Latest / Unfiltered: Dare to Level Up / Lynn Zielasko Unfiltered — Episode 1: Raw Recovery on the Pink Couch

Transcript

Lynn Zielasko Unfiltered — Episode 1: Raw Recovery on the Pink Couch · Unfiltered: Dare to Level Up

0:00
Speaker2: I don't even know what I'm doing. Here we go.
0:05
Speaker2: Episode one. Are you ready? I'm ready. Did you think you were going to do this today?
0:09
Speaker0: No.
0:09
Speaker2: No, me either. No.
0:15
Speaker2: This is Lynn Zalasco. Unfiltered. Dare to level up. Episode one.
0:21
Speaker2: I've got Art and Max and Corey.
0:24
Speaker2: Chance the producer. Jeremy's running the camera in the hall.
0:30
Speaker2: So let's do this.
0:34
Speaker2: So I had a vision
0:38
Speaker2: a while ago about what my recovery would look like. And sitting here today in
0:45
Speaker2: this podcast room with a bunch of guys and a bunch of microphones,
0:49
Speaker2: this is not what I envisioned.
0:51
Speaker2: This is not what I envisioned at 7 o'clock this morning, to be quite honest.
0:56
Speaker2: But here we are. And so we're going to talk about what recovery looks like,
1:00
Speaker2: what Battlefield addiction is doing in the state of Washington,
1:05
Speaker2: and maybe how Battlefield and Kennedy's Place will co-conspire.
1:11
Speaker2: So, welcome, Art. Thank you.
1:15
Speaker2: Corey. Thank you. Max.
1:18
Speaker2: Thanks for driving up here from down south, and tell me what you're all about.
1:24
Speaker0: Where to start? um,
1:27
Speaker0: i think a lot like you when you get sober you uh you need something to do you
1:31
Speaker0: know um and you have to reach back and do what you can to help folks and um
1:36
Speaker0: that's how battlefield started just um,
1:39
Speaker0: you know i didn't really have anything else to do um wasn't qualified to do
1:43
Speaker0: anything else but help addicts so um it started there and um moved on to helping
1:48
Speaker0: families and um moved on to housing addicts and helping families and eventually,
1:53
Speaker0: you know, trying to have a say in our political policies in Washington state.
1:58
Speaker0: So, um, those are the three areas we focus on, uh, the addict,
2:03
Speaker0: the family and the community.
2:04
Speaker0: So, um, we're always working on one of those three things, uh,
2:08
Speaker0: with, with what we're doing.
2:10
Speaker0: And today I brought, um, Max Comar who runs my program,
2:15
Speaker0: former college football player former NFL football player,
2:21
Speaker0: went down a road of getting hurt and he'll tell his story maybe and I bought
2:28
Speaker0: Corey Ratliff that's a youngster in recovery and kind of making waves already Corey.
2:36
Speaker2: Went viral he
2:37
Speaker0: Already went viral we just have to knock him down every now and then and tell
2:41
Speaker0: him that he ain't shit pop the big head Yeah.
2:45
Speaker2: We don't want our ego, we gotta keep our ego in our pocket.
2:49
Speaker0: Yeah, he's already think we've made it. So we knock him down a little bit when
2:52
Speaker0: we get a chance, but he's hanging in there. So yeah, that's our team,
2:56
Speaker0: that's what we came down with.
2:59
Speaker2: So what does your program look like?
3:01
Speaker0: Well the program starts with families so families call us and say we have a
3:05
Speaker0: loved one that's struggling and um,
3:08
Speaker0: we take them in for a consultation so we figure out how to intervene figure
3:12
Speaker0: out how to get the addiction to stop figure out how to get the loved one into treatment and um,
3:19
Speaker0: and more than not we we succeed and so what we we kind of have a different motto
3:25
Speaker0: uh with battlefield that we still are old school. We get people sober by any means.
3:30
Speaker0: So, you know, for years we were doing crazy shit, like, you know,
3:34
Speaker0: taking kids' cars away and popping tires and getting them fired for their job
3:38
Speaker0: and, you know, whatever would work back in the day. And we've softened up a
3:42
Speaker0: little bit and got a little more skillful at it, but that's what we do.
3:45
Speaker0: We produce an intervention through family members and through community.
3:50
Speaker0: And once we get that intervention, we figure we have a way better chance of getting someone sober.
3:55
Speaker2: How long have you been doing this?
3:56
Speaker0: 15 years. So 17 years in active addiction and 15 years of helping since the day I got sober, really.
4:04
Speaker0: Started with the contracting business and getting guys work and then it turned
4:09
Speaker0: into housing and then eventually turned more kind of more family orientated.
4:16
Speaker0: So that's what we, that's how we do it. We think the family is the most important
4:20
Speaker0: piece. And no matter where their family comes from or where they come from,
4:24
Speaker0: usually we can reunite that person with their family.
4:27
Speaker2: That's very important.
4:29
Speaker0: Yeah.
4:31
Speaker2: Gaining trust from our loved ones and the people closest to us is...
4:38
Speaker0: Yeah, we still prescribe to some sort of,
4:43
Speaker0: beliefs that maybe, you know, the person would have to be responsible for their life.
4:50
Speaker2: You mean ownership? Yeah, yeah.
4:53
Speaker0: I mean, to be really honest, you'll probably agree with me that no matter what
4:59
Speaker0: the cause of this thing is, and that's why we don't work from the cause.
5:03
Speaker0: I don't understand working from the cause. I understand working from the solution.
5:07
Speaker0: Nobody cares why the roof leaks,
5:09
Speaker0: you fix the roof. Nobody cares why the tire's flat, you fix the tire.
5:13
Speaker0: But it seems that addiction, there's this big focus on the cause and then we're
5:17
Speaker0: supposed to react to that cause.
5:18
Speaker0: Well, the reality is the solution seems to be or seems to be some level of responsibility.
5:24
Speaker0: It seems to be that every single person we know in recovery has an increased
5:29
Speaker0: level of responsibility for their life.
5:30
Speaker0: Starting with the fact they cannot hold a toothbrush or a phone or shoes or,
5:35
Speaker0: anything. But over time, what's increased in that person's life is responsibility.
5:41
Speaker0: So if responsibility is the answer or the solution that we all have,
5:49
Speaker0: then why are we taking it away so much?
5:51
Speaker0: Why are we allowing so much blame and allowing so much, you know,
5:56
Speaker0: so much of it is in the cause.
5:59
Speaker0: So for us, it's, we don't care what guy you hear. This is what's going to get you there.
6:04
Speaker3: We're going to figure out how to get to the next step.
6:07
Speaker0: We're going to get you there. But you're going to have to stop those hands from
6:11
Speaker0: putting those drugs in your mouth.
6:12
Speaker3: You got to. You do. Yeah.
6:14
Speaker0: We don't have anyone that's going to do that for you. The system's not going
6:17
Speaker0: to do it for you. The cop's not going to do it for you.
6:19
Speaker0: Your mom's not going to do it for you. Nobody's going to stop you.
6:21
Speaker0: So only you can stop those hands from putting those drugs in your mouth.
6:26
Speaker0: So we don't know what to tell you, man. We don't know what caused it, but here you are.
6:31
Speaker2: Right creating yeah be a part of the solution not the problem yeah
6:38
Speaker0: No other answer.
6:41
Speaker2: Exactly. Corey, you want to give us your intro?
6:49
Speaker2: Where'd you come from? How'd you get here? How'd you end up on this pink couch?
