Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Girl Next Door Smuggles Drugs for Mexican Cartel - Megan Racer

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Girl Next Door Smuggles Drugs for Mexican Cartel - Megan Racer · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi. I'm Brent, Cassidy.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the nightmare success in and out podcast, where we
• 0:08
  explore a, how to overcome your fears.
• 0:10
  And Nightmares is set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:20
  These stories can be inspiring. Sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:23
  humor but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something
• 0:27
  that will help you knock down some of the prisons you built.
• 0:30
  In your own mind. Welcome back nightmare, success
• 0:35
  listeners. I've got a great guest today,
• 0:39
  Megan racer, she's somebody that came from a good family.
• 0:43
  She's a straight-A student went to Arizona State, she fell into
• 0:49
  addiction and her story of falling into addiction is
• 0:53
  gripping. And the way she tells, the story
• 0:56
  is pretty riveting and how she gets out of it is pretty
• 1:02
  remarkable. She was arrested for
• 1:05
  transporting 89 pounds of meth across the border from Mexico.
• 1:08
  Sounds like a movie She's now using her experiences to help
• 1:13
  others. She works at Rivers Source
• 1:16
  Treatment Center Business Development.
• 1:19
  I've got to thank my friend Chris Stegall because he
• 1:22
  actually sent me on LinkedIn. This girl, Megan racer and I
• 1:28
  started reading your post and I thought, wow.
• 1:30
  And he Chris had, this would be a great person for your podcast
• 1:33
  and Megan and I were able to make contact and she's been nice
• 1:38
  enough to make time. And what I love about our story
• 1:42
  is that as we talked about on this podcast, nightmare success,
• 1:46
  you can survive your worst nightmare and use that
• 1:49
  experience to help others. And that's, that's what Megan's
• 1:52
  doing Megan welcome. Thank you for being here.
• 1:57
  Yeah. What a what?
• 2:02
  A story really. And I got three daughters and a
• 2:06
  wife. Is it okay?
• 2:07
  To ask me how old you are. Yeah, I'm 34.
• 2:10
  Okay, you're 34 this thing that you the journey that you've been
• 2:14
  through is just unbelievable that you, you, you packaged all
• 2:17
  that into 34 years. Can you take us back one?
• 2:24
  I mean, what would I? I was listening to another
• 2:27
  podcast. You were on and I was, oh my
• 2:30
  god. Oh wow.
• 2:32
  And you survived and you made it to the other side and you're
• 2:38
  doing great. Take us back a little bit to
• 2:43
  where growing up. Can you give us a little bit of
• 2:46
  flavor of what it was like for you growing up as a kid and your
• 2:49
  parents and if you had siblings and kind of where you were and
• 2:53
  that world Yeah. So growing up I guess we were
• 2:59
  kind of that typical Suburban family, you know, Mom and Dad
• 3:02
  both were married, we all lived under the same roof.
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  I had a sister seven years younger than I am.
• 3:08
  So we did not grow up very close.
• 3:12
  It wasn't actually until recently that a life event
• 3:15
  happened that we reconnected and you know we're able to share
• 3:18
  similarities about us and seven years ago, understand seven
• 3:23
  years is okay. Spans of time, therefore
• 3:26
  siblings. It is then, you know.
• 3:30
  So growing up and being a young child, right?
• 3:33
  I was I was always playing with fatness, like sadness is just
• 3:37
  what I remember feeling from a very young age which turned into
• 3:43
  like depression, major depression.
• 3:45
  And I couldn't shake that feeling like nothing I did in
• 3:48
  life. No amount of like adrenaline
• 3:51
  that I was thinking from everything, you know, like
• 3:53
  wakeboarding riding motorcycles writing just Doing the most
• 3:59
  nothing really were you kind of that it's where you kind of an
• 4:03
  adrenaline junkie with wakeboarding into all those
• 4:06
  things. Absolutely.
• 4:07
  Yeah. Yeah, you know, I got I got it,
• 4:10
  I got a high from it like riding motorcycles and just being crazy
• 4:14
  and competing, you know, my dad once told me he's like, listen,
• 4:17
  I'm not having a party sale. Like you need a comment down and
• 4:22
  the answer. I mean, the answer for me was no
• 4:24
  Dad. It's not happening.
• 4:25
  I enjoy this. This is like the hi.
• 4:28
  Out. Knowing it like this is the hi.
• 4:29
  I'm looking for Yeah, there were some dangers to it, right?
• 4:34
  But it was at the end of the day, a healthy one, like I found
• 4:37
  healthy coping skills. When I was younger, I just
• 4:39
  didn't know how to utilize them when I got when I became an
• 4:43
  adult. So the household, you know, we
• 4:47
  weren't like a super close family.
• 4:50
  Like feelings were not communicated.
• 4:54
  I do remember, some love trying to be shown by my mom, but it
• 4:57
  was very challenging for her. And I reminded her, I believe, I
• 5:01
  remind her a lot of my dad and my dad is just internally.
• 5:05
  I'm sure he's emotional but externally, it was never shown
• 5:09
  there, weren't hums and I love you.
• 5:11
  It wasn't until, you know, I got sober this time that my dad was
• 5:15
  like, I love you and it was very A weird feeling weird things to
• 5:19
  hear it does. It wasn't common.
• 5:22
  So for, you know, this man who's like, now in his 60s to finally
• 5:26
  be like, hey, I love you. It was like, ooh, I need to ease
• 5:30
  me into that. I Love You, Lord.
• 5:32
  Yeah. And you know, my parents didn't
• 5:35
  really get along and I understood as a young child
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  like, oh no, you guys don't get along.
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  You shouldn't be together. I was a very rational logical
• 5:42
  kid. It was, I guess I wasn't super
• 5:47
  dry. Even by emotions other than like
• 5:48
  my sadness. And so it just made sense.
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  Like we should probably not be a family unit.
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  This isn't working. And it wasn't, until I think I
• 5:58
  was finally out of the house, but they decided like, we're
• 6:01
  not, we're not a good fit. Yeah, I wasn't really close with
• 6:06
  my right immediate family. I was super close with my
• 6:10
  grandmother. She know, she was just an
• 6:12
  amazing woman who have no judgment upon anybody.
• 6:15
  And she was like, my, I guess my soul mate in life, you know,
• 6:20
  like that person that I could completely relate to, who loves
• 6:23
  me unconditionally, like, she showed me.
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  What unconditional love was regardless of like, any poor
• 6:29
  choices that I made? She was always there for me to
• 6:32
  talk me through anything, you know.
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  So when And I'm 17. She had passed away and she was
• 6:37
  like my best friend. So when that happened the like I
• 6:42
  I'm sure there's some unresolved issues that are there, right?
• 6:46
  That's a sensitive topic to touch but once she passed away,
• 6:49
  I was speaking that that connection again with somebody.
• 6:55
  I didn't have any worse as a human, you know.
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  I thought I was a mistake. I couldn't really understand
• 7:00
  like I held resentment with my mom and dad because I was born
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  And, you know, I had a young age.
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  I was just like, I don't, I don't want to be here.
• 7:09
  Like ending my life isn't an option, but I was pissed.
• 7:12
  Like, why would you, why would you bring me into this world?
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  When all I want is to not be here, I just couldn't understand
• 7:20
  why somebody would feel that way and like, nothing I was doing,
• 7:24
  was making that feeling go away and it wasn't until I was about
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  18. When I tried, you know, hardcore
• 7:31
  drugs for the first time where it was like, oh, okay.
• 7:34
  I can cope with life, I can be me and still and use these,
• 7:39
  these coping mechanisms. I guess my drugs, like I changed
• 7:45
  my life. It changed everything.
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  It made me comfortable in my own skin, like I didn't want to die
• 7:50
  anymore. I could wake up and you know,
• 7:52
  like my thing was like I just wished.
• 7:54
  When I went to bed, I would wake up and it's not through any like
• 7:59
  traumas that occurred, you know, it's just that's how How I felt
• 8:04
  about life than it was the first something not feeling worth
• 8:08
  being or what you were doing. But you were, you were also
• 8:12
  really smart and school and made straight East.
• 8:14
  Was that a did you get any satisfaction from that that?
• 8:21
  Hey, you know what? I get this.
• 8:22
  Get this. I'm good at this, tell ya, so I
• 8:27
  think like me, putting my, my energy into my education was key
• 8:31
  because I couldn't find worse in my outward appearance.
• 8:34
  I couldn't find the words in Word, so I'm going to find
• 8:37
  Morris with my brain, you know, and doing well in school and
• 8:41
  then getting into college and pursuing you know, a career in
• 8:45
  criminal justice. Like I just I felt like this is
• 8:47
  it, you know, this is my purpose, this is my worth and so
• 8:53
  getting into drugs, right? I'm getting those feelings
• 8:56
  alleviate. Like, I'm not so dysregulated
• 8:59
  with my emotions. It's just numbness at this
• 9:02
  point. So, going into college, you
• 9:05
  know, I'm getting hi. I'm trying to work through Upper
• 9:10
  levels of my bachelor's degree and it's I'm able to maintain
• 9:15
  this, right? But I'm not getting the grades
• 9:16
  that I was getting previously. I'm barely passing and my senior
• 9:21
  year, I decided like three credits shy of my bachelor's,
• 9:26
  okay. I'm done.
• 9:27
  I'm going to quit and I'm going to pursue my drug career.
• 9:30
  Wow that's that's that's a 180 so, right?
• 9:37
  You had, um, Meghan up until that point at 18, you hadn't
• 9:43
  been into drugs. I mean, you were introduced to
• 9:47
  them. I think, from somebody that you
• 9:50
  were going out with, and they just said, yeah.
• 9:52
  Hey here, here it is. And yeah.
• 9:57
  Okay. I mean do you think down take
• 10:00
  that? Because I don't know what your
• 10:02
  friends were like that you were hanging out with when you were
• 10:04
  in high school. But I think that you've talked
• 10:08
  about that, a lot of different friends were using drugs but you
• 10:11
  didn't you just you? That wasn't your thing.
• 10:14
  But when you got with this guy, this particular person you were
• 10:18
  like, okay. Yeah, so, I'm in high school
• 10:25
  drums are on the ground. It's like a, like you said, it
• 10:27
  wasn't my thing. I didn't want to get into that,
• 10:31
  you know, alcoholism random my family and I experienced some of
• 10:35
  that with my Mom. It just wasn't a road.
