Transcript

Austin · Recovery Chronicles

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Welcome to the Recovery Chronicles, where we dive deep into the inspiring journeys of
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individuals who have triumphed over adversity and found folk healing and resilience on the path
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to recovery from Johnson alcohol. We'll sit down with people who have embrace changed
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and emerge stronger than ever. Get ready to be uplifted, motivated, and
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empowered as we embark on a journey of healing, growth and possibility. Hello
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everyone, thank you for joining us for Recovery Chronicles today. I have Austin
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who is willing to share his amazing story of recovery with us. So thank
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you Austin for coming today. Happy to be here, appreciate it. So
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let's start out with how long have you been sober and what is your drug
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of choice? I've been sober for one year, one month and two days
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since February eleventh of last year, and my main drug of choice was methhmphetamine.
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But I really didn't didn't matter what it was as long was it give
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me something. You know? Sure, tell us about your childhood. How
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did it start? I mean my childhood was it was at a great childhood.
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I grew up in a single parent household. My mom raised me.
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My dad was never in my life. He lives out on the Spirit Lake
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Reservation. So I was raised in Bismarck with my mom, and she was
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awesome. You know. She gave me everything that I needed and most of
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what I wanted. You know, she you know, played games with me.
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When I was really little. You know, I was going to school,
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and I enjoyed going to you know, doing doing my classes and stuff.
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We took family vacations. You know, I had a very fortunate childhood
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compared to some of the people I knew. My problems when I look back
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on it now, My problems did start in elementary school. I kind of
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fell into that role of being the class clown, you know, and just
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trying to you know, act out to get attention. You know. So
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in elementary school it was pretty normal. In middle school though, was when
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I made I made different friend groups. I got involved with some other troublemakers,
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and naturally, you know, we started experimenting with smoking weed and drinking,
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going to parties, you know, doing stuff we weren't supposed to be
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doing. And I remember recognizing right away that something was different about me.
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You know, I remember the first few times I drank and got intoxicated.
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You know, I had really bad experiences. I got really sick. I
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had to be brought home by friends. You know, I blacked out both
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times, you know, And even though I had some embarrassing moments, you
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know, my first thought the next day was I want to do that again,
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you know. And and when we would smoke weed, you know,
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my friends could you know, do a little bit and then they can go
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about their day, or they can go to the skate park after school and
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have fun. But like I just wanted to keep going, you know,
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And so I knew something was off right away. It didn't take long for
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me to get mixed up into harder drugs. In middle school and into high
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school. You know, pills were a big thing. You know a lot
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of people were doing adderall and riddle in acid and hallucinagy, you know,
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all the things that seemed normal to me, right But you know, when
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I look back on it now, that's just because of the environment that's surrounded
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myself. And you know, we're doing pills, drinking at school, smoking
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weed, you know, on lunch break, and just kind of letting it
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consume me. The first time I took amphetamines, was adderall. And then
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that's also when I kind of felt something switched inside of me, right because
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up until that point, you know, I was drinking and smoking weed,
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but I also was in sports, you know, I was holding down part
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time jobs. You know, I was still you know, president in my
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in my household. But that first time I tried emphetamines, I felt something
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switching me. I felt. I really think that that's when my disease woke
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up, because from that moment on, I was chasing those you know,
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day in and day out. It didn't take long for me to start selling
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some of my possessions, trading things, cutting class, stealing from you know,
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my mom, stealing from a purse, getting money and everything. You
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know. So that's when I really feel like my demon, you know,
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got a hold of me, and it quickly evolved from those pills to you
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know, cocaine was kind of a thing. And then, uh, I
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remember studying boundaries for myself. You know, I told myself I was never
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gonna, you know, do hard drugs. You know, I'm just gonna
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smoke weed and do some adderall here and there. But quickly, those those
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boundaries, that stuff for myself started to fall away, you know. I
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started doing cocaine, and I started doing I landed on meth, you know,
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and I remember having such a biased opinion of people that were doing it
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back then. But the second I tried it, it gave me what I
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wanted and it lasted a lot longer, you know, so I didn't have
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to keep buying or getting you know, you know, amounts of pills every
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day. I could just get some meth and that it would carry me through.
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Allotted myself into a lot of trouble in middle school and high school,
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you know, juvenile probation, petty petty crimes, petty possessions minor and consumptions.
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I had to be placed into the Division of Juvenile Services, so I
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did around about two and a half three years and incarcerations y c see home
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on the range. So, I mean, I have a very brief moment
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where I can remember having like a normal freshman year kind of you know.
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I was doing I did basketball. I think I did football. Is in
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track. I was really good at track. My coach saw that I had
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potential, you know, and that's why he was so hard on me,
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because he he would hear about from teachers and from the school resource officer that
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I was getting into trouble, and you know, he wanted to give me
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an outlet to get out of it, you know, and I was doing
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really good in that, but I kept getting into trouble on you know,
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juvenile probation, juvenile drug court, and eventually my mom had to sign her
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rights away give me to the state, you know, not because she was
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a bad parent, but because I wouldn't listen, you know, I didn't
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I didn't want to stop. I would jump through the hoops, you know.
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I started going to West Central you know iop LOP when I was fourteen
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fifteen, so I got exposed to you know, treatment and you know,
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recovery early on. But I mean when I look back on it now,
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I wasn't willing, you know, I wasn't ready to admit I had a
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problem or to actually try to change my life. I just wanted to get
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you know, the courts, my parents, everyone off my back where I
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could do what I wanted to do, which you know, took away from
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my family for two and a half three years, you know, And my
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mom remarried when I was I think nine or ten. She got remarried in
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twenty eleven to my stepdad and name was Josh and he he had a kid
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of his own too at that time, a daughter, and she was just
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a baby at the time. So I've been in her life. Well,
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I've known her since she was a baby, and she just turned thirteen last
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year. So you know, I got I made the consequences and had to
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deal with the consequences of being away from her, you know, and when
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she got started getting older. You know, my mom would tell me that
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she would sart asking, you know, where's Austin at you know, where
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why is not Austin at my birthday? Or when? You know, when's
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Austin gonna come home? You know? But I was just too lost.
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You know, there's a there's a passage in the Big Book of AA that
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says, frothy emotional apeel seldom suffices. And what that means is that,
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you know, if the love of my mom, or if the love of
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my my sister, the love of my family, all the things I witnessed
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and saw when I was in active drinking an addiction, you know, that
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would be enough to make an own person quit. But for me, like
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I don't have that power of choice. I disregard all that stuff and keep
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at the forefront of my mind the one good time I had when I was
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drinking, or the one good time I had when I was high, and
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I latch onto that, and suddenly that makes all those awful things, all
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those heartbreaking things. Okay. So I did two and a half years and
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YCC home on the range PLC. I came back in the middle of my
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junior year, and you know, all my friends, you know, they
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had, you know, their normal high school experience. You know, they
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went to prom, they went to snowball in the winter, they were doing
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all the all the normal things. And I had just come out of you
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know, incarceration, and some of them had progressed into the lifestyle that I
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was too. You know, some of them were still partying a little bit,
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but now some of them were on the same level as I was.
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So, you know, I get back with you know, the idea that
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you know, I knew I was in trouble, and I knew that things
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weren't going too good for me, and I knew that I wasn't happy with
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what with the way I was living. But you know, the second I
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got a little bit of freedom, you know, I took off again.