6:55
Speaker3: So uh yeah man uh my name's corey obviously uh
7:00
Speaker3: i came into this program from another program and before there i was in jail
7:06
Speaker3: um i got out of jail before i got released i got a hold of somebody andrea suarez
7:12
Speaker3: from hope and chance she got me a sober living oh we heart
7:17
Speaker3: Got into their sober living program and was there for a couple months and relapsed,
7:21
Speaker3: overdosed. They discharged me and sent me to Evergreen.
7:25
Speaker3: And it's kind of funny because before I finished treatment, they were trying
7:28
Speaker3: to get me into Kennedy's place out in Arlington.
7:30
Speaker3: Really? And I was like this close to going to Kennedy's place.
7:33
Speaker3: You guys are very highly talked about in treatment programs.
7:37
Speaker3: Well, how cool is that? Yeah, it was actually dope when he said we were coming
7:41
Speaker3: down here because I was like, I almost went there.
7:44
Speaker3: But I got out of treatment, went back to Hope and Chance, and I went to a solutions
7:47
Speaker3: group, which is like first and third Tuesday every month.
7:52
Speaker3: You know, families, communities get together. And so me and my mom showed up
7:55
Speaker3: just to check it out. And after the solutions, I went to thank Art for inviting
8:00
Speaker3: us and shake his hand. He's like, where are you going?
8:04
Speaker3: He's like, go grab your shit right now. You're moving in tonight. I said, what?
8:08
Speaker3: So I moved into Battlefield. field and the next day they had me in the work
8:12
Speaker3: truck out to work you know and the thing is like
8:17
Speaker3: recovery is hard if you don't have some type of schedule or routine and the
8:22
Speaker3: fact that they push going to work and getting that
8:26
Speaker3: that's that responsibility back and and being independent and becoming a human
8:31
Speaker3: person a human being again
8:33
Speaker3: it's huge a lot of programs some won't allow you to get a job for so many months
8:37
Speaker3: you know you got to do nothing but go to class and come home and that's almost like
8:42
Speaker3: sabotage or self-destructive like you can only sit and not do anything for so
8:46
Speaker3: long before you go right back to the same cycle you know
8:50
Speaker3: so i got into battlefield i'm 121 days clean sober now
8:56
Speaker3: and uh things come fast you know and i've just kept an open mind taking the
9:02
Speaker3: suggestions from the people at the house, you know, obviously my thinking got me where I was at.
9:07
Speaker3: So I try to listen to the people around me and, and continue to just go open-minded
9:14
Speaker3: to every situation. I've been learning a lot, you know, and, and, you know,
9:20
Speaker3: Recovery is extremely fun, dude. It's so crazy. I've experienced so many things
9:25
Speaker3: in the past four months that I haven't done in the past 15 years.
9:28
Speaker3: He's got his license. He's got my license.
9:30
Speaker2: How old are you?
9:31
Speaker3: 32.
9:32
Speaker1: First time he's ever had his license. First time. He's got his license. Amazing. This week.
9:35
Speaker0: Not the first time he ever drove a car.
9:37
Speaker2: Of course.
9:39
Speaker1: First time he got his license. I had the theory.
9:40
Speaker3: I was like, you know, they can't suspend a license if you never had one.
9:43
Speaker3: But I found out they suspended it in 2018.
9:47
Speaker3: Interestingly enough. You know. Yeah. It's crazy how that works. It's crazy. It's crazy.
9:52
Speaker3: Life is good. I'm working on getting my older brother into treatment at Evergreen
9:56
Speaker3: where I was at. You know, he's still dealing with the...
9:59
Speaker3: The system and the enabling and it's extremely difficult to even have that thought
10:04
Speaker3: of getting clean when to be a drug addict you can be taken care of 150
10:10
Speaker3: you get your own place to live for free permanent you know
10:14
Speaker3: you get free utensils to get high you get free food anything basically that
10:19
Speaker3: you would have to work for as a human being in life to get somewhere to be stable
10:24
Speaker3: they give you all of that and you expect somebody to be like i don't want to
10:27
Speaker3: stop being a drug addict Like I just got everything taken care of for being a drug addict, you know.
10:31
Speaker3: So I'm trying to help my brother, you know, change that mindset,
10:35
Speaker3: you know, and think of what it feels so good to go and work for something for
10:41
Speaker3: yourself and be proud of yourself for the accomplishments and achievements you're
10:44
Speaker3: making, little or big, you know.
10:46
Speaker3: And so that gives you that feeling of being back to life.
10:50
Speaker2: Self-sufficiency.
10:51
Speaker3: Yeah, hell yeah.
10:52
Speaker2: Yeah, building a life.
10:54
Speaker3: It's an incredible feeling.
10:57
Speaker2: Awesome. Tell me a little bit about your 15 minutes of fame.
11:03
Speaker1: I think it was like 30 seconds.
11:06
Speaker3: I think they gave us like a minute on the mic. But, you know,
11:10
Speaker3: the day before I was with Battlefield at a job and they got a text saying I'm
11:15
Speaker3: not going to work the next day.
11:16
Speaker3: So I thought I was in trouble. I was like, well, I didn't do good at work or
11:19
Speaker3: something. I can't go to work. Yeah, he was slapping.
11:21
Speaker3: No, you're going downtown tomorrow to speak at the city council.
11:25
Speaker3: So I had no idea what it was about. I just was like, okay, I'll check it out.
11:30
Speaker3: So we pick up Andrea and she gives me a five-minute little cap on what we're
11:35
Speaker3: going there for. And it was for harm reduction and drug possession.
11:40
Speaker3: I've been in trouble for those things i've also enjoyed and reaped the benefits
11:44
Speaker3: of those things and it was extremely harmful it didn't really reduce the harm
11:48
Speaker3: and so i just got up there and spoke from the heart
11:53
Speaker3: Of my my side my experience with it and what i felt and and a lot of people
11:59
Speaker3: vibe to it you know it was just coming from the mouth of a homeless drug addict
12:05
Speaker3: you know what i'm saying like
12:07
Speaker3: just telling you what it is it's extremely hard to even think about being clean
12:11
Speaker3: and sober to work successful
12:13
Speaker3: recovery program when one side of the city is giving you all the supplies and
12:18
Speaker3: the housing and the spots to get high and then
12:20
Speaker3: one other side might come and confiscate the pipes and say hey don't do this
12:24
Speaker3: so you're stuck in the middle of one side saying it's okay the other side saying it's not okay and so
12:30
Speaker3: you you learn to to rely on the system like art which talks about,
12:34
Speaker3: you know, that you rely on the system. Systems failed us every time.
12:38
Speaker3: You know, it's just, it's a hard cycle.
12:41
Speaker0: Well, let's also point out that you weren't, that at any point you weren't homeless.
12:45
Speaker0: Yeah. Well, you didn't have a home
12:47
Speaker0: and then lose your home because of addiction. You went to the streets.
12:50
Speaker3: I went, yeah, I loved it.
12:51
Speaker0: Yeah, so you loved the streets.
12:52
Speaker3: I loved the streets. How long were you on the streets? A little over 10 years, about 12 years. And...
13:01
Speaker2: What brought you to the streets?
13:03
Speaker3: I lost an apartment out in Linwood just from bad choices, you know,
13:08
Speaker3: guilty by association with things, people I was around.
