Latest / Recovery Chronicles / Recovery Chronicles Ep. 184 - Mitch R.

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Recovery Chronicles Ep. 184 - Mitch R. · Recovery Chronicles

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Recovery Chronicles.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: My name is Johan Trigg and my sober date is
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: June seventeenth, twenty nineteen. Join me as we hear from
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: people who are on this journey that we call recovery.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: All right, so welcome to this episode of Recovery Chronicles.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: This is Joan Trigg, and I'm super excited to have
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Mitch here with me, Mitch coworker and now friend and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: confidante and friend and talk about the office and all
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the really important things in life. And so welcome Mitch,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and thanks for being here today.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So you and I have had a chance to talk
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a little bit in the past about our stories of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: recovery and the highs and lows and all those things.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But before we get into some of that stuff, why
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: don't you start me off a little bit on, just
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about like growing up, what
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: was what was life like for you at that point
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: you were young.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: So I know a lot of times when people, especially addicts,
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: were looking back at our childhood and we're often being
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: like looking for something bad that happened, like, oh, I
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: had a terrible childhood or traumatic incident, and I didn't
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: really have that. I had two loving parents, I had
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: a brother and sister. I grew up on a farm,
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: h and I had a really good childhood. So yeah,
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: I mean it was this good, normal childhood. I was
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: a really hyperactive kid.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I did well in school.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and so I mean, in your right, I
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: think when I've talked to people in the past, it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: been like a lot of people have had maybe some
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: something or a series of traumatic things growing up, but
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't either. I mean, I mean, I grew up
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: on a farm too, both my parents. Everything was I mean,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it was. There was no serious incidents or
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: anything that threw me into addiction, which I think is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: another good thing for us to point out that it
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: can happen to anybody. Right, So tell me about the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: first time that you remember using or drinking or whatever.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You're first kind of dipping into that whole world was
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: like for you.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: So I think I can't really think of the first
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: time that I drank or used, but I know like
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: the period of time, and I know that it was
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: a conscious decision that I made, Like I was thirteen
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: years old and I wanted to change who I was.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: I was I kind of type cast myself into just
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: being the you know, the the goofy, nerdy, kind of
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: funny kid, and I just wanted to break out of that.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: So I seeked out kind of the bad kids. And
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: within a week period, I drank, I started smoking cigarettes,
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: and I started smoking, And like I said, I can't
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: think what the.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: First exact time was, but I do know that when.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: I started doing that, I felt like like I had
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: found what I want to do. Like I was like, oh,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I want to do this as much as I can anytime,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: any free time, I want to spend it drinking or
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: smoking plot basically.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So thirteen, right, So what does that make about seventh
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: eighth grade something like that?
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So where do you where do you recall like getting
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: access to that kind of stuff? Some people talk about, well,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I took it out of my dad's fridge, or you know,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: are I My buddy's brother was smoking pod so we
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: got some from him. You know what what in terms
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of accessing it and that kind of stuff, That's something
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that I kind of find interesting when I talk to people, Like,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: what was that like for you at that age, especially
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: because you're young and you're not driving, you know, in
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: order to farm you're in a remote area or knows.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I know that too, So how is that for you?