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It wasn't long before I was back on me. I started using IV when
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I was seventeen. I just got mixed in with the wrong crowd of people,
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you know. I thought I wanted this, uh, this lifestyle or
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this certain this certain idea I had, you know, and I went out
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looking for long and hard enough where I finally found it. You know,
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I wasn't just hanging out with you know, average users as well, I've
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I found I found some people that were connected, you know, people that
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were you know, feeding their own addiction, but they were also you know,
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pushing a lot of drugs in the street. And by the time I
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realized what was going on, you know, it was too late. I
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did manage to graduate high school barely, and my attendance was non existent pretty
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much, you know. And another thing I remember getting told a lot was,
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you know, you know, Austin, You're you're a smart kid,
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you know, if you would just apply yourself, you know. But the
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more someone would tell me that, the more I want to do the opposite.
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So I know that I was, you know, educationally capable of you
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know, doing better than I did in school, but by that time I
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was using IV and everything else under the sun. And and but I passed
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graduated. I turned eighteen, and I got the only dispersonment my my tripily
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gives out was when people turn eighteen, they give them. I got like
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six thousand dollars, I think, so I bought my first car and then
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the rest went to drugs. I was involved with Youth Works that that foundation
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year in town that helps troubled troubled youth and young adults tooth. So they
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had a transitional housing thing set up where it's like it was like a group
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home kind of, you know, where they had eighteen to twenty four year
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olds who needed a place to stay, a safe environment to do. So,
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you know, so I moved in there. Didn't do good, you
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know, I didn't. I wasn't sober by any means. I was just
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checking boxes, kind of using the system to you know, keep myself you
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know, housed or whatever. So yeah, and looking back to I didn't
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really I didn't realize what all that exposure to, you know, lock ups
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and treatments stuff when I was a kid kind of insted utionalized me. You
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know, because aside from being in structure, being locked away, you know,
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my experience with being in the community was pretty negative because I was doing
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what I wanted to do. You know, I didn't have any idea of
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how to structure my time, how to manage my money, you know,
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etiquette and in the workplace, etiquette at school, you know, how to
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deal with my peers, my family. You know. I had no experience
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whatsoever with that. So when I turned eighteen, you know, I was
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an adult, you know, and I thought that's what I wanted. But
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I didn't have any experience of you know, finding an apartment, you know,
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paying rent on time, you know, holding down a job. You
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know. So I utilized resources in the community, but I didn't you know,
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I didn't honor them. I didn't respect them. You know. I
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was using in that transitional home Youth Works had for a while, and then
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I was. I was homeless for most of my early twenties, you know,
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nineteen twenty twenty one. All the things come with, you know,
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losing yourself into addiction. I stole for my family. I was kicked out
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of my mom's house when I was seventeen. Went a back track a little
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bit, because I broke into their house when they were at work and stole
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some stuff, you know, a couple of PlayStations, some other odds and
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ends, you know, and went and ponded, and they knew it was
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me, and I knew it was me, you know, but I denied
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it up and down. So she said, you know, you know,
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you're a longer welcome at my house when I was seventeen, so I had
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just bounced around in the streets for a while, you know, staying at
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trap houses or you know, getting enough money together to get a hotel room
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and just just running amuck. And at this time I knew I was I
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was hopeless. You know, things were looking really bleak. I did manage
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to get off using IV when I was nineteen, but I didn't get sober
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by any means. I just I just quit using needles. But yeah,
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things got dark really quick. Death didn't seem like too bad of an option
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for me. I never actively tried to commit suicide, but I would,
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you know, put myself in situations where you know, something went wrong,
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so be it. You know, I didn't take care of myself. I
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would wake up in you know, Sandford's psych ward and you know, numerous
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times just being being brought in on psychosis. Stuff like that and just I
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just you know, it was one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. I
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was just just rugged. It didn't take long for me to go to jail
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my first first time after I turned eighteen. I think just petty petty possession
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or petty theft or something, you know what I mean. And so I
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started my adult criminal career, you know, and I get in go to
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jail, and it's all the people I was locked up with as a kid,
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and you know a lot of people that I remember seeing out at YCC
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and everyone from the streets, you know, and completely cut off from my
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family, completely cut off from reality itself. You know. Even though I
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realized that things were getting really bad, you know, I would still tell
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myself these delusional thoughts like, you know, I'm just doing what I do
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to survive. Or if people will just you know, stop trying to control
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me. You know, I'm not doing too bad, you know what I
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mean, And all eyes all all just weighs and excuses for me to continue
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to do what I was doing. So I would go in and out of
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jail for a while, and I'd been exposed to or I had been brought
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to NA and AA when I was maybe fifteen or sixteen for the first time.
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I remember the first meeting I ever went to was that New Freedom Center.
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It was an NA meeting, you know, and I went there because
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I had to get my court slip signed or whatever, you know, And
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I walk in and everyone's all happy. Everyone's giving me hugs, everyone's telling
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me, you know, we're happier, HAPPI you're here. And I was
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just my skin was crawling, you know what I mean. I didn't I
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wanted nothing to do with what they had going on there. Everyone was sharing.
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And then when they got to me, you know, I tried having
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a smart comment, you know, I said, I'm I'm Austin, and
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I don't want I don't want to be here, you know, and everyone
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smile said, we're glad you're here. So I got exposed to you know,
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twelve steps in the program early on too. And I would I would
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come and go for maybe a couple of days, you know, when I
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would be out of whatever I was looking for, when I would dry out
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for a couple of days. But then you know, I would go back
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out and I would do that, you know, back and forth for months,
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for maybe a year, or so, you know, until eventually I
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would I think I was twenty nineteen or two, and I was got,
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I got myself, you know, you know, bad spot, holmeless again,
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just the same song, same same bleak, same misery, same same
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thing, over and over and over. You know, I would run myself
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into the ground. And my mom, being the good mom that she was,
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you know, she she never gave up on me, you know,
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and she would let me, you know, come by her house when I
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would have no other options, you know, and I would just use it
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as a place to sleep for a few days, eat a lot of her
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food, and then head out again. That didn't last too long, you
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know, because she eventually got herself into alan On or Narkanon, and she
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started learning how to how to protect herself. But let her, let her,
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let me else, let me know that she still loved me, you
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know, because the way I was doing things wasn't wasn't right, It wasn't
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fair to her, It wasn't wasn't safe, you know, and it just
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wasn't right. So you know, after a while, she would say,
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you can come over and we can you know, have dinner and we can
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do something. But then you have to you have to leave, you know,
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and I'm furious at her, you know, making why, you know,
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like you're just gonna kick me out to the streets, you know,
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little you know, buy my own hand, you know what I mean.
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So I went back to NA and I got a sponsor. When I was
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about nineteen or so, I was doing the steps for a while. I
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had a couple of months under my belt, which at the time was you
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know, unfathomable to me, you know, because I couldn't get twenty four
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hours, let alone you know, a week, you know. But I
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had two months or so, and his mother had passed away, had died,
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so he was in the process of clearing out her apartment, getting all
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their stuff, you know, situated, and I relapsed and I called him
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and I told him what had happened, you know, and in an effort
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to help me, to get me back into the program or just to help
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me not die, he said, well, you can stay with me at
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my mom's apartment while I'm clean cleaning it out. So I went there,
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and you know, I fell out for a couple of days, and I
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woke up and I just remember thinking to myself for the first time, like
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you know, what am I gonna do? Like what am I doing?