13:11
Speaker3: And I started to meet people in the streets from 99 Aurora to Tacoma that I at the time thought,
13:22
Speaker3: There was a family the community the homeless community everybody was always
13:26
Speaker3: shunning and and making us feel like we're less than you know so in the homeless
13:31
Speaker3: community you grouped up and you're like you know we're dealing with the same
13:34
Speaker3: struggles we're there for each other really not like that anymore
13:37
Speaker3: but that's how it was when i first hit the streets and
13:41
Speaker3: the hustle the the you could do whatever you want no responsibility you don't
13:45
Speaker3: got an answer to nobody it's really a childish mindset
13:49
Speaker3: to be like I could do what I want when I want how I want can't nobody tell me
13:52
Speaker3: shit you know and I loved that at first and then the longer I was in it the
13:56
Speaker3: more I lost the more damage I caused to myself my family my loved ones the more
14:00
Speaker3: I distanced myself from the things I love the hobbies the
14:05
Speaker3: The life experiences it was just consistent of 24 hours chasing highs and if
14:10
Speaker3: I didn't have drugs I was doing stupid shit to get them and once they were running low I was back at it.
14:17
Speaker3: You know, it was no rest. You know, I lost my mind, went into drug psychosis.
14:22
Speaker3: You know, my family couldn't recognize me anymore. I lost relationships with people I loved.
14:28
Speaker3: I broke myself. And finally, I've been to jail multiple times.
14:32
Speaker3: But the last time, it was just like, I was there long enough to go through the
14:38
Speaker3: withdrawals to get some time to realize and evaluate, reflect on
14:44
Speaker3: what I was doing, how it affected not just me, but everybody around me and how
14:49
Speaker3: I didn't want to do that anymore.
14:51
Speaker3: So I was fortunate to get a hold of somebody like Andrea and Art when I was
14:56
Speaker3: in that mindset because...
14:59
Speaker3: If I wasn't able to get clean for that amount of time, I would probably still
15:03
Speaker3: be running amok, you know.
15:05
Speaker3: So you have 124 days? 121 today.
15:09
Speaker2: 121 days. So how long have you ever had that much sobriety?
15:13
Speaker3: No, not at all. I was high after fentanyl got super cheap and the pills got cheap.
15:19
Speaker3: When I first started with heroin, I would, you know, be off and on.
15:22
Speaker3: Some weeks I'd go without it. But the most majority of the first,
15:26
Speaker3: like, six years homeless, I was high.
15:28
Speaker3: Majority of the week uh if not every day and then fentanyl and pills were so
15:34
Speaker3: cheap that i didn't withdraw or go without drugs for seven eight years um and so
15:43
Speaker3: hitting jail and cleaning out my system for a month was it was crucial you know uh
15:50
Speaker3: it was it was kind of a shock to be like damn dude this is what it feels like
15:54
Speaker3: to be clear-headed again you know you you really start to feel a little bit
16:00
Speaker3: of shame and guilt like damn dude
16:02
Speaker3: I just fucked so much shit off and I didn't give a fuck I didn't think about it not once
16:08
Speaker3: all the times my mom was calling me and I was like I don't care like whatever
16:12
Speaker3: you know it just didn't affect me I was so numb
16:15
Speaker3: so I appreciate the fact that if I'm sad I could feel it if I'm hurting if I'm
16:20
Speaker3: happy I could feel it those emotions I can feel i can enjoy them whether they're
16:25
Speaker3: good or bad emotions i can feel it and that's it that's so dope to be able to feel that again
16:31
Speaker2: Well, I'm glad. Learning how to navigate through life when life gets a little
16:37
Speaker2: lifey is challenging at times.
16:40
Speaker2: For those of us who, you know, where I'm a serial entrepreneur and I'm always starting things.
16:47
Speaker2: I'm a mom, I'm a grandma. I'm always chasing after that next big thing.
16:51
Speaker2: And, you know, and then, bam, something hits, roadblock, whatever.
16:55
Speaker2: And I'm like, oh, I got to deal with this.
16:59
Speaker2: And I got to deal with this without a bottle of wine. And can I do that,
17:03
Speaker2: you know, three and a half years into my sobriety? And I can,
17:06
Speaker2: but it took a long time to be able to not have that I need to get numb.
17:11
Speaker3: Need the relief.
17:12
Speaker2: I need, yeah, that relief. Because it was important back then.
17:17
Speaker2: It's not important now, but it was then. Mr. Max.
17:23
Speaker1: So, yeah, long story short, I grew up on Lake Tops, Washington. I had one older brother.
17:30
Speaker1: My parents, they were, I'd say were a middle-class family. They both went to
17:36
Speaker1: work every day. I don't think they ever missed a day at work.
17:39
Speaker1: Growing up, I was really into sports. They told me as long as I was into sport,
17:44
Speaker1: I didn't need to work. And as long as my grades were up to par,
17:48
Speaker1: that, you know, they kind of granted me a bunch, a little bit of freedom for my age, I would say.
17:54
Speaker1: So during that time i you know sports is my thing i played football i did track
18:00
Speaker1: i played basketball um baseball was locked in on that you know it was a really hard worker
18:07
Speaker1: in my free time though when i did have free time i liked to party and so i was
18:11
Speaker1: really curious you know at an early age i would say i was trying some things
18:15
Speaker1: that most kids weren't you know but you know i still was keeping my priorities in order um
18:22
Speaker1: Became pretty good at football, and that kind of became my passion throughout
18:26
Speaker1: high school. So that's the one sport. It was either between football or baseball.
18:30
Speaker1: I chose football. Ended up going to the University of Idaho.
18:33
Speaker1: I don't know if you know where the University of Idaho is. Do you?
18:36
Speaker2: It's right by Pullman, isn't it?
18:38
Speaker1: It's in Moscow, Idaho, and you got Pullman right next door.
18:40
Speaker2: Yeah, it's Partyville.
18:41
Speaker1: It's Partyville.
18:42
Speaker2: I know.
18:43
Speaker1: When you're going to college out there, it's a small town field.
18:46
Speaker1: There's really nothing to do but party.
18:48
Speaker1: And so, but luckily I had football. so uh you know i would definitely while
18:54
Speaker1: i was there i got a dui got an mip that's not normal for a college athlete to get right
19:00
Speaker1: there was nights when i was drinking on a wednesday and had a game on a saturday
19:03
Speaker1: but i was for some reason i was still able to like kind of separate the drinking
19:07
Speaker1: and never really got to everyday thing it was more so in the off season or spring
19:12
Speaker1: break we'd go down to lake havasu you know
19:15
Speaker1: or vegas and um
19:18
Speaker1: you know take it a little too far so I knew like in the back of my head like
19:23
Speaker1: if I really didn't have something going for myself maybe I would like kind of
19:27
Speaker1: take this all the way you know and so um
19:32
Speaker1: ended up doing pretty well in Idaho
19:34
Speaker1: and I got an opportunity as an undrafted free agent for Arizona Arizona Cardinals
19:39
Speaker1: ended up making the team um played my first year 15 15 games my first year
19:46
Speaker1: uh if you've ever been to Scottsdale, Arizona, or that area,
19:49
Speaker1: you'll realize that's a party town.
19:52
Speaker2: I love me some Scottsdale.
19:55
Speaker1: There's a lot of partying. So, you know, I'm 22 years old at the time,
20:00
Speaker1: making pretty decent money.
20:02
Speaker1: And, you know, I would go get bottle service or, you know, on a Thursday,
20:08
Speaker1: go out to the club. And we've got a game on a Sunday.
20:12
Speaker1: I didn't really have, like, my parents were a great support,
20:15
Speaker1: but I didn't really have anyone down there to really keep an eye on me or make
20:19
Speaker1: sure I was really comfortable
20:21
Speaker1: honed in on what I needed to be doing for my career. And so where things really
20:27
Speaker1: kind of got dicey was after my first year,
20:30
Speaker1: that's when they were trying to come up with a new collective bargaining agreement
20:34
Speaker1: between the owners and the players union.