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: So I would steal beer out of my parents fridge
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: or my other friends would do the same, you know.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I think most people have parents that drink beer, and yeah,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: so I had access to that also, just other friends
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: would have, you know, adults that would be willing to
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: buy alcohol for them. And then there was a very
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: unscrupulous pot dealer in town that would sell us weed
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: even though we were junior high children. I think when
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: I was really young, when I first started, it was
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: actually easier for me to get pot than it was
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: to get alcohol or cigarettes.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Probably easier because well one it's a lot elier to conceal, right,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a higher high to twelve pack of beer than it is. Yeah,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you know, do the other stuff when you were doing
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that In terms of like in your years of early
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: years of teenage and into high school, did you run
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: into any like legal issues or ever get rested, busted
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: I did a number of times. My very first arrest,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: I was fourteen or fifteen. I remember there's this town
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: in northwest north Dakota called wild Rose, and every year
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: they used to have this real big fireworks show, and
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: I got an MIC at that fireworks show, I remember
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: the police rolled up on our tent and me and
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: one other girl ended up getting mics. A couple of
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: years after that, I got pulled over and I got
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: a DUI at the age of I think it was sixteen,
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: And then again I got another DUI and I can't remember.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: I think I might have been eighteen when that happened.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: But as far as being a kid, I know that
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: I got an MIC and a duy okay.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And so for folks that are listening MIC if you're
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: not familiar as minoring consumption and so a little bit
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: of jolting back and forth with law enforcement, any any
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: thoughts at that point, I mean in terms of like
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: cause I know when like when I was in high school,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: we get busted at a party, and my my thoughts
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: were never like I probably shouldn't do this again. It
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: was more like, how are we going to do this
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: next time so you don't get nailed? You know? Same
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: thing for you? Did you find or was like maybe
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: There was never anything that was going to stop me,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: because I mean I pretty much made the decision that
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: that was what I was going to do. Was I
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: was going to be using and drinking. So yeah, at
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: no point did I ever even consider stopping. I did
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: have one good friend who he got in trouble a
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: couple of times, and he did stop. He quit, and
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: we we went completely separate ways. Yeah, the whole idea
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: was how to do it without getting caught.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Mm hm. So you mentioned that you know at that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: point you were like, this is what I'm going to do.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Do you think it was something where it was like
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: still recreational or was it becoming already where it was
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: an addiction type thing. There's more doing it all the time.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: So I was probably.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Maybe ninth or tenth grade, is I think when I
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: realized that I might be be becoming an addict. I
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: was prescribed benzodiazepines when I was fifteen. I had had
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: panic attacks here and there throughout my childhood and I
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: didn't know what they were. But finally I got diagnosed
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: with panic disorder or general anxiety or whatever it was
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: when I was fifteen, and they gave me benzos.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: For people that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Don't know what that is, that's your xanax, your valley
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: and your clonazepam. So I got addicted to benzos really fast,
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: and I think that was the first time I ever
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: really thought like, holy cow, like when I don't have these,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: I feel really bad.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: M h.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: And also around that same time, I started using over
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: the counter drugs, a lot of coughs herup you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: DXM they call it, and I could not help myself.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: I just with that stuff, With that stuff and the benzos,
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: I just could not control myself. There would be times
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: where I knew I shouldn't take it, but I would.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: And so that was probably the first symptom of you know, addiction.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and when it's being prescribed to you, then
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I think that in other people that I've takeed to too,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you don't relate that with addiction because the doctor's telling
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you to take it. So it's like, well, I'm supposed
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to be taking this to help alleviate the anxiety symptoms
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: or that, you know, when you're having the anxiety attacks, Like, well,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I'm following what they're telling me, So why would you
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: think any different. She had a young age too, like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you don't want to have the anxiety attacks. That sucks,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: so's I totally get that. But at that time too,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: were you still doing the drinking everything else, so mixing
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: everything up.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with it.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: So by the time I was sixteen, like here was
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: pretty much my standard. I was smoking weed every day
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: before school, Me and friends would get together and we
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: would smoke weed before school, at lunch, after school, all
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: day every day smoking weed, and we were drinking pretty
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: much every weekend. And I would be taking cough syrup,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: you know, a couple times a.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Week, okay, plus taking the benzos, plus.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: The benzos every day.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I would run out of my benzo prescription in about
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: two weeks, so then I was either going to be
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: dry for the last two weeks of the month, or
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: I was going to go out and try to buy
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: benzo's second hand from other people, which I knew other
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: peopeople that had them.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So so was that much of a struggle to get
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: access to that though, in terms of getting the benzos
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: off the street, not.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Really, just because I, like I said, I knew people
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: that had prescriptions that they weren't They weren't addicted to
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: them like I was, so they were able to kind
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: of support my addiction.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, makes sense. So you talked about that I'm at
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the DUI when you're sixteen, You're getting closer to graduation.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: What you know, where are you at in terms of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: your use and at that point, So.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: Around graduation was a really pivotal time in my life,
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: and not so much because of the using, but because
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: of an arrest. We were in the park one night
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: and we were all we were using, and we were drinking,
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: and me and a friend of mine, we.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: We lit a sheriff's car on fire. Okay, is what happened.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: You can ask me why I did it, and I
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: can't really give you an answer.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I was young.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: I had that whole attitude of you know, it's us
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: versus them. The police are bad, authority is bad.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: What are we going to do about it?