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Where am I at right now? Like I'm making my sponsor, who's still
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in the process of grieving, is his mom passing, boxing all all of
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her stuff, And I'm you know, more or less put him out to
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have me come stay with him to you know, and getting really down to
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myself, getting you know, all my pity pot I think, you know,
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like, oh, I just have to happen to me. Why can't
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I just figure it out? So I sat with those thoughts for maybe a
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day or so, and you know, my brain does what an adds brain
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does. It starts thinking, well, I know what to do to get
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these saws to go away. I know what to do to numb this,
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to not think about it. So I'm looking around, you know, this
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apartment, and there's some TVs, there's a laptop, there's some ipaths and
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stuff. And I grabbed as much as I could carry, or I think
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I had a bag or something to do at the time. And I took
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my sponsor's dead mother's stuff and went out the door, gave it away,
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traded it. I don't even think I made it to a pawn shop.
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I just found the nearest place I can score at and gave it away.
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Little did I know that one of those laptops was one was one that he
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used for his business, that all of his like bank stuff on credit card
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stuff. So when he called in that stuff stolen, it was valued at
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more than ten thousand dollars, which made it a seafelony. So I just
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I felt only worn out for my arrest, got picked up for it.
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And this is where it gets a little hazy. I eventually went to prison
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for that. I got hit with an eighteen month sentence for it. So
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I went went off to prison, you know, and then also back to
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all the things I said it would never happen, like, oh, I'm
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never gonna do hard drugs. Oh, I'm never gonna give up sports.
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I'm never gonna, you know, put put drugs, perform my family.
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I never gonna go to prison, never gonna go to jail. All those
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things happened, you know. Like the only thing I had left to say
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that I wasn't gonna do is I'm not gonna die from my disease. And
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that's it. So I went to prison. And how old were you at
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that point? I was twenty, okay, so you're twenty years old and
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you're going to prison for eighteen months. Yep. So went out to the
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penitentiary here, did orientation, you know by the prisoners and works. They
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classify you and then they move you to where they designate you to go.
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So I sat in the penitentiary for two months because at that that year was
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like a really high like influx of inmates, so there was a lot of
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like it took it took a while to get everyone moved. So usually you
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sit in orientation for maybe a month, but I sat there for two because
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they had you know a lot of people, and they sent me off to
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Tompkins and Jamestown for treatment again, you know. So I did the six
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or seven months out there, the treatment again, you know, sabisa or
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what was it, sabisa and T for C I think, yeah, so
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and sounds. My mom and grandma came and visited me out there, you
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know, and they'd done you know, their fair share of family days before,
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you know, at West Central at Heartview. I don't think I was
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at Hartview yet West Central and y R s you know, so they were
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coming to see me in prison, you know, and as embarrassing as it
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was I know now that I don't take that for granted for a second,
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because there were a lot of guys in there that their family could families could
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have came, but they didn't. Yeah, so my grandma Mom came out
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there, and then I got paroled from from Tompkins back to back to Bismarck.
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And at that time I had nine months clean and sober, the most
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I've ever had ever, but you know, due to do to being being
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locked up. But still, you know, it still counts. So my
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mom, you know, it was all happy for me coming back, and
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she said, well, you can parroll to my house. I know that
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you need somewhere to go, you know. And I if you had hooked
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me up to a lie detector test the night I was being released, you
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know, I would have told you that, you know, this is it.
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I'm done. You know, I got to figure it out. I
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never want to do this again. You know, I'm gonna do all the
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right things, get a job, move on with my life, you know.
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And I would have passed it. Yes, I honestly believed that,
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you know, this is what I wanted to do. Being you know,
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in prison for the first time was just you know was I didn't want to
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repeat it. On the bus ride home, I had a lot of emotions,
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a lot of whatever. Get home, and you know, my my
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mom, my stepdad, and I think my sister was there. That first
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weekend. I was home too, and they're all happy where else you know
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that I was home, you know, And at this time, my sister
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was maybe ten or nine, you know, so there's not much I couldn't
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really lie to her anymore before they would say, you know, Austin's at
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you know, a school somewhere. Austin's at something, you know, but
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she's getting to the age now or she she knew, she knew something was
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going on. Yeah, that first day, like everything, everything was great.
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The first day was awesome. I just hung out with them, you
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know, went out to eat, did some's, some family stuff, you
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know. On that second day though, when they released me, they know,
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they give you all your stuff, you know, like your prison stuff,
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and then any money E left from your account. I had like nine
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hundred dollars just because I had gotten my last check from wherever I was at
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and they transferred to the prison, you know, So I had this debit
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card nine hundred bucks on it. Nine months sober, you know, back
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in town, you know, looking healthy, smelling good, you know,
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look looking looking normal, And you know, my brain does the thing again,
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you know, it does the well I wonder how so and so is
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doing, or I wonder how how this household here is doing. You know,
21:00
I can go buy, I can go buy and see him, let
21:03
them know I'm out. Lett know a i'ms sober. Let them know I'm
21:04
doing good. You know. But you know that's that's not that's not why
21:08
I wanted to do that. So relapsed again. I was on parole for
21:14
maybe a month before you were out of prison for two days before you used
21:18
again. Yeah, while you were in prison, did you have any thoughts
21:22
of using or was it fully the whole nine months year head was that I'm
21:26
going to be sober and I'm done. I mean, initially I think I
21:30
was. I fell into the uh checking the boxes mentality, you know,
21:34
I was. It was kind of a shock because getting used to, you
21:37
know, being in an environment where you know, I'm used to it,
21:41
but still was like, man, I'm really here, Like I'm really in
21:42
prison right now, you know what I mean. I have a number and
21:45
everything. And but then after you know, I was going through their treatment
21:48
program again. You know, even though I knew most of it, or
21:51
I've heard some of it in a different way, I finally realized, like,
21:53
like, okay, man, like everything I've done got me to this
21:56
point, so maybe I should start looking at something different. You know.
21:59
I started thinking about and the only people that wrote me or called me was
22:02
my mom, my grandma, and that was pretty much it. Yeah,
22:03
you know, and none of my old friends you know, called me or
22:07
wrote me letters or give me money on my books or nothing. You know.
22:10
So I'm thinking, Okay, something's got to change, because you know,
22:12
I've done. I've done the ivy thing. I'd you know, sold
22:15
the little drugs myself, and I became this person that I didn't recognize her
22:19
anymore, and I didn't like him. You know, I'm not quite sure
22:23
who the old Austin was, but I know the person that I'd become wasn't
22:26
me. And I was miserable, and I was sad, and I was
22:30
tired of waking up every day knowing that you know, a bag or a
22:33
bottle was going to dictate what I did, where I went, how I
22:37
acted. So I contemplated, thinking, you know, I do miss being
22:41
healthy, I do miss having the job. I do miss being a part
22:42
of my family's life. And if I want all those things, I can't
22:45
be doing any of that stuff. So that's why I near the end of
22:49
that time at Tompkins. You know, I had all the knowledge, right,
22:52
I knew all the things, you know, I knew all the treatment
22:56
stuff that you know they give you when you're there. And yeah, I
23:00
firmly believe that, you know, I'm just gonna do my own thing,
23:03
and I'm just gonna steer myself back on course. But you know, being
23:07
home for those two days, you know, and having a little bit of
23:11
money, you know, and just being free again. Like I don't think
23:14
I really admitted to myself that I was as hopeless as I was, that
23:18
I was as powerless as I was, you know, And and I didn't
23:19
I didn't have a program either. I didn't have any reinforcement to help against
23:23
the insanity of the first drink or the insanity of the first use. You
23:26
know, today that's different, but back then, you know, all it
23:29
took was a man. You know, I wonder how this person is doing.
