Latest / Recovery Chronicles / Recovery Chronicles Ep. 189 - Liz Thompson

Transcript

Recovery Chronicles Ep. 189 - Liz Thompson · Recovery Chronicles

0:30
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:30
Speaker 2: This is Jennifer from the Heartbew Foundation here with Recovery Chronicles.
0:35
Speaker 2: And today we have an extra special guest, and that
0:39
Speaker 2: is Liz. She is a counselor with the Heartbew Foundation
0:42
Speaker 2: and she is going to be the Recovery Chronicles new host.
0:46
Speaker 1: Good morning, Liz.
0:49
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, good morning.
0:51
Speaker 2: Good morning, good afternoon. We're excited to have you as
0:54
Speaker 2: the new host. Do you wanna tell us a little
0:58
Speaker 2: bit about yourself?
1:00
Speaker 3: So, I'm Liz Thompson. I was born and raised in
1:04
Speaker 3: South Dakota. I moved to North Dakota to ten years
1:10
Speaker 3: ago today actually to be with my now wife and
1:17
Speaker 3: I In December, I celebrated eleven years sober.
1:22
Speaker 1: Congratulations, thank you.
1:26
Speaker 3: And so just kind of using this as my next
1:29
Speaker 3: adventure for the recovery community to you know, advance my
1:34
Speaker 3: career do all of those things. I'm very passionate about
1:39
Speaker 3: recovery and being sober and learning new tools to stay sober.
1:45
Speaker 3: I think it's important to continue to learn all kinds
1:49
Speaker 3: of new things, whether or not you have a substance
1:51
Speaker 3: use disorder or not, it's important to continue to learn
1:56
Speaker 3: and expand.
1:57
Speaker 2: Your knowledge base and right, yeah, for sure. So how
2:03
Speaker 2: long have you been in the diction counselor list.
2:05
Speaker 3: I have been an addiction counselor. I've been licensed for
2:10
Speaker 3: almost two years. I have been with Harbew for May
2:14
Speaker 3: will be two years.
2:15
Speaker 2: I did.
2:17
Speaker 3: My internship with Harpew and then was hired on with Harpbew.
2:22
Speaker 3: I don't know if they're going to get rid of me.
2:24
Speaker 2: I don't think so. So tell us a little bit
2:29
Speaker 2: about your story.
2:32
Speaker 3: So I started drinking when I was fifteen. Started off,
2:39
Speaker 3: you know, very innocently, if you will. I'm from a
2:42
Speaker 3: semi small town in South Dakota, so it was very
2:45
Speaker 3: normal for high school kids, you know, fifteen sixteen year
2:49
Speaker 3: old to drink. It's kind of part of the culture.
2:54
Speaker 3: And then that developed into my inhibitions are lowered, so
3:01
Speaker 3: let's try marijuana, and that was fun, and drinking helped
3:08
Speaker 3: me kind of come out of my shell and be
3:12
Speaker 3: who I wanted to be. I could flirt with girls
3:16
Speaker 3: and nobody, you know, would think anything of it. And
3:19
Speaker 3: then the next day when somebody would say something, oh,
3:21
Speaker 3: I didn't, I was just drunk. And so I used
3:26
Speaker 3: that as a coping skill to fill this void that
3:32
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that I had. I grew up
3:36
Speaker 3: in I hate this word, but very normal household. I
3:42
Speaker 3: Neither one of my parents drank, We went to church
3:45
Speaker 3: every Sunday. I had two sisters. And then the drinking
3:52
Speaker 3: really kind of took off, and that became my primary
3:57
Speaker 3: focus of everything. School didn't matter, sports didn't matter, reading
4:04
Speaker 3: didn't matter. None of the things that I enjoyed mattered anymore.
4:08
Speaker 3: It was all about drinking and then smoking marijuana, and
4:13
Speaker 3: then that turned into what else can I do? What
4:20
Speaker 3: else can I experiment with? And that turned into oh,
4:24
Speaker 3: I can put prescriptions up my nose, or I can
4:29
Speaker 3: take a handful of prescription medications and get the same effect.
4:36
Speaker 3: So I continued, and I continued to drink and party
4:45
Speaker 3: and do all of those ridiculous things, even though I
4:48
Speaker 3: was put on probation when I was sixteen for truancy,
4:53
Speaker 3: because school just did not matter anymore to me. I
4:57
Speaker 3: didn't care that I wasn't going to school. I didn't
4:59
Speaker 3: care that my parents could potentially get in trouble because
5:02
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to school. I didn't care the way
5:06
Speaker 3: that it was affecting my sisters and putting strain on
5:12
Speaker 3: home life. I just I didn't care about any of
5:15
Speaker 3: it anymore. So I continued to drink into but then
5:24
Speaker 3: I focused on school, but I still drank. So I
5:30
Speaker 3: was a model probation student whatever you call it, because
5:36
Speaker 3: I did start going to school because I had to
5:40
Speaker 3: otherwise I was going to wind up in juvenile detention center.
5:44
Speaker 3: And that's not any fun either, going to jail, even
5:47
Speaker 3: at sixteen. And so then I got off of probation
5:59
Speaker 3: my senior year, and then I didn't have anything tying
6:04
Speaker 3: me to school anymore. So three months before I was
6:07
Speaker 3: supposed to graduate, I actually dropped out of high school
6:11
Speaker 3: because I'm smart, right, good.