• 10:38
  I wanted to go down and I knew, like, at that time, I could
• 10:42
  handle my drinking. I was a very young person but I
• 10:45
  was, I was getting into drinking, you know, more than
• 10:48
  most young people will, and I just didn't feel.
• 10:50
  A problem because it was early affecting my life but drugs were
• 10:53
  hard though. So when I got into this
• 10:57
  relationship, like, I found my worth in this, man, because
• 11:01
  again, I'm a very impressionable.
• 11:05
  Just unsure, young woman who is just seeking the attention from
• 11:11
  the opposite sex and I found somebody who was Very desired
• 11:16
  within our community, right? He had all the qualities that I
• 11:20
  thought I wanted in somebody or you presented that way and I
• 11:26
  guess it wasn't. That wasn't the truth, you know,
• 11:28
  he brought I didn't know that he had like a previous addiction
• 11:32
  problem and I was pretty naive about whole thing.
• 11:36
  So one day, you know, I had just gotten off work and you got home
• 11:40
  and He puts cocaine on the table.
• 11:45
  And I remember looking at it and I just got like the butterfly
• 11:48
  feelings, right? It wasn't like, oh no, this
• 11:50
  happening was like, wow, this is going to happen and you know, he
• 11:54
  puts it down, he's like, okay we're going to we're going to do
• 11:56
  some coke tonight and nothing in my head was like, no no no, this
• 12:01
  shouldn't be happening. I'm looking at it and I just I
• 12:05
  remember like I just see the pile in front of me right now.
• 12:08
  I just remember looking at it thinking, like this is not going
• 12:10
  to be enough for Night and I had never never used an illegal drug
• 12:15
  in their life. So, That was my first to me a
• 12:19
  thought and then right after, you know, I snorted that line
• 12:22
  the second thought was like, I'm right, it's not going to be
• 12:25
  enough for tonight. And it was just that instant,
• 12:30
  mental shift happens, the physical shift happened.
• 12:33
  As soon as it entered my body, the obsession the compulsion
• 12:38
  could do it and get it kicked in immediately, like, II don't I
• 12:44
  don't understand how people don't have that cuz my brains
• 12:46
  never operated like that. But I do know that there's
• 12:48
  people out there who can look at a drug and be like that, okay?
• 12:52
  They can try it and like, you know, I tried it and then
• 12:56
  there's people that are out there that see a drug like that
• 13:00
  and it's over, like, that's it, you know, my life rested, my
• 13:04
  life started that point, the the journey that I'm on started
• 13:08
  right then and then opiates were introduced.
• 13:11
  I remember being in the shower. One night and he came home and
• 13:14
  he opened the shower door and he had half a blue pill and this is
• 13:18
  at the time where like the pharmaceutical Oxycontin was
• 13:23
  around and prevalence and he gave me half a pill and he said
• 13:27
  here, swallow this and, you know, nothing in me.
• 13:29
  Was like, no, no everything in me was like, okay, cool.
• 13:31
  Remember that first time you got high with Spokane.
• 13:34
  Like let's see what this is like and I took it and I understood
• 13:42
  why Why? I was given life at that point.
• 13:44
  Or so, I thought it made sense because this is the feeling I
• 13:49
  have been seeking my entire life.
• 13:51
  How do I make this happen every day you know, at that time
• 13:59
  because it was new Was there any fear to it?
• 14:05
  No, no, no fear. It was speaking.
• 14:09
  It was There was it was only fastest thinking and getting and
• 14:16
  the butterflies that came from like scoring the dope.
• 14:19
  And you know, convincing my partner like we should go get
• 14:23
  some men turned into this game. You know, the constant seeking
• 14:28
  like that's what my day was surrounded through by even if I
• 14:31
  wasn't getting high that day or didn't know if I was going to
• 14:34
  get high that day, that's where my thoughts immediately went.
• 14:39
  And it just, you know that basically was controlling my
• 14:42
  thoughts and life with what you were doing anything.
• 14:45
  You were thinking about ended up back to that.
• 14:48
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean I didn't it wasn't at the
• 14:53
  point where I was like I need to get high to function but it was
• 14:56
  like I could get high and this would be so much better.
• 14:59
  You know. I did some Progressive disease.
• 15:02
  Yeah, when you decided to just leave three credits short of
• 15:07
  Arizona's state. What did your mom and dad think
• 15:10
  of that? Was there a conversation that
• 15:12
  was happening within your house of like Megan?
• 15:15
  You're not know doing what you were doing before and now you're
• 15:18
  quitting College. Was there anything that was
• 15:20
  going on in that world? So there is a disconnection the
• 15:25
  with myself and my parents as soon as you know as soon as I
• 15:28
  met this man he became my world. So like everything else is Left
• 15:33
  Behind and we didn't really on my parents might have that close
• 15:36
  of a relationship as it was. So it wasn't like I was
• 15:39
  abandoning anything that I had had.
• 15:42
  It was just, it felt normal. It's like okay, you know, you
• 15:46
  haven't really contributed to my life immensely right there was
• 15:49
  never that emotional connection but I'm okay.
• 15:52
  Tapping away and it was never a thought play groped, my parents
• 15:58
  and let them know what it, what was going on, because then they
• 16:00
  would get in the way of my high. Obviously, they're going to say
• 16:04
  that they suspect anything. I mean, looking back on it.
• 16:08
  Now, was that not something that like there were thinking, well,
• 16:11
  Megan's is acting different or her motivations different.
• 16:15
  Or she seems this or that, not really, right?
• 16:19
  Oh, after saccharide quit, Arizona State, I found out I was
• 16:23
  pregnant with my daughter and the during that pregnancy, you
• 16:27
  know, until like actively using Oxycontin.
• 16:31
  And I'm trying to stop. I don't know how to stop it.
• 16:34
  Don't know about the rooms, I don't know about treatment, I
• 16:36
  don't know about support, I just know I need to stop using.
• 16:40
  So by seven months, pregnant. I was, you know, free of all
• 16:44
  substances and have my daughter. So once I had her two months
• 16:49
  later, I picked up a heroin habit and not But my family
• 16:53
  started noticing, I think in my head that's when my family
• 16:57
  really started those things up and they started asking
• 16:59
  questions like what's going on after my daughter, I was gonna
• 17:05
  ask you what? In that time, period.
• 17:07
  When your daughter's born, are you what kind of are you
• 17:13
  working? Are you like are you living with
• 17:16
  your parents or you like what's going on in the that world?
• 17:21
  Yeah, so living wise, so their dad.
• 17:24
  So I at this point, I had already moved on to like my
• 17:28
  third, you know, abusive relationship and that's what my
• 17:32
  children's father. Yeah.
• 17:34
  And so, right before I found out, I was pregnant with our
• 17:39
  daughter. You know, we both decided like
• 17:42
  we're just not good for each other.
• 17:44
  We brought out really, really bad side.
• 17:46
  You know, I met I met their dad and I was in cool.
• 17:48
  You can supply me with drugs and I'm sure I gave him whatever he
• 17:53
  needed. And I relationship was just
• 17:55
  based off of drugs, you know, and then we get pregnant with
• 17:59
  our daughter. So during like towards the end
• 18:03
  of the pregnancy, I'm trying, I'm living with him and his dad
• 18:06
  and his dad's apartment and you know, I didn't know at the time
• 18:11
  but my children's father had switched from Oxycontin to
• 18:16
  heroin. And I didn't understand, I
• 18:19
  didn't understand the difference.
• 18:20
  I knew like I never wanted to try heroin because I knew how I
• 18:22
  was on oxy. You I would be a monster on
• 18:26
  heroin. It would be over and so I found
• 18:30
  out that he was using and he was high during my pregnancy.
• 18:34
  And, you know, when I had our daughter, he was like, nodding
• 18:38
  off and it was just very frustrating for me, not
• 18:41
  understanding that world. So, Right after I had our
• 18:46
  daughter, I moved out. And they did with my cousin
• 18:48
  which, you know, instead of like going to my mom and being like,
• 18:52
  hey, I need help. I'm trying, I'm just floating
• 18:55
  above water. Barely so Traveling, I wasn't
• 19:00
  ready for a kid. Like, I didn't, you know, I was
• 19:03
  working in a restaurant up until this basically day.
• 19:06
  I had my daughter so I was used to just doing what I had to do
• 19:10
  to make do in life. And so I have my daughter and
• 19:15
  I'm living with my cousin and their, her, dad comes back
• 19:19
  around a couple months later, and he's still getting high on
• 19:22
  heroin. And I remember, I found it And
• 19:27
  he was sleeping and I go outside because I knew he was getting
• 19:30
  high and I go outside and I find it in his truck and they bring
• 19:34
  it upstairs. And I said, I found your stuff
• 19:36
  again and he was like listen listen like just give me half we
• 19:41
  can like keep the other half, throw it away, I don't care just
• 19:44
  I need that other half like I need to be well and I'm not
• 19:48
  really understanding the well part because it wasn't I didn't
• 19:51
  experience that withdrawal on oxy.
• 19:53
  So I give them half of it and I let him know.
• 19:58
  Okay, well, I'm going to do the other half while you're gone and
• 20:02
  he's like, okay, cool, like I'll pick up more tonight.
• 20:06
  And so, you know, I've got a 2 month old baby, I do.
• 20:11
  Now, was that a big chunk out of you just to see, like, what was
• 20:16
  your thought process on that? I'm going to use the like my My
• 20:21
  thought process was like, I want to get high because it's been a
• 20:24
  really long time since I've been able to get high too.
• 20:28
  I want to show you, you know, like I'm destroying my life to
• 20:33
  prove a point. I don't, I don't know what point
• 20:35
  that was but it's like SEO. I'm going to do this do then and
• 20:41
  Yeah, I just I wanted to experience what heroin was like,
• 20:44
  it was right in front of me. All the other times I had, I had
• 20:47
  found it on him, I threw it away, you know, and it was that
• 20:51
  last time for I succumb to it, you know.
• 20:57
  And it didn't stop for a good year and a half.
• 21:00
  After that we hadn't moved to the needle or I had moved to the
• 21:04
  needle at this point. During that process, you know,
• 21:08
  CPS is called, we both have a case going.
• 21:12
  He had like moved away at that point.
• 21:14
  The Missouri. So he comes back during the CPS
• 21:17
  case were clean for about six or seven.
• 21:20
  Yeah, shouts other services because we both tested dirty,
• 21:24
  right, tested positive for heroin.