23:32
You know, I found ways to justify putting myself in the environment that
23:36
I knew I could use in, or I knew that I could drink in,
23:38
you know, because of course it sounded good, like I almost gonna
23:40
go check up on them. I want to know how they're doing. And
23:42
you were how old at this point? I think I just turned twenty one?
23:47
Okay, yeah, I think I was about to turn twenty one or
23:49
I was twenty one. So on parole, relapsed pretty much that first week
23:55
out, first two days out, and ran around for maybe a month.
23:57
But the pro officer I had, she didn't play any games, so she,
24:02
you know, put a warrant out for me and said, you know,
24:04
can't be doing what you're doing. Sent me to BTC, and I
24:10
was there for five months. So I did about nine months on my eighteen
24:14
month sentence in the facility, was on parole for maybe a month. I
24:18
was in BTC for about five months, so I'm getting near like fourteen fifteen
24:22
months on the sentence and and BTC man like, it was almost easier to
24:29
get in trouble there than it was on the street sometimes, you know what
24:30
I mean. It was just because you got a lot of people there that
24:33
don't want to be there. I mean, they have some structure, but
24:34
they let people go out in the community and if people don't want to change,
24:37
or if they don't want to you know, you know, get sober,
24:41
like put in the work to do so. Like it's just a kind
24:42
of a breeding ground for bad stuff to happen, you know what I mean.
24:47
It's I understand the idea of what that facility is supposed to accomplish,
24:51
but then again, when you get it full of people that don't want to
24:53
follow the rules, that don't want to you know, actively change their life,
24:56
it's and technically criminals, right, Criminals. Criminals know how to get
25:02
away with things, manipulate the system no matter where they're at. Yeah.
25:04
So yeah, I managed to stay out of it for my entire stay there
25:08
until my last week. This is an embarrassing story. But I got a
25:12
job at the subway in South Walmart down there. I was going to work,
25:18
you know, and I knew, I knew what was going on around
25:19
me. But you know, like I that's when I started to notice,
25:22
like some parts of my thinking changing, some parts of my some parts of
25:26
me changing. Because I wasn't stupid, I knew what was going on in
25:30
the bathroom twenty four to seven. I knew it was who was doing what,
25:33
who had this, who was whatever? Whatever, But I was just
25:36
tired, you know, like I I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't
25:38
think about it, but I just was like, I don't want, you
25:41
know, like I might have to send me all the way back to prison,
25:42
prison, you know, if I'm going to be here and use so
25:47
for four and a half months, almost five months, you know, I
25:48
went to work, went back to BTC, did the you know, night
25:52
and day, day in and day out. My last week there, though,
25:56
I had the genius idea that I'm like, oh, you know,
25:57
I get out on a Friday. You know they might they hate me with
26:00
the u A on on Saturday, on this last weekend. So you know,
26:03
I'm gonna graduate Friday. I think they're gonna u A me. You
26:07
know, I don't think nothing's gonna happen. You know, I made it
26:08
this far. I can get one in, you know, because that that
26:11
that one last one is all I wanted. You know, I didn't want
26:15
to go off on a bendary and I just want one last one last drink.
26:17
I want one last time I getting high. So i managed to get
26:19
some drugs brought to me at at at subway, brought them, brought them
26:23
back to BTC, used them. And some people are blessed with being able
26:30
to get high, and you know, no one knows, or some people
26:32
can drink and no one knows. I'm not. I'm not that person.
26:33
I am. I'm fidgeting everywhere, I'm chewing the invisible gum, I am
26:38
slurring whatever it is, I can't hide it. So my roommates quickly caught
26:41
on to the fact that I had something, and you know, like,
26:45
well, you know we're not because they know not the man, but they
26:47
give us some, you know, And I'm like, well, I guess
26:48
you know, you guys already know. So if I'm going down, you
26:51
guys can go down with me. But so I shared with them. One
26:56
of them got caught that next day and when they you know, it all
27:00
came back to me eventually, you know, they got caught and then they
27:03
got they you ade me. So on the Wednesday that I was, the
27:07
Wednesday of the week I was supposed to be getting out of BTC, they
27:11
kicked me out for getting getting high using in there in the facility. I
27:15
was out for maybe a day and my PO picked me up, found me,
27:18
found wherever I was at, and I got sent back to maxile' the
27:21
rest of my set it's like four around four months in prison, in prison,
27:25
and so I so you're going back, yeah, and just looking at
27:27
it like man like I had. I had five days, you know,
27:30
I had four and a half months of being around it all the time and
27:33
making the choice not to do it. But you know, my brain will
27:37
manufacture bs on this side and the suicide will buy it, you know,
27:40
so if I could. So. I think part of you went back intentionally
27:44
though, because you did say like I was sick of this, you know,
27:47
like you might as well just send me back to prison. So it
27:51
was part of you, like the subconscious maybe did it intentionally. I think
27:56
the subconscious part of me thought that I was slicker than I was, like,
27:59
oh yeah, that's well, that's my last week. They're not gonna
28:03
be able to I don't think the UA me. You know, I kind
28:04
of got their UA system down, you know, and it's just you know,
28:07
my my ego, you know, my and then just my addiction.
28:11
You know what I had. I had pushed all those thoughts and all the
28:14
things that were going on around me off, you know, and I ignored
28:17
them that last week, you know, like I just had to thought of
28:21
like, well, I can do it this week and get away with it,
28:22
and that's all. Its all I needed to think. And it was
28:23
on. So I got sent back to prison, and that's when COVID was
28:27
was hitting pretty hard, and they kept me there because you know, I
28:32
was classified as a minimum in May because my first time going to prison,
28:34
I don't have too many, too many charges to speak of, you know.
28:37
So I was supposed to go to a place like the farm, which
28:40
is you know a lot better than the penitentiary. But COVID hit so they
28:42
weren't moving anyone anywhere. So I finished my time out at at the prison
28:47
here in East Unit, and you know, all the all the kids from
28:51
school, high school, and all the kids I met in I s UC
28:52
you know a lot of them were out there. You know, they were
28:56
there on some extended time, you know, and so it was kind of
28:59
like, oh, this is where you got it. You know. So
29:00
when you guys aren't out there, you are in here. And then when
29:03
you're in here, you know, it's it's a reunion. It's a reunion,
29:06
and so I'd sat my last five months four months in there, and
29:11
I was released on no paper. So from the time when I was fourteen
29:15
till twenty one, I had been on some sort of probation, drug court
29:18
or whatever. So I'm masked my sentence out and you know, my mom
29:22
picked me up and uh, you know, brought me home again. You
29:25
know, like she I realized now that like she definitely was an enabler in
29:30
a sense, like she didn't want me to do what I was doing.
29:33
But I think she also turned a blind eye to what I was doing for
29:37
the fact that I'm her son. Yeah, she loves me, she wants
29:40
me to be better, she wants me to be happy, you know,
29:44
and sometimes that meant she would take me in or let me come around and
29:47
if I was high, and I think she turned a blind eye do it,
29:48
you know. But I know also know that that's enabling in a sense.
29:52
And I manipulated that. Yeah, I play didn't do that a lot.