6:14
Speaker 1: Good adolescent decision making right there.
6:17
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, as an adult, it's easy to look back
6:20
Speaker 2: and be like, why would you do that?
6:22
Speaker 1: But I'm sure at the time you were the smartest, And.
6:26
Speaker 3: Yeah I had. I had life all figured out. I
6:28
Speaker 3: could drink and do drugs, and who needed school because
6:33
Speaker 3: I could work some dead end job that didn't matter,
6:37
Speaker 3: So I didn't need high school right by.
6:40
Speaker 2: Yeout, Yeah, pretty normal adolescent thinking they're not thinking too
6:48
Speaker 2: far into the future.
6:50
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And now, having gone through school and learning
6:54
Speaker 3: about brain development and all of those things, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay,
6:58
Speaker 3: my brain was nowhere developed when I was making that
7:01
Speaker 3: decision at eighteen, even though the entire world now told
7:05
Speaker 3: me that I was an adult, right and I'm not.
7:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, but try telling an eighteen year old that they
7:12
Speaker 2: don't know what they're talking about.
7:15
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
7:16
Speaker 1: And I all knew what we were. We were all
7:18
Speaker 1: perfect when we were eighteen.
7:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we were you know, we were grown up,
7:23
Speaker 3: made great day. Sorry, I interrupted, Oh that's okay, Yeah,
7:31
Speaker 3: you dropped out a yeah. I dropped out of high
7:35
Speaker 3: school and worked dead end jobs that didn't matter, and
7:42
Speaker 3: continued to drink and experiment with all kinds of different
7:47
Speaker 3: drugs that my friends were, you know, influencing me. It's
7:53
Speaker 3: that kind of old adage. Who you hang around with
7:56
Speaker 3: and who you associate with matters. But again, you couldn't
7:59
Speaker 3: tell me that as a very young adult. And then
8:06
Speaker 3: when I was twenty one, my dad took his own life,
8:13
Speaker 3: and so that really added fuel to that fire of
8:18
Speaker 3: substance abuse that I didn't even know was raging within me.
8:24
Speaker 3: So I got angry, and I was angry all the
8:29
Speaker 3: time at absolutely everything and everyone. And so then when
8:35
Speaker 3: I was under the influence, it was even worse. I
8:40
Speaker 3: got into fights with strangers, I got into fights with
8:43
Speaker 3: my family, I got into fights with friends, and people
8:49
Speaker 3: now are like, I can't really picture you as an angrier.
8:52
Speaker 4: You're like the seat is very thin, so it's just yeah,
9:00
Speaker 4: and it's funny, like even looking back at it, I'm like,
9:03
Speaker 4: my goodness, I was.
9:07
Speaker 3: I was gonna turn everywhere into fight club, and I
9:10
Speaker 3: didn't care. So I continued on that path. And I
9:19
Speaker 3: didn't care whether or not I wound up in jail.
9:23
Speaker 3: I didn't care if my family had to bury somebody else.
9:29
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't care that my sisters could potentially
9:32
Speaker 3: have to bury their sister, or that my mom could
9:35
Speaker 3: potentially have to bury a child. So I continued to
9:39
Speaker 3: drink and use and do all of these ridiculous things
9:46
Speaker 3: of lying to not only to my family, lying to
9:50
Speaker 3: myself about well, I don't have a problem. My biggest
9:55
Speaker 3: excuse was, well, alcoholics and addicts have been using for
9:59
Speaker 3: the last thirty years and I haven't even been alive
10:02
Speaker 3: that long. It was kind of that stigma of you know,
10:06
Speaker 3: an alcoholic hero an addict is a bomb that lives
10:09
Speaker 3: on the street with a brown paper bag and has
10:13
Speaker 3: lost absolutely everything in their entire life. Well, I hadn't.
10:17
Speaker 3: My family was still there. They hadn't given up on me,
10:21
Speaker 3: even though they should have. I still am so thankful
10:26
Speaker 3: that my family didn't ever reach that point of giving
10:29
Speaker 3: up on me and never once had to give me
10:35
Speaker 3: kind of an ultimatum of if you don't stop, then
10:40
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to have to do, or
10:42
Speaker 3: anything like that. They I mean, they did not invite
10:47
Speaker 3: me to things and things like that because they knew
10:50
Speaker 3: that I would be under the influence. And I thought
10:53
Speaker 3: that I was lying. I could hide it. Everybody does,
10:59
Speaker 3: you know, year in that stage where it's like, no,
11:03
Speaker 3: I'm not drinking, I'm not drunk, not high, I'm this
11:09
Speaker 3: is just me how I am, and it's not. And
11:15
Speaker 3: the worst part about it was it was my own
11:19
Speaker 3: voice that was lying to me. It was my own
11:22
Speaker 3: voice that was telling me that I wasn't good enough,
11:26
Speaker 3: or that I wasn't smart enough, that whatever the case was.
11:33
Speaker 3: And then it was telling me that I could function.
11:37
Speaker 3: I could function under the influence, I could work under
11:40
Speaker 3: the influence. I could be around my niece under the
11:44
Speaker 3: influence and it not affect her. That was a lie,
11:52
Speaker 3: and I told myself that I didn't care if my
11:58
Speaker 3: mom had to bury me. I got into a really
12:03
Speaker 3: dark place where I didn't care if I lived or died.
