Latest / Finding New Waters / Punk Rock Sobriety, Family Healing, and Building Real Recovery | Kevin Bandy

Transcript

Punk Rock Sobriety, Family Healing, and Building Real Recovery | Kevin Bandy · Finding New Waters

• 0:00
  The truth is I'm also really clear with parents that like
• 0:04
  that is what's going to happen when you have the ability to
• 0:07
  call and reach out, you, you don't need to as often.
• 0:11
  And but when you do, it's real. So you know, and, and, and I
• 0:17
  think we're, we're lucky. I'm lucky.
• 0:19
  I love the I love working with the families that we get.
• 0:24
  It's like a real like true privilege to do what I get to
• 0:27
  do. All right, welcome back
• 0:29
  everybody to another episode of Finding New Waters.
• 0:31
  My name is Bea Reeves. I'm the director of business
• 0:33
  development here at New Waters Recovery in Raleigh.
• 0:37
  And we got a very special guest today.
• 0:40
  Psyched to have him on the legendary Kevin Bandy from
• 0:43
  Voyage Recovery down in Jupiter, FL Welcome, Kevin.
• 0:46
  Thank you brother. Thank you for having me.
• 0:49
  Yeah, man, thank you for being here.
• 0:51
  We're psyched to have you. And it's funny, you know, our
• 0:54
  colleague and your, you know, Co worker and my colleague in the
• 0:57
  field, Caroline Park, sent me a text about I was like, what?
• 1:02
  That's just been sitting right there.
• 1:03
  So this is great. And thank her.
• 1:06
  Thank you Caroline, for facilitating and and
• 1:10
  instigating. So man, I, you know, I'd known
• 1:16
  about you for a few years before we actually met.
• 1:20
  And what I had always heard about was that you were a, you
• 1:23
  know, a hardcore 12 step guy who was really good with young men
• 1:27
  and, and just helping them, you know, see how to enjoy life in
• 1:32
  recovery. And, you know, doing a little
• 1:34
  cursory research. I mean you, you.
• 1:36
  How old were you when you found recovery?
• 1:39
  Well, I found recovery. I was sort of forced into
• 1:41
  recovery. So I didn't find it.
• 1:44
  I was forced in via a like teen behavior modification cult in
• 1:50
  1990s, so I was 16. OK.
• 1:53
  Was that what we would be called?
• 1:54
  ATC one of those? Yeah, yeah, it was it.
• 1:59
  They, it's like the one they make documentaries about, you
• 2:02
  know, it's like, it's like based off Synanon.
• 2:05
  It was a pretty wild, so pretty wild.
• 2:10
  So it's 16 that that is that's up there or down there the the
• 2:15
  youngest. At 16, I was already in a bunch
• 2:18
  of trouble. I definitely didn't think I had
• 2:21
  a problem. And my parents were probably
• 2:28
  pretty easily convinced too, that I maybe wasn't, you know, I
• 2:32
  didn't need that much help. But I got myself.
• 2:37
  It was in actually, it was in North Carolina.
• 2:39
  I'd, I'd moved from Florida to North Carolina and Hayden, North
• 2:43
  Carolina, There's, you know, some Raleigh.
• 2:46
  I was like landlocked. I had cold sweats.
• 2:49
  I needed to get back to the, to the coast And but I was placed
• 2:53
  in an old bunch of hospitals called charter hospitals back
• 2:58
  then. Everyone got sent to them and
• 3:00
  they, they, they kicked me out after a little while for trying
• 3:04
  to get drugs, but I didn't think they were drugs.
• 3:07
  It was just acid. So I thought that was OK because
• 3:09
  it didn't show up on a drug test.
• 3:10
  So I assume that wasn't like a real relapse.
• 3:14
  And and they sent me to this, this long term place.
• 3:17
  And while I was in that place, I found, I got, I got lucky and I
• 3:22
  got introduced to to big book studies in Atlanta and I fell in
• 3:28
  love with with that process. I hear you.
• 3:32
  I love to hear that. And I, I'm quite sure that I
• 3:35
  was, they don't have threatened the right word.
• 3:38
  But basically with charter Northridge, when I was a young
• 3:42
  buck and you know, I mean, I'm, I probably could have earned my
• 3:48
  seat in in that in charter or a place like it, you know, but I
• 3:51
  was I was always able to kind of eek by, you know, even into my
• 3:56
  early 40s until I've got, you know, until not my idea, but
• 4:00
  went to went to treatment and like you, I found big book
• 4:04
  studies in the big book, not actually, not even in treatment.