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, here, let's light this police gar on fire, you know.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: And so that was three months after graduation. So I
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: got arrested. The next morning. I got taken to jail.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: This is my first time going to jail. Okay, so
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: not my first arrest, but my first arrest as an adult.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: So I went to jail and it kept me in
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: jail for a few days, and then they pr bonded me,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: which is a personal recognizance back to my parents. And
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: that was a really really tough time in my life
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: because you know, up until that point, I'd had some
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: you know, plausible deniability about whether or not I was,
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: you know, a bad kid or if my using was
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: out of control.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: But now, you know, there.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Was an article in the paper and everybody saw this big,
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: crazy event and so here I am. You know, it's
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: like this scarlet letter that I was carrying around town.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: And I mean I was eighteen years old. That's a
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: tough age for anybody. And so at that time, my using,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: I mean it was already really bad and it went
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: really out of control at that point. My mental health
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: really took a dive at that point too, because I
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: was scared. I mean, I I was in I was
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: in serious trouble and as far as I knew, I
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: was going to be going to prison, and I didn't
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: know anything about prison. Only thing I knew about prison
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: was things that I had seen on TV. So I
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: have just you know, absolute worst case scenario running through
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: my head twenty four to seven. So so my mental
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: health really got worse. So that's when I started going
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: into the mental health unit. You know, the suicide attempts
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: things like that started happening, and life was just really
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: crazy at that time.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so when you're up against the unknown with
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the legal situation and you're already battling some anxiety prior
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to that, your natural solution, or at least if it
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: would have been me, you would have been like, well,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna use then, because at least I get
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a break from this constant battle in your head. Right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But when you talk about the component of you with
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: your attempts to take your own life and mental health,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: what kind of do you think? I'm gonna be raw
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: about this, But what do you think kind of pushed
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: you to that absolute level? Was it the unknown? Was
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it the anxiety or what were you know? Kind of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what were you're What do you think now? Looking back?
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Now you always have a twenty twenty vision when you
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: look back at it. But that's a lot of pressure
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: on a young person for a decision that you know it,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah you made it, it didn't It is what it is.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: But what do you what do you think? What do
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you think about it now?
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I would say equal parts fear and shame, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: having to walk around a small town with everybody just
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: looking at you like, oh, there's that kid? Did that
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: crazy thing, and then also the fear of well, I'm
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: going to go to prison and terrible things happen to
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: people in prison.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, well that's I mean, that's rough. So
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about what was that like
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: for you then? I mean, so you're you talked about
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: with a mental health peace talk about that with your
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: with in addition to your using then, so like when
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: you were you tell me about like was it prescription,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and then when you got out then you were abusing
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: it more. I mean, what what did that look like
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: for you? I guess I'm trying to understand, you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: in terms of your use and and where that's putting
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you at that time in your life. And as you
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: were getting a little bit older.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: So I was, I was seeing mental health providers, and
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: my main goal was seeing the providers was to get meds,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: and so I would exaggerate symptoms and so I had
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: all sorts of different doctors basically thinking that I was
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: completely off my rocker because I wanted more benzos and
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: I wanted sleeping pills, and it got to a point
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: that I wanted ADHD meds and you know, so I
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: would leave the doctor's office with ten prescriptions. Three of
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: them would be for controlled substances, and I couldn't just
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: cash in those three. I would have to, you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: get all the prescriptions filled. And I never took the others.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: I was just I was just going after the benzos.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: But I was really I was stringing a lot of
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: doctors along, you know. But at the same time, my
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: mental health really actually was messed. A lot of depression,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: a lot of anxiety. But like I said, a lot
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: of faking symptoms doctor shopping, let me call it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: But I would I would always.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: Have prescription pills with me, and throughout the day, I
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: would I would just be taking different pills, you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: mostly the benzos. I kind of I was known for
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: that as when I was a kid, like all my
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: classmates knew that I was just this huge, huge pill head.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So I think one of the things that's important to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: point out is that when we talk with people about
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: when they're trying to access the prescription medications. I mean,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you talked about how doctor shopping, doctor hopping, whatever it
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: would be. Did you find that that was really tough
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: for you to be able to walk in there and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: like you said, exaggerate your symptoms, write you a script
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: in out the door or was it something that you had.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: The reason I'm saying that is because I want people
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to understand that. People say a lot of times, it
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't that hard for me to get in, you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: once I started realizing that, you know, I needed it,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I figured out what I needed to do and it
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: really wasn't that tough. But what what was your experience,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of that, And I would think prescriptions.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: The toughest part of it would be the setting up
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: of the appointments and you know, getting to the appointments.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: Once you're actually there in the appointment, I think that
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know what kind of trainings that
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: doctors go through, but I think that they might tend
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: to give the patient the benefit of the doubt.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: They're not thinking that, you know, this young kid is there.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Trying to hoodwink them. And there were a lot of
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: things in my life that did, like I said, it
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: did look like I was having these extreme mental health difficulties.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: So so it wasn't that difficult.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: No, No, Well, and I think it's a little bit
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: different now, I mean just from what people are talking about.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Not always, but I think that doctors are more cognizant
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of those things, right that it's not the realization of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: people abusing those drugs is a lot more people are
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: more aware of it maybe than it was back at
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that time. But not that I'm making you old, because
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you're not. I'm just saying that, you know, it's it's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: evolved and people are more aware of what's happening with that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So tell me about where you mean you like, let's
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: just say you're moved into your twenties. Then you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: how is that looking for you? Are you working? Where
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: are you at home? Or are you what?
