43:25
day went into a partial hospitalization, which I was
43:29
only about 20 minutes down the road from our house.
43:31
And so they allowed me to leave each afternoon and come home.
43:35
And then each morning I would show up and I would have to give
43:38
a urinalysis, give a breathalyzer, and then they
43:41
would obviously have to search me to make sure I wasn't
43:44
bringing anything onto the campus.
43:48
And I did that for three weeks. And then in my mind, I'm like,
43:51
I'm ready for intensive outpatient, which is 3 * a week,
43:56
like 7:00 PM or 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM at night.
44:01
And I, I started that with the VA, but I had already, I, I
44:08
relapsed and, but I went a couple days without drinking and
44:16
then I would have a drink or two.
44:18
And in my mind I'm like, man, I got this under control.
44:22
Well, I decided to go to Kentucky on and, and, and the VA
44:26
picked up on it simply by the doctor talking to me on the
44:30
phone. He's like something just seems
44:32
off. And so they said we're going to
44:34
pull you out of this class, kick me out really and we're going to
44:38
retry this. Let's see what's going on.
44:40
Well, I decided to go to Kentucky on a road trip for my
44:43
aunt's 90th birthday. And that's to me is where I say
44:47
I had my relapse at the 12 day relapse to where I went right
44:50
back to every day. My uncle that I was that we
44:55
always stay with. He knew that I was drinking at
44:58
night and him and my wife were talking, but my wife did not
45:01
want him to say any because my wife knew that we can't.
45:07
People can't keep saving him, right?
45:09
He has to make this determination.
45:13
And. For some reason I woke up on the
45:15
morning of the 13th and I said I'm not going to, you know, I
45:21
don't know why it worked out. 12 day relapse, 12 day, 12 years of
45:25
survival mode. But I called my insurance and
45:27
said I've relapsed. I can't do this.
45:30
I need you to find me the nearest bed.
45:32
And they found a place in Dickson, TN, about an hour and a
45:36
half away. And so they called him and they
45:40
say, yeah, we have a bed available.
45:41
And I told him that I'd be there in about 2 1/2 three hours.
45:44
I went upstairs and then my uncle at the breakfast table let
45:49
me know that, look, I know you, that you've been drinking.
45:52
And I said I have. And I said, and I just want to
45:55
let you know that I'm getting ready to leave and I'm already
45:57
packed. And of course he was very
45:59
thankful that I made that decision on my own.
46:03
But but the couple of days before I made that decision was
46:06
not pretty mixed in the Xanax and alcohol.
46:11
The Facebook post that I made was so embarrassing to my wife.
46:16
No. Oh.
46:17
Yes, I mean, I, I woke up not even remembering the things that
46:20
I was saying and posting. Oh no, you know, and I, I can't
46:26
take those things back from her. You know, why, why she even
46:35
stayed through the 2nd rehab? I don't know.
46:38
I asked her and she says, well, one, I love you, but I wasn't in
46:42
love with you. But I saw glimpses of the man
46:46
that I loved off and on fighting.
46:49
And I think part of it is, is also the, the reality of how
46:53
hard it was for her to think of a divorce and what, what that
46:57
cost. Al Anon also teaches and she was
47:00
hearing from therapists, you, you, you never want to divorce
47:03
an addict who's in active recovery in the first year
47:07
because that level of stress alone, very high probability
47:11
they're going to relapse very bad.
47:15
And that's how can you even ask someone like Lisa now if there's
47:18
physical violence and abuse or something like that going on?
47:22
That's her off leave, right? Yeah, absolutely.
47:28
But I had in my mind that I was coming home to a divorce, and I
47:33
remember my therapist, Jimmy, tell me that.
47:39
He had a. Whiteboard and he put a dot and
47:42
he said, what year were you born?
47:44
I said 1970. And he put a bunch of dots and
47:46
he put a circle. They said all these dots are
47:48
they're all the years in between the circles where you're at
47:51
right now. And all I keep hearing you talk
47:54
about is is is you're getting a divorce.