• 4:09
  I would I went there for the other the other reason with the
• 4:12
  basic text. But when I got out, I didn't
• 4:13
  have a big book until the day I got home, when I went to my
• 4:15
  first first meeting outside of treatment, we went to a A and NA
• 4:20
  every other night. And then when I got out, I went
• 4:23
  straight to, you know, to the to the former and just kind of
• 4:28
  never looked back. They told me to keep coming
• 4:30
  back. And I have, and, you know, I, we
• 4:33
  talked about this just all the time on here and all day in my
• 4:37
  personal life, in my work life. And it's just a beautiful thing.
• 4:41
  And I, you know, I didn't know a lot of, I do nothing about
• 4:44
  recovery or, or treatment or, you know, sobriety.
• 4:47
  What is the subtle difference between those two words?
• 4:49
  And but I did the one thing I, when I look back on it is I knew
• 4:55
  a few people who had, you know, had to get, hey, they had to get
• 4:58
  sober and they seemed very happy, but I was so, so jaded
• 5:02
  and cynical. I thought that they were so
• 5:04
  ashamed that they had to, you know, stop that.
• 5:07
  They just kind of, you know, when they saw people in public,
• 5:10
  they just feel like hi and pretended to be happy.
• 5:14
  But we're secretly miserable, you know, And I, you know, I
• 5:18
  didn't think about it a lot, but that is definitely how I looked
• 5:20
  at it, you know? And thank God that's not the
• 5:22
  case in reality. Yeah, I was.
• 5:25
  I mean, I think I was lucky the, the place I was at was, was all
• 5:31
  adolescence for the most part. And it was like most cults,
• 5:35
  pretty, there's a lot of people there.
• 5:38
  So it was a, it was a lot of, there's a lot of young, young
• 5:41
  guys there and we weren't allowed to go to meetings unless
• 5:45
  you'd earned the privilege to go to meetings.
• 5:48
  And so the guys that earned the privilege to go to meetings
• 5:51
  would go to these book studies and then they would come back
• 5:55
  and then we could, we could like hear about it was super weird,
• 5:58
  but but I liked what I heard. And, and I think, you know, I
• 6:03
  had tried, honestly, I had tried to run from that place.
• 6:07
  The police brought me back. They wouldn't, I begged for them
• 6:12
  to take me to juvie. They wouldn't take me to juvie.
• 6:15
  I'd said like, look, I assaulted someone.
• 6:18
  It's it's only fair. I go to juvie.
• 6:20
  And they said, no, you got to go back to that place.
• 6:23
  So when I got back there, I realized that my only intention
• 6:29
  in trying to run wasn't to better my life in any way.
• 6:33
  It was just to get drunk and then figure out what I was going
• 6:36
  to do next. And something about that locked
• 6:39
  in right then. And I realized that that was
• 6:41
  kind of always my plan was to get get messed up one more time
• 6:46
  and then figure my life out. And it dawned on me that maybe
• 6:50
  my brain was tricking me a little bit.
• 6:53
  And so I, I just dove in and, and said, you know, like, I
• 6:57
  think I get this. I think I understand what it
• 6:59
  means to be powerless. I've been trained on like the
• 7:02
  language around the obsession, you know, the obsession did
• 7:05
  somehow some, someday I'll be able to control my drinking.
• 7:08
  And so I just got lucky that all that information was sort of
• 7:12
  pushed and I've been around it. And then when I was ready, there
• 7:16
  was access to it. That's really cool.
• 7:20
  I I, you know, that it took me, I didn't really learn about the
• 7:23
  thinking until, you know, I've been sober a little while.
• 7:28
  But what I but I what I related to the most there, you know, in
• 7:32
  terms of the way I would looked at it before sobriety and
• 7:35
  recovery is I always, even though I wasn't running from
• 7:41
  treatment, you know, I, I was like, man, I just need to go to
• 7:44
  this, this concert or this party or this wedding or this weekend
• 7:48
  or whatever it was because I on my sick Alka Alka logical
• 7:53
  thinking that I was going to like meet my wife and get a new
• 7:58
  job and then my life was going to always change for the better.
• 8:01
  If I could just show up at this event, which was, you know,
• 8:05
  involved me being, you know, intoxicated and and looking back
• 8:09
  on that, that's such a such an insane way to look at life.
• 8:13
  But that's how I looked at it. I mean, so go ahead.
• 8:17
  I. Got lucky that, but I mean,
• 8:20
  because I was super young and I feel like I got lucky that I, I
• 8:24
  think it's in my genetics and my genetics for whatever reason, it
• 8:29
  just everything moved really quickly.
• 8:31
  And by the time I was in treatment, like right before I'd
• 8:35
  gone into treatment, I wasn't worried about anything working
• 8:37
  out. I was actively trying to figure
• 8:39
  out like, can you really sell your soul?