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Are you? What? You know?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: What is what is that? How is that working for you?
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Well? I did end up going to prison.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: I was sentenced to five years in prison with two suspended, okay,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: and I ended up maxing out that time because when
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: I was in prison, I still had that attitude of
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: it's us versus them. I'm going to try to, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: manipulate any chance I can get. I'm going to take
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: any opportunity to substances and to break rules and buck
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: the system. So I did end up maxing out that sentence.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: When I got out of prison, you know, I just
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: tried to rebuild my life. I mean I would work.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: I would oh man, I've had so many different jobs
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: in my life. I think a lot of addicts have
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: had a lot of different jobs, because you get a
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: job and you quit or you get fired, and you
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: go to the next job, and the next job, the
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: next job. So it was just kind of a NonStop
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: just trying to get by living in a place and
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: then getting evicted, and then going back and living with
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: the parents, and then getting a new job, and then
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: moving to a new place, and then the whole cycle
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: starts over and over again, and then things fall apart again,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: and it just just kind of spitting your wheels and
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: not going anywhere. The only constant was that pretty much
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: whatever money that I was making for my jobs was
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: going to support my habits.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you get out of prison, how long until
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you started using again or was.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Oh immediately immediate?
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And were you prescribed stuff when you were in prison
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: too though to help No.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: In fact, when I got to prison, so when I
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: showed up to the prison I was taking I was
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: prescribed six milligrams a clon up in a day, which
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: is a pretty big dose. And so they don't allow
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: you to have that in prison. So I had to
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: get rapidly weaned off the benzos that I had been
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: taking heavily for you know, five years, And I got
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: weaned off in the matter of two or three weeks
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: and then got thrown into prison. And so when you
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: quit taking benzos, you get what's called rebound anxiety because
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: all that anxiety that you've been quelling for those years,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: it comes back with a vengeance. So it's you, it's
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: your previous anxiety. Plus So I had the rebound anxiety
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: and I'm in prison.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Oh it was terrible.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So wow, Okay, I can't I honest, So you can't
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: imagine because I struggle with anxiety as well, and I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: think that was one of the reasons why I drank
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: so heavily too, is to help medicate that. But when
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: you're all of a sudden cut off from everything what
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you knew to help solve some of those situations and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you're locked up in a prison cell, I don't know.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I can't. I get. It was really tough to be
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: feeling absolutely crazy, plus body feeling like crap anyway, right,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, because you're just not used to functioning when
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you're not on that medication. So wow, Okay, so you
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: serve the fuhole sentence, you get out back to using
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: right away? What was that? Do you recall what that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was like that first time you use after you got
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: out of prison.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Was that?
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Oh? It was? It was great.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: So I turned twenty one when I was in prison,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: So when I got out, I started going to bars.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: And that's kind of a point in my life where
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: alcohol alcohol.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: As had always been there.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: It had always been a part of my repertoire of
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: chemicals that I would use. But when I got out
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: of prison, I think alcohol kind of it became more
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: front and center.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Well, because it's legal, right, legal, it's easier to access,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and I mean it's totally fun for you to walk
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in a bar when you're twenty one, So there's not
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that facing. That piece of it tell me about how
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the next couple of years went for you. Then after
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you get out and you're now twenty one, going to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the bars but still using. You talked about the cycle
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of kind of getting on track for a while, getting
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a place, losing the place job. Did we run into
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: legal issues again or was it more avoiding the law
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: but still using pretty heavily.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was avoiding the law.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: So when I was in prison, I made a conscious
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: decision that I was not going to be doing any
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: more crazy stuff because I did not want to go
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: back to prison. Prison was a huge wake up call
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: that they were not messing around and if I stepped
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: out of line, they had no problem putting me in
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: a selling thrown away with the key. So yeah, I
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: was I was done doing crazy stuff. There's no more,
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: no more lighting police cars on fire, no more sneaking
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: out in the middle of the night and terrorizing the community.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: It was just I was just going to focus on
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: keeping a low profile and doing whatever I can do
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: to just be able to use drugs and drink alcohol.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So what types of work were you doing at that point?