12:07
Speaker 3: I never actively tried to take my own life, but
12:12
Speaker 3: I really didn't care if I just went to bed
12:14
Speaker 3: and didn't wake up the next morning. And it started
12:19
Speaker 3: to get really scary towards probably twenty four twenty five,
12:25
Speaker 3: where I was blacking out and would drive home and
12:32
Speaker 3: have no recollection of driving home, but I would get
12:36
Speaker 3: home and my car would be outside, or I would
12:41
Speaker 3: wind up somewhere that I had no idea where it was,
12:44
Speaker 3: wind up with people that I didn't know who they were,
12:49
Speaker 3: and again I didn't care. The only thing that I
12:53
Speaker 3: cared about was that I was filling that void that
12:56
Speaker 3: things were missing, and that I didn't have to feel
13:01
Speaker 3: the grief and loss of having my dad died by suicide.
13:09
Speaker 3: I was twenty one when that happened, and I was
13:13
Speaker 3: Daddy's little girl, so it was devastating to all of
13:17
Speaker 3: a sudden not have him there right. And then when
13:23
Speaker 3: I finally got sober, I was twenty six. I wound
13:31
Speaker 3: up Christmas Eve. I wound up in a snow bank,
13:34
Speaker 3: and I almost froze to death. It was I mean,
13:39
Speaker 3: South Dakota is very much like Not Dakota on on
13:43
Speaker 3: Christmas time, where it's cold and it's there's snow. And
13:48
Speaker 3: I wound up across town from the last place that
13:50
Speaker 3: I remember being at, and I still, eleven years later,
13:55
Speaker 3: don't know how I got there, sure, and I had
13:59
Speaker 3: punched a really good friend of mine in the face
14:02
Speaker 3: and gave him one heck of a black eye. Still
14:08
Speaker 3: don't remember doing that, and called my mom, because when
14:16
Speaker 3: you wake up in a snowbank, who else do you call? Okay,
14:21
Speaker 3: you call your mom when you're in trouble. So I
14:24
Speaker 3: called my mom and she came picked me up. And
14:28
Speaker 3: then I called a good friend of mine who was
14:34
Speaker 3: three months sober at the time. And for some reason,
14:39
Speaker 3: when it's four in the morning on Christmas morning and
14:42
Speaker 3: you are so intoxicated that you can't even hardly tell
14:46
Speaker 3: anybody your name, and you call somebody that's sober, they
14:50
Speaker 3: don't really like that. I can't really imagine why. So
14:58
Speaker 3: then he yelled at me on the phone for two
15:02
Speaker 3: hours because I woke him up in the middle of
15:05
Speaker 3: the night for something ridiculous, and he had offered to
15:11
Speaker 3: take me to a meeting on Christmas Day. So I
15:19
Speaker 3: agreed under the influence, because that's what you do when
15:25
Speaker 3: somebody's hollering at you. You agree to whatever they want.
15:28
Speaker 5: To do, sir.
15:32
Speaker 1: And so.
15:35
Speaker 3: He fully expected me to not answer my phone the
15:39
Speaker 3: next day when he called, but I did and I don't.
15:42
Speaker 3: I still don't know why I did. That's absurd.
15:48
Speaker 1: On Christmas Day? What a better day to start?
15:50
Speaker 5: Yeah.
15:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as we're walking into that very first AA
15:55
Speaker 3: meeting that I ever went to in my hometown, I'm
15:58
Speaker 3: thinking to myself, all, my who does this? Who goes
16:03
Speaker 3: to their first meeting on Christmas Day? And I tried
16:07
Speaker 3: to turn around and walk out, and I was told
16:11
Speaker 3: that I needed to go in, sit down, and shut
16:13
Speaker 3: my mouth and listen because he was not having any
16:19
Speaker 3: of my bs. He was over it. So I went in.
16:27
Speaker 3: I and when they asked if anybody was there for
16:31
Speaker 3: their first meeting, I wasn't going to say anything and
16:35
Speaker 3: got a nice sharp jab to the ribs.
16:40
Speaker 1: Hey he sounds like a good friend.
16:42
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, he absolutely is. And we used together, we
16:50
Speaker 3: drank together, we got high together, and now we are
16:53
Speaker 3: sober together. And it's been this kind of amazing journey
16:59
Speaker 3: together that we've been able to see each other in
17:02
Speaker 3: active addiction and now in recovery together. And so that
17:08
Speaker 3: was that was the turning point for me, is I
17:11
Speaker 3: realized that I did care. I cared a lot, and
17:19
Speaker 3: I was so scared that I was going to wind
17:22
Speaker 3: up in prison or dead, because if you are in
17:28
Speaker 3: active addiction, there's three ways that it ends. You Either
17:31
Speaker 3: get sober, you wind up incarcerated, or you wind up dead.