• 8:42
  And if you're going to really sell your soul, I'll do that for
• 8:45
  drugs and women. And, you know, I was pretty
• 8:48
  advanced, you know, for like a 1516 year old kid, I was, you
• 8:51
  know, I asked and then nothing happened.
• 8:54
  So then like I really covered that bet quickly was like, God,
• 8:56
  listen, I didn't mean that, you know, pretty clearly that was
• 9:00
  the devil trying to trick me. Now I was, I just wanted to
• 9:05
  keep, I just wanted to keep doing drugs.
• 9:08
  And, and when I realized that that that was happening against
• 9:12
  my will, which only was an awareness for like a minute, you
• 9:18
  know, I, I asked for help and I got super lucky that at the
• 9:22
  right time in the wrong place, in the most weird circumstances,
• 9:27
  I was introduced to a process that, you know, has been a
• 9:30
  really important part of my life since.
• 9:33
  That's awesome. So you so 16 you get sober, not
• 9:37
  your idea and these two places and then So what do you do like
• 9:44
  in terms of like school and work and basically the evolution of
• 9:50
  how did you get to Hanley and then voyage?
• 9:52
  Yeah, so, so I had, so I'd had three freshman years in high
• 9:59
  school. So I was a little bit behind
• 10:03
  and, and while I was in treatment, I went back to high
• 10:07
  school to try and figure that out and I finished treatment.
• 10:12
  I, I like graduated or whatever they said.
• 10:15
  And I, I moved back to Florida actually.
• 10:18
  And I went back to high school here.
• 10:22
  Going to meetings was the only therapy I was doing.
• 10:25
  I think my uncle was a psychiatrist and they wanted me
• 10:28
  on like Prozac or something and whatever it was real loose.
• 10:32
  Everything was real loose. There is not like a, a plan, but
• 10:36
  I was like 2 years sober. We're close to that.
• 10:39
  When I moved home, I went back to high school.
• 10:41
  I didn't know what year I was going to because I didn't know
• 10:44
  how much how many credits I had. I wanted to, but I was like a
• 10:48
  dirty punk rock kick punk rock kid growing up.
• 10:51
  And I wanted to like play a sport and I wanted to get one of
• 10:54
  those jackets that have like thing on it and like the
• 10:57
  girlfriend and go to prom and I did all that stuff.
• 11:00
  I went back to school. I didn't get the I didn't get
• 11:02
  the jacket because I chose to wrestle and like you have to win
• 11:06
  every week against the dude in your weight class.
• 11:09
  And the guy in my weight class was like a a chintzy leg rider
• 11:14
  and he, you know, he's hard to beat every week.
• 11:16
  So I didn't get the jacket, but I got the girl.
• 11:17
  I went to prom, I did all that stuff and I graduated high
• 11:21
  school with, you know, instead of doing like dropout prevention
• 11:24
  or anything kind of alternative. I I finished school, started
• 11:30
  college, started riding a lot of ways with skateboarding all the
• 11:35
  time, going to see a lot of music, all stuff that like I got
• 11:39
  lucky and in, you know, recovery, I learned if I have
• 11:44
  the right motives and I am being honest and I'm living a program,
• 11:48
  I can go anywhere. I can do anything because
• 11:51
  definitely the stuff I was doing, people were like, these
• 11:53
  are not good ideas. You shouldn't go see this band,
• 11:56
  you know, you shouldn't go to, you know, skate skateboarding
• 11:59
  all night with all these kids. You shouldn't, you know, drive
• 12:02
  up the coast. You know, it's like all these
• 12:03
  things were sort of like what kids on drugs did according to
• 12:07
  like movies and stuff, but I found a bunch of kids, I got
• 12:10
  super lucky. I met a bunch of straight edge
• 12:13
  hardcore kids and they like offset my A A and NA.
• 12:18
  So I had like like sober kids that were my age that were into
• 12:22
  the same music and stuff as I was.
• 12:23
  And I would travel with them to go see music, go ride waves, you
• 12:28
  know, skateboard, whatever. And then I had like, my home
• 12:31
  base was in like the 12 fellowships and I would go on
• 12:34
  there and, you know, be a part of that and do my thing.
• 12:37
  So I got really lucky. I think there's like a line from
• 12:42
  an old Minuteman song where it says, like, punk rock saved my
• 12:45
  life. And I think it did save my life.
• 12:47
  And that, like, it introduced me to all these people that were
• 12:50
  straight in addition to like my recovery people because I don't
• 12:53
  know if I would have. I don't like wearing khakis and
• 12:57
  I didn't want to play golf. And, you know, and so it was
• 13:01
  going to be hard, but I, you know, went back to college,
• 13:05
  traveled a bunch, decided at some point along the way, around
• 13:12
  1998, I decided I wanted to move out West.