• 21:26
  Owen. So I'm about six months sober.
• 21:30
  He still, he still drinking and manipulating the system using
• 21:35
  Oxys, but like as a prescribed medication and we, you know, we
• 21:40
  see you. So sad.
• 21:42
  So there's like a drug testing. We had to do right?
• 21:46
  And there was a night where we both got called to go in and we
• 21:50
  see each other and we're looking healthy.
• 21:52
  You know we go out to like dinner that night just did a
• 21:55
  quick dinner We're just chatting and think.
• 21:58
  Wow, you know, we're doing so great and so we end up hooking
• 22:02
  up and and I get pregnant with our son, my children are really
• 22:16
  looking good and So I find out that I'm pregnant.
• 22:21
  I have a CPS case going on. I end up hiding my pregnancy.
• 22:25
  The entire time I mean case went on until I had the case closed a
• 22:31
  week after I had my son and the caseworker that I had had no
• 22:36
  idea. I was pregnant - how did they
• 22:41
  get brought into the world of yours?
• 22:44
  How does Child Protective Services to their to you?
• 22:49
  So his, so my children's father, his dad called CPS, okay?
• 22:55
  Okay. And let him know that I was
• 22:58
  getting high. And so, when that happened, you
• 23:01
  know, they notify both parents and I tested positive and
• 23:05
  Chalmers out Missouri, who tested positive for heroin as
• 23:08
  well. So any sense, you know, we are
• 23:12
  become vegans back. There is own after that, and I
• 23:15
  let him know, I think it, At the end of January of 2015, over K,
• 23:24
  you know. I'm pregnant.
• 23:27
  Definitely yours. You didn't believe me that it
• 23:30
  was his, but he just let me know that he wanted nothing to do
• 23:34
  with. You know, the child, I was
• 23:35
  carrying and that didn't really want anything to do with me.
• 23:40
  And then, I think, four months, five months into it on Cinco de
• 23:44
  Mayo in 2015, he tried to kill himself.
• 23:48
  And so after that, no things with CPS change drastically.
• 23:55
  And dad again moved to Missouri and I had I didn't hear from
• 23:59
  them for the new year and a half.
• 24:03
  So the CPS case closed, you know, I stayed sober.
• 24:06
  I got the housing and her good job.
• 24:08
  Working for Maricopa County superior court.
• 24:10
  Has at that time, I didn't have any felonies, not a decent,
• 24:14
  working background, and like education.
• 24:18
  So they can your workmen Court, your your yeah.
• 24:21
  Like what? I like a court reporter or what?
• 24:24
  What do you Guy works for Maricopa County Suitland Clerk
• 24:29
  of Court. Yeah.
• 24:30
  So I basically I was at the final encounter.
• 24:34
  So any you know criminal paperwork that need to be filed
• 24:38
  probate civil family, we did well Stevie here, we did all
• 24:44
  kinds of stuff like marriage certificate.
• 24:46
  Good job that you even tackled there.
• 24:49
  Yeah. Yeah, it got me into the field
• 24:52
  that I was very interested in. I was very interesting, you
• 24:54
  know, I went to I did criminal justice so I can go to law
• 24:59
  school right now. I'm studying for my else at my
• 25:02
  senior year and it just became all too much, right?
• 25:06
  You have like that crippling anxiety and the depression, the
• 25:09
  drug use, the constant schoolwork, that was that was
• 25:14
  happening on top of like trying to study for the Elsa Hax and
• 25:17
  like I just wasn't in a good mental space.
• 25:19
  Yeah. Handling any of it.
• 25:21
  When you were at this job doing this work, you were high.
• 25:31
  Not in the beginning. Okay?
• 25:33
  So it wasn't until I was about to I was 2 years, 3 months,
• 25:38
  sober when I relapsed. So, again, dad comes back into
• 25:43
  the picture. I think our son is about almost
• 25:47
  a year old at that point. My goal was to get him back into
• 25:52
  the picture. Our daughter knew who he was,
• 25:54
  you know, she loves him and they had an amazing mom and I wanted
• 25:58
  him to know his son, how old would Would your daughter have
• 26:02
  been at that point? Because I guess old enough to
• 26:05
  know and have a relationship. Oh yeah.
• 26:09
  I think she was around twice. Three.
• 26:11
  Three and a half. Okay.
• 26:14
  Yeah, I'm gonna make it there about three years apart.
• 26:17
  So, you know, he decides to come back around.
• 26:20
  We I file the petition for Family Court who established
• 26:24
  custody with our daughter. I did.
• 26:27
  Because like, one CPS is out of your life.
• 26:29
  They recommend that you file for custody in adult like family
• 26:34
  court. I didn't add our son on there.
• 26:37
  He made it very clear to me. He wanted nothing to do with our
• 26:39
  son, so I didn't put him on the birth certificate.
• 26:42
  I gave my son, my last name. You know, Dad just wasn't around
• 26:48
  and he came back out Arizona. Yeah.
• 26:52
  Max is almost a year old. And, you know, for the first
• 26:55
  couple of months, it was okay. Like you lived on my couch
• 26:58
  sometimes there would be like, intimate moments but it wasn't,
• 27:01
  you know, it wasn't a relationship.
• 27:03
  Like, we're Partners together and, you know, we, I end up
• 27:10
  relapsing on alcohol with him and it was just It was that gate
• 27:15
  where I needed, you know, is excuse.
• 27:16
  I needed as like I threw my my sober date away like let's do
• 27:20
  this and he was the one that always brought it into the
• 27:25
  relationship. So I remember like your kind of
• 27:29
  like using Oxycontin once in a while and I had just gotten home
• 27:33
  from work and my job at the Maricopa County superior court.
• 27:38
  Yeah home. And you know, he's watching the
• 27:40
  kids and he tells me to come and see my bathroom in the back.
• 27:44
  In the mic, okay, what's up things?
• 27:46
  Like I got something and so I'm thinking like oh oxy, okay cool
• 27:50
  when he opens up the medicine cabinet and you know, he pulls
• 27:53
  out the pulls out the heroin and he said, you know, I would love
• 28:01
  to say like something and he was like no do you that?
• 28:03
  But everything I know to be true about my internal self said yes
• 28:08
  and we do that. So you know I started
• 28:11
  interrogating high and then like a couple weeks later After he
• 28:15
  shot me up for the first time and it was, it was over, you
• 28:19
  know, I would my life again turn to seeking drugs.
• 28:23
  First everything comes second and Ruble to like what you did
• 28:31
  to kids. You know, I'm able to maintain a
• 28:39
  lifestyle, not one that I would consider.
• 28:42
  Okay, being sober but I'm Able to like keep a roof over my kids
• 28:46
  heads. You know, make sure they have
• 28:48
  food, all of that, like one, but that didn't come first, right?
• 28:53
  Like the nice speaking drugs came first and then, like, I
• 28:56
  would make sure there's enough left over for the rest of it.
• 29:00
  How did that effect? When you started diving into
• 29:03
  this? How did that affect your world
• 29:05
  at work? I, you know, I would I was
• 29:12
  constantly showing up, I didn't how costly showing up late.
• 29:16
  I mean there were times I would be late but like I, you know, I
• 29:19
  would get the kids where they needed to go.
• 29:21
  Right? And most of the time I was like,
• 29:23
  coming off heroin withdrawing pretty hard, and I would go to
• 29:28
  my job and clock in. Generally, I was on time I'm
• 29:34
  clocking in and I start I withdrawal from heroin.
• 29:37
  I'd be at the filing counter trying to like maintain My
• 29:42
  composure. And then on my lunch break, I
• 29:45
  would like, you know, Drive, however far you driving my our
• 29:48
  break, get what I needed to get up and then come back to the
• 29:51
  office. And I mean, it just it was, it
• 29:54
  was like this constantly and and then, you know, I got a
• 29:59
  promotion during this time. So I get promoted to write,
• 30:03
  courtroom clerk at a different facility.
• 30:05
  This is at the time, my lease is up, my children's father was
• 30:10
  like, I'm getting out of I'm done.
• 30:12
  So he does what he does and goes back to Missouri and so I moved
• 30:18
  back in with my mom, I just got this promotion so I'm starting I
• 30:22
  work at the Juvenile Courts. Now as a courtroom clerk, so
• 30:25
  like the different judges that are there Commissioners and this
• 30:31
  is when things get really bad you know my have it turned into
• 30:35
  like I made it a habit to where I would pick up a gram of heroin
• 30:39
  a day on top of leg, whatever mess.
• 30:41
  They needed and like, you know, I used to drink Fireball.
• 30:45
  So like a big handle Fireball. Wow and so I would I would live
• 30:52
  one of my dealers doing handle a fireball a day.
• 30:56
  Well Megan Yeah, and Mike, you know, it's bad when your dealers
• 31:02
  like Megan or he's leaving me you meet me every day and you
• 31:06
  know, from where I worked. It was a good 45 minute drive.
• 31:09
  So it's like, why don't you just buy in bulk?
• 31:13
  Like what are you doing? And it was like, nah, I can't do
• 31:15
  that because if I if I buy two grams of heroin today I'm doing
• 31:20
  it. There's no stop button on this
• 31:24
  right. There's none, right?
• 31:28
  So bad, that that time of my life was pretty chaotic.
• 31:33
  I'm sure they were liable to who hired this check and watch
• 31:36
  admire her. He must have been doing a good
• 31:38
  job because they give you a promotion in between all that to
• 31:43
  I you've had these are in your you've been smart you know
• 31:47
  without all this other stuff around you you functioned as a
• 31:52
  smart person that was able to get a job, a good job, they
• 31:55
  promoted you but you were Still struggling so much with
• 31:58
  everything and the time management it happened to go out
• 32:02
  and come back and out and come back all the while while the day
• 32:05
  rate on crazy. Yeah, I mean, It wasn't, you
• 32:11
  know, I was, I was mom as well, so I'm trying to pick my drop.
• 32:14
  My kids off at daycare, I need to figure out what I need to
• 32:17
  shoot up before. That happens.
• 32:20
  I need to go get my drug that day.
• 32:21
  Make sure I'm not late. I need to be able to shoot up
• 32:25
  while I'm, you know either at the place I did it from or like
• 32:28
  when I'm at work and so it turns into like me bringing all my
• 32:31
  stuff into my job. You know, I had no cares in the
• 32:36
  world. I had a full cup of Fireball on,
• 32:39
  I I had, you know, everything setup that I needed for my shot
• 32:45
  and it was all with me and I would do it in the bathroom.