17:36
Speaker 3: Those were my three options at that point. And I
17:41
Speaker 3: decided that I was going to get sober. And I
17:45
Speaker 3: had people tell me that if you know, stick it
17:48
Speaker 3: out for three months and then if you decide that
17:53
Speaker 3: you hate it, we'll give you all your misery back. Sure, okay,
18:00
Speaker 3: And I still kind of had that attitude of well,
18:03
Speaker 3: alcoholics and addicts have been drinking for thirty years and
18:06
Speaker 3: I have not been alive that long. Sure, So I
18:10
Speaker 3: stayed and I found my first sponsor, who ironically enough,
18:15
Speaker 3: was even younger than I was at the time, and
18:18
Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, maybe maybe you don't have to lose
18:24
Speaker 3: absolutely everything. And I had so many people that did
18:28
Speaker 3: lose everything tell me that they wish that they'd figured
18:33
Speaker 3: it out when I did, sure, because then they didn't
18:37
Speaker 3: have to I didn't have to go through the heartache
18:39
Speaker 3: that they went through, and I learned from them, and
18:42
Speaker 3: I took those stories into consideration that my family was
18:46
Speaker 3: still standing by my side, My mom still loved me.
18:50
Speaker 3: She didn't have to put those hard boundaries in place
18:53
Speaker 3: where she was choosing hard love with her daughter, because
18:58
Speaker 3: I can't imagine having to put that boundary in place
19:01
Speaker 3: with a child of either you get sober or I'm
19:06
Speaker 3: not going to be in your life. So it was okay,
19:12
Speaker 3: I'll stick around for a little while and kind of
19:14
Speaker 3: see how things go. And then the point for me
19:23
Speaker 3: that really kind of solidified that I was doing good
19:28
Speaker 3: things was when I was making kool aid in the
19:32
Speaker 3: kitchen at my older sister's house and her ten year
19:36
Speaker 3: old daughter came out, gave me a hug and told
19:40
Speaker 3: me thank you, and I thought she was thanking me
19:43
Speaker 3: for making more kool aid, and so I'm like, what,
19:46
Speaker 3: I always make more kool aid when I drink kool
19:49
Speaker 3: aid with you guys over here, and she's like, no,
19:52
Speaker 3: for not drinking beer, and my heart shattered, and I
19:57
Speaker 3: knew in that moment that she had been way more
20:01
Speaker 3: affected by my drinking than I could have ever imagined. Yeah.
20:10
Speaker 3: And then my younger sister in that time period too,
20:16
Speaker 3: had had her first baby, and after I got sober,
20:22
Speaker 3: she was comfortable leaving her daughter in my care, sure,
20:26
Speaker 3: which would have never happened had I not been sober.
20:31
Speaker 3: She would have never trusted me. Right, And then I
20:39
Speaker 3: was just about a year sober when I met my
20:42
Speaker 3: now wife and made this insane decision to move to
20:48
Speaker 3: North Dakota.
20:51
Speaker 1: At least it was only from South Dakota, so we're warrim.
20:54
Speaker 3: Then we'd really have.
20:55
Speaker 1: To question me.
20:56
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So I mean it's basically we like to
21:02
Speaker 3: say and argue, you know, there are two Dakota's, but
21:04
Speaker 3: I mean they're basically the same thing. There's really not
21:09
Speaker 3: much different they did used.
21:12
Speaker 1: To be only one Dakota.
21:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be fair, they're getting and right off the bat,
21:20
Speaker 3: from the time that we got together, she encouraged me
21:27
Speaker 3: to go to school, and I thought that she had
21:31
Speaker 3: totally lost her marbles because I was a high school dropout.
21:34
Speaker 3: With my ged I hated high school. I mean, I
21:38
Speaker 3: don't know anybody that says high school is the best
21:40
Speaker 3: years of your life. Was never a high school girl,
21:46
Speaker 3: because that's torture. And I fought it for so long
21:54
Speaker 3: because that voice was still in my head. My voice
21:59
Speaker 3: was still in my head, even though I was sober
22:02
Speaker 3: and had worked on a lot of different things. I
22:05
Speaker 3: had worked on mental health and grief and loss and
22:10
Speaker 3: my confidence and could talk to people again. When I
22:13
Speaker 3: first got sober, I couldn't hardly talk to anybody. I
22:16
Speaker 3: walked out of a gas station because the lady working
22:19
Speaker 3: said good morning, and I didn't know what to do
22:23
Speaker 3: because I wasn't under the influence. How do I interact
22:27
Speaker 3: with people? Sure, I don't know. And so it was,
22:34
Speaker 3: you know. She encouraged, pushed at some point for me
22:39
Speaker 3: to go back to school, and I kept fighting it
22:43
Speaker 3: and fighting it because there's no way that I'm smart
22:47
Speaker 3: enough to go to school. There's no way that I
22:51
Speaker 3: can be a college graduate. It's not going to happen.
22:57
Speaker 3: And then, spontaneously, after we got married in September of
23:06
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, I decided, what's the worst that could happen
23:13
Speaker 3: if I applied for school. I don't get in, okay,
23:18
Speaker 3: then I'm not out anything.
23:22
Speaker 1: Much to my.
23:23
Speaker 3: Surprise, I did get into BSc and then it was like, oh,
23:32
Speaker 3: what did I just do? And I started taking classes
23:42
Speaker 3: and it was nothing like high school. People were nice,
23:48
Speaker 3: you're right, and people were encouraging, and it didn't matter
23:53
Speaker 3: that some of the kids that I was in class
23:57
Speaker 3: with were ten years younger than me. Sure, they didn't care.
24:05
Speaker 5: So then.