• 13:16
  And right. So I, before I did that, I
• 13:19
  decided I was going to commit one year of my life to helping
• 13:23
  out in a treatment center to give back.
• 13:26
  So I did that. I took a job in an adolescent
• 13:29
  program that mirrored the kind of cult that I was in.
• 13:32
  It's probably one of the biggest regrets in my life because it
• 13:35
  was, you know, I didn't understand PTSDI didn't
• 13:38
  understand abuse really. I like, definitely didn't think
• 13:43
  I'd ever been abused. And so it, I didn't understand
• 13:48
  that I was like stepping back into like a pretty wild system.
• 13:52
  But while I did that, I, I like, fell in love with all the kids
• 13:57
  that I got to work with. You know, I still am friends
• 14:00
  with one of them, like works here now.
• 14:02
  Like, I've still talked to a lot of those people.
• 14:05
  And I ended up quitting after a year and like staying true to my
• 14:12
  word. And I moved out West and I was
• 14:15
  in Los Angeles and I was working in like in that kind of
• 14:19
  industry, in that world. And all I missed was working
• 14:24
  with like kids that say fuck you to me.
• 14:27
  I missed like being around the, the kids and, and the, and, and
• 14:31
  people screwing up. And so I took AI quit.
• 14:35
  I quit working in any sort of film or writing industry.
• 14:38
  And I, I went and worked at a group home in Los Angeles and
• 14:46
  left there and came back to Florida and a lot of different
• 14:50
  stuff happened. I eventually went back to
• 14:51
  college, got my degree and started being, you know, became
• 14:55
  a counselor at at the Hanley Center many years later and got
• 15:00
  super lucky over a lot of years with a lot of really good people
• 15:04
  who valued my work ethic and valued my voice and the way I
• 15:11
  did things clinically. And I got a lot of opportunities
• 15:14
  through turn people at the Hanley Center at that time and
• 15:18
  just luck, you know, luck and good friends that were like
• 15:21
  willing to give me chances to run different programs and try
• 15:24
  things out. And we had a lot of success with
• 15:26
  the programs we ran and a lot of people stayed sober.
• 15:30
  And, you know, I fell in love with building community and I
• 15:36
  along the way I had a bunch of have, you know, 3 kids and, and,
• 15:39
  and, and, you know, family. And so I was taking jobs to, you
• 15:44
  know, that one like in charge job, the clinical director so
• 15:48
  that I could pay a mortgage. You know, I I definitely would
• 15:51
  have much rather counsel. So I did that for a while and I
• 15:55
  learned all that stuff and those treatment centers changed
• 15:58
  Handley changed owners was owned by Karen, who I really loved
• 16:02
  working for. And when they changed, I quit
• 16:05
  scared out of my mind because I had a mortgage and I don't have
• 16:09
  a trust fund and I don't have a, you know, any sort.
• 16:13
  There's no like inheritance coming my way.
• 16:15
  It was like I have proud of parents so that that counts.
• 16:19
  But you know, I started doing my own stuff and helped a couple
• 16:25
  people out and some some kind of centers that they are starting
• 16:28
  to run and got lucky with my partner and we started Voyage
• 16:33
  and I think 2017 and we started a program and the guy that is my
• 16:38
  partner, Alex Warner is said he wanted to start something with
• 16:42
  me and I said, cool, if it here's what we're going to do.
• 16:45
  We're going to do something that's small, like not a lot of
• 16:48
  guys. We're going to do young adult
• 16:50
  men. We're going to do a ton of work
• 16:52
  with their families and I get to take them outside and get into
• 16:56
  the woods and get into the water a couple days a week, You know,
• 17:00
  like we get to go do gritty stuff, you know, like learn how
• 17:03
  to free dive, boat, boat, trail riding, hike way back in the
• 17:07
  swamp, you know, like really experience Florida shoulder to
• 17:11
  shoulder with each other and, and do it.
• 17:13
  And, and I and I thought he was going to say no, Like I thought
• 17:18
  I was going to say, this is a bad idea.
• 17:20
  It's not fiscally responsible. Probably should have been what
• 17:23
  he said, but he didn't. He said, you know, yes, let's do
• 17:26
  it. And so we started voyage with
• 17:28
  like a pretty singular mission to like help guys wake up to the
• 17:34
  world around them and fall back in love with life and to help
• 17:38
  them fall back in love with their families and to really
• 17:41
  reconnect and, and, and be a part of their community again.
• 17:46
  And we've been doing that for a long time.
• 17:49
  And we're still kind of do it the same way.
• 17:51
  We've, we've stopped doing some things.
• 17:53
  There's no, there's a moment there where there are sharks
• 17:56
  involved for a minute, but that's, that's over.