20:37
Speaker1: And so usually during the offseason you'd be going in for workouts.
20:40
Speaker1: You would have OTAs where you're practicing with the coaches.
20:45
Speaker1: You'd be lifting with the strength coach. You'd be watching film. You'd be studying.
20:50
Speaker1: You'd have a strict schedule that you're following well since there was a lockout
20:55
Speaker1: I wasn't I didn't have that and so that was the first time where I'm kind of
21:00
Speaker1: on my own with not really any
21:03
Speaker1: I would say a schedule in a way no accountability no accountability no schedule
21:08
Speaker1: and that's when my life kind of started to veer off track and during that time I was doing pain pills
21:15
Speaker1: drinking smoking weed uh pretty much i almost got daily and then um about two
21:22
Speaker1: months before the season uh they're like we're getting ready to sign the deal
21:25
Speaker1: and i was like oh shoot man i've
21:27
Speaker1: i haven't been really been working out like i needed to so i really at that
21:31
Speaker1: time i really locked in and you know two months leading up to the season went
21:35
Speaker1: all out just stopped drinking and stopped smoking and stopped taking pills
21:39
Speaker1: and really honed in on what i needed to do um
21:42
Speaker1: but with that being said that whole off season i really could have been better myself but i wasn't and
21:48
Speaker1: uh you know going into year two
21:50
Speaker1: i would say that
21:53
Speaker1: i was still in pretty good shape and that's kind of what would set me apart
21:57
Speaker1: compared to some other people was you know my work ethic and that was the first time
22:02
Speaker1: that offseason where maybe someone else kind of had an upper hand on me because
22:06
Speaker1: they stuck to their schedule and i didn't and so
22:10
Speaker1: going into that year i still felt good about where i stood on the team and
22:15
Speaker1: third preseason game I kind of got hurt on a fluke incident and in the NFL what happens is
22:22
Speaker1: Once you get hurt, they'll waive you injured. And from the Arizona doctor on
22:29
Speaker1: staff, which they work directly with the owners and the general manager,
22:33
Speaker1: they'll determine how long that injury is.
22:36
Speaker1: So they told me my MCL is a four-week injury, and that's more of like a six- to eight-week thing.
22:42
Speaker1: So we had to get a second opinion through my agent, and we settled with six weeks.
22:47
Speaker1: Well that being said since i didn't take their offer i couldn't sign back with
22:51
Speaker1: them after those six weeks and now that i think back to it with arizona being
22:56
Speaker1: so familiar to me me having a relationship with the players the
23:00
Speaker1: coach i should have maybe just
23:02
Speaker1: agreed to those four weeks but i didn't know i was young my agent yeah
23:07
Speaker1: my agent didn't care because they had to pay me for those six weeks so of course
23:10
Speaker1: he wants that but i wasn't really looking at like my future and what it's gonna
23:15
Speaker1: mean for me not be able to play for arizona anymore
23:18
Speaker1: During that time there was another guy that was hurt and he was actually a warming
23:23
Speaker1: kid it's crazy to think about he went to byu and uh we were both doing rehab
23:27
Speaker1: together and he's like hey you got any pills and uh come to find out he what he was doing them too
23:34
Speaker1: i couldn't believe it because this kid never even swore
23:37
Speaker1: he and his kid didn't even say a swear word in his life and now he's doing pills
23:41
Speaker1: so we started doing it a lot. That was throughout my rehab.
23:45
Speaker1: And then I ended up having a workout with Chicago. And that went pretty well.
23:51
Speaker1: Just besides the fact that I'm, you know, still doing some pills here and there.
23:57
Speaker1: Actually not here and there every day and then uh when i went on to chicago
24:01
Speaker1: i went out there i signed with them for the rest of the year i started on the
24:04
Speaker1: practice squad and when i went out there i didn't know at the time what was
24:07
Speaker1: going on that was the first time i ever withdrawed
24:10
Speaker1: i i i thought it was a transition from arizona to chicago but i was up like
24:14
Speaker1: all night and uh you know the sweats the the tossing and turning can't get comfortable and
24:23
Speaker1: uh yeah i and when i think back to it that was the first time but during the
24:27
Speaker1: time i just i didn't know what was going on i just kind of fell off and that's
24:31
Speaker1: crazy because i was going to practice every single day on like an hour of sleep
24:34
Speaker1: and then uh so anyways um that was kind of a blessing in disguise at the same
24:40
Speaker1: time because i couldn't find pills out there i'm in a whole new area my college
24:44
Speaker1: quarterback was playing for chicago so
24:47
Speaker1: i was living with him now and he kind of we were keeping each other on you know the right path
24:53
Speaker1: um ended up playing the last two games of the season so through week seven through
24:58
Speaker1: 15 i was on the practice squad and then i got called up to the active roster
25:02
Speaker1: for the first last two games um
25:05
Speaker1: that off season i decided i wanted to go home and work out i wasn't gonna live
25:09
Speaker1: in chicago i was thinking about going back to arizona but i was like i don't
25:12
Speaker1: want to go to arizona because i was what i was doing out there at the time i
25:16
Speaker1: didn't think it would be a healthy the environment i'm gonna go home i'll be around my family
25:20
Speaker3: You found out the environment out here
25:21
Speaker1: Was yeah basically yeah but what happened was is yeah then you come to find
25:26
Speaker1: out some of my old friends that were living back in seattle they the ones that
25:29
Speaker1: weren't doing so well they're they're using their part you mean there's
25:33
Speaker2: Drugs everywhere there's no
25:37
Speaker1: It's crazy how things work out because you know i'm working out i was still
25:42
Speaker1: working out every day which that was good and i was going to this gym in Bellevue.
25:46
Speaker1: There's other Seahawks players working out there and I ended up breaking my foot. And, uh,
25:52
Speaker1: It's crazy because going into year two, I've never really had an injury.
25:56
Speaker1: And then that off season, I didn't get my all, tear my knee.
26:01
Speaker1: Year two, I go back home, I'm partying, but I am working out, break my foot.
26:06
Speaker1: At that time, I didn't really have good, I just didn't really know the game
26:10
Speaker1: in and out. It's a business.
26:11
Speaker1: And so when I went to the doctor in Seattle, he said it was a four-week injury.
26:16
Speaker1: So I was like, okay, I don't need to report for 12 weeks. That's perfect.
26:21
Speaker1: So I told them what happened.
26:24
Speaker1: Well, the problem was that the doctor that was in Washington,
26:29
Speaker1: his evaluation of my foot didn't match when I went to Chicago.
26:32
Speaker1: So when I went out there, they're like, hey, you need surgery.
26:36
Speaker1: Like, I don't know what doctor you saw in Seattle, but you're going to need
26:39
Speaker1: surgery. And not only that, you probably need reconstructive surgery on both
26:42
Speaker1: feet because your arches are so high, you only have three points of contact.
26:46
Speaker1: I broke the outside foot, a bone on the right foot, and this one was already
26:50
Speaker1: starting to stress fracture.
26:52
Speaker1: And so if I would have had better guidance at the time, I would have went out
26:56
Speaker1: there on day one and on the workout started running and act like something hurt, you know?
27:02
Speaker1: But since I wasn't there, they're like, you could have been playing basketball.
27:05
Speaker1: You could have been wakeboarding. We don't know what you're doing.
27:08
Speaker1: So they cut me. And then at that time, I kind of saw like the writing on the
27:13
Speaker1: wall as far as my career went.