• 32:50
  At work and one time you know I am super tired I took to Downers
• 32:57
  right alcohol and heroin and I go out for my like 15 minute
• 33:01
  break in the parking lot and I end up passing out my my boss
• 33:06
  and her boss comes and they knock on my window right?
• 33:10
  And I wake up and I was gone for about an hour and no idea.
• 33:14
  And they were line, you need to follow us home, I go into the
• 33:20
  office and they were what's going on.
• 33:23
  And yeah, I lied through my teeth and I'm like, listen, I'm
• 33:26
  super depressed. These are all the things I have
• 33:28
  going on, right? I used I used all the - to my
• 33:31
  advantage like my children's father isn't around.
• 33:35
  I'm super depressed which I was but like I use that as like the
• 33:39
  excuse of what was going on and they were liable.
• 33:42
  We suggest you think Time off. You know, I took time off and my
• 33:46
  child for FMLA and and that was again.
• 33:49
  Another excuse for me to use when I got back to work of leg.
• 33:53
  Why I couldn't come into work that day because the FMLA
• 33:57
  granted me leniency. So I don't know maybe three or
• 34:04
  four months and I just I couldn't do it anymore, I was
• 34:08
  exhausted and so I I didn't let them know I quit I just stopped
• 34:14
  showing up. I cashed in my 401k out and and
• 34:19
  and use that too. To buy more drugs.
• 34:24
  So did you know because it was a good job you had, but you that
• 34:30
  wasn't really any type of focus of yours anyway.
• 34:33
  So it was, was it easier just to walk away?
• 34:35
  Because it was almost like too much pressure.
• 34:38
  I'm having a show up to this place, I'm having to hide
• 34:40
  things. I'm I'm under a lot of stress.
• 34:42
  It was giving you more stressful.
• 34:44
  It was easier just to walk away from it. yeah, so when you walk
• 34:49
  away from it, what happens then So, I mean, I have enough cash
• 34:55
  to float for a little bit, but I have a really bad drug habit.
• 34:58
  So, at one point, I'm like, I leave my mom's house and I go
• 35:06
  and I live with my mom, one of my female dealers, right?
• 35:11
  Course I have my kids with me everywhere.
• 35:13
  I go, they don't leave my side in my active addiction.
• 35:18
  And you know, an opportunity presents itself from members in
• 35:24
  Mexico, to do some work with them, you know?
• 35:28
  And it was like, my car had just gotten rebuild because I put out
• 35:34
  like a title loan on that, that I couldn't order to pay for.
• 35:38
  And so, you know, they just painted this picture for me that
• 35:43
  I needed to see as a way out. And so, you know, I Getting back
• 35:49
  into because I had engaged in my selling my body previously.
• 35:53
  And so I was getting back and sat and it was a way that I
• 35:55
  didn't have to start doing that again.
• 36:02
  Like rationalizing, that out, did any of that scare you that
• 36:05
  you were stepping into that world?
• 36:06
  Or was that just know? I'm in this to get to the next
• 36:10
  step? I'm in this because I'm addicted
• 36:12
  and you just rationalize everything out.
• 36:15
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:16
  Like that kind of stuff doesn't scare me.
• 36:20
  But if you're going into your now, if you're going into Mexico
• 36:23
  and you're going to be dealing with drug people did that
• 36:27
  because, I mean it you see the stuff on the movies and stuff.
• 36:29
  These people, you know, they appear to be friendly and then
• 36:32
  they go in a shoot, somebody in the back and you know, you don't
• 36:36
  see him again, you know, that did you did any of that?
• 36:40
  Adrenaline fear, whatever that is, even though that you were in
• 36:46
  in the drug Haze, were you thinking, you know what, this
• 36:50
  could be really, really dangerous, and I could not come
• 36:53
  baby come back from this. No, no, you were there for down
• 36:58
  the road. Yeah, I you know I just didn't
• 37:03
  think like that. No, no.
• 37:08
  So he didn't you take this opportunity to go.
• 37:12
  I do, I got to get down to Mexico.
• 37:15
  And of course, again I have both my children with me and there's
• 37:21
  no way I'm asking my mom for help, you know, which would have
• 37:25
  been the smart thing to do. It would have the most rational
• 37:28
  thing to do. But again, I do, I have that
• 37:31
  fear of just an ingrained fear of disappointment.
• 37:34
  I don't I don't want her to know how bad I am and I don't want to
• 37:39
  lose my kids again. So it's very selfish was a very
• 37:44
  selfish selfish state that I was in.
• 37:48
  You know there was never anything discussed about what
• 37:50
  would happen when I got down there.
• 37:51
  It was more like, let's introduce like but make an
• 37:55
  introduction will get you a vehicle and then you can go home
• 37:58
  and we'll go from there. So, I had been down there for I
• 38:02
  think week and a half. And, you know, I felt stuck.
• 38:09
  I mean, I feel like I could go anywhere and I have my two kids.
• 38:13
  So like I'm, you know, they're never leaving my side but I'm
• 38:17
  putting them in the most dangerous possible situation
• 38:21
  that you can. How do you think they were when
• 38:23
  you were down there in Mexico? Probably about two and a half.
• 38:32
  Like five and a half. Maybe.
• 38:34
  Yeah. So the five and a half year old
• 38:35
  would probably have some he remember.
• 38:39
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 38:40
  He remembers my two-year-old. Yeah.
• 38:42
  So my six-year-old malleable so did they know me explain to you
• 38:49
  Meghan. Hey this is what we're going to
• 38:51
  do. You were going to put you in a
• 38:53
  situation and we're going to have you drive across the
• 38:56
  border. And I mean how did that work?
• 39:00
  Like what, how did I how do you? That meeting.
• 39:04
  So the conversation is, you know, we have this truck for
• 39:09
  you, go register it. So they take me to go back over
• 39:11
  to the United States, register the truck in my name, and then
• 39:15
  come back and just kind of see what that looks like.
• 39:18
  And then you know, part of their protocol I don't know.
• 39:23
  Was basically like we need you to make a couple of runs across
• 39:27
  the border just to see if they send you the secondary.
• 39:31
  And so I did that a couple times like when you know tomorrow
• 39:33
  morning. Or like Jack-in-the-Box,
• 39:36
  whatever it would come back. Well, the last thing, the last
• 39:39
  time I did it, they had sent me over secondary.
• 39:43
  We're like, dude, I'm not going to take a look at you a deeper
• 39:47
  look into what, what you are on. The truck is and everything,
• 39:51
  right? So when I get back, I let them
• 39:55
  know that. Hey, just so, you know, they,
• 39:59
  they sent me over to secondary like, why I don't like when I
• 40:04
  get back to, you know, where I live with, let me get my car and
• 40:08
  then we can, I proceed forward with like running drugs because
• 40:14
  they popped me for secondary, this is a bad idea.
• 40:18
  And they were like, yeah. Okay.
• 40:19
  Okay. You know, the truck really
• 40:22
  wasn't running well, like, it kept like grabbing up, and then
• 40:26
  it almost feels like dying. So, the day before I left, which
• 40:32
  I didn't know when I was going to leave, they did.
• 40:34
  But I did the day before I left that I they had known that the
• 40:39
  truck was running. Well, no leg.
• 40:40
  Okay, we have time, we're going to take it into the shop and
• 40:42
  then we'll drop it back off to you.
• 40:44
  So they did that. And then, you know, Hopefully
• 40:47
  the next day I think in the morning it didn't work out but
• 40:51
  you know, they came like gave me some cash.
• 40:54
  So I get gas. Get a new phone that I would be
• 40:57
  calling like a certain phone number on.
• 41:00
  Once I got over the border and I like so kind of explaining the
• 41:05
  job they wanted me to do because I explain to them, you know
• 41:07
  about secondary and like you know they definitely have their
• 41:10
  eye on me if I cross the border again and they're like, okay I
• 41:14
  will we just need you to watch. Crossley go.
• 41:17
  Pick up your new phone. You're going to give us a call.
• 41:20
  We're going to give you a number and then you're going to go out
• 41:22
  to California and pick up some money for us and come back.
• 41:27
  Okay, I can do that. So that night I had was leaving
• 41:32
  and you know things she's I'm looking back.
• 41:36
  Things are a little weird. Like they were tracking the car
• 41:39
  that I was in which I didn't understand that they were.
• 41:42
  And so like I look back and I know they were tracking me.
• 41:47
  So I'd say you know I go across the border and of course they
• 41:52
  send me a secondary. So I thought it was just going
• 41:54
  to kind of be like the first situation, where would suck?
• 41:56
  Area where they need to examine what they needed to.
• 41:59
  I would be off. And I'd be able to do, you know,
• 42:03
  I get the money I needed and life would be great, right?
• 42:06
  Obviously, that's not what happened.
• 42:10
  You go inside the building and I noticed all all the border,
• 42:14
  patrol surrounding the truck. And I see all of them.
• 42:18
  Look at me and I was, oh, fuck, yeah, what's going on?
• 42:24
  And so, you know, they take the kids and they call my mom and
• 42:27
  let her know what's going on. She drives all the way.
• 42:31
  From Phoenix to Yuma, like a four and a half hour drive, to
• 42:36
  get the kids and drive back. They put me in a cell like
• 42:42
  handcuff me put me in a Cell. They like patted me down, right?
• 42:45
  And then they didn't find the drugs that I have on me.
• 42:48
  So I'm like in my cell and I just like, I do everything that
• 42:52
  I have. There are like four, they find
• 42:56
  it. And I don't really care what
• 42:57
  happens with this point. You know, life seems to be
• 43:00
  pretty awful In This Moment. Like, I'm just trying to
• 43:03
  scramble my brand, think what's going on?
• 43:05
  Like, don't understand. It's not making sense to me.
• 43:09
  So, I passed out and also couple hours, and then they pulled me
• 43:13
  from myself. Like Homeland Security and two
• 43:20
  guys, and they they start interrogating me and there's
• 43:24
  like, you need to tell us what so what your day looks like
• 43:28
  today. And I kinda go over my day and
• 43:30
  then I go, you're not telling us the truth and then I explain to
• 43:33
  me how much mass is in my truck. And I don't know if I don't
• 43:39
  remember much of what happened after that during the
• 43:42
  interrogation, you know. So you really you didn't even
• 43:45
  know what you were. Transporting.