47:57
Your your career's ruined. I was married before and I don't
48:03
have a good relationship with my oldest daughter.
48:06
And that's for some other reasons.
48:08
There's some mental health on her side as well.
48:10
Runs in our family and you know it.
48:16
It wasn't just till a few when my journal turned into a book
48:20
that I even share with my wife that every night I would go back
48:23
at the Ronald McDonald House when Lindsay when Lisa was in
48:27
the hospital and the Karen Bridge page, if you ever heard
48:30
of it, that's where I would do updates.
48:32
So we didn't get a lot of phone calls in Texas throughout the
48:35
day of how the day went. And I would just drink and cry
48:39
that because in my mind, I had an older daughter who had no
48:42
relationship with, and I had a daughter that I was going to
48:47
have an opportunity to have a relationship with, but she may
48:50
not live. Yeah.
48:52
And I didn't know how to deal with that.
48:54
And alcohol helped me deal with it every night.
48:57
And so in the moment, that's all I had.
49:01
I mean. It was another situation to
49:03
where I I'm sitting there going, well, what if I go to go get
49:07
help out? How can I go?
49:10
Inpatient with my wife in Cincinnati when we don't even
49:12
live here and she's in the hospital.
49:14
Not an excuse, but that's just where I found myself at the
49:18
time, right? And.
49:21
But yeah, but that that, that second rehab, Jimmy really
49:26
opened my eyes and said, Jeff, if you're here truly for
49:30
yourself, as you say, and I was at that point, I had no more
49:35
answers. I'm going home to a divorce, my
49:37
life, that's it. I haven't.
49:40
I have no more answers, he said. I'm going to tell you what's
49:44
going to happen, He said. You stay here, and if you
49:49
actually want to be sober and you put sobriety above
49:52
everything, go home and go through a divorce.
49:56
And statistically, in two or three years you will probably
50:00
meet someone else. If you drink, everything is
50:05
gone. But if you stay sober, you can
50:08
make it through a divorce. You can be the ex-husband who's
50:11
respectful to. Your ex.
50:15
Wife the way that you have not been able to fully been for the
50:19
last several years, and that's living amends that you can make
50:24
to her and be present for your daughter's life.
50:28
But if you drink, everything's gone.
50:32
That's the reality, right? And when he made me finally
50:37
understand that I only have one problem and that is to wake up
50:41
and not drink today. Everything else is the
50:43
situation, an immediate phone call right now, the death of a
50:47
close family member. That's the situation to me.
50:50
I have to think of it that way, right?
50:55
And and so really, you know, kind of what I would say to, to
50:58
anybody who may be listening or who may come across the, the,
51:02
the podcast is, you know, there's a saying that I truly
51:07
believe in is that the darker it gets, the greater the
51:11
opportunity there is to see light.
51:16
That's true. That's very true.
51:19
And you know, for someone who out there who who, who is
51:25
struggling in silence, you have to be blunt enough to say you
51:31
have to let go of the ego, the shame.
51:33
You have to not worry about the career.
51:35
You have to not worry about what people are going to think, what
51:38
they're going to say. You have got to go get help
51:41
because you will find out the support and the love has been
51:45
there the entire time. Right.
51:50
You just don't know. People are caring for you.
51:52
You're just not paying attention to it.
51:54
So yeah. You're not and it you know the
51:59
book my dash goes much deeper into a lot more uglier stuff,
52:08
but that's just the reality and it took you know, it was very
52:11
difficult for my wife to make a decision to be part of the book
52:15
because there's some very embarrassing things that our
52:17
family didn't know about. But we both came to the
52:20
conclusion, especially her, without so many years now and
52:24
on, that if, if our message can give just one life hope, someone
52:31
that to reach out and get help, then us telling the ugly side of
52:36
our story was worth it. Because I'm not afraid to be
52:41
judged. It doesn't take away my
52:42
accomplishments. It doesn't take away the person
52:45
I am today, my character, how big my heart is.