27:16
Speaker1: And so after I got surgery, i was able to get pills from a doctor pretty easy
27:21
Speaker1: for at least six months after that until my insurance cut off and then
27:25
Speaker1: a national progression for a lot of people that do opiates is they start with
27:29
Speaker1: the pain pills and then go to the and they go to the heroin that's when heroin was out and about
27:33
Speaker2: How long ago was
27:34
Speaker1: This that would have been 2016 or 15.
27:40
Speaker2: Like 10 years ago?
27:41
Speaker1: Yeah, when I started doing the heroin. And then, you know, I went down that
27:46
Speaker1: path of, it became an everyday thing.
27:51
Speaker2: So, pretty boy jock.
27:52
Speaker1: Yeah.
27:53
Speaker2: Went down heroin alley?
27:55
Speaker1: Mm-hmm. Heroin alley.
27:58
Speaker2: Because there's a lot of people that, you know,
28:02
Speaker2: that would never happen to you.
28:03
Speaker1: Yep. Right? Yep, exactly. And so, at that time, I was kind of lost on what I wanted to do.
28:09
Speaker1: Football is kind of all I knew originally I wanted to get into coaching but
28:14
Speaker1: now I'm using every day even during that time I signed a contract with the BC
28:19
Speaker1: Lions to go play in Canada for like $180,000 like that's a great deal when you're 26 years old
28:26
Speaker1: and you can go play football for that I didn't even show up because I was so
28:31
Speaker1: I was like there's no way I could show up looking like this you know
28:35
Speaker1: even showing up looking like this and then trying to go to practice there's no way
28:39
Speaker1: I'm way off at this point
28:41
Speaker2: How did you How did you and Art
28:43
Speaker1: Hook up So then There's been many attempts At getting clean I remember the very
28:49
Speaker1: first time I went I just was like You know what I need to stop doing opiates
28:54
Speaker1: And I'm going to start drinking I was even telling him that
28:58
Speaker0: Does that make perfectly good sense.
29:00
Speaker1: I'm just going to drink You know Corey's birthday Your birthday Oh it's wedding
29:04
Speaker1: Yeah That'd be great I'm just going to do that The problem was When I got too
29:07
Speaker1: drunk I ended up going back to what I really liked and so
29:12
Speaker1: there was a lot of attempts at getting clean I wasn't totally surrendered you
29:16
Speaker1: would say maybe there wasn't enough pain at the time but eventually I think
29:22
Speaker1: my parents started meeting with Art because I remember now that I was thinking back
29:26
Speaker1: there was like a random day where my dad wanted to go out to eat I'm pretty
29:30
Speaker1: sure Art probably told him hey you should probably just put it in Max and go that's
29:32
Speaker3: How it goes
29:35
Speaker1: Now that I know how it works you know sneaks in
29:38
Speaker0: So let's just get it.
29:39
Speaker1: Clear yeah
29:41
Speaker0: I figured out a long time ago that,
29:44
Speaker0: it is you can help drugs indirectly yeah sometimes way more than you can help them directly,
29:51
Speaker0: so i i learned that through families i can play chess with these guys so i was
29:56
Speaker0: playing chess with max way before yeah i was teaching his parents you know these
30:01
Speaker0: answers that parents are trying to have to get their kids over,
30:04
Speaker0: the answers fall in language they have to be able to language their kid they've
30:09
Speaker0: got to be able to feel their own words hitting their their kid and feel the impact of those words
30:14
Speaker0: and they've got to be able to get language that makes an impact and so i had
30:17
Speaker0: met with max's parents way prior and and and said,
30:22
Speaker0: dave dave is his dad i said dave you got to go talk to max in this particular way,
30:27
Speaker0: and and and he did and it usually you know intervention isn't one of these things
30:33
Speaker0: that you see on tv like everyone's sitting and around in a room and it's like
30:37
Speaker0: those are ridiculous you know those things are ridiculous,
30:40
Speaker0: so i didn't like teach max's parents and i didn't go over to max's house and
30:43
Speaker0: go max if you don't get sober we're all out of your life it's not like that yeah,
30:47
Speaker0: you know it's more like hey man you have to do this for us,
30:52
Speaker0: you know this whole myth out there that we get sober for ourselves.
30:58
Speaker0: I don't believe that's true. I think we don't feel good enough to get sober
31:01
Speaker0: for ourselves yet. Normally, we're doing it for some other reason,
31:04
Speaker0: for somebody else. Somebody's requiring it of us, whether it's the law,
31:08
Speaker0: our family, our friends.
31:10
Speaker0: Somebody has said, please do this.
31:12
Speaker0: And then maybe about three months into it or four months into it,
31:16
Speaker0: we feel good again. And now we might do it for ourselves.
31:20
Speaker0: But we don't just initially. If we lived on, all of us lived on a desert island
31:24
Speaker0: and it was full of drugs and alcohol, would any of us quit?
31:27
Speaker0: No. If there was no one there but us, it would take another person there to
31:31
Speaker0: get us to stop using those drugs. Somebody that would say to us,
31:34
Speaker0: hey, stop using those drugs and connect with me.
31:37
Speaker0: Somebody would have to say that on that island, or we would just continue to go to obliteration.
31:41
Speaker2: Well, I mean, the opposite of addiction is connection.
31:44
Speaker0: Yeah, maybe, but yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, it's definitely better,
31:51
Speaker0: when we start connecting with people. So that's how we.
31:54
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what happened. and then uh when i got there i
31:58
Speaker1: just um what art was teaching i was like just so like locked in on it yeah
32:04
Speaker3: Caught me too
32:05
Speaker1: Yeah his teaching and just his knowledge of recovery was just a different it
32:09
Speaker1: was a little different than the traditional what i've seen before and uh i was
32:15
Speaker1: there for two months and then i was going back to my house and he's like hey why don't you
32:19
Speaker1: Because I had my own place at the time and I was doing some like training,
32:22
Speaker1: like wide receiver training, a little bit of coaching.
32:24
Speaker1: I wasn't making that good of money. He's like, why don't you stick around and
32:27
Speaker1: do an internship for six months? The accountability is there of you showing
32:32
Speaker1: up every day. And then if after six months you don't want to do it then or this
32:35
Speaker1: isn't for you, then you can move on or whatever.
32:38
Speaker1: And then, you know, I just selfishly, I really enjoyed doing it because it kind
32:43
Speaker1: of kept me on the right path. And I just realized throughout that time,
32:47
Speaker1: my life kept getting better and better.
32:49
Speaker1: Just some of the valuable lessons I learned. Like, for example,
32:53
Speaker1: hey, your credit score is a 480.
32:56
Speaker1: Hey, your credit score is a 480. And not only that, you owe $20,000 to these people.
33:01
Speaker1: So when I'm paying you here, that's not your money. You got to pay it to here.
33:05
Speaker1: Because that's going to set you up for the future.
33:07
Speaker1: And stuff like that. Because I was lacking on a lot of little life skills.
33:11
Speaker1: I knew how to do them. But through our addiction, we don't care.
33:14
Speaker1: We just take it. For sure.
33:15
Speaker2: I feel like that's what we do all the time. We're just teaching people how to.
33:18
Speaker0: You know, you're a prime example, Len, of time not really mattering.
33:23
Speaker1: Yeah.
33:24
Speaker0: You know, it's not, we're not here in a recovery competition about,
33:29
Speaker0: you know, I think it's not a time competition.
33:31
Speaker0: I think it's a behavior competition.
33:35
Speaker0: Yes, we're all trying to behave better. And we're going to, we behaved our way
33:39
Speaker0: into this and we're going to behave our way out of this.