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: I did flooring for about a year. I worked on
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: a garbage truck for a little while. Finally at one point,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: at one point, I got a job working as a cook.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: And this was I wasn't living in this in the
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: hometown at that point. But ever since that point, I
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: have pretty much any job I got was in a kitchen,
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: just because it was something that I found that I
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: was decent at. And uh, anyone who has ever worked
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: in kitchens.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: You know that a lot of people that work.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Their tend to like to drink and they like to smoke.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: So I felt like I was more around my people.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And when I mean also probably having access to the substances.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Right those are illegal, I mean, you have more people
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that are around you that use them. So walk me
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: through your kind of that point after that in terms
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of you're working in the food service industry using heavily,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: what what are your kind of the next points for
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you in terms of your use? Does it escalate, does
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it maintain or what I mean kind of tell me
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Well, the the drug use kind of fell aside as
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: time went on. I kind of I just I fell
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: in love more and more with the alcohol. And you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: thirty points in my life where this is my drug
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: choice or this was my drug choice, I pretty much
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: blew through a bunch of the drugs and was focusing
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: on alcohol.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Towards the end of my usage, I was living here
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: in Bismarck and I was a raging alcoholic. I would.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: You know, I would get a job in a kitchen
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that I knew that they had to have wine, they
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: had to cook with wine, because I knew that even
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: if I didn't have my own alcohol that I could
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: bring to work with me. I could just step into
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: the cooler with a Sioux Fle cup and fill it
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: up four or five times with the white wine, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: I could get rid of my dts that way, and
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: you know, and then just drink throughout the shift. Get off,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: drink your shift, drink, get a bottle off sale, go home, drink,
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: wake up the next morning, and just repeat the cycle.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And for people that are listening, and this is not
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: always the greatest conversation, but tell me what a DT
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was like for you.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: So I've seen a lot of different people experience a
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: lot of different DTIs. Mine was primarily shakes, very very
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: high anxiety, the driest dry mouth you can imagine, just
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: waking up and your tongue feels like a piece of sandpaper,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: you know. But it's I think it's mostly the shakes
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: and anxiety. I was really lucky. I never got to
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: the point where I would hallucinate or you know, craft
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: myself or anything like that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I for me, it was probably the shaking is
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: probably the worst things. You can't hide it, right, you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to do something and you're trying to
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: write or you try I mean, you can't do nothing
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: because you're literally and you can't control it. There is
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: zero ability to and then you're also kind of the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: dry heaving, and then, like you said, the elevated anxiety
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: is not something that I think for me, I can
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: even try to explain to people on how much your
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: head is racing, your heart is racing, you're shaking, You
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: feel like absolute crap, and the only thing that you
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: know is going to fix that is if I could
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: just get a couple of shots of vodka and I
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: at least can be functioning again, which is sounds absolutely
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: absurd to a lot of people, but that's literally what
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: it was for me. But DT's, I think, are something
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that you know, people don't necessarily understand what that's like
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: because there's zero way to fix it except for the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: exact same thing that put you there, the hair of
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the dog. Yeah, and that's no lie. I mean, that's
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a legit deal. And I.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: And you can die from DTS.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, your heart rate is nasty high and it yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: stroke and all the serious things that could happen to you. Yeah,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: it's no joke, it's a it's a real deal, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it it feels like like, somebody just take me out
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: because I pretty much don't want to be here right now,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: like this is nasty. So tell me a little bit
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: about your So you went to treatment a few times, Yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and tell me about do you recall the first time
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: that you went to treatment, what that would look like
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: I do. So.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: When I was eighteen, shortly after the police car incident,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: I just remember talking to my mom and just saying,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: I think I should probably go to treatment. And the
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: reasoning behind that was because I was trying to get
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: out of being in trouble. I didn't have any interest
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: in stopping my thought. Somebody must have told me that
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: you need to go to treatment to show the courts
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: so you're trying to quit. So that's what I did.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: And the moment I said that, my mom was like, Yep, yep,
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: that's what we're gonna do, Like she was excited. And
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: so I went to treatment in Williston at Mercy Medical
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: That placed closed down years ago, but I still remember
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: the name of my addiction counselor. I still remember the
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: people that were in my group, and I remember that
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: I used while I.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Was in that treatment.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Okay, years later, I was able to get a hold
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: of some of my medical paperwork, and I was able
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: to see some of the things that, like my audition
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: counselor had written about me. And I remember thinking I
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: was so slick while I was in there, but they