24:08
Speaker 3: I made that jump. I went to school and I
24:13
Speaker 3: got my associates degree, and then I went on to
24:17
Speaker 3: Mie Not State to get my bachelor's degree in addiction studies,
24:21
Speaker 3: and it was like, Oh my gosh, what is even happening.
24:26
Speaker 3: It was just kind of this wild ride of working
24:32
Speaker 3: every other weekend, every other holiday evenings, not really having
24:36
Speaker 3: a relationship with my wife, sacrificing a lot, and she
24:42
Speaker 3: was the entire time. She was just along for the ride.
24:48
Speaker 3: And so then I graduated from college and that was
24:56
Speaker 3: the first time that I got to walk across that
24:57
Speaker 3: stage and get my diploma. Was it was so wild
25:02
Speaker 3: that I even did it. And then I started my
25:09
Speaker 3: internship with Harview and I remember walking into CAROLEE. Harper's
25:18
Speaker 3: office shaking because what am I even doing? Can I
25:27
Speaker 3: even help anybody?
25:31
Speaker 1: Sure?
25:32
Speaker 3: What the heck do I know? Yeah, I all of
25:36
Speaker 3: a sudden had this imposter syndrome of Okay, well I
25:39
Speaker 3: know these things, but now I'm supposed to be an
25:42
Speaker 3: adult and put them into practice. Who gave me this degree?
25:51
Speaker 3: And so I started in my internship and Heartview right
25:57
Speaker 3: off the bat was amazing. They they were encouraging and
26:04
Speaker 3: helped every step of the way. Any questions that I
26:06
Speaker 3: ever had, I've never been afraid to reach out and
26:10
Speaker 3: ask questions with Harview or and I've never been afraid
26:15
Speaker 3: to hide that I'm in recovery or felt like I
26:19
Speaker 3: needed to. It was encouraged that I share that, you know,
26:25
Speaker 3: obviously in appropriate situations. I don't walk up to everybody
26:27
Speaker 3: I met. Hi, I'm Liz, and I'm an alcoholist.
26:33
Speaker 2: Honestly, Harview is one of the only places that even
26:36
Speaker 2: doing that might not be that weird, right, Yeah, They
26:40
Speaker 2: probably would just be like.
26:42
Speaker 3: Okay, did you need something?
26:47
Speaker 5: We can help you?
26:51
Speaker 3: And so it was. It was just kind of this
26:56
Speaker 3: insane ride of addiction and depression and anxiety and then
27:05
Speaker 3: going to being sober, and the first part of my
27:09
Speaker 3: sobriety was still depression and anxiety and figuring out what
27:16
Speaker 3: do I do? Sure I don't even know who I am.
27:21
Speaker 3: I don't know what I like. I don't know anything
27:25
Speaker 3: really about myself. So it was discovering who I am,
27:28
Speaker 3: the things that I enjoy, the things that I don't enjoy.
27:31
Speaker 3: And that's one of the beautiful parts of recovery is
27:34
Speaker 3: you get to kind of experience those things that people
27:38
Speaker 3: naturally as they grow learn about themselves. Well, when you
27:42
Speaker 3: add substances in there, then you don't do that. Sure
27:47
Speaker 3: and heart view has always encouraged that, which I have
27:54
Speaker 3: appreciated because I'm not great at self care and I
28:00
Speaker 3: have a tendency to put everybody else's needs above my own.
28:03
Speaker 3: So then it's no, you need to take care of
28:06
Speaker 3: you too, sir. So take that vacation, you know, do
28:14
Speaker 3: some of those awesome things, and then come back and
28:17
Speaker 3: tell us about it.
28:18
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah.
28:23
Speaker 3: And I was told at the beginning of my recovery
28:27
Speaker 3: that I had been given this beautiful gift and in
28:30
Speaker 3: order to keep it, I had to give it away,
28:34
Speaker 3: which sounds insane. It's mine. I don't want to give
28:40
Speaker 3: it away. I want to keep it. It's mine. And
28:45
Speaker 3: when you are in that selfish mindset of know everything
28:50
Speaker 3: that I have I'm going to keep. I didn't understand
28:54
Speaker 3: really what they meant by giving it away. And so
28:59
Speaker 3: then that when my wife started to push me and
29:02
Speaker 3: encourage me, push me to go to school, then it
29:08
Speaker 3: really clicked for me that what better way to give
29:14
Speaker 3: away this beautiful gift of sobriety and recovery that I've
29:17
Speaker 3: been given than in a professional capacity. And I'm not
29:23
Speaker 3: discrediting the counselors that haven't ever been in recovery, because
29:29
Speaker 3: I work with some amazing counselors that it's touched their
29:33
Speaker 3: lives in other ways, ways that I can't understand because
29:37
Speaker 3: I am the addict in my family. I mean, I
29:41
Speaker 3: also have people in my family that do suffer from
29:43
Speaker 3: substance use disorders, but I haven't dealt with it and
29:46
Speaker 3: not understood both sides of it, sure, instead of just
29:52
Speaker 3: the hurt and the anger that comes with why can't
29:58
Speaker 3: you just stop? Why can't you just get sober? Why
30:03
Speaker 3: is my love for my brother or my sister, my mom,
30:07
Speaker 3: my dad, whoever it is, my best friend be enough