33:41
Speaker0: But it's also a life, now it's just a life competition. Now it's actual real
33:45
Speaker0: life. And Max is being kind of modest, but he was a leader from day one in recovery.
33:52
Speaker0: Same way that you are, same way I am, same way Corey is.
33:55
Speaker0: It doesn't matter how much time he had. Max was running my program with people
33:59
Speaker0: that had way more time. But Max was still the guy that said,
34:01
Speaker0: hey, you got to get up. Let's get out of bed. Let's go. I don't care if I have
34:04
Speaker0: one day clean or nine months clean. I can still tell you to get up and get out of bed and let's go.
34:09
Speaker0: And that's what he's always done since the day he's got with me.
34:13
Speaker0: I couldn't stop him from working for me. I mean, it was just,
34:16
Speaker0: he just, everyone in the house needs to get up. Max is up, you know.
34:18
Speaker0: And that's just how it's been.
34:20
Speaker0: And so, you know, it's not a time competition. It's an actual,
34:24
Speaker0: we're all just normal people. We quit using drugs. It doesn't matter how long.
34:27
Speaker0: Now we have today to grind.
34:29
Speaker0: That's it. How are you going to grind?
34:32
Speaker0: And if you're a year sober and you're not grinding, good luck, man.
34:36
Speaker0: You're going to have a hard time. Because you might have a hard time,
34:39
Speaker0: man. Because guess what? All your peers that you went to high school with have really passed you.
34:43
Speaker0: And now your recovery peers are going to pass you if you don't start grinding with them.
34:47
Speaker0: So really, I think to have a healthy bit of recovery competition and to say,
34:53
Speaker0: hey, you got a new car. I need a new car.
34:56
Speaker2: That is definitely a thing. In our houses, it's like, oh, well,
34:59
Speaker2: I got my license. And then it's like, oh, well, I'm going to go get my license,
35:02
Speaker2: too. And then, oh, well, I got a BMW. And then they're all like,
35:05
Speaker2: well, what the heck? Now I need a BMW.
35:07
Speaker0: And this idea that we all sit around in rooms and hash over our feelings and
35:12
Speaker0: hash over things is also, in my opinion, a myth. No, we go jet skiing.
35:16
Speaker0: We get on the plane and go places.
35:18
Speaker0: We order the fight and eat dinner. We play softball.
35:22
Speaker3: That's huge in the house. We eat breakfast and dinners. you know it's a family
35:25
Speaker0: Yeah we can hit a group every couple days we do a group and we'll sit around
35:29
Speaker0: and learn some shit and like you said we teach,
35:32
Speaker0: there's information from a domain of information called i don't know what i
35:36
Speaker0: don't know like that's what changes lives is if you can take a human from information
35:40
Speaker0: that they didn't even know they didn't know so we try to you know we've tried to incorporate,
35:47
Speaker0: things into our curriculum that that are things that people just never kind of heard of before and um,
35:53
Speaker0: when we give people that it gives them more like a it gives them a distinction
35:57
Speaker0: a way to look at things and and kind of give them a ladder to like hold on to
36:01
Speaker0: and go wow i learned something about myself through what art just told me or
36:05
Speaker0: what what this book told us but really,
36:08
Speaker0: you know i don't just plagiarize it i kind of throw it into a recovery form
36:11
Speaker0: and say let's put it in this way.
36:13
Speaker0: And so, yeah, information is important.
36:17
Speaker0: Information for us is important. And, you know, time isn't as important as the
36:21
Speaker0: information that you're getting in that time.
36:23
Speaker2: Right. And what are you taking in and what, you know, like, how are you,
36:27
Speaker2: what, you know, I mean, we have so many guys that come in that, you know,
36:32
Speaker2: Never had a driver's license. I just had one, 50 years old.
36:36
Speaker2: Never had a driver's license. 50. I'm like, you've got to be joking,
36:40
Speaker2: but you've been driving. And they're like, well, yeah, we've been driving.
36:42
Speaker2: But, you know, my peer leader, Jeremy, he, you know, I remember when he was
36:48
Speaker2: the same way. I was like, he's a leader.
36:50
Speaker2: He is my leader. He's been my leader now since the first house that I opened up in Snohomish County.
36:56
Speaker2: And, you know, he would drive and I'd say, well, do you have your license?
37:00
Speaker2: Well, what do I need that for?
37:02
Speaker2: Do you have insurance well why do you need insurance what yeah unless i don't
37:07
Speaker2: get pulled over and i'm like anyone like no you're not driving my car unless you have a valid
37:12
Speaker2: a valid driver's license and insurance and like if it's not going to happen
37:16
Speaker2: any other way and you know now he's like okay now i understand and now we're
37:21
Speaker2: teaching the other guys you know how to you know and now he's like oh yeah you
37:24
Speaker2: should call you know whether
37:25
Speaker2: verne funk or whatever it is dairyland or But, you know, now I'm plugging them right now.
37:30
Speaker2: But, you know, go in, get your ID, take that test. You know,
37:33
Speaker2: and we've got one guy, one of our managers, he was here today.
37:36
Speaker2: I think he's taken that dang written test five times.
37:39
Speaker2: But he's going to pass it, and he's determined to pass it.
37:42
Speaker0: When we come into recovery, it looks like there is a brick wall in front of us.
37:48
Speaker0: For all of us. I mean, it really looks difficult. Phone calls are long.
37:52
Speaker0: They take a long time to get through. You've got to apply for this and that.
37:56
Speaker0: And what I always say to people is, but every time you grab one of those bricks,
38:01
Speaker0: and you put it down on the ground, then you stand on it.
38:05
Speaker0: And all of a sudden, you're standing on top of that wall that you were looking at.
38:08
Speaker0: And I think that your program and our program need to be, we need to get this message out that,
38:16
Speaker0: that that they're that none of us are baby birds that we're not people that
38:20
Speaker0: have been violated against or anything like that and it's not this you know it's just,
38:26
Speaker0: a lot of us and and that's what people aren't talking about a lot of us just
38:30
Speaker0: love to party and feel good and like to feel good yeah and we don't know what
38:34
Speaker0: the cause of that is and we all don't need to sit around and talk about what trauma,
38:38
Speaker0: to blame for our our dismay and and now it's about life man and it's about showing
38:44
Speaker0: and showcasing people like cory and max and
38:47
Speaker0: and you and people that are three years sober and already having a company and
38:51
Speaker0: and helping a thousand people at a time it's it's it's,
38:57
Speaker0: It's huge. It's bigger than any. And yet we hear people need to be on methadone
39:02
Speaker0: and need to be on, you know, maintenance their whole life. And that's not maintenance
39:06
Speaker0: if they're on it their whole life.
39:07
Speaker3: Put them on ABD and EBT and give them free health.
39:10
Speaker0: Yeah, yeah. And so, no, we need to talk about the dynamics of the people in
39:14
Speaker0: this room and the other rooms that we're talking about. And we need to showcase
39:17
Speaker0: these people and let people know that just because someone was addicted to drugs.
39:21
Speaker3: Doesn't mean anything.
39:22
Speaker0: Thing yeah and it might actually mean a good thing it might like to me i'm so
39:26
Speaker0: proud of the word addict it's like i'm so proud of it don't try to take it from
39:30
Speaker0: me don't tell me i have a substance use disorder shut up like i'm not hi i'm
39:35
Speaker0: art i have a substance use disorder,
39:39
Speaker0: it's so stupid no i'm an addict that means i i'm a i'm a money addict right
39:45
Speaker0: i'm a business I'm a business addict. I'm a love addict. I'm a friend addict.