52:49
You know, I'll stand in front of the world and, and, and share my
52:52
journey because I know how much courage it takes.
52:57
I, you know, I've made a lot of important leadership decisions
53:01
throughout my military career. I mean, I worked directly for
53:04
General Fenton, the four-star commander at U.S. special
53:06
Operations Command for three years.
53:09
I made some very, very tough recommendations in front of some
53:13
very senior leaders. But the.
53:16
Biggest leadership decision I ever made was to surrender this
53:20
disease to fully open up my life of who I am, what I've done, and
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that what is what allowed me to be able to be on this podcast.
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That is what allows me to be able to be in my home with my
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family again. And now I get to make memories
53:39
that are loving and caring and nurturing, right?
53:43
And all I can do that is through living a men's.
53:46
I'm 55, right? So I have way more yesterday's
53:50
than I do tomorrow's statistically.
53:53
So mine's about quality, not quantity and.
54:00
You know. Proceeds from every book sell
54:04
goes to the Wounded Warrior Project.
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I have a page set up out there for my dash for that.
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So this isn't about money for me.
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I want to share the journey raw and unfiltered because I know
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how many people are going through what I went through and
54:25
even much worse with fentanyl and heroin and it is a bigger
54:32
problem in this country. Really.
54:35
Understand because if you're not around it, you know the the kind
54:41
of the last thing that that if you don't mind, I'll I'll leave
54:44
you with was a month ago, a little less than a month ago, I
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I decided to make the exact same trip that cost me that 12 day
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relapse. I drove to Kentucky on my own,
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stayed at my uncle's, and then I went back to the recovery center
55:03
in Dickson, TN to be there on a Friday on my one year
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anniversary. Oh wow, and I did that because I
55:10
wanted to stand in front of the people that are in detox, the
55:13
people that have 20 days, 23 days, not even mentioned in the
55:19
book, just to show this is what 365 days can look like.
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If you want it, if you want it bad enough and at all costs,
55:28
nothing can come between you and sobriety.
55:31
Nothing. Not your career, not your
55:32
marriage, not your children. That sounds hard for people, but
55:37
I go nothing. You have to put it first,
55:39
because if you don't all that other stuff you will eventually
55:43
lose anyway. That's true.
55:45
You're not going to keep your family too long if you're going
55:47
to continue to drink and or take drugs or whatever your vice is.
55:52
You know at some point something's got to give and it's
55:55
usually your family. Enough is enough, and after.
56:00
The family, it's the friends and then some money and then
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eventually it's jail, homelessness and death.
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Yeah, that's. Not a very pretty picture to
56:10
paint, so hopefully people are paying attention and listening
56:13
because you know yourself in addiction is not as good as
56:18
yourself without that addiction without that drug because you're
56:21
a better person and and more needed in society without it
56:25
than you are with well. Absolutely.
56:28
And, you know, and that's the part that you know, I, I, I want
56:33
people to know who are still struggling, who haven't asked
56:35
for help, is that your story matters.
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I mean, your, your brightness in this world matters.
56:44
And, you know, open up, get help, Share your story.
56:50
And like I say, you know, I learned that what was given to
56:54
me for free, I have to be able to give back to those who have
57:00
less time than I do because I can't keep what I have unless I
57:04
give it away to show them that this is what it can look like.
57:08
You can have this if you want it.
57:12
And that was the other thing that I really learned too, to be
57:15
honest with you, is sobriety is not for those who need it.
57:20
It's for those who want it, yes. That's true 'cause you can go
57:24
through all the different in treatments, outpatient
57:28
treatments, you want to, but until you want it and it's not
57:31
going to take a hold or take effect and it's just a waste of
57:34
your time and those resources that somebody else that wants
57:37
it, you know, could use and could benefit from.
57:40
So you don't want it, you're not going to make a difference.
57:43
It has to be that you want that and you have to want healing or
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you're not going to get there, no.