30:12
Speaker 3: for them to want to be sober? I haven't without
30:16
Speaker 3: knowing the addiction side of it too. I haven't known
30:19
Speaker 3: that that hurt and that pain, right, So that was
30:24
Speaker 3: really kind of That turning point for me when I
30:27
Speaker 3: applied to school at BC was this is what they
30:33
Speaker 3: were talking about. This is what they meant by giving
30:37
Speaker 3: it away, that you have to share it. You have
30:42
Speaker 3: to be that beacon of light in the darkness, because
30:48
Speaker 3: act of addiction is dark and it's scary and if
30:52
Speaker 3: and you feel so alone, and then you get sober,
30:55
Speaker 3: and you feel even more alone because now all of
30:58
Speaker 3: a sudden, you can't hang out with people that you
31:00
Speaker 3: used to hang out with, You can't go to the
31:02
Speaker 3: same places that you used to go to, you can't
31:07
Speaker 3: do the things that you were doing while you were
31:10
Speaker 3: drinking and using, because if you continue to associate with
31:15
Speaker 3: those same people in those same places, you're gonna fall
31:18
Speaker 3: right back into there, into those patterns. So then it
31:23
Speaker 3: was how do I make friends to start over? Yeah? Yeah,
31:31
Speaker 3: And you realize I had these people that I thought
31:35
Speaker 3: were my friends that as soon as I got sober,
31:39
Speaker 3: they abandoned me because I wasn't fun anymore. I wasn't drinking,
31:45
Speaker 3: I wasn't getting high, I wasn't partying and doing all
31:49
Speaker 3: these ridiculous things anymore. So then it was okay, how
31:55
Speaker 3: do I So then you throw yourself into this almost
32:00
Speaker 3: depression of loneliness because you were alone in your active
32:07
Speaker 3: addiction and drinking. But you are surrounded by people, right,
32:12
Speaker 3: and now you are alone because you have to make
32:17
Speaker 3: new friends. You have to make those new connections. And
32:22
Speaker 3: so I started diving into AA meetings and going to
32:29
Speaker 3: sober activities and going to concerts. Sober and music is
32:36
Speaker 3: my happy place. It's what my lights, my soul on fire.
32:40
Speaker 3: And going to a concert and actually waking up the
32:43
Speaker 3: next day and remembering the whole thing, okay, was awesome.
32:50
Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, so this is you know, these
32:55
Speaker 3: are things that I can still do. And that scared
32:59
Speaker 3: me because I was told that I, you know, don't
33:04
Speaker 3: associate with alcohol. While alcohol's everywhere's.
33:09
Speaker 1: Hard to get away from, so sary yup.
33:12
Speaker 3: And restaurants and unless you go to fast food and
33:17
Speaker 3: movies TV, it doesn't matter, it's there, right. And so
33:24
Speaker 3: I changed everything and I found new friends.
33:29
Speaker 5: I moved three hours away from home, right, But it
33:37
Speaker 5: was those were the best decisions that I could have
33:40
Speaker 5: ever made.
33:41
Speaker 3: And I get asked as a counselor now with my
33:47
Speaker 3: group and things like that, if I would ever change it,
33:52
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't. I would not. I would not change
33:55
Speaker 3: my worst day in recovery for my best day in
34:00
Speaker 3: act of addiction. Right, And I've gone through I've gone
34:06
Speaker 3: through grief and loss in recovery. I got married, I
34:12
Speaker 3: graduated from college, and those were all things that were
34:17
Speaker 3: possible because I got sober.
34:21
Speaker 1: Right.
34:22
Speaker 2: So a lot of times when I talk to people
34:26
Speaker 2: about their story, I do hear like, you know that
34:30
Speaker 2: they hit rock bottom, or like they had to want
34:34
Speaker 2: to become sober. But I think yours is interesting because
34:37
Speaker 2: you're almost like bullied into becoming sober. Yeah, So I
34:43
Speaker 2: feel like that's a good story to share, because I
34:48
Speaker 2: do when I hear from family members, you know, sometimes
34:52
Speaker 2: there is that attitude like that the person has to
34:54
Speaker 2: hit rock bottom, but like you say, you didn't necessarily
34:58
Speaker 2: hopefully it was your rock bottom, but.
35:03
Speaker 3: But you.
35:04
Speaker 1: Were able to be persuaded by someone who cared about you.
35:08
Speaker 3: I was, and I know that. Yeah, that's part of
35:12
Speaker 3: when I tell people those things, They're like, well, what
35:16
Speaker 3: was your rock bottom? My rock bottom was that it
35:21
Speaker 3: scared me to death that I woke up in that
35:24
Speaker 3: snow bank and you know, below zero temperatures, shoes on
35:29
Speaker 3: no socks, no coat, soaked to the bone. Right, I
35:36
Speaker 3: easily could have not survived that moment.
35:39
Speaker 1: Right.
35:41
Speaker 3: And there was a lot of external motivations for me
35:46
Speaker 3: in the beginning of Okay, well, now my family knows
35:49
Speaker 3: that I'm sober and that I'm not drinking, so if
35:52
Speaker 3: I go back to drinking, I'm gonna let them down.