29:55
You know. I would always find the thing to say that would hurt
29:56
her. I would find the thing to say that would tug on her hearts
29:59
to you know. That's where I that's where I go when I get into
30:03
my addiction hard enough, Like if I can say or if I can get
30:04
something on you, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna leverage that in my
30:08
benefit. However I can. I become increasing increasingly selfish, self centered and
30:12
egotistical. Ye you know what I mean. So she picked me up from
30:15
prison. I was off paper, and you know, I don't want to
30:21
keep recycling it, but just just to get the understanding of like that's the
30:23
nature of my disease. It just it kicked off again, you know,
30:26
same thing. I this time, I willingly left my mom's You know,
30:30
I moved myself out because I knew what I was going to do and found
30:33
the same people, found the same dealers, And yeah, I I just
30:37
dove back in in in that five months while you were incarcerated again, was
30:44
it the same mindset as prior, where I want to be sober, I
30:47
want to do something different, or was it I am going to get out,
30:51
I am going to use again. I was just talking to a friend
30:56
about this the other night, about the first time I was really honest school
31:00
with myself. It get coincides with that. That's five months in prison because
31:03
I was you know, defeated, you know, super angry and just frustrated
31:07
and just you know, throwing a tantrum pretty much, you know. And
31:11
I would sit there in my cell at night and just you know, think
31:15
about, you know, what what brought me there? You know, like
31:17
why am I doing these things that just bring me, you know, misery
31:19
and pain and just it was just just it was destroying me. And I
31:22
can just remember thinking like that, just because I want to, I don't.
31:26
I don't want to change. And when I when I, when I
31:30
after I left, and when I was leaving my mom's house, you know,
31:33
she we had an exchange where she's visibly upset, hurt and frustrated and
31:38
just asking me, is why, you know, why, why why do
31:41
you keep doing this? Why can't you stop? Why? Why why?
31:45
And for the first time in my life, you know, I didn't try
31:48
and lie or say something slick, or say something to make her feel bad
31:52
for me. I just said I don't want to. I just don't want
31:55
to, you know. And looking back on that, I think that was
31:57
one of the first time I think I really surrendered to the idea of like,
32:02
Okay, I'm an addict, I'm an alcoholic I mean, I don't
32:06
want to change. I don't want to quit. Yeah, you know,
32:07
because before I would tell the courts or I would tell the police, I
32:10
would tell my counselors. I would tell everyone what they wanted to hear,
32:14
what I thought they wanted to hear, to change the perception of how I'm
32:17
really doing to how I want them to think I'm doing. You know,
32:20
But in that moment, I knew that I just wasn't I wasn't done yet.
32:23
I wasn't I wasn't ready to walk away and went off to the races
32:28
again. And in those years that you were using let's say, up to
32:32
this point, you talked about being hopeless and broken. Did you think that
32:38
during the time, or were you like, I'm at the top of my
32:43
life, this is great. I definitely thought it during I think I attribute
32:49
a lot of my like my blackouts are my my times where I was,
32:52
you know, using the most as that that's how I would numb, you
32:55
know, the feelings of fear, of of worry, of like just as
33:01
long as I keep myself as drunk as possible or as high on whatever I
33:04
can, you know that I don't have to acknowledge the severity of my situation.
33:07
Sure, and then there were you know, there were there were times
33:09
when you know, things were quote unquote good. You know, like I
33:14
was whoever I was hanging around, we were doing whatever we were doing.
33:17
All of us had a little money in our pocket, we all had a
33:20
little drugs in our pocket, we all had some alcohol. We had a
33:23
party somewhere, you know, but like you know, in reality though,
33:27
like a you know, none of us really cared about each other. You
33:29
know, we were just living that criminal lifestyle and we were justifying and saying
33:31
we're doing okay, you know what I mean, But like we weren't.
33:36
So I definitely knew that, you know, when the drugs would start to
33:39
wear out, when the alcohol would wouldn't run out, the feelings of hopelessness
33:44
and just you know, I realized where I was at and where things were
33:46
going. So I would just counter that with, you know, getting more.
33:51
But yet when your mom asked you why, you came to the acceptance
33:54
that that's just who you are and that's just what you're gonna do essentially essentially,
34:00
Okay, So then what happened, Yeah, from there, I uh
34:06
kind of got myself mixed up into some more severe like criminal things. You
34:12
know, Like the people I was hanging around, they had everything that I
34:14
wanted and you know, an excess of it. And people that are from
34:19
that walk of life, you know, they they definitely want something out of
34:23
whoever they're around. You know, they they acknowledge the fact that, you
34:25
know, no one's there for no reason. You know, we're not friends,
34:29
you know. So they I got mixed up into selling some drugs,
34:32
you know, And that's kind of when heroin and fent, not really Fenn
34:36
all the time, but it's when the heroin started to become a problem at
34:38
in Bismark here and that was like my that was like my last bastion of
34:42
things where I was like, I'm never gonna do that, you know.
34:44
Yeah, that lasted about a week or two. So I'm selling a little,
34:47
selling some drugs. I'm hanging around some people that are doing some you
34:51
know, some robberies and just a lot a lot of scary things, right
34:54
Like, you know, at the time, I thought I was some you
34:58
know, some thug, you know, but then when I actually got around
35:00
some actual thugs that I knew that I was in too deep, you know,
35:04
And the things that things got pretty pretty hectic pretty quick. I had
35:08
one overdose. I was hanging out with some friends. They you know,
35:15
were mixed up with hair win pretty bad, and I just remember getting feeling
35:20
sick and feeling really out of it. And I remember asking someone that was
35:24
at the house I was at to call an ambulance. And I came to
35:28
in the ICU five days later. Wow, a sergeant or detective had been
35:34
in contact with my mom. They at the house I was at. They
35:37
you know, they tore it apart, you know, because at that time
35:39
they weren't taking overdoses. Didn't They still aren't, but they didn't take overdoses,
35:44
you know, yeah. Lightly. They wanted to know who was there,
35:45
how did I get it? This and that, this and that,
35:47
and you know, my mom told me that she she was there every day.
35:52
In the ICU, I had a ventilator in unconscious, you know.
35:55
So I came to, you know, and they had just taken the ventilator
35:59
out, and I was where am I at? You're in the ICU.
36:00
You you overdosed, you know, And I'm thinking, holy, you know,
36:04
I went from saying I'm never going to touch heroin to here I am
36:07
in the ICU because of an overdose and in what age were you? Okay?
36:13
Yeah, so yeah, I got out of the hospital. I kept
36:17
my stuff straight for maybe a couple of weeks because that was that was pretty
36:21
intense, and my mom was very, very shaken at that, so she
36:24
let me come home and I just stayed at that at her house for two
36:27
weeks. I didn't do anything, didn't do nothing. Yeah, I And
36:31
for the longest time I tried denying that it was it was an overdose because
36:35
I have asthma too, and I remember my asthma was acting out because you
36:37
know, I'm smoking a bunch of drugs, you know, So I told
36:39
myself for the longest time that, like, you know, I didn't overdose.
36:43
I just had an asthma attack. But that's it's not how it happened.
36:45
So once I started feeling better, once you know, my body started
36:49
to bounce back a little bit off, I went somewhere along along the line.