• 43:47
  You just knew that you were going from point A to point B.
• 43:50
  And I guess they told you how much you were going to get paid
• 43:53
  from this transaction, right? I mean, so my understanding was
• 43:59
  that I was just going to go to Cali to pick up some money for
• 44:03
  them as my first task to see, you know, If I'm able to work
• 44:09
  with them and then eventually moved to drug-running, I didn't
• 44:13
  know they had put, you're already doing it.
• 44:17
  Yeah, I'm doing it. Yeah and so I know that's like
• 44:21
  it's very challenging for me to like talk about this.
• 44:25
  I would love to say that I knew that there were 89 pounds of
• 44:28
  methamphetamine in my truck because they were in love.
• 44:30
  They're just such an idiot, but I didn't.
• 44:33
  And it's like Oh, I just try not to think about it too much.
• 44:37
  Don't talk about that. Part of my story a lot.
• 44:40
  It's I feel a lot of Shame over it.
• 44:44
  Well, I mean, I don't know about shame.
• 44:47
  I think you were in a situation to where you were desperate and
• 44:52
  right now we're doing. That's right.
• 44:54
  You were doing desperate things and you probably didn't ask a
• 44:56
  lot of questions. And no, it was probably all hazy
• 45:01
  and you were using. And so it was just You know,
• 45:05
  things make more sense. If you can make it, make sense
• 45:08
  in that Hayes. And that's, you know, I think
• 45:11
  people, I know, people can get into whether you're drinking or
• 45:14
  taking drugs or whatever, you can make some decisions that are
• 45:17
  not the decisions you make. When you were sober, Right, not
• 45:22
  at all. So I mean they told me yeah.
• 45:26
  Sorry, no. I was going to say.
• 45:30
  So then the next thing that, you know, is is okay.
• 45:33
  I'm in trouble. I mean, this is bad.
• 45:37
  These are real people from real places in our system that are
• 45:42
  asking me big questions. Did you feel like It was as big
• 45:48
  as it was. Or did you think?
• 45:49
  Well, I'll probably answer these questions and they'll let me out
• 45:52
  of here and everything will be. Okay, I know I understanding of
• 45:57
  how big it was and still in the delusion that this is happening,
• 46:02
  but still in the delusion that leg, this isn't what I thought
• 46:06
  was going to happen. You know, I'm still trying to
• 46:08
  wrap my head around how much was in my truck and what was in the
• 46:12
  truck and you know, how can I not have liked It seemed that
• 46:16
  that was what was happening. Like I was I was living in some
• 46:21
  alternate universe at that point in time and so they like end
• 46:27
  with their questioning and they transport me over to like the
• 46:31
  you and detention center. And I remember I just, I passed
• 46:35
  out for like a day and like, isolation there and I waking up
• 46:41
  to go to my hearing and my like initial hearing and I was like,
• 46:45
  okay. You know, they'll let me out
• 46:46
  like this is just a huge misunderstanding, you know,
• 46:49
  can't we the reality of what I'm facing right now.
• 46:53
  And, you know, this point I'm like, withdrawing from heroin
• 46:58
  pretty bad and my box and Shackled and they send you over,
• 47:01
  you know, to like the cell where you wait to go in front of the
• 47:05
  judge and they like release one of your hands, make the left
• 47:10
  hand because that's like that was when I left dominant hand
• 47:13
  right here. So like shackles It up one hands
• 47:16
  out and I'm inactive withdrawal like good almost 48 hours into
• 47:24
  it, you know, some feeling awful and go in front of the judge or
• 47:28
  talk to my attorney and he's like, going over all these
• 47:30
  numbers, right? And like the the determining
• 47:35
  factors of like how much time you get in prison?
• 47:38
  Wait a minute, right? What did you say?
• 47:42
  Right now. He's like, it's okay, you know,
• 47:44
  like if we plead to this you can and I'm like, pleading to what,
• 47:47
  what are you talking about? He's like, well, you're not
• 47:50
  taking this to trial and you're going to lose, and you're going
• 47:53
  to get 20 years in prison with. What are you talking about him?
• 47:56
  Just like soaking in little by little and then when I went in
• 48:01
  front of the judge, you know, I had it in my mind that, so let
• 48:03
  me out and usually, you know, stay there and then we'll
• 48:06
  transfer her to swords and closer to where I live.
• 48:11
  And so I'm still was under the delusion that everything's going
• 48:16
  to be okay and not it's not really happening and everything
• 48:21
  wasn't okay. It wasn't selling seven days and
• 48:27
  isolation detoxing, which was interesting, very interesting,
• 48:33
  they transport transported me to Florence.
• 48:37
  And so, you know, we're box and Shackled for four and a half
• 48:40
  hours and I've got myself into other females that are right
• 48:44
  next to me on like a scoop that's meant for one person.
• 48:49
  We were literally sitting on each other's legs.
• 48:53
  And I'm like withdrawal from heroin and I just hear like all
• 48:57
  the guys in the back, you know, they understand what's going on
• 49:00
  and they can tell I'm not doing well no and I've got this other
• 49:07
  guy that's like next to me and the other side like trying to
• 49:10
  marry me. Absolutely.
• 49:20
  Mmm. So if you already did your head
• 49:24
  you already been sentenced at that point.
• 49:26
  No. This is the initial this before
• 49:30
  pre-trial event. Well I guess technically on
• 49:32
  crude I've been indicted at that point with distribution and
• 49:38
  transportation. So I get sent over to Florence
• 49:44
  in Arizona and that's where I guess like the real Journey
• 49:50
  Begins that I fully remember. Yeah.
• 49:53
  How lot more clarity at that point?
• 49:56
  When you're, you know, when you have an option, right?
• 50:00
  If you are a drug alcohol users to go to treatment while I'm
• 50:04
  pretrial. So I remember going in for That
• 50:08
  interview for Crossroads where I went to treatment, and this
• 50:13
  bawling like a baby, you know, because they had already
• 50:15
  experienced recovery at this point, I knew what it felt like
• 50:19
  and I just, I knew that, that's what I wanted again, like I had
• 50:22
  a good Two weeks of mental Clarity and I couldn't really
• 50:29
  see the wrongs that I had done right.
• 50:31
  It was all done to me but I knew I didn't want to die anymore
• 50:35
  like I was I was finally willing to live and probably and like
• 50:41
  toys. Had to have been worn out
• 50:48
  exhausting. Yeah.
• 50:50
  Yeah, I am. You know, I interviewed for that
• 50:55
  and they said no would love to have become to our program.
• 50:59
  How do we couple more weeks before I could get out for bed
• 51:03
  to be available? so, You do the whole waiting,
• 51:11
  this sell for them to then take you to the court building, and
• 51:14
  then they take, you know, the whole thing, the whole
• 51:17
  processing out takes about a day and then I remember going to
• 51:21
  Crossroads and getting to where like, you know, normal civilian
• 51:25
  clothes and kind of feeling like like myself again.
• 51:29
  But yeah. That's where the real real
• 51:33
  journey of the rest of my life started was that crossroads.
• 51:36
  I was there for four months. And, you know, you're basically
• 51:40
  can find that one building. I'm basically contract with the
• 51:45
  feds so I couldn't go anywhere and I had a lot of people.
• 51:49
  Overseeing me and my pretrial officer was Really hard on me.
• 51:55
  But for good reason, you know, I believe the people that came
• 52:00
  into my life came into my life for a reason.
• 52:03
  Like I needed I needed somebody with some harsh reality for me
• 52:07
  because I was very self-centered and tough love.
• 52:12
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:13
  You know that the end of it she she and I got along very well
• 52:18
  but in the beginning you know there was a point in time while
• 52:21
  I was in treatment where I get a call from her and you know like
• 52:25
  the directors sitting there and she was like you want me to you
• 52:28
  want me to pull you out of that program and just bring you back
• 52:31
  to detention because that's what your actions are telling me.
• 52:35
  And so it was just a lot of harsh reality where it was like,
• 52:38
  wow, you know, this is real like I have people for watching my
• 52:42
  every move we're determining the rest of my life for me.
• 52:47
  How did your mom and dad? Yeah, and kids are really had
• 52:50
  that all fit into this equation, that was happening, right then.
• 52:54
  So my mom, she got my kid's dad, not in the picture, so, And so
• 53:01
  she files for guardianship in the juvenile court and so just
• 53:07
  the crazy correlation that happens there.
• 53:10
  One of the Commissioners that saw that case for the dependent
• 53:14
  or not defensive of the guardianship.
• 53:16
  There's one of the Commissioners I work with well, small world?
• 53:20
  Yeah, yeah. So you know, she's like the
• 53:24
  commissioner Alan reading off the petition and, you know, he
• 53:29
  looks at my mom and you just On this racer.
• 53:32
  Sorry. Like I know your daughter.
• 53:35
  You know. And so that was that was a
• 53:38
  humbling experience. It's I'm sure everybody knew at
• 53:41
  that point. What was going on?
• 53:44
  The signs were all there. So my mom has made kids and he
• 53:49
  and my son, he's not doing very well.
• 53:51
  Like, he's always just been attached to me.
• 53:55
  He is he was recently diagnosed with autism.
• 53:58
  So there was a lot of Behavioral stuff going on.
• 54:01
  And You know, when I had my son, I was sober when I had him,
• 54:06
  right? And there was like, they had, I
• 54:10
  did, I know you like, he's super special, right?
• 54:14
  And he has like, really special abilities, but it was like I did
• 54:19
  everything. I was supposed to do correctly
• 54:23
  with this this child and, you know, so it was, it was a lot of
• 54:29
  You know who a lot of processing with my son throughout these
• 54:32
  years, but so behaviorally he wasn't doing well.
• 54:35
  He kept getting kicked out of daycare.
• 54:39
  They finally found one that stuck know my daughter.
• 54:42
  She's dealing with abandonment issues.
• 54:45
  I'm sure from when I had the CPS case and now Mom Karm.
• 54:49
  Again, dad's always gone. So she's got her stuff and she's
• 54:54
  dealing with she's a very resilient young little girl.
• 54:57
  Look, like just a resilient little girl and, you know,
• 55:03
  mature in some areas. But currently, I'm so blessed
• 55:06
  that. You know, she's had so much in
• 55:08
  it. So I didn't I didn't feel that
• 55:11
  from her, you know what I mean? And that's like credible, how
• 55:14
  resilient kids are, you know, the end is that love, you know,
• 55:19
  as long as there's love there and they can feel that and and
• 55:22
  now, you know, you've survived, what you've survived.