• 17:59
  We don't, we don't mess with sharks on purpose.
• 18:03
  But you know, like today they're out offshore fishing.
• 18:07
  You know, there's a little bit of a cold snap, which means the
• 18:10
  sailfish start to come in and some blackfin tuna running
• 18:14
  around. So the guys get out and do that.
• 18:16
  And, you know, the other guys that are here, back here running
• 18:19
  group kind of grinding. And it's it's a pretty constant
• 18:24
  ebb and flow of good clinical work, hard family work and
• 18:29
  getting outdoors and being with each other.
• 18:30
  So yeah, I got lucky. I get to do what I love and with
• 18:36
  people I love. I hear you, you know, and I, I
• 18:39
  know from, you know, people we've referred there from New
• 18:42
  Waters, personal friends who have, you know, referred to
• 18:45
  their children, you know, young men there, young adult men that
• 18:50
  you know, that you really do practice what you preach in
• 18:54
  terms of the family work. And also all that outdoor
• 18:58
  experiential is it's just, it's, you know, a huge part of what
• 19:01
  you do and not something that you say you're going to do.
• 19:04
  And I mean, I, I don't even need to say that, but I, but I feel
• 19:07
  obligated to. And there's one thing I wanted
• 19:09
  to come back to and I kept, I kept thinking about this, the
• 19:13
  when you said you were, you know, you're 18 years old and
• 19:18
  punk, punk, punk rock, punk music saved my life.
• 19:22
  And I was thinking about how it was actually kind of punk to be
• 19:27
  sober instead of just doing what every other kid that age did and
• 19:31
  that and that kind of subculture.
• 19:34
  I mean, is that a fair statement?
• 19:37
  Yeah, but yeah, 100%. But there was a subculture
• 19:41
  within that subculture of these straight edge kids.
• 19:43
  So like, you know, like there's bands that were really important
• 19:47
  to me growing up, like Minor Threat and then, you know, like
• 19:53
  Fugazi wasn't really overtly straight edge, but there's all
• 19:57
  these bands that were that really reflected that, that
• 20:00
  standpoint. And, and there's a ton of ton of
• 20:03
  kids in that movement. And I legitimately one of them
• 20:08
  asked me if if I would, if I needed a ride home from high
• 20:12
  school one day and I said no, I got to, I got to take the bus.
• 20:16
  And he said, why would you take the bus?
• 20:17
  And I said because I don't have a ride.
• 20:19
  And he's like, dude, ride with us.
• 20:21
  I'm going by your house. And I said I can't.
• 20:24
  And, and I thought he got high. So, so and so he said why not?
• 20:29
  I said because I don't get high. And he was like, I don't get
• 20:31
  high either. And like he explained to what he
• 20:34
  was. And I was like, absolutely, I
• 20:36
  don't want to take the bus. The bus sucks, you know what I
• 20:39
  mean? So, so I got introduced to all
• 20:42
  these people and I think that community, much like, much like
• 20:48
  a, a, much like NA was just such an inclusive community at that
• 20:53
  time for me. And, you know, I, I always just
• 21:00
  was attracted to that end of, of things and, and seeing that kind
• 21:04
  of world and just kind of all that went along with it and the,
• 21:09
  the politics and the, and the the people and, you know, 1819
• 21:16
  year old kids talking about when something is sexist or, you
• 21:21
  know, was was that racist or, you know what I mean?
• 21:23
  Like so many important things that I just feel like reflected
• 21:26
  in the way that I am with my family and other, you know,
• 21:29
  other parts of my life that it was cool to be around.
• 21:33
  But yeah. And I, you know, I think that
• 21:35
  being sober is in that way kind of kind of punk rock, right?
• 21:39
  I mean, I think, I think a, a in his own way is just because, you
• 21:44
  know, the way that we got from, you know, God to a power greater
• 21:49
  than ourselves. It's like, you know, Bill Wilson
• 21:51
  refusing to commit to an ideology and someone being open
• 21:57
  minded enough to say like, well, then like whatever you think it
• 22:00
  is, like, let's go that way. So, and that probably, you know,
• 22:03
  that saved my life too, not having to, to claim a faith
• 22:08
  early on, you know, like I, I didn't know what I believed in,
• 22:11
  but I knew I needed help and I was willing to try something.
• 22:16
  So given permission to like, define it, pick it out, you
• 22:19
  know, all that stuff really matter.
• 22:22
  And like you said earlier that, you know, you young, you know,
• 22:27
  you did understand that the addiction and was, was was a
• 22:31
  power greater than yourself. And then you get kind of forced
• 22:34
  into this and you're like, wait a minute.