36:55
There I was hanging out with my thuggy friend and I had acquired a
37:01
wallet that was not mine. There was some cash in there, all these
37:07
this person's ID cards and sure, all these all these things, and obviously
37:12
that took the cash. Sorry, And I was going through their cards and
37:16
I had found what I thought it was a debit card, but he didn't
37:21
say debit on the right on the bottom where usually says debit. So I'm
37:23
thinking, oh, this is a credit card, you know, a cool
37:25
wonder. You know. I've never done this kind of theft before. I
37:30
just would take the cash and toss everything else. But my genius criminal mind
37:34
told me, well, you know, let's go see if it works,
37:36
you know. So I went around to a number of stores here in town,
37:39
swiped it and kept swiping it, and kept swiping it. Racked up
37:43
about twenty five dollars worth of charges, you know. And for the first
37:47
few stores, I was really really slick about it. I had had a
37:51
hat on COVID mask, you know, just really incognito. But then,
37:54
my the smartest chice I made it was I went to a pawn shop that
37:59
had my idea on file so they didn't have to ask for it. So,
38:02
you know, once the person noticed that, hey, my all's gone,
38:05
Hey I'm getting charges of my credit card. Oh, I should probably
38:07
called it and stolen. Oh Austin Taylor used it at nor Sky Pond,
38:12
So that's a Bee felony, unlawful use of someone's personal identification, and so
38:20
another warrant out for me. And this time I was just running for as
38:24
long as I could, you know, because I had been off paper,
38:28
maybe not even a year, six months, maybe eight months, and and
38:34
you know they were looking for you. You knew they found Sheriff's went,
38:37
sheriffs went to my mom's house, you know. So I had a bunch
38:40
of petty possessions and like maybe there's a couple of shopliftings, and then that
38:44
one sea fellon and I have a b So I'm thinking, OK, this
38:45
is how it starts. This is where my rap sheet goes from my page
38:49
to a book, you know. And you know, I just ran for
38:52
as long as I could until I hit a point where I can remember I
38:59
fewing physically, physically defeated, emotionally, mentally and spiritually just bankrupt. And
39:06
I had got kicked out of this the trap house I was staying at,
39:08
you know, cause I was I was that guy to get to get kicked
39:12
out of the trap house, you know what I mean? And does that
39:14
happen often? Not too often. No, you gotta be a special kind
39:16
of special kind of person, what what was the special qualities that I was
39:22
just I was getting too too crazy to you know, lost in the sauce.
39:27
And at the time, I think I had ran out of the stuff
39:29
that I was supplying the house with or whatever, so I was kind of
39:31
paying my rent with dad. And then all of a sudden, Austin doesn't
39:35
have what he's supposed to have, so now he's you know, not really
39:37
our friend. But also I was just being just a just a hooligan,
39:40
you know, just being crazy in and out all hours of the night,
39:44
getting you know, into altercations with people that were there, just you know,
39:47
just just acting a fool pretty much. So I leave there, and
39:52
you know what do I do? You know, I call you know,
39:53
my mom because I didn't know what my options were, didn't a where to
39:58
go. She picks me up and she says, well, you can stay
40:01
at my house for the weekend, and then you got to turn yourself in
40:04
for this warrant. That's that's my only condition, that's only the only way
40:07
this is gonna happen. Monday morning, I'm driving you to the to the
40:08
jail. You're gonna turn yourself in. And uh, I did that.
40:14
I think I sat for like fifteen days while I was waiting to get a
40:20
bail or sentencing or whatever the case was, you know, And so judge
40:24
and they gave me eighteen months supervised probation because they acknowledged that I had been
40:29
off paper for a little bit. But that is, you know, like
40:31
you need first of all, you need to get treatment, you need to
40:34
do X, Y and Z, and we're gonna give you a chance on
40:36
eighteen months supervised probation, you know, so, which seems actually kind of
40:39
mild. Yeah, of a sentence, Yeah, same amount of time for
40:44
the for the sea phony that I had, yeah, a couple of years
40:45
prior, you know. But and I'm thinking they were they were guessing that
40:50
I was gonna gonna mess up, you know, because they had mentioned that,
40:52
you know, my track record shows that I can do good when I'm
40:54
forced to do good, but when I take off, it's then they'll just
40:59
come get me. Yeah. So and those fifteen days, that's when I
41:01
was gonna asking myself like, okay, man, like what am I gonna
41:04
do? Like I saw I saw the judge on on Monday or Tuesday.
41:08
I think I was due to be released on a Thursday or Friday. I'm
41:10
thinking, what am I gonna do? You know, Like, what's what's
41:13
gonna happen? You know, As I know these four days are gonna I'm
41:15
gonna blink and I'm gonna be getting my stuff, getting my shoes on,
41:19
start that long walk to town, you know. And what am I gonna
41:22
do? You know? And I thought back to all my little stints in
41:25
AA and n A, you know, and I'm thinking treatment, jail and
41:30
now prison. You know, none of that stuff worked for me. Trying
41:34
to ignore my friends, trying to do things my way, trying to isolate
41:36
myself that's not working. Trying to use like a gentleman, or you know,
41:39
moderate my using or my drinking with anything, it hasn't worked, you
41:43
know. But I thought back to to the twelve Steps, you know,
41:45
I'm thinking, like, well, whatever they got going on over there,
41:49
it's working for them, you know. And I know a lot of people
41:51
in those rooms. Some of them are better than me, or some of
41:52
them weren't as severe as me, some of them were more severe than me.
41:55
And they're still sober, they're still clean today. So what am I?
41:59
What am I gonna do? You know? So I I get out
42:00
of jail, and then I go back to my moms to get my stuff.
42:04
And long story short, I stuck with it for ten months. I
42:08
got I got a job at a at a hotel as a housekeeper. Through
42:12
a friend in the room, she got me a job up there. I
42:15
started going to AA heavily and A heavily. I went to a number of
42:20
conventions. The first like six months, I went to Minneapolis to a round
42:23
up. I went to uh the ndypod we have here in town. You
42:29
know. I got like in the middle of it, you know, and
42:30
I gave it an honest chance, and and for ten months at worked.
42:34
You know it. It worked. I didn't still stay it with any old
42:37
friends I had. I got a sponsor, I got a I got a
42:39
home group. You know. I did all the all the things I thought
42:43
were was corny, but like I knew that, like, hey, man,
42:45
like what do you have to lose? Like how how was how was
42:50
the how is your will work so far? You know? So I did
42:52
all the things. I got a home group, got a sponsor, went
42:54
to a meeting a day or as many meetings as I cut a week,
42:58
you know, and went out and did fellowship into the river did just I
43:00
got in the middle of that thing, you know, and it worked for
43:04
about nine months, you know, and I earned the trust back for my
43:07
family. I was staying at my mom's entire time. You know. She'd
43:10
given me her old car when she got a new one. I got a
43:13
ninety eight Bewick regal, you know, had because I've had a license students
43:16
since I was like maybe eighteen, you know, just no car, you
43:19
know. So I got I got a vehicle. I had a full time
43:22
job. I got a promotion there. I was doing maintenance, you know,
43:24
I was making decent money. I had all the things. You know.
43:28
I wasn't locked up for once. I wasn't you know, forced to
43:31
do you know, classes of any kind. I was doing all these things
43:36
because I wanted to. I was out of options, you know. I
43:37
was down to meeting my PO every three months because she's like, I see
43:40
you're doing good, you know, and when you do good, we're not
43:44
going to bother you as much, you know. And there's another part in
43:46
the in the Big Book of AA that says we cannot afford to rest on
43:52
our laurels. We can now afford to six rest on our successes, our
43:54
achievements. So at around the nine months of that stint of surpriet, I
44:00
did just that. You know, I started I quit going to meetings.