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: knew what was going on the whole time, and they
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: just put me on blast, you know, to talk about
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: how I was manipulative and how I had no chance
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: of staying sober and just you know, just brutal stuff, but.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: It was true.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I think manipulative, diebe mollicle. I think those are words
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: that come to mind for me, because you'll do whatever
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you can to just get the booze or the drugs
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is you're using.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: You don't care, sorry, ye, and go to any outrageous means,
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: pull any number of strings and jump through as many
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: hoops that you need to to just get what you
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: want right even and it doesn't even matter what what
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: you want is. It could be the stupidest thing, and you'll,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: you know, move heaven and earth to get it.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I hear you a lout and clear
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: on that, and it's looking back now, it's like, holy moly,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you know, like what you know, just for me to
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: be able to hide vodka in a bottle so that
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I would make sure that I always had it with me.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: But the ways that you would go down that path
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to make sure you had it, or to hide it
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: or to do all those things, it's crazy looking back,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: but at the time it was like, you think you're
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: like you said, slick is a good word. I think
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you nobody knows. I got this kind of thing that look,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you're not fooling anybody. But Okay, so
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: when you were in treatment that first round, what was
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the time span intel Because I know you went a
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: few times, So what was the time span from that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: until your next round of when you went?
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: So I think it's all kind of muddy right now,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: But I did end up. I ended up going to
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: treatment twice before I even was sentenced to prison. It
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: took me about a year between between my arrest and
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: actually went to prison. So in that year I went
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: to treatment twice. Okay, the second time was out of
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: place called Family Medical Center or something also in Williston,
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: also closed.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Now, and I didn't use when I was in that one.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: I had a much better experience than that one.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: In that one.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: I wasn't as as shady or as manipulative. But those
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: first two were both thirty day programs. The second one,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I stayed sober for a little while and I actually
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: started working at that treatment center as like the overnight
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: oh guy. But then I got a dui one night
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: and I crashed my car into this restaurant in Wilston
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: called Gramma Sharon's, blacked out on benzos and whiskey.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Then, yeah, I went to prison.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: I went to treatment three times when I was in prison,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: because I would go to prison, I would get paroled,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: I would come back, I'd get paroled, I would come back.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: So I maxed out my sentence, but they gave me
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: a few chances. And every time you go and come back,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: they put you back into treatment. So by the time
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I got out of prison, I had been to treatment
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: five times.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I think my sixth.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Treatment was I was working at a lumberyard in Crosby
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: and I was drunk on a forklift and I almost
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: cause a really serious accident. So my boss made me
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: go to treatment there. At one point, my probation officer
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: made me do treatment. Long story short, by the time
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: I got sober, I had done treatment twelve times.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the first time you told me that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I was just first of all, like, twelve times is
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of times. But you know what, though, that
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: twelfth time is all that really matters, is because that's
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: why you're sitting here, right. But I think that proves
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: also though, how powerful addiction is, and that just going
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to treatment one time does not fix it. And I
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: actually had a I was talking with a gentleman this
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: week who was interested in learning more about Hartview and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: maybe possibly donating to us, and he said to me
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the question he asked, and I still am just he said, well,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: so about you know what about how much time do
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you think it is that you know the average person
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that you that you just know that about the average
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: time that they go through tune, that you know that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: they're better then and then everything's over with. And I, honestly,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I know what I know. I just had silence now
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: as I'm saying that to you, because that's exactly what
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I had when I looked at him, because I was like,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: is this for real? You know kind of thing like
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: that's not how it works. I mean, and you and
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I know that, But I feel like for people who
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: haven't been ever battling with addiction. They have this.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Maybe I think they think the treatment fixes people, right yeap.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: And it's that blew me away when you asked me that,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: because I was like, wow, if only that was the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: case where yep, thirty days and boom you're all better
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and everything's and you know, and then it's like, well,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: this isn't antibiotic. You know, it doesn't work that way.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And so I think that that goes to prove though,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: with your with your history of treatment, that you just
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: don't know and it's not going to maybe happen right away.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: But for you, you know what if you wouldn't have
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: went that twelfth time? Yeah right, I mean you know.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: So it's like it's different for everybody, and thankfully for
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: you that you know that it worked that last time.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: But tell me a little bit about that last time
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that you went. Was that going into it, did you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: have a different perspective or did something you know, did