39:51
Speaker0: I'm like an addict in every form. I'm a pizza addict. I know.
39:54
Speaker0: I'm a house addict. Yes, I can't. I can't.
39:56
Speaker2: Yeah, I can't stop. I'm a business owner addict.
40:00
Speaker0: To me, this is what the word addict means. There's nothing you can do halfway.
40:04
Speaker0: That's what it means to me. And it means every aspect of your life,
40:08
Speaker0: if you're an addict, that means there's nothing you can do halfway.
40:10
Speaker0: I love you for that. I love people that can't do anything halfway.
40:13
Speaker0: Way. In fact, I don't understand that person that can go have a half a glass
40:17
Speaker0: of wine. I don't. Right. I'm not.
40:18
Speaker2: We're not the same. You're a quitter.
40:20
Speaker0: Yeah, we're not the same. I don't know you. And,
40:24
Speaker0: And, you know, like I try to say, these people on the streets that are getting
40:27
Speaker0: help, I want to tell the people that are helping them, the people on the streets are smarter than you.
40:33
Speaker0: They're smarter than you. Stop acting like they're not smarter than you.
40:37
Speaker0: When you went down to help Corey and give him a sandwich, he just pickpocketed
40:42
Speaker0: you from behind when you gave him a hug. Like, you're a mark.
40:47
Speaker0: I mean, that's what it is. We got a bunch of marks, you know,
40:52
Speaker0: and it's like, don't be a mark. Don't go down and don't do that because Corey
40:57
Speaker0: never needed you. No. If he wanted help, he would have called his mother.
41:00
Speaker0: And there was his mother sitting at home, loving him, begging him to come home.
41:05
Speaker0: And there's somebody that said, poor homeless baby bird Corey needs something.
41:08
Speaker0: Yeah. Stop, people. Stop. It's not what it is.
41:12
Speaker0: And we just, you know, are there people that are victimized and marginalized and need help? Yes.
41:18
Speaker3: A lot more play the part.
41:19
Speaker0: Yes, but there's a lot more on the other side of that.
41:22
Speaker2: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Stop, stop, stop babying everybody. And, you know,
41:28
Speaker2: I mean, it's like I, I made a decision, you know, I was very successful.
41:31
Speaker2: I was a functioning alcoholic.
41:33
Speaker2: I would drink you under the table, you know, I would
41:38
Speaker2: black out drunk every single day, you know, wake up, do it again,
41:41
Speaker2: you know, but I was also making three, four or $500,000 a year as a real estate
41:46
Speaker2: agent, you know, but not remembering half of my life.
41:49
Speaker2: I didn't have, I didn't have a relationship with my kids. I didn't,
41:52
Speaker2: all I knew is that I could make money. And when I wanted to go somewhere or
41:56
Speaker2: buy something, I could do it.
41:58
Speaker2: But beyond that, I didn't care about you or you or you or you or you.
42:02
Speaker2: I didn't care about anybody or anything other than making myself feel good,
42:06
Speaker2: you know? And then that last time that I drank and crashed my car,
42:10
Speaker2: my Tesla, I don't know what I crashed it into, but somehow it made it home.
42:15
Speaker2: And I woke up that next morning and I was like,
42:19
Speaker2: Where am I? Where's my phone? Where, you know, and I came to and I was like,
42:25
Speaker2: I'm never doing this again.
42:27
Speaker2: That was my wake up call. But how many times had I said that before that day?
42:31
Speaker2: 500, 1,000 for years. You know, I'm never going to do this again.
42:36
Speaker2: Well, I'm like puking in the toilet or whatever. 3 p.m. Yeah.
42:40
Speaker0: Off work. I'm doing it.
42:41
Speaker2: Exactly. Noon, 10 a.m. Because, you know, when you're self-employed,
42:44
Speaker2: you can drink whenever you want. Let's go to have breakfast.
42:47
Speaker2: Coffee? Why do you want coffee? Put a little Bailey's in it. You know, I mean, and
42:53
Speaker2: the mind, when the fog clears, the mind shows up.
43:00
Speaker2: And when the mind shows up, the most amazing things happen.
43:04
Speaker2: I mean, creating what, you know, you guys have created, I've created 22 houses
43:08
Speaker2: in January of 24. And it's, what, July 1st. So in two and a half years,
43:14
Speaker2: I got 22 houses. I got 175 people.
43:17
Speaker2: You know, I've got this big, beautiful office, I'm
43:21
Speaker2: and i care about everybody now to a fault right because i'm an addict right
43:24
Speaker2: so now i care about everybody and i have to you know baby every single one of
43:28
Speaker2: them because it's like i have 175
43:30
Speaker0: Children turn over four times you're talking about you're talking about impacting
43:33
Speaker0: the lives of a thousand people a year for sure minimum and then not to mention
43:37
Speaker0: their extended families and all the people's lives are helping beyond that so,
43:41
Speaker0: when we when we talk about the alternative of like oh if there was only something
43:46
Speaker0: we can you know just put her in,
43:48
Speaker0: in in some house and let her drink you know You know,
43:52
Speaker0: or the alternative of how many people Corey's reaching or Max is reaching and
43:56
Speaker0: then to say, well, you know, no, he was never going to be anything.
43:59
Speaker0: And it's like, actually, no, you know, we got people that are going to flourish.
44:03
Speaker0: And once they flourish, they're going to they're going to exponentially help
44:06
Speaker0: the lives of thousands of people.
44:10
Speaker2: For sure. I mean, you know, being an addict, I think that we we it's like we're
44:15
Speaker2: leaders, right? But we don't want to be a leader or we haven't found that spot.
44:18
Speaker2: And so then we just numb ourselves. But then when we show up
44:21
Speaker0: And we get.
44:22
Speaker2: Clear headed,
44:23
Speaker0: Your drinking was leadership.
44:24
Speaker2: I mean, oh, boy, was it ever?
44:27
Speaker0: That's how I led. I was the guy that showed up at the party with the briefcase. Like, let's go.
44:32
Speaker0: Yeah. You need first one there. You're the person at the bar saying we're all
44:35
Speaker0: doing shots. Yes. Like that.
44:37
Speaker2: 100 percent. Dancing on the table. We're going to have a good time.
44:41
Speaker0: So that's where our creative, that's where our leadership went.
44:44
Speaker2: But we also thought that we couldn't do anything without having those substances. Right.
44:48
Speaker2: You know, and then it's like, whoa, now I got to find myself and I have to be
44:52
Speaker2: sober and I have to be in the same room as other people. Oh, I thought
44:55
Speaker0: I was never going to be able to even be with a woman again. Like,
44:58
Speaker0: no, I can't do it sober without drugs.
45:01
Speaker2: Right. Or create a business or do anything that, you know, like I'm scared to
45:07
Speaker2: be able to admit that I am fearful of making a move.
45:10
Speaker0: Here's the travesty. Here's the real brutal part of this is that if a human
45:16
Speaker0: being has low expectations of themselves,
45:19
Speaker0: for instance, if Corey doesn't believe that he can buy a house,
45:22
Speaker0: but I know that he's just as good as me and I know he can buy a house.
45:27
Speaker0: Then whose expectations should he be going with? Mine or his?
45:31
Speaker3: Right?
45:31
Speaker0: And that's why we have to require more of these people on the streets.
45:36
Speaker2: I said that today. I said that today in my meeting. I push them. You have to push people.
45:42
Speaker0: No, you need to go with my expectations. Matt didn't know in the first three
45:45
Speaker0: years of his sobriety that he was going to buy a home and take care of his family.