35:56
Speaker 3: And people around me kept telling me what an awesome
35:59
Speaker 3: super date that I have because my sobriety date is
36:02
Speaker 3: Christmas Day, sure, and so I was like, oh, okay, well,
36:07
Speaker 3: I can't let these people down. So those were my
36:11
Speaker 3: motivators of not letting my family down again and not
36:18
Speaker 3: throwing away my Christmas Day sobriety date, which then morphed
36:25
Speaker 3: into I feel good. Right, I can look myself in
36:31
Speaker 3: the eye in the mirror and not want to crawl
36:35
Speaker 3: out of my skin. I can sit in silence and
36:39
Speaker 3: not want to crawl out of my skin or have
36:44
Speaker 3: the need to have background noise. I'm okay to sit
36:48
Speaker 3: with just me, because unfortunately, when I'm in my own head,
36:54
Speaker 3: I can't leave me in my office at work and
36:58
Speaker 3: then go home. I go with me. So it did.
37:05
Speaker 3: It was very much so, and I tell people all
37:09
Speaker 3: the time in groups, and like when I meet with
37:12
Speaker 3: family members too, it's okay for them to have those
37:15
Speaker 3: external motivators and to not be able to find those
37:20
Speaker 3: internal motivators right away. They come with learning tools and
37:27
Speaker 3: figuring out how to be okay with yourself one of
37:32
Speaker 3: the biggest challenges for me, and I will always love
37:37
Speaker 3: and hate my very first sponsor for these things. She
37:41
Speaker 3: anytime I went to her with a problem, it was
37:44
Speaker 3: did you pray about it? You can go find someplace
37:49
Speaker 3: else in this entire world to be other than right
37:51
Speaker 3: here right now, Because no, I did not. Because whoever
37:57
Speaker 3: is out there, whatever is out there that's bigger than me,
38:00
Speaker 3: has a lightning bulb with my name on it. They're
38:02
Speaker 3: gonna strike me down as soon as I opened that door.
38:08
Speaker 3: And then she challenged me to look myself in the
38:12
Speaker 3: eye every day and say I love you.
38:16
Speaker 2: God.
38:17
Speaker 3: It was awful at first. No, that was like torture.
38:24
Speaker 3: It was warfare of oh my nope. And I would
38:32
Speaker 3: go into the bathroom and I would be all ready
38:34
Speaker 3: to do it, and I'd look myself in the eye,
38:36
Speaker 3: turn around and walk out, and I wouldn't do it.
38:38
Speaker 3: And then I worked up the courage to do it,
38:40
Speaker 3: and it felt so uncomfortable. I've never felt so uncomfortable
38:44
Speaker 3: before in my entire life. Then I did that first
38:48
Speaker 3: time that I actually looked myself in the eye and
38:50
Speaker 3: said I love you. And then the more I did it,
38:54
Speaker 3: the more natural it became, and and then I started
39:00
Speaker 3: to believe it. And then there wasn't my voice nearly
39:05
Speaker 3: as loud in my head saying that I'm not good enough,
39:09
Speaker 3: I can't do anything, that I'm always going to be
39:13
Speaker 3: a failure to my family, to whoever is in my life.
39:20
Speaker 3: And that was another kind of turning point for me
39:24
Speaker 3: of Okay, I can't just take away the substances and
39:31
Speaker 3: throw myself into AA meetings. I also need to work
39:36
Speaker 3: on my mental health too. So then I found mental
39:42
Speaker 3: health counselor that was absolutely wonderful and helped me work
39:48
Speaker 3: through all of these things and let me know that
39:52
Speaker 3: it was more people than not in this world have
39:57
Speaker 3: depression and anxiety. It's not something that's wrong with me.
40:03
Speaker 3: It's just something that I have to figure out how
40:06
Speaker 3: to navigate with right, which was very comforting to me
40:11
Speaker 3: because I did feel like there was something wrong with me. Right,
40:15
Speaker 3: and then she also helped me work through my grief
40:20
Speaker 3: and loss and the suicide of my dad and all
40:26
Speaker 3: of the awful things that come with losing somebody that
40:31
Speaker 3: you love to suicide, right, And I know it first,
40:36
Speaker 3: Even when I first got soldhere, I didn't want to
40:38
Speaker 3: tell people that my dad died by suicide because I
40:42
Speaker 3: can't tell people that because then if I tell people that,
40:45
Speaker 3: what are they going to think about me? And now
40:49
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful part of my story that others can
40:55
Speaker 3: learn from, can help heal from, instead of hiding behind it.
41:01
Speaker 3: Because if I'm not willing to talk about these hard
41:05
Speaker 3: things like recovery, mental health issues, suicide, somebody that's been
41:10
Speaker 3: plagued with all of it, who's going to talk about it?
41:13
Speaker 1: Right?
41:16
Speaker 2: So you mentioned your family a little bit, and what
41:19
Speaker 2: were some of the ways they helped you or the
41:22
Speaker 2: clients you work with, Like, what do you see that
41:24
Speaker 2: actually helps family members help their loved one recover?
41:28
Speaker 1: If that makes sense.
41:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, my my little sister, she was always there for
41:38
Speaker 3: So back home, they did birthday celebrations for three months,
41:43
Speaker 3: six months, nine months, and then every year after that,
41:47
Speaker 3: and she was at every single birthday celebration. Where I
41:51
Speaker 3: got a new coin and made it this big deal.