• 55:25
  And I think that what you can give back now knowing what
• 55:29
  they've gone through and that, whatever that connection is, I'm
• 55:33
  curious Megan. When you've went through all
• 55:37
  that, You get sentence. I can't remember how long you
• 55:40
  were sentenced for, but it was, was it 18 months?
• 55:46
  So when all is said and done, and I went to my son's and thing
• 55:49
  like a signing to play, it was drop down like distribution like
• 55:54
  50 grams of methamphetamine, something like that a class C,
• 55:58
  felony, you know, probation. Do your PSI pre-sentencing
• 56:05
  interview and they were recommending 33 months.
• 56:08
  When I went into my sentencing, you know it was a very emotional
• 56:12
  day, right? I've thought The courtroom full
• 56:16
  of lies people in the program, people that love me.
• 56:19
  That support me about my mom, they're like the goal behind
• 56:22
  that was to have a ton of support in the courtroom.
• 56:25
  So when I got sent away, my mom had somebody.
• 56:29
  Yeah, and all are like, all Corners, right?
• 56:32
  It wasn't about me. Like, that's something that I
• 56:34
  finally took away from the whole situation.
• 56:36
  Like, it wasn't about me and look at what you did.
• 56:40
  And so, I know the prosecution says, their pee.
• 56:45
  My attorney says her peace and she's crying, right?
• 56:47
  Like Marin word is highly emotional.
• 56:50
  Sure. And then I say my piece and, you
• 56:53
  know, I cried a little bit, but I was just, I was ready.
• 56:56
  It was ready for what was to come and the judge says what she
• 56:58
  needs to say, and she sentences need to 30 months in prison and
• 57:03
  federal prison. So I knew like, I knew that was
• 57:07
  going to happen. I knew I was going to present, I
• 57:09
  can come to terms with that. I have some time to process.
• 57:12
  Here my mom screaming in the courtroom hysterically, you
• 57:16
  know? I mean, she knows it's coming
• 57:17
  but like imagine hearing. Hi my marrying.
• 57:21
  Your daughter is getting something to present like so you
• 57:26
  know, the Marshal. He's like I'm not going to
• 57:27
  Shackle you out here. Let's go back here and then I'll
• 57:29
  shackle you, thank you. You know, they were very very
• 57:32
  respectful and he like the Marshall.
• 57:36
  I'll never forget it. He was like, I need you to look
• 57:38
  at me and he said I have never Never seen anybody get that
• 57:45
  little time for what you did ever.
• 57:50
  And then like during during the time when the judge was talking
• 57:54
  and handing out my son, hinge during the Tracer, I will be.
• 57:57
  I will be following your case and seeing what you do.
• 58:06
  Right? You know, and at that point I
• 58:08
  had completely surrendered myself to my higher power and to
• 58:14
  any notion that I had control over the situation, it was like,
• 58:18
  Megan. I need you Pajamas.
• 58:19
  Okay. How high I'm done fighting and
• 58:24
  just a miracle started to come in and they started happening.
• 58:26
  No, like 30 months on 89 pounds, a mess.
• 58:29
  Like yes, there was a lot of mitigating factors, right?
• 58:34
  I was a courier basically. So they're not my drugs, but
• 58:40
  then there's the fact that I had my kids with me, right?
• 58:43
  You know. So there were, there were things
• 58:44
  working against me and things working for me and I just like,
• 58:47
  literally gave it all up it. It's about this injection you
• 58:51
  know did what I needed to do during the short period that I
• 58:54
  was out to make a difference. So I end up serving 13, or 14
• 59:02
  months around their of my sentence on a 30-month sentence.
• 59:09
  What? Hey, I got some personally, I
• 59:11
  was good at asking Megan. What with when you get, you
• 59:14
  know, from that point to the next Point?
• 59:16
  Did you get have an opportunity to talk to your kids or at least
• 59:20
  your daughter who was older about where you were going or
• 59:24
  what you were doing or how that was?
• 59:27
  Right. What was the next step?
• 59:30
  Yeah. The my day of sentencing, right?
• 59:33
  As I knew I was going to prison that day.
• 59:36
  So I had some conversations leading up.
• 59:39
  Like my son is just very unaware and doesn't understand, but I
• 59:43
  haven't like what kind of conversation I can have with
• 59:45
  him. Like Mommy's, going to be going
• 59:46
  away for a little bit. He doesn't really understand
• 59:49
  having these conversations with my daughter and she sees that
• 59:51
  I'm crying. So wait, what and she knows it's
• 59:55
  correlating to like, The event that happened in, you know, the
• 59:59
  day that I dropped them off to school the emotional part.
• 1:00:07
  I just don't remember dropping my daughter off and, you know, I
• 1:00:11
  was like she knew it was going to go away.
• 1:00:14
  Way. And she just looks at me and
• 1:00:17
  starts crying and I get out the car and I give her a big hug and
• 1:00:20
  you know, she seems like watching the car like drive away
• 1:00:24
  is as I'm leaving and And then, you know years later she tells
• 1:00:30
  me like, Mom remember the day that you dropped me off because
• 1:00:32
  I go away and I think that baby she's like we'll all I could do
• 1:00:37
  was like cry that day you know and nobody I couldn't tell
• 1:00:43
  anybody why? I was so sad and sad.
• 1:00:48
  Well, liked. You know, and I did like I did
• 1:00:53
  that to her. That was me.
• 1:00:55
  And so they drop my son off and I just like, remember him going
• 1:01:00
  to his daycare is like smiling back at me, you know?
• 1:01:04
  Like I just I have a really special moment from that day, it
• 1:01:08
  was really tough. All right.
• 1:01:10
  This is nothing tougher. I mean I my kids were older and
• 1:01:14
  there's, there's nothing like it.
• 1:01:16
  There's there's, you can't in it mean.
• 1:01:18
  You just explained it probably as well as you can explain it,
• 1:01:20
  but there's nothing Like it and you just all you can do is Step
• 1:01:27
  through it, you know. That's and it sounds like there
• 1:01:31
  was a time somewhere in that Period of time where you've gone
• 1:01:36
  through this. And you went from kind of the
• 1:01:40
  victimhood thing to the Survivor.
• 1:01:42
  I'm going to survive, this, whatever, this is whatever this
• 1:01:45
  has to be. I'm going to step through it.
• 1:01:48
  And whenever that happens I think, you know, I think
• 1:01:51
  whenever you hit that Rock Bottom, you go one or two ways
• 1:01:55
  you go into a fetal position and never come back or you something
• 1:02:00
  comes in you too, you feel it? It gives you strength even
• 1:02:05
  though whatever is ahead of you scares the shit out of you
• 1:02:09
  you're going to somehow make it and it feels like we're story
• 1:02:13
  you somehow transformed in that world that you were getting
• 1:02:17
  ready because you aren't going anywhere good, but your minds
• 1:02:22
  your mindset was changing, you know.
• 1:02:24
  That was right. So, I mean, it was a lot like it
• 1:02:30
  was a lot of diving into working like that.
• 1:02:36
  So, you know, I work a program of a and I found and this is
• 1:02:42
  from the job I'm in now, right? This is the motivating factor, I
• 1:02:46
  drive home. Every time I talk to a patient
• 1:02:48
  loved ones, family, whatever is you can have all the clinical,
• 1:02:51
  the medical component, the best of the best.
• 1:02:54
  I have the greatest amenities I said but if that It's not have a
• 1:02:57
  foundation of connection for you.
• 1:03:00
  You'll you're going to you're not going to make it like our
• 1:03:03
  biggest enemy is isolation. Now, combats addiction
• 1:03:08
  connection and they believe that wholeheartedly 100%.
• 1:03:11
  So when I got into the program, I saw that people were having
• 1:03:14
  they were sober and I wanted that again, I just wanted to
• 1:03:20
  figure out like, how do I genuinely get this connection
• 1:03:25
  and Maintain my sobriety and live in recovery and I a big
• 1:03:30
  thing too is just seeing the damage that I can cause you
• 1:03:33
  know, they were T conversations. That happened during the my
• 1:03:37
  early sobriety for it shed, light on all the harm that I was
• 1:03:42
  doing to myself and to others. Yeah, well, I'm interested Megan
• 1:03:48
  like when you finally made it to the prison the federal prison
• 1:03:54
  What was it like walking in and knowing that, that's going to be
• 1:03:57
  your world for a while, interesting.
• 1:04:02
  So I mean, luckily, like, luckily, the prison I went to is
• 1:04:06
  a minimum-security prison. I only got 30 30 months in
• 1:04:11
  prison, right? So I qualified right away to get
• 1:04:14
  into our dads, the residential drug program with the feds.
• 1:04:18
  And, you know, luckily there was space for me to go to a facility
• 1:04:22
  that was in Arizona leader. You like 15 minutes from where I
• 1:04:26
  grew up? That's great, and write, and
• 1:04:28
  write, and write in my backyard kind of literally.
• 1:04:31
  And so, like, transport day was just a hectic, weird day.
• 1:04:38
  It was like, I don't know, like they had a, you know, prepare
• 1:04:43
  the night before at midnight we left at like 5:00 or 6:00 in the
• 1:04:46
  morning. And of course, you get boxed and
• 1:04:48
  Shackled. And just like shackling day or
• 1:04:52
  whatever you want to call it, you know, this.
• 1:04:54
  All day, all you hear is chain and chains and chain and then it
• 1:04:59
  finally gets to be your turn and you get excited, right?
• 1:05:01
  You excited to get Shackled up. Be like cool, we're about to
• 1:05:04
  leave. Strip Me Down search me.
• 1:05:07
  Let's go get the star. You know we get yeah we get
• 1:05:12
  transported to Phoenix Sky Harbor at like a secluded area
• 1:05:16
  where there's just, you're just so many people was shot guns,
• 1:05:21
  all around. There's buses everywhere.
• 1:05:24
  And it is this whole event, you know, you think that we were
• 1:05:28
  like all serial killers or something.
• 1:05:31
  Everybody exactly production. Everybody's right, doesn't
• 1:05:34
  matter. Yeah, it does not matter.
• 1:05:37
  So then you don't know where you're going, like, they don't
• 1:05:40
  sound like they're like, okay, leave sure that you don't know
• 1:05:43
  anything. They make sure that that's one
• 1:05:45
  of the things you learned about losing your freedom as their
• 1:05:48
  make. They made.