44:02
I didn't call my sponsor as much. You know, I got through the
44:05
steps, but I really didn't put in the effort that I knew, I
44:08
know I could have. I had a bunch of money saved up, I
44:10
had a car, you know, so I started started slacking on the things
44:14
that saved my life, and slowly my thinking started to go back to you
44:17
know, oh, I don't want to do this today, or I don't
44:20
want to, you know, talk to this person. I don't want to
44:21
go do these things. And you know it it happened quick. You know,
44:25
I firmly believed that that the relapse stemmed like maybe a month before it
44:30
actually happened. But you know, I had a bunch of money, a
44:32
car, I had the trust of my mom. I had all this oversight
44:37
where I could you know, get away with it for a little bitter you
44:38
know, and I ended up with you know, a bunch of meth in
44:42
my pocket, and you know, and there it was. You know,
44:45
that was around October of twenty two, Like did you reach out to get
44:52
all those meth in your pocket or was it like one of those you ran
44:57
into somebody you kept the old contacts. Well, I went to an old
45:04
house that the traffic I got kicked out of, you know, I went
45:07
back there and they, yeah, and they walcome with open arms. Oh
45:09
where have you been? We've been so worried about you. Yeah, I'm
45:12
sure. And you know, I did my little, my little stint as
45:15
a as a little drug dealer, right, you know, And I know
45:17
that I can't be because my my addiction won't allow it. But I also
45:22
realized that I can't really afford the attention from my family and work if I'm
45:25
disappearing every day or every other day to get to get something. So,
45:30
you know, I made the wise choice of buying buying in bulk, you
45:34
know. So I picked up a couple ounces of whatever, you know,
45:37
and man, thinking back to it, Man, like, my mom and
45:42
my stepdad are at the house, my stepsister comes by every other weekend,
45:46
you know, and there's like felony amounts of drugs in the house. You
45:50
know. Like, but at least I'm not dealing, I'm not selling it.
45:52
I'm just it's all for me, you know, and so I I
45:54
did that. How long did you anticipate that lasting longer than it did?
46:00
Right? Yeah, And uh, it was just for personal use. I
46:05
really didn't try to, you know, fall into the old role of running
46:07
around all night seeing seeing you know this guy, this person, that person.
46:12
You know. I would go to work or I would fake sleep all
46:15
night, you know, walk out in the living room, pretend to be
46:17
tired and go to work, you know, hide in them one of the
46:22
rooms in the hotel and get high, and then go out and do five
46:25
minutes worth worth of stuff, make it look like I was doing stuff,
46:28
go home, and then just stay in my room and isolate and use.
46:31
And that was probably one of the more depressing and like miserable times in my
46:37
life because before I was a very social user, Like I was definitely selfish
46:39
with my drinking and my using, like it was all mine. But I
46:43
was going here, going there, seeing this person, going doing that,
46:45
and just did. But just I literally would stay in my room at my
46:49
at my mom's house, and then when I wanted to use, I would
46:52
go in the little in the little closet I had in there, and you
46:53
know, smoke or do whatever I was doing, you know, and just
46:57
that was my routine, and I might kept it under wraps for a while
47:01
because my mom didn't ask or she I don't think she hadn't had any idea
47:07
yet really until my grandma came to visit one one weekend and she's like,
47:09
wow, you just you've lost a lot of weight, you know, And
47:13
then I remember how my how my face looked. My cheekbones are really sharp,
47:17
you know, And then that's when my mom kind of knew. But
47:21
how long had you been doing this up to that point? Maybe a month?
47:23
It was like November, right around Thanksgiving time, you know. So
47:28
but yeah, I mean on service level, it looked good. You know.
47:30
I'd be in my room sleeping and then go go to work, come
47:35
home, say stay at the house, you know. So I don't think
47:38
she had any idea that I had all those drugs in her home, you
47:40
know, and that I was doing what I was doing. So I would
47:44
stay just high enough to kind of get what I wanted, but not high
47:47
enough to be you know, noticeable, which which was more thought. Yeah,
47:51
so I thought, you know, it was just irritating to me too,
47:52
you know, because I wanted to be at twelve. I don't want
47:55
to be at a at six, you know what I mean. So and
47:59
yeah, and that lasted for maybe two months. The beginning of December of
48:05
twenty two is when you know, I think I started to lose things.
48:07
Work started noticing like, hey, man, like you don't look good.
48:09
We we don't we can't say for certain what you're doing, but we know
48:13
that you're not doing good right now. Quit that job or what didn't show
48:17
up to that job. Quit taking care of you know, things like my
48:21
vehicle. Made the decision to leave my mom's house again, you know,
48:24
because she at this time she knew something was going on, you know,
48:28
and I think she made the made the excuse of like, well, as
48:30
long as you're going to work and you're doing whatever, like you know,
48:32
it's like you're twenty twenty two or twenty Three's not much I can tell you,
48:37
yeah to do, you know, except don't do drugs in my house.
48:38
But so I'd made the decision to leave. So from when I released
48:44
in October till that that vendor lasted about five months. I got mixed up
48:50
in some fentanyl. The fentanyl had gotten crazy at that point, you know,
48:54
it was getting harder and harder to find my drag of choice. But
48:58
my disease doesn't discriminate, you know, right, I'll do things I don't
49:00
necessarily like, like I'll drink or i'll smoke weed, I'll do fentanyl,
49:04
you know what I mean. But fentanyl had gotten really bad at that At
49:07
that time, I had witnessed four or five overdoses, you know, where
49:13
the person you know, was blue and we had to call nine to one
49:15
one. And that was the very I didn't realize then, but then I
49:17
got that was a traumatic thing to see. It was a traumatic thing to
49:22
after suddenly recall the CPR lessons you got in high school and give them people
49:25
a CPR. And so, yeah, the fetanyl was getting crazy. I
49:29
was, you know, walking around the streets to Bismarck again, homeless,
49:31
strung out, and I'd seen some people from the rooms before out in public.
49:36
I got the grocery store, in the gas station. A friend of
49:38
mine actually he chased me like three different times when he'd see me out in
49:42
public, you know, like get over here and talk to me, or
49:44
get in my car, you know what. I'd just run away from him,
49:45
you know, I didn't I didn't want to talk about it. I
49:47
don't want to see him most too embarrassed, you know. And uh so,
49:51
yeah, that went on for about five months until I had enough again.
49:55
And this is one of those moments where back then I thought it was
49:59
a super convenian and super super annoying that I went back to my mom's on
50:05
a Thursday asked to if I could just stay for a couple of days until
50:08
I figured something out right. I call herview on Friday and it's the middle
50:13
of winter and usually Harveew is pretty pretty packed no matter what, you know,
50:16
especially in the winter, there's there's not much availability, there's not much
50:20
of a you know, there's a weight period. I call them on a
50:22
Friday and they say, can you be here Monday? That next Monday.