57:48
Absolutely, and but if if anybody, you know, if they want
57:54
to learn a little bit, you know, deeper about my journey, my
57:58
story, a lot of other things that had happened in those
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eleven years, if you don't mind, I can, you know, share the
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website. Well, you have it up there.
58:11
There you go. I whenever LinkedIn, I got an
58:16
e-mail from LinkedIn saying that, you know, hey, we're glad
58:18
that. Sobriety is.
58:20
Working for you, but this isn't really a platform.
58:24
So I had to go buy well, I had to go buy my own website and I
58:28
never done that so I, it wasn't GoDaddy.
58:31
I don't remember the name of it, but I didn't I didn't I had to
58:34
come up with a name and somehow rise above alcohol came to my,
58:38
my brain. So I put it in and it searched
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and it came up and nobody owned it.
58:42
So I I bought it for $5 and. So I.
58:46
Moved. I moved all of my articles that
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I had been posting and then once the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago
58:56
Publishers is is the publishing company.
59:00
Once they offered to want to turn it into a book, that became
59:06
the website where everything was funneled to, which will give you
59:13
much more information on the book that's coming out.
59:17
And look, I, you know, I never set out to be an author.
59:21
And on October 2nd, Barnes and Nobles is doing this book
59:25
release in New York Times Square.
59:27
And I'm like, how is that happening?
59:30
That's awesome. And I.
59:31
Had someone tell me, you know, because I've had so many
59:33
blessings in the last year that I can't explain it, but someone
59:36
told me that you know, the more you suffered and when you fully
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surrender. Is.
59:46
God brings you those blessings because He knows deep down that
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that you truly surrender, that you've truly accepted.
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For me as a Christian, Jesus and I couldn't do this without going
1:00:01
vertical. And I looked horizontal for
1:00:04
every method possible and nothing would work until I gave
1:00:09
it over to faith, admitted that I was powerless over alcohol,
1:00:14
which is the number one thing you have to do.
1:00:17
I thought I knew that until the relapse and I realized I never
1:00:21
completed step one. I was not powerless over alcohol
1:00:24
because a road trip proved that. But yeah, for anyone who wants
1:00:31
to on the web page, it's not just about selling the book.
1:00:35
There's resources on there for people to be able to go get
1:00:38
help, to be able to go get more information about their drug of
1:00:42
choice and where they can go to get help.
1:00:45
And so I hope just me sharing a little bit and allow someone out
1:00:51
there to believe that you will come out.
1:00:57
It's tough, but you can do it. And if you're listening to this
1:01:02
and you have not asked for help, that means you're still alive
1:01:05
and you've made it already through the worst days of your
1:01:08
life. So the best days of your life
1:01:11
are still ahead. You get to choose your rock
1:01:14
bottom. And I hope for anyone who's
1:01:16
listening or when they come across this, that this is a
1:01:20
moment that they choose their rock bottom.
1:01:23
I hope so too. And so we, our time is up so we
1:01:26
have to get off the air. But I want to thank you for
1:01:28
sharing your story and for telling us a little bit about
1:01:30
your journey and about how others can start their journey
1:01:34
and, and that it's OK to be vulnerable.
1:01:36
It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to not be OK because we
1:01:40
know I'm the first responder and military community.
1:01:44
We're we're meant to shoulder a lot or we're asked to shoulder a
1:01:46
lot and we do. But then at some point in time,
1:01:50
you have to ask for help and you have to be the one receiving
1:01:53
some of the blessing that those others are are wanting to get to
1:01:56
you. So on that, I want to thank you
1:01:59
for coming on and I want to thank you for sharing your story
1:02:01
and make sure you guys go to Amazon and get your copy of my
1:02:05
dash. This is Tracy around signing
1:02:08
off. Thank you.
1:02:09
Have a blessed. Night.
1:02:10
You too. Hi.
1:02:12
I'm beaker with military broadcast radio TV.
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