• 22:36
  So there's this my own conception of God and my a
• 22:39
  different power that's not only greater than myself, but also
• 22:42
  greater than this other thing. Yeah.
• 22:45
  That's really, that's interesting way to put it.
• 22:49
  But back to voyage. When you talk about the family
• 22:53
  piece, and I know that is such a huge piece.
• 22:55
  I've heard about it from the families who have sent their
• 22:58
  their young, you know, their sons there.
• 23:00
  Will you just tell us a little bit about like what that what
• 23:02
  that looks like for a for a family?
• 23:05
  Yeah. So I mean, I think first, first
• 23:08
  is there's a couple programs out there that I think do really
• 23:12
  good work. One is an adolescent program
• 23:15
  called Visions. And, and I think that what
• 23:20
  Visions does what we do, I think is we, we have full access from,
• 23:26
  from a parent standpoint, they can text me and call me anytime
• 23:29
  they want to check in on their kid.
• 23:31
  We don't tell them like, you know, you need to wait until
• 23:33
  your appointment on Tuesday at 3:00.
• 23:35
  I know that you're completely panicked.
• 23:38
  I know that you love this kid more than anything on the
• 23:40
  planet. I know that you're worried that
• 23:42
  he was overdosing or like, you know, whatever was going on like
• 23:45
  just a few weeks ago. But now I need you to just have
• 23:48
  faith in a bunch of strangers and not bother us because we
• 23:52
  want you to stay firm on your boundary and not communicate
• 23:55
  until we say so. So we don't believe in any of
• 23:57
  that. I'm like, call us.
• 23:59
  I would be scared to my, if it was my kid, I would want to
• 24:03
  know. So parents have access to us the
• 24:05
  whole time. You know, they do have family
• 24:08
  sessions every week. They do have, we have a big
• 24:10
  community support group within the parents that are with us.
• 24:13
  I run a group with them every week where everyone zooms in and
• 24:17
  we all kind of talk about what how they're doing and what
• 24:21
  they're doing to take care of themselves.
• 24:23
  Everyone shares and that's when we know group ended.
• 24:27
  So it's it's a really powerful, strong support network that they
• 24:31
  experience walking in the door as families.
• 24:33
  You know, they have access to the staff and they have access
• 24:36
  to all of the other parents in the program, which I think is
• 24:40
  radical accountability and really matters a ton.
• 24:44
  And you know, and at some point during their stay here, we do a
• 24:48
  four day family program that I run pretty much all I do now.
• 24:52
  It's not true. It's the thing I do most like
• 24:56
  every other week I'm running like 1520 whatever, how many
• 24:59
  hours a group with with the families that we have here and
• 25:03
  that four day period we really work on really like real deal
• 25:09
  reconnecting as a family and talking about each other and
• 25:13
  talking about things that we love, things that matter to us,
• 25:16
  you know, really getting to know each other again outside of the
• 25:20
  fight. So there's no confess to your
• 25:24
  parents all the shit that you stole part of our family
• 25:28
  program. There's no like be accountable
• 25:30
  and confess yourself and apologize to your family.
• 25:33
  It's, it's more just getting, getting to know each other
• 25:36
  again, talking about kind of things that happened to us when
• 25:39
  we were growing up in a lot of practicing what ultimately is
• 25:44
  emotional intelligence strategies like being able to
• 25:48
  identify a feeling, talk through it, not react to the other
• 25:52
  person, let them talk about their feelings and without
• 25:56
  diving in and giving each other feedback.
• 25:58
  So the parents go through like 5 hours of Group A day for four
• 26:03
  days. And then at the end we high five
• 26:06
  of them and we say like, guess what?
• 26:08
  That was, you know, 2/3 of a week at voyage for your kids.
• 26:13
  So they also really experienced how taxing treatment is, you
• 26:17
  know, because I think you look at voyage, it's a really bad ass
• 26:21
  house on the water and one that's a little further out West
• 26:24
  that's really pretty. And we do all this cool stuff
• 26:27
  and it's easy to think like, oh, it's like a Country Club.
• 26:30
  It's a lot of work. It's a lot of self reflection,
• 26:33
  challenging yourself, getting honest about kind of who and
• 26:36
  what you really are. And so the parents get to go
• 26:40
  through that and by the end of it, they're like, so impressed
• 26:44
  with their kids, you know, like, holy crap.
• 26:46
  Like, look at my my kid does this every day.
• 26:50
  So yeah, I think, I mean, that's.
• 26:52
  And then afterwards, which I think is really important, we
• 26:55
  have like a dedicated parent, alumni staff member, this woman
• 27:00
  Tish, who is a Jedi, and she works with me and she gets to
• 27:05
  sort of force me into running groups a couple times a week
• 27:10
  for, you know, on that end too. So our alumni parents have
• 27:13
  access to, to me at least once a week where I run a group for
• 27:16
  them. And they can kind of jump in
• 27:18
  while their kid is out of treatment and, you know, he's
• 27:21
  back at home or at a sober living house or whatever because
• 27:24
  they're still freaked out and scared.