45:49
Speaker0: He had to, I said, no, you are going to do this. There's no way. You need to listen to me.
45:54
Speaker0: So we have to see how many forms that takes of what little we're requiring people
45:59
Speaker0: on our streets, what little we're requiring of people and saying all that can
46:03
Speaker0: happen for you is a methadone and maintenance program for the,
46:07
Speaker0: next, you know, however years of your life.
46:10
Speaker0: Yeah. No, there has to be people like us, people that are leading these people
46:14
Speaker0: out of it that know and expect and require more of these people.
46:18
Speaker0: Right. And say, we know because I felt just like you. I didn't think I was ever
46:23
Speaker0: going to be able to buy my own house.
46:25
Speaker0: I knew I wasn't going to be able to buy my own house and maintain that.
46:28
Speaker0: And we also, when we screw up our life from drugs and alcohol,
46:31
Speaker0: one of the major problems is we don't accredit all of our failures to drugs and alcohol.
46:37
Speaker0: We don't realize that actually every one of our failures, you can trace back to drugs and alcohol.
46:41
Speaker0: So you just believe when you get in recovery that you're a failure.
46:44
Speaker0: You know, and it takes some success to go, oh, shit, maybe it's not going to
46:49
Speaker0: be this impending doom. Maybe I'm not going to screw this up.
46:52
Speaker0: And you like literally have to feel your way out of it. And you're going,
46:54
Speaker0: I'm not screwing this up. Like, I'm actually making it.
46:57
Speaker2: Yeah. You know, and we have to fail forward. Right. We learn through our mistakes
47:02
Speaker2: and, you know, nothing in life is easy.
47:04
Speaker0: But I don't have those things anymore, like a lost job where I can't go back
47:08
Speaker0: to that community or, you know.
47:09
Speaker2: Right, but now we're creating big things.
47:11
Speaker0: I actually sell my cars now, like, sign, you know what I mean?
47:14
Speaker0: Like, it just doesn't end up.
47:16
Speaker1: Instead of wrecking them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:18
Speaker0: You know, so I don't have those failures anymore. I have difficulties,
47:20
Speaker0: but I don't have the failures that I used to have. Yeah. I used to have full
47:24
Speaker0: failures where I got fired from a job of 100 people and I couldn't talk to any
47:27
Speaker0: of those people anymore. Yeah.
47:29
Speaker2: Yeah. Well, we're getting down to...
47:32
Speaker2: Getting down to our time. So tell me what your mission is. Tell me what your...
47:39
Speaker0: Well, right now we're running a... If you look on Facebook, if you look on social
47:44
Speaker0: media, we're running a Hey Bob campaign.
47:47
Speaker0: And in our campaign is there's some simple goals. And the goals of the campaign
47:52
Speaker0: are to get our government, to get Bob Ferguson to recognize that we want open air drug use
47:58
Speaker0: off our streets, That we want our parks, our business owners,
48:01
Speaker0: and citizens protected from drug use.
48:04
Speaker0: That we want fentanyl no longer to be allowed in a home where there's babies.
48:10
Speaker0: We want fentanyl dealers arrested and penalties a little stiffer so that we
48:15
Speaker0: can get the fentanyl out here.
48:17
Speaker0: And we want our government to stop handing out foil to people that are doing
48:22
Speaker0: fentanyl. So it's pretty simple. We want our citizens and parks and kids protected.
48:27
Speaker0: We don't want to have to walk by on the streets, somebody smoking fentanyl.
48:31
Speaker0: And in that, there's always this big fight against what we call, what they say, stigma.
48:39
Speaker0: And I get so caught up with these people that are talking about stigma.
48:44
Speaker0: Corey, did you care when you were out on the streets that you were stigmatized?
48:49
Speaker0: Did you know you were being stigmatized? I don't think I even thought about it. Did you know the guy?
48:54
Speaker0: No. At all. We don't care. Yeah. And, you know, it's like, stop.
48:58
Speaker0: If we want a behavior like smoking fentanyl to be stopped, we have to stigmatize
49:03
Speaker0: it. We have to say, that's bad. Yeah. If we said, you know what we want?
49:08
Speaker0: We want a healthier society. We want people to stop eating McDonald's.
49:12
Speaker0: So what we're going to do is we're going to de-stigmatize people eating McDonald's. Go, what?
49:18
Speaker0: No, we're actually going to shame people that are eating McDonald's.
49:21
Speaker0: We're actually going to say, that's not good for you. That's not healthy.
49:24
Speaker0: Can you please not go there every day with your kids?
49:26
Speaker0: Like cigarette smoking, we wanted to stop.
49:29
Speaker0: We wanted people to stop smoking cigarettes. So there's a stigma on cigarettes
49:33
Speaker0: that used to not be around in the 80s. You used to be able to cook food in a
49:36
Speaker0: restaurant and smoke a cigarette.
49:38
Speaker0: Now there's a stigma on it. Now, if you walk by somebody on the streets in Seattle
49:43
Speaker0: and someone's smoking a cigarette, somebody will go, but if they're smoking
49:47
Speaker0: fentanyl, we're supposed to walk by and go.
49:50
Speaker3: Oh, poor guy.
49:52
Speaker0: It's not his fault. Let him do that. Now, how about, forget the guy smoking the cigarette.
49:57
Speaker0: How about this guy that's smoking fentanyl and dead on the sidewalk?
50:01
Speaker0: Can we say that's bad, please? We're not saying he's a bad person.
50:06
Speaker0: We're saying smoking fentanyl is a terrible behavior.
50:09
Speaker0: It's suicidal it's terrible and it's not okay
50:13
Speaker0: and not okay ever and if anyone ever my son is only 15 months but if he grows
50:17
Speaker0: up and we still have this problem and he's smoking fentanyl
50:20
Speaker0: i encourage anyone in our society to tackle my son knock it out of his hands
50:25
Speaker0: and don't let him do it because he might save his life and don't worry about his feelings,
50:30
Speaker0: just get him to stop smoking fentanyl we'll figure out the feeling part later
50:34
Speaker0: we'll we've gotten a lot of people sober nobody's ever said, Art, you did it wrong.
50:40
Speaker0: Nobody said art you know you really made me feel bad when you were getting me
50:43
Speaker0: sober no they say thank you,
50:46
Speaker0: everybody you know how many people in this in our society are thanking the police
50:50
Speaker0: for getting them sober right now yellow cop that arrested you a big yeah you
50:54
Speaker0: know thank you sir thank you for arresting me dude.
50:57
Speaker3: He didn't even want to
50:58
Speaker0: Yeah i just had.
50:59
Speaker3: A warrant so he had to yeah
51:01
Speaker0: Yeah but you gotta you gotta find that dude and say thank you man because he
51:05
Speaker0: saved my life man Yeah. Really? What else is there? Yeah.
51:09
Speaker2: All right.
51:10
Speaker0: So sign up for HeyBobFerguson.com. HeyBob is our Facebook group. Sign up on it.
51:16
Speaker0: That gives you instructions on how to unite under these goals and say,
51:20
Speaker0: we don't know how you solve all this stuff. I'm not claiming to know all the answers.
51:24
Speaker0: I'm just claiming that our kids shouldn't have to walk by in a park and see
51:27
Speaker0: someone smoking fentanyl. It's pretty simple.
51:31
Speaker2: Yeah. I agree. Okay. Okay. Well, I really appreciate you guys driving up here
51:36
Speaker2: from down south, and we're going to do this again. Yeah.
51:39
Speaker3: Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you.
51:48
Speaker0: .
51:50
Speaker1: .