50:25
You know, back then that was super annoying to me. I'm like,
50:28
oh, I can't get high, I can't drink anymore, you know what
50:30
I mean. But I realized now that that's something that was looking out for
50:32
me, something that wanted to wanted to save me. So on that that
50:37
next week, you know, I came under your care and started that whole
50:43
journey all over again. And this is maybe my I don't know how many
50:46
times I've been in patient treatment. It's above ten, above fifteen probably,
50:52
you know. So I you know, I detoxed for the first few days,
50:57
slept a lot and whatever whatever, you know. But then then comes
51:00
the age old question like Austin, what are you going to do? You
51:01
know, like you've been down this road, you know, you know the
51:05
things, you know, you know what you have to do, So what
51:07
do you what are you going to do? And it wasn't for a special
51:10
case manager there that came and talked to me, like my second day,
51:15
super foggy, super you know, out of it. She's like, well,
51:17
what are you gonna do after this? I really don't know. She's
51:20
like, have you considered it sober living? And I'm like, yeah,
51:24
absolutely no, I don't, you know, but uh, I'll get kicked
51:29
out of a trap house. But I won't go into something. No,
51:31
no, I don't want to follow rules. I don't want to actually have
51:34
to do something. But uh, Honestly, my my condition and where I
51:37
was at mentally, like I didn't have any other options, you know,
51:40
I had the AA and a experience, you know, I knew that there
51:44
was a solution. I knew, I knew all the things right. It
51:46
was just just the insanity of the first drink and the first first drug that
51:50
was winning over every time. Luckily for that though, I knew where to
51:53
go, I knew who could help me. I knew where the places were,
51:58
you know, a lot of clubhouses here in town, in the Hub,
52:00
Serenity House, cap City, you know, I knew where the solution
52:05
was at. So, you know, curtey of you guys bringing us to
52:07
meetings. I went to the Hub and all my old A friends were super
52:14
excited to see me, you know, like that, where'd you go?
52:15
You know, you know, why didn't you reach out to any of us?
52:17
You know? And I was mostly embarrassed, but I was also happy
52:22
to see him and a good friend of mine. She she asked me,
52:24
well, do you have a sponsor yet? Are you going to go back
52:27
to your old sponsor? Do you want a new sponsor? And you know,
52:29
I told her, well, I was thinking about asking so and so
52:30
the guy that was facilitating that night. And she's like, well, you're
52:34
not thinking about nothing. She grabs me and walks me up to him,
52:37
you know, and but like, had she not done that? I don't
52:38
I don't know if I would have approched him. I don't know if I
52:40
would have you know. Yeah, So he came to visit me while still
52:44
in Heartview, got me, got me in the book man, and like
52:46
I'd done the steps before. But like I said, I I kind of
52:50
you know, I didn't give it my all. I wasn't completely honest.
52:52
I was rigorously honest. I skimmed on some of the cements I put in
52:57
the foundation, and he noticed that. He knew that. I know he
53:00
been to this desk. But we're gonna Get're gonna get all the stuff that
53:00
you missed. We're gonna make sure you do this thing because you're dealing with
53:06
seconds and inches, you know what I mean, it's life and death.
53:08
And I started filling out applications for sober living, you know, because I
53:12
knew, I knew I was. I was wearing my welcome out of my
53:14
mom's you know, it goes it's unfair to me to keep putting her in
53:15
that position. And plus she had kind of stopped doing it. You know,
53:19
she had put up the boundaries for herself, and she was learning to
53:22
help me when I wanted it, but also to keep herself safe. You
53:25
know. So I filled out some applications for sober living. I got accepted
53:30
to one right away. They came and did an interview, you know,
53:32
and they said, well, yeah, we'll take care when you're done,
53:36
if you want. Then the next one, I had an interview with the
53:40
director. I had met her for the very first time, maybe seven years
53:45
ago, when I was eighteen nineteen missed as a kid. I was in
53:50
the psych word in Sandford and i'd come to and I don't even remember being
53:53
brought in. I don't remember how I got there. And I was sitting
53:55
in this tiny little office, you know, I was in the scrubs and
53:59
the grippy socks, and here's this here's this woman with these really just like
54:04
light icy blue eyes, you know what I mean. And she just asked
54:06
me a question after a question, what are you willing to do? That's
54:08
different? You know, what are you willing to do? What are you
54:09
willing to do to change your life? You know, my gos just want
54:12
to go to bed, leave me alone. You know, I only eat
54:15
my animal crackers. You know. She she was involved with Hope Manner at
54:19
that time, and she still is. But fast forward, you know,
54:22
till I was at Heartview filling out applications for sober living. I had two
54:25
options, the first one and then Hope Manner. Yeah, you know,
54:29
And I remember even calling my sponsor about it. I'm like, hey,
54:31
man, I don't know what I wen't supposed to do by ecology because I
54:35
have a choice to make between you know, two options that are potentially going
54:38
to save my life, and I don't. I don't know what to do.
54:42
I remember he told me pray about it, you know. And that
54:45
was one thing he told me, is like, if I'm gonna sponsor you,
54:46
I'm gonna need you to pray every day when you first wake up for
54:49
fifteen minutes, you know. And I'd never had an issue with the whole
54:52
god thing, right, but I never also made the effort to have a
54:55
connection with whatever is out there for me. Right. And also I think
54:59
I don't want to pray. I don't. I don't want to get on
55:00
my knees and talk to a wall, you know what I mean. But
55:04
you know, like I said, I was desperate enough to try try something
55:07
because you know, I knew that that thirty days of Harpy was going to
55:08
go really quick. It was gonna it's gonna be everything that I've everything that
55:13
I've done, everything that I know, or I can try something different.
55:16
I could try something new, you know. So I I prayed in the
55:20
only way I knew how it's a time, you know, and weighed my
55:22
weigh my options, you know, and like the only thing, the only
55:24
thing I could say is that my my my heart told me I needed to
55:29
go. I need to go to Hope manor I needed to go home,
55:30
you know. So and from a couple nudges from account starts the time.
55:37
But you know, I I you know, the day came, I had
55:39
my goodbye ceremony and uh, Hope Manner came, picked me up and brought
55:45
me to the house. And you know, that's that's where it started.
55:47
You know. I walk into a house full of guys or all want to
55:51
give me hugs. They're all saying, you know, welcome home. You
55:53
know, we're glad you're here. And I don't think i'd be sitting here
55:57
today. I wasn't for sober living. It's a one of the most you
56:01
know, important structures of my life and my recovery today that I don't I
56:06
freemly don't believe i'd be where I'm at, fortunate for making that choice.
56:09
On top of that, you know, digging in and doing the work,
56:14
you know, getting getting through the steps. I got through the steps with
56:17
the sponsor I have now and UH started sponsor, was able to sponsor other
56:22
guys, you know what I mean. And I did all the things that
56:25
you know, I didn't want to acknowledge, you know, like digging up
56:27
stuff for my past, you know, things that I didn't even tell my
56:30
mom, hadn't told counselors and told anybody I told. I told it,
56:32
told told it to that man, because those are the things that kept me
56:37
sick. Those are the things that I held on to the reservations. Those
56:38
are the things I didn't even remember, you know, but I got to
56:42
bring those to the service and begin to process them and deal with them.
56:45
So on an ending note, let's say there's someone out there right now who's
56:51
struggling and they're listening to this, what would you tell them? Just give
56:54
it one more day? Like I don't. Don't don't sell your self short,
57:00
you know, like reach out to someone, anybody, and if they
57:04
might not be able to help you, they might know someone that can.
57:07
You know this that thousand pounds. Phone can be heavy, but just pick
57:09
it up and just know that there's a better way out there. You know,
57:12
you never have to use again, you never have to drink again,
57:15
and you know you owe it to yourself and you owe it to the people
57:17
that are still warning you while you're still alive. There's resources, there's meetings,
57:22
there's sober livings, there's there's a lot more auctions in the community now
57:24
than there ever was ten years ago, you know, and it doesn't have
57:29
to be that way anymore. You know, there's a better life waiting for
57:31
you, and we're waiting for you. Awesome. Thank you again for your
57:37
time and your bravery and sharing your story. It's quite an amazing story,
57:39
and you know it's an asset to the recovery community that you've shared it with
57:44
us today. So thank you. Happy to be here.