• 1:05:49
  Sure. They that's the first thing,
• 1:05:51
  they make sure is, you know, nothing.
• 1:05:54
  You know, nothing? Yeah, we don't know the day, you
• 1:05:56
  leave. Don't know when you're leaving
• 1:05:58
  like nothing and so like technically I mean I could have
• 1:06:01
  gone anywhere in the country. It's a kind of a crap shoot,
• 1:06:06
  right? It was an in my head.
• 1:06:08
  It was between like Victorville and then the camp here in
• 1:06:12
  Arizona. So when I got on like this tiny
• 1:06:17
  van, I was like, this is maybe a good sign like not on a big bus
• 1:06:21
  and I'm not in an airplane. Yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Yeah. We drove and like I said, it was
• 1:06:28
  the, the camp that super close to where he's, like, I grew up
• 1:06:32
  in the prison. I went to Lincoln College, you
• 1:06:36
  know, we learn like one of my classes was correction right and
• 1:06:39
  learn the difference between State and said and one of our
• 1:06:42
  assignments It was to go to the federal prison, which is the
• 1:06:46
  federal prison. I ended up being an inmate at.
• 1:06:49
  So ironic is that? So you want to run that prison
• 1:06:54
  before you ever went in it for it to be real in it.
• 1:06:59
  Wow, wow, yeah. So, you know, finally, we get to
• 1:07:04
  present and it's kind of funny. So, like the whole setup, right?
• 1:07:09
  It's there's no fence, you know, you're not locked behind Any
• 1:07:13
  kind of bars, right? It's an open campus.
• 1:07:16
  Hello like inmates Drive, other inmates to the doctor.
• 1:07:20
  They drive them to the airport wherever they're going, right?
• 1:07:25
  And the image one everything anyway, that's one of the things
• 1:07:28
  I think nobody has enough for isn't the only thing the prison
• 1:07:31
  guards do is they count and they count they literally walk around
• 1:07:36
  everyone else. Everything else is actually done
• 1:07:39
  by prisoners. Yeah, there's like oversight for
• 1:07:42
  different like fields or you know like there.
• 1:07:46
  Yeah. But the the inmates from
• 1:07:48
  everything. Yeah, so we get processed in,
• 1:07:54
  and I remember looking up and the first thing I remember is
• 1:07:57
  looking at the decor, right? It was like very 90s, like
• 1:08:01
  desert, the core, I'm going. Oh, my God, where am I?
• 1:08:06
  And, you know, you do like, your walk of shame with your bag and
• 1:08:10
  like everybody's looking at you and you find your bones.
• 1:08:13
  Yeah. But like I said, soon as I got
• 1:08:16
  to do is go to the other person like I think, two days into it,
• 1:08:21
  maybe you know, getting into rdap dependent on the length of
• 1:08:26
  things to say that you were there, right?
• 1:08:28
  So if I had, if I came in and I have less time on my sentences,
• 1:08:34
  somebody else, they get booted out.
• 1:08:36
  I get to go and our job, which is what happened.
• 1:08:38
  So, like by day two, I've got a, you know, a green wristband
• 1:08:43
  showing that I'm about to start our dad.
• 1:08:45
  Which is huge because it's the only program and the federal
• 1:08:49
  system will give you a year off and that's a big deal.
• 1:08:53
  There's a lot of people that walked all over that to, you
• 1:08:56
  know, there's a lot of people that get in that and walk out
• 1:09:00
  and get in trouble and get pushed back or they get kicked
• 1:09:03
  out. And it's, it's an incredible
• 1:09:05
  thing to see somebody lose a year of their life because they
• 1:09:09
  couldn't stay in the program. Well, I'm, you know, I'm in a
• 1:09:14
  prison with with women and, you know, women have a different
• 1:09:18
  concept of I don't know manipulation then man or a
• 1:09:25
  different idea of what prison looks like.
• 1:09:27
  So it's more of like behind the scenes passive-aggressive, like
• 1:09:32
  I'm going to get you kicked out and you're going to lose your
• 1:09:33
  time and that was always a looming threat above my head.
• 1:09:38
  I know that especially since I two days in, you know, there's
• 1:09:42
  women that are there for a year waiting to get that program and
• 1:09:45
  I'm like, two days in and I got, I got in.
• 1:09:48
  Yeah. And I get moved to the front of
• 1:09:50
  the lobby unit. Right?
• 1:09:53
  And that's as I mean, that's how it goes.
• 1:09:55
  Like, how did it work for you? And there was it, how did your
• 1:10:02
  you have people? You know, I was always surprised
• 1:10:05
  that there were people immediately that helped me and I
• 1:10:08
  didn't see that, you know, I your mind always makes it out so
• 1:10:12
  much worse than it really is and even prison and I was always I
• 1:10:18
  think the most surprised, when I walked in that immediately, I
• 1:10:21
  had a couple of people that were trying to help me get
• 1:10:25
  transitioned in and I didn't, I didn't know him.
• 1:10:28
  There's yeah. How was it for you?
• 1:10:33
  I mean, it wasn't like as inviting.
• 1:10:37
  But I did have that Target on my back of like I just got into
• 1:10:42
  prison and I had like this Target on my back, right?
• 1:10:49
  I just got into prison and I'm going to drug program for like
• 1:10:52
  I'm not making friends right away.
• 1:10:56
  I kind of have this like, Resting bitch face.
• 1:11:00
  I gotta provide a better term and you know II didn't make a
• 1:11:06
  ton of friends right away. It was very challenging for me
• 1:11:08
  when I first got in. So I moved over to rdap building
• 1:11:13
  right away. And yes, I did gain like really
• 1:11:16
  good friendships along the way and like the way that prison was
• 1:11:20
  ran was more of like a family unit.
• 1:11:22
  You know, she's got a mom sisters brothers whatever.
• 1:11:26
  Yeah. And And I mean, race really
• 1:11:29
  wasn't really wasn't. We weren't ran by Racino.
• 1:11:33
  A lot of like different races like stuck together but there
• 1:11:36
  wasn't an issue with like mingling.
• 1:11:39
  You know, wasn't an issue at all time.
• 1:11:44
  You know, I found a really, really good friend while I was
• 1:11:47
  in there and person. I stuck with the entire time.
• 1:11:51
  You know, my, my Outlook on it was I'm not in here to make all
• 1:11:56
  these like lifelong. Friends, like we're in here for
• 1:11:59
  a specific reason. I have to do this are dap
• 1:12:02
  program, only going to open up to a certain point.
• 1:12:07
  I was even willing to open up to myself on the degree of like,
• 1:12:10
  what I had done, let alone like 70 women in this program, right?
• 1:12:16
  I just, I fought it, like I fought the entire time.
• 1:12:19
  I was there and I ended up doing a year and rdap because once I
• 1:12:23
  graduated the program, I still had time on my sentence.
• 1:12:26
  Like that's how soon I got in. Are down.
• 1:12:30
  So, you know, I had the remaining three months to stay
• 1:12:33
  in the building and like continue working on my, the
• 1:12:37
  after care component of the program and but you're still
• 1:12:40
  monitor, right? Like, you still are held to the
• 1:12:42
  same standards of like, you follow prison rules to a tee and
• 1:12:45
  you follow our dockerills to a teen if he died were still going
• 1:12:48
  to take your time away. Even like graduated, like there
• 1:12:52
  was always that fear of like and they going to get kicked out of
• 1:12:55
  the program, you know, and there were definitely times or It
• 1:12:58
  pulled in get pulled up right and they just an interesting
• 1:13:04
  year of my life like I learned a lot about myself, right?
• 1:13:07
  And learned how to give constructive feedback and
• 1:13:10
  communicate, assertively yes, while in prison, right?
• 1:13:14
  And I used I learned how to use that as a tool like a weapon.
• 1:13:18
  Yeah, right. The rational thinking, you know,
• 1:13:23
  we got into cognitive behavioral therapy, right?
• 1:13:26
  You change the way you think you changed?
• 1:13:28
  Angel a feel you change the outcome for everything is like
• 1:13:32
  you know, we had, it was just a repetition repetition,
• 1:13:35
  repetition everyday, right? You're waking up at 4:30 in the
• 1:13:38
  morning to go set up for our daps up Monday through Friday.
• 1:13:42
  You're making sure you're maintaining a job, you're, you
• 1:13:45
  know, like they give you some pretty legit work to do, right?
• 1:13:51
  And you have to open up if you don't open up the district's
• 1:13:53
  out, right? Yeah.
• 1:13:54
  And they have an entire file on me.
• 1:13:56
  They know you. How did you Handle hard days in
• 1:13:59
  prison. Isolated.
• 1:14:03
  So I have, no, I have my music, right?
• 1:14:06
  I had an iPod or whatever, it's an MP3 player and I downloaded
• 1:14:12
  music and that was my outlet. Releasers read a lot of books.
• 1:14:17
  Yep. Yep.
• 1:14:18
  Right. On a book, a lot of Pinochle
• 1:14:21
  Spades like peanut butter was the thing.
• 1:14:23
  You know, I just I try to keep myself distracted and I try to
• 1:14:26
  keep myself away from a lot of the women there.
• 1:14:30
  There was just a lot of room If you get caught up in things that
• 1:14:34
  I just wasn't willing to do. Like I came in there and I knew
• 1:14:37
  my focus was to get better to like build myself up, right?
• 1:14:42
  Figure out why my new I'm doing the things I'm doing like when
• 1:14:45
  we we had a group my first like transition or my first 3 months,
• 1:14:50
  right? And we sat down and the group
• 1:14:52
  was on manipulation and I just stopped a nose at all.
• 1:14:55
  I'm not a manipulator and you know, I'm literally the biggest
• 1:14:58
  manipulator I know and I'm in a group in isn't telling myself
• 1:15:03
  live and that moment sticks out with me because the more
• 1:15:07
  processed and more people told me Meghan, you are a manipulator
• 1:15:11
  like that. We made.
• 1:15:13
  That was what we were to do. We were to give feedback.
• 1:15:32
  Is Megan now getting into being a different version of yourself
• 1:15:36
  but still be yourself. Are you ready?
• 1:15:39
  We it was go time. Yeah, I mean my whole I guess
• 1:15:46
  like towards the on, right? Because when you go into prison,
• 1:15:49
  can't live in the outside world, right?