• 27:26
  And, you know, so they still have that ongoing support.
• 27:29
  And then there's another support Zoom that's run by our parents.
• 27:33
  So I'm involved in one. And then there's an organic one
• 27:36
  that's run by our parents, which has splintered off into some
• 27:39
  moms groups. And so yeah, we, we really
• 27:43
  families getting better matters so much, so much.
• 27:48
  And, and I think in the end, for me about recovery, in the end,
• 27:54
  it was the steps for sure paved the way.
• 27:57
  The love and embrace of a community saved me and kept me
• 28:02
  saved all these years with friends and other men I know in
• 28:05
  the program. And I think for for families,
• 28:08
  it's the same, right? Like they've, they've all been
• 28:10
  through chaos and, and struggle and they deserve the same kind
• 28:13
  of accountability and love that we get to have just by being
• 28:17
  kind of, you know, idiot drug addict Alcoholics.
• 28:19
  We get to run into this fellowship of great people.
• 28:23
  So we hope to offer them that same thing.
• 28:26
  Yeah, I mean, I love that number one, you, you know, you don't
• 28:30
  just kind of give them homework and hey, you know, you're going
• 28:33
  to get a call, you know, once a week or and you give them also.
• 28:37
  I was thinking, you know, by I wonder if this sort of like a,
• 28:40
  you know, unintentional Jedi mind trick sort of thing.
• 28:43
  Like, hey, you can here's my number, call me anytime.
• 28:45
  And they probably call less than if you'd said, hey, there's
• 28:48
  these, you know, dedicated hours.
• 28:50
  But, but instead of giving them kind of stuff to do on their own
• 28:54
  time, you know, you really you, you've, you know, the part of
• 28:58
  the, the, the pact is that they have to come down, do these
• 29:02
  family workshops really not only so it's sort of two, two birds
• 29:06
  with one stone. So they are really, really doing
• 29:08
  work. I mean, they got to do it
• 29:09
  because they're there and it's not just some phone call.
• 29:12
  And then they all, like you said, they get to experience
• 29:15
  what they're what their son is experiencing.
• 29:18
  Because I do, I have heard that, I mean those those exact words,
• 29:21
  you know, when somebody when they were looking at voyage
• 29:23
  like, well, I mean, just look at this place, you know, 'cause
• 29:25
  like you said, I mean, I've been to the houses.
• 29:27
  One of them is this beautiful house on the waterway and then
• 29:29
  one is little inland is this amazing beautiful spread, you
• 29:33
  know, this just killer house. But those guys are, like you
• 29:37
  said, working their asses off to get better.
• 29:39
  And it's important for the families to not only know that
• 29:43
  and no, it's not this kind of lap of life of luxury there, but
• 29:47
  also to really be forced to not just check boxes, but be in
• 29:52
  there with other parents in there with you experiencing
• 29:54
  everything. And then, you know, they then
• 29:56
  they have these kind of groups that they start on their own,
• 29:58
  which is so cool that it doesn't take, you know, you or, you
• 30:02
  know, voyage forcing these people to do this.
• 30:04
  But they're like, Hey, you know what?
• 30:05
  We met these other people have been where we are.
• 30:07
  They've been through with their son.
• 30:08
  Let's let's have our own recovery, because what we see,
• 30:12
  what I see in my personal life in recovery and in in work is a
• 30:15
  lot of times the family. So on one hand they're like, oh
• 30:19
  man, he's just going to new waters and it's so nice or he's
• 30:21
  just going to voyage and it's so nice.
• 30:24
  But then they also are are like, well, wait a minute, Why do I
• 30:28
  have to go do this work? I'm not the one who was
• 30:31
  totalling cars, failing out of school, you know, stealing our
• 30:34
  jewelry, whatever it is, like I'm being punished for my kids,
• 30:38
  you know, indiscretions and, and being a knucklehead.
• 30:42
  But like, the truth is, we all need recovery, whether we're an
• 30:45
  addict or an alcoholic or not. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 30:50
  I you know, and it's not, it's not.
• 30:53
  So I agree it's a little bit of a Jedi mind trick, the idea that
• 30:57
  you can call me whenever you want.
• 30:58
  But the truth is I'm also really clear with parents that like,
• 31:02
  that is what's going to happen when you have the ability to
• 31:05
  call and reach out, You, you don't need to as often.
• 31:10
  And, but when you do, it's real. So, you know, and, and, and I
• 31:15
  think we're, we're lucky. I'm lucky.