41:56
Speaker 3: She would bake a cake and we would go out
41:58
Speaker 3: for supper and they my mom told me that she
42:04
Speaker 3: was proud of me and that she loved me, and
42:11
Speaker 3: she continued to love me even though I wasn't very lovable.
42:16
Speaker 3: Both of my sisters loved me through some pretty awful
42:19
Speaker 3: times and some pretty ugly things that I did to
42:23
Speaker 3: both of them, and just kind of having that non
42:28
Speaker 3: judgmental support is huge. To remember that they're human and
42:37
Speaker 3: they are still a loved one, and that when I
42:42
Speaker 3: work with families with clients through work and things, that's
42:47
Speaker 3: one thing that I try to encourage them to remember
42:50
Speaker 3: is that they are still your mom, your dad, your son,
42:56
Speaker 3: your daughter, your sibling, your spouse, because I've worked with
43:01
Speaker 3: spouses too that you know, it's how do I support
43:05
Speaker 3: them without enabling them and encouraging them to go back
43:10
Speaker 3: to their using, Offer to learn a new hobby together,
43:18
Speaker 3: offer to do random even going grocery shopping and doing
43:25
Speaker 3: some of those kind of mundane things that people forget
43:30
Speaker 3: about doing during active addiction. Paying bills. I didn't know
43:36
Speaker 3: how to pay bills and being patient. It's you know,
43:43
Speaker 3: I know that it's hard I do. I totally understand
43:47
Speaker 3: that it's hard and it's heartbreaking, but coming out the
43:52
Speaker 3: other side is is so incredible and watching that transformation,
44:00
Speaker 3: and I tell my families that I work with to
44:03
Speaker 3: just kind of hang on for the ride, because I
44:07
Speaker 3: promised that you are going to see this light come
44:11
Speaker 3: back that hasn't been there for years, probably right, And
44:17
Speaker 3: that has been one of the aside from my recovery.
44:23
Speaker 3: Then having family members hug me and tell me that
44:27
Speaker 3: they got their loved one back. That's been the greatest
44:31
Speaker 3: gift that I've been given as a counselor too, And
44:34
Speaker 3: that's my favorite part of recovery is watching people come
44:39
Speaker 3: in and struggle with making eye contact because I was there.
44:42
Speaker 3: I couldn't make eye contact with anyone when I got
44:45
Speaker 3: sober to walking in in our day treatment area saying
44:51
Speaker 3: hi to all the counselors good morning, and smiling and
44:54
Speaker 3: making eye contact and being a little more comfortable with
44:58
Speaker 3: being there. So it's just it's hang on love them,
45:04
Speaker 3: And I know that sometimes that love looks like putting
45:07
Speaker 3: hard boundaries in place where you don't want them around.
45:12
Speaker 3: And trust me, I felt like my family didn't love
45:16
Speaker 3: me when they put some of those hard boundaries in place.
45:19
Speaker 3: But now I know that they did it because they
45:23
Speaker 3: do love me. Had they not loved me, they would
45:27
Speaker 3: have just walked away and not looked back.
45:34
Speaker 2: And well before I get's the next question if anyone
45:38
Speaker 2: listening is in Bismark. We do have a free family
45:40
Speaker 2: program to at Heart View that you can join, and
45:43
Speaker 2: all that information is online.
45:46
Speaker 1: What helps you stay sober today?
45:49
Speaker 3: I use my group as a reminder of the hard
45:56
Speaker 3: things that I went through. I listen to recovery podcasts
46:02
Speaker 3: of you know, listening to people's stories, and it keeps
46:08
Speaker 3: me in check so that I don't get cocky in
46:12
Speaker 3: my recovery and think, oh, I got this right. I
46:15
Speaker 3: can you know I can do this, I can do
46:19
Speaker 3: whatever I want and be fine. Because I can't. I
46:25
Speaker 3: still have to keep that in check and not get
46:30
Speaker 3: over confident and put my recovery on the back burner
46:34
Speaker 3: because anything that I put before my recovery won't last.
46:41
Speaker 2: So last question is if there's someone listening who's dealing
46:45
Speaker 2: with an addiction, what advice would you have for them?
46:50
Speaker 3: Ask for help. I know that it's hard, and I
46:54
Speaker 3: know that it's scary. You're not alone there are so
46:59
Speaker 3: many people out there that care, even people that you
47:03
Speaker 3: don't know yet care. Come to Heartview. We have a
47:11
Speaker 3: wonderful program of all levels of care. We can help
47:16
Speaker 3: get your family involved, we can help get you sober,
47:22
Speaker 3: we can help get you resources. Heart View also has
47:26
Speaker 3: medication assistant treatment options that are available, which is amazing
47:32
Speaker 3: because I'm also a diabetic, so I also at times
47:37
Speaker 3: have needed insulin. It's no different than needing medication to
47:42
Speaker 3: help you maintain sobriety or to get your mental health
47:47
Speaker 3: back on track. It's okay to ask for help. It's
47:51
Speaker 3: okay to come and defeated. We'll hold you up and
47:57
Speaker 3: help get you to a healthy place again.
48:01
Speaker 1: Awesome.
48:01
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Liz, and we are excited to have
48:04
Speaker 2: Liz as the new Recovery Chronicles host and she will
48:08
Speaker 2: be back soon with her first guests.
48:11
Speaker 1: So thank you very much.
48:12
Speaker 3: Thank you,