• 1:15:52
  I can't help it. I mean, it couldn't happen for
• 1:15:54
  me, right? Like I had a completely detached
• 1:15:56
  and like, yes, I got visitation with all my kids balls and
• 1:15:58
  president's family came and friends, and all that.
• 1:16:01
  It was like, you're just not present when they're there.
• 1:16:05
  So yeah, I completely detached. So you get closer to that time
• 1:16:10
  and it's like, okay, I'm having to detach from the world, I
• 1:16:12
  created in prison. Yeah, and starts to reattach to
• 1:16:15
  the World on the outside. And what does it look like?
• 1:16:19
  A very weird spot to be in especially liked that last week?
• 1:16:22
  Like almost like is this real? And I really getting out like, I
• 1:16:27
  completed my program from getting like extra time off my
• 1:16:29
  sentence. Maybe they're going to pull it
• 1:16:32
  for something. Like there's always this.
• 1:16:33
  This Fear that legs is other shoe is about to drop it.
• 1:16:37
  I want I'm not going to get out. I tell you I tell
• 1:16:59
  months after getting out of prison, was able to not be in.
• 1:17:04
  Then but like a halfway house and then home confinement, you
• 1:17:08
  know, yeah. That like I'm the whole
• 1:17:11
  different world. Well, I mean, in the answer,
• 1:17:14
  reattaching yourself with your kids and all that coming back in
• 1:17:18
  was a lot. And then you've got the thing to
• 1:17:21
  Megan, where you've been able to step into some really good
• 1:17:25
  things for yourself, as you've gotten out.
• 1:17:29
  And I always think it's really, really cool and I so lucky to be
• 1:17:35
  able to talk to people on this show that when they've gone
• 1:17:38
  through so much and there, they grab onto all those things,
• 1:17:42
  those experiences and you're using those things to help
• 1:17:45
  others. It can you explain a little bit
• 1:17:47
  about what you're doing now. Yeah, so luckily it when I got
• 1:17:54
  out of prison, right? I knew that I wanted to be in
• 1:17:57
  treatment, it's just something that was always calling me as a
• 1:18:02
  passion. And, you know, I figured I'm a
• 1:18:04
  felon now and the treatment world, but Ellen.
• 1:18:07
  So this is like the perfect job for me.
• 1:18:11
  And then, you know, when I was court-mandated to treatment like
• 1:18:16
  therapy and CSI Doctor, when I got out, I didn't really have
• 1:18:22
  many opportunities to see things in a different way.
• 1:18:27
  I there was just a cosmic change that happened in my shift, like,
• 1:18:31
  I had to be called out, right? Like, our dad was imperative to
• 1:18:34
  my my Foundation, right? I had to be called out that I
• 1:18:37
  was not a victim that I chose to put my Victim.
• 1:18:41
  Blend my dual glasses on every day and see the world that way.
• 1:18:45
  So that got removed, right? I got called out on being That
• 1:18:48
  bloated. And when people started pointing
• 1:18:51
  out times, I was manipulating and omitting and things like
• 1:18:55
  that. And that I had a really
• 1:18:56
  passive-aggressive way of communicating with the world and
• 1:18:59
  that it no longer serve me and replace those things like the
• 1:19:03
  new sort of communication. And instead of manipulation, I
• 1:19:07
  looked at it as like, Higher redirection.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah, well, manipulation is not a bad thing if you can persuade
• 1:19:15
  a couple and a good things, right?
• 1:19:18
  The league I took every defect that was pointed out to me and
• 1:19:22
  like, having people call me out, right?
• 1:19:24
  I call myself out for everything now, like, if I mess up, I'm
• 1:19:28
  like, hey, I messed up. I'm just going to let you know.
• 1:19:30
  Yeah, right. And I don't repeat that
• 1:19:32
  behavior. Like, I just don't have time to
• 1:19:35
  go back down that road of self-sabotage destruction.
• 1:19:39
  So I started to see that when I was getting better there was a
• 1:19:42
  light about me. Right there was something there
• 1:19:46
  something that I could never grasp onto something that this
• 1:19:50
  is the reason why I felt so different in the beginning and
• 1:19:53
  so sad, like I never had anybody show me what my light was and it
• 1:19:58
  took a group of women in prison to do that you know they it
• 1:20:03
  wasn't like the drug treatment team was building me up like
• 1:20:05
  they were breaking down and telling me all these like things
• 1:20:09
  that I really do want to hear about myself that were
• 1:20:11
  beneficial and then it took really special ladies in prison
• 1:20:15
  to show me my worth. That's where I found it.
• 1:20:18
  That's so cool. That's really cool.
• 1:20:21
  And your kids, I see I see your kids in the background there on
• 1:20:25
  the wall at. Yeah, I mean I guess and I see
• 1:20:29
  the pictures and things and Facebook I mean you've really
• 1:20:32
  re-entered the world as as that Mom that, you know, they so
• 1:20:37
  wanted in there you are. Yeah, that's just fantastic and
• 1:20:43
  you know to be able to make that all work again after all that
• 1:20:48
  you've been through. You know, one of the things I
• 1:20:50
  was thinking Megan of all these things that you've experienced.
• 1:20:56
  What do you think would be to the listeners out there?
• 1:21:01
  Your biggest takeaway through all this, how you survived, and
• 1:21:05
  how it worked for you? I guess.
• 1:21:09
  I think one. Okay, so now the biggest
• 1:21:11
  takeaways, right? I did, I did like a spiritual
• 1:21:13
  healing session this weekend, right?
• 1:21:16
  And then I went skydiving after that.
• 1:21:18
  There you go. Some Spirits during my spiritual
• 1:21:25
  healing. She let me know.
• 1:21:28
  She looked at me and she was, she was for me and for the
• 1:21:31
  prison saved your life, you need to appreciate it.
• 1:21:34
  You know, prison I mean, I saved me, I was I don't think I would
• 1:21:41
  be here, I was interested, right?
• 1:21:43
  So embracing that embracing everything that I've been
• 1:21:47
  through as a lesson that I needed to learn in this
• 1:21:50
  lifetime, right? I look at it like that, I don't
• 1:21:53
  look at it as this things are happening to me.
• 1:21:56
  Like, that is like things are happening for me and around me.
• 1:21:59
  I have no control over people places.
• 1:22:01
  Things situation, just have control over, how I choose to
• 1:22:06
  react or respond or not, We're not do anything at all.
• 1:22:10
  Yeah, process. What's being told me are taken
• 1:22:12
  feedback now and I listened to it, you know and I apply it to
• 1:22:18
  my life and it's applicable and if not like maybe a maybe it
• 1:22:22
  will be later. I just like have a heart of
• 1:22:25
  humility today. Military a big deal you melody.
• 1:22:30
  Thank you. Melody was want to another found
• 1:22:32
  like they're one of those key foundations where if I didn't go
• 1:22:36
  to prison, I wouldn't be a humble.
• 1:22:38
  Old human. I would still live in this
• 1:22:40
  delusion that things. Work.
• 1:22:43
  Now the way I need them to work versus like I'm just a part of
• 1:22:48
  the world, I'm not moving piece and I have, I know, I have the
• 1:22:52
  slide about me and in order for me to let that light shine so it
• 1:22:56
  can help others. Like, I have to be willing to be
• 1:22:59
  teachable and take suggestions, and continue to remain humble
• 1:23:03
  down daily basis. And if I ever forget, go back to
• 1:23:09
  what happened in the situation, I put myself in and And looking
• 1:23:13
  at my kids every day, you know, I was blessed enough to have an
• 1:23:17
  opportunity to be their mom, like, their parents.
• 1:23:21
  Absolutely. And I ran with it, right?
• 1:23:23
  Like everything I was doing was based on my career, my recovery
• 1:23:29
  and my children and no matter how hard it got or you know what
• 1:23:35
  the situation looks like. Those those are my he focuses
• 1:23:39
  you know like love self. How about other?
• 1:23:43
  No believe in my higher power, give it up to that and then like
• 1:23:47
  focus on these other areas where I can't Veer away.
• 1:23:52
  You know, I love that. I love that.
• 1:23:56
  Megan didn't know. One of the things I thought, you
• 1:23:58
  know, when it's on your Facebook, I think it's on
• 1:24:02
  LinkedIn to but where you drove back to the prison and it's
• 1:24:07
  just, so it's so cute. Grabs you to you.
• 1:24:11
  Because you can feel your emotions of where you were how
• 1:24:16
  far you've come and you know those emotions just came to the
• 1:24:20
  surface that you're on the other side of this and you're doing
• 1:24:24
  good things and things it's not easy but you're willing to deal
• 1:24:30
  with them and and it just you know it looks and feels good to
• 1:24:34
  see all that and you should be commended for I'm proud of you.
• 1:24:39
  I don't even know you that well Maggie.
• 1:24:41
  What you've done and how you've experienced what you've done and
• 1:24:43
  how you're using. It is really, really a big deal
• 1:24:47
  and I you know, my hope is that people who go through
• 1:24:50
  experiences like you have put themselves at the table to be
• 1:24:53
  able to help them help people other people who have our need
• 1:24:58
  that struggling experience to helping hand to get through and
• 1:25:01
  you've lived it. So, you know, it, you don't have
• 1:25:04
  to go right read this book and say, hey here.
• 1:25:07
  Now you know that, all right, and it's real, it's awesome.
• 1:25:09
  Yeah, it's authentic. Megan.
• 1:25:12
  Thanks so much for being here and sharing your story.
• 1:25:16
  It's just such a cool story, so glad you made it.
• 1:25:21
  I appreciate you. Having me on.
• 1:25:23
  Well I appreciate you being here for any of those out there.
• 1:25:27
  You were looking for a book to read, we're talking about
• 1:25:29
  reading books, I wrote One, nightmare success is everybody
• 1:25:34
  knows I love the likes on social media comments.
• 1:25:37
  If you if you get time, leave a review on Apple.
• 1:25:41
  You can go up to the little three dots up there and you can
• 1:25:43
  share the the show. You can also subscribe and on
• 1:25:48
  Spotify, there's a little bell to hit.
• 1:25:51
  You want to leave me a message on broadcast e.com or find out
• 1:25:53
  what Brent Cassidy's doing. Its there's a lot of stuff on
• 1:25:55
  there as I used to say when I was typing my e-mails back on
• 1:26:02
  true links, stay strong and I'll do the same.
• 1:26:06
  Megan Racer. Thank you for being here today.
• 1:26:10
  Latimer success in and out. Thanks for being here.