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: you feel differently about it, or what kind of positioned
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: you to go into treatment that time.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: So the first ten treatments, I did not want to
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: be sober. I was pretty much there against my will.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: Treatment number eleven, I wanted to be sober, but I
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: wasn't quite invested in it. But this twelfth treatment, I
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: was totally invested. I had actually been trying to get
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: sober for the last three years out in the world,
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: and I had done something in that time that I'd
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: never done. I had gotten a sponsor. I had started
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: working the steps, I started attending meetings on my own
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: time without people telling me I have to. And I
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: was doing all those things, and yet I was not
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: able to stay sober for longer than thirty days. So
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: this my sponsor, he was affiliated with a sober living
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: and he used to always try to try to talk.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Me into going to solber living, but I was totally.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: Against it because I had a house or I was
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: renting an assortment, I had a job. I you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: I didn't need to go into sober living.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: But here I was.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: The situation surrouding this last treatment was I was about
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: six months behind in rent. I was, you know, I
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: could feel the hammer about to drop as far as
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: getting evicted. I had my dad was not doing well
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: health wise, most of my my family had pretty much
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: written me off, and I was just I was sick
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: and tired of it, and I was I was sick
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: and tired of waking up sick every day and having to,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: you know, having to put alcohol in my body just
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: to feel right, and I everything. It was just kind
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: of a perfect storm. So I called up Heartview. Well,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: I did the drug and alcohol evaluation, and I spoke
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: to my sponsor and I asked him if I could
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: go do that sober living, and so I filled out
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: the application. And what I did is I called my
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: landlord and I said, I know that I owe you
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: a bunch of money. I'm going to pay you, but
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: I'm moving out.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: I'm going to.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Treatment, and when I get out, I'm going to start
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: working and I'm going to start trying to pay back
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: this money I owe you. And my landlord was probably
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: very incredulous or it's like, oh, okay, we'll see. But
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: I did that because I knew that that way, I
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: didn't have a place to go when I got out
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: of treatment. I had to go into sober living.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Sure, well, that's a good strategy, right, It worked.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: It worked.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: So when you went through residential treatment that time and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: then went into sober living, tell me a little bit
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: about the sober living perspective, because you were kind of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: not so much for that earlier and then that you
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: did go there, So how did that go for you?
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: So my plan before I got there was to go
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: to solber Living, stay and just as long as it
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: took to get enough money to move out and get
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: my own place. That was my plan initially. What I
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: wasn't expecting is that I would really grow to like it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: I and I can say this with complete honesty, some
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: of the happiest times in my life were times that
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: I look back when I was in sober living.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: You know, you're living with a.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: Group of guys where you're all there for the same reason,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: and you're all trying to be better people, and he
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: was kind of on that journey together, and you bond
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: with people. So I was shrounded with my friends. My
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: life was getting better and better each day I had
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: from the age of thirteen to thirty three. When I
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: finally got sober, I had never been sober for more
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: than thirty days, And so you can only imagine, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: how good you feel when you're not poisoning yourself, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: how good it feels to get up every morning, be
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: able to get up, you know, not having to you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: fight to get out of bed, be able to get
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: up early, go to work, do a good job at work,
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: and then come home and be around people that you're
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: friends with and go to a meeting and just be
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: productive and get to bed at a decent hour and
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: get up and do it.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: All again the next day.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I think that one of the things that I found
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: when I got sober is that my life had been
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: spiraling and just cluttered, unstructured for a while. That once
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I stopped drinking, went to treatment and had found that structure,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: it was like this new found thing, which for most
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: people who aren't drinker or alcoholics, aren't addicts whatever. They're
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: just like, well, that's just our day. No, it's not
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: when you're an addict, right, because you're constantly revolving around,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: like I got to make sure that I have what
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I need. And when you find that structure and find
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: that path, it's like this is amazing. Like you and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you know how you talked about you get up in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the morning. Ah, I can get up by myself and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I can do this and I don't feel like absolute
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: crap or I feel like I'm going to die. I
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: can go to work and do a good job and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: actually feel good about it instead of like how can
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I get this stay over with so that I can
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: go home and start drinking and just following through with
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: all those things that keep you on track but also
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: make you feel good about yourself, which is something that
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: most people when they're actively using can't say that. I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: feel good about myself and I feel good about the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: things that I'm doing right right, I don't.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Know well, And along those same lines, before I got sober,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: you know, And and I actually had a friend say