• 31:18
  I love the, I love working with the families that we get.
• 31:22
  It's like a real, like true privilege to do what I get to
• 31:26
  do. You know, I, I, I don't get, you
• 31:30
  know, some weeks are really long, but you know, I think I've
• 31:34
  been around treatment for so many years since like 98 and,
• 31:39
  and like listening to counsellors say things like
• 31:41
  these families are sick. And I'm like, what the, what are
• 31:45
  you talking about? Like these are like normal
• 31:47
  people that are freaking out because they're like exposed to
• 31:50
  a substance used to sort of like kills people and like makes them
• 31:53
  insane. And you know what I mean?
• 31:56
  Like, why are we writing them off?
• 31:57
  Because they're like, you know, struggling with a boundary in
• 32:02
  the beginning of it. Like no one taught any of us to
• 32:04
  do any of this stuff. So I think, you know, being able
• 32:08
  to be there, you know, for them and look, myself as a parent,
• 32:12
  like I've blown it on every level and like, had to support
• 32:17
  my kids going through stuff and you know, for sure I needed all
• 32:22
  the help I could get. Even as a counselor.
• 32:24
  I didn't, you know, shit, I didn't know what I was doing.
• 32:27
  Like, when it's your family, it's everything else is off the
• 32:31
  table. It's terrifying.
• 32:33
  So, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I, I think finding that support
• 32:39
  matters. I mean, my parents are in their
• 32:41
  70s and they still are friends with parents of guys that I was
• 32:46
  in treatment with in 1990. I mean, they still go visit them
• 32:50
  all the time. They still talk.
• 32:52
  You know, they were, they're all part of something together.
• 32:55
  You know, they're trying to figure out how to save their
• 32:57
  families. It's a big deal.
• 33:00
  Yeah, that is a big deal. Well, we're kind of coming up
• 33:05
  against the clock here and I just want to reiterate from my
• 33:08
  experience working with Kevin and knowing Alex and working
• 33:13
  with, you know, Kevin, Brad, Alex, Ryan, Caroline, everybody
• 33:16
  I know who has anything to do with Voyage is a just a first
• 33:20
  class person. And it's an amazing program and
• 33:24
  we love the opportunity to work with you and send young men down
• 33:29
  there. And the parents are in good
• 33:31
  hands. And I just want to say thank you
• 33:33
  for the work you do and thank you for, you know, your own
• 33:37
  experience, strength and hope that got you there.
• 33:39
  And thank you for sharing that with us.
• 33:41
  And before we go though, we're going to put all your info on
• 33:46
  our show notes on that. Will you just tell people
• 33:48
  listening how to find Voyage? I'm happy people know how to
• 33:54
  find Voyage. They they're the Internet.
• 33:57
  There you go. Voyagerecovery.com all of our
• 34:02
  information is there. All of our phone numbers are
• 34:04
  there and, and, and legitimately we'll be on the phone with me
• 34:10
  or, you know, one of the other folks you mentioned.
• 34:12
  We're small or a small place. We help 24 guys at a time.
• 34:16
  They stay with us for 90 days. So, you know, we really get to
• 34:19
  know everyone that, that we have and, and some staff all know
• 34:23
  what's going on. I've seen this.
• 34:26
  There's something I was supposed to say.
• 34:28
  Oh, Brad, so you mentioned a bunch of people.
• 34:29
  I do want to say this, Brad and I are the least good people.
• 34:34
  Avoid Caroline is a good person. Alex Warner's a great person.
• 34:38
  Brad and I have been around each other sober, like lived in the
• 34:43
  same small town here going to meetings, you know, a million
• 34:47
  years ago. And I'm super lucky.
• 34:50
  I get to where all those people you mentioned that I like love a
• 34:53
  ton and I get to be around people that, you know, really
• 34:57
  everyone cares about each other, knows each other stuff.
• 34:59
  And you know, I was at like a hockey game with Brad last
• 35:02
  night. Ryan Potter was my COVID wife.
• 35:05
  You know, he was at my house the whole time.
• 35:07
  You know, we cooked together. You know, he's hung out with my
• 35:10
  family. So yeah, it's a community here.
• 35:12
  And we and we, we treat families like that too.
• 35:15
  So go on the Internet. We're there Voyage recovery.
• 35:18
  And yeah, I'm not. I'm not good at that part you.
• 35:23
  Nailed it. You nailed it.
• 35:25
  Well, thank you again and just thank you for everything you do
• 35:29
  and thank you for being here. Thanks brother.
• 35:32
  If you liked what you heard today or just want to know more,
• 35:34
  give us a call on 9196708119 or visit us at
• 35:40
  newwatersrecovery.com. Thank you.