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: this to you once I was describing to him something
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: crazy whatever, most recent.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Crazy thing that happened to me.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: He's like, You're like a cartoon character. And yeah, my
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: life before getting sober, I was like a cartoon character.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: Like it was like bad crazy traumatic event followed by
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: bad crazy traumatic event followed by just insane crazy thing
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: would happen, and it was just NonStop, never ending, and
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: it was like, Wow.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: This world is a crazy place.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: But it's like, I mean, I was being a crazy person,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: so crazy things were happening, and after living that life
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: for so many years and then getting sober, I tell
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: people that I feel like I'm living life on easy
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: mode now, you know. It's one of my favorite analogies,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: like anyone who's played video games, you know that there's
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: easy mode, there's hard mode, and there's nightmare difficulty. I
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: was living life on nightmare difficulty. But now I feel
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: like it's easy mode because I just I went through
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: so much hell that I mean, not having that in
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: your life is it's so it's very nice.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's just now look at where you're at.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: So Taco, it little bit about that. We were just
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: chatting about that as we were walking down the hall here.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: But tell, you know, tell me about where you are
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: now and how things are going for you.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: So I finally, you know, I work for Hartview, and
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I would say ninety percent of the people that work
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: at Hardview or in recovery, and a lot of those
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: people are going to college. And so I was like, wow,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: maybe maybe that's what I should be doing. So yeah,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: I've been going to b SC here for the last year.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: I am very close to wrapping up the last of
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: my prerequisites and I've applied to nursing school. I have
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: not been accepted yet, and who knows, we'll see. I mean,
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: I've got my hopes. I mean, I hope I get accepted,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: but I think I will but we'll see well, and.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: You're working hard. I know you are, and your very
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: valuable asset at heartview because you have the and I
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: know I say this all the time, but I'm still
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: going to keep being repetitive. You have the street credit.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: And I think for patients when they come in, when
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you're able to talk to someone that works there, that's
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: been there, it's a whole different conversation. And if you
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: are talking to someone who hasn't. And I'm not saying
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: that that that's bad, It's just that I feel like
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the relatability brings a whole different component to the relationship
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and how the treatment goes for people. And so I
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: mean being able to say that and providing people the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: hope to say, you know what, I've done this a
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: couple of times. It will get better. It's going to
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: get better. I can like my testament to that. I'm
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: standing here. I can tell you that it's probably going
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: to suck right now for a while. You know it
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: is going to. But being able to share that with
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: people and provide that inspiration is pretty pretty big. It's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: a big deal. And now look at you. You're going
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: to get in the nursery school. We know you are,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: You're on your and bringing that too to that career
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: is going to be huge for you as well. You know,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: you know, you having that, I think both the history
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: of it, but then also the empathy of knowing that
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: you know, things can always be worse and so you know,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: here's what we can do to help you get better.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: And so I I I'm super proud of you, and
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that I got to know you because when
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I first started to harview what you had mentioned earlier
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: about you know, a lot of people being in recovery,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. You know, I knew some people were,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know a lot of people anyway. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: then to find out that there's a lot of us
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: that have that I guess behind us, and that we're
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: moving forward, but.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: You wouldn't know it unless someone told you. You know,
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: you wouldn't know because.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: We are just like everybody else, you know, right, We've
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: turned our lives around and we're different people.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a good point too, because when
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I've told people in the past, I'm an open book.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Asked me and I'll tell you probably wish you wouldn't
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: have kind of thing, but I'll tell you. But when
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: you tell people or when I tell people like, well
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I'm in recovery, you're like you are, like really you
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: know kind of thing. I think that people in their
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: mind they have a vision of an addict and what
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: an addict looks like, and that's not the case because
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it's all of us, right, you know, So it I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: think that that, Yeah, it's it's eye opening for people
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: sometimes to realize it. But it's I mean, we're all
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: going through something, but I mean you bringing that to
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: to heart View and working with patients has been it's
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: been really good for everybody. So congratulations on your sobriety.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: That's exciting stuff. You've come a long way and you've
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: had a bumpy road, but you're on easy mode now
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and easy mode smooth sailing and heading towards being a
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: nurse and on your way. So nice work. I'm proud
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of you.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Five five NICs job.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Recovery Chronicles.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Find out more about heartviewatcurview dot org, and keep moving forward,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: remembering the story is yours and you are the author.